Thursday, February 7, 2013

Something ‘Very Bad’ Will Happen In The Next 60 Days: A ‘Mysterious’ Trader Is Betting On It!


Before It’s News – by Live Free or Die
An ‘options trader’ has made a 11.25 million dollar ‘bet’ that something VERY BAD will happen within the next 60 days. What does this person know that we don’t? According to this story from Business Insider, WE ALL need to be VERY ALERT over the next two months.
Stocks have been rallying relentlessly to post-crisis highs.
Meanwhile, the volatility index (aka the VIX, aka the “fear index”) is near historic lows.
But according to UBS’s Art Cashin, some options trader has made an enormous $11.25 million bet that the VIX will explode higher very soon.
And a rally in the VIX is usually accompanied by a drop in the stock markets.
He then goes on to list some of the scheduled events and deadlines visible over the next 60 days (mostly in Washington).  When you add in the broad variety of geo-political possibilities, it’s a decent reason to stay extra alert.
Hopefully, this person is wrong.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/art-cashin-on-big-vix-bet-2013-2#ixzz2K8fEBcmC
For anyone who thinks this is ‘hogwash’, remember what happened prior to the MOSSAD led FALSE FLAG attacks upon America on 9/11. Are THEY setting us up for another fall? What do THEY have in store for us this time? Hey FBI, DHS, DOJ, CIA: HOPE YOU’RE WATCHING this unfolding and are going after the bad guys rather than participating in this evil, again!


Do Wall Street Insiders Expect Something Really BIG To Happen Very Soon?

by Michael
Do Wall Street Insiders Expect Something Really BIG To Happen Very Soon? - Photo by nosha on flickr
Why are corporate insiders dumping huge numbers of shares in their own companies right now?  Why are some very large investors suddenly making gigantic bets that the stock market will crash at some point in the next 60 days?  Do Wall Street insiders expect something really BIG to happen very soon?  Do they know something that we do not know? What you are about to read below is startling.  Every time that the market has fallen in recent years, insiders have been able to get out ahead of time.  David Coleman of the Vickers Weekly Insider report recently notedthat Wall Street insiders have shown “a remarkable ability of late to identify both market peaks and troughs”.  That is why it is so alarming that corporate insiders are selling nine times as many shares as they are buying right now.  In addition, some extraordinarily large bets have just been made that will only pay off if the financial markets in the U.S. crash by the end of April.  So what does all of this mean?  Well, it could mean absolutely nothing or it could mean that there are people out there that actually have insider knowledge that a market crash is coming.  Evaluate the evidence below and decide for yourself…
For some reason, corporate insiders have chosen this moment to unload huge amounts of stock.  According to a CNN article, corporate insiders are now selling nine times more of their own shares than they are buying…
Corporate insiders have one word for investors: sell.
Insiders were nine times more likely to sell shares of their companies than buy new ones last week, according to the Vickers Weekly Insider report by Argus Research.
What makes this so alarming is that corporate insiders have been exceedingly good at “timing the market” in recent years.  The following comes from a recent CNBC article entitled “Sucker Alert? Insider Selling Surges After Dow 14,000“…
“In almost perfect coordination with an equity market that was rushing toward new all-time highs, insider sentiment has weakened sharply — falling to its lowest level since late March 2012,” wrote David Coleman of the Vickers Weekly Insider report, one of the longest researchers of executive buying and selling on Wall Street. “Insiders are waving the cautionary flag in an increasingly aggressive manner.”
There have been more than nine insider sales for every one buy over the past week among NYSE stocks, according to Vickers. The last time executives sold their company’s stock this aggressively was in early 2012, just before the S&P 500 went on to correct by 10 percent to its low for the year.
“Insiders know more than the vast majority of market participants,” said Enis Taner, global macro editor for RiskReversal.com. “And they’re usually right over a long period of time.”
There are other indications that the stock market may be headed for a significant tumble in the months ahead.  For example, as a Zero Hedge article recently pointed out, the last time that the financial markets in the U.S. were as “euphoric” as they are now was right before the financial crisis of 2008.
And as I mentioned above, some people out there have recently made some absolutely jaw-dropping bets against stocks which will only pay off if there is a financial crash at some point in the next few months.
According to Business Insider, the recent purchase of 100,000 put options by a mystery investor has a lot of people on Wall Street talking…
According to Barron’s columnist Steven Sears,someone made a big bet against the financialsETF yesterday (ticker symbol XLF), and it has everybody buzzing.
The trader bought 100,000 put options on the ETF (a put option increases in value when the price of the underlying asset, in this case, the ETF, goes down).
To put that number in perspective, Sears writes, “Few investors ever trade more than 500 contracts, so a 100,000 order tends to stop traffic and prompt all sorts of speculation about what’s motivating the trade.” According to Sears, the trade “has sparked conversations across the market.”
Reportedly, those put options expire in April.
And as Art Cashin of UBS has noted, there was also another extremely large bet that was placed recently that is banking on a financial crash within the next two months…
A Very Big Bet In A Somewhat Unlikely Instrument – My friend, Jim Brown, the ever-alert consummate professional over at Option Investor pointed us to a rather unusual trade. Here’s what he wrote in last night’s edition of his valuable newsletter:
In past years I have reported on trades that were so large it appeared someone had inside knowledge of a pending event. Sometimes those were massive put positions on the S&P. A new trade just appeared that suggests there will be a market event in the near future. Last week somebody put on a call spread on the VIX using the April 20 and 25 puts. They bought 150,000 contracts for a net of $75 per contract. That is an $11,250,000 bet that the VIX will move over 20 over the next 60 days. You would have to be VERY confident in your outlook to risk $11 million on a directional position with the VIX at five year lows and the markets trying to break out to new highs.
So does all of this guarantee that the stock market is going to move a certain way?
Of course not.
But when you step back and look at the bigger picture, it does appear that Wall Street insiders are preparing for something.
Meanwhile, the government continues to assure us that happy days are here again for the U.S. economy and that we don’t have anything to worry about.
The Congressional Budget Office has just released a report that contains their outlook for the next decade.  The report is entitled “The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023″, and if you want a good laugh you should read it.
Here are some of the things that the CBO believes will happen…
-The CBO believes that government revenues will more than double by 2023.
-The CBO believes that government revenue as a percentage of GDP will rise from 15.8 percent today to 19.1 percent in 2023.


-The CBO believes that the unemployment rate will continually fall over the next decade.
-The CBO believes that the federal budget deficit will fall to just 2.4% of GDP in fiscal year 2015.
-The CBO believes that the federal budget deficit will only be $430 billion in 2015.
-The CBO believes that we will not have a single recession over the next decade.
-The CBO believes that inflation will stay at about 2 percent for the next decade.
-The CBO believes that U.S. GDP will grow by a total of 67 percent by 2023.
Wow, all of that sounds great until you go back and take a look at how CBO projections have fared in the past.
In fact, Bruce Krasting has gone back and looked at the numbers from the Congressional Budget Office’s Budget and Economic Outlook 2003.  I think that you will find the differences between the CBO projections and what really happened to be very humorous…
Estimated 10-year budget surplus = $5.6T.
Reality = $6.6T deficit. A 200+% miss.

Estimate for 2012 Debt Held by Public = $1.2T (5% of GDP).
Reality = Debt Held by Public = $11.6T. A 1000% miss.

Estimated fiscal 2012 GDP = $17.4T.
Reality = $15.8T. A $1.6T (10%) miss.
So should we trust what the CBO is telling us now?
Of course not.
Instead, perhaps we should listen to some of the men that successfully warned us about the last financial crisis…
-”Dr. Doom” Marc Faber recently stated that he “loves the high odds of a ‘big-time’ market crash“.
-Economist Nouriel Roubini says that we should “prepare for a perfect storm“.
-Pimco’s Bill Gross says that we are heading for a “credit supernova“.
-Nomura’s Bob Janjuah believes that the financial markets will experience one more huge spike before collapsing by up to 50%
I continue to believe that the S&P500 can trade up towards the 1575/1550 area, where we have, so far, a grand double top. I would not be surprised to see the S&P trade marginally through the 2007 all-time nominal high (the real high was of course seen over a decade ago – so much for equities as a long-term vehicle for wealth creation!). A weekly close at a new all-time high would I think lead to the final parabolic spike up which creates the kind of positioning extreme and leverage extreme needed to create the conditions for a 25% to 50% collapse in equities over the rest of 2013 and 2014, driven by real economy reality hitting home, and by policymaker failure/loss of faith in “their system”.
The truth is that no matter how much money printing the Federal Reserve does, it is only a matter of time before the financial markets catch up with economic reality.
The U.S. economy has been in decline for a very long time, and things just continue to get even worse.  Here are just a few numbers…
-The percentage of the civilian labor force that is employed has fallen every single year since 2006.
-According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, truly accurate numbers would show that U.S. GDP growth has actually been continuously negative all the way back to 2005.
-U.S. families that have a head of household that is under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.
-One recent survey found that nearly half of all Americans are living on the edge of financial ruin.
-According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are more than 146 million Americans that are considered to be either “poor” or “low income” at this point.
For many more statistics that demonstrate that the U.S. economy has continued to decline in recent years, please see this article: “37 Statistics Which Show How Four Years Of Obama Have Wrecked The U.S. Economy“.
So where is all of this headed?
Well, after the next major financial crisis in America things are going to get very tough.
We can get a hint for how things are going to be by taking a look at what is going on over in Europe right now.
Can you imagine people trampling each other for food?  That is what is happening in Greece.  Just check out this excerpt from a Reuters article
Hundreds of people jostled for free vegetables handed out by farmers in a symbolic protest earlier on Wednesday, trampling one man and prompting an outcry over the growing desperation created by economic crisis.
Images of people struggling to seize bags of tomatoes and leeks thrown from a truck dominated television, triggering a bout of soul-searching over the new depths of poverty in the debt-laden country.
The suffering that the Greeks are experiencing right now will come to this country soon enough.
So enjoy this false bubble of debt-fueled prosperity while you can.  It is going to end way too soon, and after that there will be a whole lot of pain.
Wall Street - Photo by Andrés Nieto Porras

ANONYMOUS Hacks The Federal Reserve!


Bernanke got hacked!
---
Are authorities sure it wasn't Jimmy Rogers and James Grant?
Though Anonymous claimed responsibility on Sunday during the Super Bowl, the Fed didn't confirm the attack until late yesterday, finally admitting it involved a database that belongs to the St. Louis Fed Emergency Communications System.
ZDNet
Sensitive data on more than 4,000 banking officials was compromised.  And in spite of the Fed’s attempts to minimize the damage, security experts say the hack poses serious risks.
Jon Waldmanm, vice-president of professional services at Secure Banking Solutions told ZDNet:  “The Federal Reserve is simply incorrect by saying there’s not account details on the list. I’ve seen that list and it is absolutely rife with account details.”
According to The Banker's Advocate, ECS is the emergency communications system for seventeen states, with plans to add seven new states this year.  ECS estimates it holds 40 percent of America's state-chartered banks as its users.
Sensitive information on thousands at state-charter banks and credit unions—including login information, credentials, IP addresses, and contact information—was listed in a spreadsheet and posted to a government site, then announced and claimed by the "Operation Last Resort" faction of Anonymous.
The page—with URL filename "oops-we-did-it-again"—remained accessible into early Monday morning PST. A cached version of the page was still available as of Tuesday afternoon, as well as a copy of the raw text placed on Pastebin at the time of the attack.
Read the full story at ZDNet...
***
Anonymous posted the following messages on Twitter during the Super Bowl.

---
Flashback: ANONYMOUS Targets The Fed
Video Communication #1 - Bernanke Must Step Down

On Monday ZDNet reported:
Anonymous Posts Personal Data On 4,600 U.S. Bank Executives
Anonymous published login and private information from over 4000 American bank executivesas part of Operation Last Resort, demanding US computer crime law reform.
Reuters Has Official Confirmation From The Fed...




This is NOT the first time:

Bernanke Got HACKED! - Man Arrested After Cracking Federal Reserve Bank & Stealing 400,000 CC Numbers

The War On Charity? - IRS Audits Of Non-Profts Up 79% - Economic 'Downer' On Rise - Stuart Varney | XRepublic

The War On Charity? - IRS Audits Of Non-Profts Up 79% - Economic 'Downer' On Rise - Stuart Varney | XRepublic

Green Man's Seedbank Update

This site is dedicated to medical marijuana users and all those who can use the information legally. Here you will find a list of honest seedbanks with ratings based on reports from buyers of cannabis seeds. This service has been in existence since Jan 1998.
  • The monthly update Seedbank listings with this month's commentary.
  • Strains a list of cannabis strains with descriptions.
  • ozone generator Plans for a home built ozone generator to combat odors
  • Cure Ways to cure your crop and give flavors
  • Links Grow information and pot friendly businesses
  • New New and unrated seedbanks
  • Aero clonerInstructions for a cheap do it yourself aerocloner
  • New book by Jorge Cervantes

PAUL HARVEY: So God Made A Banker



Paul Harvey narrates the Dodge Super Bowl Ad - So God Made A Farmer.
This is outstanding for anyone who hasn't seen it.
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And Brett Arends at marketwatch flips the script.
So God Made A Banker
And on the eighth day God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need someone who can flip this for a quick buck.”
So God made a banker.
God said, “I need someone who doesn’t grow anything or make anything but who will borrow money from the public at 0% interest and then lend it back to the public at 2% or 5% or 10% and pay himself a bonus for doing so.”
So God made a banker.
God said, “I need someone who will take money from the people who work and save, and use that money to create a dotcom bubble and a housing bubble and a stock bubble and an oil bubble and a commodities bubble and a bond bubble and another stock bubble, and then sell it to people in Poughkeepsie and Spokane and Bakersfield, and pay himself another bonus.”
So God made a banker.
God said, “I need someone to build homes in the swamps and deserts using shoddy materials and other people’s money, and then use these homes as collateral for a Ponzi scheme he can sell to pensioners in California and Michigan and Sweden. I need someone who will then foreclose on those homes, kick out the occupants, and switch off the air conditioning and the plumbing, and watch the houses turn back into dirt. And then pay himself another bonus.”
God said, “I need someone to lend money to people with bad credit at 30% interest in order to get his stock price up, and then, just before the loans turn bad, cash out his stock and walk away. And who, when asked later, will, with a tearful eye, say the government made him do it.”
God said, “And I need somebody who will tell everyone else to stand on their own two feet, but who will then run to the government for a bailout as soon as he gets into trouble — and who will then use that bailout money to help elect a Congress that will look the other way. And then pay himself another bonus.”
So God made a banker.

Layoffs Coming to DreamWorks Animation

DreamWorks Signs With Mr. Smith Entertainment For World Sales

An unspecified reduction in staff is planned in the wake of an expected write-down on the November release "Rise of the Guardians."

DreamWorks Animation will lay off staff in the wake of the weaker-than-expected performance of the studio's Rise of the Guardians and its announcement Tuesday that it will release two films in 2013 rather than three, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.


The layoffs, which have been rumored for weeks, are expected to hit the Glendale-based animation studio's production, technology and overhead functions. Sources say no single film project in development will be targeted, though DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg said in a statement Tuesday that the Kate Hudson-Josh Gad-voiced Me & My Shadow, which had been slated for release by Fox in March 2014, is being taken off the schedule indefinitely. Mr. Peabody & Sherman, which was set for a Nov. 1 release, now shifts to the March 7, 2014, slot.
"The move of Mr. Peabody & Sherman means that we will now release two films in 2013, and we are adjusting our operating infrastructure costs accordingly," Katzenberg said in a statement.
A DreamWorks Animation spokesperson declined to comment on whether layoffs will happen. But sources say plans for an unspecified reduction of the company's 2,000 or so employees already are afoot and should begin before the publicly traded studio reports earnings Feb. 26.
Guardians, released in the U.S. in November, grossed nearly $300 million worldwide in theaters but was considered a box-office disappointment due to its high production and marketing costs. Lazard Capital Markets analyst Barton Crockett predicted in January that the studio will be forced to write down as much as $96 million in Guardians losses. DWA stock consequently has been pummeled by investors.
The trouble comes as DWA in August entered a five-year distribution deal with Fox, which will release its films globally beginning with The Croods on March 22. Turbo will follow on July 19, then Mr. Peabody & Sherman, How to Train Your Dragon 2 on June 20, 2014, and Happy Smekday! on Nov. 26, 2014.
Kim Masters contributed to this report.
Email: Matthew.Belloni@thr.com
Twitter: @THRMattBelloni

Butner NC - Madoff Tells of $9 Billion He Stashed Away With Friends: Prisonmate

Butner NC - Ponzi king Bernard Madoff is telling fellow jailbirds that he secretly funneled $9 billion in swiped funds to three people before he was nabbed, an inmate told The Post.
Madoff says that his partner in crime Frank DiPascali knows who the recipients are—and that he suspects DiPascali is using that information to cut a better deal with the feds, according to the inmate at the medium-security prison in Butner, NC.
“I think it was personal friends,” the inmate said of the recipients of the mega-bucks.
DiPascali, 52, pleaded guilty last year to 10 felonies in connection with helping Madoff swindle investors out of more than $60 billion at his Manhattan financial firm.
Madoff, 72, is serving a life sentence, but DiPascali has reportedly been trying to avoid that fate by cooperating with prosecutors—who argued strenuously for his release from jail pending sentencing despite a judge’s initial reluctance to grant bail.
DiPascali remains locked up awaiting sentencing, unable to post a $10 million bond.

DiPascali’s lawyer, Marc Mukasey, did not return a call seeking comment.
The Manhattan US Attorney’s Office, which is prosecuting DiPascali, and Madoff’s lawyer, Ira Lee Sorkin, had no comment on the inmate’s claim about DiPascali.
The inmate, who has witnessed the arch swindler’s daily routine, also detailed how Madoff began attending sessions with a female prison psychiatrist last year after becoming depressed about a tell-all published in August by his former mistress, Sheryl Weinstein.
“He was having problems with his wife [Ruth]” over the book’s revelations, the inmate said.
“He felt she might leave him.”
The book, “Madoff’s Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie, and Me, ” details Weinstein’s sexcapades with Madoff and how he screwed her out of her life savings.
The shrink prescribed Madoff antidepressants, the inmate said.
Ruth Madoff did not abandon him and still visits, the inmate said.
But Ruth, who has not been charged, has moved out of New York state to get away from the harsh public attention.
“She’s bought a regular car,” the inmate said. “She’s looking to do charity work. She wants to have her own privacy and to start a new life.”
The inmate said Madoff’s sessions with the shrink and the medication have relieved his stress, which was so bad when he arrived at Butner last July that he broke out in hives and other skin maladies on his arms.
But that medication also caused a scare for Madoff on Dec. 18, when he was found on the floor with a gashed head and face, several broken ribs and his eyeglasses broken, the inmate said.
“He looked really bad, really bad,” the inmate said. “The buzz was he got beat up by a bunch of [Washington,] DC, guys that were trying to extort money.”
That “buzz” led to several media reports that Madoff had been attacked.
But the inmate said that, in fact, Madoff had collapsed in the middle of the night while getting water because an antidepressant drug he had begun taking earlier that day interacted badly with another medication.
“He didn’t get beat up,” the inmate said.
At Butner, Madoff is known for regularly hanging around with another notorious inmate—Jonathan Pollard, who spied for Israel while working as a civilian intelligence analyst for the US Navy—and former New York pharmacist John Mancini, who was locked up for illegally distributing millions of painkillers.
“Jonathan Pollard and him watch TV together. They watch CNN,” the inmate said. “Bernie likes watching to see if there’s anything about him on it.”
But Madoff “gets upset” if he disagrees with how he is portrayed on television and was particularly disturbed by the reports that he had been assaulted, the inmate said.
Madoff also sometimes chats with Colombo crime-family boss Carmine Persico, who is serving a life sentence at Butner.
“They play boccie” and take walks together, the inmate said.
As with Persico and Pollard, Madoff is one of—if not the most—high-profile inmate at Butner.
“Everybody knows Bernie Madoff,” the inmate said. “Everyone says, ‘Hey, Bernie, how are you doing?’ To a lot of inmates, he’s a god.
“The higher the profile, the more they look up to you.”
Despite such respect, Madoff, who used to work in the prison’s library, now toils four days a week in a menial job in the commissary.
The inmate said the commissary work was “very strenuous” for Madoff.
Noting that some prisoners order 30 cans or more of soda that Madoff then has to deliver, the inmate said, “It’s a lot for him to carry.”
The fellow prisoner added that Madoff is being shunned by his two sons, Andrew and Mark, who worked for his firm and have not spoken to him since he confessed his scheme to them in December 2008.
“He’s really hurt by their not coming around,” the inmate said. “His sons never [talk] to him, never [write] to him.”
But, the inmate added, “[Madoff] feels eventually—eventually—as time passes, he feels they’re going to come around.”
The inmate noted that Madoff has been able to write to his grandchildren, which gives him pleasure.
And, the inmate said, despite recent reports that Madoff has no sympathy for his victims, “he knows he did wrong.
“He also feels a lot of pain for what he did to people” and hopes they are able to recover at least some of the money he swindled from them, the inmate said.

U.S. Dollar Collapse: Where is Germany’s Gold?

The financial world was shocked this month by a demand from Germany’s Bundesbank to repatriate a large portion of its gold reserves held abroad. By 2020, Germany wants 50% of its total gold reserves back in Frankfurt – including 300 tons from the Federal Reserve. The Bundesbank’s announcement comes just three months after the Fed refused to submit to an audit of its holdings on Germany’s behalf. One cannot help but wonder if the refusal triggered the demand.
Either way, Germany appears to be waking up to a reality for which central banks around the world have been preparing: the dollar is no longer the world’s safe-haven asset and the US government is no longer a trustworthy banker for foreign nations. It looks like their fears are well-grounded, given the Fed’s seeming inability to return what is legally Germany’s gold in a timely manner. Germany is a developed and powerful nation with the second largest gold reserves in the world. If they can’t rely on Washington to keep its promises, who can?
Where is Germany’s Gold?
The impact of Germany’s repatriation on the dollar revolves around an unanswered question: why will it take seven years to complete the transfer?
The popular explanation is that the Fed has already rehypothecated all of its gold holdings in the name of other countries. That is, the same mound of bullion is earmarked as collateral for a host of different lenders. Since the Fed depends on a fractional-reserve banking system for its very existence, it would not come as a surprise that it has become a fractional-reserve bank itself. If so, then perhaps Germany politely asked for a seven-year timeline in order to allow the Fed to save face, and to prevent other depositors from clamoring for their own gold back – a ‘run’ on the Fed.
Now, the Fed can always print more dollars and buy gold on the open market to make up for any shortfall, but such a move could substantially increase the price of gold. The last thing the Fed needs is another gold price spike reminding the world of the dollar’s decline.
Speculation Aside
None of these theories are substantiated, but no matter how you slice it, Germany’s request for its gold does not bode well for the future of the dollar. In fact, the Bundesbank’s official statements are all you need to confirm the Germans’ waning faith in the US.
Last October, after the Bundesbank had requested an audit of its Fed holdings, Executive Board Member Carl-Ludwig Thiele was asked in an interview why the bank kept so much of Germany’s gold overseas. His response emphasized the importance of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency:
Thiele’s statement can lead us to only one conclusion: by keeping fewer reserves in the US, Germany foresees less future need for “US dollar-denominated liquidity.”"Gold stored in your home safe is not immediately available as collateral in case you need foreign currency. Take, for instance, the key role that the US dollar plays as a reserve currency in the global financial system. The gold held with the New York Fed can, in a crisis, be pledged with the Federal Reserve Bank as collateral against US dollar-denominated liquidity.”
History Repeats
The whole situation mirrors the late 1960s, during a period that led up to the “Nixon Shock.” Back then, the world was on the Bretton Woods System – an attempt on the part of Western central bankers to pin the dollar to gold at a fixed rate, while still allowing the metal to trade privately as a commodity. This led to a gap between the market price of gold as a commodity and the official price available from the Treasury.
As the true value of gold separated further and further from its official rate, the world began to realize the system was unsustainable, and many suspected the US was not serious about maintaining a strong dollar. West Germany moved first on these fears by redeeming its dollar reserves for gold, followed by France, Switzerland, and others. This eventually culminated in Nixon “closing the gold window” in 1971 by ending any link between the dollar and gold. This “Nixon Shock” spurred chronic inflation throughout the ’70s and a concurrent rally in gold.
Perhaps the entire international community is thinking back to the ’60s, because Germany isn’t the only country maneuvering away from the dollar today. The Netherlands and Azerbaijan are also discussing repatriating their foreign gold holdings. And every month, we hear about central banks increasing gold reserves. The latest are Russia and Kazakhstan, but in the last year, countries from Brazil to Turkey have been adding to their gold holdings in order to diversify away from fiat currency reserves.
And don’t forget China. Once the biggest purchaser of US bonds, it is now a net seller of Treasuries, while simultaneously gobbling up gold. Some sources even claim that China has unofficially surpassed Germany as the second largest holder of gold in the world.
Unlike the ’60s, today there is no official gold window to close. There will be no reported “shock” indicator of a dollar flight. This demand by Germany may be the closest indicator we’re going to get. Placing blame where it’s due, let’s call it the “Bernanke Shock.”
It Takes One to Know One
In last month’s Gold Letter, I wrote about the three pillars supporting the US Treasury’s persistently low interest rates: the Fed, domestic investors, and foreign central banks – led by Japan. I examined how Japan’s plans to radically devalue the yen may undermine that country’s ability to continue buying Treasuries, which could cause the other pillars to become unstable as well.
While private investors and even the Fed might be deluding themselves into believing US bonds are still a viable investment, Germany’s repatriation news makes it clear that foreign governments are no longer buying the propaganda. And why should they? If anyone should appreciate the real constraints the US government is facing, it is other governments.
Our sovereign creditors know that Ben Bernanke and Barack Obama are just regular men in fancy suits. They know the Fed isn’t harboring some ingenious plan for raising interest rates while successfully selling back its worthless mortgage and government securities. Instead, the Fed is like a drug addict making any excuse to get its next fix. [See Bernanke's tell-all interview with Oprah where he confesses to economic doping!]
US investors should be as shocked as the Bundesbank about the Fed’s deception. While we cannot redeem our dollars for gold with the Fed, we can still buy gold with them in the open market. As more investors and governments choose to save in precious metals, the dollar’s value will go into steeper and steeper decline – thereby driving more investors into metals. That’s when the virtuous circle upon which the dollar has coasted for a generation will quickly turn vicious.

Beggar-Thy-Neighbor Currency Devaluations Proved Ruinous For The Global Economy In The 1930s, But The World Is Setting Off Down The Same Slippery Slope Again

burning money Beggar Thy Neighbor Currency Devaluations Proved Ruinous For The Global Economy In The 1930s,  But The World Is Setting Off Down The Same Slippery Slope Again

The Global Currency War Is Escalating

According to numerous high-level insiders, we’re in a dangerous global currency war:
Actually, we’ve been in a global currency war for years.
As the Wall Street Journal asked in 2010:
Beggar-thy-neighbor currency devaluations proved ruinous for the global economy in the 1930s. Is the world setting off down the same slippery slope again?
Yes, we are.
Indeed, Japan’s escalation of the currency war has caused leaders in the Eurozone, Norway, Sweden, South Korea and many other regions to consider further devaluing their currencies.
(And James Rickard and Reggie Middleton think that Germany’s demand for its gold is part of the currency war.)
And it’s not just conservative voices such as the Journal slamming the currency wars.  For example, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich points out that a weak dollar makes everyone poorer, and any new jobs created by a a policy of devaluation are low-wage jobs.

Banker's Got A Gun


The Colt Bankers Special




Demand A Plan? Demand Celebrities Go F*** Themselves
Do not skip this one.  Now with 1 million views on Youtube.
Must read op-ed from the WSJ:

Will DOW Hold 14K? US To Reduce War Spending MASSIVELY In Coming Years, Obama’s Balanced “Tax-Loophole” Closing Will Crush Corporate Earnings, Insider Selling Surges, And World Risks ‘Perfect Storm’ On Capital Flows As Currency War Started

Sucker Alert? Insider Selling Surges After Dow 14,000

Insiders have been pulling out of stocks just as small investors are getting in.
Selling by corporate executives has surged recently as the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 14,000 and retail investors flooded into stocks. The amount of insider selling has usually preceded market selloffs.

In almost perfect coordination with an equity market that was rushing toward new all-time highs, insider sentiment has weakened sharply — falling to its lowest level since late March 2012,” wrote David Coleman of the Vickers Weekly Insider report, one of the longest researchers of executive buying and selling on Wall Street. “Insiders are waving the cautionary flag in an increasingly aggressive manner.”

US To Reduce War Spending MASSIVELY In Coming Years

Goldman’s Alec Phillips has a great note out about the coming decline in government spending.
It turns out, we’re about to see a period of spending declines that is historically very rare. It’s all about the sequester and the decline in war spending.
In addition to sequestration, two other factors are likely to reduce real federal consumption and investment (i.e., the components of federal spending that is counted toward GDP in the national accounts) over the next few years:
Spending caps enacted in 2011. In addition to establishing the sequester, the Budget Control Act of 2011 also established spending caps that have already taken effect. These are expected to reduce real yoy spending growth by $20bn in 2013 and by another $10bn in 2014. Unless Congress designates spending as “emergency,” spending above the caps results in across-the-board cuts similar to but separate from the across the board cuts set to take effect March 1.
Reduced war spending. Congress appropriated roughly $160bn in 2010 and 2011 for overseas military operations; this has been reduced to around $100bn for 2013. The President’s most recent budget proposed to cap war spending going forward, which it estimated would reduce war-related spending by around $30bn in 2013, and by $50bn to $60bn in 2014. Although some war spending ends up being accounted for as transfer payments to the rest of the world–for example, when the US government reimburses foreign powers for joint military operations–the majority of it shows up as federal consumption and gross investment.
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Chart: http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/51110aa569bedd8623000008-648-476-605-444/screen%20shot%202013-02-05%20at%208.31.53%20am.jpg
 
 

Obama’s Balanced “Tax-Loophole” Closing Will Crush Corporate Earnings

Following today’s sequester-delay-seeking, tax-hiking, close-the-loophole speech by the President, it would appear that fiscal policy debates will be balanced a little more to raising effective rates on corporates (as opposed to the ‘statutory’ rate so many discuss). The US has the second highest global ‘statutory’ tax rate but less than 10% of S&P 500 firms have paid this rate over the last decade. Somewhat shockingly, since 1975, taxes have had the largest cumulative impact on S&P 500 ROE as effective rates fell from 44% to 30%. They estimate each percentage point rise in effective tax rate would lower S&P 500 ROE by 22 bp and EPS by $1.50, all else equal. Closing all the loopholes would smash year-end 2013 expectations from Goldman’s 1575 to around 1300 with Staples and Tech the hardest hit. With the ‘market’ the only policy tool left, it would seem not even the Fed could monetarily save us from this fiscally fubar action. 

Via Goldman Sachs,
Political dialogue in Washington, D.C. has turned squarely to the nation’s fiscal health. The temporary resolution of the ‘fiscal cliff’ focused mainly on raising revenues through changes to personal tax rates, but delayed decision-making deadlines on the sequester and the long-term path of Federal spending.
Corporate tax rates will likely receive scrutiny as the debate continues. Corporate taxes contributed 8% of 2012 federal revenues. A recent Congressional Budget Office report suggested that policy adjustments such as eliminating foreign tax deferrals could increase US tax revenues by as much as $100 billion over the next decade.


World Risks ‘Perfect Storm’ on Capital Flows, Carstens Says

As the US and Japan debase their currencies, the head of Mexico’s central bank warns that asset bubbles will destabilize emerging economies. Playing with money is no different than playing with fire. The house might burn down.
A “perfect storm” may be forming in the world economy as signs of a recovery spur capital flows to emerging markets and some advanced nations that may lead to asset bubbles, Banco de Mexico Governor Agustin Carstens said.
“Risk appetite among investors has returned and the search for yield is in full force,” Carstens said in a speech in Singapore today. “Concerns of asset-price bubbles fed by credit booms are starting to appear.”
The risk of a “currency war” has surfaced as monetary easing from Japan to the U.S. spurs demand for higher-yielding assets and boosts inflows into emerging markets. Russia warned last month that Japan’s currency-weakening policies may lead to reciprocal action as nations try to protect their export industries, while South Korea and the Philippines have said they’ll consider how to reduce the impact of such funds.


Man Offers Random People A Free One Ounce Gold Coin

Uncle Sam Charges S&P with FRAUD!!!

“Fraud,” cried the maddened thousands, and the echo answered “Fraud.”
Fans of our national pastime are likely well acquainted with the classic poem, Casey At The Bat. In that well worn tale, the patrons of the game go home with heads bowed as their power hitter, that being the mighty Casey, fails to drive home the winning runs in the bottom of the ninth.
In similar fashion but in real life, the fans of the red, white, and blue team with USA adorned across their breast are also disappointed to date as justice officials have yet to swing at pitches seemingly thrown right over the plate. To what do I refer? Financial frauds emanating on Wall Street. Although our very real game is seemingly in the late innings, mighty Sam is in the process of swinging his bat as he charges the rating agency Standard & Poors with fraud.  About time right? 
The e-mail evidence would seem compelling in painting a picture of a rating agency conflicted by profit over principle. Would the following e-mails be viewed as smoking guns?
 Standard & Poor’s internal email, dated May 2004, re: Competition with Moody’s (We just lost a huge Mizuho RMBS deal to Moody’s …. * * * Losing one or even several deals due to criteria issues, but this is so significant that it could have an impact in the future deals.).
Standard & Poor’s internal email, dated August 2004, re: SF CIA: CDO methodology invokes reaction (We are meeting with your group this week to discuss adjusting criteria for rating CDOs of real estate assets this week because of the ongoing threat of losing deals. *** Lose the CDO and lose the base business – a self reinforcing loop.).
Let’s take a step back and think this through.
Is there any doubt that all the rating agencies were key players in the greatest control fraud of all time? No doubt, but what role did the rating agencies play? They effectively held the door and provided a degree of cover as those robbing the bank grabbed the big dough.
Do those bit players who hold the door and provide cover deserve to be pursued and brought to justice? Yes, they do but in real judicial systems, prosecutors will typically utilize these door holders for leverage in going after the bigger fish. If the door holders had e-mails of the sort referenced above going back as far as 2004, one can only imagine the volumes of e-mails that have been retained from those driving the car (i.e. the mortgage originators), those grabbing the dough (the bankers), and even the capos back at the social clubs (senior bank executives) who took the biggest cuts.
All of this leads us to question, why S&P and not the other door holders (Moodys and Fitch) and why now? The Wall Street Journal puts a very interesting spin on these questions in its lead editorial this morning:
 So why wasn’t a federal case made in 2008 or 2009 or 2010 or 2011 or 2012?
Might this fraud charge leveled now against S&P be payback? Really? Payback for what?
There are other disturbing questions related to the timing and the target of this federal civil prosecution. S&P’s attorney Floyd Abrams tells us that “things seemed to rev up in terms of the intensity” of the federal investigation after S&P’s historic downgrade of United States credit following Washington’s debt-limit fight in 2011.
Not exactly playing softball with that statement. All of which leads us to wonder about the very system of justice within the realm of financial frauds. What do I wonder? If Uncle Sam is supposed to protect us, then why does it seem that all too often the old man — in the persons of a wide array of pols from both sides of the aisle, regulators, and justice officials — seems to be a quiet and willing partner with those who robbed the banks in the first place? Why, in this case being brought by Uncle Sam against S&P, am I once again reminded of the following scene  . . .




Mighty Casey and The Sting are great literary and film clips but the problem here, folks, is the control fraud in which S&P was a participant but a minor one relatively speaking is REAL LIFE. We have paid and continue to pay the price for the frauds and the lack of meaningful justice delivered by Uncle Sam. How so?
True free market capitalism is on the ropes.
Navigate accordingly.
What do you think? Comments always encouraged and appreciated.
Larry Doyle
Isn’t  it time or overtime to subscribe to all my work via e-mail, an RSS feed, on Twitter or Facebook.
I have no business interest with any entity referenced in this commentary. The opinions expressed are my own. I am a proponent of real transparency within our markets so that investor confidence and investor protection can be achieved.

4 Responses to “Uncle Sam Charges S&P with FRAUD!!!”

No Recession Here! - U.S. Arms Sales Set Global Record



New record of $66.3 billion.  The U.S. war machine rolls on.
On a global basis, U.S. companies are responsible for 80% of all arms sales. 
Fear is good business, especially for international arms dealers.  According to a recent Congressional Research Service report, within the last year the U.S. has tripled weapons sales to $66.3 billion, more than half of which went to allied Gulf states.

Members of Congress Introduce Historic Bills to Regulate and Tax Marijuana Like Alcohol at the Federal Level


pot moneyCommon Dreams – by Morgan Fox
WASHINGTON – February 5 – Members of Congress introduced bills Tuesday to end marijuana prohibition and start regulating and taxing marijuana like alcohol at the federal level.
Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) introduced the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2013, which would remove marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act and establish a system in which marijuana is regulated similarly to alcohol at the federal level. It would also remove marijuana from the jurisdiction of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and place it in the jurisdiction of a renamed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Marijuana, Firearms, and Explosives.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) introduced the Marijuana Tax Equity Act, which would create a federal excise tax on the sale of marijuana similar to that imposed on the sale of alcohol. It would also require occupational taxes for those engaged in the industry.
“Marijuana prohibition has proven to be just as ineffective, wasteful, and problematic as alcohol prohibition,” said Steve Fox, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project. “Regulating and taxing marijuana like alcohol will take marijuana sales away from cartels and the criminal market and put them in the hands of legitimate, tax-paying businesses.”
“Voters and elected officials nationwide are fed up with laws that criminalize adults simply for using a product that is objectively less harmful than alcohol,” Fox said.
In November, voters in Colorado and Washington State approved measures making marijuana legal for adults 21 and older and directing state regulatory bodies to create regulations for businesses to cultivate and sell marijuana to adults. Bills to regulate and tax marijuana like alcohol have been introduced this year in the Hawaii and New Hampshire state legislatures, and lawmakers in Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont are expected to bring forward similar legislation.
A record high 58% of Americans think marijuana should be made legal, according to a survey conducted by Public Policy Polling from Nov. 30 to Dec. 2 of last year. A USA Today/Gallup poll released in December found that 63% of Americans believe the federal government should not interfere in the implementation of state marijuana laws such as those approved in Washington and Colorado.
In light of the growing momentum behind efforts to regulate marijuana like alcohol at the state and federal levels, the nation’s largest marijuana-policy-reform organization, the Marijuana Policy Project, has changed the name of its federal political action committee from the “MPP Medical Marijuana PAC” to the “Marijuana Policy Project PAC.”
“The re-naming of our PAC reflects the new reality in Washington, D.C.,” Fox said. “Following the passage of the initiatives to regulate marijuana similarly to alcohol in Colorado and Washington last November, there is finally significant momentum in Congress behind ending marijuana prohibition across the board at the federal level.”
“The introduction of the two new bills this week is evidence of this philosophical shift,” Fox said. “While we are obviously still committed to protecting medical marijuana patients and providers, our PAC’s new name reflects our broader mission in Congress. The end of marijuana prohibition is coming, and we plan to support elected officials and candidates who favor the repeal of this unfair, irrational, and wasteful policy.”
###
With more than 26,000 members and 100,000 e-mail subscribers nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. MPP believes that the best way to minimize the harm associated with marijuana is to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol. For more information, please visit http://MarijuanaPolicy.org.
CONTACT: Marijuana Policy Project
Morgan Fox
Communications Manager
Marijuana Policy Project
Office: (202) 905-2031
mfox@mpp.org
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2013/02/05-3

Is America a Police State Yet?

Wendy McElroy, Contributor
Activist Post

If you need to ask the question, then the answer is “yes”. But that is a glib response and I do not feel glib about America's slide through the nine rings of political hell.

A police state is generally defined as a totalitarian government that exerts extreme and pervasive social, political and economic control over peaceful citizens.

Ayn Rand called it “the ultimate inversion...the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission.”

There are various ways to measure where a nation sits on the police-state axis.

One way is to compare what you see in America with the following standard description of a police state. A police state maintains its control through the pervasive surveillance of peaceful citizenry, through a vast number of laws with draconian enforcement, and by converting rights into privileges that can be withheld – for example, the ability to travel. Typically, there is a special police force, such as a Stasi, that operates with no transparency and few restraints. The special police do not address violent crime; instead, they exert social control and enforce the law whatever the law may be.

This describes America. Surveillance of daily life has soared; even the Supreme Court has consistently expanded the "right" of police to perform warrantless searches. A vast array of laws now  dictate the minutia of life, from what you may not eat to the light bulbs you may not use as well products you must buy (e.g. health care insurance). On one day in January alone, Obama issued 23 executive orders to start the process of gun control.   Enforcement is becoming every more draconian, with police departments pursuing militarization of their procedures and attitudes. A special police force called the Department of Homeland Security has spearheaded this military zeal; the DHS functions without transparency or accountability. Travel, formerly a right, is now a privilege granted by government agents at their whim.

 Does the foregoing describe a free society or a police state?

Another way to judge the degree of totalitarianism is to answer yourself four questions:

  1. How many peaceful activities would make you a criminal if you did them? In his book Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent, civil rights attorney Harvey Silverglate. argues convincingly that, “The average professional in this country [the US] wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague.” You are a felon whether or not you have done anything wrong.  
  2. How much of your life is spent working to pay taxes and other government fees? According to the watchdog Tax Foundation, in 2012 Americans worked “107 days into the year, from January 1 to April 17, to earn enough money to pay this year’s combined 29.2% federal, state, and local tax bill.” The figure hardly captures the scope of economic enslavement. The problem is not merely the taxes that consume a third of your life, it is also the unseen costs. For example, compliance with labyrinthine taxes and regulations costs small to middle-sized business 1 in every 3 dollars. This expense gets passed along to consumers while the benefit goes to the government.
  3. How freely can you relocate your assets and person outside state jurisdiction? There are at least three stages in the relocation of the most simple asset – money. You must establish a foreign account, get the money under your control and, then, transfer it. The easiest step should be to get your own money; after all, banks should be merely holding it for you. That step is far from easy. In an article entitled “Get Your Assets Out of the US NOW”, a relocation expert warns that the bank will “make a federal case out of it. Literally.” You will wait from five to ten days for the transaction to clear. The manager will “begin to ask you a lot of questions. She's required to do it.” He adds, “Here's the scary part. When you tell them you want to withdraw $100,000 in cash or wire it to a foreign bank, they are REQUIRED to file a SAR. They are PROHIBITED from telling you that they are filing it....They can freeze your account until they are satisfied that what you want to do with YOUR money is legitimate.” Those are just some of the problems arising at one stage of what should be the simplest part of relocating assets.[Editor's Note: This should help you realize how urgent that it is to relocate your assets while you still can.] 
  4. How freely can you use your assets and person within state jurisdiction? Circumstances vary so widely that everyone must answer for themselves.  
America is now a police state. How did this happen?

There are no simple answers, and it has happened over a long course of years. If there were a simple answer, then it would be: “War.” The war on drugs, the war on poverty, the war on women...but, most of all, the war on terrorism.

 Since 9/11 politicians have kept America in a whipped up-state of fear because it allows them to walk past the traditional protections of liberty that restrain the state. Authorities have been able to gut the institutions of society that shielded individual freedom and to replace them with institutions that promote the state instead.

An institution is "a well-established and structured pattern of behavior or of relationships that is accepted as a fundamental part of a culture, such as marriage." Institutions can be roughly broken into two categories. Private sector institutions reflect the interactions and choices of individuals; they include the marketplace, the family, the press, and religion.

Public or state sector institutions reflect an attempt to control the interactions and choices of individuals; they include today's legal system, public education, regulatory agencies, and the current banking monopoly. A deep tension exists between the two categories because one can expand only at the expense of the other. For example, regulatory agencies grow by draining away control from individuals in the marketplace; public institutions feed on private ones until there is nothing left. They are able to do so because frightened people will surrender liberty for the illusion of safety.

The war on terror is an engineered hysteria. In its wake, the institutions of America have changed. Public ones have swelled in size and appetite; private ones have retreated. Some of the changes are so glaring that people noticed immediately. It is difficult not to notice the militarization of law enforcement when your children are lined up at airports and touched by uniformed strangers in a manner that would be called child molestation elsewhere. But the dehumanizing process is accepted in the name of security.

The foregoing scratches the surface of "how" a society becomes a total state. It does not explain the "why." Why do Americans who pride themselves on rugged individualism stand by and watch the triumph of totalitarianism?

 One reason is because the behavior encouraged by institutions (such as obedience) tends to become character traits not only of individuals but also of society itself. And, so, society becomes closed rather than open; insensitive to brutality by authorities, and afraid of dissent. Rewarded by the authorities for doing so, people even come to spy on their neighbors as a civic duty of which they are proud.

Another common reason: people do not or prefer not to notice. Because they wake up in their own homes, eat the same breakfast cereal, work at the same job, they have a sense that everything is normal. They do not notice that the legal structure and other institutions that guarded their freedoms are going, going, gone. People who are accustomed to liberty can be blithely unaware of how important mechanisms like rule of law or due process are to their freedom and true safety. The daily  erosion of freedom is far less real to them than their daily routines.

The difference between America and a communist regime lay in its institutional protection of the individual against the state. That difference no longer exists.

State Money: A New ‘Virginia Coin’ Moves Closer to Reality

21st Century Wire says… Last year, the Commonwealth of Virginia said it would begin minting its own gold and silver coins as a parallel currency to the U.S. dollar under the bill that Virginia Del. Bob Marshall (R-Prince William) filed last summer. If this program makes it through, it could open the door to other states following suit, and might open a path to economic liberation from federal domination over the sovereign states. An interesting development to say the least…
Ylan Q. Mui
Washington Post


Virginia Del. Robert G. Marshall fears that a financial apocalypse is coming and only one thing can save the Commonwealth: its own currency.
The idea that Virginia should consider issuing its own money was dismissed as just another quixotic quest by one of the most conservative members of the state legislature when Marshall introduced it three years ago. But it has since gained traction not only in Virginia, but also in states across the country as Americans have grown increasingly suspicious of the institutions entrusted with safeguarding the economy.
This week, the proposal by the Prince William Republican sailed through the House of Delegates with a two-to-one majority.
“This is a serious study about a serious topic,” Marshall said Tuesday. “We’re not completely powerless.”
So far, only Utah has approved a law recognizing nontraditional currency. Four other states have bills pending this year. Marshall said he is unsure of his proposal’s prospects in the Virginia Senate. One Democrat derided it as a descent into “la-la land.”
But the fact that the debate is happening at all reflects a deep-seated distrust in the very foundation of the country’s economic system — the dollar.
Much of the anger is directed at the Federal Reserve, which controls the nation’s supply of money. Since the financial crisis, the Fed has pumped trillions of dollars into the economy to help avert what Chairman Ben S. Bernanke believed could have been the next Great Depression. Critics worry the Fed won’t ever stop.
Marshall believes that the result could resemble the Weimar Republic of Germany after World War I: a worthless currency, skyrocketing inflation and a crumbling government.
And those are only the problems that the Fed might create. Who knows what other threats may be lurking in the shadowy world of cyberattacks, Marshall said. The Fed acknowledged Tuesday that itscomputer systems were recently compromised, although the problems did not affect critical operations and have since been fixed.
“This is a lifeboat study; what happens if?” Marshall said.
Mainstream economics maintains that America is in little danger of turning into postwar Germany. Inflation is below 2 percent even though the Fed has tripled the amount of money in circulation since the 2008 financial crisis. Investors view the dollar as a safe haven, buying up greenbacks when turmoil strikes around the globe. A single currency is one of the bedrock assumptions of modern economics…

Read more

Obamacare: A Deception




Introduction by Paul Craig Roberts
The article below is the most comprehensive analysis available of "Obamacare" -- the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The author, a knowledgeable person who wishes to remain anonymous, explains how Obamacare works for the insurance companies but not for you.
Obamacare was formulated on the concept of health care as a commercial commodity and was cloaked in ideological slogans such as "shared responsibility," "no free riders" and "ownership society." These slogans dress the insurance industry's raid on public resources in the cloak of a "free market" health-care system.
You will learn how to purchase a subsidized plan at the Exchange, what will happen when income and family circumstances change during the year or from one year to the next, and other perils brought to you by Obamacare.  Americans will be shocked to learn the extent to which they have been deceived. The legislation neither protects the patient nor are the plans affordable.
The author shows that for those Americans whose income places them between 138% and 400% of the Federal Poverty Level, the out-of-pocket cost for one of the least expensive (lower coverage) subsidized policies ranges from 2% to 9.5% of Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI), a tax base larger than the Adjusted Gross Income used for calculating federal income tax.
What this means is that those Americans with the least or no disposable income are faced in effect with a substantial pay cut. The author provides an example of a 35-year-old with a MAGI of $27,925. The out-of-pocket cost to this person of a Silver level plan (second least expensive) is $187.33 per month. This cost is based on pre-tax income; that is, before income is reduced by payroll and income taxes. There goes the car payment or utility bill. The lives of millions of Americans will change drastically as they struggle with a new, large expense -- particularly in an era of no jobs, low-paying jobs and rising cost of living.


The author also points out that the cost of using the mandated policies will be prohibitive because of the large deductibles and co-pays. Many Americans will find themselves not only with a policy they can't afford, but also with one they cannot afford to use. Those who cannot afford the insurance, even with a subsidy, will be faced with a costly penalty, and in many cases, this, too, will be difficult, if not impossible, to pay. As each year's subsidy is based on last year's income, there will be a substantial year-end tax liability for those who must repay the subsidy in whole or in part because their income increased during the year. The stress alone from such a regressive scheme is, without a doubt, not conducive to good health and well-being.
Diets will worsen for millions of Americans as they struggle with a new large expense. Thus, the effect of Obamacare will be to worsen the health of millions. Indeed, a "glitch" in the legislation allows millions to be priced out of coverage.
Alternatively, Americans might be able to acquire health insurance coverage but have no doctors willing to treat them.
The demand that Obamacare places on household budgets in which there is no slack makes me wonder where the president's economists were while the insurance lobby crafted the product that serves the profits of insurance companies. Two well-known economic facts are that real family income has been stagnant or declining for a number of years and Americans are over their heads in debt.
How does Obama preside over a recovery when consumer purchasing power is redirected to insurance company profits?
Obamacare not only rations health care by what a person or family can afford, but also has implications for Medicare patients. Hundreds of billions of dollars are siphoned from Medicare to help pay the cost of Obamacare. The health care provided to Medicare patients will decline with the reduced payments to care providers. Health care seems destined to be rationed according to the age and illnesses of Medicare patients. Those judged too old and too ill could be denied expensive treatments or procedures that would prolong their lives.
Obama will rue the day that his name was put on this special interest legislation, and most Americans, once they realize what has been done to them, will be angry that special interests again prevailed over the health of the nation.
OBAMACARE: DEVIL'S IN THE DETAILS
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, commonly referred to as the ACA or Obamacare, will go into full effect in 2014. This decree mandates that all Americans must purchase and maintain government-approved health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS. Touted as a plan to provide all Americans with access to medical care, in reality, this compulsory shakedown commands everyone to purchase insurance that for many will be too expensive, even with government subsidies -- or unaffordable to use -- or both.
The ACA was not selflessly designed with the intent of providing affordable and equitable medical services to those in need, but rather to acquire taxpayer money for the private insurance companies under the seemingly helpful guise of health care and the ideological excuse of personal responsibility. It takes money from ordinary people and gives it to a medical insurance industry that profits handsomely from this legally-enforced corporate welfare -- all while keeping Americans locked in the same broken system that puts profit before patients. The law was essentially written by business executives from the industry so that special interests would not be upset and profits assured.
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