WikiLeaks Cable: "Systemic Insolvency Is Now The Problem, Global Bank Bailout Needed"

Editor's Note: We are republishing this story from Dec. 15, 2010, in light of Julian Assange's 60 Minutes interview that aired last night.

This was likely missed by many readers in December as it moved off our front page quickly. The importance is obvious for those (ourselves and many other blogs) who have made the case since 2008 that we were, and still are, facing a solvency crisis. A tsunami of Fed liquidity and FASB accounting black magic can only do so much. The global banking pig is already wearing lipstick and full make-up and it's still pretty ugly, despite Bernanke's best efforts at printing and pretending his way to future bliss and a spot in the Keynesian hall of fame.

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Bill Black says "Seize Bank of America"...

Chris Whalen says Bank of America is massively insolvent...

Video: Adam Levitin tells Congress that all the big banks are insolvent...

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Scroll down for video...

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Original Story from Dec. 15, 2010

We have just come across a Wikileaks U.S. Embassy cable concerning a March 17, 2008 meeting with Central Bank of England Governor Mervyn King.

Source - UK Guardian

Wikileaks U.S. Embassy Cable

Monday, 17 March 2008, 18:27
C O N F I D E N T I A L LONDON 000797
SIPDIS
NOFORN
SIPDIS
EO 12958 DECL: 03/17/2018
TAGS ECON, EFIN, UK
SUBJECT: BANKING CRISIS NOW ONE OF SOLVENCY NOT LIQUIDITY
SAYS BANK OF ENGLAND GOVERNOR
Classified By: AMB RTUTTLE, reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

1. Since last summer, the nature of the crisis in financial markets has changed. The problem is now not liquidity in the system but rather a question of systemic solvency, Bank of England (BOE) Governor Mervyn King said at a lunch meeting with Treasury Deputy Secretary Robert Kimmitt and Ambassador Tuttle. King said there are two imperatives. First to find ways for banks to avoid the stigma of selling unwanted paper at distressed prices or going to a central bank for assistance. Second to ensure there's a coordinated effort to possibly recapitalize the global banking system. For the first imperative, King suggested developing a pooling and auction process to unblock the large volume of financial investments for which there is currently no market. For the second imperative, King suggested that the U.S., UK, Switzerland, and perhaps Japan might form a temporary new group to jointly develop an effort to bring together sources of capital to recapitalize all major banks.

Systemic Insolvency Is Now The Problem

END SUMMARY

2. King said that liquidity is necessary but not sufficient in the current market crisis because the global banking system is undercapitalized due to being over leveraged. He said it is hard to look at the big four UK banks (Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays, HSBC, and Lloyds TSB) and not think they need more capital. A coordinated effort among central banks and finance ministers may be needed to develop a plan to recapitalize the banking system.

Unblocking Illiquid Mortgage-Backed Securities

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3. King said it is also imperative to find a way for banks to sell off unwanted illiquid securities, including mortgage backed securities, without resorting to sales at distressed valuations. He said sales at distressed values only serve to lower the floor to which banks must mark down their assets (mark to market), thereby forcing unwarranted additional write downs. He said we need to find an auction system where banks could move paper they want to sell without fear of stigma that the market views selling at a low price as a sign that a bank is in trouble. King said, however, he did not yet know how to structure such an auction and that further dialogue was needed. Kimmitt acknowledged the need to find ways to unblock these markets and said we should remain in touch bilaterally as well as in the G-7, the Financial Stability Forum, and the central banks.

A Possible Approach To Recapitalization

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4. The G-7 is almost dysfunctional on an economic level, said King. Key economies are not included, especially those that have large and growing pools of capital. King said that a new international group was needed to address the issue. It could be a temporary group, and he suggested that perhaps the central banks and finance ministers of the U.S., the UK, and Switzerland could coordinate discussions with other countries that have large pools of capital, including sovereign wealth funds, about recycling dollars to recapitalize banks. King said Japan might not be included because it has little to offer. King noted, though that including the Japanese might force their hand in finally marking to market impaired assets. Kimmitt said that he was cautious about starting new groups in the international financial community because of the inevitable debate around whom to include.

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5. The King proposals were not casual ideas developed in the course of luncheon conversation. It was clear that his principal objective in the meeting was to outline his outside-the-box thinking for Kimmitt. King included very few details about his proposals and was content to present broad concepts, thereby planting the seeds for future discussion. END COMMENT.

6. Participants: USG: Ambassador Robert Tuttle; Deputy Secretary Kimmitt; Eric Meyer, Office Director for Europe;

SIPDIS Robert Saliterman, Spokesman, International Affairs, U.S. Treasury; Warren Chane, ECONOFF. UK: Mervyn King, Governor, Bank of England; Chris Salmon, Private Secretary.

7. Deputy Secretary Kimmitt has cleared this message.

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More coverage of this story...

BoE Sought Global Bank Bailout in 2008

The head of the Bank of England had sought to set up a group with the United States, Switzerland and Japan to recapitalize major global banks six months before the financial crisis engulfed them, U.S. diplomatic cables show.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/40654365

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Mervyn King plotted a secret bailout of the banking system six months before Gordon Brown decided to take action. The Bank of England governor told U.S. officials in March 2008 that ‘a co-ordinated effort to possibly recapitalise the global banking system’ was needed to save it from collapse, according to documents released by WikiLeaks. Mr Brown did not come up with his master plan to tackle the financial crisis until September 2008 following the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers. The delay raises a major question over his claims that he was the brains behind the bailout and had ‘saved the world’.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1338712/Bank-England-boss-Mervyn-King-Gordon-Brown-bank-bailout-mastermind.html#ixzz18DxwhY3D

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LONDON (AP) — U.S. diplomats say Bank of England Governor Mervyn King suggested that Britain, the U.S., Switzerland and possibly Japan bail out the global banking system in March 2008 — some six months before the financial crisis peaked.

In a U.S. embassy cable published by The Guardian on Tuesday, King is reported as telling U.S. ambassador to Britain Robert Tuttle and U.S. Treasury deputy secretary Robert Kimitt that the four countries might form "a temporary new group to jointly develop an effort to bring together sources of capital to recapitalize all major banks."

King suggested the new group would override the "dysfunctional" Group of Seven industrialized nations. But Kimmitt expressed caution about starting new groups because of inclusion debates.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-14/wikileaks-boe-suggested-global-bank-bailout-in-08.html

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DB here. It's not even close, really. The 4 largest banks are insolvent many times over. Their puny and massively over-leveraged capital bases would not just be wiped out, they would be turned into negative multiples of the original equity.

Then take the next step and understand that these same criminally fraudulent and insolvent institutions, are paying their executives $144 billion in bonuses this year, based on false accounting that was endorsed by Congress and jammed down the throats of FASB in June of 2009.

I wrote about the criminal insolvency of banks here.

Bill Black has made the case recently here...

• William Black Calls On FDIC To Seize Bank Of America

• William Black With Dylan Ratigan: "There Is Bank Fraud Everywhere And BERNANKE Is Leading The Cover-Up," PLUS Part 2 Of Seize Bank Of America

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This is a must see...

More detail on this clip is here...

• Adam Levitin Tells Congress: Citigroup, Bank Of America, JPMorgan & Wells Fargo Are All INSOLVENT

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Nearly 11 Percent of US Houses Empty

Diana Olick
CNBC

I usually find the quarterly homeowner vacancy and homeownership report from Census pretty lackluster, but the latest one released this morning was anything but.

America's home ownership rate, after holding steady for a while, took a pretty big plunge in Q4, from 66.9 percent to 66.5 percent. That's down from the 2004 peak of 69.2 percent and the lowest level since 1998.

Homeownership is falling at an alarming pace, despite the fact that home prices have fallen, affordability is much improved and inventories of new and existing homes are still running quite high.

Bargains abound, but few are interested or eligible to take advantage.

More concerning than the home ownership rate is the vacancy rate. The Census tables don't tell the entire story, but they tell a lot of it. Of the nearly 131 million housing units in this country, 112.5 million are occupied. 74.8 million are owned, and that's only dropped by about 30 thousand in the past year. 38 million are rented, but that's up by over a million year over year. That means more new households are choosing to rent.

Read Full Article

information end run from Egypt

UPDATE: The Egyptian people face a very difficult situation. People need leaders to focus their efforts. According to the information provided by Angry Arab (scroll down), spontaneous leaders have come forward in various places. That's very good. However, these people are likely in particular danger of being targeted by the state's apparatus.

A people need leadership to bring their aspirations together into a movement to bring about change. Leadership brings together a people's aspirations and focuses them on a particular issue or person to effect change. In this way, leadership functions like a lens that focuses the rays of the sun to burn away what might otherwise rest in the sun unperturbed all day just as a despot may rule forever a people who have no social and political leaders. Remove genuine leaders, like Archbishop Oscar Romero, and there is no problem. . . . until next time. Rinse and repeat.
After the invasion of Iraq, squads of killers went around Iraq kidnapping and killing academics, teachers and doctors, anyone who could provide a focal point and leadership to the rest of their community. Judge John Roll may well have been an example of someone who showed principled opposition to the ruling powers in America and would likely have gone on to become an important leader. He was shot in the head; the preferred shot for military trained snipers these days....
So these 'people's revolutions' cannot be what they are presented as by our news media. The protests are largely real but the leadership is a different thing. Genuine leaders who represent the interests of the poor do not last long leaving those provided or corrupted by the elite they purport to be against. Currently, there are people on the streets in Cairo but their presence is being tolerated by the army and whoever is controlling it for their own reasons. There are numerous incidents apparently, where protesters are overwhelming the police and there are instances of torching police stations. But it all hinges on the army and what they will do.
I hope it ends relatively peacefully, but fear it won't because there are far greater forces involved who set this uprising in motion for their own psychopathic purposes.

We can help by sharing information on what is really going on, countering the narrative of lies.

Starting a fire with a magnifying glass...

^^^^^^^

PAUL BALLES : SELLING THE PEOPLE SHORT

By diverting social capital from productive to destructive purposes, war and the preparation for war deplete, rather than enhance, a nation’s strength. –Andrew J. Bacevich

By Paul Balles

AMERICAN F-16 FIGHTING FALCON

Many industries that started in America have moved abroad under free trade (FTA) agreements to take advantage of cheap labour. Thus, Americans lose jobs at home to countries where labour costs less.

According to an analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the number of US jobs created by export expansion in relation to the number lost to the growth of foreign imports, because of NAFTA in its first ten years, resulted in a net loss of 879,280 jobs.

Other free trade agreements have had similarly disastrous results for employment in America. President Obama, while expressing concern and hopes for job creation, has been simultaneously pushing for additional FTAs.

The problem: high unemployment for Americans. The solution has been to develop industries in America that cannot be moved abroad. One in particular, the defence industry, keeps its secrets and employees at home.

Warning America at the end of his presidency, Dwight Eisenhower, US general and commander of forces in WWII said, “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

According to the 2010 Department of Defence (DoD) Financial Report, DoD total budgetary resources for fiscal year 2010 were $1.2 trillion. Budgeted DoD expenditure for 2009 represented approximately 43% of all global military spending.

The US military budget doubled from 1998 to 2008 in the biggest explosion of military spending since the early 1950s – and now accounts for 56 percent of discretionary federal spending. Eisenhower’s warning has been ignored.

Anyone following the news recently would know that many states and local communities in America have been laying off police, firemen and other community services.

Meanwhile the federal government splurges on military spending. This reflects a terrible distortion of security needs. Local security has been sacrificed to the military industrial complex.

Investigative historian and journalist Gareth Porter says that we have completed “the process of creating a ‘Permanent War State’ — a set of institutions with the authority to wage largely secret wars across a vast expanse of the globe for the indefinite future.”

Lockheed-Martin Received a 213-Million Contract for 20 New F-16s For Egypt in March 2010

The defence industry also recruits foreign customers for military hardware. The DoD generates those by indulging in wars, occupations and building vast military industrial sales.

How many military installations does the US have around the world? 1000 as Hugh Gusterson said in “Empire of Bases”. MSNBC reported that America has military in 137 countries.

The US also benefits from sales of military hardware–often outmoded—around the world. Therefore America must also keep these other countries at war or under threats of war.

World military spending has now reached one trillion dollars, close to Cold War levels. Forty percent of arms sales are by America according to the Grimmett CRS Report for Congress.

Why does the US need all those bases in so many countries around the world? What are the excuses used by the US war machine for so many US military installations?

Recently, there’s been talk about reducing the cost of government in America. A few have even suggested reducing the military budget.

However, reducing defence expenditures would mean huge losses of jobs, income and spending in the US, bringing about another worldwide great depression. Therefore the US needs the “Permanent War State” that Gareth Porter says we have created.

America now has the paradoxical situation of needing to stimulate wars that kill people so economies can feed people to keep them alive.

Even when the US pretends to help others economically, there are strings attached. Much of the aid America gives is military aid. The aid recipients are pressured to buy American manufactured armaments. Egypt is a case in point.

The US has kept Mubarak in power—it gave his regime $1.5 billion in aid last year—mainly because he has supported America’s pro-Israel policies, especially by helping Israel maintain its stranglehold on Gaza.

Egypt has been the number two recipient (after Israel) of US foreign aid. In both 2009 and 2010, the economic aid amounted to 250 million dollars while the military aid reached 1.3 billion dollars.

US military aid to Egypt has been spent primarily on strengthening the regime’s domestic security and its ability to confront popular movements.

In a report for the Carnegie Foundation on US aid to Egypt, Ahmad Al-Sayed El-Naggar asks “Why don’t Egyptians notice the role of American aid to their country? The simple answer is that U.S. economic aid to Egypt, which amounted to $455 million in 2007, translated to only $6 per capita.”

It was even less in 2010 when the total economic aid of 200 million could provide less than $3 per capita income. The people have suffered in poverty while Mubarak supported his army and the US military industrial complex.

In Egypt, only Mubarak, his cronies and the army have benefitted while millions of Egyptians starve. Is it any wonder they have taken to the streets in protest?

In America, the major concern is keeping the defence industry alive and its employees well paid. The talk at the top is about “humanitarian” concerns. For 10 years of Mubarak’s 30-year rule, the talk has been the same for public consumption.

What they didn’t count on: the young in Egypt learned how to use social networking to organize protests.

Both Egyptian and American leaders are experts at selling the people short.

Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. He’s a weekly Op-Ed columnist for the Gulf Daily News. Dr. Balles is also Editorial Consultant for Red House Marketing and a regular contributor to Bahrain This Month. This article originally appeared in www.gulf-daily-news.com

More from Paul Balles

$46M spent on failed Calif. global warming measure

Don Thompson
Huffington Post/AP

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — More than $46 million was spent for and against a failed November ballot measure that would have suspended California's landmark global warming law, according to campaign finance reports filed Monday.

Out-of-state oil companies and their supporters spent $10.5 million promoting Proposition 23, while opponents spent more than $36 million.

The initiative would have suspended the state's 2006 greenhouse gas reduction goals until California's unemployment rate, now 12.5 percent, drops to 5.5 percent and holds there for a year. That has occurred just three times in three decades.

Voters defeated Proposition 23 by a margin of 61.6 percent to 38.4 percent.

The initiative seeking to undo California's global warming law was one of nine propositions on the November ballot, which also included a failed initiative seeking to legalize recreational use of marijuana. Supporters and opponents for all propositions faced a Monday deadline to file their final fundraising and spending reports.

Opponents of the global warming initiative were able to entice support from big business, venture capitalists, environmental groups and Hollywood notables such as movie director James Cameron by turning the petroleum industry into a villain, said Bill Day, spokesman for Valero Corp. The Texas-based company contributed more than $5 million to the campaign.

The oil companies and their supporters argued that the law will drive businesses out of state and should be delayed until the economy improves.

Read Full Article

Protesters attacked while praying EGYPT REVOLUTION NOW!!!!

Click this link ...... http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=13725

Ron Paul Inflation is Theft

Click this link ...... http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=13723

Egypt blunt reality without the spin

"This Is Israel's Worst Nightmare Chaos In Cairo"

Click this link ..... http://tinyurl.com/4ooxsss

Egypt protesters increase pressure

'Egypt bullets made in US, ElBaradei success doubtful'

Detroit cuts funding for homeless warming centers

Budget cuts carried out on the quiet have prevented emergency warming centers in Detroit from opening their doors all winter, leaving thousands of homeless and poor residents in the bitter cold. Homeless advocates were given little notice that the city had eliminated all funding to operate the single remaining warming center, Operation Get Down, on Detroit’s east side.

A decade ago, Detroit operated three warming centers, funded with $500,000. This already slim budget has been chopped away over the past few years, forcing closure and consolidation of services. At the same time, homelessness has swelled and thousands of other Detroit residents suffer without gas and electricity in the winter months. Last year, the city provided only $182,000 to Operation Get Down. In June 2010, the homeless aid was among $115 million cut from the city budget.

The center provided a last resort for homeless people to find respite from the cold, especially those with drug addictions, mental illness, or criminal backgrounds, who may not meet requirements imposed by some homeless shelters or religious charity operations.

On extremely cold nights, the warming center also took overflow from the shelters, rolling out mats on the floor to accommodate hundreds of people. Neighborhood Services Organization’s Tumaini Center, a homeless shelter that has relied on Operation Get Down to house its nighttime overflow of residents, now has to ignore building capacity requirements.

Tumaini holds only 120 people officially, but faces overwhelming need. The Neighborhood Services Organization is the only one in the city with centers open 24 hours a day every day of the week that serves homeless people with mental illness or physical disabilities. In the winter months, accessibility becomes a life-or-death issue for the most vulnerable.

This winter, rising need and a lack of beds has driven the Tumaini shelter to set out plastic chairs for people to sleep in. When the chairs run out, residents line up against the walls and in cold hallways, where they stand or sit all night.

“The city doesn’t get it,” Reggie Huff, director at Tumaini, told the Detroit News in an interview January 27. “It really is a city’s responsibility to make sure their residents have a warm bed and place to stay.”

Shenetta Coleman, director of the city’s Human Service Department, disagreed in a statement this week. “It was intended to be a safety net,” she said, calling city-funded warming centers “a nice extra to have.” Coleman personally declined to request funding for warming centers in the 2010-2011 budget.

According to city council member Kwame Kenyatta, Operation Get Down was awarded some $90,000 in federal Development Block Grants last fall, but the money has not been disbursed.

There are more than 100,000 homeless residents in Michigan, according to the most recent data from the state’s Homeless Management Information System. In Detroit’s Wayne County, where advocates are presently doing a count of the homeless population, more than 10,000 families are thought to become homeless every year.

The city currently estimates some 20,000 people live on the streets. Arriving at a precise estimate of the city’s homeless population at any point in time is difficult, however, because of the degree of economic deterioration in residential and industrial areas. Unknown numbers of people sleep in abandoned houses or old factories and warehouses.

Beyond the homeless population, tens of thousands of other Detroit residents are struggling to stay warm without gas or electricity. Energy giant Detroit Edison (DTE) has cut off service to 200,000 households in southeast Michigan in the past year, including hundreds of families a day in distressed Detroit neighborhoods. DTE counts 476,000 regional customers in arrears; no law protects these residents from shutoff in the winter.

The withholding of funding for emergency warming centers is part of a broader attack on the working class by the David Bing city administration and its counterpart at the Michigan state level. Services particularly relied upon by the poorest layers have been actively targeted for elimination.

Newly elected Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has promised further “painful cuts” totaling $1.8 billion this year concentrated in education, public assistance, and the Earned Income Tax Credit received by low-income families.

Basic infrastructure is on the chopping block for vast areas of Detroit: half the city’s public schools are threatened with closure in the next two years, ambulance services have been downsized, and the city budget is targeting other already embattled public agencies.

Among the social services facing cuts is the Detroit Public Library system—upon which the poor substantially depend for access to information, as well as for warmth and a safe environment. In a January 18 memo to employees, quoted in American Libraries magazine, the library system’s director Anne Mondowney characterized funding levels as a “fiscal crisis that is unprecedented in magnitude… the library will need to drastically reduce personnel and other operating costs.”

Similarly, recreation and community centers throughout the Detroit metro area are set to cut hours and impose fees on residents who depend on their services.

Perhaps the most macabre expression of the impact of budget cuts on the poor is the backlog of “pauper burials” faced by the Wayne County medical examiner’s office, something out of Dickensian England. Budget cuts at the state and city level have reduced the office’s annual budget to a mere $30,000. The funds allow for burials or cremations of only half the bodies that come in every year. Because of this, the office currently holds 185 corpses stacked in its morgue; some of them have been there for more than two years.

RAND PAUL DEMANDS NO MORE AID TO ISRAEL

Last year I praised Sen. Rand Paul for his proposal that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 be repealed because it gave special rights to some over others. I was criticized in the anti-Zionist right for encouraging an inveterate "bootlicker" of Israel.

But now Paul is again showing himself capable of independent thought and action, demanding that all U.S. aid to Israel be cut off.

In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday Paul said that “Reuters did a poll, and 71 percent of American people agree with me that when we're short of money, where we can't do the things we need to do in our country, we certainly shouldn't be shipping the money overseas.”

When asked by Blitzer if he wanted to halt an annual $3 billion that go to Israel, Paul replied affirmatively, explaining that Egypt receives almost the same amount.

"You have to ask yourself, are we funding an arms race on both sides? I have a lot of sympathy and respect for Israel as a democratic nation, as, you know, a fountain of peace and a fountain of democracy within the Middle East. But at the same time, I don't think funding both sides of the arm race, particularly when we have to borrow the money from China to send it to someone else. We just can't do it anymore. The debt is all-consuming and it threatens our well-being as a country,” Paul said. (haaretz.com "U.S. Democrats and pro-Israel lobbies slam Republican Senator's call to halt Israel aid" Jan 28, 2010.)

Despite Paul's obligatory praise for Israel, the bottom line is that a U.S. Senator is now calling for the virtually unprecedented: cutting the financial umbilical cord through which we have sustained Israel for more than a half century.

Christians especially have no duty to sustain the racist and Christian-persecuting state of Israel. (See, 50 Top Israeli Rabbis: Proud to be Racists and Israel's Increasing Anti-Christianity) Far from safeguarding American interests and making friends for America in the Mid East, a century of Zionist theft, terrorism and abrasiveness has violently inflamed the Arab world, not only against Jews but also against Israel's obedient ally, America.

Modern Israel is not that nation of obedient Jews which God says in Scripture He will bring back to peace and safety in the Holy Land. Instead, as the "Great Harlot," "Babylon" she constitutes that rebellious false return of Ezekiel 38 and 39, leading to Jewish dominion over the nations and arrival of Anti-Christ. (See, "Babylon the Great" is Israel)

As such, Sen. Paul lends support to Scripture in its command to Christian America to "come out of” any involvement with this writhing system of oppression and persecution (Rev. 18:4). (See, Israel: On the Way to Empire in the Mideast)

Democrats and the Israeli lobby are already loudly protesting Paul's recommendation. We can expect overwhelming pressure this week (led by ADL) to force Paul to back down and apologize, as he did last year.

Don't let them get away with it! Call Paul's office toll free 1-877-851-6437 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 1-877-851-6437 end_of_the_skype_highlighting right now and let him know that countless Americans stand solidly behind him.

Hunger affects one in seven households in the United States

(NaturalNews) More than one in seven U.S. households lacked food security at some point in 2009, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). That figure is the highest since record-keeping began in 1995.

The report defines food security as having access to enough food to lead an active, healthy life. In 2009, 14.7 percent of U.S. households -- comprising more than 37 million adults and 17 million children -- lacked food security on one or more occasions. This marked only a mild increase over 2008, when the figure was 14.6 percent, but a substantial increase over 2007, when it was only 11.1 percent.

When the figures are broken down by degree of food insecurity, they reveal that 9 percent of U.S. households had low food security in 2009, defined as needing to rely on emergency food help (including from federal assistance programs like food stamps) or on "eating less varied diets." Nearly six percent had very low food security, meaning that at least one member of the household had their normal eating patterns disrupted at least once during the year.

Use of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, also known as food stamps) rose dramatically, from 12.7 million households participating in 2008 to 15.2 million in 2009.

The report notes that while reliance on emergency food supplies rose throughout the decade, the greatest increase occurred between 2007 and 2009. Over that time period, the number of households relying on food pantries increased 44 percent, from 3.9 million to 5.6 million. Food pantry use by multiple-adult households without children rose 57 percent, and use by married-couple households rose 66 percent. The Midwest in particular appears to have been hard hit by the recession, with a 65 percent increase in food pantry usage in that region alone.

Although the rate of food pantry use grew at similar rates in metro and non-metro areas in 2009, suburban food pantry use topped metro use for the first time since 2001.

Sources for this story include: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/new... http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/....

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/031152_food_security_hunger.html#ixzz1ChSKWN1i

Boehner: Failure to raise debt limit would mean ‘financial disaster’

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) says it's not a threat.

Even as he admitted that not raising the debt ceiling would mean a "financial disaster" for the US and the world, the Speaker said Sunday that Democrats must agree to big spending cuts before the GOP-controlled House will support the Obama administration's spending plans.

"I know you're not threatening to default, but do you agree with administration officials and other economists that defaulting on the full faith and credit of the United States would be a financial disaster?" Fox News' Chris Wallace asked Boehner.

"That would be a financial disaster," the Speaker agreed. "Not only for our country, but for the worldwide economy. Remember, the American people on election day said we want to cut spending and we want to create jobs. You can't create jobs if you default on the federal debt."

"Listen, there has been a spending spree going on in Washington the last couple of years that is beyond control," he added. "And the president is going to ask us to increase the debt limit, he's going have to be willing to cut up the credit cards. We've got to work together by listening to the American people, and reducing these obligations that we have."

"So, defaulting on the full faith and credit is unacceptable to you?" Wallace pressed.

"I don't think it's a question that is even on the table," Boehner replied.

But for several Republican lawmakers, the issue did seem to be on the table.

Following big Republican wins in the November midterm elections, tea party favorite Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) suggested that refusing to raise the debt limit should be the first order of business.

Reps. Jerry Lewis (R-CA), and Jack Kingston (R-GA) have pledged to vote against an increase. Rep. Mike Lee (R-UT) vowed to vote against the debt limit, as did Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN).

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has threatened to hold the debt ceiling hostage over cuts to Social Security.

Republican senators provided an average of 39 votes to raise the debt ceiling while George W. Bush was president, but only one supported the increase under President Barack Obama.

This video is from Fox's Fox News Sunday, broadcast Jan. 30, 2011.

Watch this video on iPhone/iPad

Talking New World, New Age System Blues.

Dog Poet Transmitting…….

‘May your noses always be cold and wet.”

Well, my friends, I probably shouldn’t be feeling as good as I am; slammed by physical problems (not my usual métier) at the moment. And I probably shouldn’t be looking forward to all of the things that are coming, when they mean bad news for the majority but the majority have backed all the bad things that brought us to these terrible imperatives and also persecuted the minority that only had their best interests in mind. Meanwhile they supported the minority that did not have their best interests in mind. I probably shouldn’t be in an expectant and sometimes gleeful state of mind (probably just trying to distract myself-grin) about what’s coming for the minority that, as I write this, is promoting revolutionary changes, in order to give the impression that things are changing as they maneuver to take control of the new systems.

Here’s what needs to be changed, regardless of any and all secondary needs; the construct of central banks, Federal Reserves, must end and laws made against their return. Corporations must be taxed and controlled to the degree needed. Public servants must adhere to things they say as opposed to what they actually do under severe penalties to the contrary of serving the very interests they were elected to protect the public from in the first place. Laws can’t be laws if they are so easily compromised by the ability of money to provide the lawyers to do so. This is all very general and the reader will not be satisfied with my vague embrace of what needs a tighter specification and interpretation. That’s not my job. That’s someone else’s job.

TPTB are working behind the scenes to instigate what is inevitable because of their general policies of governing. It’s coming anyway, so they’re trying to control the direction of the flow. Some numbers of their fellows are earmarked for sacrifice to the illusion of justice. It’s like the Nuremburg trials, where they tortured the accused to get them to admit to lies, in order to set the groundwork for massive lies that followed in the aftermath and this came about because the neo-Pharisees controlled the Russian agenda, due to their authorship of the Bolshevik Revolution. This worked in tandem with the neo-Pharisee cabal that instigated the war in the first place from the American side. All of this was greatly assisted by the money men in London who funneled financial backing through any and every proxy at hand; simplistic again, but so.

It all comes down to money and who controls it. They can switch it on and switch it off. They did so in The Great Depression, in order to take ownership of a great many things and it is a carbon copy of the same happening today. Goldman Sachs needs to be torn to the ground and utterly destroyed. They’re as anti-human and devilishly intent as The Vatican and no less of a religion. You can argue all you like about unnamed shadowy figures pulling their strings but if you destroy the agency of their operation then you have reached these men in any case.

The pharmaceutical companies are also heavily engaged in this multi-pronged war against humanity. You can no longer buy so many of the natural Chinese herbs and many other truly healing substances, not only because they work, where the pharmaceuticals do not but because what they make also renders the population docile and disoriented, making them easier to herd and control. Inexpensive natural healing substances cut back on the profits that are made by the butchers of the allopathic medical/pharmaceutical combine. That has to stop. I cannot order, basic and healing items from other countries, because the pharmaceutical empire controls what passes through customs into this country. It’s the same thing with food. Good and nutritious foodstuffs and the ability to grow and sell them, are being systematically legislated against for the benefit of Monsanto and other agri-business interests. They cynically shoehorned the new laws into a bill dealing with Veteran’s concerns (if I remember correctly) and everything else in the bill was threatened if this one, courtesy of Harry Reid, was not also approved. Monsanto needs to be pulled to the ground and destroyed and their agents imprisoned for murder and fraud.

There’s no wiggle room with any of these things. They have to be attended to. If peaceful means do not serve then the alternative is unavoidable. Much is made of the peaceful revolutionary styles of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. It must be remembered that despite the intent of these efforts, a lot of people got hurt and a lot of people died. The concept is the right one and can insure an enduring success but you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs and you have to be prepared for the worst they can throw at you. After all, you are threatening their illegitimate position from which they are abusing you. They have no conscience; otherwise they would not be behaving as they do.

The Constitution was designed by people who understood the things it was created to defend against but the authors warned repeatedly that it would not be long before more revolutions would be required, to reaffirm what these principles defined. I know that some amount of the readers think that The Founding Fathers were a bunch of Luciferians and what not. Years ago I read about The Hellfire Club and Ben Franklin’s escapades and the like. Secret societies have always been with us but they are not all satanic. The good guys have them and the bad guys have them. Read the Secret Teachings of all Ages by Manly Palmer Hall and please refrain from telling me bad things about Manly. He was a good guy, end of story. I’m going to bet that not a single person who downloaded this book some months ago has finished the whole thing yet (grin)

The most powerful thing any of us can do to help what is coming to arrive, with enthusiasm and power, is to believe in it and see it as a reality. Think of it as a collective, revival house prayer. Live with the understanding that it’s already here. We need to be peaceful because that is the position of true strength. The position of peace acknowledges that the universe is under benevolent control. However, our position has little effect except as a good example and as an assurance of our continuing good karma. Cosmic forces, including Mother Nature, have their own agenda to make double damn sure that the predators who have inflicted such misery upon us get their due reward. This means powerfully destructive agencies, coming to bear upon their designs and machinations. It may be hard viewing but so has been the viewing of all their heinous efforts to this point.

In the process of these changes, Israel and the empires she has corrupted, are going to be destroyed. That’s just how it is. That is not the true Israel, not the real Israelites and their existence has been permitted to show the nature of their behavior. That is not the true, nor the New Jerusalem. This is not even the real world. The real world is going to appear, out of the ashes of the destruction of the false world, just as our real selves are going to be revealed to us through the vision of our real eyes, as the veils slip away from them. For some of us these veils will slip away, or be burned to nothing, by the power of our efforts to awaken. In other cases these veils will be ripped away but... going they are. They are going and no personal or externally controlling force can maintain them any longer in their state of enforced deception. Freedom may be a welcome condition but it can be truly terrifying as well. It’s like standing on the edge of a cliff and not knowing from one minute to the next, whether you can restrain yourself from jumping against your will.

I try to look at my life and what is coming the way I look at dental visits. I look forward to them with positive anticipation because I know the result is greatly desired as opposed to the circumstances that required the visit. This is a true story and I assure you that it militates against the worst features of the event.

Folks, it’s here and all bets are off on everything. Don’t let the primary or initial appearance of conditions and events, determine what you should believe about what is and what is happening. If you want to know the meaning of what is happening outside yourself, look inside yourself, because that’s where the answers are. Just as major changes are taking place in the surrounding world, major changes are taking place within you and you can amplify and accelerate this, to the degree that you cooperate with and seek after the force responsible. To get an idea of how transformative this is all going to be and how rare the opportunities are, keep in mind that this is not just the turning of an age but the turning of a complete cycle as well. We can’t really imagine it but it does grant some perspective. Do yourself a favor and make a reservation for the winner’s court. May the winds of fortune be at your back.

End Transmission…….

The general publication date for the forthcoming books is set for around March 1st. I mention this so that people, hopefully, will stop asking me when they are going to be available (grin).

Here’s Judeye’s voice working of a recent Smoking Mirrors posting

Nothing More

The New Shangri-La

The Just Get There Petri Dish Mirror

Riot Police Guard Against Anti-Billionaire Protesters in Rancho Mirage. John Amato is on the scene

By karoli

This is live video sent back from the Quarantine the Kochs rally in Rancho Mirage about an hour and a half ago. John Amato is on the scene and has called me a couple of times with updates. There are about 1500 people or so there, peacefully protesting the convocation of billionaires at the Rancho Las Palmas resort. The purpose of the meeting is to figure out how to impeach Obama and take over our government in order to preserve their wealth, justice, and liberty at the expense of ours. Glenn Beck was the keynote speaker last night, and Eric Cantor was also on the guest list. (Full list here (PDF))

Remarkably, there are scores of riot police guarding the driveways into the resort. The last report I've seen says 25 people have been arrested. Here's a shot posted earlier today:

enlarge

At the end of that video you'll see more of them, even.

Andrew Breitbart has evidently caught the fever. It’s been reported that he’s hanging out with the protesters. Too lazy to walk, he’s sporting shorts and rollerblades. Be afraid. In his usual less-than-forthright manner, he claims “internal emails from organizers necessitate riot police.” Mmmhmmm.

John will be writing up a much longer and more interesting post than this one, I'm sure. But for now, I thought it important that we see the exercise of OUR right to free speech and assembly, too.

I have more photos and links on my liveblog. Nancy Goldstein is covering it for TheNation here, the local CBS station has a nice article here, and you can follow the Twitter hashtag #UncloakKoch. The organizers of the rally are Common Cause, TheOther98.com, and California Nurse's Association.

Here's David Dayen's report. His twitter stream was one of the best for real time updates.

College Bubble Set to Burst in 2011

The National Inflation Association believes that the United States has a college education bubble that is set to burst beginning in mid-2011. This bursting bubble will have effects that are even more far-reaching than the bursting of the Real Estate bubble in 2006. College education could possibly be the largest scam in U.S. history.

NIA's advice to the youth of America today is to think for yourselves. Don't get suckered into overpaying for a college degree that is worthless because everyone else has one. College is only worth attending if you plan on actually learning something there. If you are only going to college because you think a piece of paper is going to help you find a job, you would be much better off skipping college and entering the workforce right now at any entry level job. Your experience will benefit you more than any piece of paper.

The median U.S. home price is currently $170,600, down 26% from its peak of $230,200 in July of 2006. The Dow Jones is currently 11,672, down 18% from its peak of 14,198 in October of 2007. Oil is currently $91 per barrel, down 38% from its peak of $147 per barrel in July of 2008. After the financial panic of 2008, the U.S. saw a collapse in the prices of just about all assets, goods, services, and commodities. Between lost stock market and home equity wealth, Americans lost $10.2 trillion in paper wealth in 2008, and have only recouped a fraction of it since then.

College is the only thing in America that never declined in price during the panic of 2008. It actually rose in price substantially. The annual tuition for a private four-year college was $21,235 in the 2005-2006 school year. Despite Real Estate beginning to collapse in late-2006, college tuition rose by 4.6% in the 2006-2007 school year to $22,218. Despite the stock market beginning to collapse in late-2007, college tuition rose by 6.7% in the 2007-2008 school year to $23,712. Despite oil and other commodities collapsing in late-2008, college tuition rose by 6.2% in the 2008-2009 school year to $25,177. Even after the Dow Jones crashed to a low in early-2009 of 6,469, college tuition still rose by 4.4% in the 2009-2010 school year to $26,273.

Annual tuition for a private four-year college in America is now $27,293, up 29% from five years ago. Meanwhile, the employment situation in the U.S. has deteriorated. There are currently 130.7 million non-farm jobs in America, down 3% from 134.5 million U.S. non-farm jobs in December 2005. 3.8 million jobs have been lost, while the U.S. population has grown by approximately 14 million people during the same time period. We would need to have seen the creation of 6.7 million non-farm jobs just to stay even, but now we are 10.5 million jobs short.

All across America, thousands of students are graduating law school each year with $250,000 in debt, but with no jobs at law firms available to them. 15,000 attorney and legal staff jobs have disappeared since 2008, yet 43,000 law degrees are being handed out each year. Law degrees are losing their value faster than the U.S. dollar is losing its purchasing power. Lawyers are non-producing workers that do nothing to create any real wealth for society. The artificially high incomes of lawyers are made possible entirely by inflation, which steals the wealth from hard working goods producing middle-class Americans and transfers it to those who add no real value to society.

The service sector currently makes up 76.9% of the U.S. GDP. Agriculture, which in 1933 made up 28% of GDP, currently makes up only 1.2% of GDP. The wealth of any country is primarily created at first from the production of food, oil, and precious metals. Secondly, wealth is created from the manufacturing of real consumer goods. After a country generates wealth by producing real things and builds a large domestic pool of savings, it can begin growing a service based economy, just so long as it has enough savings to support it.

During the past decade, an unprecedented number of Americans went to school to become lawyers, because they thought if they became a lawyer they would immediately become rich. 60% of the U.S. Senate and 37% of the House of Representatives are lawyers. The reason we have so many lawyers in Washington is so that they can pass as many new harmful laws and regulations as possible, in order to provide enough work for all of their lawyer friends. All of the needless legislation that is passed each year in order to provide work for lawyers, has the devastating unintended consequence of destroying what little is left of the free market. Small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy, but it is now nearly impossible for a small businessman with limited financial resources to build a large successful corporation in any sector, because their legal costs would eat up all of their profits.

Many law students got suckered into going to law school due to deceptive marketing practices. Some law schools are advertising that 90% of graduates are employed within one year of graduating. Sure, maybe 90% of law school graduates were employed a year later, with half of them working at McDonald's, but no law school degree is required for that. Schools are using dozens of unethical tactics to manipulate their numbers while encouraging alumni to falsify the surveys they fill out about their employment situation. Just like we are now seeing countless class action lawsuits against mortgage companies that misled customers about the loans they signed up for, we will soon see a massive number of lawsuits filed against colleges that lied about their job placement rates and average starting salaries of graduates. (At least there will be some work for law school graduates.)

Most Americans today are sheep who believe that the key to success and happiness in life is following the same career paths as everybody else. While everybody went to school to become a lawyer, nobody went to school to become a farmer because Americans didn't see any money in farming. With prices of nearly all agricultural commodities soaring through the roof in 2010 and with NIA expecting this trend to continue throughout 2011, the few new farmers out there are going to become rich while lawyers are standing at street corners with cups begging for money.

The college tuition bubble has been fueled by the U.S. government's willingness to give out easy student loans to anybody who applies for them. If it wasn't for government student loans, the free market would force colleges to provide the best quality education at the lowest possible price. By the government trying to make colleges more affordable, they have actually driven prices through the roof. Colleges have been encouraged to spend recklessly on wasteful construction projects, building new libraries, gyms, sports arenas, housing units, etc. Colleges spent $10.7 billion on construction projects in 2009. Although this is down from an average of $14.7 billion per year colleges spent on construction projects from 2005 to 2007, colleges are still struggling to pay off their old construction related debt. When interest rates start to rise, it will add further upside pressure to college tuition prices.

College students borrowed $106 billion in total student loans for the 2009-2010 school year, up from $96 billion in 2008-2009, $94 billion in 2007-2008, $87 billion in 2006-2007, and $83 billion in 2005-2006. Total student loan debt in the U.S. currently stands at $830 billion and now exceeds credit card debt. President Obama's new student loan bill that was passed last year now makes the government the primary lender to students. By taking the free market out of the student loan business and allowing students to receive loans from the government at artificially low interest rates, colleges will be encouraged to spend more recklessly than ever. None of this wasteful spending is doing anything to improve the quality of education in America.

Over a year ago when NIA was filming 'The Dollar Bubble' in Los Angeles, violent riots broke out at UCLA over a 32% increase in college tuitions (from $7,788 to $10,302). We went to the protest in order to video tape the shocking footage to show you. While we were there we remember thinking to ourselves, why on earth are these students protesting at all? If tuitions are rising by 32% and they are unhappy about it, why don't they quietly and peacefully enroll someplace else for college next semester. If not enough students enroll into UCLA, the university will be forced to either dramatically cut their costs or shut down. UCLA decided to completely ignore the riots and went ahead with the 32% rise in tuitions. Did the students decide to enroll someplace else? Nope, most of them simply took out larger student loans and went back to UCLA. In fact, UCLA reported that they received a record amount of freshman applicants for the next semester.

With all of the technological advancements taking place around the world today, the cost for a college education should be getting cheaper. Americans today can purchase just about any type of product they want over the Internet for substantially less than they can find it in a retail store. When the U.S. dollar collapses and the college bubble bursts, NIA predicts we will see a boom in online education where Americans take all of their courses over the Internet from the comfort of their own home at a fraction of the cost of traditional college.

Later this year, NIA is going to be producing a documentary about America's college education crisis and the college tuition bubble that is about to burst. In the weeks ahead, NIA is going to begin searching for people who deserve to be featured in our documentary. If you are a college student, a recent college graduate, or a current or ex-college professor with an extremely shocking, interesting, and important story that the whole world needs to know about in what will be the most viewed college documentary in world history, please send an email to collegebubble@inflation.us. We would also love to hear from any NIA member who has any ideas of topics that we should cover in this new documentary. Please send all ideas and suggestions to collegebubble@inflation.us.

This will truly be one of the most important documentaries NIA has ever produced. We need to change the mindset in America that only those with college degrees have any chance of becoming successful. Americans have become so brainwashed that even after graduating college with over $50,000 in debt and not being able to find a job, many of them are wasting even more years of their life and getting even deeper into debt to attend a graduate school, for a master's degree that is just as worthless as a bachelor's degree. It is like comparing a $10 bill (master's degree) to a $1 bill (bachelor's degree), they are both worthless pieces of paper with no intrinsic value.

NIA believes that any recent high school graduate with $30,000 saved for college who invests that money into silver and becomes a minimum wage apprentice for the next 4 years, will likely have enough money in 4 years to buy a median priced U.S. home. Not only that, but they will have work place experience that is far more valuable than the worthless college degrees of any of their friends. We must work hard to educate America to the truth if our country is going to have the wherewithal to survive the upcoming bursting college bubble and Hyperinflationary Great Depression.

It is important to spread the word about NIA to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, if you want America to survive hyperinflation. Please tell everybody you know to become members of NIA for free!

Former Managing Director of Goldman Sachs: Egyptians, Greeks, Tunisians and British Are All Protesting Against Pillaging of Their Economies

Nomi Prins - former managing director of Goldman Sachs and head of the international analytics group at Bear Stearns in London - notes that the Egyptian people are rebelling against being pillaged by giant, international banks and their own government as much as anything else.

She also points out that the Greek, British, Tunisian and other protesters are all in the same boat:

The ongoing demonstrations in Egypt are as much, if not more, about the mass deterioration of economic conditions and the harsh result of years of financial deregulation, than the political ideology that some of the media seems more focused on.

***

According to the CIA's World Fact-book depiction of Egypt's economy, "Cairo from 2004 to 2008 aggressively pursued economic reforms to attract foreign investment and facilitate GDP growth." And, while that was happening, "Despite the relatively high levels of economic growth over the past few years, living conditions for the average Egyptian remain poor."

Unemployment in Egypt is hovering just below the 10% mark, like in the US, though similarly, this figure grossly underestimates underemployment, quality of employment, prospects for employment, and the growing youth population with a dismal job future. Nearly 20% of the country live below the poverty line (compared to 14% and growing in the US) and 10% of the population controls 28% of household income (compared to 30% in the US). [By the most commonly used measure of inequality - the Gini Coefficient - the U.S. has much higher inequality than Egypt]. But, these figures, as in the US, have been accelerating in ways that undermine financial security of the majority of the population, and have been doing so for more than have a decade.

Around 2005, Egypt decided to transform its financial system in order to increase its appeal as a magnet for foreign investment, notably banks and real estate speculators. Egypt reduced cumbersome bureaucracy and regulations around foreign property investment through decree (number 583.) International luxury property firms depicted the country as a mecca (of the tax-haven variety) for property speculation, a country offering no capital gains taxes on real estate transactions, no stamp duty, and no inheritance tax.

But, Egypt's more devastating economic transformation centered around its decision to aggressively sell off its national banks as a matter of foreign and financial policy between 2005 and early 2008 (around the time that US banks were stoking a global sub-prime and other forms-of-debt and leverage oriented crisis). Having opened its real estate to foreign investment and private equity speculation, the next step in the deregulation of the country's banks was spurring international bank takeovers complete with new bank openings, where international banks could begin plowing Egyptians for fees. Citigroup, for example, launched the first Cards reward program in 2005, followed by other banks.

According to an article in Executive Magazine in early 2007, which touted the competitive bidding, acquistion and rebranding of Egyptian banks by foreign banks and growth of foreign M&A action, the biggest bank deal of 2006 was the sale of one of the four largest state-run banks, Bank of Alexandria, to Italian bank, Gruppo Sanpaolo IMI. This, a much larger deal than the 70% acquisition by Greek's Piraeus Bank of the Egyptian Commercial Bank in 2005, one of the first deals to be blessed by the Central Bank of Egypt and the Ministry of Investment that unleashed the sale of Egypt's banking system to the highest international bidders.

The greater the pace of foreign bank influx and take-overs to 'modernize' Egypt's banking system, inevitably the more short-term, "hot" money poured into Egypt. Pieces of Egypt, or its companies, continued to be purchased by foreign conglomerates, trickling off when the global financial crisis brewed full force in 2008, though not before Goldman Sachs Strategic Investments Limited in the UK bought a $70 million chunk of Palm Hills Development SAE, a high-end real estate developer, in March, 2008.

When a country, among other shortcomings, relinquishes its financial system and its population's well-being to the pursuit of 'good deals', there is going to be substantial fallout. The citizens protesting in the streets of Greece, England, Tunisia, Egypt and anywhere else, may be revolting on a national basis against individual leaderships that have shafted them, but they have a common bond; they are revolting against a world besotted with benefiting the powerful and the deal-makers at the expense of ordinary people.

As Joe Weisenthal notes, a survey from Credit Suisse confirms that economic and financial problems are weighing heavily on the Egyptian people:

A recent survey from Credit Suisse on emerging markets -- which you can download here -- sheds some light on how much worse shape Egypt is in compared to other emerging markets.

Here are a few.

First of all, there's a lot of anxiety. Much of the population foresaw worsening conditions over the next six months.

Image: Credit Suisse

Meanwhile, real household income growth has been negative for all income strata.

Image: Credit Suisse

And of course, food is far and away the biggest cost that Egyptians face. So agriculture inflation bites hard.

Image: Credit Suisse

The Most AMAZING Revolutionary video from Egypt Jan25 , 2011

Click this link .....http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=13707

AAA Rating Tough to Defend as U.S. Debt Soars

Kevin Hassett
Bloomberg Opinion

Last week, Standard & Poor’s lowered Japan’s bond rating to AA-, the fourth-highest level. By that standard, the U.S. got away with a slap on the wrist from Moody’s Investors Service, which warned merely that “the probability of assigning a negative outlook in the coming two years is rising.”

If you look at the U.S. budget trajectory with an eye on the lessons from Japan’s recent history, there’s a strong case that the U.S. rating should be cut immediately.

It’s true that the U.S., with total government debt equal to 98.5 percent of gross domestic product, according to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data, has many years of unrestrained deficits ahead before it reaches the crisis point of Japan, which has debt of 204 percent of GDP.

Read Full Article

MUST SEE!!!Egypt Revolution 2011 Demonstrators Vs police Fighting

Reality Check-Tunisia Revolution-01-29-2011- (Part 2)

Municipals Cut Police and Fire Departments Nationwide!

Watch Video http://snardfarker.ning.com/video/municipals-cut-police-and-fire?xg_source=shorten_twitter

The coming US Depression has an added dimension: "....

...a huge underclass of very desperate people with their minds chemically blown beyond anybody's comprehension" which may fuel unprecedented unrest. Tom Dennen

Money talks and here is what it is saying: Here are the Current Account Balances of 163 Countries in the World COMPARED WITH LEVELS OF STREET VIOLENCE (Egypt is high on the positive side of the debt list unlike Spain, the UK and the others at the bottom, and is not likely rioting over austerities):

Notice the amazing entry at the bottom of this list (scroll down) taken from Gerald Celentes' Trends Journal, the full report, 2011.

The Current Account Balance records a country's net trade in goods and services, plus net earnings from rents, interest, profits, and dividends, and net transfer payments (such as pension funds and worker remittances) to and from the rest of the world during the period specified. These figures are calculated on an exchange rate basis, i.e., not in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms.

China is No. 1, Hong Kong No. 15, Egypt N.37 ... check who is No. 163

World Ranking - Current Acct Balance (in Millions of US$)

1 People's Republic of China (PRC) 179,100

2 Japan 174,400

3 Germany 134,800

4 Russia 105,300

5 Saudi Arabia 103,800

6 Norway 63,330

7 Switzerland 50,440

8 Netherlands 50,170

9 Kuwait 40,750

10 Singapore 35,580

11 Venezuela 31,820

12 Sweden 28,610

13 United Arab Emirates 26,890

14 Algeria 25,800

15 Hong Kong 20,900

16 Canada 20,560

17 Malaysia 17,860

18 Libya 14,500

19 Brazil 13,500

20 Iran 13,130

21 Nigeria 12,590

22 Qatar 12,510

23 Taiwan 9,700

24 Finland 8,749

25 Iraq 8,134

26 Angola 7,700

27 Oman 7,097

28 Belgium 6,925

29 Austria 5,913

30 Argentina 5,810

31 Chile 5,063

32 Denmark 4,941

33 Philippines 4,900

34 Luxembourg 4,630

35 Trinidad and Tobago 3,259

36 Azerbaijan 2,737

37 Egypt 2,697 - Why riots now?

38 Korea, South 2,000

39 Bahrain 1,999

40 Gabon 1,807

41 Botswana 1,698

42 Yemen 1,690

43 Indonesia 1,636

44 Peru 1,515

45 Israel 1,643

46 Uzbekistan 1,410

47 Burma 1,247

48 Republic of the Congo 1,215

49 Vietnam 1,029

50 Ecuador 727

51 Bolivia 688

52 Papua New Guinea 661

53 Namibia 572

54 Ivory Coast 460

55 Cameroon 419

56 Morocco 389

57 Bangladesh 339

58 Turkmenistan 321.2

59 Equatorial Guinea 175

60 British Virgin Islands 134.3 (1999)

61 Kazakhstan 113

62 Cook Islands 26.67 (2005)

63 Palau 15.09 (2004)

64 Tuvalu 2.323 (1998)

(FROM HERE ON DOWN, THE AMOUNTS REFLECT A NEGATIVE BALANCE - ALL IN VERY SMALL, UNDERDEVELOPED, HIGHLY EXPLOITED 3d WORLD COUNTRIES, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF ICELAND, ONE OF THE FIRST TO REVOLT AGAINST THE GLOBAL DEBT-IS-MONEY FIAT CURRENCY SYSTEM OF FRACTIONAL RESERVE LENDING INTO WHAT MAY BE UNIVERSAL BANKRUPTCY - ed.)

65 Samoa -2.428 (2004)

66 Tonga -4.321 (2005)

67 Comoros -17 (2005)

68 Kiribati -19.87 (2004)

69 Swaziland -23.13

70 São Tomé and Príncipe -24.4

71 Vanuatu -28.35 (2003)

72 Federated States of Micronesia-34.3 (2005)

73 Anguilla -42.87 (2003)

74 Cape Verde -44.43

75 The Gambia - 54.61

76 Burundi -57.84

77 Haiti -58..72

78 Tajikistan -73.95

79 Lesotho -75.44

80 Seychelles -78.59

81 Antigua and Barbuda -83.4 (2004)

82 Guyana - 84.3

83 Rwanda -104.1

84 Honduras -160

85 Zambia -165.4

86 Republic of Macedonia -167

87 Belize -173.4

88 Malawi -186

89 Ghana -219

90 Armenia -247.3

91 Togo -261.9

92 Zimbabwe - 264.6

93 Kyrgyzstan -287.3

94 Paraguay -300

95 Chad -324.1

96 Benin -342.7

97 Guinea -344

98 Cambodia -369

99 Mexico -400.1

100 Uganda -423

101 Eritrea -440.5

102 Mozambique -444.4

103 Fiji -465.8

104 Panama -467

105 Madagascar -504

106 Laos -404.2

107 Belarus -511.8

108 Syria -529

109 Moldova -561

110 Uruguay -600

111 Burkina Faso -604.6

112 Mauritius -651

113 Albania -679.9

114 Georgia -735

115 Tunisia -760

116 Slovenia -789.2

117 Nicaragua -883

118 Senegal -895.2

119 Thailand - 899.4

120 Tanzania -906

121 Malta -966.2

122 Jamaica -970

123 Cyprus -1,051

124 El Salvador -1,059

125 Sri Lanka -1,118

126 Kenya -1,119

127 Dominican Republic -1,124

128 Costa Rica -1,176

129 Cuba -1,218

130 Guatemala -1,533

131 Bosnia and Herzegovina -1,730

132 Estonia -1,919

133 Ukraine -1,933

134 Colombia -2,219

135 Serbia -2,451 (2005)

136 Latvia -2,538

137 Lithuania -2,572

138 Jordan -2,834

139 Croatia -2,892

140 Iceland -2,932

141 Ethiopia -3,384

142 Slovakia -3,781

143 Czech Republic -4,352

144 Sudan -4,510

145 Poland -4,548

146 Bulgaria -5,100

147 Lebanon -5,339

148 Pakistan -5,486

149 New Zealand -7,944

(FROM HERE ON DOWN - THE BOTTOM OF THE LIST - WITH THE EXCEPTIONS OF SOUTH AFRICA, PARTS OF AUSTRALIA AND THE UNITED STATES, THESE COUNTRIES ARE EXPERIENCING VIOLENT REVOLUTIONARY MONETARY-BASED REFORM - THE SOLE EXCEPTION, EGYPT, NUMBER 37 ON THE LIST WITH A POSITIVE ACCOUNT BALANCE OF $2 697 APPEARS TO BE POLITICALLY AS WELL AS ARTIFICIALLY FINANCIALLY MOTIVATED - ED)

150 Hungary -8,392

151 Ireland -9,450

152 Romania -12,450

153 South Africa -12,690 (some debt may be found Odious - debt taken on by the apartheid govt.)

154 Portugal -16,750

155 Greece -21,370

156 Italy -23,730

157 Turkey -25,990

158 India -26,400

159 France -38,000

160 Australia -41,620

161 United Kingdom -57,680

162 Spain -98,600

163 United States -862,300 (America is not yet in an on-the-streets financial revolt partly because, in order to support America's huge import / export imbalance, the rest of the world lends it the money to continue buying - from the rest of the world - on credit, a situation impossible to sustain).

Groton Guard detachment is heading to Egypt

Groton - Connecticut National Guard Detachment 2, Company I, 185th Aviation Regiment of Groton has mobilized and will deploy to the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, to support the Multinational Force and Observers.

The unit left Connecticut Jan. 15 for Fort Benning, Ga., for further training and validation. The unit operates C-23C Sherpa aircraft and has deployed three times in the last seven years in support of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The unit will provide an on-demand aviation asset to the Multinational Force and Observers commander to support its mission of supervising the security provisions of the Egypt/ Israel Peace Treaty.

Chief Warrant Officer Four James Smith of Ivoryton commands the aviation unit.

WARNING: Graphic Video Of Egyptian Police Shooting And Killing Teen Protester - Raw Battle Footage

http://tinyurl.com/4w9brz3

Live gunfire and a dead teenager. This is deeply disturbing, you are warned.

He picks up a rock, moves around and is shot dead from at least 200 yards away.

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AWESOME CLIP: Watch Hundreds Of ARMED Egyptian Riot Police Run For Their Lives From Protesters

Watch this video http://tinyurl.com/4s6xo28

RAW CLIP: Egyptian police brawl with pissed off protesters

http://dailybail.com/home/raw-clip-egyptian-police-brawl-with-pissed-off-protesters.html

Watch the older guy battle the riot police thugs...

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