Feedlots, meatpackers closing with fewer US cows

By By ROXANA HEGEMAN, Associated Press

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Years of drought are reshaping the U.S. beef industry with feedlots and a major meatpacking plant closing because there are too few cattle left in the United States to support them.
Some feedlots in the nation's major cattle-producing states have already been dismantled, and others are sitting empty. Operators say they don't expect a recovery anytime soon, with high feed prices, much of the country still in drought and a long time needed to rebuild herds.
The closures are the latest ripple in the shockwave the drought sent through rural communities. Most cattle in the U.S. are sent to feedlots for final fattening before slaughter. The dwindling number of animals also is hurting meatpackers, with their much larger workforces. For consumers, the impact will be felt in grocery and restaurant bills as a smaller meat supply means higher prices.
Owner Bob Podzemny has been taking apart the 32,000-head Union County Feed Yard near Clayton, N.M. It closed in 2009 when a bank shut off its operating capital in the midst of the financial crisis, and Podzemny said he doesn't see reopening after struggling through Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
"There just are not that many cattle in this part of the country no more, and it is not profitable to bring them in and feed them, so it is shut down," Podzemny said.
He's now feeding a few cattle in another feedlot, buying them at about 450 pounds and growing them to 800 to 850 pounds. He then sells them to others who bring them to the typical 1,200- to 1,300-pound slaughter weight.
"It is making a little money now on just growing feeders and selling them as feeders rather than finishing them all the way out," Podzemny said. "We do what we got to do to survive, you know."
Cattle numbers have been falling for years as the price of corn used to feed animals in feedlots skyrocketed. The drought accelerated the process, but many feedlots were able to survive at first because ranchers whose pastures dried up weaned calves early and sent breeding cows to be fattened for slaughter.
But now far fewer livestock than normal remain on the farms. And, ironically, if it rains this spring and summer, even fewer animals will go into feedlots because ranchers will hold back cows to breed and rebuild their herds.
Texas, the largest beef-producing state, has been particularly hard hit with a historic drought in 2011 from which it still hasn't fully recovered.
"Most of the bad news is in Texas," said Dick Bretz, an Amarillo broker who specializes in selling feed yards and other agribusinesses. "That is where I see most of the empty yards, that is where I see most of the interest in selling yards and where I see the least interest in buying yards."
He recently dismantled a 7,000-head feed yard in Hereford, Texas, for a new owner who had bought it for the land, not the business. The previous owner had lost the property to foreclosure, and the facility was in very poor condition and would have cost too much to repair, he said.
When corn prices first spiked to $8 a bushel nearly four years ago, about 70 big feed yards went up for sale in the High Plains feeding area that includes Texas, Kansas, Colorado and Nebraska, Bretz said. Today, there are 10 and 15 feed yards for sale in the region, mostly in Texas. Bretz said he knows of 15 more that are empty, three recently dismantled and two others now being torn down.
Feed yards typically employ one worker per 1,000 head of cattle, so even big ones may not have more than a few dozen workers. But they supply meatpacking plants, which have much bigger workforces, and feedlot closures could herald greater unemployment to come.
Cargill Beef, one of the nation's biggest meatpackers, temporarily closed a slaughterhouse in Plainview, Texas, earlier this year, laying off 2,000 workers. The operation had been one of four meatpacking plants in the Texas Panhandle, and the annual economic loss to the region is estimated at $1.1 billion — a "major chunk of that economy," said Steve Amosson, an economist with the Texas AgriLife Extension Service in Amarillo.
Cargill is moving what business remained at the plant to slaughterhouses in Friona, Texas; Dodge City, Kan.; and Ft. Morgan, Colo. That will allow those plants to run near capacity and more consistently give their workers full paychecks with 40 hours per week, spokesman Mike Martin said.
"By idling, we are retaining both the plant (in Plainview) and the property for potential future use," Martin added. "And the hope is that at some point some years down the line, the cattle herd will be rebuilt and there will be a need for additional processing capacity."
Most experts estimate the cattle feeding industry now has an excess capacity of between 20 and 25 percent, CattleFax market analyst Kevin Good said. The meatpacking industry has an excess capacity of 10 to 15 percent — even after the recent closure of Cargill's Plainview plant.
Given the cost of transporting cattle, most of the nation's feed yards and slaughterhouses are in the big cattle-producing states of the High Plains. While the industry has been gradually shifting north from Texas into areas that are expected to more rapidly recover from the drought, businesses in Kansas and Nebraska are struggling too.
In southwestern Kansas, Lakin Feed Yard manager Steve Landgraf said his operation is down to 75 percent of capacity and he expects it to be less than half full within the next couple of months. For every two animals now going out of his lot for slaughter, only one is coming into it.
With a capacity of 15,000 head, the yard now employs 14 people. But with normal attrition, Landgraf anticipates he'll be down to 10 or 11 workers by spring, and he may reduce their hours.
Still, with little debt, Landgraf says he's in a better position than some.
"Some people are probably going to go broke because they aren't going to have the occupancy," he said.
AP Writer Betsy Blaney contributed to this story from Lubbock, Texas.

Copyright © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Marc Faber Tells CNBC: 'Stock Market Has Peaked, For Now'

Faber on Fast Money.
Look for a short-term bond rally.
"I think we have made an intermediate top, and it could be a longer-term top.  I don't think the market is as overbought as it was in '87, so I don't expect a crash.  But I think for the time being, the market has peaked out, and I think in the meantime, bonds, which are extremely oversold, could rebound."
Faber's holdings are 25 percent gold, 25 percent stocks, 25 percent corporate bonds and cash, and 25 percent in real estate.
Read more at CNBC...
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Last week in case you missed it:

Doug Kass: 'Market Feels Like '87 Right Before The Crash'

Faber: 'U.S. Will Never Balance Its Budget'

'Expecting the U.S. to balance its budget is like expecting my Rottweilers to hoard sausages.'

Rick Santelli: We Are Not Greece But Soon We Will Be

Rick Santelli: We Are Not Greece But Soon We Will Be

John Kerry Comes Out Swinging On Climate Change

Green Energy Chronicles
John's weekly update on graft, corruption and waste in the energy sector.
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John Kerry Comes Out Swinging On Climate Change
John Kerry used his first major speech as Secretary of State to make that case that failing to confront climate change means missing big economic opportunities — and worse.  “If we waste this opportunity, it may be the only thing our generation — generations — are remembered for. We need to find the courage to leave a far different legacy,” Kerry said in a wide-ranging address Wednesday at the University of Virginia.
Kerry again signaled that he hopes to use his role as top diplomat to promote green energy technologies, arguing they can provide a major boost to U.S. industries in the “next great revolution in our marketplace.”

Kerry slams critics of foreign aid in first major speech as secretary
John Kerry on Wednesday ripped his former colleagues in Congress for contributing to public opposition to foreign aid during his first major address as secretary of State.  Kerry said many Americans believe that the United States spends 25 percent of its budget on foreign affairs, instead of the real figure of just over 1 percent. He said politicians looking for an applause line have contributed to that misperception.
“Where do you think this idea comes from?” Kerry asked. “Well I'll tell you, it's pretty simple. As a recovering politician, I can tell you that nothing gets a crowd clapping faster in a lot of places than saying: 'I'm going to Washington to get them to stop spending all that money over there.' ”

Italy makes 'Mafia' arrests over Sicily wind farms
Police have arrested five people in eastern Sicily suspected of involvement in Mafia corruption over contracts to build wind farms, Italian media report.  The mayor and a councillor in the small town of Fondachelli Fantina, in Messina province, were among those detained.  The five face charges including extortion, fraud and Mafia association.
The investigation, which began in 2009, is linked to sub-contracts awarded to build energy farms near Agrigento, Palermo and Trapani.  A total of 11 people were under investigation, including two managers from a firm that won the main contract to build one of the wind farms, installing 63 turbines.  The contract was worth some 120bn euros (£103bn).
In December, police arrested six people and seized 10bn euros (£8.6bn) in assets in an investigation into suspected Mafia infiltration of other renewable energy facilities in western Sicily, Ansa reports.  The proceeds from contracts are believed to have been channelled to the fugitive head of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra, Matteo Messina Denaro.
More on organized crime and wind...

Iberdrola backs subsidy freeze
Spain’s biggest power utility by market value says it is a sensible move for a country that has been paying too much for electricity it does not need. “What we were doing was irrational,” says Ignacio Galán, chairman. “It makes no sense. Spain is installing the most expensive technologies in Europe instead of looking for those which are cheapest.” One analyst says they fear retrospective cuts in tariffs from government. Another says a nuclear windfall tax is what they should worry about. As for plans in Britain, Galan says: ”The area that has the most uncertainty is the area of nuclear. We still don’t know how it’s going to be properly paid – what the return will be. The decision to go ahead (in a consortium with GDF Suez) is not going to be taken until the moment the framework is clear and predictable enough, with enough remuneration for those investments.”

Iberdrola suspends wind projects in US due to subsidy cut
After four years of constant aid to the wind energy sector in the US, Obama's administration has decided to end the subsidies to the sector and thus no more new wind farms or solar plants will be constructed. One of the companies most affected is Iberdrola, whose American subsidiary decided to stop the development of all of its projects in the US until the government decides to reinstate its subsidies program. Iberdrola USA said: "If we can't construct in 2012, we will not construct in 2013 either. Not until the government brings back the Production Tax Credit (PTC) for the development of renewable energy.

EPA administrator resigns over hidden e-mail accounts
New Richard Windsor Emails Show EPA’s Transparency Problem More Widespread
(Washington, D.C.) – U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), the top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW), today released findings from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) second tranche of Richard Windsor emails. The release shows that acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe used a private email account to conduct official business, similar to Region 8 Administrator, James Martin, who is the subject of an ongoing investigation launched by Vitter and U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee (OGR) Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.).
Sen. Vitter also announced today that he has learned Martin is resigning this week, less than two weeks after hiring legal counsel.
 Read more about Vitter and Issa’s investigation into Martin here.

Smuggling drugs on oil and gas roads is the Government's problem
The boom in the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas has spawned new business and bolstered a weak economy. But with growth, there are sometimes downsides.  Recently, drug smugglers have used private back roads on oil and gas field sites as their paths into the United States, avoiding the ramped up security the U.S. government has put on our borders.  Since public roads are heavily monitored, the drug smugglers had to get inventive -- using the private roads oil and gas producers use to maneuver to their sites.
According to a story appearing in the Houston Chronicle, almost 19,000 pounds of marijuana was smuggled in March aboard two trucks driving through the Briscoe Ranch -- on a road that bypasses a Border Patrol checkpoint. The trucks looked like the normal supply vehicles that come and go along these private roads.

GDF Suez to build Africa's biggest wind farm in Moroccan desert
With rising electricity demand and untapped wind resources, Morocco is luring developers including Enel Green Power SpA and Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co. to build clean-energy projects. The North African nation aims to build 2,000 megawatts of wind capacity by 2020 to curb dependence on fossil fuels.
GDF Suez and Nareva have signed a 20-year agreement to sell the power generated at their project in the southern coastal desert to Morocco’s Office National de l’Electricite & de l’Eau Potable. “Optimal” wind conditions will give the site a utilization rate of 45 percent, GDF Suez said.
More from Reuters
More regarding ENEL
ENEL Romania

Morocco Drug Trade
Illicit drugs: one of the world's largest producers of illicit hashish; shipments of hashish mostly directed to Western Europe; transit point for cocaine from South America destined for Western Europe; significant consumer of cannabis.
Map of North Africa

Roots of the Mali Crisis
Refugees at the camp in Sevare, a dusty town in central Mali, told RIA Novosti late last month that God is French.  Such exaltation has been rippling through much of the country, which managed to fight off an Islamist-tinged insurgency thanks to last month’s blitzkrieg intervention by the French Air Force. Red, white and blue French tricolors have been displayed all over Mali – for the first time, locals say, since the West African former colony gained independence in 1960.
As Bamako grew weaker in recent years, the Tuareg elites grew stronger. One important factor has been trans-Saharan trade, which has changed a lot since the time of the medieval Mali and Ghana empires that traded in gold and salt.  The modern Sahara thrives on smuggling, with goods such as consumer electronics flowing to Africa from Europe – the city of Gao in Mali’s north is advertised as the best place in the country to buy a satellite dish – and a steady trickle of would-be illegal migrants going the other way in hopes of securing passage to the European Union.
More importantly, the Sahara serves as a vital route for South African cocaine bound for Europe. An estimated 60 tons of drugs, mostly cocaine, pass through the desert every year, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in 2009.  In addition to drug lords, the desert region has started to attract Islamists, who seek to complete an “arc of instability” from the Sahara to Afghanistan, said Korendyasov, the ex-ambassador.

Prized Phosphate Drives Controversial Investments In Africa (Must Read)
Last year, the Norwegian government, which has the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, divested PotashCorp because of its purchase of Western Saharan phosphate. Several European banks have done the same. And the European Union last year ended a fishing agreement with Morocco, which included Western Sahara waters, because of concerns that it violated international law.
Other resources are still being exploited. Sand is exported to the nearby Canary Islands, owned by Spain, to bolster beaches there. Several international companies are exploring for oil in Western Sahara or off its shores. Activists say the Austin, Tex.-based company Crystal Mountain Sel Sahara is producing salt in Western Sahara. And several European companies as well as American company UPC Renewables are developing wind farms in Western Sahara, with plans to export the energy. Such investments go forward with little controversy, despite the legal gray area.

Italian mob moves in on environmental energy scam
For an industry all puffed up about its supposed environmental virtue, green energy sure is attracting a dirty crowd. Witness its latest entrant, Italy's Mafia. The mob knows a good fraud when it sees one.  Alongside strip joints, drug smuggling, human trafficking, leg-breaking and political shakedowns, Mafia soldiers have moved in on the something-for-nothing world of green energy.
The Washington Post, in a page-one story, reported last week that a major sting operation by Italian authorities yielded a swarm of corrupt front groups run not by green hipsters, but by the Cosa Nostra of Sicily and the Calabrian syndicate known as 'Ndrangheta.
The plot was "part 'Sopranos,' part 'An Inconvenient Truth,'" the Post noted, with the mob shaking down legitimate farmers for title to their land, and then accepting EU subsidies for windmill construction, paying off political players to ensure the subsidies came.
It's the latest chapter in an ongoing story of corruption continuously surrounding green energy. In 2009, Italy's National Association of Wind Energy boss Oreste Vigorito was busted for building wind farms on public subsidies that sopped up state cash and delivered nothing. In 2010, cops seized $2 billion in 43 solar and wind fronts from "businessman" Vito Nicastri, known as "Lord of the Winds."
Can't happen here? Along with pay-for-play subsidies that have rolled into politically tied companies like Solyndra, green Mafia scams have reached the Netherlands, Britain, Ireland and Spain. Meanwhile, in Germany, carbon trading has drawn corruption of its own.
Italian blogger Pasquale Trivisonne denounced the waste of these scams in Italy — with wasted farmland and noisy windmills, but zero jobs and no energy.
It's money in the pockets of criminals. Green millionaires such as Vigorito got their seed capital from U.S. sources, Trivisonne noted. Vigorito, for one, had ties to Bryan Caffyn, founder of the "Cape Wind Project" in Massachusetts, which has been criticized for giving taxpayers little value for their money.
Note: UPC has operated in Africa since 1998, also note the IVPC logo in link.
Note: IVPC was an issue in a certain divorce case
Note: More specifics on divorce
Note: Mr. Caffyn at Hong Kong operation
Note: Market Visual Map
More relationsip maps: here, here, here, here and here
Note: Lawrence Summers involvement.

ZETA Petroleum Romania
The majority of production blocks currently under agreement in Romania are held by Romgaz, the state owned national gas company, and Petrom, the Romanian state oil company which was privatised. Petrom is now majority (51%) owned by Austrian oil company, OMV. Romania is the largest natural gas producer in Eastern Europe.
Zeehan Zinc Limited
Creat Resources Holdings Limited
Creat Resources Holdings Limited (CRHL) is a resources investment company. The Company is engaged in minerals exploration and the acquisition, exploration and operation of mineral properties in both Australia and overseas. CRHL, through its two wholly owned subsidiaries holds three exploration licenses, one retention licenses and two retention licenses applications, together they cover a mineralized area of approximately 100 square kilometers near the township of Zeeman in Western Tasmania. As of June 30, 2010, it had two projects: Galaxy Project and Zeehan Project. Its exploration licenses include EL21/2004, EL30/2002, EL20/2002 and EL18/2003. On February 1, 2010, two retention licenses, RL3/2009 and RL4/2009 were granted for an initial period of 2 years. During the fiscal year ended June 30, 2010, CRHL acquired 19.99% interest in Galaxy Resources Limited (Galaxy). In December 2009, CRHL acquired an exploration license EL21/2004 in the Zeehan area near Mount Dundas, Western Tasmania.

Biden caught with hand in cookie jar (Must Read)

BrightSource Is “Sustained By An Impressive Array” Of Subsidies

Brightsource Is “Sustained By An Impressive Array Of Federal, State And Local Subsidies, Including A $1.6 Billion Loan Guarantee From The Department Of Energy.”“Fortunately for BrightSource, its efforts are sustained by an impressive array of federal, state and local subsidies, including a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, one of the largest solar guarantees on record. The company notes federal provisions providing solar projects with a 30% investment tax credit through 2016, as well as accelerated depreciations of capital costs for solar entities, among other goodies.” (Editorial, “Secretary Of Subsidy,” The Wall Street Journal, 6/2/11)

US regrets Russia scrapping 10 year old drug trafficking agreement
The United States said Wednesday that it regrets the Russian government’s decision this week to scrap a decade-old bilateral agreement under which it received financial aid from Washington to fight crime, including drug trafficking.
“We obviously regret this decision because under our agreement we’ve had very fruitful cooperation with Russia on rule of law, counter corruption efforts, preventing trafficking in persons, counternarcotics and strengthening our mutual legal assistance cooperation."
The Contras, Cocaine and Covert Operations
This electronic briefing book is compiled from declassified documents obtained by the National Security Archive, including the notebooks kept by NSC aide and Iran-contra figure Oliver North, electronic mail messages written by high-ranking Reagan administration officials, memos detailing the contra war effort, and FBI and DEA reports. The documents demonstrate official knowledge of drug operations, and collaboration with and protection of known drug traffickers. Court and hearing transcripts are also included.
DHS taking on weed in Morocco
The U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) is embarking upon a project to offer training in the Kingdom of Morocco in advanced intelligence-analysis techniques, and intends to outsource that training to a private contractor. The aim of this DHS initiative, which the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) Office of International Affairs will oversee, is to reverse Morocco’s position as “the third largest producer of cannabis” and as “the major transit country for transnational criminal organizations moving South American cocaine through Northwest Africa to Europe.”
DHS did not disclose the estimated cost of the endeavor.
Iberdrola has 4 units taken over by Bolivian government 
Iberdrola was notified by Bolivia that the government has nationalized its electricity holdings in the South American country, spokesman Jose Luis Gonzalez Besada said in a telephone interview. He declined to comment further.
Spanish premier denies payoffs
The Spanish government was suddenly rocked by scandal Thursday after documents were published that allegedly showed Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy getting €277,000 ($376,000) that had been hidden from tax authorities.
Rajoy denied the allegations after the Madrid newspaper El País published extracts from what it said were secret accounts for his conservative ruling People's Party, the Guardian reported. But opponents demanded his resignation, and ordinary Spaniards asked whether those now imposing draconian austerity had practiced, or tolerated, systematic tax avoidance.
Spain's ruling party denies backhanders
Spain's governing Popular Party was battling Thursday to defend its honor by denying fresh newspaper reports of regular under-the-table payments to leading members, including Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.
Leading newspaper El Pais published what it called the "secret accounts" of former party treasurer Luis Barcenas, with copies of alleged records from several years ago showing names and amounts received. The money was allegedly paid by businesses, many in the construction sector, via Barcenas.
EDF-Iberdrola lead in Greece wind sector
France’s Electricite de France SA and Iberdrola Renovables SA’s Greek unit, Rokas Renewables, are the top producers in Greece’s wind energy market, which grew 7 percent in 2012, according to the Hellenic Wind Energy Association.
Total installed capacity increased by 115.2 megawatts to 1,749.3 MW last year, compared with a 24 percent advance the year earlier, according to a statement on the Athens-based association’s website today. EDF produced 17 percent of that, or 298.8 megawatts, while Iberdrola accounted for 14 percent.
Soros Fund Management takes stake in Sanleone Energy
George Soros' hedge fund firm, Soros Fund Management, have just disclosed a 22% ownership stake in oil and gas exploration company, San Leon Energy (LON: SLE). Due to trading on January 6th, the hedge fund recently crossed the London Stock Exchange's threshold that requires them to disclose the position.

It is likely that Soros acquired shares via San Leon's £59.6m placement on December 31st, 2010. In total, the hedge fund now owns 176,928,520 voting rights. Soros has also been involved in another oil & gas play as we detailed last month as well. There seems to be a common theme here and it will be interesting to watch for potential further investments. In the past, Soros had been a large owner of Petrobras (PBR), Brazil's state-owned oil play.
Germany's unaffordable windpower
Two years ago we looked at the claim that wind generation can save money for power pool customers.  We found that the supposed savings could be realized only if the elephant in the room – the above-market feed-in tariffs – were ignored.
In other words, the total amount spent on electricity purchases from a power pool was augmented by the additional amounts consumers pay to fund the feed-in-tariff (FIT).  As long as wind generators can bid a low price but receive the higher FIT, then they have an incentive to underbid, thereby reducing pool prices, but not overall costs.
In addition, we looked at what an economically least cost system might look like in Germany over the next ten years.  We found that it features more coal and lignite, keeps most nuclear plants operating, and builds new gas-fired plants.
The annualized differential in total costs for Germany between the no-nukes, no coal and lots of wind forecast pushed by Germany’s Greens and an economically least cost expansion plan amounts to more than $120 billion over ten years and perhaps as much as $200 billion.  A lot of money, in other words.
Since these two posts were published in 2010 Master Resource contributors have made a strong case that Germany’s overinvestment in wind and solar has harmed the nation financially without any compensating improvement in electricity supply.  Compounding the overreliance on wind is the planned phase-out of the country’s nuclear power plants – baseload power that will need to be replaced with something other than wind.


Read Last Week's Green Corruption Chronicles...

Green Party Founder Says Wind Farms Are A Disaster

The Shearing of the Sheeple

By Jeff Thomas
February 25, 2013
Recently, Ed Steer of Ed Steer's Gold and Silver Daily received a letter from a reader, Harry Morgan, describing a problem that he encountered in selling ten ounces of silver to a local jewelry store.
Mr. Morgan was successful in selling his silver to the store, but before the transaction could be made, he had to submit to mandatory fingerprinting. He then found that payment for precious metals in excess of $600 must be by cheque, necessitating a deposit into a bank account.'
In depositing a cheque, Mr. Morgan's bank advised him that it was "required policy to ask everyone who was cashing or depositing a check from a jewelry store, coin store or a coin & stamp store" what the cheque was for". Not surprisingly, Mr. Morgan felt that it was none of the bank's business what the nature of his transaction with the jewelry store might be.
Now, it should be said that neither the jewelry store manager, nor the bank manager suggested that the selling of precious metal was a crime; only that, if a sale is to take place, it must be recorded. And it is safe to say that neither the store nor the bank would have a vested interest in creating such policies on their own, as such record-keeping does not increase the profits of their respective businesses. It only increases unproductive paperwork.
It would seem clear that the culprit here is the State. In the US, several states have either passed laws or are in the process of drafting laws to record the sales of precious metals.
The reader might well ask, "Why on earth would a government seek to control the sale of a few ounces of silver?" Today, the return from the sale of a few ounces of silver is practically pocket change to a jewelry store, pawn shop or bank. And, under this law, the bankers have been ordered to treat the depositor with the same scrutiny that they would a drug baron who appeared to be laundering drug money. They are achieving nothing in terms of the economy. All they are succeeding in doing is denying the depositor a basic freedom, whilst implying that there is something wrong in the purchase or sale of precious metals."

The True Purpose Of Precious Metal Restrictions

In answering this question, it may be helpful to refer to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who, the reader may remember, was the author of the Sherlock Holmes novels. In those novels, Sir Arthur occasionally had his sleuth say,
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
If we use Sir Arthur's logic, when we have eliminated the impossible in this case, what we are left with, however improbable, is that the State's objective is indeed to achieve what it is achieving – denying the depositor his liberty, whilst implying that there is something inherently wrong with the purchase or sale of precious metals.
But what is the benefit to the authorities in doing so? Certainly, in the future, once the sheeple become accustomed to these restrictions as being normal (and therefore acceptable), all that would be necessary to cease the sale of precious metals would be to disallow deposits of such nature to banks. In a sense, this would render investment in precious metals valueless, as "value" exists only in relation to an ability to sell the investment.
In addition, by treating those who buy and sell precious metals in the same way as drug lords are treated, it becomes easy to convince the general public that it was a good thing the metals investors were stopped from doing what they were doing.
And that's the whole point. This is not about saving the country economically any more than a carbon tax is about saving the ecology.

The Objective Is Control

The objective here is control. And those citizens who find a way to work their way out of an economic disaster (through precious metal investment or any other means) represent a threat to that control.
If the sheep are to be sheared, they must first be penned in so that they cannot escape.
It should be mentioned that the US is not alone in increasing economic restrictions to its people. Whilst the US might be the most visible example, as it is, in a sense, the empire of our time, similar restrictions are being imposed by most governments that are finding themselves on a waterslide into an economic sewer. Argentina is a prime example, but the EU countries and others in the world are following suit.
A mere decade ago, I was rarely asked whether it might be a good idea to purchase and store precious metals. On the rare occasions that I was asked, my answer was invariably, "Yes, absolutely. You may be regarded as an idiot by most everyone you talk to about your investment in gold and/or silver, but, in time, it will become clear that precious metals are the economic 'Alamo' when many of the world's economies begin to implode."
Today, of course, the discussion has advanced a few steps. Many people around the world have chosen to purchase gold and/or silver. The question now is more likely to be, "How do I store the metal once I own it?"
Before offering an answer to this question, a further question must be posed: "What country do you live in?"  Whenever the answer is, say, "The US," "France," or "Argentina," my response is that, in those countries, it soon may be unsafe to physically hold precious metals at all. It is likely that, either through confiscation or through laws prohibiting sales, any remaining owner may as well own dirt, as dirt would be more saleable.
At this point in the narrative, the precious-metal naysayers may be likely to state, "I told you so – gold and silver are a mistake – don't invest in them," but they would be incorrect. Precious metals, along with real estate, are amongst the safest choices (if any investment is safe in these times) as repositories for wealth. However, if one resides in a country that is now tightening the vice on the free market, it may be wise to internationalise one's storage of wealth. (Wealth that is overseas is difficult for a home government to confiscate.)
Whenever a country is reaching the end of its lifecycle and is verging upon collapse, the penultimate phase is control. When the leaders recognise that the final stage (collapse) is on the horizon, extreme control is employed as a means of both delaying the collapse and making its inevitability safer for the leaders. After all, once an entire nation of people realise that they have been hoodwinked by their leaders, they become less willing to continue to simply "go along," as they had been during the period of prosperity.

The Pen Of Control

Historically, in the penultimate phase of a nation, a "pen" of control – laws and regulations – is created. It is generally only after the completion of the pen that the sheep realise that they are to be sheared.
Again, historically, the numbers of people who recognise that a pen is being created to contain them are small. Typically, such a country experiences what is sometimes termed a "brain drain," in which the educated, the entrepreneurs and the far-sighted, quietly internationalise in the penultimate stage.
For many countries of the First World, that stage is occurring now.

A Golden Tipping Point: University of Texas Takes Delivery Of $1 Billion In Physical Gold

Tipping points are funny: for years, decades, even centuries, the conditions for an event to occur may be ripe yet nothing happens. Then, in an instant, a shift occurs, whether its is due a change in conventional wisdom, due to an exogenous event or due to something completely inexplicable. That event, colloquially called a black swan in recent years, changes the prevalent perception of reality in a moment. This past week, we were seeing the effect of a tipping point in process, with gold prices rising to new all time highs day after day, and the price of silver literally moving in a parabolic fashion. What was missing was the cause. We now know what it is: per Bloomberg: "The University of Texas Investment Management Co., the second-largest U.S. academic endowment, took delivery of almost $1 billion in gold bullion and is storing the bars in a New York vault, according to the fund’s board." And so, the game theory of a nearly 100 year old system of monetary exchange has seen its first defector, but most certainly not last. With an entity as large as the University of Texas calling the bluff of the Comex, the Chairman, and fiat in general in roughly that order, virtually every other asset manager is now sure to follow, considering there is not nearly enough physical gold to satisfy all paper gold in existence by a factor of about 100x. The proverbial Nash equilibrium has just been broken.
From Bloomberg:

The fund, whose $19.9 billion in assets ranked it behind Harvard University’s endowment as of August, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers, added about $500 million in gold investments to an existing stake last year, said Bruce Zimmerman, the endowment’s chief executive officer. The holdings are worth about $987 million, based on yesterday’s closing price of $1,486 an ounce for Comex futures.

Years from now, when historians attempt to define who may have started it all, one name may emerge...

The decision to turn the fund’s investment into gold bars was influenced by Kyle Bass, a Dallas hedge fund manager and member of the endowment’s board, Zimmerman said at its annual meeting on April 14. Bass made $500 million on the U.S. subprime-mortgage collapse.
“Central banks are printing more money than they ever have, so what’s the value of money in terms of purchases of goods and services,” Bass said yesterday in a telephone interview. “I look at gold as just another currency that they can’t print any more of.”

In summary - the fiat tide is now going out. And among those who will first be
observed swimming naked are the very same people whose fate has been so
very intrinsically linked to the perpetuation of a flawed regime (and
who coined this very saying). In the meantime, hold on to your hats: should a scramble for delivery ensue, the recent parabolic move in various precious metals will seem like a dress rehearsal for what is about to transpire.
The only open question is who was the broker with enough gold to deliver to the UofT. We hope to find out soon enough. We also hope that the UofT is smart enough, and that Kyle Bass advised it, that if they are getting "delivery" in a Comex vault in New York, the gold has likely already been leased out at least several times to various entities demanding paper allocations...

MORTGAGE-BACKED SECURITIES FRAUD 4 DUMMIES! (aka the Cliff Notes version)

The American media has been remiss (intentionally) in reporting on the mortgage-backed securities fraud, even though it is the initiating event in the economic disaster which continues to engulf the world. But while the government can pretend none of this ever happened, the civil suits will drag the scandal into the public eye, and well it should!
For the newer readers, here is a summary of how DC and Wall Street got us all into this mess.
After the last Depression, Congress enacted a law, Glass-Steagall, which forbid banks, insurance companies, and investment houses to be in the same institution, to deter reckless speculation with depositors' money, which was seen as a major contributor to the stock market instability of the time. Then in 1999, at the height of the "Deregulation" craze, Citigroup and Travelers merged, a clear violation of Glass-Steagall. But rather than enforce the law, Congress repealed the prohibitions of Glass-Steagall with the passage of the 1999 Financial Services Act.
That opened the floodgates for runaway financial speculation. Wall Street knew that if they made money they would be allowed to keep it, but if their investments lost money, the US Government would step in to transfer the losses to the American people, because that is what had been demonstrated during the S&L debacle of the 1980s.
Starting about in 2005, Wall Street started bundling mortgages together into investment bundles. The initial offerings were greeted with great success, and soon everybody wanted to get in this new "product." So great was the demand for Mortgage-backed Securities (MBS, also called Collateralized Debt Obligations) that Wall Street started running out of mortgages to front-load the system! This led to the creation of the "sub-prime" mortgage; granting mortgages to people who normally would not qualify. Congress, themselves invested in the Wall Street firms that were profiting from selling MBS, passed an $8000 first-time homebuyer tax credit (actually a loan repaid in future taxes) to lure more buyers in which helped front-load the process even faster. This sudden surge in new homebuyers increased demand and home prices skyrocketed! This made investors and homebuyers even more confident, demand for homes and MBS soared even higher and a genuine bubble was being formed.
Demand for MBS was so great that as the supply of available mortgages began to dwindle, brokers started taking 'shortcuts'. Bear Sterns was pledging the same mortgages into multiple investment bundles; a clear case of fraud. Other brokers were blending mortgages into the bundles that were already in foreclosure. As the returns from the MBS failed to materialize evidence surfaced that the earlier earnings had not been genuine, but were "ponzi" payoffs, using money collected from new investors to send dividends to older investors.
The whole scan started to unravel in 2008 and here is where things took a dark turn. Because Congress had their own fortunes invested in the companies at the heart of the fraud, Congress decided to prop up the scam with taxpayer money and block any efforts to investigate or prosecute. That is why TARP was passed by the Congress despite 90% popular opposition. Congress were saving themselves at the expense of the taxpayers. The phrase "toxic asset" was DC-speak for the fraudulent mortgages backed securities, which were being repurchased in order to avoid investors seeking to jail the Wall Street criminals, which would have brought all of Wall Street down. Despite claims that the US taxpayer would be refunded when the "Toxic Assets" were resold at some point in the future, the reality is that none of those assets will ever see a penny of repayment, because they are all the product of the biggest financial swindle in history. Bigger than Tulip mania. Bigger than the Great South Seas Company disaster.
These fraudulent mortgage-backed securities were being given triple-A ratings by the Wall Street ratings agencies, which were supposed to provide independent analysis of the value of investments. But as we saw with Arthur Anderson and ENRON, the supposed independent authority colluded to make the swindle look better than it was. Because the ratings agencies were giving triple-A ratings to the mortgage-backed securities, even as they reeled from losses, pension funds and retirement funds were allowed to purchase them, which is the real reason why public pensions for teachers, police, and firefighters have gone broke.
Together with having to cover the credit default swaps sold with those mortgage backed securities, it is estimated that the swindle has cost the nation $27 trillion, at least $16 trillion admitted to by the Federal Reserve in "loans" and "bailouts" (actually buy-backs) from foreign investors such as Credit Suisse, Deutchebank, the Bank of Libya (boy, did THEY get hosed; 98% of their sovereign wealth fund destroyed by Goldman Sachs aka Gold In My Sacks!), etc. Globalism took a major swindle in the US financial system and turned it into a global cataclysm from which we are all still reeling.
But while the "Too Big To Fail" banks were being bailed out by the US Government, smaller banks caught in the mess were struggling to stay solvent as cash poured out of their coffers to buy back all that bad paper they had sold to investors. Those monthly payments made by home-owners were not sufficient to cover the losses; the whole value of those homes needed to be returned to the banks' balance sheets to keep the banks technically solvent. So again, starting in 2008, Washington DC sent out a private message to banks and mortgage companies that DC would look the other way if foreclosures to home loans were "short-cutted." This kicked off the "Foreclosuregate" scandal in which phony foreclosure paper mills, bogus notaries, MERS were all used to facilitate a massive land grab from the American people. As Damon Slivers put it during Congress' hearings into the foreclosure mess, "We can have a realistic discussion of the foreclosure mess, or we can preserve the capital structure of the banks. We cannot do both. Which shall we do?"
In hindsight, it is obvious which choice the government made. We are seeing wealth confiscation, no different than when FDR confiscated the gold from the American people to save the banks, only this time, done in a covert way to trick Americans into thinking it was their own fault they lost their homes. But again, this was the result of official US policy which gave tax credits to corporations that actually encouraged offshoring of American jobs. In short, the US Government took their jobs to make it easer for the banks to take their homes, to save themselves from going to prison over the mortgage-backed securities fraud.
Iceland had the right solution. They tossed the crooked bankers in jail and fired the government that tried to loot the people to save those bankers and Iceland's economy is already on the rise. (Which is why you don't see much mention of them any more in the American media)
That is it in a nutshell!

Even if your state banned sleazy payday loansharking, scumbags get round that with friends like JP Morgan Chase

Source: Dvorak Uncensored

Major banks have quickly become behind-the-scenes allies of Internet-based payday lenders that offer short-term loans with interest rates sometimes exceeding 500 percent.

With 15 states banning payday loans, a growing number of the lenders have set up online operations in more hospitable states or far-flung locales like Belize, Malta and the West Indies to more easily evade statewide caps on interest rates.

While the banks, which include giants like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, do not make the loans, they are a critical link for the lenders, enabling the lenders to withdraw payments automatically from borrowers’ bank accounts, even in states where the loans are banned entirely. In some cases, the banks allow lenders to tap checking accounts even after the customers have begged them to stop the withdrawals…

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are examining banks’ roles in the online loans…Benjamin M. Lawsky, who heads New York State’s Department of Financial Services, is investigating how banks enable the online lenders to skirt New York law and make loans to residents of the state, where interest rates are capped at 25 percent.

For the banks, it can be a lucrative partnership…Some state and federal authorities say the banks’ role in enabling the lenders has frustrated government efforts to shield people from predatory loans — an issue that gained urgency after reckless mortgage lending helped precipitate the 2008 financial crisis.
While the loans are simple to obtain — some online lenders promise approval in minutes with no credit check — they are tough to get rid of. Customers who want to repay their loan in full typically must contact the online lender at least three days before the next withdrawal. Otherwise, the lender automatically renews the loans at least monthly and withdraws only the interest owed. Under federal law, customers are allowed to stop authorized withdrawals from their account. Still, some borrowers say their banks do not heed requests to stop the loans…

While there are no exact measures of how many lenders have migrated online, roughly three million Americans obtained an Internet payday loan in 2010, according to a July report by the Pew Charitable Trusts. By 2016, Internet loans will make up roughly 60 percent of the total payday loans, up from about 35 percent in 2011, according to John Hecht…
Facing increasingly inhospitable states, the lenders have also set up shop offshore. A former used-car dealership owner, who runs a series of online lenders through a shell corporation in Grenada, outlined the benefits of operating remotely in a 2005 deposition. Put simply, it was “lawsuit protection and tax reduction,” he said. Other lenders are based in Belize, Malta, the Isle of Man and the West Indies, according to federal court records.

Screwing the working poor is just as important to these thugs as screwing the middle class.

The Banks Show No Mercy: 10 Foreclosure Horror Stories That Will Blow Your Mind

Source: Michael Snyder, BLN Contributing Writer

During the last housing crash, the big banks begged the federal government for help and they received it, but when average Americans ask the big banks for help most of the time the banks show no mercy whatsoever.  If you fall behind on your mortgage payments, the big banks have shown that they are willing to be absolutely ruthless.  They will change locks in the middle of the night, they will toss disabled veterans and families with children out into the street in the middle of winter, and sometimes once the foreclosure process has begun they will not even allow someone to come forward and offer to pay off the loan if they think that they can make more money by selling the home.  The big banks will often string homeowners along for months or even years with loan modification promises, only to drop the hammer on them at the most inopportune time.  Over the past several years there has been case after case where mortgage documents have “disappeared”, where big banks have “manufactured” missing documents out of thin air and there have even been cases where big banks have tried to foreclose on homes that do not even have a mortgage.  Once in a while, the big banks get a small slap on the wrist, but nobody ever really gets into much trouble for any of this.  In fact, the big banks just continue to gain even more market share and even more power.  Hopefully when some of these foreclosure horror stories start to become publicized more widely we will start to see some real changes in the marketplace.
The following are 10 foreclosure horror stories that will blow your mind…
#1 If you get behind on your mortgage, your family might be tossed into the street at gunpoint in the middle of the night…

This week, Christine Frazer and her family were thrown out of the Atlanta home they’d lived in for 18 years, at gunpoint in the dead of night.
They were not set upon by robbers, but by the Dekalb County Sheriff’s department, which evicted the family at the request of Investors One Corporation. As  Steven Rosenfeld reported for AlterNet, it was the fourth company to buy the family’s mortgage in eight months.

#2 Time after time we have seen authorities show absolutely no mercy when conducting these evictions…

It was bad enough when 62-year-old disabled veteran Ramsey Harris was evicted from a foreclosed house on Jamaica Lane where the former owner had been letting him live.
Then it started to rain as all his worldly possessions sat in a heap by the side of the road and Harris noticed some of his valuables were missing.
“It was just ugly,” Harris said Friday. “I was just broken-hearted. I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. I ended up standing, watching all my life’s work go down the tubes.”

#3 Sometimes financial institutions will promise you a loan modification for many months and then turn around and foreclose on you anyway…

When the economy crashed and his business slowed down, Wells Fargo offered to modify Steve Bailey’s loan to lower his payments. After making a series of trial payments, Wells Fargo notified Steve that his modification was on the way.
A few days later he received a letter stating that his modification had been denied. The Wells Fargo representative he spoke with reassured him that they had made a mistake and that he should keep making the payments, which he did for seven months.
Steve then started to receive foreclosure notices. Again, the bank representative assured him that the notices had been sent in error.
Then Steve checked his credit. Wells Fargo had reported him delinquent on his mortgage for the last six months. The reduced payments that Steve had agreed to pay for the previous months had been put into a separate trust by Wells Fargo, and they had not gone towards his mortgage.
Steve took the case to court but lost despite mountains of evidence in his favor. He lost his home and his business.

#4 Other homeowners have found themselves trapped in loan modification hell for years…

I am self-employed, have been all my life and have owned a home for 30 years. When I started my Loan Modification process in August of 09 I WAS NOT behind on any payments. I sent full documentation, over 150 pages, with the things they needed to verify my income. I am now 2 payments behind and I am getting nowhere. They keep flipping me between Loss Mitigation and Imminent Default, back and fourth month end month out. I made a habit of calling every week, then every two weeks just to be sure all was moving forward. From the middle of November I was told my file was with the underwriter and it would only be 30-60 days. I began automatically updating my income verification, verification that I still resided at the property and an updated 4506-T every month. In the middle of April a rep finally told me I was not in the loan modification process. In fact, that I had been denied on March 2. Keep in mind, I’m talking to these people every 2 weeks. She did a financial interview and sent me a new packet so that I could start all over, resubmitting all the documentation yet again. She told me she was my Account Manager. I completed the packet, called with a question (2 weeks later – over a week to receive the packet and another few days to complete it and gather all my documents again) and learned that my “Account Manager” was on maternity leave and I now didn’t have an account manager. Also, I was told that I had received the incorrect packet…it was the old version rather than the updated version. She asked me to fax four or five pieces of information in the hopes it would, quote, “jump start my file back into the process” and said she we send me another packet. That was mid April. Here we sit, 2-1/2 months later, I have still not received anything in writing about my rejection. And, though I’ve now had people tell me on three separate occasions that I would receive a new packet, it has yet to show up on my door step. I asked several times why my application was denied and the answer I finally got last week was that it was because I was DELIQUENT in my payments. Call me crazy but I thought that was the whole point??!! I almost hired a third party but am so hesitant to take that step. Every time I get on the phone with them it takes an hour out of my day and I am usually so upset I find it difficult to work, so I just don’t call. I’m going to sit back and regroup and decide what I need to do next.

#5 Sometimes a big bank will kick someone out of their home and then never actually take possession of the house.  As a result, many former homeowners now find themselves stuck with thousands of dollars of unpaid bills.  For example, a recent CNN article told the story of Rose Nathan, a 37-year-old office manager…

Nathan lost her South Bend, Ind., home in January 2009, after working out a deal with CitiMortgage to voluntarily walk away in a “deed in lieu of foreclosure.”
“On Christmas Eve, the bank called and told me a sheriff’s sale was coming and I had to move out right away,” she said. “So that’s what I did — seven days after New Year’s.”
She sold her belongings and moved to Hawaii. Nearly two years later, she received a property tax bill from the City of South Bend for $5,000. The bank had never taken possession of the house.

These unpaid taxes that she didn’t even know about have absolutely destroyed Nathan’s finances…

Meanwhile, the unpaid debt has crushed Nathan’s credit score. The deed-in-lieu alone lowered her score by 80 to 120 points, but the unpaid debt meant her credit kept taking a hit. Eventually her credit card companies cut her off, even though she said she was making her payments.
Her auto loan now carries a 25% rate. Her car insurance premiums have skyrocketed. She can only afford a one-bedroom apartment where she lives with her three kids. And forget about buying another home. “Nobody will give me a mortgage,” she said.

#6 Sometimes a big bank will decide to foreclose on you even when you have been making all of your payments.  Just check out what real estate agent Mark Conca went through with one major bank…

He decided to approach his lender, Bank of America, to see if he’d qualify for a modification. After he applied, many months passed and Conca heard nothing from the bank. Knowing lenders had huge backups in modification requests, he remained patient.
Conca, 41, continued to make the full payment on the mortgage for his Caldwell home, on time, every month.
But that’s not what Bank of America said when it sent Conca a letter about its intent to foreclose.
“I would have been better going to a loan shark and borrowing all that money,” Conca said. “At least with the street mafia, you know where you stand.”

#7 Sadly, the customer service at many of these large financial institutions is almost non-existent.  In fact, sometimes representatives from these companies will literally tell you that they won’t lift a finger to help you…

After a car accident  Kathryn Nava wound up on disability and had trouble making her mortgage payments. She had a friend who was willing to help her make her back payments, but that friend wanted to see a payment history before giving her the money. Nava called her mortgage lender to request that history—and was told it would cost her $50 per hour, and take 90 days to receive it.
So she tried again, calling the president of the company. She got a voicemail response that shocked her so much she recorded it and saved it.
“Let me enlighten you, Kathy. First of all, there’s nothing in your contract with us says we owe you any history, now, next year, five years from now or the next time…I’ve begun foreclosure today. I bet you’re sorry now that you made that phone call. I don’t need to put up with your crap, OK?…Bottom line, I’m doing nothing for you now.”
Indeed, she did end up losing her home.

#8 Sometimes the big banks will try to foreclose even when you paid cash for your house and you don’t even have a mortgage…

Charlie and Maria Cardoso are among the millions of Americans who have experienced the misery and embarrassment that come with home foreclosure.
Just one problem: The Massachusetts couple paid for their future retirement home in Spring Hill with cash in 2005, five years before agents for Bank of America seized the house, removed belongings and changed the locks on the doors, according to a lawsuit the couple have filed in federal court.

#9 Dealing with these big banks is so incredibly frustrating that some homeowners have completely snapped.  For example, one very frustrated homeowner in Ohio decided to crash his SUV into his own home…

30-year-old Steve Doak told deputies he was recently served with foreclosure papers and wanted to destroy the house rather than turn it over to the bank. The sheriff’s office says Doak drove the vehicle into fencing and then into the rear of the house

#10 Another very frustrated homeowner literally bulldozed his own home…

“The average homeowner that can’t afford an attorney or can fight as long as we have, they don’t stand a chance,” he said.
Hoskins said he’d gotten a $170,000 offer from someone to pay off the house, but the bank refused, saying they could get more from selling it in foreclosure.
Hoskins told News 5′s Courtis Fuller that he issued the bank an ultimatum.
“I’ll tear it down before I let you take it,” Hoskins told them.
And that’s exactly what Hoskins did.

Meanwhile, the big banks that are doing all of this continue to receive billions of dollars in assistance from the federal government.  The following is from a recent Bloomberg article…

When JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon testifies in the U.S. House today, he will present himself as a champion of free-market capitalism in opposition to an overweening government. His position would be more convincing if his bank weren’t such a beneficiary of corporate welfare.
To be precise, JPMorgan receives a government subsidy worth about $14 billion a year, according to research published by the International Monetary Fund and our own analysis of bank balance sheets. The money helps the bank pay big salaries and bonuses. More important, it distorts markets, fueling crises such as the recent subprime-lending disaster and the sovereign-debt debacle that is now threatening to destroy the euro and sink the global economy.

Sadly, when the next wave of the economic crisis strikes, we are probably going to see millions more foreclosures and thousands upon thousands of more stories just like these.
So what do you think about all of this?
Do you have a foreclosure horror story to share?
Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below…

The NWO Isn’t working Now and Will Never Work in the Future – How do I now? – Open Your Eyes and Look Around

Since this site’s inception we have been shouting this obvious fact at the top of our lungs, and there are now facts that prove how right we were. The NWO was and is nothing more than a power grab of dangerous proportions that want Americans brought down to dirt level to do nothing more than to give more power to the filthy rich elite. People who are worth multi-billions of dollars, who strive to become trillionaires, billions will no longer suffice just not enough money. Instead of talking about a NWO Americans should be talking about limits on personal wealth, the other side of the equation, something that should have been talked about long ago, when America was brought to her knees with fraud.
Factories throughout Europe are closing just as predicted as nothing has really changed except for the wealth equation of the NWO oligarchs who are currently sucking the rest dry. This scourge has ruined millions throughout the world just to fill their pockets from a well thought out con, something that has to be stopped dead in its tracks. Amazingly, we have been duped beyond believe with this garbage and are dying by the thousands from depression, cancer and god knows what else as these parasites fulfill their sick fantasies.
This ridiculous notion that America must share precious natural resources with the rest of the world will only be the cancer that will kill us all. It amazes me how we have fallen for this, as even our own so-called business analyst preach this NWO scourge on the American idiot boxes on American airwaves.
Facts are facts and even a billionaire who is worth 25 billion dollars who made his money kissing the NWO ring finger can’t hide from. Bloomberg says it best in his own publications, something this slippery constitution killer can’t hide from because this his his business, hoping it goes unnoticed. Just
one example of the obvious below:
The car market in Europe if supposed to drop 12.3 million cars in 2013, a 23 percent decrease since this NWO garbage was introduced by George Walker Bush.
Wake up America facts are facts. This is just one example of the obvious; we will be pointing this kind of thing out more and more from our excellent group of contributors and authors. This stuff really isn’t rocket science, it’s really only 5th grade math.
God Bless the Republic of the United States of America.

Inflation cuts value of money by 67% in 30 years - and prices on everyday goods like bread, eggs and beer rise far faster

Ever find yourself harking back to ‘the old days’ when you got change from a pound for a loaf of bread, a pint cost pennies not pounds and buying property was relatively affordable?

Well chances you’re not just remembering through rose-tinted glasses – everything was much cheaper, new research reveals.

A study by Lloyds TSB Private Banking has shown how the value of money has fallen by 67 per cent over the past 30 years, and has revealed the everyday items that have risen the most in price.

High price: Prices on everyday essential have risen ahead of inflation and you'll pay almost three times more for bread than in 1982 - the year that Michael Jackson's Thriller was released.

It means someone today would need £299 to have the equivalent spending power of £100 in 1982.

The three-fold increase in retail prices similarly means you would need £3million today to enjoy the equivalent lifestyle of someone with £1million 30 years ago.

If retail prices rise by 2.8 per cent annually, the value of money will decline by a further 56 per cent over the next 30 years. This would mean someone would need £229 in 2042 to have the same spending power as someone with £100 today.
Prices of some items have risen far quicker than average. Notably, the average price for a detached property has risen almost six-fold over the last 30 years, from £45,211 to £273,700, the Lloyds study found.

TODAY'S EQUIVALENT TO £100 IN THE PAST

£100 in...	Equivalent spending power in 2012
1982	£299
1987	£238
1992	£175
1997	£154
2002	£138
2007	£117
2012	£100

Diesel is now 294 per cent higher, coffee 176 per cent more expensive and a troy ounce of gold by 439 per cent.
By decade, retail prices rose most rapidly between 1982 and 1992, increasing at an average annual rate of 5.5 per cent. Between 2002 and 2012, prices rose at an average of 3.3 per cent a year.
Back when Bucks Fizz was in the charts, Michael Jackson released Thriller, and the Duke of Cambridge was born, the average price of a loaf of bread was just 37p – now it’s £1.24.

A pint of lager was 73p, now it’s 336 per cent more expensive at £3.18.

The purchasing power of money has eroded at an average rate of 3.7 per cent a year over the last three decades, thanks to inflation.

Provided British pay packets keep pace, inflation is not such a serious problem for shoppers; they have enough in their pockets to maintain their standard of living.

However figures released last week by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed UK workers saw annual wages increase by just 1.3 per cent (excluding bonuses) last month - a decrease from 1.4 per cent a month ago and well below inflation.

Inflation is expected to continue to soar above the Bank of England’s two per cent target rate for another two years, eroding the value of money even further. It is currently at 2.7 per cent and the Bank predicts it could rise to three per cent by the summer.

THE CHANGING COST OF EVERYDAY ITEMS, 1982 - 2012

	Estimated Average price 1982 (£)	Average price 2012 (£)	% change 1982-2012
Draught lager, per pint	£0.73	£3.18	336%
Bread: white loaf, sliced, 800g	£0.37	£1.24	235%
Apples, dessert, per Kg	£0.68	£1.75	157%
Milk: pasteurised, per pint	£0.20	£0.46	130%
Sausages: pork, per Kg	£1.59	£4.40	177%
Butter: home produced, per 250g	£0.50	£1.38	176%
Carrots, per Kg	£0.35	£0.86	146%
Sugar: granulated, per Kg	£0.44	£0.98	123%
Coffee: pure, instant, per 100g	£0.97	£2.68	176%
Eggs: size 4 (55-60g), per dozen	£0.73	£2.82	286%
Vehicle fuel: ultra low sulphur diesel, per Litre	£0.36	£1.42	294%
Detached house, UK average	£45,211	£273,700	505%
Gold: Troy Ounce	£203	£1,096	439%

Meanwhile savings rates continue to fall, eating away at nest eggs. To beat inflation, a basic rate taxpayer at 20 per cent needs to find a savings account paying 3.337 per cent a year, while a higher rate taxpayer at 40 per cent must find one paying a minimum of 4.50 per cent, according to Moneyfacts.

However few accounts on the market beat inflation. The eroding impact of inflation on hard-pressed savers means that £10,000 invested five years ago would now have the spending power of just £9,016, Moneyfacts found.
Nitesh Patel, economist at Lloyds TSB Private Banking, said: ‘The value of money has fallen substantially over the past 30 years as retail prices and the cost of many everyday items has soared.  Someone today would need nearly £300 to have the same spending power of £100 in 1982, meaning someone breaking the million pound mark 30 years ago would have the equivalent of £3 million today.

‘Looking to the future, even if inflation is kept firmly under control and rises only in line with the Government's target, it is likely that the value of money will continue to reduce significantly and decline by more than half its value by 2042.’

The Rothschilds Want Iran’s Banks

Could gaining control of the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran (CBI) be one of the main reasons that Iran is being targeted by Western and Israeli powers? As tensions are building up for an unthinkable war with Iran, it is worth exploring Iran’s banking system compared to its U.S., British and Israeli counterparts.
Some researchers are pointing out that Iran is one of only three countries left in the world whose central bank is not under Rothschild control. Before 9-11 there were reportedly seven: Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, and Iran. By 2003, however, Afghanistan and Iraq were swallowed up by the Rothschild octopus, and by 2011 Sudan and Libya were also gone. In Libya, a Rothschild bank was established in Benghazi while the country was still at war.

Islam forbids the charging of usury, the practice of charging excessive, unreasonably high, and often illegal interestrates on loans,and that is a major problem for the Rothschild banking system. Until a few hundred years ago usury was also forbidden in the Christian world and was even punishable by death. It was considered exploitation and enslavement.
Since the Rothschilds took over the Bank of England around 1815, they have been expanding their banking control over all the countries of the world. Their method has been to get a country’s corrupt politicians to accept massive loans, which they can never repay, and thus go into debt to the Rothschild banking powers. If a leader refuses to accept the loan, he is oftentimes either ousted or assassinated. And if that fails, invasions can follow, and a Rothschild usury-based bank is established.
The Rothschilds exert powerful influence over the world’s major news agencies. By repetition, the masses are duped into believing horror stories about evil villains. The Rothschilds control the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the IMF, the World Bank and the Bank of International Settlements. Also they own most of the gold in the world as well as the London Gold Exchange, which sets the price of gold every day. It is said the family owns over half the wealth of the planet—estimated by Credit Suisse to be $231 trillion—and is controlled by Evelyn Rothschild, the current head of the family.
Objective researchers contend that Iran is not being demonized because they are a nuclear threat, just as the Taliban, Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Libya’s Muammar Qadaffi were not a threat.
What then is the real reason? Is it the trillions to be made in oil profits, or the trillions in war profits? Is it to bankrupt the U.S. economy, or is it to start World War III? Is it to destroy Israel’s enemies, or to destroy the Iranian central bank so that no one is left to defy Rothschild’s money racket? It might be any one of those reasons or, worse—it might be all of them.

This article was posted: Monday, February 13, 2012 at 3:34 pm

Democrats, Republicans appear no closer to averting massive federal cuts next month

 http://video.foxnews.com/v/2155575708001/

Congressional Democrats and Republicans appeared far apart Sunday on a deal to avert $85 billion in federal spending reductions next month, with a top House Republican saying the cuts appear “inevitable.”
The automatic cuts, known as sequester, kick in March 1 because the parties have failed to agree on a less-drastic plan to cut the federal budget and deficit.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told “Fox News Sunday” that Democrats remain steadfast about tax increases being part of the deal but remain open to spending cuts.
“What we do need is more revenue and new cuts,” the California congresswoman said.
Pelosi said Democrats were “not talking about raising taxes,” but want to close tax loopholes, including those for U.S. oil companies.
She also argued Democrats have made $1.6 trillion in cuts over the past two years and suggested the bigger solution to the country’s economic problems is job growth.
Her argument is similar to the one President Obama -- who also has suggested stopping sequester with a mix of tax hikes and spending cuts -- is expected to restate Tuesday during his State of the Union address.
“We need a big, balanced, bold proposal,” said Pelosi, arguing more jobs result in more revenue. The interview was taped last week.
However, Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole said fellow House Republicans will “absolutely not” accept tax increases as part of a deal, which would trigger the cuts to federal defense and discretionary spending.
Cole told ABC News’ “This Week” that the president refused to agree to spending cuts during the recent, so-called “fiscal cliff” negotiations so Democrats are not getting revenue increases now.
“I think (sequester) is inevitable, quite frankly,” he said.
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain also said Sunday that Republicans don’t want tax increases, considering they just agreed to end more than $1 trillion in income tax breaks, but suggested he might be open to closing some tax loopholes.
He also urged both parties to work together to avoid sequester, which will result in big cuts to the defense budget and roughly $1.2 trillion in total cuts over the next decade.
“I’ll take responsibility as a Republican, but we’ve got to avoid it,” said McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. “The world is a very dangerous place.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/10/pelosi-dems-remain-open-to-spending-cuts-to-avert-85-billion-in-cuts-in-march/#ixzz2LzN44M4k

The trouble with austerity: Cutting is more about ideology than economics

Austerity fetishism is simply the latest expression of free market orthodoxy.

LOUISA GOULIAMAKI / AFP/GETTY IMAGES

People reach out reach out for a bag of vegetables during a free distribution by farmers in Athens earlier this month. The political limits to cutting are playing out dramatically in the streets of southern Europe, Alex Himelfarb says. (Feb. 6, 2013)

 by Alex Himelfarb

Governments here and elsewhere are increasingly preoccupied with cutting even as evidence piles up of its harmful consequences on people and the economy. Austerity is not even delivering the balanced budgets its advocates promise. Even the International Monetary Fund is now preaching balance rather than a single-minded focus on cuts. Yet austerity’s adherents hold fast, deny the evidence or double down. Why is that?

Of course, a few at the top benefit from austerity, at least in the short term and, though few, they exert considerable influence. And some pundits are so invested in this agenda that they would have to swallow themselves to alter course. But the imperviousness to evidence is about more than that.

What makes a theory “scientific” is that it’s falsifiable — if contrary evidence is found, the theory is modified or thrown out. But austerity fetishism is not economics; it is simply the latest expression of free market orthodoxy and, as ideology, impervious to evidence, never wrong. The belief that less government is the solution to pretty much any problem doesn’t lose a beat when the contrary evidence comes in. Just check out the responses of the free marketeers to the evidence.

First is denial. That was how our federal government reacted to the early signs of the 2008 meltdown. And now it constantly reminds us how well we are doing, grabbing any glimmer of good news and ignoring the rest, comparing us to those in deepest trouble rather than the few who are prospering by taking a different course.

Politically, this often works. None of us likes bad news and we often punish the politicians who bring it. Those who remind us of rising inequality, stagnant incomes, increased child poverty are painted as gloomy naysayers. Why, it is asked, do they hate Canada? But sooner or later the bad news is just too bad to ignore and denial no longer sells.

Here is where adherents will often double down. If austerity isn’t working, what we need is more austerity. We are never in a situation with no government or zero taxes so austerians can always make the case that they just haven’t cut enough. That seems to be the argument from Ontario Conservatives and Tories in the U.K. In Canada, austerity has been implemented in slow motion, in increments, so we are ripe for this argument: our federal government, denying that previous budgets were “truly” austere, is now hinting that its next budget will cut even deeper.

There are, of course, political limits to cutting. That’s playing out dramatically in the streets of southern Europe. But here, too, the consequences of cuts are increasingly visible, first for the most vulnerable: aboriginal communities struggling to meet basic needs, higher tuitions and student debt, refugees who cannot get needed medicine, more unemployed Canadians thrown onto inadequate welfare because they cannot access insurance. Some consequences will play out more slowly: weaker environmental regulations, cuts to education and science, neglect of crumbling infrastructure, eroding public services will all make our economy less competitive, less fair, less sustainable. The deeper the cuts, the more public services erode, the more inequality and poverty grow, the greater the risks of social disruption and the higher the political costs. Then what?

The final refuge is to argue that all the right things have been done and now it’s up to the market. These arguments are already on the business pages of our media: when the governor of the Bank of Canada urged business to put some of the cash they were sitting on back into the economy, the austerians reacted with force. Don’t worry about “dead money,” they said. Don’t worry about the failure of the corporate sector to turn its profits — and tax cuts — into job-creating investments. Sounding eerily like old Communists clinging to the notion of inevitable revolution, their argument was pure ideology — “it’s only a matter of time,” surely market forces, as the laws of economics require, will kick in. If there are inexorable laws of economics that yield jobs and growth from cuts to taxes and government, it seems somebody forgot to tell business.

So misguided ideas persist. Critics are painted as negative purveyors of doom, tax-and-spenders, or worse. Let’s be clear, no one is arguing for imprudence or waste. Budgets should be balanced over time and debt should come down in good times. But we need to understand how we got here and we ought to stop repeating what just doesn’t work.

What got us here was a combination of recession — temporarily higher spending and lost revenue — and more than a decade of unaffordable tax cuts. Before the recession and the latest tax cuts, we were running surpluses. Spending obviously wasn’t the big problem and our government debt-to-GDP is pretty reasonable and interest rates are low. Why then the obsession with cutting? And where are the alternatives?

Alex Himelfarb is the director of the Glendon School of International and Public Affairs and a former clerk of the Privy Council.