The US dollar is vulnerable because of a staggering public debt

Almost every day in almost any currency your purchasing power in terms of gold is less and less. Thus, these currencies in which you save the fruits of your labor are cheating you out of your savings.

The US dollar is particularly vulnerable because of its staggering debt even though it is the world reserve currency. In fact the debt is so onerous that we believe the quality rating of the dollar could be lowered by the end of the year. Many other currencies face the same dilemma and in the final analysis only gold will be worth what it is today or in the future.

Unless the US government expropriates Americans’ retirement plans they won’t be able to fund their sovereign debt. This situation is exacerbated by continued fiscal deficits of some $1.8 trillion. The administration and the Democratic Party are bound and determined to destroy America financially. Between government, Wall Street and banking America is being destroyed. This did not just happen that way; it was planned that way. When people discover what has been done to them there will probably be a revolution.

Government spends excessively, as free trade and globalization keeps America under a staggering load of unemployment in what has become a corporatist fascist nation controlled by Wall Street and banking and run by Marxists, who for years have operated in the shadows as bureaucrats.

Many American states are on the edge of bankruptcy. Their only hope is massive layoffs and reduced services adding to the already massive unemployment that plagues our nation. The situation is close presently to resembling the 1930s and that is after trillions of dollars created out of thin air permeated the economy. Worse yet, nothing has been done deliberately to solve the problems. One might think the antics of government; banking and Wall Street were deliberate-unfortunately they are. It won’t be long before everything will be nationalized and corporatist fascism will be in full flower.

We now have medical health care reform that will cost hundreds of billions of dollars annually adding to a wildly growing deficit, which becomes more un-fundable every day. As you all know this legislation was passed illegally. As you all know this legislation was passed illegally and will be challenged in the Supreme Court. Can you imagine 2,700 pages that no one in Congress read, that was passed, so we could see what was in it. Every Democrat deserves to be thrown out of office for this piece of criminality. Corruption in government, Wall Street and banking knows no end. This in addition to the looting of funds for Social Security and Medicare, that the Treasury now must fund, when they cannot even fund current debt without having the Fed buy it with money created out of thin air. Talk about inflation – it is surely on the way. If we use GAAP accounting, not the US government’s cash figures, the deficit is really in the vicinity of $4.5 to $5 trillion, not $1.8 trillion. This, of course, is nothing new and the same lying and secrecy is in force worldwide. All that people have saved worldwide has been stolen from them - they just do not know it yet.

The phenomenon of government workers making far more than workers in industry has to end. Unionized workers make double private industry. Is it no wonder there is deficit spending to hold up this terrible financial burden. There is no end to the demands of these parasites that are sucking the public dry.

The situation in Europe is so bad that all of Europe is attacking Germany because they save and do not spend enough and their balance of payments surplus is obscene to other spenders not only in the euro zone, but in the entire EU as well. Their thought is Germany should be losers like we are. Then there are the PIIGS who care about little or nothing. We know we lived for years in all of these countries and fully understand where they are coming from. They all wanted socialism and it has doomed them, as has the euro zone and the European Union. They are about to discover socialism and debt are about to destroy them. You have made yourselves into economic and financial zombies. There is no one left to bail you out. Subsidizing everything doesn’t work as they are soon to find out. When Europe and America fail unfortunately they are going to in part take the entire world down with them – no one is going to be spared.

What a world we now live in. Under the “healthcare” legislation everyone can now be “chipped,” so that government can soon catalog everything about you, so on demand they can control you. Hitler and Stalin didn’t have the technology, but had they had it they would have used it, just as our Illuminist masters are about to do. Government wants to totally control your lives.

We have an economy in a state of collapse and part of the reason for that is free trade, globalization, offshoring and outsourcing, which since 2000 has cost America some 8 million good quality jobs. Where are you Smoot-Hawley now that we need you? There are many reasons why the American economy is collapsing and free trade, British mercantilism, is one of them.

As we have said for months there is a multilateral change coming in currencies. A massive devaluation of all currencies and a debt settlement between countries. When that happens consumers worldwide will lose 2/3’s of their purchasing power on the final leg down into deflationary depression, which is probably 1-1/2 to 2 years away. Your only protection against such events is holding gold and silver related assets.

Those who have opted for general stock investments since 1998 have come out even if they were lucky and that includes massive market manipulation by our government. Not just failed policies. The creation in August 1988 of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets” has been a disaster for free markets and a gift to dictators and would be tyrants. The markets are a giant scam and their underpinnings are about to collapse. There has been little or no growth over those years. Real estate bubbles in residential and commercial markets have collapsed and the stock market will soon follow. Hitting you right in the forehead is almost a 4% yield on 10-year T-notes that could well become 5% by yearend, which we predicted late last year. That will put the 30-year fixed rate mortgage at 6-1/4% to 6-1/2%. What do you think that will do to real estate, markets and profits? This is mainly because of sovereign debt that grows exponentially every minute of every day. These pyromaniacs in the White House and Congress add to the conflagration all day every day. The result has been a 25% loss in the S&P since March of 2000, and a loss versus gold of 75%. Gold has risen from $252 to $1,224 and silver from $3.50 to $20.00 with massive government and Fed suppression. Where do you think your money should have been and where your money should be? In gold and silver bullion, coins and shares. Yes, as usual we were crazy and we were right and we are going to continue to be right, because we understand what the Illuminists are up too.

You live in a bankrupt country, along with 18 other major bankrupts, and you will soon learn how you are going to lose everything you have worked a lifetime for. A rise in interest rates of 5% adds $620 billion annually to the US debt in interest alone and that is rising exponentially. The US, nor any government, can survive such debt service.

We are calling inflation, real inflation, not the official variety of 3%, but at 8%. John Williams says on the things you buy every day it is 10%. We should easily see 14-5/8% inflation by the end of the year just as we did 2-1/2 years ago.

The Fed has ended its $1.25 trillion program of buying toxic debt from lenders. We do not know if that is the correct figure, we do not know from whom they were purchased and we do not know what was paid for the MBS, because it is a secret. This purchase has put downward pressure on interest rates for the past 15 months. This is an abnormal procedure and it can be expected that interest rates would move higher. It also means that the fed will now be a seller in the market as the FDIC is attempting to be. If sold these securities will put downward pressure on these bonds and force higher rates in a market that is already subject to crowding out by the treasury. In addition, quantitative easing is being phased out, putting further upward pressure on rates. The Fed if it continues these policies may stem hyperinflation but they run the distinct risk of having deflation run out of control, which could easily drive the economy into deflationary depression. This is a super human feat we do not see being accomplished without major damage, at the least.

Rate volatility is going to increase dramatically, as the Fed works to hold the 10-year T-bill rate below 4%. This is what they did previously at great cost to savers and taxpayers.

As rates climb the dollar carry trade becomes much less attractive and as it is unwound borrowed money is pulled from other investments, such as bonds putting more upward pressure on rates and at the same time downward pressure on stocks, which have been purchased with borrowed money. If the Fed tightens, as they might on Wednesday, yields will move even higher. If that happens those in the carry trade and bonds and shares will see gains evaporate and sales of both bonds and stock will ensue, as the carry trade is unwound. This is what markets are now facing.

This takes us to municipal bonds and particularly California, which has $85 billion in debt, that has to be paid by its citizens, of which about 40% do not pay any taxes. In addition it officially has 12.4% unemployment, which is really about 25% and getting worse daily. This is a state with $1 trillion to $3.5 trillion in unfunded pensions and the world’s 8th largest economy. This is a state that, via federal subsidy, sold “Build America Bonds”, bonds yielding 6.3%, or 2.4%, higher rates than Treasuries. California is on the edge of bankruptcy and their municipal bonds should be sold, as many from other states should be sold as well. States won’t work out of their problems for years.

Last week the Dow rose 0.7%; S&P 1%, the Russell 2000 0.7% and the Nasdaq was unchanged. Banks rose 0.3%; broker/dealers 0.8%; cyclicals 0.8%; transports 1.2%; consumers 1.2%, as utilities fell 1.8%. High tech fell 0.3% as semis gained 1.1% and Internets fell 0.2%. Biotechs fell 0.2%; gold gained $12.00; the HUI rose 6.2% and the USDX fell 0.6% to 81.17.

Two-year Treasury bills rose 6 bps to 1.02%; the 10-year T-notes rose 10 bps to 3.95% and the 10-year German bund fell 7 bps to 3.08%.

The Freddie Mac 30-year fixed rate mortgage rose 9 bps to 5.08%; the 15’s rose 5 bps to 4.39%; one-year ARMs fell 15 bps to 4.05% and jumbos rose 1 bps to 5.83%.

Fed credit declined $7.4 billion. Fed foreign holdings of Treasury, Agency debt rose $7.2 billion to a record of $3.020 trillion. Custody holdings for foreign central banks increased $64.5 billion just year-to-date, and year-on-year 15.7%.

M2 narrow money supply fell $10 billion.

Total money market fund assets fell $30 billion to $2.983 trillion, the first time below $3 trillion since 10/07. Year-to-date it is off $311 billion and year-on-year it is off 22.2%.

Commercial paper fell $5.2 billion, or 20.8% ytd and 24.9% yoy.

America’s debt is now $31 trillion, or 2-1/2 times US GDP. Americans on average only own 11% of their home the remainder is debt. Home prices are headed lower until 2013, so 20% lower prices are a certainty. In some areas homes have already fallen 60% to 75%. This situation will feed on itself for years and bankruptcies and inventory for sale will flourish for years. About 45% of homes have mortgages. We wrote five years ago that the government wants to own and nationalize those homes, so they can control the public.

As we wrote earlier we expect another large stimulus plan soon and the Fed to reverse gears and flood the world with money sometime soon. This should be the last rescue and the result will be hyperinflation followed by collapse and a deflationary depression. This is the last chance to buy gold and silver inexpensively.

If you do not think there was inflation in 2007 and 2008 homeowners insurance rose 24%, in 2008 it rose 31% and again in 2009-10 it rose 31%.

Treasury debt is on the ropes and is about to cause the Illuminists real trouble, along with higher interest rates. Later this year or early next year debt as a percentage will reach 95%. From there on its collapse. How can anyone conceive deficits of more than $10 trillion over the next ten years?

Bob Chapman is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Bob Chapman

THE MICROSOFT FUTURE, or, what's wrong with this picture?

Where are all the people?...and I have to say if this is my only choice for music, count me out...

but here's what they said for 2010...

Great Power Rivalry. China's Role as America's Creditor

"From Export Juggernaut to a Credit Addict"

There's no doubt that China manipulates its currency to gain an unfair advantage over its competitors. There's also no doubt that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will do everything in his power to avoid a confrontation with China's President Hu Jintao when he arrives in Washington in two weeks. That's why Geithner has decided to shelve Treasury's mandated currency manipulation report for the time-being and diffuse a potential imbroglio with Hu. But the Treasury Secretary's unwillingness to embarrass his guest, has angered members of congress who think the administration needs to take a tougher stand on China to protect American workers and U.S. exporters. Senators. Charles Schumer (NY-D) and Lindsey Graham (SC-R) are demanding that China be labeled a "currency manipulator" so that punitive action can be taken. That could lead a full-blown trade war with America's biggest creditor.

There's no chance that the Geithner will openly challenge Hu or that the administration will take any action that would jeopardize relations. China's President will get the red carpet treatment for the length of his visit and Geithner will spend the bulk of his time pressing the leader for concessions that will allow greater access to China's market for his buddies in the financial services industry. That's the "hidden agenda" that both the congress and the media fail to see. From Geithner's point of view, the confab is not really about "strategic dialogue" on "mutual economic and security issues". That's just a smokescreen. Geithner is backed by powerful Wall Street constituents who could care less about exchange rates or jobs. What they care about is markets and profits. And for that, they need greater access.

During his term as Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson spent more time in Beijing than he did in Washington. But his goals were the same as Geithner's; to do whatever it takes to pry-open the biggest consumer market on earth. That basic policy hasn't changed.

No one believes that Geithner is going to fight to save American jobs. It's laughable. From his perspective, the currency flap is just stick for beating up on China when groveling doesn't work. But it's too early to put the stick to work, just yet. For now the policy is all "carrots", although that could change in an instant if Wall Street doesn't get it's way.

Americans have a fundamental misunderstanding about the US/China relationship. China is not in the driver's seat and neither is the United States. There's a third party involved, but that party remains mostly invisible. And that's how they like it. Here's an excerpt from the Washington Post which explains the whole thing:

"If the United States does decide to impose tariffs on China, Chen said, American companies operating in China, which account for more than 60 percent of China's exports to the United States, would surely be hurt the most. ‘In the end,’ Chen said, ‘America is the one that needs to adjust.’

"While some analysts have predicted that China would soon start to let the yuan appreciate, Chen's interview illustrated the fact that there is a strong lobby in China opposing revaluation. One reason why a revaluation would be dangerous for China, Chen said, is that profit margins for Chinese exporters are tiny -- ranging from 1.7 to two percentage points." ("China's commerce minister: U.S. has the most to lose in a trade war" Washington Post)

To repeat: "American companies.... account for more than 60 percent of China's exports to the United States." That means, the head honchos of the biggest multinationals are calling the shots. China is not the villain here. After all, they're only getting a measly 1.7 on their investment. If the renminbi strengthens at all; they're in the red. China's back is against the wall. What are they supposed to do; work for nothing and let the voracious multinationals walk off with 100 percent of the profits?

The truth is, China's currency policy was probably just one of the many perks demanded by foreign corporations before they relocated to China. Naturally the CEOs would want to make sure they'd have an edge on the competition, so they (probably) persuaded Hu into gaming the system before they even broke ground. China has always gone the extra mile to accommodate the interests of the multinationals. Unfortunately, that's the only way to entice them to relocate.

Now it looks like China is headed for a hard landing whether it tweaks the exchange rate or not. Its $600 billion fiscal stimulus and massive lending programs have inflated a credit bubble that is about to burst. Here's a blurp from the Independent Strategy’s latest report titled, “China’s credit bubble: the missing piece in the jigsaw”:

"We now know that much of the credit explosion in 2009 that boosted economic growth went into local government entities where it was wasted on unproductive real estate and infrastructure projects. These entities are mostly insolvent and will create huge bad debts for the banks as credit is tightened this year….

Debt is big enough to be a potential source of major macro-economic instability. ...This Local Government Financing Vehicles (LGFV) edifice will not survive credit tightening, because it is a Ponzi-type pyramid built upon borrowing more to service existing borrowings….the problem is economically huge. LGFVs are not going to be borrowing and spending any more. And if infrastructure investment drove 90% of 2009 GDP growth and 70-80% of this was down to insolvent LGFVs, where will the growth in credit and GDP come from now?"

The lethal combo of non-performing loans and falling real estate prices are likely to trigger a broader crisis that could spill over the borders and push the global economy back into recession. This is a real concern. Here's an excerpt from hedge fund manager Hugh Hendry who predicts even tougher times ahead:

"The composition of China's growth has undergone a potentially treacherous change: in the absence of expanding foreign demand for its exports, it has instead come to rely on a massive surge in domestic bank lending to fuel its growth rate. Indeed, when measured relative to the size of its economy, the 27pc point jump in bank loans to GDP is unprecedented; at no point in history has a nation ever attempted such an incredible increase in state-directed bank lending.

What a turnaround: from an export juggernaut to a credit addict. Who would have thought it necessary back in 2001, the year everything all started to work out for China?....China has become the world's biggest creditor, after amassing nearly $2.3 trillion of foreign exchange claims on us. However, the specter of a creditor nation running persistent trade surpluses has ominous historical portents. It has happened only twice before, with the US economy in the Twenties and with the Japanese economy in the Eighties. ("China: Hugh Hendry warns investors' infatuation is misguided" UK Telegraph)

China is headed for trouble. It's economy is reeling from overinvestment, underconsumption, and razor-thin profit margins. That's a tough mix in the best of times; and these aren't the best of times. When the bubble starts to unwind; defaults will increase, consumption will drop and economic activity will slow to a crawl. That will force the renminbi to rise whether the Party bosses like it or not.

China's business model is deeply flawed. The domestic market needs to expand so there's less dependence on exports. Personal consumption is the key, which means that wages and living standards will have to rise. The government needs a wealth-distribution plan--like the New Deal--to increase demand and create a thriving middle class. And that's the rub, because the class war goes on in China just as it does in United States.

Role o
Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Mike Whitney

Freedom Watch - Gerald Celente - Rise of a Third Party 4-6-10

Click this link ...... http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=11218

King: IRS Efforts Hurting Our Economy's Producers

Click this link ...... http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=11219

SILVER to $436/oz and Beyond.

Click this link ....... http://eclipptv.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=11216

Media Blackout – Wall Street Journal Hiding Andrew Maguire Revelation Of JP Morgan Chase Gold/Silver Manipulation

Note that my original Seminal story is #3 on this list of sites that covered the CFTC news blackout:

Well, if you read the Wall Street Journal, you’ll never know what happened at the hearing and whether the CFTC paid any attention to them, but, if you look elsewhere, you’ll read about all kinds of interesting developments during and after the meeting.

Here’s a partial list:

GATA’s evidence of silver and gold manipulation at CFTC hearing – Mineweb

CFTC Gets Facts of Bullion Manipulation – Numismaster

JP Morgan Chase Caught Manipulating Gold & Silver Market – Firedog Lake

Whistleblower Speaks Out On JP Morgan Market Manipulation – Jesse’s Cafe

Former Goldman Analyst Confirms LMBA Gold Market Is “Paper Gold” Ponzi – Zero Hedge

Whistleblower in Silver Manipulation Struck by Hit and Run Car In London – Jesse’s Cafe

King World Interview with Andrew Maguire the Silver Market ‘Whistleblower’ – Jesse’s Cafe

King Interview With GATA On The Biggest Gold Manipulation Story Disclosed – Zero Hedge

Now, of all the sources above, the Mineweb story is probably the most mainstream and they had a few interesting observations and conclusions:

Some observers feel that the Gold Anti Trust Association (GATA’s) long held views on a conspiracy by some major banks and government entities to manipulate precious metals prices are off-target, but the latest evidence produced by GATA chairman Bill Murphy in open testimony at the CFTC hearing is compelling assuming the source material is accurate.

The evidence came in the form of a series of emails, and accompanying commentary, from a London metals trader, Andrew Maguire, who contacted GATA on March 23rd regarding alleged rigging of the precious metals markets by JP Morgan among others, through shorting the markets around key economic data releases, describing in detail how this is achieved. Maguire, Murphy contends, informed the CFTC enforcement division of this market manipulation ahead of the release of farm payroll data in February this year and set out not only how the manipulation would be achieved two days in advance, but also sent real time emails to the CFTC investigators as the alleged manipulation was taking place. According to Murphy the metals prices followed the scenario precisely – something which he felt could not be predicted without prior knowledge of the manipulation of the markets by major players with huge financial clout.

Now, why couldn’t the Wall Street Journal report something like that?

Here’s the followup story on the cyber attack against King World News and one other site that dared to speak the truth about JP Morgan Chase.

Here is what the leaders of the CFTC are faced with:

Misprision of Treason

The entire world now knows that they hold evidence of a crime that is ongoing every single day. In fact, the world knows they were told of the crime in real time as it occurred, minute by minute. Their alleged job is to regulate the COMEX, and investigate crimes.

As there seem to be a couple Federal Judges left who are willing to uphold the law, the individuals in possession of knowledge of this crime are required to take action immediately, or confirm their role as accomplices by their inaction.

That the Wall Street Journal, CNBS, Fox Money, Bloomberg and all of the other US Mainstream Financial Media are not covering this story of the largest financial fraud in history makes them complicit on some level as well.

Fascism has finally confirmed its presence.

Can apricot kernels keep cancer at bay?

Paul Reid: "I don't think my journey has been unscientific, it's just that there's been no science in a big way applied to it.'' Photo: Simon ODwyer

PAUL Reid should be dead. Diagnosed with a rare, incurable lymphoma, he was given five years, seven tops, by his oncologist. But, having cheated death in the Ash Wednesday bushfires, he was not about to surrender his life without a fight.

His weapon of choice? Apricot kernels. Thirty a day. Reid turned down chemotherapy, vowing to eat himself well. Today, 13 years in remission, the 68-year-old believes that ''cancer-killing'' properties in the kernels he still eats daily, coupled with a strict vegan diet and prayer, have cured him. ''We're not immortal, but I believe I'll be healthy from taking this direction,'' he says.

Reid is among a growing number of cancer patients who see food as the key to their survival - a trend worrying doctors who fear people may be risking their lives by embarking on extreme, unproved diets. Some patients are forgoing conventional medical treatment and putting their faith in ''anti-cancer'' diets promoted by alternative health practitioners, or buying untested nutritional supplements on the internet.

Amanda Hordern, director of the Cancer Council Victoria's information and support helpline, says the line is fielding an increasing number of calls from people who believe they can heal their bodies by undergoing restrictive dietary regimes, such as consuming 10 kilograms of juiced fruit and vegetables a day, eliminating dairy and meat, taking high doses of vitamin supplements or eating shark cartilage and having coffee enemas.

She says of the 600 calls about nutrition last year, many were from cancer patients convinced an extreme diet could cure them. ''I've spoken to people who have mortgaged their houses looking for this wonder

cure. I've heard of $20,000 retreats where people go away and are taught how to have alternative diets that are unproven.

''People have asked us for financial assistance to pay for funerals because they've lost absolutely everything in pursuing the elusive hope and it hasn't worked,'' Dr Hordern told The Sunday Age.

The Cancer Council's message, like that of its international peers, is clear: diet can play a role in preventing cancer - too much red meat or alcohol has been shown to increase the risk of breast and bowel cancer, for example - but there is no scientific evidence to prove any one food or diet can treat, control or cure cancer.

Yet many of the 114,000 Australians diagnosed each year - most commonly with prostate, bowel, breast and lung cancers - reject this advice. It defies logic, they say, that if eschewing a Western diet high in saturated fat, salt and red meat can reduce the risk of some cancers, that food becomes irrelevant after diagnosis?

Paul Reid challenged mainstream medicine's prognosis with a regime of colonic cleansing, a 75 per cent raw fruit and vegetable diet, and chewing on apricot pits - rich in amygdalin, an extract also known as B17, which doctors say is a ''phoney'' vitamin, but which supporters claim kills cancer cells. He is convinced that his diet was the cornerstone of his recovery. The fact that no robust research supports his restrictive diet, or that there is evidence high doses of of amygdalin can cause cyanide poisoning and, in some cases death, is of little consequence to the Berwick father of two.

''So what if there's no scientific proof? What has a person to lose by going on an organic diet?'' he asks. ''I don't think my journey has been unscientific, it's just that there's been no science in a big way applied to it.''

The substances we ingest undoubtedly affect the body's metabolic processes. Drinking alcohol can lead to slurred speech and loss of balance, while eating too much fat and sugar causes weight gain. But food's effect on cancer is less clear. Some practitioners in both the medical and alternative communities point to research that certain foods can either promote or inhibit cancer cell growth. Others say the disease is caused by a build-up of toxins that must be flushed from the body with nutrient-rich produce, or that cancer feeds on sugar.

Evidence is flimsy, cautions Jenelle Loeliger, senior dietitian at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. The findings are often from small, observational studies that lack the scientific rigour of large-scale clinical trials, she says, or are based on laboratory results on animals, not humans.

The most reliable nutritional advice for those with cancer is to maintain a balanced diet, she says, warning that those undergoing chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery are particularly at risk if following restrictive diets. ''They [diets] eliminate essential food groups, so you're eliminating good quality protein sources. It can exacerbate or accelerate malnutrition in a group already at risk of malnutrition. If someone's losing weight, it can have a big impact on their tolerance and even their ability to get through the treatment.''

Dr Hordern has received many calls from relatives of cancer sufferers who have followed unorthodox diets with tragic results. ''I remember a man whose wife had recently died from very advanced breast cancer. He said to me with absolute agony and desperation in his voice, 'My wife was so sure that this wonder treatment was going to work.' It was a really extreme, alternative therapy with coffee enemas and a cleansing detoxifying diet recommended by a naturopath. In the end she was so wasted, had lost so much weight and he was really angry. He felt that he had been robbed of the last month of her life.''

Ruth Gawler, who supports cancer patients through the foundation she runs with husband Ian - author of bestseller You Can Conquer Cancer - insists they never use the word ''cure'', preferring ''heal'' in relation to the no-salt, no-sugar, plant-based vegan diet provided in conjunction with meditation and ''mind training'' at their $3000, 11-day residential retreats. Dr Gawler says countless patients have had ''spontaneous remissions'' after undergoing their programs, which have a two-month waiting list. She believes the rise in demand - 1000 people are treated each year, a 50 per cent increase in two years - is proof of a growing dissatisfaction with the perceived limits of orthodox medicine.

If dietary treatments attracted the same research dollars as pharmaceutical regimens, she argues, stronger evidence would exist. ''No one's going to be able to make a big buck from selling people carrots and beans and onions. Who's going to invest the huge money these trials require into proving the point?'' she asks.

Doctors acknowledge there is emerging evidence that some foods could have an effect on cancer cells - antioxidant-rich foods such as berries and leafy green vegetables, for example - but say the limited research is not enough to recommend dietary changes to patients.

But with studies showing between 22 per cent and 52 per cent of Australian cancer patients use one or more complementary therapies - those in the booming $2.3 billion alternative health industry say it is as high as 80 per cent - clearly, there is a growing demand for adjuncts to or alternatives to drug treatment. For many, diet is the first and most simple way to regain control of a body that has defied them.

Sally White, 41, was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2007. She enrolled in a Gawler program after being left frustrated by doctors. ''I wasn't given any direction about whether to change my diet or not and the inference was it doesn't matter what you do, it's not going to change the outcome or your survival chances,'' she says.

The mother of two boys, aged 13 and 11, was told by Melbourne surgeons who removed a part of the tumour, that it was only a matter of time before it began to grow again. She sought a second opinion from controversial Sydney neurosurgeon Charlie Teo, who said he could remove substantially more of the tumour, giving her a better shot at survival. Despite the 50 per cent risk of a speech deficit and left-side paralysis, she emerged from theatre unscathed.

Since her diagnosis she has largely stuck to the Gawler diet, cutting out red meat, ensuring 90 per cent of her produce is organic and eating foods rich in antioxidants such as broccoli, beetroot, chickpeas, lentils and green tea.

Her tumour has started to grow again but she believes the diet will increase her survival chances. ''Potentially it has stopped the tumour growing back more aggressively and quickly. It has put me in a position to have this treatment [she is set to undergo radiotherapy and chemotherapy] and hopefully have the best outcomes from it, because I've already reduced the toxic load on my body over the last three years.''

Dr Ian Haines, medical oncologist at Cabrini Health, is open to his patients making changes to their diet if they are not too extreme, and says it can provide a placebo effect. He says confusion about what to eat is a big problem: ''Once someone gets diagnosed with cancer they get six or 10 different books on curing cancer from all variety of sources, so they're absolutely flooded with mixed messages. There is no magic solution out there, moderation is probably the best answer we have in 2010.''

Former Australian Medical Association president Kerryn Phelps believes many doctors are dismissive of nutritional regimes, which can leave patients feeling hopeless. ''If they're not getting the answers from their cancer specialists they're going somewhere else to get that information,'' she says. ''It's really important that people are given careful guidance. It will protect them from going down the path of something faddish, which is potentially dangerous.''

Dr Phelps, a GP and president of the Australasian Integrative Medicine Association, says most alternative practitioners operate ethically, and many work collaboratively with mainstream doctors.

However, she says there is a pressing need for greater attention to be paid to nutrition in medical schools and for more funding to research potential links between food and cancer.

''Just because we haven't got the whole picture yet doesn't mean there isn't something in it,'' she says. ''We are gathering [information] gradually, which is the way you gather evidence. You don't suddenly have eureka moments where you think, 'that's the answer, we can cure cancer'.''

Breast cancer survivor Melanie Meehan, 38, wants stronger evidence before she makes radical changes to her diet. The Preston mother of boys aged two and five is in remission after having a mastectomy and chemotherapy. During treatment she met many women who had a very healthy diet but still got cancer.

She has decided to have her remaining healthy breast removed.

''If someone could demonstrate statistically that cutting out certain things in your diet would eliminate or greatly reduce the risk of recurrence, I would put up my hand and do it. But the way that I feel like I'm going to prevent recurrence is to take off the other breast,'' she says.

''You can have a very healthy life by having everything in moderation and just going out and enjoying yourself.''

But for Sally White, who is preparing to undergo more medical treatment on her brain tumour, taking control of her eating habits is the most practical way she can help herself. She rejects the notion that putting faith in food creates false hope.

''From my perspective there's no such thing. Hope is hope.''

Schwarzenegger axes low-cost auto insurance program as state & feds fleece impoverished public

California's low-cost auto insurance program, which offers affordable automobile liability insurance to Californians who meet income eligibility requirements, is set to be axed in 2011, thanks to a a veto by governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The low-cost program, which is largely unknown by residents, is set to expire Jan. 1, 2011 but had been extended by the legislature via AB 725. It was terminated by the governor, however, who said the 'effectiveness of this program is questionable given the number of policies in effect and low participation rate amongst the uninsured'.

Like many states, California enacted mandatory auto insurance laws some years ago. Yet many Californians are having trouble just making ends meet. Unemployment in California may average 12 per cent in 2010. California has the second highest 'share of multigenerational households' in the nation ('boomerang kids', adults moving back home with their elderly parents because of economic problems). Even hotel foreclosures are up 27 percent as a result of unemployment and reduced business travel.

Police, meanwhile, are admittedly getting more aggressive in issuing traffic tickets during the recession. A USA Today article recently pointed this out, including statistics of how local governments always increase traffic citations whenever revenue decreases:

"A study published last year in the Journal of Law and Economics found that police issue more traffic citations during recessions. From 1990 to 2003, counties in North Carolina issued significantly more tickets in the year following a decline in general tax revenue. Researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and the University of Arkansas-Little Rock found that a 10% decrease in revenue growth caused a 6.4% increase the following year in the growth rate of traffic tickets."

Receiving more traffic tickets, if convicted of the offense, will raise drivers' rates even further. If motorists don't have insurance, they don't even have to be pulled over in order for the state to find out. California now has mandatory electronic reporting, with auto insurance companies forced to report to the state electronically (CVC §16058) whenever a drivers' liability insurance lapses. The state can then suspend the vehicles's registration, (CVC §4000.38) even if the fees have been paid, impound the vehicle from the owner, and sell it. This program began in 2006, and the DMV website points out that "Law enforcement and court personnel have electronic access to insurance status on DMV records".

Despite the fact that officers have access to motorists' insurance information, they must still provide a copy of it upon request, or they have violated yet another law, CVC 16028(a): "every person who drives a motor vehicle upon a highway shall provide evidence of financial responsibility for the vehicle that is in effect at the time the demand is made",

The previous article How compulsory auto insurance rode the slippery slope to "government health care" outlines how compulsory insurance laws do not work, causes rates to increase, and how Obama used the widespread acceptance of such laws at the state level as an excuse to justify further government intrusion into our lives.

Schwarzenneger and his wife, meanwhile, both ignore the plethora of laws he signed into law, not to mention his tax lien (since taken care of) and shady political donation he made to himself.

Related: Why everyone should fight their traffic tickets- every time

Red light camera tickets defeated in California

How to beat a cell phone ticket in California

Constitutionalist beats seat belt ticket through the mail

Defendant invokes right to speedy trial, beats red light camera ticket

Carpool lanes: yellow paint slowing you down? Thank George Bush senior

Southland city removes red light cameras after 'rear end collisions have actually increased'

Thanks a Lot, JP Morgan Chase

SACRAMENTO (CN) - JPMorgan Chase instructed homeowners to stop making mortgage payments, as that was the only way to be considered for a loan modification, then repossessed their house when they followed the bank's advice, a couple claims in Federal Court. "I've seen this happen to so many people," their attorney said. "When they come in here to tell me their story, I can actually tell it to them."
Faiz and Khadua Jahani sued Morgan Chase and its predecessor, Washington Mutual Bank, on their own behalf and on behalf of the public.
"When they called the 800 number, they were specifically told that as long as they were current on their mortgage they wouldn't even be considered for a loan modification," the couple's attorney, Piotr Reysner, said in an interview.
In their federal complaint, the Jahanis say they contacted the bank in December 2008 "to indicate that they were having trouble paying their mortgage and would like to discuss a possible loan modification."
The Jahanis say the bank representative told them "that they would not work with plaintiffs at all because they were currently not in breach of their loan terms. Plaintiffs were specifically advised at that time to stop making payments for a period of three months, at which time defendants would consider a loan modification. Plaintiffs were specifically informed that as long as they were current on their mortgage payments, that defendants would not consider a loan modification. ...
"Reasonably relying on the direction of defendants, plaintiffs stopped making their loan payments. Plaintiffs are informed and believe and thereon allege that defendants immediately reported to the various credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) that plaintiffs were late on their mortgage payments. ...
"On or about June 23, 2009, defendants sent a letter to plaintiff entitled 'Notice of
Intent to Foreclose,' indicating that plaintiffs were past due in their mortgage in the amount of $100.65 and that plaintiffs need to bring the account current within 30 days to avoid foreclosure proceedings. No Notice of Default accompanied the letter, nor was any Notice of Default ever served on plaintiffs."
Months of correspondence between the Jahanis and Chase followed, with the Jahanis repeatedly sending Chase documents it had requested, and Chase repeatedly sending them letters claiming it had not received proper documentation and that their loan modification was "in jeopardy."
The Jahanis say they called the bank to check on the status of their loan modification, and were told to disregard Chase's letters, that the bank "had in fact received all necessary documentation."
Then in October 2009, the defendants sold their house at a trustee sale. The Jahanis say strangers came to their house and told them that "the property had sold at auction, that plaintiffs no longer owned the property and that they (meaning the unnamed persons) were interested in buying the house from the bank." (Parentheses in complaint.)
The Jahanis say they immediately called Chase, which told them that their house "had not been foreclosed and that the people who were approaching the property were doing so illegally."
The Jahanis say this insanity continued for months. They called the bank again in February 2010, and asked why their house was still listed as having been foreclosed in October 2009.
Chase told them it was all a "mistake" and that the bank simply had not updated its records, according to the complaint.
"During that same conversation, plaintiffs asked why defendants continued to accept mortgage payments from plaintiffs if the house had been foreclosed. Plaintiffs demanded to know where their payments were going and demanded a payment history from defendants. Plaintiffs further demanded to know why defendants' REO department had indicated that plaintiffs no longer owned the house and that it was now in fact owned by the bank."
They say the bank rep, "Janet," "again reiterated that this was a mistake and that she would take care of it. Janet further claimed that she, at that moment, was sending e-mails and correspondence 'everywhere' within the company to rectify the situation and to please allow her 10 days to clear up the mess. The mess, in fact, was never cleaned up. Janet further promised in that same conversation that someone would review the file and get back to them within 10 days. No one did."
The Jahanis add, "This was never resolved, as the Jahanis received tax documents indicating that their house had been acquired by the bank, even though they continued to send in mortgage payments."
Their attorney Reysner said the Jahanis' story is all too common.
"I've heard this story from many, many, many clients," Reysner said. "I've seen this happen to so many people. When they come in here to tell me their story, I can actually tell it to them."
Reysner said it "makes no sense" for Chase to encourage its customers to put themselves in such an untenable position.
"I don't know their motivation," the attorney said, referring to the bank. "I just know what happens. They get the person behind in their payments, which puts the bank into the position to foreclose, because as soon as you go late, the bank has the right to foreclose."
The Jahanis demand general and special damages of $150,000 for breach of contract, fraud, predatory lending and violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
They also seek an order requiring Chase to return any money fraudulently collected from homeowners.
"The goal is to hit them hard," Reysner said. "But it's also to try to get them to change their business practices."

Greenspan: Government can't prevent crisis

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Alan Greenspan told a panel investigating the causes of the financial crisis Wednesday that steps can be taken to limit the impact of another shock, but the former Federal Reserve chairman warned that regulators can't fully prevent another crisis from happening.

In written testimony before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Greenspan said the recent crisis highlights the limitations of government oversight in the financial markets.

"Regulators cannot successfully use the bully pulpit to manage asset prices, and they cannot calibrate regulation and supervision in response to movements in asset prices," he said. "Nor can they fully eliminate the possibility of future crises."

Still, the former Fed chief argued that increased capital and collateral requirements for financial institutions could help mitigate risks and safeguard the system. He also said regulators should do more to prevent predatory lending and address threats posed by institutions that are considered too big to fail.

Greenspan, who was chairman of the U.S. central bank from 1987 to 2006, has been criticized for not increasing the Fed's benchmark interest rate in time to prevent the housing market from becoming overheated. The housing bubble eventually burst in 2008, giving rise to a wave of foreclosures and plunging the economy into a deep recession.

The commission, which was established last year to examine the causes of the financial crisis, is hearing testimony this week from a number of former federal officials, bankers and mortgage industry executives about the near collapse of the housing market.

The hearings are aimed at exploring how the issuance of trillions of dollars worth of risky subprime mortgage debt contributed to the financial meltdown. Specifically, the commission wants to explore the Federal Reserve's authority to regulate unfair and deceptive mortgage practices.

In response to a question from commission chairman Phil Angelides about why the Fed did not move faster to contain the spread of subprime lending, Greenspan said the central bank has limited power to enforce regulations, and defended the steps he took to ensure consumer protection.

"When you've been in government for 21 years, as I have been, the issue of retrospect and what you should have done is a really futile activity," he said. "I was right 70% of the time, but I was wrong 30% of the time, and there were an awful lot of mistakes in 21 years," he added.

0:00 /2:50Biggest banks still at risk

While Greenspan has acknowledged that the Fed failed to grasp the severity of the crisis, he maintains that the low interest rate policy the central bank maintained during his tenure did not inflate home prices.

Greenspan said the subprime mortgage crisis had its root in the securitization of risky home loans into assets that were divided and sold around the world. He said the market for such securities ballooned to more than $900 billion by 2007.

Goldman Sachs: No apologies

The former chairman said strong investor demand for mortgage-backed securities artificially boosted home prices. He said government-sponsored enterprises, such as mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, also contributed to the spread of subprime loans.

Greenspan also blamed banks for relying too heavily on the flawed judgment of credit ratings agencies to assess the value of mortgage-backed securities and dropping the ball when it comes to risk management.

In addition to Greenspan, the 10-member commission will hear testimony on supbrime mortgage origination and securitization from former executives at Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and New Century Financial Corp., once one of the nation's largest subprime lenders.

On Thursday, former Citi chief executives Chuck Prince and Robert Rubin will go before the commission.

The commission is also investigating the role government-sponsored enterprises played in the housing market meltdown. Former Fannie Mae executives Robert Levin and Daniel Mudd are due to testify Friday.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule."

~ H.L. Mencken

I can't believe the news today
Oh, I can't close my eyes and make it go away
How long, how long must we sing this song?
How long? How long?
'Cause tonight we can be as one, tonight

Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday
Sunday, Bloody Sunday

~ U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday

Bono wrote this song in 1983. He was describing the slaughter of thirteen unarmed Catholic civil rights protestors in Derry, Northern Ireland on January 30, 1972 by British troops. Many of the victims were shot in the back. The Irish Republican Army employed this tragic event to mobilize thousands of recruits to their cause. The incident triggered more violence that lasted for decades and resulted in many more senseless deaths. When governments make imprudent decisions and craft irrational policies there are consequences. Murdering unarmed protestors resulted in decades of civil war in Northern Ireland. Unleashing a new multi-trillion dollar entitlement hurricane, when we already have the Social Security/Medicare hurricane bearing down on us and a Federal Reserve caused Depression level 5 hurricane already raging will have calamitous consequences for our nation. March 21, 2010 will go down in U.S. history as our Sunday Bloody Sunday. The ideologues on both sides of the healthcare debate care only about the next election and how they will spin the votes of their opponents to attain victory. The economic consequences of this 2,400-page abortion of a bill are secondary because these politicians will be retired or dead when our grandchildren get the bill.

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

~ H.L. Mencken

"If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner."

~ H.L. Mencken

Politicians have demonstrated over decades to be completely ignorant of the long-term impact of the rules and regulations they have inflicted upon the American people. For those who believe that creating a new entitlement for 32 million people, hiring 16,500 new IRS agents to enforce the new regulations, and allowing government boards to make your healthcare decisions for you will reduce costs and improve healthcare, I will point you to the facts versus promise of prior legislation. A Senate Joint Economic Committee released a report in 2009 found that health care plan costs are always dramatically underestimated by the politicians that create the entitlements:

• Medicare (hospital insurance) – In 1965, as Congress considered legislation to establish a national Medicare program, the House Ways and Means Committee estimated that the hospital insurance portion of the program, Part A, would cost about $9 billion annually by 1990.v Actual Part A spending in 1990 was $67 billion. The actuary who provided the original cost estimates acknowledged in 1994 that, even after conservatively discounting for the unexpectedly high inflation rates of the early ‘70s and other factors, "the actual [Part A] experience was 165% higher than the estimate."
• Medicare (entire program) – In 1967, the House Ways and Means Committee predicted that the new Medicare program, launched the previous year, would cost about $12 billion in 1990. Actual Medicare spending in 1990 was $110 billion – off by nearly a factor of 10.
• Medicaid DSH program – In 1987, Congress estimated that Medicaid’s disproportionate share hospital (DSH) payments – which states use to provide relief to hospitals that serve especially large numbers of Medicaid and uninsured patients – would cost less than $1 billion in 1992. The actual cost that year was a staggering $17 billion. Among other things, federal lawmakers had failed to detect loopholes in the legislation that enabled states to draw significantly more money from the federal treasury than they would otherwise have been entitled to claim under the program’s traditional 50-50 funding scheme.
• Medicare home care benefit – When Congress debated changes to Medicare’s home care benefit in 1988, the projected 1993 cost of the benefit was $4 billion. The actual 1993 cost was more than twice that amount, $10 billion.
• Medicare catastrophic coverage benefit – In 1988, Congress added a catastrophic coverage benefit to Medicare, to take effect in 1990. In July 1989, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) doubled its cost estimate for the program, for the four-year period 1990-1993, from $5.7 billion to $11.8 billion. CBO explained that it had received newer data showing it had significantly under-estimated prescription drug cost growth, and it warned Congress that even this revised estimate might be too low. This was a principal reason Congress repealed the program before it could take effect.
• SCHIP – In 1997, Congress established the State Children’s Health Insurance Program as a capped grant program to states, and appropriated $40 billion to be doled out to states over 10 years at a rate of roughly $5 billion per year, once implemented. In each year, some states exceeded their allotments, requiring shifts of funds from other states that had not done so. By 2006, unspent reserves from prior years were nearly exhausted. To avert mass disenrollments, Congress decided to appropriate an additional $283 million in FY 2006 and an additional $650 million in FY 2007.

Based on this track record, do you believe President Obama when he declares that his national healthcare plan will save $136 billion in the first ten years? It appears the rocket scientists on the Democratic side of the aisle have trouble estimating the costs of the entitlements they hand out on a regular basis. Republicans, on the other hand, tend to slightly underestimate the cost of their invasions (Rummy says $50 billion; taxi meter says $977 billion and counting).

Platform for Your Lies

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

~ H.L. Mencken

Blanket of silence
Makes me want to sink my teeth in deep
Burn all the evidence
A fabricated disbelief
Pull back the curtains
Took a look into your eyes

My tongue has now become
A platform for your lies

~ Cage the Elephant – Back Against the Wall

Washington D.C. is a sordid cesspool crawling with thousands of shady politicians, power hungry bureaucrats, slimy lawyers, and corporate lobbyists with pockets stuffed with one hundred dollar bills. Legislation is bought and sold to the highest bidder. The rock group Cage the Elephant captures the mantra of Washington D.C. in their latest hit song. For the last few decades Congress could get away with silence as the public was preoccupied with getting rich day trading, flipping houses, and buying electronic gadgets with limitless credit cards. Their backroom deals and corporate payoffs were ignored. Not anymore. These "servants of the people" have had the curtain pulled back, revealing their foul deeds. What these historically uninformed bureaucrats failed to realize is that we have entered a Fourth Turning. The mood of the country changes dramatically during this Crisis period. The citizens will not ignore what was overlooked in the 1990’s. Leaders will be held accountable for their actions. Institutions will be replaced if they fail. Civility will be cast aside. Violence, pain and sacrifice are inevitable. The politicians with common sense are fleeing Washington in droves, retiring and accepting jobs with the companies that bought their votes for the last few decades.

The last year has been a never-ending competition of lies. The American public has been subjected to misinformation and lies from the tongues of politicians who hire pollsters and PR firms to fabricate their propaganda. Democratic talking points hammered home incessantly are:

• Insurance companies are evil and must be stopped from screwing Americans.
• The healthcare plan will reduce deficits by $136 billion in the 1^st ten years and $1 trillion in the 2^nd ten years.
• The healthcare plan will reduce Medicare waste by $500 billion.
• The biggest middle class tax cut for healthcare in history.

Even the pea-brained pundits on CNBC know the stock market is a discounting mechanism that looks forward 6 to 12 months. With Obama blaming insurance companies for everything that is wrong with our healthcare system and declaring an end to their reign of terror, you would think their stocks would reflect a miserable future. As you can see from the chart below the five biggest insurance companies in the country are dancing in the aisles of Congress over this plan. It is funny how their stocks have doubled the market while Obama declares he is going to stick it to them. Considering insurance company and drug company lobbyists wrote large portions of the bill, maybe Obama was stretching the truth, just a little.

Company	26-Mar-09	26-Mar-10	% Change
S&P 500	$833.00	$1,167.00	40.1%
Aetna	$24.39	$34.32	40.7%
CIGNA	$18.62	$35.90	92.8%
United Health	$21.59	$32.63	51.1%
Wellpoint	$36.42	$63.05	73.1%
Humana	$25.06	$47.20	88.3%

The truth is that Obamacare will increase budget deficits, increase costs for everyone, decrease levels of service, increase wait times for procedures, and drive doctors out of the profession. Only a delusional liberal ideologue could believe that throwing 32 million people into the healthcare system could possibly reduce costs. Democrats specifically wrote the bill in a way to manipulate the CBO scoring system. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the CBO director from 2003 to 2005, knows all the tricks of the trade. His honest assessment of the bill concludes that the federal deficit will increase by $562 billion. The major deceptions in the healthcare bill are as follows:

• The bill declares it will trim $463 billion from Medicare spending and use it to finance insurance subsidies. But Medicare is already bleeding red ink, and the health care bill has no reforms that would enable the program to operate more cheaply in the future. Instead, Congress will continue to regularly override scheduled cuts in payments to Medicare doctors and other providers. With an anticipated 200,000-doctor shortage by 2020, Congress will never make these cuts.
• To operate the new programs over the first 10 years, future Congresses would need to vote for $114 billion in additional annual spending. But this so-called discretionary spending is excluded from the Congressional Budget Office’s tabulation.
• $70 billion in premiums are expected to be raised in the first 10 years for the legislation’s new long-term health care insurance program. This money is counted as deficit reduction, but the benefits it is intended to finance are assumed not to materialize in the first 10 years, so they appear nowhere in the cost of the legislation.
• The bill uses $53 billion in anticipated higher Social Security taxes to offset health care spending. Social Security revenues are expected to rise as employers shift from paying for health insurance to paying higher wages. But if workers have higher wages, they will also qualify for increased Social Security benefits when they retire. So the extra money raised from payroll taxes is already spoken for. It cannot be used for lowering the deficit.

These are just the costs that were purposely misrepresented in the healthcare bill. The unintended consequences in a 2,400-page bill that was not read by the people who voted for it will be immeasurable. The Bill will bring 32 million high-usage people into the healthcare system and force insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions. Sounds like a humane thing to do. The last time I looked, insurance companies are for-profit entities. If they are forced to take on riskier customers, they will increase premiums on all their customers. According to the Congressional Budget Office, insurance premiums will double in the next few years. The bill will do nothing to lessen that increase. Obama pays for large swaths of the bill by taxing people making over $200,000 and imposing fees on drug manufacturers, health insurers, and medical device manufacturers. The rich will change their behavior to avoid these taxes. It seems ironic that many of the Americans that earn more than $200,000 per year are doctors. The corporations will pass along the fees and taxes to the consumers of their products.

It is clear that prices for all forms of healthcare will be going up. At least we can be sure that services levels and care will decline while wait times for service go up. A survey in the New England Journal of Medicine reports that 46% of doctors may give up their practice in the wake of this bill. There is no doubt that many doctors will choose to shrink their patient loads or retire. In Massachusetts, after the passage of Romneycare, the wait to see a primary-care physician increased from 33 to 52 days. Surely adding 159 new programs, thousands of new rules and regulations, and a boatload of government bureaucrats will improve healthcare for all. According to a recent report by the Association of American Medical Colleges:

• There are currently 700,000 doctors in the U.S. today. That is one doctor for every 450 people.
• With the rapidly aging population, the need for doctors would have been 860,000 by 2025.
• With the passage of universal healthcare, the need will be 910,000 by 2025.
• The number of people graduating from Medical school has been flat at 16,000 per year since 1980.
• The supply of doctors will only be 750,000 in 2025.
• Approximately 53% of all the doctors in the US are over 50 years old.
• Only 1% of doctors under 35 are in General Practice, while 47% of those over 50 years old are in General Practice.

Doctors will face greater workloads, lower reimbursements and still be subject to frivolous lawsuits by ambulance chasers, as the Democrats surprisingly chose not to address medical malpractice lawsuits. The fact that 96% of the contributions from the Trial Lawyers of America go to the Democratic Party couldn’t have had an impact on Democrats not addressing this issue in a 2,400-page "reform" bill. Despite the future doctor shortage, higher premiums, longer wait times, more paperwork, and boards of bureaucrats deciding your treatment, at least you have the comfort of knowing the IRS will be enforcing the 2,400 pages of rules and regulations with threats of fines and imprisonment. The IRS is well known for their extreme competence and ability to enforce rules and regulations. There are already 100,000 pencil-pushing, mouth-breathing thugs occupying the offices of the IRS. They are so efficient in their existing endeavors that it is estimated that they have somehow not collected $354 billion of taxes that they are owed. They now have the green light to hire 16,500 more hooligan enforcement agents to crack skulls if you fail to purchase government healthcare. Thomas Sowell sums up the fantasy that only a liberal intellectual could believe:

"It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it."

Truth Confined

"I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant."

~ H.L. Mencken

The paranoia is in bloom,
The PR, the transmissions, will resume,
They'll try to push drugs to keep us all dumbed down,
And hope that we will never see the truth around,
SO COME ON!

Another promise, another scene,
Another package not to keep us trapped in greed,
With all the green belts wrapped around our minds,
And endless red tape to keep the truth confined,

~ Muse – Uprising

H.L. Mencken was a renowned newspaper columnist for the Baltimore Sun from 1906 until 1948. His biting sarcasm seems to fit perfectly in today’s world. His acerbic satirical writings on government, democracy, politicians and the ignorant masses are as true today as they were then. I believe the reason his words hit home is because he was writing during the last Unraveling and Crisis periods in America. The similarities cannot be denied. The Roaring Twenties of decadence, financial crisis caused by loose Fed monetary policies, stock market crash, Depression, colossal government redistribution of wealth, and ultimately a World War all occurred during his prime writing years. I know people want to believe that the world only progresses, but they are wrong. The cycles of history reveal that people do not change, just the circumstances change. How Americans react to the undulations of history depends upon their age and generational position. Mencken captured the essence of American politics and a disconnected populace 80 years ago. Even though many people today feel the average American is less intelligent, more materialistic, and less informed than ever before, it was just as true in 1930 based on Mencken’s assessment:

"The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

You can make your own judgment on the accuracy of his statement. His appraisal of U.S. Senators and citizens in our so-called Democracy captures the spirit of the travesty that occurred in Washington DC over the last month:

"Democracy gives the beatification of mediocrity a certain appearance of objective and demonstrable truth. The mob man, functioning as citizen, gets a feeling that he is really important to the world – that he is genuinely running things. Out of his maudlin herding after rogues and mountebanks there comes to him a sense of vast and mysterious power – which is what makes archbishops, police sergeants, the grand goblins of the Ku Klux and other such magnificoes happy. And out of it there comes, too, a conviction that he is somehow wise, that his views are taken seriously by his betters – which is what makes United States Senators, fortune tellers and Young Intellectuals happy. Finally, there comes out of it a glowing consciousness of a high duty triumphantly done which is what makes hangmen and husbands happy."

People still read newspapers in the 1930s to acquire credible information about the economy, politics and economy. Today’s corporate-owned rags aren’t fit to line a bird cage. The mainstream media is a platform for the lies of their corporate sponsors. Each TV network or newspaper spouts propaganda that supports the financial interests and ideology they are beholden to. Does anyone think they are obtaining the truth from Paul Krugman, Chris Matthews, Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh? Evidently the answer is yes. In the 1930s you needed to count on newspapers for the truth. Today, you get more truth from a rock band’s lyrics than the mainstream media. The group Muse captures the exploitation of the masses practiced by the government, media and corporations that run the country in their song Uprising. The purpose of those who wield power is to keep the masses dumbed down and paranoid regarding terrorist threats and artificial enemies. By convincing the dense public that acquiring material goods on credit was a smart thing to do, they have trapped them in a web of debt. By making life an inexhaustible bureaucratic nightmare or rules, regulations, forms, ID cards, registrations, and red tape, those in power maintain control and retain power. H.L. Mencken would be proud:

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby."

Let’s See How Far We’ve Come

"The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression."

~ H.L. Mencken

I'm waking up at the start of the end of the world,
but it's feeling just like every other morning before
Now I wonder what my life is going to mean if it's gone

The cars are moving, like, a half a mile an hour and I
started staring at the passengers who're waving goodbye
Can you tell me what was ever really special about me all this time

But I believe the world is burning to the ground
Oh well, I guess we're gonna find out
Let's see how far we've come
Let's see how far we've come

Well I believe it all is coming to an end
Oh well, I guess we're gonna pretend
Let's see how far we've come
Let's see how far we've come

Matchbox Twenty – Let’s See how far We’ve Come

The corporate–government–banking oligarchy started the fire. The world is burning to the ground and politicians have thrown gasoline onto the fire with passage of the Obamacare bill. To anyone willing to think for just a few minutes, the picture is unambiguous. This requires the ability to think critically. Critical thinking is the careful, deliberate determination of whether one should accept, reject, or suspend judgment about a claim and the degree of confidence with which one accepts or rejects it. Critical thinking employs not only logic but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance and fairness. Critical thinking requires extensive experience in identifying the extent of one's own ignorance in a wide variety of subjects ("I thought I knew, but I merely believed"). One becomes less biased and more broad-minded when one becomes more intellectually empathetic and intellectually humble. I have observed little or no critical thinking skills in the pompous asses that write daily columns in today’s newspapers and zero critical thinking skills among the vacuous pundits and brainless fashion models that yap all day long on CNBC, MSNBC, CNN, Fox and the Big 3 dying networks.

Any thinking would be a shocking change of pace from the corrupt corporate owned politicians in Washington DC. Other than Ron Paul, Paul Ryan and few other critical thinkers, critical thinking from a politician or a government bureaucrat is about as likely as Obama not using a teleprompter. Everything being spewed at the public from the MSM, Wall Street, and Washington DC is intellectually dishonest, manipulated and packaged by pollsters and PR firms. I’ve come to the conclusion that those in power prefer public school systems of the United States to churn out ignorant, non-questioning morons. A populace that is incapable or uninterested in critically thinking about the important issues of the day is a politician’s best friend. Ignorance is the state of being uninformed about issues and unaware about the implications of those issues. It is not about intelligence. A huge swath of America is ignorant due to lack of education and a low-class upbringing. But, I know many college-educated people who haven’t read a book in 20 years or could care less about economic issues. They made a choice to be ignorant. Most Americans are incapable of looking beyond a 2- to 3-year time horizon. That is why the median 401k balance in the U.S. is $13,000. That is why the average credit card debt per household is $16,000. That is why 25% of all homeowners are underwater on their mortgage. Politicians, banks, and marketers take advantage of this ignorance to enslave the average American. An informed, interested, questioning public would be a danger to the government as described by H.L. Mencken:

"The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable."

There were already two fiscal hurricanes churning towards our shores before Obama and his non-critical–thinking Democratic minions launched a third storm. No matter how many intellectually deceitful mouthpieces like Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann, and Sean Hannity ignore the facts, the fiscal foundation of the country is crumbling under the weight of unfunded entitlement promises, out-of-control government spending and far-flung military misadventures. Only someone who is intellectually bankrupt, like Krugman, would declare the National Debt at $8 trillion as a looming disaster when George Bush was President, but declare that a $12 trillion National Debt headed towards $20 trillion isn’t a danger now that Barack Obama is President. Olbermann proclaimed Afghanistan a disastrous misadventure when Bush was President. Now that Obama runs the show, the surge is working and Obama’s brilliant leadership has turned the tide. Hannity never uttered a negative word about a Republican neo-con, the Iraq War or the Afghan strategy between 2001 and 2008. Now he defames Obama on a nightly basis for being weak on Defense, despite that fact that Obama has doubled the troops in Afghanistan and proposed the largest Defense budget in the history of the country. The non-thinking worshippers of these ideologues never question or even reflect upon the facts.

The combination of educationally uninformed, ignorant by choice, and intellectually dishonest will be fatal for the country. Total U.S. debt as a % of GDP is at an all-time high, exceeding 370% of GDP. It is 25% higher than it was at the depths of the Great Depression. Consumer debt has barely fallen, while government debt has skyrocketed in the last year. The financial crisis was caused by excessive utilization of debt. In order to correct these imbalances, the country needed to undergo a deleveraging and reversion back to a country of savers. Savings equals investment. Instead, our "leaders" have reduced interest rates to 0% and have gone on an unprecedented government borrowing and spending spree. Savers are punished, while gamblers and speculators are rewarded. Anyone who thinks about this strategy for a few minutes will realize it is asinine and hopeless.

Based upon the Obama administration’s own 10-year budget plan, the National Debt of the U.S. will exceed $25 trillion in 2019. That is double the current figure of $12.4 trillion. This is after George Bush doubled the National Debt from $5.6 trillion to $11 trillion during his reign of terror. It seems one thing Republicans and Democrats can agree on is that spending money they don’t have will have no negative consequences. We add $4.4 billion of debt to this figure each and every day. We add $183 million to this figure each and every hour. The interest on the National Debt has been averaging $400 billion per year even with an effective interest rate of 3.3%. Much of this interest is paid to foreign governments like China, Japan and OPEC nations. This is $1.1 billion per day of interest to foreigners. With just the slightest bit of critical thinking one could easily perceive that with a National Debt of $25 trillion and a likely increase in interest rates to at least 6%, our annual interest costs would increase to $1.5 trillion per year.

The entire revenue of the U.S. government totaled $2.1 trillion in 2009, with $900 billion of those funds earmarked for Social Security outlays in the future. Does this seem sustainable? President Obama submitted a budget of never-ending trillion-dollar deficits and then gives speeches declaring that we must get our deficits under control. He appears on the MSM declaring his fiscal responsibility and what passes for a journalist these days nods their head like a lapdog and lobs the next softball to the President. You have to be delusional to believe this claptrap. Luckily for the politicians, most Americans are delusional and uninterested. They just got another text message from their BFF. H.L. Mencken understood the false promises of democracy 80 years ago:

"Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses. It is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

The critical thinking folks at Casey Research in their February report analyzed the already catastrophic Obama 10-year budget and ignored the pie in the sky revenue assumptions, exceedingly low interest rate suppositions and ridiculous postulations regarding military spending. The annual growth in government receipts over the last decade has been less than 1%. Obama’s budget is based upon a 7.8% average annual increase for the next 10 years. Even Paul Krugman should question that assumption. But he won’t. No one in the MSM is even interested in the truth. The assumption regarding the interest rate on the National Debt is 3% for the entire 10-year period. I guess the laws of supply and demand don’t apply to the Obama administration. Even Turbo Tax Timmy could figure out that interest rates are headed higher over the next decade. Military spending has grown at an annual rate of 8.5% over the last decade. Obama’s 10-year budget assumes growth of less than 2% annually. No new wars are anticipated, the existing futile wars of choice end, and the war on terror is an absolute triumph, over somebody. If George Bush made these shameful assumptions the MSM would laugh him out of the room. When the savior makes the same outrageous statements, silence reigns among the liberal ideologue networks.

Using a still optimistic receipt growth rate of 3.5%; assuming that interest rates will gradually increase by 1% per year; and military spending increases at recent levels, the National Debt would reach at least $40 trillion by 2020. The country would collapse well in advance of reaching this level. This doesn’t even address the false assumptions of the healthcare entitlement just passed. This fiscal hurricane is a Category 5. The Social Security/Medicare hurricane is off the scale and will reach our shores in 2020.

The United States needed to implement a long-term plan ten years ago to address the impossible to fulfill promises made by its corrupt, intellectually bankrupt politicians. Americans’ inability to deal with reality and fondness for not thinking beyond tomorrow has shown them to be an inferior species, as Mencken noted:

"The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear – fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety."

Take the Power Back

"All government, of course, is against liberty."

~ H.L. Mencken

"It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause."

~ H.L. Mencken

Rise up and take the power back,
It's time that the fat cats had a heart attack,
You know that their time's coming to an end,
We have to unify and watch our flag ascend!
SO COME ON!

They will not force us,
They will stop degrading us,
They will not control us,
And we will be victorious!

~ Muse – Uprising

The shame of the so-called healthcare debate, which raged for over a year, is that five or six changes to the existing system would have improved the scheme dramatically. The biggest lie foisted upon the public by the Democrats and their mainstream media allies is that 32 million people do not have access to healthcare. The non-critical thinking public just soaks in this propaganda without question. The fact is that every person (including illegal immigrants) can walk into a hospital emergency room and must be treated, whether they have health insurance or not. Therefore, it is a question of cost and delivery. There are no Americans dying in the streets due to no healthcare insurance, despite what Keith Olbermann might be spewing on a nightly basis. Of these 32 million "uncovered" Americans, 18 million of them earn more than $50,000 per year, with half of those earning more than $75,000 per year. These people are mostly young and don’t feel the need to purchase health insurance. Another 4 million people are eligible for Medicaid or SCHIP and haven’t signed up. There are 310 million people in the country and the American people just allowed the government to take over their healthcare in order to cover 10 million long-term uninsured that already had access to every hospital in America. We have fallen for the assurance of safety at the price of liberty. The result will be an ever-increasing number of unproductive leeches demanding their "right" to free healthcare, while producers are sucked dry. The only beneficiary will be government bureaucrats and politicians.

"For society as a whole, nothing comes as a 'right' to which we are 'entitled'. Even bare subsistence has to be produced.... The only way anyone can have a right to something that has to be produced is to force someone else to produce it... The more things are provided as rights, the less the recipients have to work and the more the providers have to carry the load."

~ Thomas Sowell

Not allowing insurance companies to deny people with pre-existing conditions coverage, allowing people who switch jobs to retain coverage, expansion of the COBRA program, allowing insurance companies to compete on a national basis across State lines, limiting malpractice awards, and providing healthcare vouchers to the truly disadvantaged would accomplish expanded coverage with lower costs. Expert health courts could replace the existing malpractice system that enriches lawyers, awarding victims quickly while eliminating the 60 cents of every dollar that go to lawyers and administration costs. But, this was not the true purpose of "reform." This was about an ideology of government command and control versus liberty, freedom, and individual choices. The entitlement state is now absolute. The badly informed masses now expect a government-provided retirement, government-provided old age insurance, government-provided health insurance, 99 weeks of unemployment payments, food stamps, welfare payments, subsidized government housing, subsidized government auto financing, free public education, protection from criminals, protection from terrorists, cheap oil, and easy credit. All they had to do was sacrifice liberty and freedom to obtain privileges and security. In the end, Americans will be left with neither, privileges, security or freedom. The promises made were false. The money needed to fulfill the pledges doesn’t exist. The promised security is actually a false flag for control through rules, regulations and ultimately coercion. H.L. Mencken understood human nature would never change:

"What men value in this world are not rights but privileges. Most people want security in this world, not liberty. It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get into trouble by taking their visions and hallucinations too seriously."

The mood of the country has changed dramatically in the last three years. A Crisis period of epic proportions is upon us. A small minority have begun to rise up against the tyranny of government control over their lives. The vast middle class is slowly coming to the conclusion that they have been screwed. Their real wages are lower than they were in the 1960’s. They pay for the welfare state. They bail out the rich bankers. Their jobs were shipped to China. The fat cats in New York City and Washington DC are beginning to worry. Their time in power is coming to an end. The average person is starting to ask questions:

"Let me get this straight. We're going to be gifted with a health care plan written by a committee whose chairman says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, to be signed by a President who also hasn't read it and who smokes, with funding administered by a Treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, to be overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's broke. What the hell could possibly go wrong?"

I know the arrogant self-righteous intellectuals that populate the MSM are worried by the tone of their nightly shrieking. The target of their vitriol is the Tea Party movement. This movement developed during the insurgent Ron Paul Presidential campaign. The central theme of the movement is that government is too big, spends too much, exerts too much control over our daily lives, and wastes our treasure and our soldiers’ lives on maintaining an empire. This is truly a grassroots movement of middle-class Americans who have had enough lies. The only critical thinking about the long-term implications of our fiscal policies is being done by the citizens within this movement. The reaction from the liberal MSM is predictable. They are depicting these true American patriots as extremists, racists, anarchists, and nut jobs. These "intellectuals" stoop to associating a disgusting sex act called tea-bagging with middle class Americans protesting out of control government spending. They seek out the one racist sign among 10,000 signs at peaceful protests. They are aghast at depictions of President Obama as Hitler, when they were silent as President Bush was burned in effigy. Dissent and peaceful protest are portrayed as dangerous to society. Voicing your opinion is depicted as anti-American by the liberal MSM. On the other side, the Fox News neo-cons led by Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin, are trying to corral the movement for their purposes. This is what the entrenched ruling elite do. The fat cats from both parties want to derail the Tea Party movement. Smaller government is not a goal of Democrats or Republicans.

The intellectually bankrupt MSM, Wall Street fat cats, and corrupt DC politicians are right to fear the Tea Party movement. The mood of the country will not be reversed. The storm will not subside. The existing institutions will fall in the next 10 to 15 years. There will be blood. The Federal government will not voluntarily get smaller. The entitled class will be angry when the spigot of benefits and privileges is shut off. Wall Street bankers, mega corporations, and corporate media that control the strings of Washington puppet politicians will fight with all their power to retain control. The military will need to make fateful choices regarding their duty to country or their crooked leaders. The passage of government-controlled healthcare over the objections of the majority was the final straw. When British troops fired on unarmed protestors on Sunday, January 30, 1972, decades of bloody violence ensued. When Congress passed the 2,400-page takeover of the U.S. healthcare system on Sunday, March 21, 2010, against the will of the American people, they set in motion a rebellion that they will not control. The cause of liberty is sound and the leaders are determined. The die has been cast. Financial collapse is now baked into the cake. Social chaos will ensue when collapse envelops the nation. Foreign conflict is likely, as China, Russia and Middle Eastern countries take advantage of our fiscal weakness. Critical thinking will not keep the grim reaper from his destiny with the ruling elite.

"The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind."

~ H.L. Mencken

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

~ Benjamin Franklin