How Your Bank Account Could Disappear

Bullion Bulls Canada – by Jeff Nielson
On the same morning we hear that ¼ of Wall Street executives think that fraud is a necessarypart of “doing business” in the financial sector, we hear of a second “MF Global”. The U.S.’s so-called regulators are now reporting that somewhere around $220 million in customer funds is “missing” at a financial institution known as PFGBest; once again closing the barn door after all the cows have run off.
With at least one out of every four bankers at U.S. Big Banks (that’s how many admitted to being crooks in the survey) thinking that stealing is part of their job descriptions, it’s very important for people to realize how little protection there now is between these thieves andyour bank accounts. Based on the writing of a number of other individuals with more expertise in these markets, it is apparently an inherently fraudulent banking process known as“rehypothecation” which is allowing the mass-plundering of accounts at U.S. financial institutions, with other Western financial regulatory authorities also rubber-stamping this relatively new form of bankster crime.
Rehypothecation is a heinous practice permitted by the pretend-regulators of Western markets, where financial institutions are allowed to pledge their clients’ funds as collateral to cover their own gambling debts. I say “inherently fraudulent” since few of the clients of these financial institutions would ever knowingly enter into contracts with these gambling-addicts where their cash could be used to cover their bankers’ gambling debts.
Instead, what is happening here is that the rehypothecation clauses are being buried in the “small print” of these contracts and (obviously) never properly explained to these clients: seemingly textbook fraudulent misrepresentation. The only “advantage” to a client into entering into such a contract is a slight reduction in fees, or slightly improved interest rate – certainly not near enough to entice people into risking some near-100% loss insuring someone else’s gambling debts.
So we have our “regulators” (i.e. the only protectors of our funds in the hands of these admitted thieves) giving these fraud-factories the green light to enter into these inherently fraudulent contracts, putting any/all funds of these clients in permanent jeopardy. Thus it’s important to outline how this could happen with ordinary bank accounts.
First it must be noted that the Corporate Media (loyal friends of the Big Banks) are referring to this as a “brokerage” problem. Understand that a brokerage is nothing but a legal “bookie”, an entity which takes (and makes) bets, and which must hold the funds of its “customers” in order to do business. Apparently the principal difference now between a “legal” bookie and an “illegal” bookie is that an illegal bookie is much less likely to use his customers’ funds to cover his own bad bets.
What people must also understand is that the world’s biggest bookies, indeed, the biggest bookies in the history of the world are the Big Banks themselves (specifically U.S. Big Banks). Most  of their gambling is done in their own, rigged casino: the $1.5 quadrillion derivatives market.

Note that you won’t see that number quoted by the Corporate Media (any longer). As concern about the size of the bankers’ mountain of bets grew; the bankers asked the Master Bookie – the Bank for International Settlements – to change the “definition” of this market, and instantly the derivatives market shrunk to 1/3^rd its former size.
As many know, the BIS is known as “the central bank for central banks”. What a smaller number of people know is that this is the world’s great money-laundering vehicle, an entity created just before World War II specifically to allow Western industrialists to continue to do a vast amount of business with Adolph Hitler. In other words, it’s not exactly a reliable source for information. So I choose to use the same numbers that the banksters previously used themselves, before they started getting defensive about the insane amounts of their gambling.
We are being led to believe by the Corporate Media (another unreliable source) that this problem is only a risk for all individuals with “brokerage” accounts, however as we piece together all the pieces of the puzzle (already revealed) this is what we see before us:
1) Our banking regulators knowingly allow financial institutions to engage in recklessly misleading (if not outright fraudulent) contracts with their clients, through the use of complex “small print” in their account contracts with clients.
2) The three largest U.S. “banks” by deposit (JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citigroup) have made bets in their own rigged casino, which total well in excess of $100 trillion, an amount which completely dwarfs their total, combined deposits (and assets).
3) A large portion of those bets occur in the $60+ trillion credit default swap market. Pay-outs in these markets can (and do) exceed 300 times the amount of the original bet. It is bets in this market which “blew up” AIG, requiring more than $150 billion in immediate government aid.
4) Following the Crash of ’08; these same banks mooched a package of hand-outs, tax-breaks and “guarantees” (i.e. future hand-outs) from the Bush regime in excess of $15 trillion, the last time their gambling debts went bad on them – and all of these banks have been allowed to dramatically increase the total amount of their gambling since then.
5) It would take only a minor change in the gambling contracts in which these bankers engage to allow their creditors to seize funds out of ordinary bank accounts.
6) The existing language for the bank accounts of these U.S. banks is possibly already so vague (and prejudicial to clients) that it would allow these banks to reinterpret the terms of these bank accounts – and allow rehypothecation to be used to rob the holders of ordinary bank accounts, people who themselves make no “bets” in markets whatsoever. Alternately, customers could be blitzed with an offer for “new and improved” bank accounts, where terms allowing rehypothecation are slipped into the contract, with the  banks knowing that the “regulators” will do nothing to warn account-holders of the gigantic risk they are taking.
The same media apologists who would scoff at this suggestion are the same shills who claimed “there could never be another MF Global”. Meanwhile we have the biggest gambler of them all, JP Morgan, just confessing to having made more of these bad bets – which continue growing larger by the $billion.
When we add-in the fact that the U.S.’s mark-to-fraud accounting rules mean that these banks are easily able to hide the level of their insolvency, the pretend-regulators apparently don’t have the slightest idea of the level of risk to which account-holders are being exposed. This is the charitable explanation for these facts. The alternative interpretation is that these “regulators” are direct accomplices of the criminal banking cabal.
I have consistently referred to the U.S. financial sector as a “crime syndicate” for several years now, often drawing considerable criticism for supposedly hyperbolic rhetoric. Obviously I have been completely vindicated here. One quarter of these bankers are now confessed thieves. The pretend-regulators (notably the SEC and CFTC) on a daily basis rubber-stamp the banksters’ acts of fraud (where they are caught red-handed) – handing out totally trivial fines, and not even requiring these thieves to admit their guilt.
If there are any substantive differences between how the U.S. financial sector is allowed to operate versus any generic definition of a “crime syndicate”, it would be enlightening to hear what those (supposed) differences are. And now these thieves are closer than ever to simply reaching into peoples’ bank accounts and grabbing every dollar they can steal.
The principal reason why I and others have urged people to convert their banker-paper to gold and silver in the past was the 1,000 year track-record of these bankers’ paper, fiat currencies always going to zero (through the bankers recklessly diluting these currencies via over-printing). However, we can add to that a much more basic reason: every ounce of gold and silver which you purchase (and store in your own home “safe” or other secure location) is wealth which cannot be stolen by the banking crime syndicate. This is what commentators are really referring to when they speak of “counterparty risk”: placing your future financial security in someone else’s hands.
What the large financial institutions of the 21^st century have taught us (through the cruel “lessons” of their serial crimes) is that there is no one in the world whom you can trust less with your money than a banker.
http://www.bullionbullscanada.com/us-commentary/25575-how-your-bank-account-could-disappear

Meet The 31 Corporations and Banks That Dodged $128 Billion in US Taxes

Sen. Bernie Sanders released a report today directly taking on the Business Roundtable, by outing 31 banks and corporations who have dodged $128 billion in taxes.
According to the report, the 31 corporations and banks have dodged $128 billion in taxes by setting up offshore tax havens. They have received $6.5 billion in tax refunds, and $2.5 trillion in taxpayer bailout money. While stuffing their pockets with trillions of taxpayer dollars, the Business Roundtable has called for the deficit to be reduced by raising the eligibility age for Medicare and Social Security to 70, cut Social Security and veterans’ benefits, and increase taxes on working families.
The reason why congressional Republicans are adamantly opposed to generating new revenue through closing these loopholes is that doing so would force these tax dodgers to pay their fair share. For Republicans, the concept of fairness only applies to making sure the wealthy get more by doing less. One of the reasons why Republicans continue to lose elections is because they insist on protecting corporations and banks at the expense of the American people.
Instead of passing the burden of deficit reduction on to workers, seniors, the poor, and the middle class, how about we start with getting the 31 corporations and banks listed below to pay their taxes?
Here is the list:
1. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan.

• Number of Offshore Tax Havens in 2010? 371.
• Amount of federal income taxes Bank of America would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $2.5 billion.
• Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $1.9 billion tax refund.
• Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS in 2010, even though it made $4.4 billion in profits.
• Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? Over $1.3 trillion.

2. JP Morgan Chase CEO James Dimon

• Number of Offshore Tax Havens in 2010? 83.
• Amount of federal income taxes JP Morgan Chase would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $4.9 billion
• JP Morgan Chase has stashed $21.8 billion in offshore tax haven countries to avoid paying income taxes.
• If this practice was outlawed, it would have paid $4.9 billion in federal income taxes.
• Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? $416 billion.

3. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein

• Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $278 million tax refund.
• Number of offshore tax havens in 2010? 39.
• In 2010, Goldman Sachs operated 39 subsidiaries in offshore tax haven countries.
• Amount of federal income taxes Goldman Sachs would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $3.32 billion.
• Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? $824 billion.
• During the financial crisis, Goldman Sachs received a total of $814 billion in virtually zero interest loans from the Federal Reserve and a $10 billion bailout from the Treasury Department.

4. General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt

• Number of offshore tax havens? At least 14.
• Amount of federal income taxes General Electric would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $35.7 billion.
• GE has stashed $102 billion in offshore tax haven countries to avoid paying income taxes. If this practice was outlawed, it would have paid $35.7 billion more in federal income taxes.
• Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $3.3 billion tax refund. In 2010, not only did General Electric pay no federal income taxes, it received a $3.3 billion tax refund from the IRS, even though it earned over $5 billion in U.S. profits.
• Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve? $16 billion.
• During the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve provided GE with $16 billion in financial assistance, at a time when Jeffrey Immelt was a director of the New York Federal Reserve.
• Jobs Shipped Overseas? At least 25,000 since 2001.

5. Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam

• Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $705 million tax refund.
• In 2010, Verizon received a $705 million refund from the IRS despite earning $11.9 billion in pre-tax U.S. profits.
• Amount of federal income taxes Verizon would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $525 million.
• Verizon has stashed $1.5 billion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes. Verizon would owe an estimated $525 million in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.
• American Jobs Cut in 2010? In 2010, Verizon announced 13,000 job cuts, the third highest corporate layoff total that year.

6. Honeywell International CEO David Cote

• Amount of federal income taxes paid from 2008-2010? Zero. $34 million tax refund.
• From 2008 through 2010, not only did Honeywell pay no federal income taxes, it received a $34 million tax refund from the IRS, even though it earned over $4.9 billion in U.S. profits during those years.
• Amount of federal income taxes Honeywell would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $2.835 billion.
• Honeywell has stashed $8.1 billion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.
• Honeywell would owe an estimated $2.835 billion in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.

7. Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier

• Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2009? Zero. $55 million tax refund.
• In 2009, not only did Merck pay no federal income taxes, it received a $55 million tax refund from the IRS, even though it earned more than $5.7 billion in U.S. profits.
• Amount of federal income taxes Merck would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $15.5 billion.
• Merck has stashed $44.3 billion in offshore tax haven countries to avoid paying income taxes.
• If this practice was outlawed, it would have paid $15.5 billion more in federal income taxes.

8. Corning CEO Wendell Weeks

• Amount of federal income taxes paid from 2008-2010? Zero. $4 million tax refund.
• From 2008 through 2010, not only did Corning pay no federal income taxes, it received a $4 million tax refund from the IRS, even though it earned nearly $2 billion in U.S. profits during those years.
• Amount of federal income taxes Corning would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $3.78 billion.
• Corning has stashed $10.8 billion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.
• Corning would owe an estimated $3.78 billion in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.

9. Boeing CEO James McNerney, Jr.

• Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? None. $124 million tax refund.
• Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS in 2010.
• Amount of federal income taxes Boeing would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $66 million.
• Boeing would owe an estimated $66 million more in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.
• American Jobs Shipped overseas? Over 57,000. Since 1994, more than 57,000 Americans lost their jobs at Boeing as a result of overseas outsourcing or rising imports.
• Amount of Corporate Welfare? At least $58 billion.

10. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer

• Amount of federal income taxes Microsoft would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $19.4 billion.
• Microsoft has stashed over $60 billion in offshore tax haven countries to avoid paying income taxes.
• If this practice was outlawed, it would have paid 19.4 billion more in federal income taxes.

11. Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs

• Amount of federal income taxes Qualcomm would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $5.8 billion.
• Qualcomm has stashed $16.4 billion in offshore tax haven countries to avoid paying income taxes.
• If this practice was outlawed, it would have paid $5.8 billion more in federal income taxes.

12. Caterpillar CEO Douglas Oberhelman

• Amount of federal income taxes Caterpillar would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $4.55 billion.
• Caterpillar has stashed $13 billion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.
• Caterpillar would owe an estimated $4.55 billion in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.

13. Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers

• Amount of federal income taxes Cisco would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $14.455 billion.
• Cisco has stashed $41.3 billion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.
• Cisco would owe an estimated $14.455 billion in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.

14. Dow Chemical CEO Andrew Liveris

• Amount of federal income taxes Dow Chemical would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $3.5 billion.
• Dow has stashed $10 billion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.
• Dow would owe an estimated $3.5 billion in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.

15. Alcoa CEO Klaus Kleinfeld

• Amount of federal income taxes Alcoa would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $2.9 billion.
• Alcoa has stashed $8.3 billion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.
• Alcoa would owe an estimated $2.9 billion in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.

16. Stanley Black & Decker CEO John Lundgren

• Amount of federal income taxes Stanley Black & Decker would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $1.26 billion.
• Stanley Black & Decker has stashed $3.6 billion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.
• They would owe an estimated $1.26 billion in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.

17. Motorola Solutions CEO Greg Brown

• Amount of federal income taxes Motorola Solutions would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $350 million.
• Motorola Solutions has stashed $1 billion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.
• They would owe an estimated $350 million in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.

18. Tenneco CEO Gregg Sherill

• Amount of federal income taxes Tenneco would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $269 million.
• Tenneco has stashed over $698 million in offshore tax haven countries to avoid paying income taxes.
• If this practice was outlawed, it would have paid $269 million in federal income taxes.

19. Express Scripts CEO George Paz

• Amount of federal income taxes Express Scripts would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $19 million.
• Express Scripts has stashed over $54 million in offshore tax haven countries to avoid paying income taxes.
• If this practice was outlawed, it would have paid $19 million in federal income taxes.

20. Caesars Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman

• Amount of federal income taxes Caesars Entertainment would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $15 million.
• Caesars Entertainment has stashed $42 million in offshore tax haven countries to avoid paying income taxes.
• If this practice was outlawed, it would have paid about $15 million more in federal income taxes.

21. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink

• Amount of federal income taxes BlackRock would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $525 million.
• BlackRock has stashed $1.5 billion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.
• BlackRock would owe an estimated $525 million in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.

22. United Parcel Service (UPS) CEO D. Scott Davis

• Amount of federal income taxes UPS would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $1.12 billion.
• UPS has stashed $3.2 billion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.
• UPS would owe an estimated $1.12 billion in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.

23. CA Technologies CEO William McCracken

• Amount of federal income taxes CA Technologies would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $700 million.
• CA Technologies has stashed nearly $2 billion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.
• CA Technologies would owe an estimated $700 million in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.

24. Eaton CEO Alexander Cutler

• Amount of federal income taxes Eaton would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $2.24 billion.
• Eaton has stashed $6.4 billion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.
• Eaton would owe an estimated $2.24 billion in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.

25. Nasdaq OMX Group CEO Robert Greifeld

• Amount of federal income taxes Nasdaq OMX Group would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $21 million.
• Nasdaq OMX Group has stashed $60 million in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.
• Nasdaq OMX Group would owe an estimated $21 million in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.

26. Textron CEO Scott Donnelly

• Amount of federal income taxes Textron would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $165 million.
• Textron has stashed $470 million in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.
• Textron would owe an estimated $165 million in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.

27. Thermo Fisher Scientific CEO Marc Casper

• Amount of federal income taxes Thermo Fisher Scientific would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $1.645 billion.
• Thermo Fisher Scientific has stashed $4.7 billion in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.
• Thermo Fisher Scientific would owe an estimated $1.645 billion in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.

28. Weyerhaeuser CEO Daniel Fulton

• Amount of federal income taxes Weyerhaeuser would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $8 million.
• Weyerhaeuser has stashed $22 million in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.
• It would owe an estimated $8 million in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.

29. World Fuel Services CEO Paul Stebbins

• Amount of federal income taxes World Fuel Services would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $278 million.
• World Fuel Services has stashed $794 million in offshore tax havens to avoid paying U.S. income taxes.
• It would owe an estimated $278 million in federal income taxes if its use of offshore tax avoidance was eliminated.

30. Time Warner CEO Glenn Britt

• Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $74 million tax refund.
• In 2008, not only did Time Warner pay no federal income taxes, it received a $74 million tax refund from the IRS, even though it earned over $2 billion in U.S. profits.

31. R.R. Donnelly & Sons CEO Thomas Quinlan III
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $49 million tax refund.
In 2008, not only did R.R. Donnelly & Sons pay no federal income taxes, it received a $49 million tax refund from tax refund from the IRS, even though it earned $561 million in U.S. profits.
SOURCE:  http://www.politicususa.com/sanders-report-corporations-tax-dodge.html

Ominous stock trade suggests insider knowledge and warning Sign of a financial Armageddon?

If you’re like me, you’re just a “regular” person whose lack of understanding of the stock market is enough to keep you away from it. For me, it’s a spectator sport that’s rigged at the highest levels in favor of the “initiated ones,” or as Gerald Celente calls them, the “white shoe boys.” If you’re like me, you probably don’t have any insider channels of information that would permit you to make $100,000 in the short span of ten months from a single $1,000 investment in cattle futures, the way Hillary Rodham Clinton did in 1994. Okay, so take me to task because the stock and future markets are two separate trading venues, but you get the idea.
But just as you needn’t stick your hand in a blender to know it’s going to hurt and leave a mark, you don’t need to be a financial genius to know that certain market trades indicate an insider foreknowledge that something bad might be headed this way. One case in point is the odd put options on airline stocks just before the attacks on September 11, 2001. You know, the trades that according to the Keene Commission were merely coincidental and not out of the ordinary at all. A “put option,” by the way, is a “bet” made by someone that a particular stock or asset is going to lose value by a certain date.
Lest you still cling to that outlandish conspiracy nonsense and continue to feel that something is still amiss with the 9/11 put options, rest assured that the crack investigative husband and wife team known as “Snopes” has determined that you are in need of a cup of steeping hot passionflower tea and a strong pharmaceutical to pull you back into the reality of Oz. Their source, of course, is none other than the Keene Commission Report itself. Go figure.
An ominous contemporary warning
Something happened this week that brings back haunting memories of the 2001 put options of airline stocks, except this “bet” is against the entire U.S. economy. This week, an anonymous trader bought 100,000 put options on the ETF, which is an acronym for an exchange-traded fund. One commonly traded ETF is XLF, which, in the most unscientific and basic terms, is a group of funds that is like a barometer for the stock market.
Now, such trades involving ETF-XLF are common, except when the put options (bets that the value of an asset is going to go down) are so large and so significant that they scream of insider knowledge with big flashing lights and arrows. This is one of those. In this case, it is a bet against the stock market, although this is admittedly a rather oversimplified explanation - but you get the idea.
According to professionals who watch this activity for a living, normal single trades involve maybe 500 contracts at most. That’s why certain professionals took notice of an order this week of 100,000 put options, or 200 times the high trade volume of 500. It become even more curious when one considers that the trader is “betting” that the market will take a significant hit by the end of April. (The put options are dated for April 20 and 25, 2013, right around Hitler’s birthday, for those of you who follow things like that.)
At this point, I could mention that the VIX, or volatility index (a/k/a the fear index) is at historical lows and a bet like that recently made is actually contrary to the trend, thus making the “bet” even more curious, but I’ll spare you the market talk that I barely understand. I will, however, tell you this. I contacted a stock broker yesterday with over 25 years of experience in the market and asked about this put option. He said that he is aware of this activity, and told me that someone is risking a lot of money betting on a major stock market correction.
“A crash?” I asked him. “Explain it to me,” I pleaded.
“Shhhh, we don’t use that term,” was his reply, as he opened his desk drawer and grabbed a bottle of antacid tablets. “Someone seems to know something. I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” was his reply. “Well, maybe once. Remember those put options before 9/11?”
Should we be worried?
I asked this stockbroker if us normal people, those with our life savings stashed in a small coffee can in the back of our kitchen cupboard, should be concerned.
“No, of course not, not unless the trader is correct with the $11 million bet. That means that there would be crash… er, I mean a significant downward market correction. If that happens, then we’ll all be looking at huge losses that could nuke the market and have a domino effect across the financial board.”
“Of course we should be worried!” This could be the opening salvo of an economic collapse that everyone in the media and our elected officials are saying won’t happen.
Despite the market cheerleaders, we are to enter into the most serious financial crisis in U.S. history. If the trader is correct, the collateral damage will affect all of us.
Stay tuned.

Is China Mobilizing For A War With Japan?

We don't know if it merely a coincidence that a story has emerged discussing a Chinese mobilization in response to the ongoing territorial feud with Japan over the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands (and the proximal massive gas field) the very week that China celebrates its new year (and days after news that a Chinese warship was very close to firing on a Japanese destroyer). We don't know how much of the story is based in reality, and how much may be propaganda or furthering someone's agenda. What we do know is that the source of the story: offshore-based, Falun Gong-affiliated NTDTV has historically been a credible source of information that the China communist party desperately tries to censor, such as breaking the news of the SARS epidemic in 2003 some three weeks before China publicly admitted it. Its motto is "to bring truthful and uncensored information into and out of China." If that is indeed the case, and its story of major troop movements and mobilization of various types of military vehicles and artillery into the Fujian and Zhejian provinces, bordering the East China Sea and closest to the Diaoyu islands, is accurate, then hostilities between China and Japan may be about to take a major turn for the worse.
Fujian and Zhejian provinces highlighted below:

The clip that NTDTV released late yesterday covering the news is presented below.
As for the accompanying commentary, we recreate it below in its entirety so nothing is lost in translation (original source).

NTDTV February 8, 2013 News - the continental network transmission, Fujian and Zhejiang troops for several days active. Plus before the news that Chinese warships radar has repeatedly aimed at the Japanese ships and planes, therefore, the media have speculated that China may "prepare for war" Diaoyu Islands .

According to friends broke the news: February 3, Nan'an, Fujian Highway 308, artillery units practical exercise for several days.

February 3 to 6, Fujian, Xiamen, Zhangzhou, Huzhou, a large troop movements, nearly 100 vehicles of various types of military vehicles, armored vehicles, artillery filled the entire road, endless, Xiamen and even the scene of a traffic jam 10 kilometers.

In addition, on February 3 in Shiyan, Hubei, a large number of tanks, wheeled military base from Shiyan room counties is delivered to the coastal areas. Many local residents of the tense situation of some concern.

Prior to this allegation, January 15 and 30, the Chinese navy guided missile frigate, twice the fire control radar lock frigates and ship-borne helicopters of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force, is also considered to enter a combat state.

According to mainland media quoted the "People's Daily" front-page article claiming that China will not change in point of view on the issue of the Diaoyu Islands , and have to prepare to win the war.

The international media alleged that China has purchased from Russia 239 engine, used in the manufacture of the H-6K. Combat covering the Diaoyu Islands, in this model, the engine can also be used to manufacture transported -20 transport aircraft purchased.

If the engine assembled, will greatly enhance China's military power.

Integrated these signs and reports, people have come to a startling conclusion: Day might want to go to war.

According to military experts, the Sino-Japanese war in the Diaoyu Islands, Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, is the most important logistical base. If the war to expand, at any time, will spread to the provinces of Fujian, Zhejiang.

At The Same Time That We Are Going Into So Much Debt, Our Ability To Produce Wealth Continues To Decline….Show This To Anyone That Believes That “Things Are Getting Better” In America

How can anyone not see that the U.S. economy is collapsing all around us?  It just astounds me when people try to tell me that “everything is just fine” and that “things are getting better” in America.  Are there people out there that are really that blind?  If you want to see the economic collapse, just open up your eyes and look around you.  By almost every economic and financial measure, the U.S. economy has been steadily declining for many years.  But most Americans are so tied into “the matrix” that they can only understand the cheerful propaganda that is endlessly being spoon-fed to them by the mainstream media.  As I have said so many times, the economic collapse is not a single event.  The economic collapse has been happening, it is is happening right now, and it will continue to happen.  Yes, there will be times when our decline will be punctuated by moments of great crisis, but that will be the exception rather than the rule.  A lot of people that write about “the economic collapse” hype it up as if it will be some huge “event” that will happen very rapidly and then once it is all over we will rebuild.  Unfortunately, that is not how the real world works.  We are living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, and once it completely bursts there will be no going back to how things were before.  Right now, we are living in a “credit card economy”.  As long as we can keep borrowing more money, most people think that things are just fine.  But anyone that has lived on credit cards knows that eventually there comes a point when the game is over, and we are rapidly approaching that point as a nation.
Have you ever been there?  Have you ever desperately hoped that you could just get one more credit card or one more loan so that you could keep things going?
At first, living on credit can be a lot of fun.  You can live a much higher standard of living than you otherwise would be able to.
But inevitably a day of reckoning comes.
If the federal government and the American people were forced at this moment to live within their means, the U.S. economy would immediately plunge into a depression.
That is a 100% rock solid guarantee.
But our politicians and the mainstream media continue to perpetuate the fiction that we can live in this credit card economic fantasy land indefinitely.
And most Americans could not care less about the future.  As long as “things are good” today, they don’t really think much about what the future will hold.
As a result of our very foolish short-term thinking, we have now run up a national debt of 16.4 trillion dollars.  It is the largest debt in the history of the world, and it has gotten more than 23 times larger since Jimmy Carter first entered the White House.
The chart that you see below is a recipe for national financial suicide…

Of course things have accelerated over the past four years.  Since Barack Obama entered the White House, the U.S. government has run a budget deficit of well over a trillion dollars every single year, and we have stolen more than 100 million dollars from our children and our grandchildren every single hour of every single day.
It is the biggest theft of all time.  What we are doing to our children and our grandchildren is beyond criminal.
And now our debt is at a level that most economists would consider terminal.  When Barack Obama first entered the White House, the U.S. debt to GDP ratio was under 70 percent.  Today, it is up to 103 percent.
We are officially in “the danger zone”.
If things really were “getting better” in America, we would not need toborrow so much money.
Our politicians are stealing from the future in order to make the present look better.  During Obama’s first term, the federal government accumulated more debt than it did under the first 42 U.S presidents combined.
That is utter insanity!
If you started paying off just the new debt that the U.S. has accumulated during the Obama administration at the rate of one dollar per second, it would take more than 184,000 years to pay it off.
So what is the solution?
Get ready to laugh.
The most prominent economic journalist in the entire country, Paul Krugman of the New York Times, recently suggested the following in an article that he wrote entitled “Kick That Can“…

Realistically, we’re not going to resolve our long-run fiscal issues any time soon, which is O.K. — not ideal, but nothing terrible will happen if we don’t fix everything this year. Meanwhile, we face the imminent threat of severe economic damage from short-term spending cuts.
So we should avoid that damage by kicking the can down the road. It’s the responsible thing to do.

You mean that we might actually do damage to the debt-fueled economic fantasy world that we are living in if we stopped stealing so much money from future generations?
Oh the humanity!
It is horrifying to think that all that one of the “top economic minds” in America can come up with is to “kick the can” down the road some more.
Unfortunately, neither Paul Krugman nor most of the American people understand that our financial system is actually designed to create government debt.
The bankers that helped create the Federal Reserve intended to permanently enslave the U.S. government to a perpetually expanding spiral of debt, and their plans worked.
At this point, the U.S. national debt is more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was first created.
So why don’t the American people understand what the Federal Reserve system is doing to us?
It is because most of them are still plugged into the matrix.  A Zero Hedge article that I came across today put it beautifully…

US society in a nutshell: Chris Dorner has been around for a week and has 222 million results on Google; the Federal Reserve has been around for one hundred years and has 187 million results.

If nothing is done about our exploding debt, it is only a matter of time before we reach financial oblivion.
According to Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff, the U.S. government is facing a “present value difference between projected future spending and revenue” of 222 trillion dollars in the years ahead.
So how in the world are we going to come up with an extra 222 trillion dollars?
But it is not just the U.S. government that is drowning in debt.
Just check out this chart which shows the astounding growth of state and local government debt in recent years…

All over the United States there are state and local governments that are on the verge of bankruptcy.  Just check out what is going on in Detroit.  The only way that most of our state and local governments can keep going at this point is to also “kick the can” down the road some more.
And of course most of the rest of us are drowning in debt as well.
40 years ago, the total amount of debt in the U.S. economic system (government + business + consumer) was less than 2 trillion dollars.
Today, the total amount of debt in the U.S. economic system has grown to more than 55 trillion dollars.
Can anyone say bubble?
The good news is that U.S. GDP is now more than 12 times larger than it was 40 years ago.
The bad news is that the total amount of debt in our financial system is now more than 30 times larger than it was 40 years ago…

At the same time that we are going into so much debt, our ability to produce wealth continues to decline.
According to the World Bank, U.S. GDP accounted for 31.8 percent of all global economic activity in 2001.  That number dropped to 21.6 percent in 2011.  That is not just a decline – that is a nightmarish freefall.  Just check out the chart in this article.
We are becoming less competitive as a nation with each passing year.  In fact, the U.S. has fallen in the global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.
Most Americans don’t understand this, but the United States buys far more from the rest of the world than they buy from us each year.  In 2012, we had a trade deficit of more than 500 billion dollars with the rest of the world.
That means that more than 500 billion dollars that could have gone to U.S. workers and U.S. businesses went out of the country instead.
So how does our country survive if hundreds of billions of dollars more is flowing out of the country than is flowing into it?
Well, to make up the shortfall we go to the countries that we sent our money to and we beg them to lend it back to us.  If that doesn’t work, we just print and borrow even more money.
Overall, the United States has run a trade deficit of more than 8 trillion dollars with the rest of the world since 1975.
That is 8 trillion dollars that could have saved U.S. businesses, paid the salaries of U.S. workers and that would have helped fund government.
But instead, our foolish policies have greatly enriched China and the oil barons of the Middle East.
Sadly, politicians from both political parties continue to boldly support the one world economic agenda of the global elite.
Just consider how destructive many of these “free trade” deals have been to our economy…
When NAFTA was pushed through Congress in 1993, the United States had a trade surplus with Mexico of 1.6 billion dollars.
By 2010, we had a trade deficit with Mexico of 61.6 billion dollars.

Back in 1985, our trade deficit with China was approximately 6 milliondollars (million with a little “m”) for the entire year.
In 2012, our trade deficit with China was 315 billion dollars.  That was the largest trade deficit that one nation has had with another nation in the history of the world.
In particular, our trade with China is extremely unbalanced.  Today, U.S. consumers spend approximately 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that Chinese consumers spend on goods and services from the United States.
But isn’t getting cheap stuff from China good?
No, because it costs us good paying jobs.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the United States is losinghalf a million jobs to China every single year.
Overall, more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been shut down since 2001.  During 2010, manufacturing facilities in the United States were shutting down at a rate of 23 per day.  How can anyone say that “things are getting better” when our economic infrastructure is being absolutely gutted?
The truth is that there are never going to be enough jobs in America ever again, because millions of our jobs are being sent overseas and millions of our jobs are being lost to technology.
You won’t hear this on the news, but the percentage of the civilian labor force in the United States that is employed has been steadily declining every single year since 2006.
Younger workers have been hit particularly hard.  In 2007, the unemployment rate for the 20 to 29 age bracket was about 6.5 percent.  Today, the unemployment rate for that same age group is about 13 percent.
If you are under the age of 30 and you aren’t living with your parents, there is a really good chance that you are living in poverty.  If you can believe it, U.S. families that have a head of household that is under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.
Our economy has been steadily bleeding huge numbers of middle class jobs, and many of those jobs have been replaced by low paying jobs in recent years.
According to one study, 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.
And at this point, an astounding 53 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.
Oh, but “things are getting better”, right?
Maybe if you live on Wall Street or if you are an employee of the federal government.
But for most families this economic decline has been a total nightmare.  Median household income in America has fallen for four consecutive years.  Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.
Sometimes people forget how good things were about a decade ago.  About three times as many new homes were sold in the United States in 2005 as were sold in 2012.
But we like to live in denial.
In fact, a lot of families are trying to keep up their standards of living by going into tremendous amounts of debt.
Back in 1983, the bottom 95 percent of all income earners in the United States had 62 cents of debt for every dollar that they earned.  By 2007, that figure had soared to $1.48.
Fake it until you make it, right?
But how much debt can our system possibly handle?
Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.
Total credit card debt in the United States is now more than 8 times larger than it was just 30 years ago.
We are a nation that is completely addicted to debt, but as the financial crisis of 2008 demonstrated, all of that debt can have horrific consequences.
As the economy has slowed in recent years, the Federal Reserve has decided that “the solution” is to recklessly print money in an attempt to get the debt spiral cranked up again.
Have they gone overboard?  You be the judge…

And of course this won’t have any affect on the value of the money that you have been saving up all these years right?
Wrong.
Every single dollar that you own is continually losing value…

Overall, the value of the U.S. dollar has declined by more than 96 percent since the Federal Reserve was first created.
As the cost of living continues to go up and wages continue to go down, millions of American families have fallen out of the middle class and into poverty.
If you can believe it, the number of Americans on food stamps has grown from about 17 million in the year 2000 to more than 47 milliontoday.
But “things are getting better”, right?
Incredibly, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless.  This is the first time that has ever happened in our history.
But “things are getting better”, right?
There are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing.  That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.
But “things are getting better”, right?
In 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance.  Today, only 55.1 percent are covered by employment-based health insurance.
But “things are getting better”, right?
Today, more Americans than ever have found themselves forced to turn to the federal government for help.
Overall, the federal government runs nearly 80 different “means-tested welfare programs”, and at this point more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one of them.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 49 percent of all Americans live in a home that receives direct monetary benefits from the federal government.  Back in 1983, less than a third of all Americans lived in a home that received direct monetary benefits from the federal government.
So is it a good sign or a bad sign that the percentage of Americans that are financially dependent on the federal government is at an all-time high?
And in future years the number of Americans that are receiving benefits from the federal government is projected to absolutely skyrocket.
Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid.  Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid, and things are about to get a whole lot worse.  It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.
If you take a look at Medicare, things are very more sobering.
As I wrote recently, it is being projected that the number of Americans on Medicare will grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025.
At this point, Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars over the next 75 years.  That comes to approximately$328,404 for every single household in the United States.
Are you ready to contribute your share?
Social Security is a complete and total nightmare as well.
Right now, there are approximately 56 million Americans collecting Social Security benefits.
By 2035, that number is projected to soar to an astounding 91 million.
Overall, the Social Security system is facing a 134 trillion dollar shortfall over the next 75 years.
Oh, but don’t worry because “things are getting better”, right?
I honestly do not know how anyone can look at the numbers above and come to the conclusion that the economy is in good shape.
We have accumulated the largest mountain of debt in the history of the world, our economic infrastructure is being gutted, we are bleeding good jobs, government dependence is at an all-time high and we are getting poorer as a nation with each passing day.
But other than that, everything is rainbows and lollipops, right?
If you want to see the economic collapse, just open up your eyes.
And if dramatic changes are not made quickly, things are going to get much, much worse from here.
Please share this article with as many people as possible.  Time is quickly running out and there are a whole lot of people out there that we need to wake up while we still can.

The Story of Your Enslavement

Foreign adversaries ramp up defense spending as Pentagon cuts back

 


As the United States and many of its allies decrease defense spending, America's adversaries are doing the opposite.
It's still unclear whether Washington will miss a March 1 deadline for avoiding sweeping automatic military cuts. But regardless, Russia is set to surpass U.S. defense spending -- when looked at as a percentage of GDP -- in just two years. By the same measure, China is slated to surpass the U.S. in 2035.
Even so, the United States still towers over other countries in GDP. The U.S. GDP was $15 quadrillion in 2011, according to the World Bank, compared to Russia's $1.9 quadrillion and China's $7.3 quadrillion.
"You've seen double-digit increases in Chinese defense spending for more than 15 years now," said Jim Thomas, with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. "And that really should not only give pause to the United States, but it really should be a source of concern for the countries in the region as well."
In the latest example of cutbacks in the face of more drastic cuts starting next month, the USS Truman -- which was slated to deploy Friday to the Persian Gulf -- had its deployment canceled this week. The Navy announced that for the first time in two years it cannot afford to have more than one aircraft carrier in the Gulf.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned it will get worse if Congress doesn't find a solution before March 1.
"Instead of being a first-rate power in the world, we'd turn into a second-rate power. That would be the result of sequester," Panetta said. Sequester is the name for the automatic cuts first passed into law in the summer of 2011 as part of the debt-ceiling deal.
The president's top military adviser concurred.
"You won't find this chairman arguing that we need to do more with less. You'll find me arguing that if that happens we need to do less with less," Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Thursday.
In the Middle East, the Gulf states are increasing their defense spending to counter Iran. As for Iran itself, Thomas said it's difficult to tell how much the country is spending on defense.
"These guys have been going gangbusters rolling out prototypes of advanced weapons systems, whether it is new missiles, new aircraft, new drone aircraft," he said, adding it's tough to tell how authentic those systems are.
But others argue that even with the automatic cuts, the U.S. defense budget will still dwarf that of its adversaries and allies -- when considered as a raw amount, as opposed to a percentage of the country's economy.
"If you look at it on a global level, the overall U.S. military spending is roughly 40 percent of all the military spending in the world," said Peter Singer, a senior foreign policy fellow at Brookings Institution. "So if you imagine for every dollar spent on militaries in the world, 40 cents of it is spent by the U.S. And roughly about another 45 cents of it is spent by our allies. If sequestration happens, we go from spending about 40 cents out of every dollar to about 38 cents out of every dollar. So you decline, but not by this massive amount."
Taxpayers spent $711 billion on defense in 2011 -- the equivalent of the next 13 largest defense budgets combined.
The second largest defense budget in the world that year was China's, which officially is reported at $142.9 billion -- a sixth the size of the U.S. total.
Russia's is reported at nearly $72 billion.
Thomas, though, said those figures are "misleading" because the United States deals with defending allies and interests in multiple theaters.
"This is not a defense problem that, frankly, any other country in the world has," he said.
Fox News' Jennifer Griffin and Justin Fishel contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/09/us-adversaries-ramp-up-defense-spending-as-pentagon-cuts-back/#ixzz2KZOiLk3R

Doing Business With The Enemy

This undated photo provided by the Tucson Police Dept. shows Isabel Mercedes Celis. Tucson police are searching for a 6-year-old girl who went missing from her home on the city's east side. Isabel Mercedes Celis was last seen late Friday and discovered to be missing at about 8 a.m. Saturday, April 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Tucson Police Dept.)

Did it ever occur to you that when President Bush says, "Money is the lifeblood of terrorist operations," he's talking about your money -- and every other American's money?

Just about everyone with a 401(k) pension plan or mutual fund has money invested in companies that are doing business in so-called rogue states.

In other words, there are U.S. companies that are helping drive the economies of countries like Iran, Syria and Libya, all places that have sponsored terrorists. Correspondent Lesley Stahl reported on this story last January.

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"The revenue that is generated from the work that these companies are doing, we believe, helps to underwrite and support terrorism," says William Thompson, the New York City comptroller who oversees the $80 billion in pension funds for all city workers.

He says he wants everyone with a retirement or investment portfolio to know what these companies are up to: "We're going to increase the public visibility on this issue until these companies change their practices."

He's actually identified specific companies that have invested in these rogue countries, including Halliburton, Conoco-Phillips and General Electric. And he points out that New York's pension funds own nearly $1 billion worth of stock in these three Fortune 500 companies, which have operations in Iran and Syria.

What was Thompson's reaction when he found out about this? "Anger that there were companies that could be contributing to attacks on our nation," he says. "You'd think to yourself, well, why would they do that? … I didn't think they could. And more than anything it was, you thought, that the law prevented them from doing this."

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In fact, U.S. law does ban virtually all commerce with the rogue nations, but there's a loophole that G.E., Conoco-Phillips and Halliburton have exploited: The law does not apply to any foreign or offshore subsidiary so long as it is run by non-Americans.

"These three companies, as far as we were concerned, appear to have violated the spirit of the law," says Thompson. "In the case of Halliburton, as an example, they have an offshore subsidiary in the Cayman Islands. That subsidiary is doing business with Iran."

That subsidiary, Halliburton Products and Services, Ltd., is wholly owned by the U.S.-based Halliburton and is registered in a building in the capital of the Cayman Islands – a building owned by the local Calidonian Bank. Halliburton and other companies set up in this Caribbean Island, because of tax and secrecy laws that are corporate friendly.

Halliburton is the company that Vice President Dick Cheney used to run. He was CEO from 1995 to 2000, during which time Halliburton Products and Services set up shop in Iran. Today, it sells about $40 million a year worth of oil field services to the Iranian government.

In the case of Iran, Thompson says they earn most of their revenues through their oil industry. So what is the connection between that oil business and terrorism and weapons of mass destruction?

"The Iranian government is receiving dollars from it. And then turning around and exporting terrorism around the world. It benefits terrorism. At least that's our belief," says Thompson.

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60 Minutes decided to ask Halliburton's subsidiary about its work in Iran. But we weren't allowed to enter the building with a camera. So we went in with a hidden camera, and were introduced to David Walker, manager of the local Calidonian Bank, where the subsidiary is registered.

60 Minutes was expecting to find a bustling business, but, to our surprise, Walker told us that while Halliburton Products and Services was registered at this address, it was in name only. There is no actual office here or anywhere else in the Caymans. And there are no employees on site.

We were told that if mail for the Halliburton subsidiary comes to this address, they re-route it to Halliburton headquarters in Houston.

"If you understood what most of these companies do, you would, they're not doing any business in Cayman per se. They're doing business, international business," says Walker. "Would it make sense to have somebody in Cayman pushing paper around? I don't know. And some people do it. And some people don't. And it's mostly driven by whatever the issues are with the head office."

Does that mean the head office is calling the shots? If it is, that would be against the law, which says the subsidiary must be completely independent of the U.S. company. But 60 Minutes' attempts to ask headquarters in Houston about this were rebuffed.

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In a letter to New York City Comptroller Thompson, Halliburton says its Cayman Island subsidiary is actually run out of Dubai. 60 Minutes went there and learned that it shares office space, phone and fax lines with a division of its U.S.-based parent company -- which raises more legal questions about its independence from Houston. But once again, our inquiries went unanswered.

In its letter to Thompson, Halliburton insists it is complying with all U.S. laws. But he and legal experts we consulted believe they are dancing right along the edge of legality.

"If the intent was to try and prevent United States-based companies from doing business in these "rogue" nations, then it appears as if they've gotten around what the law had intended," says Thompson, who filed a shareholder's resolution calling on the company to review and justify its operations in Iran. "Halliburton attempted to block the shareholder resolution. They went to the SEC and asked for permission not to put this before shareholders."

Did the SEC take it up and rule on it?

"Oh, absolutely. The SEC ruled against Halliburton and said that it had to be put in front of the shareholders," says Thompson, who plans to file the resolution at the next shareholders meeting in April.

He's also taking issue with GE and its electrical work in Iran, as well as Conoco-Phillips' gas production business in Syria: "If there are nations that wind up increasing their resources because these companies are doing business there, and we're attacked because of it, it in fact undermines our entire country."

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Thompson says he decided to open the investigation in the first place at the request of New York City's police and firemen, who were outraged when they learned where their retirement money was going.

"The members of the Fire Department and the Police Department, after September 11th, given the fact that hundreds of them died in the World Trade Center as a result of a terrorist attack, had greater sensitivity than almost anybody," says Thompson. "And they were the ones who kind of took the lead on this."

But why do moral issues come into play when talking about pension funds?

"The way we've approached it isn't as on a moral basis, it is as investors," says Thompson. "And what is in the best long-term interests of our pension funds because we hold stock in these companies."

What these companies are doing, he says, isn't just a question of ethics - it's financially unsound, and bad for business.

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Roger Robinson, who runs a research firm in Washington that monitors companies working in rogue states, agrees. He cites the case of Talisman Energy, whose reputation was damaged when it did business with the Islamic Republic of Sudan. The negative publicity led to something Wall Street calls "The Sudan Discount of Talisman Stock."

"In other words, the share value or stock price was depressed by some 20, 25 percent by some estimates," says Robinson, who believes that Halliburton and GE could face the same risk.

Robinson has identified nearly 400 companies that are in most pension portfolios that are doing business in terrorist-sponsoring states. Well over 200, he says, are actually doing business in Iran; of that, more than 60 are doing business in Libya.

He says the companies are funneling tens of billions of dollars worth of capital, technology and know-how to the state-owned oil and gas sectors of these two countries.

Does he ever say to himself that by revealing this information, he's taking steps to hurt the company and hurt the pension fund?

"I think that it could be looked at another way. We're certainly alerting investors to a genuine new risk category in the markets, every bit as legitimate as environmental risk was through Three Mile Island, Exxon Valdez and superfund legislation," says Robinson. "So investors, we think, have a right to know. Remember, this is their retirement dollars. They should have a sense of those who invest on their behalf, are there genuine risks there?"

With that question of risk in mind, state treasurers across the country, like David Peterson of Arizona, are using Robinson's database to investigate their pension portfolios.

"I want to find out what projects they're doing and what is specifically the dollars they're investing, where they're going," says Peterson.

Taken together, state-run pension investments amount to something like $7 trillion.

"Connecticut is working on it," adds Peterson. "I know Pennsylvania, their legislature passed unanimously that we need to screen, with the approval of their pension system, for these risks."

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But some of the state treasurers are running into resistance from the pension funds. In Peterson's case, the Arizona State Retirement System refused to tell him anything about its holdings.

"I have asked the pension system. We'd like to know what investments you have, the scope of your investments, what companies you're involved with. We had a legislator ask," says Peterson. "We actually had an intern from this office ask about what investments holdings do they have in some of these companies. And they just didn't want to provide it to us."

And Peterson believes that they really don't have grounds to refuse to give him, as state treasurer, that information.

"They've more just kind of tried to be evasive, and said that it's too hard to get this information," he says.

This went on for months, but to our surprise, when we asked Arizona's pension fund managers for a list of its holdings, they gave it to us right away. And it confirmed what Peterson had suspected: that Arizonans unwittingly own stock in companies like Halliburton, General Electric and Conoco-Phillips.

"There's about 11 to 14 companies that are on the S&P 500 that are involved in some substantial projects with some of these countries," says Peterson.

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Congress recently directed the Securities and Exchange Commission to monitor companies operating in rogue nations.

But in New York, Comptroller Thompson isn't waiting. He says he's going to expand his investigation to include Boeing and other companies that do business in terrorist states.

"Those countries depend on dollars from us to live, to do business also," says Thompson. "If we have, and if we put pressure on the companies, and they can't do business there, and others become embarrassed in doing business or buying oil there, well maybe we can help to force these countries to change their practices."

Does he think this issue's going away?

"This issue isn't going to go away any time soon, at all," says Thompson.

Halliburton declined 60 Minutes' request for an interview, but in an e-mail, the company indicated it has no intention of leaving Iran -- or addressing the questions we raised about the independence of its subsidiary.

The company did suggest that Thompson is playing politics with pension funds, insisting there is no connection between its operations in Iran and either terrorism or nuclear research.

As for General Electric and Conoco-Phillips, they say they are breaking no laws, and like Halliburton, make no apologies for their business dealings with states that sponsor terrorism.

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Since 60 Minutes first broadcast this story, the company's work in Iran has come under increasing scrutiny - first by the Treasury Department and members of Congress, and most recently, by the Justice Department, which last month convened a federal grand jury in Houston to investigate whether the company is violating the U.S. embargo against Iran.

Halliburton officials, who declined our requests for an interview, maintain that the company is violating no laws or regulations. As for the other companies mentioned in our report, General Electric called our reporting "shallow and one-sided," while Conoco-Phillips announced that it will not accept any new business in any country that sponsors terrorism.