Tuesday, April 26, 2011

33 Ways to Encourage Atlas to Shrug

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SurvivalBlog.com

Ayn Rand's 1957 novel "Atlas Shrugged" is enjoying renewed popularity following the release of the new Atlas Shrugged movie. Rand's story describes a group of American industrialists that lose patience with onerous regulation and taxation, and "shrug"--disappearing from their normal lives to relocate to a hidden valley called Galt's Gulch. While this tale is fictional, it has some strong parallels to modern-day America. And despite the fact that Ayn Rand was an atheist and favored legalized abortion, she was a good judge of both character and the inevitable tendencies of elected governments. When I consider the regulatory and tax burdens that have been implemented in my lifetime--I was born in 1960--I believe that Rand had amazing prescience. Let's face it: We no longer live in a free market capitalist nation. At best, it could called a "mixed" economy with statist tendencies, and verging on socialism.

Reading the news headlines in recent months has led me to believe that the Galt's Gulch concept has a lot of merit. If The Powers That Be wanted to encourage the Atlases of the world to shrug, they couldn't have done a better job. What is the best way to get the most productive Citizens of our nation to go on strike, and retreat to "gulches"? Consider the following "to do" list for those whom Ayn Rand called "The Destroyers":
  1. Remove the homeowner's mortgage interest tax deduction. Yes, they're pushing for it.
  2. Reinstate the Federal estate tax and pre-Bush Administration income tax levels. They want to impose the old tax rates on anyone with an income of $250,000. Oh, and the CBO's budget predictions are all using the assumption that the 2001 tax cuts are reverted. Is this wishful thinking (to make the increases in the Federal debt not look quite so bad), or a fait accompli?
  3. Nationalize IRAs and 401(k)s. Yes, its under discussion.
  4. Increase taxes for unemployment-insurance funds. This is already in progress.
  5. Drag out approval of new mining operations with endless Environmental Impact studies. They're already doing it.
  6. Inflate the currency to rob those who save money--a hidden form of taxation. Standard practice for 40 years.
  7. Drag out approval of newly-developed medicines. Now the status quo.
  8. Push up the rates for "sin" taxes on tobacco, alcohol, and other items. Already implemented in 2010.
  9. Increase the Minimum Wage. Several states have done so, but even worse yet, some unions are pushing for more socialist "Living Wage" laws
  10. Raise import tariffs. Each new tariff causes problems. Didn't they ever hear Ben Stein's high school Economics lecture on the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? (OBTW, Ben Stein is now warning about an economic collapse.)
  11. Increase the tax paperwork burden by requiring "1099-MISC" reporting of all cash transactions over $600. (Attempted, but thankfully set aside for the time being.)
  12. Increase the cost of doing business through mandatory insurance. (The "labor burden" for an employee with a nominal salary of $17 per hour ($35,360 gross, annually) is an additional $20,029 per year.) Workman's compensation, in particular, is getting painfully expensive.
  13. Increase sales taxes. Several states have increased sales taxes, since 2009.
  14. Increase property taxes, as home values decline. Many counties have hiked their tax rates.
  15. Continue to increase the size of the government (and its debts). The Federal debt increases are looking inexorable.
  16. Push for increased mandatory employer-paid benefits for company employees like mandatory health insurance for part-time employees and European-style long term parental leave. Also, push toward excluding companies from government contracts unless they have expanded health care coverage.
  17. Mandate payment of state sales taxes on out-of-state purchases for Internet and mail orders. Yes, they're still pushing for these taxes, and for regulation of the entire Internet.
  18. Create a pervasive Nanny State mentality. For example: penalize companies and consumers for high trans-fat foods, and alcoholic beverages that taste too good.
  19. Sue the makers of guns that actually work just as they were designed. (At least a partial law shield law was enacted, in 2005.)
  20. Use taxpayer funds to destroy classic cars that are in running condition, while subsidizing hybrid cars that use batteries that will pollute landfills for centuries.
  21. Over-regulate small firms out of business. Dry cleaners are a prime example.
  22. Fine farmers and ranchers for using traditional practices.
  23. Create a European-style Value Added Tax (VAT). Yes, they're still pushing for it.
  24. Legislate expansion of company-paid health insurance to cover everything from same sex "domestic partners" and autism to sex change operations.
  25. Lobby for mandating that companies pay for three weeks of paid vacation per year for all employees.
  26. Institute dozens of unfunded mandates from the Federal level, that must be compensated for with higher state, county, and local taxes.
  27. Increase license, permit, and vehicle registration fees. In progress. Meanwhile, institute "temporary" tax increases. These surtaxes on income, sales, or real property are described as "temporary." (But don't be surprised if they are not repealed.)
  28. Providing free education to illegal immigrants while levying taxes on home schooling families for services that they don't use.
  29. Make it illegal for owners to protect their livestock from predators.
  30. Remove the salary cap on Social Security tax "contributions". The liberal think tanks are pushing for it.
  31. Encourage a litigious society where huge lawsuits are filed over trifles, and where the makers of products can be sued even if product buyers intentionally misuse products.
  32. Implement carbon taxes and credits. Still in early stages of implementation.
  33. And lastly, the big one: Implement socialized medicine. Despite a strong public outcry, it is now Federal law. But thankfully there is a push to rescind part or all of it.
The shrugging and gulching has already begun...
Reading the foregoing might have you inspired to find your own Galt's Gulch. Although I admit a personal bias, one practical option that I can suggest is the American Redoubt. (I'm the originator of the plan.) The Redoubt region is inside of the continental United States, so moving there is much more realistic than moving offshore--at least for most of us.
Many folks are now ready to vote with their feet. Atlas is starting to shrug.

American Hellholes

The U.S. economy is dying and we are heading for the next Great Depression. The talking heads in the mainstream media love to spin the economic numbers around and around and they love to make it sound like the economy is improving, but the truth is that it doesn't take a genius to see what is happening to the U.S. economic system. All over the nation many of our greatest cities are being slowly but surely transformed into post-apocalyptic wastelands. All over the mid-Atlantic, all along the Gulf coast, all throughout the "rust belt" and all over the entire state of California cities that once had incredibly vibrant economies are being turned into rotting, post-industrial hellholes. In many U.S. cities, the "real" rate of unemployment is over 30 percent. There are some communities that will start depressing you almost the moment that you drive into them. It is almost as if all of the hope has been sucked right out of those communities. If you live in one of those American hellholes you know what I am talking about. Sadly, it is not just a few cities that are becoming hellholes. This is happening in the east, in the west, in the north and in the south. America is literally being transformed right in front of our eyes.

If you still live in an area of the United States that is prosperous, do not mock the cities that you are about to read about. The cold, hard reality of the matter is that economic decline and economic despair are spreading rapidly and they will come to your area soon enough. Right now we are still talking about "American hellholes", but if the long-term economic trends that are destroying this nation are not turned around eventually we will just be talking about one gigantic "American hellhole". In the end, no area of the country will completely escape the economic hell that is coming.

Let's take a closer look at what is currently happening in some of the worst areas of the country....

Detroit, Michigan

In the city of Detroit today, there are over 33,000 abandoned houses, 70 schools are being permanently closed down, the mayor wants to bulldoze one-fourth of the city and you can literally buy a house for one dollar in the worst areas.

During the boom days of the 1950s, Detroit was a teeming metropolis of approximately 2 million people, but today the current population is less than half that. The city of Detroit, once a shining example of middle class America, is now a rotting cesspool of economic decline and it actually saw its population decline by 25 percent during the decade that recently ended. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Detroit lost a resident every 22 minutes between the years of 2000 and 2010.

So why are people leaving Detroit so rapidly?

There simply are no jobs.

At the height of the economic downturn, the mayor of Detroit admitted that while the "official" unemployment rate in Detroit was about 27 percent, the "real" unemployment rate in his city was actually somewhere around 50 percent.

Since there are not enough jobs, that also means that not enough tax money is coming in. Detroit is essentially insolvent at this point.

Detroit officials are trying to implement some austerity measures in a desperate attempt to get city finances under control.

For example, the state of Michigan recently granted approval to a plan that would shut down nearly half of the public schools in Detroit. Under the plan, 70 schools will be closed and 72 will continue operating.

It has been estimated that the remaining public schools will have class sizes of up to 60 students.

Detroit Mayor Dave Bing also wants to cut off 20 percent of the entire city from police and trash services in order to save money.

Essentially that would mean abandoning 20 percent of the city of Detroit to the gangs and to the homeless.

The mayor of Detroit has also discussed a plan in which authorities would bulldoze one-fourth of the city in order to save money on services.

So with all of this going on, is Detroit a pleasant place to live at this point?

No way.

Today, Detroit is considered to be the third most violent city in the United States.

In fact, crime has gotten so bad and the citizens are so frustrated by the lack of police assistance that they have resorted to forming their own organizations to fight back. One group, known as "Detroit 300", was formed after a 90-year-old woman on Detroit's northwest side was brutally raped in August.

If you want to see what the future of America looks like, just take a few hours and go driving through Detroit some time. But please only do this during the day. Do not do this at night. Detroit is not a safe place anymore, and you cannot count on the police to help you in a timely manner.

Detroit was once one of the greatest cities in the world.

But today it is an absolute hellhole.

Camden, New Jersey

So is there any place in America that is worse than Detroit?

Well, many would nominate Camden, New Jersey.

Many years ago, Camden was actually thriving and prosperous. But today the city of Camden is known as "the second most dangerous city in America".

In a recent article entitled "City of Ruins", Chris Hedges did an amazing job of documenting the horrific decline of Camden. Hedges estimates that the real rate of unemployment in Camden is somewhere around 30 to 40 percent, and he makes it sound like nobody in their right mind would want to live there now....

Camden is where those discarded as human refuse are dumped, along with the physical refuse of postindustrial America. A sprawling sewage treatment plant on forty acres of riverfront land processes 58 million gallons of wastewater a day for Camden County. The stench of sewage lingers in the streets. There is a huge trash-burning plant that releases noxious clouds, a prison, a massive cement plant and mountains of scrap metal feeding into a giant shredder. The city is scarred with several thousand decaying abandoned row houses; the skeletal remains of windowless brick factories and gutted gas stations; overgrown vacant lots filled with garbage and old tires; neglected, weed-filled cemeteries; and boarded-up store fronts.

Gangs have stepped into the gaping void left by industry. In Camden today, drugs and prostitution are two of the only viable businesses left - especially for those who cannot find employment anywhere else. The following is how Hedges describes the current state of affairs....

There are perhaps a hundred open-air drug markets, most run by gangs like the Bloods, the Latin Kings, Los Nietos and MS-13. Knots of young men in black leather jackets and baggy sweatshirts sell weed and crack to clients, many of whom drive in from the suburbs. The drug trade is one of the city's few thriving businesses. A weapon, police say, is never more than a few feet away, usually stashed behind a trash can, in the grass or on a porch.

But before we all start judging Camden for being such a horrible place to live, it is important to realize that this is happening in communities from coast to coast. All over the United States industries are leaving and deep social decay is setting in.

Even the criminals in Camden are struggling. Things have gotten so bad in Camden, New Jersey that not even the drug dealers are spending their money anymore.

So where are the police?

Unfortunately, there is very little money for police. Authorities in Camden recently decided to lay off half of the city police force.

So now the gangs and the drug dealers have more room to operate.

Sadly, this is not just happening in Camden. It is happening all over New Jersey.

Of 315 municipalities the New Jersey State Police union recently surveyed, more than half indicated that they were planning to lay off police officers.

So why doesn't the state government step in and help out?

Well, the state of New Jersey is in such bad shape that they still are facing a $10 billion budget deficit for this year even after cutting a billion dollars from the education budget and laying off thousands of teachers.

New Jersey also has $46 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and $65 billion in unfunded health care liabilities. Nobody is quite sure how New Jersey is even going to come close to meeting those obligations.

Meanwhile, cities like Camden are rotting a little bit more every single day.

New Orleans, Louisiana

New Orleans had a struggling economy even before Hurricane Katrina struck back in 2005. But that event changed everything. It is now almost 6 years later and virtually the entire region is still a disaster zone.

New Orleans permanently lost 29% of its population after Hurricane Katrina. There are many areas of New Orleans that still look as if they have just been bombed.

21.5 percent of all houses in New Orleans, Louisiana are currently standing vacant. Many of those homes will never be inhabited again.

What made things even worse for New Orleans (and for residents all along the Gulf coast) was the horrific BP oil spill last year. The mainstream news does not talk about the oil spill much anymore, but those living in the area have to deal with the effects every single day.

Some of the industries in the Gulf region were really starting to recover from Hurricane Katrina but the BP oil spill put a stop to that.

Before the oil spill, Louisiana produced more fish and seafood than anywhere in the United States except for Alaska. But now the seafood industry has been absolutely devastated. It has been estimated that the cost of the BP oil spill to the fishing industry in Louisiana alone could top 3 billion dollars.

Some local shrimpers in the region are projecting that it will be about seven years before they can set to sea again.

New Orleans keeps trying to bounce back from all of these disasters, but times are tough down there.

Today, New Orleans is the 13th most violent city in America. That is actually an improvement. Before Katrina New Orleans had even more violent crime.

The truth is that other areas along the Gulf coast are doing a lot worse than New Orleans is doing. A ton of big corporate money has flowed into New Orleans. Officials are trying to clean up the city and make it a huge tourist destination once again.

But in the surrounding areas things are not looking so bright. There are areas along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the panhandle of Florida that are some of the most depressing places in the nation.

It is almost as if there are hundreds of thousands of people that time forgot. In some rural areas along the Gulf coast the poverty is absolutely mind blowing. There are very few jobs and there is very little hope. Meanwhile, large numbers of people in the region continue to get sick from the toxic dispersants used to clean up the oil spill.

Let us hope that we don't see another major disaster in the Gulf of Mexico any time soon. As it is, it is going to take decades for that region to fully recover. There are a lot of really good people that live down there, and they deserve our prayers.

Vallejo, California (And Virtually The Rest Of The State Of California)

Almost the entire state of California is an economic disaster zone. Austerity measures are being implemented in city after city as tax revenues have nosedived.

The following is an excerpt from a recent New York Times article that describes the brutal austerity that has been implemented in Vallejo, California....

Vallejo is still in bankruptcy. The police force has shrunk from 153 officers to 92. Calls for any but the most serious crimes go unanswered. Residents who complain about prostitutes or vandals are told to fill out a form. Three of the city’s firehouses were closed. Last summer, a fire ravaged a house in one of the city’s better neighborhoods; one of the firetrucks came from another town, 15 miles away. Is this America’s future?

Sadly, that is what the future of America is going to look like. Public services are being slashed all over the nation due to budget crunches.

Unless there is a major jobs recovery, the situation in California is going to continue to degenerate. The truth is that the state of California needs millions and millions of new jobs just to get back to "normal". For example, near the end of last year it was reported that 24.3 percent of the residents of El Centro, California were unemployed. Not only that, as of the end of last year the number of people unemployed in the state of California was approximately equivalent to the entire populations of Nevada, New Hampshire and Vermont combined.

Businesses are closing in California at an astounding pace. At one point last year it was reported that in the area around Sacramento, California there was one closed business for every six that were still open.

As a result of all of this, home prices in many areas of California have completely fallen off a cliff. For example, the average home in Merced, California has declined in value by 63 percent over the past four years.

California also had more foreclosure filings that any other U.S. state in 2010. The 546,669 total foreclosure filings during the year means that over 4 percent of all the housing units in the state of California received a foreclosure filing at some point during 2010.

Sadly, things don't look like they are going to turn around in California any time soon. Forbes recently compiled a list entitled "Cities Where The Economy May Get Worse".

Six of the top seven spots were held by cities in California.

California is becoming a very frightening place. When you combine high unemployment with unchecked illegal immigration what you get is rampant poverty.

20 percent of the residents of Los Angeles County are now receiving public aid of one form or another.

In particular, the number of children that are considered to be in need of public assistance is truly scary.

Incredibly, 60 percent of all the students attending California public schools now qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches.

Poverty and illegal immigration have also caused a tremendous health care crisis in the state. The hordes of illegal aliens taking advantage of "free" medical care at hospital emergency rooms have caused dozens of hospitals across the state of California to completely shut down. As a result, the state of California now ranks dead last out of all 50 states in the number of emergency rooms per million people.

The bozos in Sacramento keep passing hundreds of new laws in an attempt to "fix" the state, but the truth is that for the poorest residents of the state all of those new laws don't make a shred of difference.

The following is how Victor Davis Hansen describes what he saw during his recent tour of the "forgotten areas of central California"....

Many of the rural trailer-house compounds I saw appear to the naked eye no different from what I have seen in the Third World . There is a Caribbean look to the junked cars, electric wires crisscrossing between various outbuildings, plastic tarps substituting for replacement shingles, lean-tos cobbled together as auxiliary housing, pit bulls unleashed, and geese, goats, and chickens roaming around the yards. The public hears about all sorts of tough California regulations that stymie business - rigid zoning laws, strict building codes, constant inspections - but apparently none of that applies out here.

Hansen also says that he observed that people in these areas are doing whatever they can to get by....

At crossroads, peddlers in a counter-California economy sell almost anything. Here is what I noticed at an intersection on the west side last week: shovels, rakes, hoes, gas pumps, lawnmowers, edgers, blowers, jackets, gloves, and caps. The merchandise was all new. I doubt whether in high-tax California sales taxes or income taxes were paid on any of these stop-and-go transactions.

In two supermarkets 50 miles apart, I was the only one in line who did not pay with a social-service plastic card (gone are the days when "food stamps" were embarrassing bulky coupons).

Are you frightened yet?

You know what they say - "as goes California, so goes the nation".

What is happening in California now is eventually going to come to your area.

Right now California is also having a huge problem with gangs. Gang violence in America is getting totally out of control. According to authorities, there are now over 1 million members of criminal gangs operating inside the country, and those gangs are responsible for up to 80% of the violent crimes committed in the U.S. each year.

But instead of ramping up to fight crime and fight illegal immigration, police forces all over California are being cut back.

For example, because of extreme budget cuts and police layoffs, Oakland, California Police Chief Anthony Batts has announced that there are a number of crimes that his department simply will no longer respond to due to a lack of resources. The following is a partial list of the crimes that police officers in Oakland will no longer be responding to....

  • burglary
  • theft
  • embezzlement
  • grand theft
  • grand theft: dog
  • identity theft
  • false information to peace officer
  • required to register as sex or arson offender
  • dump waste or offensive matter
  • loud music
  • possess forged notes
  • pass fictitious check
  • obtain money by false voucher
  • fraudulent use of access cards
  • stolen license plate
  • embezzlement by an employee
  • extortion
  • attempted extortion
  • false personification of other
  • injure telephone/power line
  • interfere with power line
  • unauthorized cable tv connection
  • vandalism

Not that Oakland wasn't already a mess before all this, but now how long do you think it will be before total chaos and anarchy reigns on the streets of Oakland?

Today, Oakland is considered the 5th most violent city in the United States.

Will it soon become the most violent?

But Oakland is not the only major California city that is facing these kinds of issues.

Things have gotten so bad in Stockton, California that the police union put up a billboard with the following message: "Welcome to the 2nd most dangerous city in California. Stop laying off cops."

Already the police force in Stockton has been stripped down to almost nothing.

A while back, the Stockton Police Department dropped this bombshell....

"We absolutely do not have any narcotics officers, narcotics sergeants working any kind of investigative narcotics type cases at this point in time."

Do you think drug dealers will be flocking to Stockton after they hear that?

California was once the envy of the world.

Now it is becoming one gigantic hellhole.

During one recent 23 year period, the state of California built 23 prisons but just one university.

So is there any hope for California?

No, unfortunately there is not.

In another article, I wrote about some of the reasons why millions of people have been leaving California for good....

Meanwhile, the standard of living in California is going right into the toilet. Housing values are plummeting. Unemployment has risen above 20 percent in many areas of the state. Crime and gang activity is on the rise even as police budgets are being hacked to the bone. The health care system is an absolute disaster. At this point California has the fewest emergency rooms per million people out of all 50 states. While all of this has been going on, the state legislature in Sacramento has been very busy passing hundreds of new laws that are mostly about promoting one radical agenda or another. The state government has become so radically anti-business that it is a wonder that any businesses have remained in the state. It seems like the moving vans never stop as an endless parade of businesses and families leave California as quickly as they can.

But this is not just a "California thing". The truth is that what is happening in California, in Detroit, in Camden and in hundreds of other communities is also going to happen where you live.

The U.S. economy is slowly dying. Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year. That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in U.S. history.

People are getting desperate. There are ten percent fewer middle class jobs than there were a decade ago and the competition for good jobs has become insane. More than 44 million Americans are now on food stamps and that number grows every single month. Millions more American families fall into poverty every single year.

It is time to face the truth about what is happening to America. Our economy is not growing and becoming stronger. Rather, the cold, hard reality of the matter is that our economy is very sick and it is dying. The seemingly boundless prosperity that we have enjoyed for decade after decade is coming to an end. Our communities are being transformed into absolute hellholes.

Those that are telling you that the U.S. economy will soon be better than ever are lying to you. The U.S. economy is going to go down and it is going to go down hard.

You better get ready.

Precious Metals Storage Scam: 'Sorry, Delivery Is Not Possible'

If you’ve been investing in precious metals then you’ve likely made a pretty decent profit on your wealth preservation investment over the last several years. With the popularity of precious metals increasing exponentially as the economic crisis and geopolitical climate heats up, investors looking for protection against inflation and instability have been pouring into precious metals ETFs, stocks, contracts, and pool accounts. For many, the physical metal has become the investment vehicle of choice, but a large portion of investors, especially large buyers, choose to store those metals with their brokers/dealers.

When all hell finally breaks loose, and it’s time to finally sell those assets and trade them in for either paper currency, real estate or other investments, how sure are you that you will be able to take physical delivery of the metals you’ve purchased?

Bill Cramer of St. Louis was pretty confident everything was on the up-and-up. He purchased 5000 ounces of silver back in 2003 for a spot price of $4.94 and stored them with an east coast broker. When he was discussing his holdings with his coin dealer, the dealer dared him to try and take delivery of the metal.

Bill took him up on that dare and contacted his broker requesting to take delivery of his supposed physical metal holdings, for which he had been paying storage fees for years. As you may have guessed, the broker advised him that physically delivering the metals was not possible:


So, I took his dare, I called them up, it was June of last year. The metal I had purchased in January of ’03. I said “I’d really like to take delivery of my metal – the five thousand ounces.” They go “well, that’s not possible.” And, I go “well, I’ve been paying storage fees since January of ’03, what do you mean I can’t take delivery.”

“Well, it’s part of the account. It’s called a pool account. And, you don’t take delivery, you just participate in the appreciation.”

So I immediately sold that 5000 ounces at $18.33 and I had my cell phone in my hand and I immediately purchased 2500 silver eagles at $18.41 and that’s how I reconciled the problem of not being able to take delivery of my physical metal from a brokerage account.

Source: CNBC

If you’re holding metals outside of your immediate possession (i.e. in a safe deposit box, with a family member, an off premises safe or a hole in your backyard), then we strongly suggest you understand what your investment is and is not. If it’s paper, understand that if and when the swindle in paper markets for precious metals is finally understood by mainstream investors, and the paper assets collapse, you will likely be left with nothing.

If you happened to recently purchase $1 billion dollars in gold and have it “safely” stored in a New York bank several thousand miles away, you may want to think twice about whether or not that metal is actually stored, in physical form, or if it’s just another paper swap. If there’s one group of people who have no scruples whatsoever when it comes to the investments and life savings of individuals for whom they manage funds, it’s New York firms and brokers.

Be forewarned and forearmed.

Reprinted from SHTF Plan.

April 25, 2011

Mac Slavo [send him mail] is a small business owner and independent investor.

Copyright © 2011 Mac Slavo

Copper Crimes: Worldwide Theft of Copper on the Increase

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Forget about China’s slight dip in demand for copper – the red metal is still red hot all over the world. So hot that copper crimes undeniably rising more than ever. So hot, even, that three whole nations suffered Internet outages due to the desirability of copper.

Surely you’ve read or heard about the funniest instance (yet with the most widespread fallout) of copper scrapping involved 75-year-old Hayastan Shakarian (above) from the village of Armazi who, according to police, was trying to root up copper scrap to sell for extra money. Instead of finding copper, this enterprising lady effectively cut through a fiber optic cable with her shovel – which cut off Internet service to 90 percent of Armenian users for almost 12 hours, and blacked out the web in parts of Georgia and Azerbaijan too, according to Fox News.

“I have no idea what the Internet is,” she is quoted as having told AFP.

The Fox News report mentioned that copper “looting” is a common way to make money in the former USSR, with scavengers successfully unearthing hundreds of meters of copper cable. But it’s not just the former Soviet Union scavengers that are making the news.

Just before Christmas last year in Barkestone le Vale, Leicestershire, England, thieves stole away with copper scrap worth nearly $500 in today’s prices from a farm in the middle of the day. (Police noted that a vehicle would have been necessary to haul the loot.) A month before that, AT&T offered a $3,000 reward for information on the copper-stealing scoundrels in the Atlanta area whose shenanigans cost 7,000 customers and two schools their phone line service. And just this week in Wichita, Kan., police assessed $200,000 worth of damage after someone broke into two empty warehouses and stripped the copper fixtures and wiring. Things are so bad that legislators in Virginia, for example, moved to change state scrap yard laws to protect “precious metals” early this year. (A hilariously all-inclusive definition was put forth in trying to tackle this vexing problem: “Precious metals include steel, copper wire, aluminum, brass bearings, light and gas fixtures, locks, lead and brass water pipes and all kinds of raw materials and construction equipment.” So literally everything and the kitchen sink, then?)

Of course, with the LME price at about $9,355 per ton this week (roughly $4.20 a pound on the COMEX), folks shouldn’t let copper just pass them by. That’s why several sources actually give copper seekers and scavengers the inside scoop on how to get their hands on it. Clearly, an eHow page exists, titled “How to Find Scrap Copper,” complete with five-step instructions. Associated Content also provides an entry called “Places to Find Scrap Copper” (sample line: “Try to hit the trash routes in the early evening as people are putting out trash and others have yet to pick through it”).

So the lessons here are evident: Keep an eye on your copper if you own it or build with it, and if you want to make a couple extra bucks, start your search with unguarded junk cars or curbside trash – just don’t cut my Internet, OK?

By. Taras Berezowsky

(www.agmetalminer.com) MetalMiner is the largest metals-related media site in the US according to third party ranking sites. With a preemptive global perspective on the issues, trends, strategies, and trade policies that will impact how you source and/or trade metals and related metals services, MetalMiner provides unique insight, analysis, and tools for buyers, purchasing professionals, and everyone else for whom metals and their related markets matter.

IMF bombshell: Age of America nears end

Commentary: China’s economy will surpass the U.S. in 2016

By Brett Arends, MarketWatch

This column has been updated to include a reaction from the IMF.

BOSTON (MarketWatch) — The International Monetary Fund has just dropped a bombshell, and nobody noticed.

For the first time, the international organization has set a date for the moment when the “Age of America” will end and the U.S. economy will be overtaken by that of China.

IMF sees China topping U.S. in 2016

According to the latest IMF official forecasts, China's economy will surpass that of America in real terms in 2016 — just five years from now. Brett Arends looks at the implications for the U.S. dollar and the Treasury market.

And it’s a lot closer than you may think.

According to the latest IMF official forecasts, China’s economy will surpass that of America in real terms in 2016 — just five years from now.

Put that in your calendar.

It provides a painful context for the budget wrangling taking place in Washington right now. It raises enormous questions about what the international security system is going to look like in just a handful of years. And it casts a deepening cloud over both the U.S. dollar and the giant Treasury market, which have been propped up for decades by their privileged status as the liabilities of the world’s hegemonic power.

More China news: U.S., China to hold economic talks in early May, Shanghai hit by tightening, China 2011 trade surplus may shrink to 2% of GDP

According to the IMF forecast, which was quietly posted on the Fund’s website just two weeks ago, whoever is elected U.S. president next year — Obama? Mitt Romney? Donald Trump? — will be the last to preside over the world’s largest economy.

Most people aren’t prepared for this. They aren’t even aware it’s that close. Listen to experts of various stripes, and they will tell you this moment is decades away. The most bearish will put the figure in the mid-2020s.

China’s economy will be the world’s largest within five years or so.

But they’re miscounting. They’re only comparing the gross domestic products of the two countries using current exchange rates.

That’s a largely meaningless comparison in real terms. Exchange rates change quickly. And China’s exchange rates are phony. China artificially undervalues its currency, the renminbi, through massive intervention in the markets.

The comparison that really matters

In addition to comparing the two countries based on exchange rates, the IMF analysis also looked to the true, real-terms picture of the economies using “purchasing power parities.” That compares what people earn and spend in real terms in their domestic economies.

Under PPP, the Chinese economy will expand from $11.2 trillion this year to $19 trillion in 2016. Meanwhile the size of the U.S. economy will rise from $15.2 trillion to $18.8 trillion. That would take America’s share of the world output down to 17.7%, the lowest in modern times. China’s would reach 18%, and rising.

Just 10 years ago, the U.S. economy was three times the size of China’s.

Naturally, all forecasts are fallible. Time and chance happen to them all. The actual date when China surpasses the U.S. might come even earlier than the IMF predicts, or somewhat later. If the great Chinese juggernaut blows a tire, as a growing number fear it might, it could even delay things by several years. But the outcome is scarcely in doubt.

This is more than a statistical story. It is the end of the Age of America. As a bond strategist in Europe told me two weeks ago, “We are witnessing the end of America’s economic hegemony.”

We have lived in a world dominated by the U.S. for so long that there is no longer anyone alive who remembers anything else. America overtook Great Britain as the world’s leading economic power in the 1890s and never looked back.

And both those countries live under very similar rules of constitutional government, respect for civil liberties and the rights of property. China has none of those. The Age of China will feel very different.

Victor Cha, senior adviser on Asian affairs at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, told me China’s neighbors in Asia are already waking up to the dangers. “The region is overwhelmingly looking to the U.S. in a way that it hasn’t done in the past,” he said. “They see the U.S. as a counterweight to China. They also see American hegemony over the last half-century as fairly benign. In China they see the rise of an economic power that is not benevolent, that can be predatory. They don’t see it as a benign hegemony.”

The rise of China, and the relative decline of America, is the biggest story of our time. You can see its implications everywhere, from shuttered factories in the Midwest to soaring costs of oil and other commodities. Last fall, when I attended a conference in London about agricultural investment, I was struck by the number of people there who told stories about Chinese interests snapping up farmland and foodstuff supplies — from South America to China and elsewhere.

This is the result of decades during which China has successfully pursued economic policies aimed at national expansion and power, while the U.S. has embraced either free trade or, for want of a better term, economic appeasement.

“There are two systems in collision,” said Ralph Gomory, research professor at NYU’s Stern business school. “They have a state-guided form of capitalism, and we have a much freer former of capitalism.” What we have seen, he said, is “a massive shift in capability from the U.S. to China. What we have done is traded jobs for profit. The jobs have moved to China. The capability erodes in the U.S. and grows in China. That’s very destructive. That is a big reason why the U.S. is becoming more and more polarized between a small, very rich class and an eroding middle class. The people who get the profits are very different from the people who lost the wages.”

The next chapter of the story is just beginning.

U.S. spending spree won’t work

What the rise of China means for defense, and international affairs, has barely been touched on. The U.S. is now spending gigantic sums — from a beleaguered economy — to try to maintain its place in the sun. See: Pentagon spending is budget blind spot .

It’s a lesson we could learn more cheaply from the sad story of the British, Spanish and other empires. It doesn’t work. You can’t stay on top if your economy doesn’t.

Equally to the point, here is what this means economically, and for investors.

Some years ago I was having lunch with the smartest investor I know, London-based hedge-fund manager Crispin Odey. He made the argument that markets are reasonably efficient, most of the time, at setting prices. Where they are most likely to fail, though, is in correctly anticipating and pricing big, revolutionary, “paradigm” shifts — whether a rise of disruptive technologies or revolutionary changes in geopolitics. We are living through one now.

The U.S. Treasury market continues to operate on the assumption that it will always remain the global benchmark of money. Business schools still teach students, for example, that the interest rate on the 10-year Treasury bond is the “risk-free rate” on money. And so it has been for more than a century. But that’s all based on the Age of America.

No wonder so many have been buying gold. If the U.S. dollar ceases to be the world’s sole reserve currency, what will be? The euro would be fine if it acts like the old deutschemark. If it’s just the Greek drachma in drag ... not so much.

The last time the world’s dominant hegemon lost its ability to run things singlehandedly was early in the past century. That’s when the U.S. and Germany surpassed Great Britain. It didn’t turn out well.

Updated with IMF reaction

The International Monetary Fund has responded to my article.

In a statement sent to MarketWatch, the IMF confirmed the report, but challenged my interpretation of the data. Comparing the U.S. and Chinese economies using “purchase-power-parity,” it argued, “is not the most appropriate measure… because PPP price levels are influenced by nontraded services, which are more relevant domestically than globally.”

The IMF added that it prefers to compare economies using market exchange rates, and that under this comparison the U.S. “is currently 130% bigger than China, and will still be 70% larger by 2016.”

My take?

The IMF is entitled to make its case. But its argument raises more questions than it answers.

First, no one measure is perfect. Everybody knows that.

But that’s also true of the GDP figures themselves. Hurricane Katrina, for example, added to the U.S. GDP, because it stimulated a lot of economic activity — like providing emergency relief, and rebuilding homes. Is there anyone who seriously thinks Katrina was a net positive for the United States? All statistics need caveats.

Second, comparing economies using simple exchange rates, as the IMF suggests, raises huge problems.

Currency markets fluctuate. They represent international money flows, not real output.

The U.S. dollar has fallen nearly 10% against the euro so far this year. Does anyone suggest that the real size of the U.S. economy has shrunk by 10% in comparison with Europe over that period? The idea is absurd.

China actively suppresses the renminbi on the currency markets through massive dollar purchases. As a result the renminbi is deeply undervalued on the foreign-exchange markets. Just comparing the economies on their exchange rates misses that altogether.

Purchasing power parity is not a perfect measure. None exists. But it measures the output of economies in terms of real goods and services, not just paper money. That’s why it’s widely used to compare economies. The IMF publishes PPP data. So does the OECD. Many economists rely on them.

Brett Arends is a senior columnist for MarketWatch and a personal-finance columnist for The Wall Street Journal.

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The Counterfeiters

Suppose you were a counterfeiter and were given the right to print all money in the United States with the sole proviso that you could not directly buy anything. You were only allowed to pass it onto an unsuspecting public by loaning it at interest to them or to their government. Your only source of income would be the interest you collected on all of the loans in America.

This means you would be given the same license to print money that the bankers gave themselves in 1913 when they created the Federal Reserve. You could transfer all wealth from those poor devils who had to work for a living to yourself because you had a license to print money.

Money is a commodity that measures the value of all other commodities and goods and services for sale. Prices are a ratio of money to everything for sale. For example, if we doubled the money supply but did not increase our output of goods and services, we might expect prices to also double.

Please note that when I say money I am not just talking about Federal Reserve Notes. The total money supply also includes checking account money which bankers create when you ask for a loan. If you get a loan for ten thousand dollars, the bank is not loaning you money from an old lady’s deposits. They are adding ten thousand dollars to the money supply by creating that amount of credit in your checking account. They are counterfeiting money.

Fractional reserve banking allows the bank to loan out money up to ten dollars for every dollar they have on deposit.

This is no longer quite true. JP Morgan allows $2,000 in risk for every dollar in capital. This has been allowed since the repeal of Glass Steagall in 1999. There are a couple of people in the House who want to re-instate Glass Steagall to no longer allow commercial banks to take the risks of investment banks. Those risks were covered by 27 trillion dollars in taxpayer bailouts to date. But the bankers own your government and your press so there is no risk to them of this bill passing the Congress and surviving a veto.

I need to point out one great flaw in this money making scheme. When you borrowed ten thousand dollars, the banker created an entry in his books and gave you a deposit of that amount in your checking account. At the end of the year he expects you to repay him the $10,000 plus say a thousand dollars in interest. The problem is that he only created enough money so you could pay him the principal and not the thousand dollars in interest. So where do you get the money to pay the interest? You don’t. The banker does.

What has to happen for everyone to be able to make their payments, is that the banker must create enough new money over the next year to pay the interest on all of the new loans made nationwide. And the following year they will have to do the same. Eventually, you will see just about everyone including the government facing a mountain of unpayable debt. This is what I call the Debt Bomb.

It is just as deadly as a nuclear weapon. When the Debt Bomb detonates, hundreds of millions of people worldwide are foreclosed, bankrupted, sent into unemployment and dire poverty.

At this point you might have a few questions: What kind of people would wreak such harm on humanity? Why wasn’t I told about this in school? Why haven’t our political leaders done anything to protect us? How have we gotten out of Debt Bombs in the past?

To answer these question I will begin by explaining to you why I chose the title The Counterfeiters for this essay. I borrowed the title from Andre Gide’s novel Les Faux Monnayeurs (The Counterfeiters.) In his novel Gide was not just talking about counterfeit money but more importantly about counterfeit human beings.

The people (Warburgs and Rothschilds) who created the Federal Reserve patterned it after the English and German central banks who both borrowed it from the Dutch. It seems that in 1348 the Italian banks failed from which we get the modern word bankruptcy. This is from the Italian for the rupture or breaking of the bench where the banker did business. The bankers would accept deposits in gold and made out checking account loans many times that amount. This lasted until the bankers became too greedy. and made too many loans. The bankers could not cover their deposits so the mobs chased them out of Italy. They settled in Holland where their evil system infected the modern world.

From time to time you might hear of the Black Nobility. They are called black because their deeds are evil not because they are from Africa. They also often wear the black robes of the Catholic church to whom they have been a burden. They trace their ancestry in part to Byzantine Emperor Leo IV whose mother was the Jewish Khazar princess Irene. The Black nobility also trace their origins to Venice and their failed banking systems. In 1348 they took refuge in Holland where centuries later they met the Rothschilds. The latter took control of the Bank of England in 1815 at the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars and in 1827 became bankers to the Vatican.

I would be remiss in not mentioning Jacob Frank, the satanic rabbi who declared himself to be a reincarnation of King David. He taught the doctrine of purification through transgression. Wife swapping (Festival of the Lambs) was a fundamental part of his doctrines and practices. He had many Jewish followers but was excommunicated for his acceptance of Christian writings. He was a satanist and was very poor until he reached Frankfurt, the banking capital of Germany.

The Black Nobility, which today includes most European royal families, the banking elite and others has in some way hijacked modern Judaism or rather Zionism to form what can only be described as a counterfeit ideology and culture. These are the Counterfeiters. They are a mixed multitude and are not all Jewish . Nor do all people of Jewish descent support the Counterfeiters.

I have said in the past that Jewish people must now side either with America or with Israel. Israel declared war against Americans on September 11, 2001. Israel did 911 as well as assassinate John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Martin Luther King. If you doubt me, leave a comment.

I will devote the remainder of this essay to describing how these Counterfeiters have in the past solved the banking and economic problems they created.

First, there is the Debt Bomb to solve. Unpaid interest accumulates exponentially until all commerce freezes and the economy grinds to a halt with tens of millions dying of starvation. The Counterfeiters have solved this problem in the past by canceling the debts through either inflation (1923 Weimar Republic) or deflation (1933 America.) There is a third alternative of debt cancellation developed by the Babylonians which has been described in detail by Michael Hudson. But it does not involve the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich and the infliction of suffering upon billions of people so it has been rejected by the Counterfeiters and the media they own. The Babylonians specifically noted the compound interest growth of debt and canceled them after a period of years. This was copied by the Bible writers who called it the Jubilee.

In the 19th century American bankers were caught circulating a letter which instructed all banks to stop making loans and to demand repayment on a specific day. This was intended to cause a financial panic and allow the bankers to buy America for pennies on the dollar.

Whether we have a super inflation in America or a drastic deflation to cancel the Debt Bomb, it will transfer all wealth from us to them. I have described this process before in the essay Blythe Masters Blows Up The World. http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/videos-blythe-maters-blows-up-the-world/

I revealed other means the bankers use to steal from us in my essay Stealing Money By The Trillions. http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/stealing-money-by-the-trillons/

The Counterfeiters know that the collapse of the dollar and mass starvation will lead to nationwide riots. These problems have been solved many times in the past. You can see the techniques they use to create a National Security State and to mire the world in perpetual war in my essays Zionism Undone http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2011/04/10/zionism-undone/
and Zionism Undone Part II http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/zionism-undone-part-ii/

I have proven Israel did 911. I said in order to eliminate all freedom in America, to exterminate all Muslims who object to Israeli occupation and war crimes and to launch World War III which the Counterfeiters hope America will lose. They do not want you to be able to demand the return of the tens of trillions of dollars the bankers stole from us.

I have written about 911 in the essays The Lies Reach Critical Mass.

http://vidrebel.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/the-lies-reach-critical-mass/

It is no secret that the dollar is collapsing in value daily and I would say by design though it is happening faster than the Counterfeiters would like. They think they need to stay in control as they lead us to World War III.

Our opponents are counterfeit people and lack humanity. This makes them cunning and vicious but also makes them easily detected by normal human beings during times of stress like war and economic collapse.

I believe we will win the upcoming struggle.

Hammer away these points.

Israel did 911.

Our banking system was designed to collapse with a Debt Bomb so all of our wealth could be taken by the bankers.

Israel and the bankers want America to launch WW III by attacking Iran.

Israel and the bankers want America to lose World War III after the USA has exterminated the Muslims and Israel has taken their oil.

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