Yes, You Can Survive The Coming Economic Nightmare – One Family In California Grows 6,000 Pounds Of Produce On Just 1/10th Of An Acre

If you work hard and get prepared, you can survive the economic nightmare that is coming. All over the United States and around the world there are millions of people that are learning how to become more self-sufficient. For example, there is one family that is actually producing 6000 pounds of produce on just 1/10th of an acre right in the middle of Pasadena, California. In fact, they grow so much food that they are able to sell much of it to restaurants in the area. Video of this incredible "urban homestead" is posted below. The key is to start with what you have. The family in the video below would like to have a large acreage, but for now they have turned what they do have into an absolute miracle. Yes, a horrific economic nightmare is coming to this country, but you don't have to be afraid. One of the main reasons why so many of us are trying to warn people about what is coming is so that they will wake up and take massive action to become self-sufficient like the people in the video below have.

If you are not already growing your own food, now is a great time to get started. According to The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the global price of food rose 2.2% during the month of February to a new all-time record high. In fact, this was the third month in a row that the global price of food has set a new record.

2.2% may not sound like a lot, but if the global price of food were to increase by that amount every single month during 2011 by the end of the year the global price of food will have gone up by 26.4%.
26.4% food inflation is something that is very, very serious - especially in those areas of the world where millions are already teetering on the brink of starvation.

As I have written about previously, the world is on the verge of a major food crisis. The price of corn has increased by 33 percent just since December, and according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. corn reserves will drop to a 15 year low by the end of 2011. Many other agricultural commodities are also in short supply and are experiencing significant increases in price.

So now is a great time to try to become more self-sufficient.

After all, do you really want to eat the garbage they sell you in the stores anyway? Today, virtually all corn and virtually all soy has been genetically-modified, and more "frankenfoods" are being approved by the government all the time.

But it isn't just genetic modification that we need to be concerned about. The reality of the situation is that most of the food that we buy is complete and total garbage. The next time you go to the grocery store just take a few moments and read some of the labels of the products that you are buying. The truth is that our foods are absolutely loaded with chemicals, poisons and toxins.

Those that learn to grow their own food will end up a lot more healthy in the long run.

But food is not the only area where we should be striving for self-sufficiency. Water is being called "the oil of the 21st century" and already some very significant shortages are being reported in many areas of the United States.

In fact, some cities have already started to turn toilet water into tap water. Fortunately this is not a widespread thing in the United States yet, but a number of localities are now seriously considering going to such a system.

Would you want to drink your own recycled toilet water in the future?
If not, perhaps now would be a great time to learn how to become more self-sufficient when it comes to water.

Even now, most localities are dumping massive amounts of fluoride and other toxic chemicals into our drinking water. The tap water in most cities is so absolutely disgusting that it is a wonder that anyone is still willing to drink it.
In any event, the key is not to focus on the problems once you realize the truth. Instead, the key is to focus on the solutions.
That is what one family in Pasadena, California is doing. As mentioned above, they are producing a whopping 6,000 pounds of produce each year on just 1/10th of an acre....



Isn't what that family is doing absolutely amazing?
Well, you can do it too.

For most Americans, the coming financial apocalypse is going to absolutely blindside them.
But that does not have to happen to you. You know what is coming. You have time to get prepared.

As I have written about previously, there are many other ways that you can start becoming more self-sufficient.
If you are currently dependent on a job, you can start developing alternate sources of income on the side.
If you are enslaved to the banks, you can reduce your expenses and start paying down debt.

If you have never had any self-defense training, now is a great time to get started.
There are hundreds of practical ways that you can begin preparing for the coming economic nightmare right now. Just putting up some solar panels or starting a "victory garden" would be a great first step for many people.

The key is to stop fretting about things so much and to start taking action.
We have now entered a time in human history that is going to be extremely unstable, but that doesn't mean that we have to live in fear.

If you are new to all this and have no idea how to start becoming more self-sufficient, there are a lot of great websites out there that can help you out. Some of the most popular ones are Prepper.Org, American Preppers Network and The Suburban Prepper.

But it doesn't have to be complicated. Just start to take action. Your family is going to need food, water, energy and shelter when the economy collapses. Begin preparing now so that you will have those things when you need them.

With All Eyes on the States, GOP Quietly Pushes Ridiculous Anti-Labor Bill Through Congress

While we’ve seen unprecedented attention on workers’ struggles in Wisconsin, Ohio and other state capitols, the GOP is pushing a bill through Congress that would make organizing transportation workers all-but-impossible. It was sponsored by House Transportation Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) who, as you might expect, is “a major recipient of campaign contributions from the airline industry, totaling more than $620,000 in his career,” according to Sam Stein and Laura Bassett reporting for the Huffpo.

The controversial provision states if an eligible voter fails to vote for union representation, he or she will be tallied as an active vote against representation.

Such a policy, which puts an extra burden on union organizers to round up all voters, rather than a simple majority, existed up until last July, when the federal National Mediation Board, which adjudicates labor-management disputes, ruled that absent votes ought not be counted against unionization. Labor officials hailed that decision as one of their signature victories last year, and the proposal to strip it away has sparked an equally emotional reaction.

“This was the one advancement that you had seen in organizing rights and here they have launched an all-out effort in the House to go after unions again,” said Shane Larson, the legislative director for the Communications Workers of America. “Currently, this is the biggest issue federally right now in terms of organizing rights. There is nothing else that is on the table.”

Just to highlight how undemocratic this is, consider that 41.6 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot in last November’s midterms, and imagine a law that tallied all of those who didn’t go to the polls as votes for the GOP.

This is one of those things that’s bad in isolation, but utterly ridiculous when you consider some context.

First, it’s being pushed by the same union-busting conservatives who have waged a highly effective campaign against the Employee Free Choice Act based on the Big Lie that the “card-check” provision — which would make it much easier to organize — is undemocratic. As I wrote back in 2008:

[Union-busters seized] on a compelling talking point tailored to America’s political culture: that the “card-check” provision of the EFCA does away with the secret ballots that Americans have come to expect when casting their votes.

… the strategy is to depict management’s assault on the ability to organize as protecting “workers’ rights.” Seven out of 10 respondents said they’d be less likely to vote for a member of Congress “who voted in favor of taking away a worker’s right to have a federally supervised secret ballot election to decide whether to organize a union.”

Armed with their push-poll, the Right’s noise machine has been typically disciplined; all corners of the conservative movement are on message: Big Labor wants to do away with secret ballots, and it’s pulling the Democrats’ strings to make it happen.

But as Stalin said, “It’s not the people who vote that count. It’s the people who count the votes.” More importantly, it’s how the votes are counted and whether voters are being coerced. The secret-ballot election process is almost impossible in today’s anti-union environment, with a National Labor Relations Board — the body that’s supposed to protect workers’ rights — hopelessly stacked with anti-union appointees.

As journalist Jordan Barab noted, as a result of an elections process that disenfranchises millions of working people, “card-check campaigns — instead of secret ballot elections — have become labor’s main tool for organizing the unorganized.” According to AFL-CIO statistics cited by Barab, card checks were used to “sign up roughly 70 percent of the private-sector workers who joined unions (in 2006), compared with less than 5 percent two decades ago.”

So, they’re awfully concerned with the democratic process as long as it doesn’t lead to democratic workplaces.

The second bit of context relates to corporate governance. This proposal would impose on transportation unions the same undemocratic system that currently obtains with shareholders’ votes. If you own a few shares of stock in, say, AT & T, they’ll send you a proxy ballot to return by mail. Many small investors don’t bother sending those ballots back to the company, and their votes are automatically counted as siding with management.

So we have corporations holding shareholder “votes” that are rigged to come out on management’s side every time, and now they’re pushing a law that would rig transportation workers’ union elections to come out on management’s side every time and they’re screaming bloody murder about how card-check infringes on our sacred right to have a secret ballot.

In my book, I cite a poll conducted in 2005 which found that 53 percent of all American wage-earners would like to belong to a labor union. The union density that year was around 12 percent. That’s a result of systemic union-busting.

The Make-Believe Billion

How drug companies exaggerate research costs to justify absurd profits.

For years the government has sought to make brand-name drugs cheaper and more widely available to the public. It has tried and failed to limit to a reasonable time period various patent and other "exclusivity" protections. Or it's tried and failed to negotiate volume discounts on the drugs that the feds purchase through Medicare. Every time, the pharmaceutical lobby has used its considerable wealth and political clout to block any government action that might trim Big Pharma's profits, which typically amount to between one-quarter and one-half of company revenues. And just about every time, Big Pharma has argued that huge profit margins are vitally necessary to the pharmaceutical industry because drug research and development costs are so high.

The statistic Big Pharma typically cites (see, for instance, this PhRMA video on how Mister Chemical Compound becomes Mister Brand-Name Drug) is that the cost of bringing a new drug to market is about $1 billion. Now a new study indicates the cost is more like, um, $55 million.

Big Pharma has been making its R&D argument for half a century, but the specific source of the $1 billion claim is a 2003 study published in the Journal of Health Economics by economists Joseph DiMasi of Tufts, Ronald W. Hansen of the University of Rochester, and Henry Grabowski of Duke. I will henceforth refer to this team as the Tufts Center group, because they were working out of the (drug-company-funded) Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. The Tufts Center group "obtained from a survey of 10 pharmaceutical firms" the research and development costs of 68 randomly chosen new drugs and calculated an average cost of $802 million in 2000 dollars. That comes to $1 billion in 2011 dollars based on the general inflation rate since 2000 (28 percent). One billion dollars for every little orange prescription bottle in your medicine cabinet! And according to PhRMA, even that is way too low! As of 2006, its calculation of the drug-development average had already risen to $1.32 billion. That means costs specific to drug development increased by 64 percent between 2000 and 2006. Medical inflation typically outpaces general inflation, but PhRMA's calculation puts its rate of cost increase at more than twice the rate for medical inflation during that period (26 percent). If Pharma's alleged inflation rate hasn't slackened since 2006, then the drug-development average should be now approaching $2 billion. But let's not go there. We'll stick to Big Pharma's official last-stated estimate of $1.32 billion.

The new study, by sociologist Donald W. Light of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and economist Rebecca Warburton of the University of Victoria, and published in the journal BioSocieties, builds on some excellent previous research by journalist and health care blogger Merrill Goozner, author of The $800 Million Pill, and the consumer advocate Jamie Love. Light and Warburton begin by pointing out that drug companies submitted their R&D data to the Tufts Center group on a confidential basis and that these numbers are therefore unverifiable. Light and Warburton find it a little fishy that only 10 of the 24 invited firms chose to participate, given "the centrality of the issue and the prominence of the Center" within the industry. "The sample," they suggest, "could be skewed" toward companies or drugs "with higher R&D costs." Light and Warburton also observe that if the Tufts Center group made any effort of its own to verify the information it received from the drug companies, the group makes no mention of it in the study.

The first research phase involved in developing a new drug is basic (as opposed to applied) research. Very little of this type of research is funded by drug companies; 84 percent is funded by the government, and private universities provide additional, unspecified funding. The Tufts Center group assumed that drug companies spent, on average, $121 million on basic research to create a new drug, but Light and Warburton find that hard to square with their estimate that industry devotes only 1.2 percent of sales to all their basic research. Add in a few additional considerations and Big Pharma would have us believe basic research costs end up constituting more than one-third of the Tufts Center's $802 million estimate. That's way too much, Light and Warburton say.

Another problem Light and Warburton have with the Tufts Center group is that they didn't subtract from their R&D calculations pharmaceutical firms' tax breaks. Research and development costs, they point out, are not depreciated over time like other investments; rather, they're excluded entirely from taxable profits. This tax break lowers net costs by 39 percent. Add in other tax breaks and that cuts the Tufts Center group's R&D estimate in half.

Now take that figure and cut it in half again, Light and Warburton say, because half the Tufts Center group's estimate was the "cost of capital," i.e., revenue foregone by not taking the money spent on R&D and investing it in securities instead. But R&D is a cost of doing business, Light and Warburton point out; if you don't want to spend money on it, then you don't want to be a drug company. And who says that investing in securities always increases your capital? Sometimes the market goes down. Many of us learned that the hard way in 2008.

There are other problems. The Tufts Center group's per-subject calculation of how much clinical trials cost was six times that of a National Institutes of Health study. Its calculation of how much time it takes to conduct clinical trials and have them reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration—7.5 years—is twice as long as Light and Warburton's calculation, which is less than four years. The Tufts Center group's use of the average (mean) cost rather than the median cost, Light and Warburton argue, is also misleading, because R&D costs for different drug products vary widely, and a very few expensive drugs will skew the mean. That appears to have happened in this case, because the Tuft Center group's median was only 74 percent of the mean.

When Light and Warburton correct for all these flaws—well, all the ones that can be quantified—they end up with an average cost of bringing a drug to market that's $59 million and a median cost that's $43 million. In 2011 dollars, that's a $75 million average and a $55 million median.

So the drug companies' $1.32 billion estimate was off, according to Light and Warburton, by only $977 million. Let's call it a rounding error.

Like Slate on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

Thousands of state workers to receive 'at risk' notices starting Friday

The deadline for state worker layoffs may still be a month away, but thousands of "at-risk" notices will begin going out Friday.

Gov. Scott Walker confirmed Thursday that he was moving forward with thousands of notices, a move he said was necessary because of the long-distance filibuster being carried out by 14 Democratic Senators.

"I have no interest in pursuing layoffs unless there is no other choice out there," Walker said, adding that the matter could be solved if the missing senators come home.

The governor has said that as many as 1,500 state workers could lose their jobs if the Legislature does not approve his budget repair bill by April 1. That bill includes cost-saving measures the governor says cuts $30 million from the current budget.

The at-risk notices -- which typically go to many more employees than those who might get pink slips to give managers maximum flexibility -- are a mandatory first step in the layoff process.

"Plus, just to be decent, you have to give people some heads up," Walker said.

The Senate Democrats have been hiding out in Illinois in an attempt to stall passage of the bill. By drawing the process out, they hope to force Walker to strip union-busting language from his proposal.

Earlier this week they provided the governor with options to avoid another looming deadline, this one dealing with restructuring the state's debt. The absent lawmakers said at the time that Walker was just trying to scare them into coming back, a sentiment echoed Thursday.

"I think that is just a pressure move by the governor, but it will not work," said Sen. Fred Risser, D-Madison. "Hopefully, those notices are something that can be rescinded when this all works out. I think they can."

Copyright 2011 madison.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Peter Schiff - Governments Run Like A Ponzi Scheme

Watch this video http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=14169

Trouble for MERS Keeps Mounting

Greg Hunter
USA Watchdog

In Guilford County, North Carolina, the Register of Deeds, Jeff Thigpen, is questioning if his county was cheated out of more than a million dollars real estate fees because banks did not file proper chain of ownership documents with his office.

Instead, the banks used a Virginia based company called MERS. It bypassed the local Register of Deeds office, not just in Guilford but all counties across the U.S.

MERS stands for Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems. It manages a centralized electronic property data base that is a critical tool in securitization, or bundling, of mortgages into securities (mortgage-backed securities). About 60 % of all mortgages, or 65 million U.S. homes, are tracked in MERS. Yesterday, the Greensboro News and record reported Thigpen said,

“As register of deeds I have two primary responsibilities in land records,” Thigpen wrote in the release. “A sworn duty to protect the chain of title and a fiduciary responsibility to collect recording fees. Quite frankly, MERS has undermined both. Through their own ‘private-for-profit’ Register of Deeds mortgage tracking office, MERS has created a dangerous centralization of power whose sole purpose is to protect and serve the interests of major banking conglomerates and undermine public recording officers.” (Click here to read the complete News and Record article.)

MERS was established by big banks, and many contend it is nothing more than an electronic shell company with no employees. (Click here to find out more about MERS.) Financial institutions such as Wells Fargo, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Citi and others all use MERS. Mr. Thigpen alleges MERS may have made false statements since 2005 to avoid fees in his county that he says add up to more than $1.3 million. To get an idea of how much of a problem this is for MERS and the banks, consider this probably happens in every single county in America!

Read Full Article

China seeks to reassure public over economy

Obama: US Ready to ‘Act Rapidly’ Against Libya

In some of his most specific comments yet, Barack Obama insisted that the deployment of a growing number of US forces around the Libyan border was to allow the US to ‘act rapidly’ if he decided to launch an attack.

Obama also said that the military aircraft deployed to the region would be used to move refugees around, with the US forces being used to transfer Egyptian refugees who fled into Tunisia back to Egypt.

Though the early threats to invade have been somewhat backed off of, the continued deployment of US military forces to the area has increased concerns that a full on invasion is in the offing.

And while Gadhafi has made some vague threats around a possible US invasion, the real concern is coming from opposition figures, who are concerned that their rebellion, which has netted nearly the entire country, would be hijacked by a US military occupation.

Inside Story - What now for Egypt?

Day of rage in Saudi Arabia-(Part1)

It's Taps For the Still Weakening Dollar

It now appears that the United States has finally succeeded in its efforts to destroy confidence in the U.S. dollar. Given the currency's reserve status, its ubiquity in financial markets, and the economic power and political position of the United States, this was no easy task. However, to get the job done Washington chose the right man: Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. Thanks to Bernanke's herculean efforts, investors across the globe have now been fully weaned from their infantile belief that the U.S. dollar will remain the ultimate safe haven currency.

The proof of Ben's success can be seen in comparing how the foreign exchange markets reacted to the recent crisis in the Middle East with how they reacted to the financial crisis of 2008. Back then, investors looking for safety abandoned their foreign currency positions and piled into the U.S. dollar (the market for U.S. Treasury Bonds in particular). As a result of these fund flows, the U.S. dollar surged 20% from August to November 2008.

However, during this latest round of global destabilization the dollar experienced no such rally. In fact, the greenback shed about 5% of its value since the Tunisia revolution began in December of 2010. The reason should be clear; the Fed has placed international investors on notice that it will unleash even greater doses of dollar debasement at the first whiff of additional economic weakness, deflation threat, or dollar appreciation. Just this week, Bernanke once again made clear that despite what he considers to be a better growth outlook at home and abroad, and spreading global inflation, the United States will not pull back from monetary accommodation, even as other nations conspicuously do so. The architect of U.S. monetary policy has stated explicitly that dollar debasement will continue for the indefinite future.

Knowing this, why would any international investor seeking a "safe haven" choose to park assets in U.S. sovereign debt? If Bernanke is to be believed, continued economic weakness in the U.S. will cause low-yielding Treasuries to lose value due to inflation while the weakening dollar erodes the underlying value of the bond in real terms. This is a one-two punch that sane investors will seek to avoid. It is no coincidence that a record percentage of U.S. Treasury auctions are now being bought by central banks, for whom sanity is a lowly consideration.

But in reality, the Fed has much less influence over the dollar's value than do central bankers in Beijing. There is little disagreement among economists that without Chinese support, the dollar would be a dead duck. But for the last twenty years or so the monetary arrangement that pegged the yuan against the dollar served the interests of both countries. The U.S. enjoyed a flood of cheap imports, the benefits of ultra-low interest rates, and a strong currency. The Chinese received a booming export economy, which accounted for about a third of the country's GDP, and the ownership of a significant portion of the future of the United States. To maintain this peg, the People's Bank of China had to print trillions of yuan and perpetually hold more than $1 trillion U.S. dollars in reserve.

But recently, having led to rampant money supply growth and inflation in China, the peg has become more trouble than it's worth, particularly from the Chinese perspective. The latest reading on YOY money supply growth has China's M2 increasing by 17.2%; which has helped send their reported CPI up 4.9% YOY.

Inflation in China is pushing up the prices of its exports. According to the latest survey released February 14th from Global Sources (a primary facilitator of trade with Greater China), export prices of various China products are likely to increase in the months ahead, especially if the cost of major materials and components continues to soar. The survey of 232 Chinese exporters revealed that 74% of respondents said they boosted export prices in 2010. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in early January that its China import price index rose 0.9% in the fourth quarter after holding steady for the previous 18 months. And Guangdong, the biggest exporting province, said recently that it would increase minimum wages by around 19% this March.

But here is the rub; China maintains its peg in order to keep export prices from rising in dollar terms. But the peg is now causing export prices to rise anyway. As a result, the policy is a dead letter. The simple fact is that the threat to China's exports will exist whether they let their currency appreciate or not. But a strong currency offers the benefit of greater domestic consumption, while a weaker currency offers them nothing.

The Chinese government will take the path that preserves and balances their economy while enriching their entire population, rather than go down the road to never ending inflation. For China the realistic hope is that the greater purchasing power of a strong currency will enable their growing middle class to supplant U.S. consumers as the end market for China's own manufacturing efforts. However, for the U.S. the challenge will be to develop a diversified manufacturing base in an expeditious manner before surging interest rates, a plummeting dollar and soaring inflation overwhelm the economy.

The dollar's recent reaction to the turmoil in the Middle East and China's inflation problem illustrate that we have come to a watershed moment in American history. The decade beginning in 2010 should prove to be the decade in which the U.S. dollar loses its status as the world's reserve currency. As bad as that blow may be, the loss may provide the shock needed to get our economy back on a sustainable path. The real danger lies in refusing to adapt to the changing environment. Our current economic stewards are acting as if the dollar's status is written in stone, when in fact it's hanging by a thread.

Carry-On Luggage cost Tax Payers $260 million annually

WASHINGTON (AP) — Choosing to carry your luggage onto a plane instead of checking it with an airline might save you a few bucks at the ticket counter but it's costing taxpayers about a quarter-billion dollars a year.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told Congress this week that luggage fees have prompted more passengers to hold onto their bags, which means more items for Transportation Security Administration officers to inspect at security checkpoints at a cost of about $260 million annually.

"When you have to pay to check a bag it increases carry-on luggage and that means there is more to inspect at the gate and so forth for passengers to get on planes," Napolitano said during testimony before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on homeland security.

read more

MoD 'paid £22 for 65p lightbulbs'

The Military of Defence paid £22 each for lightbulbs available for just 65p, it has been reported.

Defence chiefs are also said to have shelled out £103 each for screws, believed to be on sale online for £2.60.

The spending came to light just days after the Government detailed how it planned to make 11,000 redundancies across the armed forces.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox criticised the inflated prices as showing a "lack of common sense" and evidence of a waste of taxpayers' money by the previous Labour government.

A solider, who works in the stores at a UK base, said he could not ignore the "criminal" waste he saw every day.

He told the Sun newspaper: "You're talking about a fortune for these bulbs. If I order 100, that's over two grand. But you can pick them up for 65p each, the exact same ones. There must be thousands of lightbulbs across the MoD. If people paid attention to simple things like this, they could save a lot of money - and maybe jobs."

According to the soldier, who the Sun did not name, specialist contractors source items for the military and add their costs on to the price. But he said large savings could be made by buying in bulk.

Dr Fox told paper: "We are already tackling the procurement problems we inherited head-on. When money is tight and we need to protect the front line, waste is inexcusable.

"This is classic evidence of how Labour wasted taxpayers' money and shows a complete lack of common sense. No wonder the last government left the MoD with a budget deficit of £38 billion."

An MoD spokesman said: "Given the current financial situation, we are looking at existing contracts to ensure value for money and taking steps to make efficiency savings."

Copyright © 2011 The Press Association. All rights reserved.

Ron Paul: The Best Income Tax Rate is 0%

Ron Paul: Fall of the Federal Empire

Kucinich on SB 5: “A Scheme to Defraud Both Workers and the Taxpayers”

Washington, Mar 2 -
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today released the following statement after the Ohio State Senate voted 17-16 to pass S.B. 5, a proposal to end the right of workers to collectively bargain for fair benefits and working conditions.

“In order to understand how devastating this bill is to workers you have to be aware of provisions which take away the right to strike, open the door for replacement workers and set the stage for privatization of services. Wages and benefits will be cut. Inevitably state services will become a target for privatizers. The taxpayers will pay more and get less, while the ‘savings’ will end up in the pockets of corporate service-providers in terms of high profits. The passage of this bill is the just the beginning of a scheme to defraud both workers and the taxpayers,” said Kucinich.

World can handle choked oil supplies: Geithner

© AFP Jewel Samad

AFP

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The world can pump enough extra oil and has enough stashed in reserve to limit price shocks from sustained turmoil in the Middle East, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Thursday.

"There is considerable spare oil production capacity globally, and we and other major economies possess substantial strategic reserves of oil," Geithner told Congress.

"If necessary, those reserves could be mobilized to help mitigate the effect of a severe, sustained supply disruption."

Oil prices have surged in recent weeks as clashes between forces of the Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi and the opposition have strangled supplies from the North African producer.

That has raised fears that higher prices -- which are already being passed on to consumers -- could threaten the nascent economic recovery.

"In the United States, rising gasoline prices have left consumers with less money to spend," Geithner admitted.

According to the American Automobile Association gasoline, pump prices have increased by about 20 cents a gallon (3.8 liters) to an average $3.43 in the last week alone.

But Geithner said the US government would monitor developments in the Middle East closely for any potential supply disruption.

Commodity prices -- including food -- have risen in tandem with oil's surge, putting pressure on low-income countries and sparking fears of inflation.

While Geithner insisted inflation remained subdued in the United States, he said the government would back measures to clamp down on speculation.

"We also support measures to limit the potential for commodity market abuse and price manipulation," he said, citing the need for increased transparency and oversight of markets.

© AFP -- Published at Activist Post with license

Why the Banksters Hate Islam

Dees Illustration

And everything Old World

Tony Cartalucci, Contributing Writer
Activist Post

Of course, all aspects of the Old World are slated for elimination, as ancient values, be they of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, or even regional secular traditions, all pose a direct threat to the Anglo-American unipolar world government. Their world government is one of interdependence between the nation-states, who in turn are enslaved by servile dependence on "global institutions," most notably those involving a world-wide monetary system. Any tradition or value system that promotes independence, sovereignty, knowledge, and self-reliance represents a brick wall standing in the way of the corroding effects of the globalist agenda.

Eastern traditions and Islam in particular, however, have proven themselves most resilient. Islamic communities from the Middle East to Southeast Asia still exist, their local markets still thrive even in the presence of nearby Western consumerist troughs like Tesco of England. As technology progresses, these communities augment their commerce to compete fiercer yet with the Ponzi-scheme economy of the West. Throughout Asia along side these traditional, tightly knit Islamic communities, coexist Asian black-markets or the "underground economy." Together these form the closest model of real "free market" economics you can find. These are markets that not only progress at break-neck speed, but the amount of competition and the informed consumer base demanded by this otherwise unregulated economic activity, do the best job of "distributing" wealth and commodities at the lowest price possible.

While common sense drives the Asian black-markets, the Islamic communities are driven by something much deeper, derived from the Qu'ran. A particular lecturer on the Islamic world verses the international monetary system encapsulates these precepts best in a YouTube video series titled "Islam & the International Monetary System." If you are able to move past superficial details, ideological differences, and labels, and focus on the underlining message of Imran Hosein, Muslim or not, you will walk away enlightened. You will not only be enlightened as to why the globalists fear and despise the Old World, and Islam in particular, but you will understand the possible solution to subverting the globalists' depraved system with one that is as applicable for the American patriot as much as it is the for the Indonesian Muslim.

Imran Hosein's ultimate solution to the problem of international monetary predation is the construction of Islamic villages that are self-reliant and maintain their monetary sovereignty through using sound money locally based on Islamic law. These could just as easily be "Liberty Villages" in the United States where farmers and tradesmen come together and conduct commerce with sound money with intrinsic value.

It has been said many times before, independence is freedom, freedom is independence. It appears that the message of Ron Paul and genuine Libertarians is more than just an American message, it is a universal message, shared not just by secular or Christian Westerners, but also described in the texts of Islam of which there are over a billion adherents worldwide.

It would be highly beneficial for those who seek true freedom and the undermining of the global world order, to exhibit mutual respect for their secular, Christian, Judeo, and Islamic brothers and sisters, and meet each other in the middle on these fundamental issues of sovereignty, because if there is anything the globalists fear and detest more than Old World tradition and faith, it is the prospect of all Old World traditions and faiths meeting together and joining battle against the globcratic elite.

Below is the first of 11 videos. The entire playlist can be found here.

Did Skyrocketing Food Prices Cause Three Port Richey Buffets To Close In...

US Mint Must Pay More For Silver

March 2, 2011

Open letter to:

Edmond C. Moy

Director of The US Mint 801 9th Street

NW Room 8S23-3

Washington, D.C. 20220

Re: US Mint Must Pay More For Silver

Dear Mr Moy:

By stopping the production of US Silver Eagle Coins you are in violation of Public Law 99-61 which requires you to produce these coins "in quantities sufficient to meet public demand . . . "

The Laws of the United States of America are put on the books to facilitate the proper functioning of our society. It is not within the powers of the US Mint to decide which laws are obeyed and which are discarded.

The reason given for stopping production of the US Silver Eagle is the lack of availability of silver blanks.

"The United States Mint will resume production of American Eagle Silver Uncirculated Coins once sufficient inventories of silver bullion blanks can be acquired to meet market demand for all three American Eagle Silver Coin products."

http://catalog.usmint.gov/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10001&categoryId=13738&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=10191&top_category=10191

The "Uncirculated" Silver Eagles coins are subject to Public Law 99-61 as stated in section 2(J).

“(1) In general.--Except as provided in paragraph (2), no provision of law governing procurement or public contracts shall be applicable to the procurement of goods or services necessary for minting, marketing, or issuing any coin authorized under paragraph (7), (8), (9), or (10) of subsection (a) or subsection (e), including any proof version of any such coin.”

This is not a new problem as I have written you many times in the past about this issue. Here is a letter from over 2 1/2 years ago that addressed the exact same problem:

US Mint Illegally Rationing Silver Eagles

http://www.roadtoroota.com/public/140.cfm

Mr. Moy, the problem with silver availability is NOT that the silver blanks are not available but that...

THE PRICE THAT THE US MINT IS WILLING TO PAY IS FAR TOO LOW!

The reason for this is that the ongoing manipulation and price suppression of silver keeps the price of silver well below its "Fair Market Value".

Of course there is an obvious solution to the problem...

PAY MORE THAN THE ARTIFICIALLY SUPPRESSED PRICE FOR SILVER BLANKS!

If the US Mint were to offer $50/ounce for silver blanks then suppliers would be lined up around the block to provide you with all the silver you need to be within Public Law 99-61. If you believe that $50/ounce is too high then you must determine at what price would the US Mint be able to source silver blanks to adhere to the requirements under the law.

This is not rocket science. This is how the FREE MARKET IS SUPPOSED TO WORK!

I request that you IMMEDIATELY remedy this violation and offer sufficient premiums to the suppliers of silver blanks in order to deliver US Silver Eagles "in quantities sufficient to meet public demand".

The injustices in America these days are many...don't add to them by not upholding the laws of our land.

Sincerely,

Bix Weir

Gerald Celente - High Food and Oil Prices Due To Weakening Dollar (Inflation) 02MAR11

watch this video http://revolutionarypolitics.tv/video/viewVideo.php?video_id=14164

Rep. George Lambert of New Hampshire: Anti TSA Bill, The Free State Proj...