U.S FINANCIAL SITUATION 2013

MAY 6, 2013

Ron Paul: We are certainly not in recovery

BY: KENNETH SCHORTGEN JR

On May 5, former Congressman Ron Paul addressed the Federal Reserve's recent meeting on monetary policy, and their decision to increase the ongoing QE program to more than the allotted $85 billion per month in bond purchases. After compiling the inflationary, employment, and economic data over the past three years since the advent of QE2, Paul states unequivocally that we are not in an form of an economic recovery.

In the meantime, real families are suffering. While Wall Street and the government take advantage of access to the Fed’s new “free” money, the Fed claims there is no inflation. But who hasn’t paid higher prices at the grocery store, the gas pump, for tuition, for insurance? It’s bad enough that household incomes have stagnated, but real purchasing power has declined so much that one in seven Americans, 47.3 million people, are on food stamps. Five million are collecting unemployment insurance with 21.5 million afflicted by unemployment according to the government’s own figures. That’s 13.9 percent -- close to double the 7.5 percent unemployment number reported last week.

We are certainly not in a recovery. We don’t see the long unemployment and soup kitchen lines like in the Great Depression, but that’s just because the lines are electronic now. - Texas Straight Talk

Most economic analysts like Ron Paul, who do not reside in the mainstream, admit that there is no recovery taking place, and in fact, many global economies are on the brink of collapse. Two years after the initial bailout attempts done by the ECB in the nation of Greece, the economy there has gotten much worse, with over 10% of the children in the nation suffering from constant hunger, and many families being forced to find their daily meals from garbage cans. Additionally, France, the second largest economy in the Eurozone, is threatening to fall into severe recession as more than 10% of the population remains unemployed, and businesses continue to leave the country due to exorbitant tax rates.

Wall Street thrives on economic data, but consumers and markets trust in the price of a given product or service to tell how an economy is actually performing. While the Federal Reserve continues to speak in terms of economic recovery, those who pay increasing prices for food, energy, rent, healthcare, and tuition, while finding good paying jobs non-existent, understand differently. This is why Ron Paul's remarks on the fallacy of economic recovery, despite the trillions of dollars pumped into the system by the central bank over the past several years, is proven out in the fact that most Americans remain worse off now than before the benchmark of the pre-2007 credit crash and recession.

U.S. BANKRUPT

Technically, the U.S. is already bankrupt because it has a debt that is almost four times the size of its economy ~ Puru Saxena, CEO of Puru Saxena Wealth Management.

We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower

"If 'Obama-care' becomes fully implemented in 2014, it's going to bankrupt states." ~ Lindsey Graham

"We're bankrupt, this country is bankrupt, and people just don't want to admit it." ~ Republican Senator Tom Coburn, Oklahoma

"Nobody wants to admit the real problem: we’re bankrupt, and we can’t continue spending and even these temporary proposals won’t address the subject, that we will default. We won’t default by not paying the bills, we will default by more inflation, and that is a serious problem." ~ Ron Paul (R-Texas)

Ron Paul & Jim Rogers On Government: “There’s More Chaos To Come”

Zero Hedge
May 3, 2013

These are clear warnings signs that a rational person simply cannot ignore.

Three minutes of clarity… 

Ron Paul + Jim Rogers on the government: "They'll use force and they'll use intimidation..."

2 Mei 2013

• Ron Paul and Jim Rogers spoke at the Sovereign Man: Offshore Tactics Workshop in Santiago, Chile, on March 30 - April 1, 2013. WATCH : HERE
• Sign up for Simon Black's free newsletter Notes from the Field here: WATCH : HERE

Bottom line, Nations are going bust. And the worse things get, the more desperate their tactics become. This isn’t the first time that the world has been in this position. This time is not different. History shows that there are serious, serious consequences to running unsustainably high debts and deficits. And those consequences have almost invariably involved pillaging people’s wealth, savings, livelihoods and liberties… either directly or indirectly.

What’s happening right now is playing out in textbook fashion. More taxes, more debt, more printing, more confiscation, less freedom. I’m not talking about the end of the world here, I’m talking about difficult times ahead, and the things that go beyond economics. It’s time to face facts and look at how society will change (and has already changed).

Many people will resist the change and instead cling desperately to the old system – the cycle of debt and consumption that provided jobs, stability, and prosperity. These people will have their lives turned upside down because that system is gone forever. And in case it still weren’t obvious, here is three minutes of clarity from Ron Paul and Jim Rogers…“I would expect that there is going to be a lot more chaos still to come.” – Ron Paul; “They won’t take our bank accounts…they will take our retirement accounts.” – Jim Rogers

Via Simon Black of Sovereign Man blog, 

The world is truly an enormous place… and, despite the dearth of good news and positive trends out there, I still see a lot of amazing opportunities in my travels.

But it’s really important to remain grounded about the challenges that face us. As I pen this letter to you, in fact,

- The NSA’s Utah data center, which will intercept every phone call, email, and tweet sent across the Internet, is nearing completion.

- The Marketplace Fairness Act, which will create additional sales taxes on US-based Internet transactions, is set to pass the Senate next week.

- The government of Cyprus just passed the final bail-in measures, officially authorizing the direct confiscation of people’s savings in that country’s banking system.

- The Bank of Japan recently announced its intentions to double down on their already unprecedented money printing operations.

- Not to be outdone, the US Federal Reserve just announced that they will maintain their Quantitative Easing program, which dilutes the existing money supply by more than $1 trillion annually.

- At $16.83 trillion, the US federal debt is at a record high and set to breach $17 trillion early this summer.

- President Obama recently proposed to cap the tax deferral benefit on Individual Retirement Accounts in the Land of the Free

These are clear warnings signs that a rational person simply cannot ignore.Bottom line, nations are going bust. And the worse things get, the more desperate their tactics become.This isn’t the first time that the world has been in this position. This time is not different.

History shows that there are serious, serious consequences to running unsustainably high debts and deficits. And those consequences have almost invariably involved pillaging people’s wealth, savings, livelihoods and liberties… either directly or indirectly.

What’s happening right now is playing out in textbook fashion. More taxes, more debt, more printing, more confiscation, less freedom.

I’m not talking about the end of the world here, I’m talking about difficult times ahead, and the things that go beyond economics. It’s time to face facts and look at how society will change (and has already changed).

Many people will resist the change and instead cling desperately to the old system– the cycle of debt and consumption that provided jobs, stability, and prosperity. These people will have their lives turned upside down because that system is gone forever. 

And in case it still weren’t obvious, I’d like to present Ron Paul and Jim Rogers, speaking together at our event in Chile a few weeks ago, with their own views on the situation. 

• “They won’t take our bank accounts…they will take our retirement accounts.” – Jim Rogers
• “We are going to have a calamity in economics and political crises as economies worldwide are a lot weaker than they tell us.” – Ron Paul
• “I would expect that there is going to be a lot more chaos still to come.” – Ron Paul
• “There are so many distortions because we disobeyed economic law – no matter what Bernanke tell’s you.” – Ron Paul
• “Bernanke’s whole intellectual career has been dedicated to the study of printing money.” – Jim Rogers
• “I don’t doubt [the confiscation] at all; and they will use force and they’ll use intimidation.” – Ron Paul

This article was posted: Friday, May 3, 2013 at 6:04 am

They Are Murdering Small Business: The Percentage Of Self-Employed Americans Is At A Record Low

The percentage of Americans that are working for themselves has never been lower in the history of the United States.  Once upon a time, the United States was a paradise for entrepreneurs and small businesses, but now the control freak bureaucrats that dominate our society have created a system that absolutely eviscerates them.  This is very unfortunate, because by murdering small business, the bureaucrats are destroying the primary engine of job growth in this country.  One of the big reasons why there are not enough jobs in America today is because small business creation is way down.  As I mentioned yesterday, entrepreneurs and small businesses are being absolutely devastated by rules, regulations, red tape and by oppressive levels of taxation.  If anyone doubts that small business in the United States is dying, just look at the charts below.  Sadly, this is what the bureaucrats that run things want.  They don’t want us to be independent of the system.  Instead, they are much more comfortable when as many of us as possible are heavily dependent on the system in one way or another.  If all of us have to go running to the government or to one of the big corporations for a job, then we are much easier to control.  But as the control freaks continue to construct their bureaucratic utopia, they are also killing off what once made the U.S. economy so great.

The other day I came across the following two charts in an articleby Charles Hugh Smith, and I was absolutely stunned by what I saw.  This first chart shows that the number of unincorporated self-employed Americans has dropped back to levels that we have not seen since the mid-1980s even though our population has increased by tens of millions of people since that time…

As you can see, from 1970 to the mid-1990s the number of unincorporated self-employed Americans rose steadily.  But in the mid-1990s it began to level off and now it is falling rapidly.

This next chart shows the percentage of self-employed Americans as a share of non-farm employment.  In other words, those that work on farms are excluded from this chart.  The percentage of self-employed Americans was fairly stable between 1970 and 1990, but since 1990 it has been steadily eroding and it has now reached a level never seen before…

At this point, only about 7 percent of non-farm workers are self-employed.  That is depressingly low.  That means that an overwhelming majority of those that are employed in America are working for the system in one capacity or another.

But isn’t that what we pound into the heads of our children these days?  We teach them to work hard in school so that they can “get a good job” when they grow up.  From a very early age we train our children to plug themselves into the system.

Not that working for someone else is wrong.  Of course not.  It is just that we are not fostering a spirit of entrepreneurship in America today.  In fact, we seem to be doing everything that we can to kill it off.

In a previous article, I detailed how the number of new businesses (and the number of jobs those businesses create) has been steadily declining.  In particular, this decline has accelerated dramatically under the Obama administration.  According to an analysis of U.S. Department of Labor data performed by economist Tim Kane, the following is how the decline in the number of startup jobs per 1000 Americans breaks down by presidential administration…

Bush Sr.: 11.3

Clinton: 11.2

Bush Jr.: 10.8

Obama: 7.8

Is that a good trend or a bad trend?

It doesn’t take an advanced degree in economics to figure out where things are going.

Kane speculated about why we are witnessing such a decline in his paper…

There is anecdotal evidence that the U.S. policy environment has become inadvertently hostile to entrepreneurial employment. At the federal level, high taxes and higher uncertainty about taxes are undoubtedly inhibiting entrepreneurship, but to what degree is unknown. The dominant factor may be new regulations on labor.  The passage of the Affordable Care Act is creating a sweeping alteration of the regulatory environment that directly changes how employers engage their workforces, and it will be some time until those changes are understood by employers or scholars. Separately, there has been a federal crackdown since 2009 by the Internal Revenue Service on U.S. employers that hire U.S. workers as independent contractors rather than employees, raising the question of mandatory benefits. New firms tend to use part-time and contract staffing rather than full-time employees during the startup stage. According to Labor Department data, the typical American today only takes home 70 percent of compensation as pay, while the rest is absorbed by the spiraling cost of benefits (e.g., health insurance). The dilemma for U.S. policy is that an American entrepreneur has zero tax or regulatory burden when hiring a consultant/contractor who resides abroad. But that same employer is subject to paperwork, taxation, and possible IRS harassment if employing U.S.-based contractors. Finally, there has been a steady barrier erected to entrepreneurs at the local policy level. Brink Lindsey points out in his book Human Capitalism that the rise of occupational licensing is destroying startup opportunities for poor and middle class Americans.

In my previous article, I also pointed out some of the other statistics that show that small business in America is dying…

-According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. economy lost more than 220,000 small businessesduring the last recession.

-As a share of the population, the percentage of Americans that are self-employed fell by more than 20 percent between 1991 and 2010.

-As a share of the population, the percentage of “new entrepreneurs and business owners” dropped by a staggering 53 percent between 1977 and 2010.

Unfortunately, this is a crisis that has taken decades to develop and that there are not any easy solutions for.  But there are certain factors that should be addressed immediately.  The following are some of the things that are contributing to the murder of self-employment and small business in America…

#1 Taxes: The IRS seems to especially enjoy tormenting entrepreneurs and small businesses.  In fact, things have gotten so bad that even late night talk show hosts are joking about it.  Recently, NBC Tonight Show host Jay Leno joked that if Barack Obama really wanted to close down Guantanamo Bay, he should “do what he always does: declare it a small business and tax it out of existence”

#2 Ridiculous Regulations: If you have ever tried to start a small business, you probably know how frustrating it can be dealing with government red tape.  In particular, the federal government has burdened our small businesses with gigantic mountains of rules and regulations and it gets worse with each passing day.

#3 State Governments That Are Openly Hostile To Business: A perfect example of this is the state of California.  In 2011, the state of California ranked 50th out of all 50 states in new business creation, and yet they just continue to pass more legislation that hurts small businesses.

#4 Obamacare: Our broken healthcare system is a tremendous burden on small businesses, and Obamacare is going to make things much worse.

#5 The One World Trade Agenda: In many industries, U.S. small businesses simply cannot compete against products made by workers that are being paid slave labor wages on the other side of the globe.

#6 Predator Corporations: Time after time we have seen corporate giants extract huge tax breaks and other enormous concessions from local officials which give them an overwhelming advantage.  But once the corporate giant moves into town, many of the existing small businesses find that they cannot compete and are forced to shut down.

#7 Our Corrupt Political System: On the national level, elections are almost always won by the politician that raises the most money.  Our politicians know that their careers depend on raising money, so they tend to be very good to those that they get big money from.  There is a reason why big corporations spend billions of dollars on campaign contributions and lobbying.  They do it because it works.  Over the decades, the big corporations have been able to shift the rules of the game massively in their favor, and this has been to the detriment of entrepreneurs and small businesses.

Can you think of any other factors that you would add to this list?  Please feel free to share your opinion by leaving a comment below…

This article was posted: Friday, May 3, 2013 at 6:06 am

Our current financial situation was not bred out of incompetence, but by design

HERE 

 

C.A.N.'s note: With all this talk of collapse, collapse, collapse, I wish they would go ahead and do it. We know it is on purpose, and it will give us all the reason we need to run the bankers and Monsanto right up out of this country. Our politicians, no longer being under their control can do their job, even DHS could come back and rejoin the people. I am sure most of them don’t like the fact that working under banker control has put them in a position of being against the people. Sureit will start tough, but it is necessary to remove the cancer and will be well worth it in the long run. The Iceland solution is the future of the world, not NWO.  

DHS Insider update: It has begun

- by Author - Doug Hagmann  

Government Bank Grab 

Much like my high-level source within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security outlined in a series of interviews beginning last year, the orchestrated collapse of the U.S. dollar and the entire world’s economic system has begun. The first shots in a global economic take-over were fired in Cyprus as my esteemed colleague and founding editor of Canada Free Press, Judi McLeod laid out in frank detail in her column yesterday and her follow up today. 

Please read it and heed her advice, or suffer the consequences of your own normalcy bias that such an event will not happen in the United States, Canada, or from wherever you might be reading this. It will, and the plan appears to be on schedule for a shot across the bow later this spring here in the West, with a more aggressive take-over starting sometime this fall, according to my source. 

The Plan

To those needing a quick refresher, the plan is quite simple and can be summarized by the Clinton-era quip attributed to political strategist James Carville, “the economy, stupid” and the June 9, 2010 statement by former Obama czar Van Jones, Socialist extraordinaire, “top down, bottom up, inside out.” It is a plan for a one world Communist economy where the “middle class” will be wiped out through a series of events that will have the same ultimate effect as we are seeing in present day Cyprus.

Doug Hagmann’s Insider series:

DHS Insider: Obama’s cyber warriors & preparing for collapse The latest from “DHS Insider” HERE

• Benghazi explained: Interview with an “Intelligence Insider” (Part III) [1]
• Benghazi: Behind the scenes (Part II) [2]
• Benghazi explained: Interview with an “Intelligence Insider”[3]

Based on the events in Cyprus, it should be quite clear to even the most vocal critic of the legitimacy of the information provided to me by my source within the DHS as published on this web site is no longer at issue. The U.S. dollar, the backbone of world currencies and the proverbial firewall preventing the erosion of our national sovereignty, is the ultimate target of a takedown by the global banking interests controlled by a handful of banks and families of the “royal elite.” 

The plan for a global currency or a one world economic order is a matter that transcends political parties. Those who continue to argue in the Republican-Democrat meme are doing nothing more than providing entertainment to distract people from the real issue, that of the global elite versus the rest of us. The top of the pyramid in this Ponzi scheme is filled with members of both U.S. political parties who are systematically pillaging us and our future generations into financial debt, bondage and slavery. It is a plan that has been in the works for centuries. The problem, however, is that we have been conditioned not to think that big. Yet, the lie is that big. 

The parties

Our current financial situation was not bred out of incompetence, but by design. The occupancy of Barack Hussein Obama as the putative President of the United States was a plan in the making long ago, to usher in this oppressive system where we will be left at the mercy of the global ruling class. It is not by accident that we have been prevented from knowing exactly who this man is, from the controversy of his birth records to his college transcripts and even his social security number. Contrary to what the state-controlled media wants you to believe, these questions have never been answered with any measure of authenticity. 

• For example, does anyone honestly believe that it is merely a coincidence that Obama’s alleged mother, Stanley Ann Dunham-Soetoro, just happened to work with Timothy Geithner’s father, Peter Geithner, at the Ford Foundation in Indonesia? 
• Is it reasonable to believe that the Republican party had no knowledge of the background of Barack Hussein Obama? 

Yet not one word from the Republican establishment as they not only watched, but facilitated the takeover of the United States from within. As I’ve written before, our nation is a captured operation.

The plan was set into motion long ago, stemming back to the founding of the United States and the temporary resistance to the central banking system. In 1913, the creation of the Federal Reserve set the countdown clock in motion for the complete subjugation of the United States to the interests of the global bankers and the global elite. The secret supra-governmental cabals such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission worked behind the scenes, under the cover provided by the complicit media, to bring us to this point in history. Perpetual wars were induced to occupy the masses while the chess pieces were placed into their current positions. We are now about to pay the price for our inability or unwillingness to confront the establishment and incremental advancements leading to our own demise. 

DHS source: Everything is not “coming up roses”

According to the most recent information provided to me from my source within the Department of Homeland Security known as “Rosebud,” the final preparations are being made to deploy heavily armed federalized forces onto the streets of America. They will be deployed under the pretext of “restoring and maintaining order from the chaos brought about by the economic collapse,” adding that “many will demand and embrace their deployment on the streets of America. They will get what they ask for, and more.” 

Much like the security theater we have seen following the attacks of 9/11, we will be subjected to the jack-booted control of a federal army whose allegiance is not to the American people, but to the very architects of the chaos. 

“This is the reason that drones are flying over U.S. cities and farmland, and gun control legislation is on the fast track for complete implementation,” stated this source. “How can people look at the situation in Cyprus and not think it won’t happen here? It will, and the blowback will be unlike this country has ever seen. Surveillance, disarming the public, and conditioning the people to believe it’s for their own safety is and has been part of the plan all along. Anyone owing a gun will be demonized and described as contributing to the problem.” 

• “What happens when the middle class loses much of their wealth, or it is confiscated, by the stroke of a pen or a keyboard? 
• What will the stores look like when people, unprepared due to the damn lies of the corporate media and the shills for the ruling elite, run to empty out everything they can get their hands on as the world, as they know it, collapses around them?” 

It was during my most recent contact with my source yesterday that he admitted that the situation will be blamed not on the bankers and the elected leaders who are raping us of our wealth and buying power, but on “right-wing, gun-toting Conservative ‘militia’ groups who believe that the situation is orchestrated.” And, of course, it is orchestrated. 

“There is no Republican-Democrat argument to be made anymore. It’s all political theater to keep the majority of the masses occupied while the true enemy has already captured both parties,” he added. “They are all in on it, either knowingly or unwittingly, the takeover, that is. And it’s getting harder to believe that there are any who are unwitting accomplices at this point.”

 

“When the curtain is pulled back to reveal the true agenda of a single digital world currency, the people who have been yelling the loudest about such ‘conspiracy theories’ will be specifically singled out and demonized. They will be blamed for causing the panic we will see, and of course, dealt with by the army we asked for, accepted and even tolerated.” 

Anyone who still believes that the information provided by this insider is “doom porn” or some self-created fantasy need to look at the events taking place in Cyprus. 

It’s coming to America. 

It has already begun. HERE

March 13, 2013 15:47

The best way to jumpstart the US economy is “to chop federal spending in half, and then in half again next year,” argues professor Thomas J. DiLorenzo, author of the book ‘Organized Crime: The Unvarnished Truth About Government.’ 

“No statist lies are safe from his scrutiny,” Lew Rockwell wrote about economist Thomas J. DiLorenzo’s latest book. What follows is my conversation with professor DiLorenzo about ‘Organized Crime: The Unvarnished Truth About Government,’ and the timeless economic truths to which it speaks. 

Ilana Mercer: A microscopic decrease in the increase in government spending has sent our overlords in DC into apoplexy. A cut in oink-sector spending, they’re claiming, will destroy the chances of an economic recovery. It is the exact opposite. You point this out in the chapter on ‘The Myth of Government Job Creation’: “Government spending increases unemployment because it crowds out so much private sector job creation” (page 202). Explain with reference to the zero-sum nature of government spending the cost of a government job, and Bastiat’s ‘What-is-seen-and-what-is-not-seen’ principle. 

Thomas DiLorenzo: Every dollar that the government spends is a dollar that is not spent, or saved, by individuals, families, businesses and entrepreneurs.  Therefore, whenever government grows, private enterprise – the sole source of real job creation – shrinks, and unemployment there rises.  Each government job destroys several genuine, private-sector jobs because of all the bureaucracy and red tape. For example, government may spend $200,000 to give one person a $30,000-a-year job.  And government ‘jobs’ are usually involved in doing something that no one but a few politicians ever voiced a preference for. 

Private sector jobs, by contrast, cannot survive unless they are part of an enterprise that succeeds in satisfying genuine consumer wants.  By contrast, Keynesians like Paul Krugman would have us believe that prosperity is created whenever government takes money out of our bank accounts – with the threat of forcing us to live in a cage for years if we do not pay – and letting government bureaucrats squander the money instead. 

Part of the Keynesian mantra is that such spending could and should be on anything – it doesn’t matter, as long as it is government that is doing the spending.  The biggest year of private-sector economic growth in American economic history was 1946, when the nation was in the middle of a two-thirds reduction in federal government spending as the military was demobilized from World War II.  This proves that the Keyensians were always dead wrong, but of course they and their political patrons ignore this reality.

• IM:You quip: "In Washingtonese, if one proposes a $100 billion spending increase, and actual spending increases by 'only' $90 billion, they call it a $10 billion budget cut." We're in the grip of exactly this kind of a paradox. How is the ‘Washington Monument Syndrome’ playing out in its ‘sequesteria’ version?
• TD:The ‘Washington Monument Syndrome’ is an old bureaucratic trick that is so named because the head of the National Park Service closed down the Washington Monument – the most popular tourist attraction in Washington, DC – in the 1960s after Congress refused to fully fund his pie-in-the-sky spending wish list. Tourists from every state on their annual vacations called their congressmen to complain, forcing them to give the Park Service bureaucrat all the money he wanted.  
• State and local governments routinely use this sleazy gimmick by immediately threatening to shut down police protection, garbage collection, ambulance service, school buses and whatever else would impose maximum pain on the public whenever there is talk of fiscal responsibility.  The Obama administration has taken this to buffoonish extremes by threatening to close down airports, et cetera, were government spending to increase by about one percentage point less than they wish over the next 10 years.
• No one in Washington has proposed cutting a single cent out of the federal budget, despite the fact that the surest route to economic recovery would be to chop federal spending in half, and then in half again next year.
• IM:Like tax havens, tax loopholes are ethical and efficient. Your point about efficiencies is especially good: “The time spent by citizens trying to legally avoid taxes is in fact a good investment of their time.” Decode the Orwellian Doublespeak of phrases like ‘simplifying the tax laws and revenue neutrality.’
• TD:Politicians and statist economists intentionally confuse the public when they refer to proposed tax increases as ‘tax reform,’ and to tax cuts as ‘wasteful’ or ‘unnecessarily complicated.’ I have long agreed with Milton Friedman’s dictum that the cause of freedom and prosperity is always served by any tax cut, of any kind, at any time.  One has to realize that the purpose of government is for those who run it to plunder those who do not.
• Depriving political parasites of revenue is always and everywhere a good idea.  The rhetoric of ‘revenue neutrality’ really means that under no circumstances should government – unlike everyone else in society – ever, ever spend a penny less next year than this year. Any tax reform should therefore never, ever end up putting more money in the pockets of the public at the expense of the political parasite class.  
• IM:Expect the “compassion of the IRS and the efficiency of the post office” from Obama’s healthcare plan, you forewarn. But as Obama’s army of harpies at CNN would argue, his politburo of proctologists has involved itself in the insurance industry merely to enhance markets. Or, to ‘bring down costs.’ Dispense with this idiotic notion.
• TD:Government intervention always causes costs to rise and quality to decline.  This has always been true; it has especially been true in the field of health care in places like Canada and Great Britain where healthcare was nationalized long ago. There is no reason to believe that the socialists in the Obama administration are better at socialism than were the Soviets, the Eastern Europeans, the Chinese, the Cuban government or anyone else.

The absence of a market feedback mechanism based on profits and losses guarantees government failure. Public choice economists refer to a ‘bureaucratic rule of two’ with regard to governmental provision of any type of service, based on hundreds of empirical articles that show that, on average, a government takeover of any function will double the per-unit cost of providing the product or service. HERE   

More on GDP, Obamacare and the elusive economic recovery at

Barely a Blog, where the conversation with professor DiLorenzo continues.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

 April 5, 2013

21 Statistics About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America That Everyone Should Know  

Michael Snyder

If the economy is getting better, then why does poverty in America continue to grow so rapidly?  

Yes, the stock market has been hitting all-time highs recently, but also the number of Americans living in poverty has now reached a level not seen since the 1960s.  Yes, corporate profits are at levels never seen before, but so is the number of Americans on food stamps.  Yes, housing prices have started to rebound a little bit (especially in wealthy areas), but there are also more than a million public school students in America that are homeless.  That is the first time that has ever happened in U.S. history.  

So should we measure our economic progress by the false stock market bubble that has been inflated by Ben Bernanke’s reckless money printing, or should we measure our economic progress by how the poor and the middle class are doing?  Because if we look at how average Americans are doing these days, then there is not much to be excited about.  In fact, poverty continues to experience explosive growth in the United States and the middle class continues to shrink.  

Sadly, the truth is that things are not getting better for most Americans.  With each passing year the level of economic suffering in this country continues to go up, and we haven’t even reached the next major wave of the economic collapse yet.  When that strikes, the level of economic pain in this nation is going to be off the charts. 

The following are 21 statistics about the explosive growth of poverty in America that everyone should know… 

1 – According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately one out of every six Americans is now living in poverty.  The number of Americans living in poverty is now at a level not seen since the 1960s.
2 – When you add in the number of low income Americans it is even more sobering.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 146 million Americans are either “poor” or “low income”.
3 – Today, approximately 20 percent of all children in the United States are living in poverty.  Incredibly, a higher percentage of children is living in poverty in America today than was the case back in 1975.
4 – It may be hard to believe, but approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are currently living in homes that are either considered to be either “low income” or impoverished.
5 – Poverty is the worst in our inner cities.  At this point, 29.2 percentof all African-American households with children are dealing with food insecurity.
6 – According to a recently released report, 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.
7 – The number of children living on $2.00 a day or less in the United States has grown to 2.8 million.  That number has increased by 130 percent since 1996.
8 – For the first time ever, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless.  That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year.
9 – Family homelessness in the Washington D.C. region (one of the wealthiest regions in the entire country) has risen 23 percent since the last recession began.
10 – One university study estimates that child poverty costs the U.S. economy 500 billion dollarseach year.
11 – At this point, approximately one out of every three children in the U.S. lives in a home without a father.
12 – Families that have a head of household under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.
13 – Today, there are approximately 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing.  That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.
14 – About 40 percent of all unemployed workers in America have been out of work for at least half a year.
15 – At this point, one out of every four American workers has a job that pays $10 an hour or less.
16 – There has been an explosion in the number of “working poor” Americans in recent years.  Today, about one out of every fourworkers in the United States brings home wages that are at or below the poverty level.
17 – Right now, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government.  And that does not even include Social Security or Medicare.
18 – An all-time record 47.79 million Americans are now on food stamps.  Back when Barack Obama first took office, that number was only sitting at about 32 million.
19 – The number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the entire population of Spain.
20 – According to one calculation, the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of “Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.”
21 – Back in the 1970s, about one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps.  Today, close to one out of every six Americans is on food stamps.  Even more shocking is the fact that more than one out of every four children in the United States is enrolled in the food stamp program. 

Unfortunately, all of these problems are a result of our long-term economic decline.  In a recent article for the New York Times, David Stockman, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan, did a brilliant job of describing how things have degenerated over the last decade… 

Since the S&P 500 first reached its current level, in March 2000, the mad money printers at the Federal Reserve have expanded their balance sheet sixfold (to $3.2 trillion from $500 billion). Yet during that stretch, economic output has grown by an average of 1.7 percent a year (the slowest since the Civil War); real business investment has crawled forward at only 0.8 percent per year; and the payroll job count has crept up at a negligible 0.1 percent annually. Real median family income growth has dropped 8 percent, and the number of full-time middle class jobs, 6 percent. The real net worth of the “bottom” 90 percent has dropped by one-fourth. The number of food stamp and disability aid recipients has more than doubled, to 59 million, about one in five Americans. 

For the last couple of years, the U.S. economy has experienced a bubble of false hope that has been produced by unprecedented amounts of government debt and unprecedented money printing by the Federal Reserve.

Unfortunately, that bubble of false hope is not going to last much longer.  In fact, we are already seeing signs that it is getting ready to burst. 

For example, initial claims for unemployment benefits shot up to 385,000 for the week ending March 30th. 

That is perilously close to the 400,000 “danger level” that I keep warning about.  Once we cross the 400,000 level and stay there, it will be time to go into crisis mode. 

In the years ahead, it is going to become increasingly difficult to find a job.  Just the other day I saw an article about an advertisement for a recent job opening at a McDonald’s in Massachusetts that required applicants to have “one to two years experience and a bachelor’s degree“. 

If you need a bachelor’s degree for a job at McDonald’s, then what in the world are blue collar workers going to do when the competition for jobs becomes really intense once the economy experiences another major down turn? 

Do not be fooled by the fact that the Dow has been setting new all-time highs.  The truth is that we are in the midst of a long-term economic decline, and things are going to get a lot worse.  If you know someone that is not convinced of this yet, just share the following article with them: 

“ShowThis To Anyone That Believes That ‘Things Are Getting Better’ In America“. 

So what are all of you seeing in your own areas?
Are you seeing signs that poverty is getting worse?

Friday, April 5, 2013 at 5:29 am

Is there any defensible scenario for this administration to want to "kill the dollar?"Intelligence insider: Obama administration agenda to “kill U.S Dollar” 

This week, I had a series of very sobering discussions with my highly-placed source within the intelligence world. The information he provided hit me like a proverbial tons of bricks. 

It connects everything we are seeing play out across the world, from the economic problems in Europe to the U.S. DHS ammunition acquisition orders and even the “gun control” debate. If you’re like me, you’re looking for clarity, context and focus with regard to all of the events we’re constantly hearing about but seem to lack legitimate explanation. I believe this report will provide the context and clarity we are all seeking, but I must warn you that the picture is not pretty. 

The economic agenda: In plain sight 

Some might be surprised to learn that the fate of America’s economy has already been determined, verified andannounced by the Obama White House. Yet, it has received scant attention from the corporate media. In 2011, economist Kyle Bass interviewed a senior member of the Obama administration about its planned solutions for fixing the US economy and trade deficit[i]. 

Among the questions he asked was about U.S. exports and wages, but the question itself was not nearly as important as the response he received from this senior administration official. In fact, this single, seven word response clarifies everything, explains everything, and leaves little else to discuss: “We’re just going to kill the dollar.” 

There it is, the entire agenda in one short sentence. It explains everything we’ve been seeing domestically and globally. That one statement makes every other question irrelevant, or otherwise answers all economic questions and explains everything.Nothing else matters. I urge you to ponder that statement and all that it implies. Doing so will provide you with the clarity to understand not only what is taking place today, but what is yet to come. 

Murder & High Treason 

It is important to note the specificity of the word “kill.” Stated in the active voice, it means an unambiguously intentional and deliberate act. The murder of our national currency, the United States Dollar (USD), is the ultimate agenda to be implemented under Obama. To “kill” our national currency will subvert the United States and destroy it from within. 

1. This begs a number of questions, including what type of Americans would actually have, as their objective, the destruction of our national currency? 
2. To whom do they hold their allegiance, if not to the American people whose life’s work as well as the toil of our ancestors is represented in the form of wealth held in U.S. dollars? 
3. Does this make any sense to us, as Americans? The answer of course is “no.” 

By its very definition, to kill our national currency is an act of high treason by those engaged in this activity. It undermines the very sovereignty and survival of our nation, and will have a life-changing impact on every citizen in the U.S. It will also impact every nation and the people of every nation on the planet, as the USD is presently the world’s reserve currency. It is an act that should result in the filing of criminal charges against the conspirators, a trial of their peers and if convicted, a death sentence. It’s that serious. 

According to my source, we are past the point of no return. We will not be able to stop what is coming, but must be wise enough to prepare and “get out of the way.” The murder plot involving the death of the dollar did not begin with Obama, but he and other conspirators have accelerated the plans, plots and schemes for its demise. 

The ultimate objective 

The ultimate objective is to implement an international currency in tandem with a system of global governance. The problem is that most people are not thinking large enough, nor do they understand the magnitude of the lie. They are not seeing the larger picture as their focus is diverted elsewhere. For example, they focus on varioustentacles of the octopus such as the gun confiscation initiative, the DHS armament acquisitions and economic woes as independent and unrelated events. They are not. 

Meanwhile, others continue to adhere to, or even perpetuate the dual party meme of governance, holding dearly to the notion that there is a practical difference between the Republican and Democrat parties. Have we not seen sufficient evidence that they are now of one party acting in concert with each other? They cannot see the collusion and backroom deals, and continue to hope that the next election will finally change the unchangeable continuity of agenda. 

Most of the elected officials are onboard with the subjugation of the United States to a global system of governance. Some are actively facilitating this agenda, while others are making nominal objections on the stage of political theater while hoping to earn a seat at the global table. It’s entertainment for the globalists, distraction of the masses, and diversionary fodder for the talking heads in the media. 

America has become a captured operation - captured from within. Think of the Vichy French, internal collaboration with the enemy, or softening the ground for a full takeover from within. The takeover of America has already happened, the collaborators have already been installed, and we are now on a path to complete subjugation of a larger global system of governance. 

If you continue to doubt this, how else would you explain the numerous examples of our dual-party governmental acquiescence of self destruction? 

“Signs, signs, everywhere signs…” 

Those who are pleased about the new record setting stock-market highs and various other manipulated statistics that indicate our economy is improving will be the most vocal critics of this report and who will attempt to discredit the validity of the information offered here. The more intellectually astute will look beyond the statistics offered for mass consumption not only to identify the deliberately manipulated data, but to understand what is actually driving these false hopes, figures and data. It is a magic show, and many are still captivated by the magicians’ many diversions, failing to realize that we are engaged in a global war while being simultaneously hobbled by enemy infiltrators from within. 

One reason we are seeing new stock market highs is the rush to the dollar from other currencies, especially in the Eurozone. Another reason is the monetization of our debt by the Federal Reserve, despite the previous denials of Ben Bernanke and others. 

Simply put, the plan by the globalists, or the central bankers and those behind them, is to create this rush to the USD like passengers from sinking ships to lifeboats. Once the lifeboats are filled to capacity, they will be sunk, and the United States Dollar will be completely worthless. As in such a scenario, many will not make it. Many will die from what is coming. The level of evil behind this plan is incomprehensible to the normal human mind. 

Russia, China, Syria and Iran
As I detailed in my multiple reports about Benghazi, we are at war with Russia. After removing Qaddafi from power in Libya, the Obama-Clinton black-ops plan was immediately put into action. Benghazi was the logistics hub for arming the anti-Assad terrorists by our own State Department covert operatives who were shipping millions of tons of weapons to Syria via Turkey and other staging areas. Russia was aware of our actions, and through the attack at the CIA operations center in Benghazi by proxy forces, exposed this operation to the world while putting a stop to this operation. It seems that everyone except the Western media reported what had taken place. 

The “dirty little secret” that explains why we have not been told the truth about Benghazi is quite simple. The efforts to overthrow Assad from power are continuing, except the arms and munitions shipments are now originating primarily from Croatia. Overthrowing Assad would pose a direct threat to Russia, both militarily and economically. Are we to expect Russia’s Putin to simply accept this without response? No. So what is Russia doing to subvert our efforts? He is waging war against America, striking at the weak underbelly of our economy which is the “oil backed” dollar as identified in MichaelReagan’s article, Building on a Kernel of Truth. 

Sadly, the Obama regime is doing nothing to protect us from this asymmetrical war. It’s as if they are allowing it to take place. 

Although it was reported in The New York Times, few have paid attention to last week’s meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, but it was an extremely important event in terms of the planned murder of the U.S. dollar. 

An alliance is being forged between Russia and China to replace the USD as the reserve currency, already severely weakened by the policies of those in power, with a gold backed currency. 

Russia and China are hoarding gold to levels never before seen, while the U.S. issues worthless paper and digital currency backed by… nothing, save for the “oil-backed” scenario. 

While reports do exist that cite the hoarding of gold by China and Russia, they are purposely under reporting their collective reserves. Meanwhile, Americans can’t even get honest answers to the amounts of our own gold reserves held in Fort Knox or the Federal Reserve. 

Don’t people find this reluctance for audit and inspection a bit curious if not outright suspicious? 

The battle is being waged not only by military might but by a currency war. We are “being played” through our military involvement in the Middle East, including our covert operations against Syria at the behest of Saudi Arabia. Unlike Iraq, the war in Syria will explode, turn hot, and we will be engaged in an ominous battle that will quickly expand and turn deadly. Weakened militarily through the policies of the Obama regime, coupled with an already weakened economy, the U.S. will suffer consequences unlike anyone might imagine or is willing to address. It is a recipe for disaster planned and initiated by the global elite behind the central banking system, including those in our own government. We have been set up from within, lied to, and now, we are about to see exactly what this globalist system has in store for not only the United States, but every nation of the world. 

It is critical to understand that the take-down of the U.S. will be the result of an asymmetrical war that includes the weakening of our military, our economy, and a direct assault on our ability to keep the dollar as the world reserve currency and protect the free flow of oil and energy to the United States. 

Within the last week, China held a surprise naval exercise in the South China Sea. Meanwhile, Russia displayed their resurgent military night in the Black Sea. 

These exercises were conducted as U.S. military forces are spread thinly across many areas in the world. Is anyone paying attention here? 

Just as certain a collapse of the dollar is coming, so will be chaos on the streets of America caused by this plan “to kill the dollar.” The central bankers and the leaders selected to govern each country have effectively used the Hegelian Dialectic[ii] to implement their agenda. Just as stated by George H.W. Bush on September 11, 1990, their predetermined solution of a “New World Order” is being formed before our very eyes. They’ve told us what they are doing, but we have chosen not to listen or failed to understand what was being said. 

The U.S. has always been the firewall against the globalists. By their persistence, infiltration of global elitists into our government, and covert subversion from within, we are being led to slaughter. A view from space, looking at the larger picture of events for which many have questions, a clearer picture emerges. There will be some who dare to resist the pillaging of our bank accounts, the erosion of our rights, and the enslavement that comes with the dismantling of America. 

The dust clouds visible on the far horizon that watchmen have been reporting for decades can now be seen as an attacking army of barbarians, whose fighters are now on the ladders and cannons are breaching our empire’s outer walls. Who knows how long the inner walls of our empire will survive the next wave of their coming attack. 

Perhaps Ernest Hemmingway said it best in referencing John Donne from his novel of the same name… “And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.”
[i] HERE | [ii] HERE 

Copyright © Douglas Hagmann Douglas J. Hagmann and his son, Joe Hagmann host The Hagmann & Hagmann Report, a live Internet radio program broadcast each weeknight from 8:00-10:00 p.m. ET.Douglas Hagmann, founder & director of the Northeast Intelligence Network, and a multi-state licensed private investigative agency. Doug began using his investigative skills and training to fight terrorism and increase public awareness through his website.Doug can be reached at: director@homelandsecurityus.comOlder articles by Doug Hagmann

April 8, 2013

TheNumbers Are Quite Profound: Debt, Devaluation, Diversification and Gold

Mac Slavo

With the global economy, financial markets and political sentiment seemingly on the brink of a major paradigm shift, concern about how to protect wealth is growing exponentially. Billions of dollars are being transferred out of bank accounts across the world by people who are looking for safety assets where they can secure their life savings and get out of the cross-hairs of governments bent on destroying private business, accumulating unimaginable levels of debt, and impoverishing the middle class. 

There are few investments that will remain safe once the masses realize they’ve been conned by their respective leaders and financial authorities. 

Whether your strategy involves holding physical assets to preserve some level of value and wealth when the next bubble pops, or if your aim is to reallocate investment capital from existing retirement funds or savings accounts and grow that capital over the long-term, the following interview from Future Money Trends is one you don’t want to miss. 

Amir Adnani, chairman of gold mining company Brazil Resources, and David Morgan, of Silver-Investor.com, share a wealth of knowledge and insights about gold fundamentals, investment strategies, effects of monetary policy, managing a successful business, avoiding government nationalization of key industries, and the broader economic outlook going forward.
What excites me the most about the long-term, if we want to look five or ten years out, is that the supply-demand fundamentals, which is the only that I can try to use as a long-term guide of how things are going to go, are really on the side of higher natural resource prices and commodities. 

When you look at the population trends in the world, when you look at the sovereign debt issues in the world, when you look at the organization themes of emerging markets… these themes are very long-term trends. These are not going away. 

…I think supply-demand fundamentals over the next five or ten years definitely favor higher prices for commodities…

Amir Adnani (HERE)
Amir Adnani and David Morgan, with Daniel Ameduri (Two Part Interview): Watch at Youtube: Part 1, Part 2

Despite the inevitable disaster to come, there are strategies that can help you to not only preserve wealth, but grow it during a time that will see the majority of the world’s population further impoverished. 

If one of your primary objectives is to protect your assets during times of uncertainty, then consider some of the analysis from one of the world’s top junior mining CEO’s. 

The fundamentals for gold:
The fundamentals for gold have never been as good as they are right now, because from the physical side of things the mining industry and the majors keep spending more money every year on an accumulative basis on exploration, and each year they keep finding less gold than the year before or ten years ago. And so it’s becoming tougher and tougher to find economic gold projects… So clearly, just on the pure mining side of it, the pure supply expansion side of it, it’s more costly to find gold. They’re finding less gold, and mining costs to get it out of the ground are rising. 

Meanwhile, we continue to achieve record levels of debt in the Western world, so that continues to drive the monetary aspects of it and further underlines that end of the argument as to why the fundamentals for gold are strong. 

Look at the latest issues in Europe. Look at the latest issues in Cyprus. The sovereign debt issues are not going away. Everyone is racing to try to devalue their currency throughout the world. 

How can we not look at this picture and say to ourselves that the fundamentals have never been better… the numbers are quite profound. 

Amir Adnani (Chairman, Brazil Resources)
When developing a strategy for asset diversification, consider your individual needs, existing capital, and your specific goals (preservation vs. wealth creation):

• Is just owning physical a good idea or a bad idea? I think the real answer to that is the individual…
• I think there’s more opportunity in the mining sector to build wealth than just owning the physical.
• I think that it’s an individual choice. I’m not against it. I understand the reasoning. These people believe that all paper markets are going to crumble at some point and the only left standing will be physical.
• I don’t hold that view. Personally, at my age, I think that about a 50-50 mix is about right. I feel very comfortable with 50% spread out between top-tier, mid-tier and up-and-comers, and the other 50% in the physical realm.
• Just to be clear, I don’t advocate 100% of your assets invested in the precious metals sector. I have recommended 20%, but again that’s an individual choice.

David Morgan (Silver-Investor.com)
For more interviews from leading financial minds, analysts and influential business leaders visit Future Money Trends.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

America Has Become a Third World Nation

Dave Hodges

When I wrote Part One of this series which makes the case that America is a Third World nation, I received mostly supportive comments. However, I received several hate-filled comments from people who are living in an abject state of denial as to what America has become. Part One only dealt with some of the economic indicators which are strongly suggestive of the fact that we have become a Third World nation. Part two of this series examines the same claim from a much broader point of view by considering a number of factors. 

Out of Control Debt
 Third World countries have spiraling out-of-control debt. Standard & Poor’s made it official when it changed its label for America’s national debt from “stable” to “negative.” Subsequently, America is now officially a “Third World country”. Meanwhile, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America each report billions in quarterly profit, while the US is facing debt restructuring similar to Greece, Italy, Spain and Cyprus. 

The debt crisis has also spread to nearly every state, as 46 states out of 50 states are on the verge of bankruptcy and many of our cities are going broke. Detroit is the epitome of a Third World city. America’s infrastructure is collapsing as evidenced by the pitiful condition of our roads which are quickly obtaining Third World status. 

The out-of-control debt found in the Third World is constantly being used against these countries by organizations such as the World Bank and the IMF. Globalist banking organizations use the debt to begin to acquire a nation’s infrastructure. It happened in Bolivia through an unholy alliance between Bechtel and the World Bank when water rates quadrupled and it became illegal to even reuse irrigation water runoff and to trap rainwater. Colorado just enacted the same two laws within the past year. Very soon America, the banksters will own every aspect of sustenance. Does anyone still believe the movie, The Hunger Games, wasn’t delivering a clear message as to what lies ahead for all of us unless we can wake up enough people in time and change our course?

Income Inequality
 What a lot of people don’t seem to realize is that when the Greatest Depression of 2008 hit, the money that once filled the coffers of the American middle class did not just evaporate into thin air. That money flowed somewhere; and where it flowed was into the pockets of the banksters and a few of their select minions courtesy of the banker bailouts. 

Cavernous income gaps characterize Third-World nations and the United States is right up there with the worst of the nations with regard to income disparity. The income gap between the rich and poor has increased at a staggering pace, while many more middle-class folks citizens are losing ground on a daily basis. 

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities recent report found that the income gap between the wealthiest Americans and middle-income and working-class Americans has more than tripled in the past thirty years. Did you enjoy your prolonged nap while this was going on? 

The CIA’s “Gini index,” which reports on the world’s income distribution found that the United States has the 40th highest income gap disparity out of 136 nations measured. Nambia is the worst and Sweden is the best. The United States income disparity is comparable to Jamaica and Cameroon. 

As was documented in Part One of this series, unemployment numbers, food stamps, and home foreclosures continue to reach new record highs. Part one also documented how government-dependent people often have more discretionary income than a middle-income worker making $60,000 per year. 

And despite all of our economic woes, the economic free-fall of our country has not financially touched the members of Congress, as this constitutes another characteristic of Third World countries in which the ruling elite and their law making minions live high on the hog. The net worth of Congress continues to rise despite the onset of the Greatest Depression of 2008. The year 2008, was the year that Wall Street took over the nation’s money, both nationally and individually, and members of Congress laughed all the way to the bank. Financial disclosure forms analyzed by Roll Call magazine, using the minimum valuation of assets, showed that members of Congress, in 2010, had a collective net worth of over $2 billion, which constitutes a $390 million increase from the $1.65 billion members of Congress enjoyed in 2008 at the time of the first bailout. 

Slavery As a Means to Fatten the Coffers of the Elite Most Third World countries practice some form of overt and/or covert forms of slavery which serve to economically benefit the elite. America is no different. The US has simply traded one form of slavery for another. 

Despite the fact that the United States makes up less than 5% of the world’s population, America’s prisons confine more than 25% of all people who are incarcerated on the entire planet. Several of these prisoners perform labor at twenty-three cents per hour while housed in our federal prisons contracted by the Bureau of Prisons’ UNICOR. UNICOR is a for-profit corporation and it is the US government’s 39th largest contractor. Privatized prisons are the fastest growing prisons in the United States and they are normally guaranteed a 90% occupancy rate. This criminal corruption leads to a Third World type of abuse of the public by police departments in order to meet arrest quotas which guarantee the owners of the growing privatized prisons that their promised occupancy rates will be met. 

Along these lines, a plethora of stories document how the New York Police Department plants drugs on innocent subjects in their controversial “stop and frisk” program in which, in October 2011, a former NYPD narcotics detective testified that he regularly saw police plant drugs on innocent citizens in order to meet pre-set arrest quotas. George H. W. Bush is one of the biggest players in the business of privatized prisons. 

Substandard Healthcare
A constant characteristic among Third World nations is a substandard healthcare system. I recently polled a number of young adults as to where they thought the United States fell with regard to life expectancy as compared to the rest of the world. Before voting, many acknowledged that the US had slipped from its once lofty position with regard to healthcare. Some people guessed that we had fallen to fourth of fifth in longevity. Some people made even bolder predictions by stating that we might have fallen as far down the life expectancy model as 10th. 

1. What is your vote? 
2. How long do Americans live in comparison to our international cohorts? 
3. After all, the United States spends twice as much as the average of any other modern country for healthcare. In the US, we spend 17.6% of our GDP on health care, by far the highest percentage in the world, and what do we get for this Third World type of highway robbery? 
4. Fewer physicians (2.3 per 1,000 as compared to 3.1 for the rest of the world). 
5. The number of hospital beds are fewer than other nations (2.6 per 1,000 as compared to 3.4 for the rest of the world). 
6. The average American lifespan is 78.7 years in 2010, more than one year less than the rest of the World’s OCED nations. 

Now to answer the previously mentioned survey question I posed to the group of young adults which asked how long Americans live in comparison with the rest of the world. Sadly, according to the CIA Factbook, the United States is 50th in world in terms of life expectancy. Hong Kong is eighth and we have fallen behind Bosnia and Herzegovina. Oh, and one other thing, Cubans live longer than Americans. 

Are you planning on having a baby and want to ensure its safety during the birthing procedure? You would be better off moving to Cuba where they have a lower infant mortality rate than the United States. The United States is amazingly number 47 in the world in infant mortality. 

In fact, in the United States you are far more likely to killed by your doctor than you are by a firearm. Death by doctor exceeded 225,000 last year while death by firearm was only 9,601. 

So, Americans are paying far more for healthcare and reaping Third World type of benefits. Today, healthcare is not about increasing health and longevity, it is about separating American patients from as much of their hard-earned money as possible. Obamacare will prove to be the biggest genocidal and simultaneously bankrupting factor in American history. 

The Evisceration of Personal Liberties 

Everyday freedoms are often a casualty of a society in collapse. The NDAA has eliminated due process from our Constitution which destroyed the Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution. The PATRIOT Act eliminated the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution. Obama is threatening to destroy the Second Amendment. During a Presidential declared emergency, FEMA can snatch anything you own -- including you -- thus, eliminating the First and Third Amendments. The entire Constitution is on life support. 

Homeland Security (DHS) is arming against the American people as evidenced by its recent 2.2 billion rounds of acquired ammunition to go with the 2700 armored vehicles recently purchased by DHS. These police powers typically go hand in hand with collapsing economies in Third World countries which is what we are witnessing in America and the following statistics bear this out. 

Do you remember that intellectual giant that occupied the White House prior to Obama? 

His name is George W. Bush, and in typical fashion he ignorantly stated “they (the terrorists) hate us because of our freedoms.” Do you remember that asinine statement? 

As with most things uttered by this intellectually deprived ex-President, Bush was dead wrong. 

The 2012 Legatum Institute’s Prosperity Index, notes that, with regard to personal freedom, America came in at 14th place, which puts the US in good company with Uruguay and Costa Rica. And when it comes to the Safety & Security comparisons, America came in at 27th putting the US on par with Bulgaria. These factors need to be coupled with the fact that our small businesses and American citizens, those who bother to go to work, pay the highest taxes in the world, thus increasing our level of indentured servitude to the bankster-run government. 

Media Manipulation and Control
A government-sponsored media that censors information is a key component of Third World countries. In some countries, the media is openly owned by the State. 

In America, the corporations dominate the government and these same corporations own the media. Therefore, we have state-sponsored media control by default. 

• In 1983, fifty corporations dominated most of every mass medium … 
• In 1987, the fifty companies had shrunk to twenty-nine. … 
• In 1990, the twenty-nine had shrunk to twenty three. 
• … In 1997, the biggest firms numbered ten….Today there are only 8 giant media companies dominating the US media (Disney, AOL-Time Warner, Viacom, General Electric/NBC, Yahoo, Microsoft and Google). 
• -- Ben H. Bagdikian,The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), pp. xx—xxi 

Then there is former award-winning CNN special correspondent, Amber Lyon, who left CNN because, as she says, CNN was taking money from the federal government to embellish and openly fabricate some stories while not covering other stories. 

The concentration of ownership has led to censorship when national and corporate interests overlap and in typical Third World fashion, by default, we have government-run media. The simple solution is to turn off the television. 

Conclusion 

For those with the means, skills, and a supportive structure of family and friends, it is time to seriously consider leaving America for brighter shores to escape America’s decline into a nation that has slipped to Third World status.. At the very minimum, every American with anything left to call their own should seriously consider offshore banking to preserve their assets before they are totally seized by this bankster-run government. Again, it is time to stop putting our money into their banks, shopping in their corporate-owned stores and playing the game by their crooked rules. 

America is a conquered nation. When our treasonous Congress approved the theft of the nation’s treasury by Wall Street in the 2008 bailout, a bankster-sponsored economic coup d’état took over this country and now we are witnessing the plundering of our personal assets as part of the war booty. 

America, you have no rights, you have no claim to your property, you have no real liberties and soon you will have no claim to your life. You are living in a police state run by the Federal Reserve whose police state policies are enforced by the Gestapo-like DHS. 

In a few years, if you do nothing, many of you reading these words will not be here to see the final roll-out of this bankster-run tyranny. 

What shall we do? My suggestion is read Thomas Paine’s pamphlet, Common Sense, and then start deciding on your own what you need to do.

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