Gerald Celente: Economy is going to get much worse

Job seekers join the military as last resort

Play CBS News Video

(CBS News)  There's no better government job creator than the U.S. military. Americans sign up for a lot of reasons, such as to serve their country and for the health and education benefits . But CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller reports, some young people are finding that the armed forces are the only employment game in town these days.
Joining the marines was not part of Tyler Mitchell's career path. He graduated with a degree in film and video last year, but he couldn't find a job in Chicago.
"The economy makes it really tough right now," said Mitchell. "People say, 'You go to college, you get a degree, you'll get a great job.' Well nowadays, I don't really think that's really the case. You go to college, you get a degree, you get a lot of debt, and you don't get a job."
"I can't get a job in the civilian world," he continued, "somebody else wants me, so why not go with them?"
Mitchell will be a combat correspondent for the Marine Corps.
"Bottom line, I'll get healthcare, I'll get financial stability, I'll get job experience," he said.
The recession has made it easier to recruit people into the military. Since 2008, the armed forces have either met or exceeded their recruiting goals for all active duty services.
Lashaun Holmes is a single mother of two in New York. The only job she could find was a part-time position that paid $185 dollars a week.
"I don't want to struggle," she said, "because it feels like you sinking in a hole. The more you struggle, the more you're sinking. It doesn't feel like you're coming out and I just want to come out."
She never considered enlisting, until she passed a recruiting center last spring. "Because of the economic situation right now, enlisting was my only option," she explained.
The decision was especially hard. She's never been away from her children, 10-year old Joi and 2-year-old Legend. The navy would not take her unless she gave temporary custody of her children to her mother.
"I don't like that fact that I'm leaving my children," said Holmes. "You try all the time to find another job so you can  make ends meet and take care of your family properly. It's hard. I really feel like in the end they will be so much better off."
Lashaun will be in the navy for four years. She leaves for boot camp in February.

#WikiLeaks – US, France Knew In 2007 Financial Collapse Was Imminent Due To Wall Street Fraud

In 2007 top US and France officials knew rampant fraud being committed by regulators, rating agencies and Wall Street Banks would soon cause a global financial collapse.

While investors and nations around the world were happily giving trillions of dollars away to crooked Wall Street bankers top officials in the United States and France knew the market would soon collapse and people would be robbed of millions.
While raising the issue that the role of government regulators and rating agencies needed to be reviewed in the wake of the upcoming crisis, US officials ignored calls from the French government to enact necessary regulation to stop the rampant fraud that would soon result in investors losing tens of trillions of dollars they had invested into the markets.
The cable reveals that while discussing the ability of the French banks to survive the crisis, French President Sarkozy was pushing the US to enact regulations to forestall the crisis. Instead, Henry Paulson responded by telling Sarkozy not to overreacted because the” it would take months, not weeks, for credit to be re-priced” telling France this is “not a major crisis.”
Paulson went on to warn that the major problem was with the German banks and which would require a bailout from the taxpayer while warning that the assets held by banks but covered up from investors by being held off-balance sheet presented systematic risk to banks and to sovereign wealth.
The cable clearly reveals that taxpayer bailouts would be needed.  Paulson further up sticks up for the Wall Street hedge fund saying they were not to blame for the crisis while acknowledging there were major Wall Street transparency issues.
To summarize, the cable reveals that top government officials in France and the US knew Wall street banks were committing fraud in the origination and packaging of sub-prime mortgage and lying to investors about the resulting securities they were creating and selling. Officials knew banks were also lying about their own liabilities and hiding them from investors by keeping the assets off their balance sheets.  The government also knew that both regulators and ratings agencies were participating in the scheme.
Remember as you read this cable, these conversations all took place over a year before the 2008 financial collapse when taxpayers around the world were forced into giving up trillions of dollars for banker bailouts. Also keep in mind that while the cable discusses “systemic risk”, “bailouts” and “market turbulence”, none of these had happened yet. They were discussing what would soon happen in the future.
The discussion of “systemic risk”, “market turbulence” and “taxpayer bailouts” over a year before the markets actually collapsed and those events actually occurred, show they knew a global financial collapse. Not only did they know it would occur but knew what the consequences would be for the investors and the governments who were fleeced by Wall Street. As the cable reveals, Paulson chose to deal with the crisis by letting it continue and urging France to keep the issue underwaps  by  urging Sarkozy not  to “over react”, hence allowing the scandal to the continue which just postponed the inevitable.
Also remember when we were forced into these bailouts, it was  under the guise that our governments had no idea the banks were doing this and this was a sudden and unforeseeable crisis. Finally, remember that – while there have been plenty of accusations from “conspiracy theorists”,  “fringe economists” and “wing nut” politicians such as Ron Paul – there still has been no admission from our government that financial regulators or the ratings agencies played a role in the crisis.

PAULSON DISCUSSES FINANCIAL MARKETS, IRAN WITH SARKOZY, LAGARDE

Subject	PAULSON DISCUSSES FINANCIAL MARKETS, IRAN WITH SARKOZY, LAGARDE
Origin	Embassy Paris (France)
Cable time	2007-10-01 10:46 UTC
Classification	CONFIDENTIAL
Source	http://wikileaks.org/cable/2007/10/07PARIS4109.html
History	First published on WES, 30 Sep 2011 01:44 UTC

Viewing cable 07PARIS4109, PAULSON DISCUSSES FINANCIAL MARKETS, IRAN WITH SARKOZY, LAGARDE

If you are new to these pages, please read an introduction on the structure of a cable as well as how to discuss them with others. See also the FAQs

Reference ID	Created	Released	Classification	Origin
07PARIS4109	2007-10-01 10:46	2011-08-30 01:44	CONFIDENTIAL	Embassy Paris

VZCZCXRO3134
RR RUEHDBU RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHROV RUEHSR
DE RUEHFR #4109/01 2741046
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 011046Z OCT 07
FM AMEMBASSY PARIS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0558
RUEATRS/DEPARTMENT OF TREASURY WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHINGTON DC
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 004109 

SIPDIS 

SIPDIS 

E.O. 12958:  DECL:09/18/17
TAGS: EFIN ECON PREL FR
SUBJECT: PAULSON DISCUSSES FINANCIAL MARKETS, IRAN WITH SARKOZY,
LAGARDE 

Classified by EMIN Seth Winnick for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) 

¶1. (C) Summary: In successive meetings Treasury Secretary Hank
Paulson told Minister of Finance Christine Lagarde and President
Nicolas Sarkozy that it was important not to overreact to
financial market turbulence.  Sarkozy asked for U.S. support for
Dominique Strauss-Kahn's candidacy for IMF Managing Director.
Discussions also touched on continued cooperation on Iran,
Sarkozy's reform agenda and China.  End summary. 

¶2. (C) During a September 17 visit to France, Treasury Secretary
Paulson and accompanying delegation met with Sarkozy and
Lagarde, and lunched with leading representatives of France's
business community.  Sarkozy made a strong push for public U.S.
support for Dominique Strauss-Kahn's candidacy for Managing
Director of the IMF. Calling Strauss-Kahn the "smartest
socialist," Sarkozy said it was important not to encourage
President Putin by entertaining the candidacy Czech Josef
Tosovksy, who has KGB ties. 

¶3. (C) In response to Secretary Paulson's urging that France's
business and financial sectors reduce exposure to Iran, Sarkozy
said the United States could count on French cooperation in
toughening sanctions.  "There will be no double talk from
France. Stopping the bomb is more important than business
contracts."  But Sarkozy said unilateral legislation under
consideration in the U.S. Congress would be a "disaster" and
make the Iranians "very happy."  Sarkozy's diplomatic advisor
Jean-David Levitte noted that France would look to work, if
necessary, outside the Security Council, notably with EU
partners, on further measures against Iran. 

¶4. (C) On sub-prime-related market turbulence, Sarkozy said regulation was needed to forestall such events and minimize impact on global economic growth. Paulson underscored the importance of not over-reacting. It would take months, not weeks, for credit to be re-priced, but this was "not a major crisis." Several issues were coming into focus: conduits and other off-balance sheet funding vehicles had been a surprise; in the U.S. there was a need to look at mortgage origination, as well as the role of regulatory supervision and rating agencies. Asked for his views on French banks, Paulson said they had strong balance sheets and were profitable, though they, too, might have challenging off-balance sheet obligations. Paulson said the German Landesbanken were "the biggest problem," though they presented little systemic risk and would be bailed out by the German taxpayer. 

¶5. (C) Sarkozy asked for views on U.S. exchange rate policy.
Paulson said the United States supported a strong dollar.
Exchange rates ultimately were market-driven and the U.S. would
pursue policies that increased confidence in the U.S. economy.
In an exchange on China, Paulson said the U.S. message to China
was that if it wanted to be a "member of the club," it needed to
adhere to global norms on issues such as Sudan, Iran as well as
market-determined exchange rates.  The real concern was not that
China's economy would pass that of the United States, but that
China would reform too slowly and ultimately run into problems.
Paulson asked Sarkozy to "make a big impact" in China by
carrying a similar message. 

¶6. (C) In a brief exchange on trade issues, Sarkozy said France
was not afraid of globalization, but would insist on reciprocity
in its foreign relations.  Sarkozy was not shocked that the
United States defended its farmers: "we're doing the same."
Paulson pushed Sarkozy to help "drive Doha to a conclusion."
Sarkozy would "do (his) best," butQould not support a deal that
was not fair to France. 

Lagarde on Economic Reform, China and Financial Markets
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

¶7. (C) Finance Minister Lagarde sketched out GOF reform
priorities, saying the real focus would be on France's social
programs and associated costs.  Reform of the so-called "special
pension regimes" for certain categories of public workers
(including rail workers) was high on the agenda.  The GOF wanted
to bring such pensions in line with those of other public sector
employees.  Lagarde acknowledged that the issue had brought down
the Juppe government in the mid 1990s, but said the GOF would be
tough on pension reform.  Product market reform - including
changes to distribution and retail sectors - was also in the
offing. 

¶8. (C) Touching on issues subsequently raised by Sarkozy,
Lagarde said the GOF wanted strong cooperation on Iran.  She
suggested an informal U.S. Treasury - Ministry of Finance "task
force" be created to look at Iran-related banking issues.
Paulson noted that BNP-Paribas had suspended work in Iran, but
that Natixis had become more active.  Beyond the financial 

PARIS 00004109  002 OF 002 

sector, it would be important to look at the role of industrial
companies in Iran, Paulson said.  Although France's exports to
Iran were a small percentage of its overall exports, they
represented 8% of Iran's imports.  French Treasury director
Xavier Musca underscored the importance of the U.S. consulting
with the GOF before engaging directly with French banks on Iran. 

¶9. (C) Lagarde and Musca worried about China's (as well as the
UAE's) role as financier for Iran, as well as its undermining of
good governance efforts in Africa with easy money.  More
generally, Lagarde said the weakness of the yuan was "hurting
our economies."  The 9/14 informal Ecofin meeting in Porto saw
agreement to add exchange rate issues to the EU - China summit
agenda in November.  Lagarde suggested that Brazil and South
Africa be brought in on the issue.  Paulson said the U.S. was
pushing for reform and financial market opening in China, and
"this would help all investors."  He agreed to raise yuan
exchange rate issue with RSA Finance Minister Trevor Manuel in
the context of the November G-20 finance ministers meeting. 

¶10. (C) On financial market issues, Lagarde said the large French banks were strong, with minimal exposure to asset-backed securities. She was "fairly confident" that the smaller banks were also well-positioned. Market transparency and related issues had been discussed in Porto, and would be the subject of ongoing consultations within the EU. Paulson said the President's Working Group on Financial Markets was looking at similar issues, including conduits and off-balance-sheet items of regulated institutions. But it was important to guard against overreaction. In particular Paulson said he sensed that Europe was "obsessed" with hedge funds. Though the link to regulated institutions (via bank lending) was an important issue, it was hard to blame hedge funds for current market turbulence. Asked about sovereign wealth funds, Lagarde saidQ the issue was not as big a deal in France as it was in Germany. 

¶11. (U) The Paulson delegation has cleared this cable. 

STAPLETON

Kaiser-Permanente Death Edict for Senior Medicare Cancer Sufferer

Highlights of Kaiser Permanente's Senior Medicare
Program Preying Upon Vulnerable Seniors

This is a medical horror story that no one would believe, but is well documented.

This site  describes deadly problems by certain physicians at the Kaiser Health Plan, with particular attention to not only medical malpractice, but also willful withholding of diagnostic tests and then when an out-of-Kaiser physician ordered a CT scan that showed kidney cancer, Kaiser physician then repeatedly blocked the urgent and time-sensitive curative surgery with various pretenses. This led to the cancer mutating throughout the body. Kaiser physicians are partners and shareholders in the for-profit parent company, Kaiser Permanente, and thereby profit by withholding tests and treatment.

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Tactics Used to Deny Curative Surgery to Vulnerable Senior Medicare
 Patient by Kaiser Doctors and For-Profit Parent Corporation

Denial of Diagnostic Tests: Too Old!

• Denial of diagnostic tests for symptoms requiring such tests under universally accepted medical practices. For the better part of a year this was due to incompetence of two primary care physicians. The third primary care physician was competent but stated that these diagnostic tests were not given to people of his age. (Unlike other type of health plans, Kaiser physicians are stockholders in the parent for-profit Kaiser Permanente corporation and their profits increase if the costs are kept low.

Force to Seek Diagnostic Test From Physician Outside of Kaiser Permanente

• Forced to obtain diagnostic tests from out-of-Kaiser physician. Senior member of Kaiser Permanente senior advantage Medicare program then goes to an out-of-plan physician, explaining his symptoms. That doctor orders a PT scan which shows cancer in the right kidney, with possible involvement of a kidney lymph node. Such a diagnosis calls for prompt surgical removal of the kidney and lymph node to prevent cancer escaping and spreading throughout the body.

Discovery of Kidney Cancer Spreading to Lymph Node

• Kaiser physicians are given the 7-page CT report and scan CD on May 12, 2011.  Indifference, and not the slightest sign of urgency required of that discovery. Kaiser physicians respond:
  Kaiser Permanente Indifference
  • First, indifference, despite the imminent spread of the cancer from the suspected lymph node involvement.
  • Costly surgery avoidance on the following bogus claims:
    Stent Excuse
    • Patient had coronary stent installed four years earlier. Millions of people have coronary stents installed and not considered high risk for surgery.
    Patient Takes Daily Aspirin
    • Patient needs daily aspirin for blood thinning due to the stent placement. Same situation, millions of people take aspirin and continue to do so as they are set for surgery. Mayo Clinic, ,for instance, requires most of its patients undergoing surgery to take aspirin whether they used it or not, to minimize clot formation that is a standard risk in surgery.
    Patient Too Old for Surgery
    • Patient is too old for surgery. Patient was moderately active, did a daily modest treadmill workout, appeared years younger in appearance and actions, was considered satisfactory for surgery by his cardiologist, and the surgery performed would be a small incision laparoscopic removal of a kidney and lymph node. And further shown by numerous medical studies.
    • Do nothing and let the cancer spread. He would probably die of old age before the cancer killed him. Too bad about the suffering from the spreading cancer that could have been cured, or the premature death!!)
    Repeated Pleas for Timely Treatment Denied
     
• Patient repeatedly asked for prompt surgery—as called for in numerous medical studies—to avoid extension of the cancer outside the kidney and kidney lymph node. Even when he made a expedited appeal to expedite the surgery, he was denied the request. The surgery was scheduled almost eight weeks after Kaiser Permanente physicians were given evidence of the cancer in the kidney and lymph node. Instead of the standard medical practice of scheduling the surgery for kidney removal within a week, eight weeks passed, during which the cancer may have spread throughout the body. This will be determined in time. He was now denied the curative surgery, but being set up for extension of them cancer throughout the body, with the known horrors of advancing cancer and early deaths.
• For profit Kaiser Permanente executives complicit. Numerous letters and faxes were sent to the executives of for-profit parent organization, Kaiser Permanente were ignored. They stood to profit from bonuses by reducing the costs in the underlying not-for-profit Kaiser Health Plan and Kaiser Hospitals.
• "Chances of surviving kidney cancer without having surgery are poor." Metro Health)

Compounded Grief

• While this patient was being subjected to an extension of the kidney throughout them body, being denied a cancer cure, his other half, Glenda, had discovered that the Stage IV esophagus cancer had spread to her lungs. This would be followed with suffering and early death, while the Kaiser patient has to fight to get her non-Kaiser oncology group to respond with prompt treatment rather than as a number to get to the end of the line.

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More Details

The following is a an example of not the serious medical problems at Kaiser Permanente health plan for  senior Medicare members, as it relates to a former war time Navy pilot:

Choices Given—To Be Provided When Convenient for Kaiser
 

• The two urologists, including the surgeon, gave the patient three options, to be done when Kaiser manages to get around to it:
  Do Nothing: Let the Cancer Spread, Suffer, and Die!
  • Do nothing, and let the cancer spread. This insures probable months of cancer horrors, depending on how fast the cancer spreads, and cost saving, plus great profit for Kaiser physicians that are shareholders in the parent for-profit Kaiser Permanente corporation.
  Through the Skin Freezing
  • Percutaneous cryoablation. (Kidney freezing.)  The standard practice of bringing in other specialists in cancer treatment,  that the patient repeatedly requested, was also denied. That failure belatedly revealed that the cryoablation was not possible because the cancer was at the top of the kidney, where freezing risked destroying part of the lungs and diaphragm. That resulted in more delays, although the patient had requested surgical removal of the kidney—which is curative IF the cancer had not spread.
  Freezing Through Small Skin Incisions
  • Laparoscopic cryoablation (small incisions to freeze the kidney) and kill the cancer. Because surgical risks were the same, patient repeatedly stated he wanted surgical removal.
  Standard Small Skin Incisions
  • Laparoscopic nephrectomy (removal of the cancerous tissue and suspected lymph node to which the cancer is believed to have spread).
• The patient repeated requested the surgical removal of the cancerous kidney, which was the gold standard action promptly taken after CT test shows a kidney tumor. Week after week passed, with the patient dreading the extension of the cancer from the kidney lymph note to throughout the body. Some would call this worst than malpractice, but criminal neglect.
  Repeated Phony Excuses for Resisting Standard Surgical Removal
  • Patent had a coronary stent installed several years earlier. (As do millions of other people on whom nephrectomy is standard treatment, and these are often seniors.)
  • Patient had to take aspirin because of the stent, and that would cause massive bleeding. (Contrary to the majority of medical studies and reports.)
  • His age. (He is physically active, has no significant other problems, and numerous reports show no greater danger other than a modest amount of possible additional bleeding.)

Overwhelming Medical Studies Contradicted Kaiser Money-Saving Surgery Avoidance

Stent Excuse

• Existence of a stent, Thousands of people yearly undergo major surgery with stents.

Aspirin Excuse

• Aspirin usage. Mayo Clinic, prescribe aspirin for most of their surgery patients prior to surgery, whether they were already using aspirin, or not.

Too Old Excuse

• Too old for surgery. Criteria used by some Mayo surgeons' use the time required to walk nine feet. If over 6 seconds, they are at risk. This patient does that in 2 seconds. And his cardiologist said he was not at high risk due to age. He has no other significant medical conditions.

Among the Many Articles Addressing Age as not Greatly Increasing the Surgical Risk
Med Clin North Am. 1993 Mar;77(2):327-33.
Is age a risk factor for surgery?

Division of General Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia.

Abstract:

"There are many factors that have an impact on mortality rates in surgical care of the elderly. The most important of these are the physiologic changes with aging, underlying disease states, the type of procedures performed, and whether the procedure is performed as an emergency. Although there are many risks in performing surgery in elderly patients, there are many patients who do well and benefit from undergoing surgical procedures. Age alone should never be used as the criterion to deny surgery indicated in an elderly patient."

www.About.com  Senior health.  Think you are too old to be either a kidney transplant recipient or to be a kidney transplant donor? It may be that age of either the donor or of the recipient is no longer a factor. Doctors at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center Transplant Center have found at one year after surgery, transplant patients who were over age 60 did as well as younger patients, despite the fact that they usually received kidneys from older donors. A study of 144 kidney transplants found that at least a year after surgery, success rates were comparable, regardless of the age of the donors or recipients. 

"Advanced age is not a prohibitive factor in laparoscopic nephrectomy for renal pathology. (www.PubMed.gov)
Abstract.

    Since the first procedure by Clayman and colleagues in 1990, laparoscopic nephrectomy has been performed at multiple institutions worldwide and is an accepted approach for benign and malignant renal pathology. We retrospectively compared the outcomes of laparoscopic nephrectomy for renal pathology in patients older than and less than 65 years of age. Data were collected for all patients undergoing elective nephrectomy (simple, radical, and nephroureterectomy) for renal pathology between November 2000 and June 2003. A total of 94 laparoscopic nephrectomies (62 hand-assisted, 32 totally laparoscopic) for renal disease were performed. Indications for surgery included renal cell carcinoma (63), transitional cell carcinoma (7), hypertension (9), chronic pyelonephritis (6), nonfunctioning kidney (4), complex cyst (3), and polycystic kidney disease (2). There were 33 elderly patients (> or = 65 years) and 61 adult patients (< 65 years).

    The elderly group had a mean operative time (238 min vs 234.3 min; P = 0.89) and blood loss (88.5 mL vs 149.8 mL; P = 0.68) similar to the adult group. Likewise, the incidence of perioperative complications was no different between the two groups (intra-op: 3.0% vs 0%; P = 0.35/post-op: 21.2% vs 16.4%; P = 0.56). The length of hospitalization was longer in the elderly population (5.7 days versus 5.0 days; P = 0.01) compared to the younger adult group. Laparoscopic nephrectomy is well tolerated in the elderly population. For all surgical indications, the use of a minimally invasive approach confers operative times, blood loss, and morbidity that are comparable to those of younger patients. Yet, length of stay remains longer for elderly patients undergoing nephrectomy. [5.7 days instead of 5.0!]

• Thousands of hip-joint and knee joint replacement surgeries are done every year, and on obviously on senior people. And that type of surgery is far more difficult than the small-incision laparoscopic nephrectomy (kidney removal) surgery.

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More Medical Studies Contradicting Kaiser Permanente
Attempts to Deny Curative Surgery for Kidney Cancer

More medical reports contradicting the arguments by Kaiser physicians for denying curative surgery—or warning the member of dire consequences when the surgery dangers were relatively minor.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_malpractice.
   
• www.defraudingamerica.com/medical_reports_sampling.html. (The medical studies shown on that site contradicts everything that Kaiser Permanent urology physicians used to avoid the cancer patient from requesting the industry standard for kidney cancer treatment and cure.

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Sampling of Prior Experiences with Kaiser
Primary Care Physicians

After many decades of relatively experience with Kaiser primary care physicians, this is what this writer experienced from 2009 to 2011, during visit with the following problems:

• Both legs swollen like a Japanese wrestler. Primary care doctor, apparently foreign born, looked at them but did nothing. The problem was obviously water retention, and eventually the use of a diuretic resulted in a rapid 18-pound weight loss from the removal of the swollen legs.
   
• Same primary care physician at another time: Complaints of constipation combined with diarrhea and lower abdominal pain indicated  need for colonoscopy or CT scan. His suggestion: Take frequent enemas!
   
• Extreme fatigue and muscle weakness for a year, without any tests or treatment. (He later discovered on his own that the daily taking of a 80 mg Simvastatin (statin) drug was causing a dangerous breakdown of muscle tissue, a not uncommon side effect that calls for immediate stoppage of the cholesterol-reducing drug. Ignored, this leads to kidney failure, dialysis, and death.
   
• Next primary care physician with foreign accent. Repeated the suggestion of the prior physician, and despite the prominent information available to physicians for the danger of the common cholesterol-lowering drug, no reaction.
   
• Next primary care physician was more competent. He ordered tests that showed the breakdown in the muscle tissue. The danger of this breakdown is that it can overwhelm the kidneys and leads to permanent failure of the kidneys, which then results in either death or dialysis for the remainder of the person's life. Despite this common danger that should have been staring the physicians in the face, neither of the two first primary care physicians appeared knowledgeable about this common problem with death consequences.

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Horrible Suffering and Death Sentence By
Delaying Tactics and Surgery-Discovering Horror Stories

Cancer often inflicts horrible suffering upon the person, and premature death. For any physician to use false threats of surgical outcomes, or delays treatment, or denies treatment, should be considered for criminal prosecution. By their conduct, they were insuring that the patient would die, and suffer the horrors of advancing cancer.

Awesome pain is associated with cancer, not only from the cancer tumor itself, but also from diagnostic procedures, radiation and chemo therapy. For some cancer victims, the pain s so great they want to kill themselves.
This is the future for this particular member of Kaiser-Permanente senior Medicare member.

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Thousands of Deaths Yearly Due to Medical Errors

Some studies state that over 200,000 people die a year in the United States due to medical malpractice. It is reportedly the third leading cause of death in the United States. One study broke down the deaths as follows:

• 20,000 people die each year due to other types of errors in hospitals.
• 7,000 people die each year due to medication errors in hospitals
• 80,000 people die each year from nosocomial infections in hospitals
• 106,000 people die each year from adverse reactions to medications

Another site stated that accidental deaths caused by physicians average about 120,000 a year.

One Internet site stated: Doctors Are the Third Leading Cause of Death in the U.S. and cause 250,000 Deaths Every Year. Those statistics were obtained from an article in the  Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) by Dr. Starfield. Idt is unknown if these figures include the deaths caused by denial of treatment, as in this example.

Horror stories about medical personnel misconduct are detailed in the book, Congress and Other Cesspools. This matter will be added.

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Phony Quality Performance Ratings
Given to Kaiser Permanente—
Like Those Given to Worthless Financial Products

Health care evaluators/raters cover up for Kaiser Permanente serious problems by issuing high performance ratings, similar to the ratings given by the nation's credit rating agencies (Standard and Poor's, Moody's, Fitch;) to the obvious financial papers and financial corporations responsible for the housing and financial crisis that continues to inflict such great harm upon the people of the United States and the nation.

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Relative Freedom From Being Sued Encourages
These Deadly Tactics at Kaiser Permanente

Because of the law in California, medical misconduct lawsuits are relatively rare because of the restrictions and limits placed on medical malpractice lawsuits..
Medical malpractice involves professional negligence or misconduct.  That could be by a health care provider when it deviates from accepted standards of practice in the medical community, as in the this matter, and causes injury or death to the patient. Standards and regulations for medical malpractice vary by country and jurisdiction within countries. Here are a few examples of medical malpractice:

• Improper treatment.
   
• A delay in treatment which results in harm to a patient.
   
• Wrong diagnosis.
   
• Failure to treat.
   
• Failure by the health-care provider to perform appropriate follow-up treatment.

A plaintiff must establish four elements of the tort of negligence for a successful medical malpractice claim.

1. A duty was owed: a legal duty exists whenever a hospital or health care provider undertakes care or treatment of a patient.
    
2. A duty was breached: the provider failed to conform to the relevant standard care.
    
3. The breach caused an injury: The breach of duty was a proximate cause of the injury.
    
4. Damages: Without damages (losses which may be pecuniary or emotional), there is no basis for a claim, regardless of whether the medical provider was negligent. Likewise, damages can occur without negligence, for example, when someone dies from a fatal disease.

However, deliberate misconduct, as in the above case, does not require arbitration, and can proceed in court.

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Sampling of Letters by Desperate Senior Victim  Seeking Help to Force  Kaiser to Perform Needed Surgery

The patient sent dozens of letters and faxes to different organizations where the personnel were paid to react to such outrageous medical misconduct. None responded, reflecting what the patient had discovered for years that most people in those positions are most interested in the pay and not in meeting responsibilities. This list includes faxes sent to several of Kaiser Permanente's executives at the Oakland, California parent for-profit corporation (none ever responded), to county prosecutors responsible for preventing senior abuse; and others who are paid to provide assistance:

• George Halverson, Chairman and CEO Kaiser Permanente. (no response)
• Berman Tyson, President, Kaiser Permanente. (no response)

Kaiser Permanente Oakland Divisional Offices:
1 Kaiser Plaza, Oakland, CA 94612-3600. FAX 510-267-7524 (no response)

Moor will be posted soon

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Kaiser Physicians Profit from
Denial of Costly Medical Treatment

Medical treatment at the Kaiser Permanente group involves three separate corporate entities

• Kaiser Foundation Health Plan.  Non-profit corporation.
• Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, Inc. Non-profit corporation.
• The Permanente Medical Group

In Northern California and  Southern California, the for-profit parent corporation—Kaiser Permanente—have Kaiser physicians as employees and partners that share in any profit that is the difference between the fees collected from enrollees, including such government payments as from senior Medicare, and the cost of the services.

The denial of diagnostic tests to the patient referred to in this report helped in a small way to boost the profits and benefit the physicians. The repeated attempts to deny expensive surgery would be a major cost saving and profit generation.

While it probably won't save a senior from cancer sufferings and early death from the death-decree some experienced at Kaiser, there are law firms that can at least cause minor financial inconvenience for Kaiser physicians and the for-profit corporation. One such firm advertises at  Kaiser Medical Malpractice website and resource page.

And if the offense is worse then medical malpractice--the repeated denial of care, knowing that the cancer will spread, the offense possibly enters the criminal area.

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Kaiser Protecting Themselves from Consequences
Of Their Deliberate Medical Malpractice--
But Vulnerable to Deliberate Withholding Or
Delay of Life Saving Treatment

To enroll in a Kaiser health plan, Kaiser protects itself against medical malpractice and negligence, unlike private doctors and hospitals, that requires that the enrollee sign a waiver preventing the enrollee from suing Kaiser and submitting any malpractice or deliberate withholding of medical care to arbitration.
Kaiser abused this system, protecting themselves from liability for their wrongful acts, while denying their victims their day in court. Their abuse of enrollees' rights were partly reduced by the formation of a semi-independent administrator. That administrator provides the attorney for Kaiser, and the attorney for the plaintiff with a list of 12 names. The decision arbitrator's decision is binding and not subject to any appeal process.
While the patient that has been subjected to intentional withholding of treatment that they know will result in cancer spreading, or death, is not helped, heirs can file lawsuits outside of the arbitration limitations, and include punitive damages.

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Google Search for Medical Horror Stories
Kaiser Permanente Health Plan

The following are a small sampling of the many reports found by a Google search under the search words, "Kaiser Health Plan malpractice" or Kaiser Permanente malpractice.

• Kaiser malpractice report by investigator.
• http://horror.kaiserpapers.org/
• http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/complaint/malpractice-caps-mandatory-binding-arbitration-kaiser-permanente-and-rigged-arbitrationsx
• http://www.kaiserthrive.org/2007/03/04/happy-birthday-lehna-jordann-brewer/
• Kaiser's disappearing evidence: http://www.kaiserthrive.org/2006/09/13/yet-another-case-of-disappearing-evidence/
• http://www.rushfordfiles.com/
• http://www.kaiserthrive.org/kaiser-permanente-horror-stories/kaiser-malpractice-tragedies/ (Kaiser malpractice tragedies.)

The following are sampling of Internet sites for lawyers that have filed malpractice lawsuits against Kaiser doctors or the Kaiser allegedly not-for-profit health plan or hospital groups, and the for-profit Kaiser Permanente parent corporation.

• http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jun/30/health/he-kaiser30
• http://www.personalinjurylawyer.com/resources/personal-injury/medical-injuries/kaiser-permanente-malpractice-claims.htm
• http://www.kaisermalpracticedoctorlawyer.com/?gclid=CNjx47SZrKkCFSJDgwodE1dDKg
• http://www.riversidemedicalmalpracticeattorney.com/Medical_Malpractice/Kaiser_Malpractice.aspx
• http://www.kastnerlaw.com/Medical-Malpractice-Overview/Kaiser-Medical-Malpractice.shtml
• http://www.bostwickfirm.com/
• http://www.sanfranciscomedmalattorney.com/Medical-Malpractice/Kaiser-Malpractice.aspx
• http://kaisermedicalmalpractice.com/faq.html
• http://www.noelmferris.com/Medical-Malpractice/Kaiser-Malpractice-Arbitration.shtml
• http://www.whavins.com/malprac.htm. Details of arbitration law in California, excluding deliberate misconduct or criminal acts.
• http://www.kaiserinjurylawyer.com/CM/Custom/TOCCasesandResults.asp
• http://www.kaiserinjurylawyer.com/PracticeAreas/CancerMisdiagnosis.asp
• http://www.katzlawoffices.com/kaiser-permanente.php
• http://www.bostwickfirm.com/lawyer-attorney-1014532.html
• http://law.justia.com/cases/california/calapp3d/99/560.html (Sample of one case law.)
• http://www.hayesscott.com/Attorneys/George-E-Clause.shtml
• http://www.mjmandel.com/aop/california-medical-malpractice/
• http://www.sanbernardinomediation.com/Panelist/DonCripe.html (Arbitrator)
• http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/97/notes/V4n5.pdf (Court case denying arbitration requirement.)
• http://legalstuff.kaiserpapers.org/texaslawsuits.html (Texas court case against Kaiser.)
• http://lawyerus.blogspot.com/2011/05/california-medical-malpractice-lawyers.html (San Francisco)
• http://www.fagellaw.com/FAQ/What_is_Arbitration_.aspx
• https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=28+Cap.+U.L.+Rev.+331&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=7412aa61bff362b2fc5c88633999c83d
• http://books.google.com/books?id=17m-JnZoyUsC&pg=SA8-PA64&lpg=SA8-PA64&dq=Kaiser+health+plan+malpractice&source=bl&ots=FTcpoflSS-&sig=pbyViyPgplRAvLcccbKUVeV7M4w&hl=en&ei=8bDyTZ6aAoj4swPXpoTJCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CIsBEOgBMAk4KA#v=onepage&q=Kaiser%20health%20plan%20malpractice&f=false. (Case where treatment was denied.)
• http://medicalmalpracticeattorneyoakland.com/category/uncategorized/ (California medical malpractice law.)

Read the chapter on medical horror stories in the book, Congress and Other Cesspools, in print and e-book format from amazon.com and other Internet sources.

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Could There Be a Sinister Reason for Wanting To
Bring About the Patient's Early Death?

That senior citizen is nationally known for his 40 years of exposing grave misconduct involving key people in the government of the United States and the great harm, sometimes deaths, and sometimes catastrophic events, caused or enabled by the documented misconduct that he and his coalition of concerned former government agents had discovered during their professional duties.

One of his Internet sites is www.defraudingamerica.com. A list of his books are at www.defraudingamerica.com/list_of_books.

---

Final Summary

This example is far worse then medical malpractice. The intentional withholding of tests and curative treatment by Kaiser physicians and the executives of the for-profit Kaiser Permanente Corporation are crude and cruel acts against a mostly vulnerable senior members that are defenseless.
Comparisons could be made of the contempt by people in the Wall Street firms preying upon the nation's people.

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Permission is granted to mirror this web site and use it for thee benefit of the people of the United States, the nation, and people of other countries.

"UNDOCUMENTED WORKERS" RECEIVE $4 BILLION FROM IRS IN 2010?

POLITICO

By MACKENZIE WEINGER | 9/2/11 1:46 PM EDT Updated: 9/2/11 2:36 PM EDT

Undocumented workers received $4.2 billion from the Internal Revenue Service last year, according to a new study.

The report, released Thursday by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, showed that the IRS allowed people unauthorized to work in the United States to collect billions of dollars in refundable tax credits in 2010, The Washington Post reported.


Under current law, individuals not permitted to work in the U.S. do not receive most federal public benefits — but an increasing number are filing tax returns claiming the Additional Child Tax Credit, which is set up for working families. The IRS says the law as presently written is vague and does not permit them to disallow the claims.

50-year-old CARTOON TRIED TO WARN US

Pyramid Schemes

Feds Seek To Counter Imminent Bank Of America Collapse With Demand For Contigency Plans

The Feds demand Bank of America provide contingency plans to prevent financial collapse following a massive stock sell off and slew ominous financial revelations.

As Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge revealed, whose post along with information on Naked Capitalism  was ran on Business Insider sent Wall Street into a frenzy, Bank of America is in dire financial straits.

Bank Of America Scrambles To Defend Itself From Henry Blodget’s Allegations It Is Massively Undercapitalized

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/23/2011 12:35 -0400
Early this morning, Henry Blodget penned a post titled “Here’s Why Bank Of America’s Stock Is Collapsing Again” in which he used Zero Hedge data among other, to determine that the capital shortfall for the bank is between $100 and $200 billion. It took BAC exactly 6 hours to retort. Below is the full statement.

BANK OF AMERICA STATEMENT REGARDING HENRY BLODGET
2011-08-23 16:29:04.675 GMT
(The following is a reformatted version of a statement from Larry DiRita, a Bank of America spokesman. The statement was confirmed by the sender.)
Mr. Blodgett is making “exaggerated and unwarranted claims” which is what the SEC stated publicly when he was permanently banned from the securities industry in 2003.  The sovereign exposure is off by a factor of 10.  The commercial real estate figures are off by a factor of four.  The mortgage analysis was provided by a hedge fund that has acknowledged it will benefit if our stock price declines.  The recommendations on goodwill accounting would be prohibited by generally acceptable accounting practices.  Traditional bank valuation relies upon tangible book value per share, which excludes by definition 100 percent of goodwill and other intangibles.  As of June 30, our tangible book value per share was $12.65.

Oh ok, Bank of America, that explains it all. As for the mortgage analysis being provided by a hedge fund “that has acknowledged it will benefit if our stock price declines”, co-authored by Zero Hedge, does that make it wrong? Last time we checked Muddy Waters made money on Sino Forest…
Source: Zero Hedge

In fact, they are severely under-capitalized making the company highly vulnerable to collapse.
Despite, heckling by the main stream media that the information was just posted by anonymous online bloggers, Mr, Durden certainly has the ear of Wall Street bankers and Hedge Fund managers.
Here’s on example of the corporate media reaction to Zero Hedge’s reports on Bank of America, attacking the messenger and ignoring the message in typical corporate news fashion.

And In The Category For Biggest Conspiracy Theory We Have….

Submitted by Tyler Durden
08/23/2011 21:27 -0400

Two and a half years after consistently and methodically exposing one conspiracy after another (and by the way, once it is proven to be a fact, it is no longer a conspiracy), we were stunned to find that the biggest conspiracy theory is none other than… Zero Hedge. “Zero Hedge, for example, is one that lots of hedge funds look at, lots of money managers look at, and the guy that runs it has their ear. Now I’m not saying that he is not doing his own proprietary work, but, people like to plant stories in there. [cue ominous silence].” TA DUN DUN.
Gee – one does learn something new every day.
And now, back to planting malicious rumors and vile, incorrect stories of ponzi schemes, broken markets, deranged vacuum tubes, plundered tungsten bars, BLS data manipulation, collapsing Nielsen ratings, hyperinflationary obsessive-compulsive printing habits, global central planner intervention and what not.
Also, to anyone who still doesn’t get it, please send your dodecatuple secret “plant” stories to plant@zerohedge[.]com along with your payment made in physical gold Zimbabwean dollars, to be delivered to our paper street headquarters. We certainly would prefer it if the drop man is Bank of America’s James Mahoney.
Source: Zero Hedge

And there is a reason he has the ear of Wall Street. The media has been exposed time and again printing outright lies and running propaganda pieces in their role as a stenographer and presstitute for big corporations and corrupt government officials.
Tyler has reported spot on news and analysis breaking and endless series of high impact financial news stories, such as the under-capitalization story above. Here is another interesting story – The  $2 million bet that Bank of America will be a $4 stock by November.
It looks like November is coming a lot faster than anticipated as Bank of America’s stock price continues to reflect the series of revelations made on Zero Hedge.
Now even the Feds are worried about fending off what appears to be an evermore imminent collapse of the bank.
Specifically, the Feds have demanded the company provide contingency plans for the almost certain case of continued failure.
The Daily Bail reports:

Federal Reserve Asks Bank Of America For Contingency Plans In Case Of Continued Failure

WSJ
Excerpt
U.S. regulators have pushed Bank of America Corp. to show what measures it could take if conditions worsen for the Charlotte, N.C., lender, according to people familiar with the situation.
Executives of the bank recently responded to the unusual request from the Federal Reserve with a list of options that includes the issuance of a separate class of shares tied to the performance of its Merrill Lynch securities unit, these people said. Bank of America purchased Merrill Lynch in 2009, and it has become the bank’s most profitable division.
Chief Executive Brian Moynihan isn’t expected to pull the trigger soon, if ever, on the creation of a so-called Merrill Lynch tracking stock. Such a move would raise money from investors but could be viewed as counter to Mr. Moynihan’s strategy of knitting together the disparate parts of the franchise into a cohesive whole. Its inclusion on the list as a theoretical option shows the bank is considering all possibilities as it wrestles with an array of problems weighing down its shares….
The Fed’s call for more documentation about what the bank might do in more-extreme circumstances was a response to uncertainty about a U.S. economic recovery and a downward swing in Bank of America’s share price earlier this year, one of these people said. It was a one-time request, although the Fed has done the same with other firms in the past.
Bank of America did the analysis at the Fed’s request in late July and early August and then provided the Fed with its menu of options, said people familiar with the situation. Some items, such as the tracking stock, were more theoretical than others.
Mr. Moynihan isn’t giving the tracking stock serious consideration at this point, said a person familiar with the situation, but he included it on the list to show the company has multiple levers to pull.
—
More on the Merrill Lynch tracking stock from the WSJ…
Excerpt
In a list sent to the Federal Reserve of potential measures the bank could take should its situation worsen, BofA included the idea of a tracking stock for Merrill Lynch, according to a Wall Street Journal article. The trouble is such a move wouldn’t necessarily signal strength. If anything, investors might interpret it as a sign of desperation.
For starters, tracking stocks, which typically don’t confer ownership or voting rights on holders, have a fairly dismal history. They conjure images of dot.com days, when the instruments came into vogue.
Then there is the idea that a tracking stock for Merrill, which BofA purchased in early 2009, would really make investors ascribe it more value than BofA overall is currently getting credit for.
That is a stretch. If anything, a tracking stock would call into question whether the business is being fully integrated into BofA. It also could stoke speculation of a breakup. Investors don’t foresee that, and the prospect of it would cause worry.
—
Here’s the correct solution to the Bank of America death spiral:

Chris Whalen Recommends Chapter 11 Bankruptcy For Bank Of America: Default And Liquidation Under Dodd-Frank

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See Also, from the Daily Bail:

BREAKING NYT REPORT – U.S. Government Is Set To Sue A Dozen Big Banks Over Fraudulent Mortgages – Including BofA, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs & Citigroup

TARP On Steroids – Sherman Vs. Geithner

CNBC further reports:

Bank of America Under Fed Scrutiny

Bank regulators from the Federal Reserve have been pushing Bank of America to put in place a plan for what to do if conditions worsen, according to The Wall Street Journal.
[...] Bank of America’s stock price [BAC  7.355    -0.555  (-7.02%)   ] has been signaling severe distress for several months. Even the temporary boost from Warren Buffett’s $5 billion investment seems to have evaporated.
[...] bank regulators are supposed to take a proactive role in preventing a disorderly collapse of giant financial institutions. But there has been a lot of concern that, despite the rules, regulators might hesitate to pressure such a large bank to develop credible contingency plans.
[...]
This does raise further credibility concerns for the senior management of Bank of America. The bank has been loudly insisting that everything is just fine, that it’s capital and liquidity positions are healthy, and that it isn’t under any regulatory gun.
Today’s news tells a different story. Regulators are concerned.
Were Bank of America’s executives really surprised by this? Or have they been misleading the public about their contact with regulators?
Source: CNBC

White House Finally Admits US Unemployment Will Stay High Through 2012

White House economists predicted Thursday that U.S. unemployment will stay at or near its present level throughout next year and economic growth will be slower than previously projected.

White House: US Unemployment To Stay High Through 2012
VOA News
September 1st, 2011
White House economists predicted Thursday that U.S. unemployment will stay at or near its present level throughout next year. They also say that economic growth will be slower than previously projected.
A report from the Office of Management and Budget forecast the nation’s jobless rate to remain near its current level of nine percent through 2012.
Continued high unemployment could threaten President Barack Obama’s prospects for re-election.
Mr. Obama is scheduled to lay out his plan for job creation and economic recovery next week, before a joint session of Congress.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said Thursday the president’s initiatives, if implemented, would help to reduce the jobless rate.
“Economists will be able to look at this series of proposals and say that, based on history, based on what we know, based on their collected expertise, that it would add to economic growth and it would cause an increase in job creation,” Carney said.
The administration report also forecast overall growth of just 1.7 percent this year, one percent less than predicted earlier this year.
The economy grew at seven-tenths of one percent in the first half of 2011, its slowest pace in two years.
The White House predicts a federal deficit of $1.3 trillion for the fiscal year which ends September 30.  That is a slight increase over last year’s deficit but more than $300 billion below February’s forecast.
The administration delayed release of the report, which had been due in July, because of legislative battles over the debt limit and the budget.

Ireland's Growth Making Fools Of Krugman & Keynes, Euro Banks In Denial, Greece ALREADY Missing New Debt Targets, Fukushima Radiation Blankets Western U.S. (Links)

Take That Paul Krugman! - Ireland's Growth Is Defying Keynesian Wisdom - WSJ
IN DENIAL - Europe rejects Christine Lagarde's IMF call for more bank capital
Economic Report - August Manufacturing Index at 25-Month LOW
What A Surprise! - Greece ALREADY Missing Debt Targets Set Earlier In Summer
Is There A Stigma to Banks' Discount Window Borrowing? - FED Paper Says YES
Choice for Europe - Bailout Greece or Bailout Banks - WSJ
Economic Report - July Construction Spending Showed Biggest Fall Since January
Reuters Analysis - US Treasury's Debt Maturity Problem
DREAM Act - College Scholarships For Illegal Immigrants Passes California Senate
How Global Speculators Make Money From Hunger - Der Spiegel
Fukushima - Map of Cesium-137 Deposition Shows Massive Contamination in US

Homelessness could spread to middle class, Crisis study warns

Homelessness charity points to direct link between economic downturn and welfare cuts, and rising numbers living on streets

A homeless man sleeps in a doorway in central London. The number of people sleeping rough in Britain has risen for the first time in a decade. Photograph: Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

The economic downturn and the government's deep cuts to welfare will drive up homelessness over the next few years, raising the spectre of middle class people living on the streets, a major study warns.
The report by the homelessness charity Crisis, seen by the Guardian, says there is a direct link between the downturn and rising homelessness as cuts to services and draconian changes to benefits shred the traditional welfare safety net.
In the 120-page study, co-authored by academics at the University of York and Heriot-Watt University, Crisis highlights figures released over the summer that show councils have reported 44,160 people accepted as homeless and placed in social housing, an increase of 10% on the previous year and the first increase in almost a decade.
Last year another 189,000 people were also placed in temporary accommodation – such as small hotels and B&Bs – to prevent them from becoming homeless, an increase of 14% on the previous year.
Crisis says that with no sign of economic recovery in sight, there are already signs that homelessness is returning to British streets. In London, rough sleeping, the most visible form of homelessness, rose by 8% last year. Strikingly, more than half of the capital's 3,600 rough sleepers are now not British citizens: most are migrants from eastern Europe who cannot find work and, unable to get benefits or return home, are left to fend for themselves on the streets.
The charity says the evidence is that the current recession has seen the poor suffer the most, but other parts of society may be in jeopardy if the government's radical welfare agenda is acted on as the economy stutters.
"Any significant reduction of the welfare safety net in the UK as a result of coalition reforms may, of course, bring the scenario of middle-class homelessness that much closer," the report states.
The charity says that the government needs to reverse cuts to housing benefit and invest urgently in new housing. It also calls on ministers to withdraw the most radical provisions in the localism bill, which would make "temporary accommodation" for needy families just that. Under the new legislation, councils would be forced to remove parents and children who have been in a hotel for a year. At present the assistance is open-ended.
There is also an alarming trend in what the charity calls the "hidden homeless" – families forced to squeeze into one room rather than a flat. It says 630,000 households are now "overcrowded", with London and the south-east the worst hit. This trend could worsen: this summer a survey by the National Landlords Association found more than half of private landlords were planning to reduce the number of properties they let to tenants on housing benefits. Crisis says more families will be forced to share an ever decreasing number of homes.
In a separate report, Channel 4 News will broadcast further evidence that official figures underestimate the true picture of homelessness. In Crawley, West Sussex, the Open House hostel said it turned away people needing a bed almost 2,000 times last year, although official figures estimate there are just seven homeless people in the town. Two-thirds of homelessness organisations nationwide told Channel 4 there had been a rise in rough sleeping in their area.
Leslie Morphy, Crisis's chief executive, said: "We are extremely worried. Homelessness in both its visible and hidden forms is already rising and as the economic downturn causes further increases in unemployment and pressure on households' finances, homelessness is likely to continue to rise. This research is clear that it is the welfare and housing systems in the UK that traditionally have broken the link between unemployment and poverty and homelessness, yet these are now being radically dismantled by the coalition government. The government must listen and change course before this flow of homeless people becomes a flood."
Crisis argues that instead of doubling its efforts to end the "scandal" of homelessness, the government is in effect making it impossible for those on low incomes to pay their rent. It says in the past British welfare policy, unlike that in the US, has linked housing benefit to actual rents. But the government's changes break this link and mean that claimants will be priced out of swaths of the country – or end up on the streets in wealthy regions.
The report also says the government's "affordable" house-building regime is likely to generate fewer than 50,000 homes by 2015, "well short of the 80,000 required to meet ministers' targets". Gone will be the lifetime tenancies offered by councils which had to give priority to those in need. Instead, under new powers, local authorities will be able to choose families with "local connections".
With the coalition's welfare reform bill heading to the Lords and MPs voting on the localism bill next week, Labour said Crisis's warnings were a "timely reminder of a looming homeless catastrophe". Karen Buck, Labour's welfare spokesperson, said the government had played down the rising number of people who thanks to the economic downturn were forced to rely on housing benefit.
She said that since the government took power another 150,000 families had been forced on to housing benefit. "The numbers relying on housing benefit to help with housing costs have been soaring. These figures include not just the unemployed but hundreds of thousands of working families. Rising rents, benefit cuts and housing shortages risk a homeless catastrophe will with all the associated human and financial costs."
The Department for Communities and Local Government said: "Ministers have always made clear their commitment to ensure the most vulnerable in society are protected, which is why the government is investing £400m in preventing homelessness, and has announced plans to extend the London project, No Second Night Out, across the country so no one spends more than one night sleeping rough.
"But the most important thing the government can do to help struggling households to stay in their homes is to keep interest rates low, and to do that we must cut the deficit. That is why we are introducing reforms that will cut the housing benefit bill. But to ensure a smooth transition to this new system, the government is giving councils a £190m fund to help those families most in need.
"Far from the claims made by Crisis, the government's £4.5bn affordable homes programme is set to exceed expectations and deliver up to 170,000 affordable homes by 2015."

Endgame: When Debt is Fraud, Debt Forgiveness is the Last and Only Remedy

We hold this to be self-evident: When Debt is Fraud, Debt Forgiveness is the Last and Only Remedy.
Today I present an important guest essay by long-time contributor Zeus Yiamouyiannis, who suggests that when debt is essentially fraudulent, then debt forgiveness is both the logical and the only remedy. In case you missed his previous analyses on oftwominds.com, I list some of Zeus's previous essays at the end of the entry.

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Endgame: When Debt is Fraud, Debt Forgiveness is the Last and Only Remedy, by Zeus Yiamouyiannis, Ph.D., copyright 2011. Introduction
Finally serious economists are considering a position I have been maintaining and writing about since the 2008 financial meltdown. Whatever its name— erasure, repudiation, abolishment, cancellation, jubilee—debt forgiveness, will have to eventually emerge forefront in global efforts to solve an ongoing systemic financial crisis.

“On a grand scale the only way to erase counterfeit money and (counterfeit) assets of hundreds of trillions of dollars is to erase the debts associated with those fake assets. (Let me underscore again, these are not “toxic” assets, they are fake assets.)… Forgiveness in general, and forgiveness of debt in particular, stand as virtues if they free us up to acknowledge, address, and learn from our culpability, start anew, and create forward.” ( The Big Squeeze, Part 3: The Quiet Rebellion: Civil Disobedience, Local Markets, and Debt Erasure (January 29, 2011)

Debt forgiveness, therefore, accomplishes two important things. It eliminates the increasing and outsized portion of productive enterprise to pay off unproductive obligations, and it clears the ground for new opportunities, new thinking, invention, and entrepreneurialism. This is why the ability to declare bankruptcy is so essential in the pursuit of both happiness and innovation.
Currently we are mired in a “new normal” and calls for “austerity” which are nothing more than the delusional efforts of a status quo to avoid the consequences of its own error and fraud and to profit evermore. So bedazzled by the false wealth created by debt multiplication and its concomitant fantasy of ever-higher returns, this status quo continues to be stupidly amazed that people are not spending and that the economy is not picking up. But how could it be otherwise?
Productive wealth has been trapped in a web of parasitic theft, counterfeiting, liability evasion, non-regulation, and prosecutorial non-accountability. All the fundamental attributes of a functioning exchange economy have been warped to reward creative criminals. I spoke extensively about this in my posts from 2008. ( Imaginary Worth, Empire of Debt: How Modern Finance Created Its Own Downfall (October 15, 2008)
The unsustainable nature of debt
Two observations: 1) Fabricated/parasitic so-called “wealth” destroys value by diluting the value of productive wealth. 2) Debt/credit that cannot be paid back is never an asset and is always a hot-potato liability (needing to be foisted to a greater fool to garner “profit” and transaction fees):

“The models [modern debt are] based upon had no contact with reality. They assumed unlimited growth and ability to pay. When matched against the reality of people paying ten times their salary for mortgages that actually added more money owed to their principal (i.e. with negative amortization), required no money down, and set up “balloon payments,” large step-ups in payments after a few years) there is no possible way they could NOT default in a predictable span of time.” ( Part II: How the Credit Default Swap Scam Works (October 13, 2008)

Systemically, all debt that charges a percentage (“usury”) originates in delusion. Debt grows exponentially indefinitely, growth (income and otherwise) cannot. This leads to a widening condition where the fruits of productive “growth” devoted to interest payments increase until those fruits are entirely consumed. (The Elephant In The Room: Debt Grows Exponentially, While Economies Only Grow In An S-Curve (Washington's Blog)
Once this happens, stores of wealth (hard assets) begin to be cannibalized to make up for the difference. You see this in Greece with its sale of public assets to private companies, and in middle-class America where people are liquidating retirement accounts to pay for their cost of living.
This problem is compounded by a private Federal Reserve that lends money into circulation at interest, and then allows the multiplication of this consumer debt-money liability through fractional reserve banking. The money in circulation today could pay only a small fraction of the total private and public debt. That fact alone is evidence of a kind of systemic fraud. “If you just work hard enough, save, and make sensible decisions, you can get out of debt” could only physically work for a bare fraction of the population, given the money-to-debt ratio. The rest would have to simply default to clear the boards.
This is why debt forgiveness makes not only moral but rational, mathematical sense. Finances require balancing to be coherent. There must be some way to redress systemic imbalance. One has to be able to “zero the scales” to get an accurate weight of value and to re-establish healthy value creation.
Voices in the debate
Some analysts are beginning to see the forest through the trees in terms of debt forgiveness. Steve Keen, Australian economist and current deflationist, and Michael Hudson, American economic contrarian and prescient essayist, are both using clear-sighted reality-based financial analysis to debunk accounting games that obscure the untenable debt situation and to call for debt forgiveness.
How can selling sovereign assets and imposing austerity on Greek citizens (taking money out of their hands through higher taxes and lower benefits) do anything other than hollow out value and contract the Greek economy in the face of a deep global recession? Michael Hudson: It can’t. Greece’s debt needs to be written off.

“It seems unreasonable and unrealistic to expect that large sectors of the New European population can be made subject to salary garnishment throughout their lives, reducing them to a lifetime of debt peonage… (T)he only way to resolve it is to negotiate a debt write-off…” ( The Coming European Debt Wars: EU Countries sinking into Depression (Michael Hudson, Global Research, April 9, 2010) ( "[We’ll Have] a Never-Ending Depression Unless We Repudiate the Debt, Which Never Should Have Been Extended In The First Place" (Washington's Blog)

Why isn’t “quantitative easing” and flooding the U.S. economy with debt-money working to prime borrowing and lending? Steve Keen: Because the money is going into deleveraging in a time of overextension:

“Bernanke is throwing (a) trillion dollars into the system. Rather than that leading to ten trillion dollars of additional credit money, creating the inflation people are expecting, that trillion dollars is all that goes in, and people deleveraging actually reduce their level of spending by more than a trillion dollars by trying to pay their debt down, and it cancels out what the government is trying to do… We need a 21st century jubilee.” ( On the Edge with . . . Steve Keen (Max Keiser, video)

Other well-known commentators are not seeing the debt forest at all. In their contentious debates over deflation and inflation, neither Rick Ackerman nor Gonzalo Lira seem to be aware of the overwhelmingly fraudulent nature of present global debt-- including the 600 to 1,000 trillion dollars of fabricated notional wealth represented by the derivatives markets, fraudclosure, and a host of other sources.
Rick Ackerman: “’Ultimately, every penny of every debt must be paid — if not by the borrower, then by the lender.’ Inflationists and deflationists implicitly agree on this point… and we differ only on the question of who, borrower or lender, will take the hit.” (Let’s Think This Through Together....)
I posted a pithy response in the comment section:

“Both Rick and Gonzalo left out the obvious third way--debt forgiveness. No… debt does not have to be paid by someone; it can be absolved, especially debt created upon fraudulent and/or counterfeit-ridden practice… (D)erivatives are not real wealth, and neither was the ostensible climb in the values of housing resting in large part on those phony-wealth derivatives. The only “real wealth” here revolves around ability to produce real and needed goods (to allow us to survive), and the ability to create something that increases one’s quality of life (to promote our thriving). Precious little of the present global economy involves either one of these. Yeah, if we use FASB standards and Goldman Sachs accounting, we can pretend our worthless junk is all really simply very rare, “unique condition” collectibles worth trillions of dollars.
I’ve got a better idea. Take our financial junk out of the global attic in boxes, put them out on the front lawn, and see if anyone wants to pay a few bucks for the various items, give away the leftovers to anyone interested passing on the sidewalk, and recycle, donate, or dispose of the rest. It’s a moving sale, and if our economy is going to get moving, maybe we ought to have one.” (Zeus Yiamouyiannis April 6, 2011 at 4:11 pm)

How it might play out
This subtle debt extortion creates a system of never-ending debt-slavery for a vast majority of the population. When this “manageable” slavery is aggravated by a desire to use hardship to extort ever greater assets from the overburdened at ever cheaper prices (what Naomi Klein calls “disaster capitalism”), by open and unapologetic widespread fraud, and by the unjust offloading of risk and liability to taxpayers who had nothing to do with poor decisions of private banks, then the systemic abuse is revealed in the daily lives of citizens.
Debt creates scarcity, which stimulates fear, which drives manic competition, which favors opportunism, collusion, and concentrations of power, which translates to abuse, which results in a collapse of legitimacy for the economic system. Overreach causes a breaking point, and we are getting close to it. Will the response be warfare, taxpayer revolt, political upheaval, mass default, debt forgiveness, something other, some combination? I have predicted pockets of violence would be mixed with some softer combination of taxpayer revolt, mass default, political upheaval, and debt forgiveness, along with a return to community exchange to meet basic needs. ( The Big Squeeze, Part 3: The Quiet Rebellion: Civil Disobedience, Local Markets, and Debt Erasure (January 29, 2011)
This possibility of epic reprisal may very well compel banks to come to the table around debt forgiveness to avoid violent backlash and criminal prosecution, even over preserving their gravy train companies. The bitter irony of these companies and their galloping greed is that they ended up victimizing each other by selling junk to each other and extracting all the real value in salary and bonuses. Their assets rest on notional values, that when unmasked would drive each into immediate insolvency. They have simply been scam artists, producing little value and extracting mountains of money.
What might this look like? Looking at present trends and using the very useful framework of Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief, it might go something like this…
Average debtor:
1) Denial: Liquidate savings to pay for over-priced house and cost of living.
2) Anger and fear: Exhaust resources, experience want, compounded by austerity measures.
3) Bargaining: Attempt to negotiate with bank through HAMP and other mechanisms to lower payments. Banks don 't bite and even have incentives to foreclose.
4) Depression: Lose/default on the house and move in with family or cheap rental.
5) Find out life is better without being a debt slave and spend more time with community and the ones you love.
Bankers:
1) Denial: Collect 144 billion in bonuses after financial collapse and laugh as not a single trading day loss arises for zombie TBTF banks completely subsidized by governments.
2) Anger: Express false righteousness, indignation, and hubris over even modest/toothless demands/regulations attempted to be placed on them by governments. Exhibit sadistic zeal at being able to simply claim you own and liquidate properties they have no clear title to.
3) Bargaining: Experience dawning awareness that may have just cooked your own gooses as strategic defaults skyrocket, populist demands to prosecute fraudclosure gain traction, and quantitative easing ad infinitum dwindles and fails to keep stock prices artificially aloft. Improvise panicked attempts to "be reasonable" and actually negotiate, once the asset and money flow well runs dry.
4) Depression: Contemplate and realize possible bankruptcy by big banks. Retreat to the Hamptons to hire criminal defense lawyers, contemplate empty life, and shoulder the abuse of media and contempt of a global citizenry.
5) Acceptance: Trying to regain "good guy" status and avoid criminal prosecution by agreeing to be part of debt forgiveness.
Once defaults happen in increasing numbers and certain asset prices plunge (i.e. real estate), what will initially look like a bonanza for capitalist parasites could easily get out of hand, with people either unable or unwilling to buy inventory even at greatly reduced prices. Profits would tank at banks, liabilities would skyrocket even with most of it transferred to government guarantee. Because no one plays the game anymore, banks could go under as well, as people rise to vote out bank-friendly politicians and simply refuse to pay. This unraveling could easily force exposure of the notional value of derivatives in banks as worthless, meaning they are as bankrupt as the people they exploited. At this point, there will be a common desire and need to simply "forgive" the debts and try to find some way to distribute these empty homes.
Conclusion
Debt forgiveness simply calls out either the inherent systemic inability to make good on debts or the recognition that debt was produced through fraudulent means. In the present situation, both conditions obtain. There has likely been no point in world history where debt forgiveness has been so comprehensively merited. The only speculation from my point (barring world-wide global feudalism and eternal debt slavery) is whether we will initiate such forgiveness or be forced into it.

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Thank you, Zeus, for this prescient and insightful analysis of debt and debt renunciation. The Kondratieff Cycle can only turn to Spring after debt renunciation completes the Winter cycle. Let's stop pretending we're still in Summer, and that the Fed's puny "quantitative easing" and monetary cargo-cult machinations can reverse the seasons.


(all essays by Zeus Yiamouyiannis, Ph.D.) Part I: A 70 Trillion Dollar Counterfeiting Ring
(September 23, 2008)

According to several sources the market for so-called "credit default swaps" last year alone was nearly equal to the total global GDP, around 70 trillion dollars by some estimates. Yet these derivatives have no discernible "origin" or value.

Part II: How the Credit Default Swap Scam Works
(October 13, 2008)

Instead of asking the obvious, complex, and obscuring question, "What value DO they have?”, one should ask the elegant and simple question, "What value COULD they have?" Even a cursory examination would seem to indicate that the answer is either zero or less-than-zero.

Part III: Credit Default Swaps Create Less-Than-Zero Value
(October 13, 2008)

Now, how can a supposed "asset" like credit default swaps have a “less-than-zero” (negative) value. First, credit default swaps were insuring debt. Debt is not an asset as I explained in previous essays, but a liability. Mistake number one was to confuse asset and liability.

Part IV: There Is Ultimately No Gaming the System: When the Micro Crash Reflects the Macro Crash
(September 29, 2008)

The proposed 700 billion dollar bailout cannot really “work” from a system level. I know it’s real intention is to cover the butts of Wall Street investors, but you have the same problem in macro that homeowners have in micro. Nobody knows what homes are worth right now, so buyers are sitting it out. It isn’t about restricted credit (even though that is a factor). It isn’t about being too cash strapped to make a down payment (though that too is a factor). It’s about not wanting to be suckered into buying something that may still be overpriced.