Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts

     With the passing of Draconian laws America is starting to look more like an authoritarian country of the past than the land of the free. Beyond military possibly being called to police their own citizens or internet censorship akin to countries like China, America is also seeing the use of debtor prisons. In times of financial peril, such as now, it is scary to think of the amount of people who could be labeled as criminals with such practices in use. Historically debtor prisons were a place that people were thrown into and as debt continue to rise, forgotten about. America already has the highest rates of incarciration in the world, if this catches on these statistics will only sky rocket. Do we want to be allowed to become criminals at the hands of those who have already enslaved us in this over driven commercial society? In this brave new world their will be no forgiveness for those who will not conform.

Illinois Debtors Thrown In Jail

Some Illinois residents struggling to pay off their debt have yet another thing to worry about: getting thrown in jail.
As WBEZ reports, creditors in the state have figured out ways around laws that prevent them from putting debtors in jail, and the number of people being issued arrest warrants linked to unpaid bills is growing. Collection agencies can reportedly file a lawsuit requiring a court appearance, and if the defendant doesn't show up for their hearing, an arrest warrant can be issued.
The practice has been happening more often in a stagnant economy, and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan wants to do something about it.
"We can no longer allow debt collectors to pervert the courts," Madigan told the Wall Street Journal, adding that some victims of this practice were thrown in jail without knowing that they were being sued due to misleading or sloppy paperwork submitted to the court by debt collectors.
NPR spoke to one Illinois woman who was shocked to learn that a warrant was out for her arrest:

Take, for example, what happened to Robin Sanders in Illinois. She was driving home when an officer pulled her over for having a loud muffler. But instead of sending her off with a warning, the officer arrested Sanders, and she was taken right to jail.
"That's when I found out [that] I had a warrant for failure to appear in Macoupin County. And I didn't know what it was about."
Sanders owed $730 on a medical bill. She says she didn't even know a collection agency had filed a lawsuit against her.
Vivian Joy, 53, told the Wall Street Journal she was handcuffed and taken to jail in Champaign, Ill. over a $2,200 debt to Champaign Heights Finance Corp.
"They cuffed me in front of my kids. That was terrifying," Joy, who is unemployed, told the paper. She said she was unaware of a lawsuit or arrest warrant until she was pulled over for a broken taillight.
Kevin Kelly with the Illinois Creditors Bar Association told WBEZ that creditors don't want to send people to jail, but feel they have no other options.
"So we’ve got five notices that have already gone out either by personally serving them or that have gone out by mail, five separate notices. And we’ve received absolutely no response to any of them. I’m not certain what more we can do," he told the station
"We hear time and again from the legal aid lawyers who ultimately find out often about these people when they're in jail that people didn't even know there was a lawsuit against them, let alone a judgment had been entered," Madigan told WBEZ. Her office is investigating agencies that may be abusing the law, and said judges need to be fully aware of debtors' rights before such hearings.
Madigan said such practices could lead to modern-day debtors' prisons, and the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation hopes to ban the practice altogether next year.
Arrest warrants for debtors are "flourishing statewide," Madigan told the Wall Street Journal, but Illinois is not alone. The paper reports that judges in nine counties across the country have signed off on 5,000 debt-related warrants since 2010.

   Here is evidence that the EU is planning on presenting plans to create a a European Monetary Fund with powers to over ride elected governments in regards to economic decisions. In an age where the populace is supposed to be educated in the ideas of civil rights and freedoms how can it seem like a good idea to erect super powerful levels of government which kill national rights and sovereignty. The age of fascism is rising again in Europe. This time it is hiding under the cloak of economic cooperation. Once the dust from this crisis settles the only thing left will be a gravestone for national sovereignty sitting at he door to a single European super state. The dreams of the likes of Hitler and Napoleon are coming true without a single gun being fired.

     The protestors that have taken to the streets in Wall Street and around the country have noble intentions, speaking to the problems of the rich and bankers oppressing the people. However most of them being leftest in their views, I was willing to put that aside to see if these messages could be spread to a wider audience.
     My questions and concerns grew when the presence of more and more celebrities were seen on the streets to support the protestors. Through various means Hollywood and the music industry can reign in their celebrities if need be, so the more celebrities that show, the more caution that needs to be taken. The worst instance of which was the video which was shot of Michael Moore's words at the Occupy Wall Street protests this past week. He was asked of his feelings of the Federal Reserve, and responded that the problem does not lie with the Fed but with Capitalism itself. He then went on to call for the end of capitalism as he has in his most recent of documentary.
     The real problem with the economy is the fact that our banking system and government has driven our economy into so much debt that for a very long time our system has only been able to exist by going deeper into debt. As debt increases the more money of ours that the government has to take in order to payoff the interest incurred and loans needed to keep feeding the banking system.
     As the disturbing arrests of hundreds of protestors in New York were taking place yesterday the protests were spreading to other cities. The message is being spread and becoming more transparent. There is more media that are going out to these protests in order to ask the protestors why they are there. As they scream about how horrible the economy has become as of late, there was an unusual amount of protestors calling for the re-election of President Obama. The protestors are demanding the taxation of who they perceive as rich, and the passing of such plans support by Obama. The true problem with such ideas the missing facts of taxation of the rich. For example, the high taxation of someone making around $200,000 as Obama's plan calls for will only serve to damage the tax payer but never raise enough money to fix the debt crisis. The true hole in the taxation codes are the massive waivers given to giant corporations (article showing some of the history of these tax breaks). Even thou the debt problem is already reached dire proportions you can't begin to understand the problem until you can see this. 

      These messages are coming out as their seems to be more involvement from groups like Moveon.org talking about and promoting the protests. Moveon.og has a known history of being partially funded by the big Wall Street name of George Soros. When you see George Soros interests involved and also look at the reality of calling for the re-election of President Obama you see the interest of these Wall Street bankers being promoted there is major concern the these interests are co-opting the protestors. As the co-opting occurs the general message of identifying Wall Street as the enemies of the people is being replaced by a political message supporting politicians with a pro-banking policy followed by near socialistic demands upon the government.
    I have been putting off the publication of this article to hear more about what the protestors are asking for. As the mainstream media is starting to follow these previously mentioned demands, the word on the street from alternative media sources is that the majority of the protestors on the streets do know the true problem is with the Federal Reserve creating the problems in the economy which has led to the government taxing the people for the banks benefit. However good that the true grassroots message is alive with the majority of the protestors, it will end up being the message of the ones that are supporting more communistic ideas of wealth redistribution that will get attention from the media.
     It is up to these protestors that are amongst these socialist to continue to educate them in the hopes that the Occupy Wall Street movement will develop into the occupy the Federal Reserve protest. The only way to combat this issue is to go after the heart of the problem. Hopefully we will not be dragged down in another George Soros funded U.S. government directed color revolution. If we drop these socialistic demands and focus on attacking the heart of the problem, The Federal Reserve, this could develop into a movement with the proper direction to make real change.Otherwise we will find ourselves with a government granted more power to control our lives and feed money to the bankers. Thus completely undermining the initial intent of the protestors.

Here is a film that helps to show the problems with the American banking system:





Update 10/6/11: Now that the left is putting effort behind the co-opting the movement the media coverage has sky-rocketed! The Co-opters have submitted their list of demands with no mention of the problems with the Federal Reserve, completely ignoring the heart of the problem.

    Greece is at the center of the global economic system coming into its newest phase of operation. Never before within the history of the modern global economic system has there been a challenge such as the current situation in Europe (and on the horizon in the U.S.). Now we are seeing the brutal reality of how international bailouts and the IMF will actually work.
     Since about the end of World War II there has been an economic system put into effect which theoretically is supposed to help prevent a situation like like the Great Depression which proceeded World War II. The International Monetary Fund was created with the goal of helping to prevent economic crises or help countries that find themselves in financial crisis. As the IMF orchestrates financial aid they do so at a price. The IMF will make demands of a country receiving aid in order to have a say in the rebuilding of the economy, hoping to prevent a future problem.
    Greece now finds itself under the direction of the IMF and Europe in order to secure the loans needed to prevent defaulting. Although Greece is being praised for the amount of work in restructure and implementation of austerity measures Greek people are not so happy with the results. It has meant that the Greek people are forced to deal with whatever poverty inducing measures that are dictated to them. Massive protests have ensued. Due to the Greeks displeasure with being forced to live in poverty for what is mostly the fault of collusion between bankers and government aside from protests and riots there has been resistance to paying certain taxes that have been levied on them since the beginning of the crisis.
     Greece's most recently has past a new property tax in order to fulfill its obligations to the IMF and Europe, which will ensure the release of more funds to continue to be able to pay their bills. The matter in which the tax will be collected is very controversial, and shows the kind of tactics which should expected when dealing with the IMF. The tax will be included in Greek energy bills. Tax evaders will therefore be faced with the possibility of having their power cut off.

Property tax
Mr Papandreou attended a media conference on Tuesday evening with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, where she said Germany wanted a strong Greece.
"We will do everything that is necessary for that," said Mrs Merkel, but added that Greece had to fulfil its obligations in order to keep the support of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the EU Commission.
"Through the euro, we are closely bound together, and the weakness of one affects us all," she added.
Meanwhile the Greek parliament has passed a controversial new property tax bill, first announced earlier this month, that aims to boost revenues.
All 154 of the ruling Socialist PASOK party's deputies voted in favour of the measure, winning a majority in the 300-seat parliament.
The move will prove controversial among Greeks, with the extra tax to be paid through electricity bills to make it easier for the state to collect.
Anyone who does not pay the new tax risks having their power cut off.                                Read entire article

    Due to the fact that the current economic crisis has no end in sight, it will be inevitable that more and more countries will soon be requesting similar help from the IMF. The outlook is so bleak that the IMF is looking to increase the fund's savings in case more countries do need help. Since the IMF sees reason to be concerned about their ability to be able to cover the coming economic crises it is guaranteed that in order to protect their money the policies required by the IMF to secure such loans will become more and more drastic. This will possibly require the countries receiving loans to cut funding for all programs to minimum levels, which will not take into account the preservation of a first world lifestyle. The IMF generally requires cuts to all social welfare programs (not necessarily corporate welfare because business is the key to economic recovery, businesses make money, people waste money). If the restructuring of a nations funding of government programs does not work then eventually pensions will be attacked, and possibly land sold off (as Greece has had to consider).
         If we continue to try to prop up an economy that is beyond repair we are only feeding into the governments and bankers wishes. The loans of the IMF have to be paid back with interest. With compound interest policies factored in the IMF and banks involved have so much money to gain in the long term in exchange for some short term suffering. Few politicians will gain a lot off of such a crisis but for those politicians that crave power the crisis only serves them in justifying the ability to pass laws which will solidify the control of the economy and the lives of their citizens. The name of the game is the consolidation of ownership and power. Let the economies fall and rebuild it for ourselves. The more we feed into trying to fix the economies through the governments and institutions which they have established for us the more we play into the elaborate scheme which they were waiting for. Those who were at Bretton Woods, which created the IMF and much of the modern economy, envisioned the day that the institutions they created would grow into a global regulating and governing structure. As this plan comes to fruition our individual freedom and sovereignty dies.

       However not being the end all be all answer to economic woes, one of the only answers at the moment is Gold (gold and silver hoards of the governments and rich/powerful could be used to manipulate the markets at the same time if we go completely digital what good will it be). The problem with Gold is that it ejects you from the banker created/ government regulated economic system. Recent news coming from Europe harks back to the times in history when gold has been outlawed and confiscated from the public.
      Under the guise of attempting to curb  the sales of stolen metals France has passed a law to limit the amount of a metal that can be sold at one time. The law reads in translation as, “Any transaction on the retail purchase of ferrous and non ferrous (metals) is made by crossed check, bank or postal transfer or by credit card, not the total amount of the transaction may not exceed a ceiling set by decree. Failure to comply with this requirement is punishable by a ticket for the fifth class,” going on to confirm that any amount over €450 euros or $600 US dollars “must be paid by bank transfer”.
      The problem here is that the  law does not exclude such precious metals as gold. At the limit of  €450 it is impossible in most circumstances to buy even a half an ounce of gold. For those who look to move their savings into precious metals will find it very difficult to do so with such a law. At the same time the details of the law make it where the transactions will have to be done through a type of a bank transfer. This opens them up to the ability of the government to be able to identify those who have gold in their possession.
      There have been numerous times in history where gold sales or possession have been outlawed. In American history it is little known to most people that during the Great Depression possession of monetary gold was outlawed, and forced confiscation of existing gold through Roosevelt's executive order 6102 in 1933. We are in a depression regardless of what the mainstream media says. Especially with the growing anti-Federal Reserve movement in this country(example: occupy Wall Street) how far are we from our government taking the same drastic measures?

Here is a video of stock market and forex trader Alessio Rastani giving an interview on BBC about the realities of the current financial situation and who really runs the world. One of the few times you will ever here a honest hard hitting truth on a major media outlet. Enjoy his comments because unless they want us very very scared you will probably never see this guy on TV again.

   Two weeks ago Fish and wildlife service of the Justice department raided Gibson Guitars(read article for in depth details) manufacturing factories. When Gibson acquires there wood from certified dealers there was numerous pallets of wood that were confiscated by the Feds due to supposed violation of laws controlling the importation of protected woods for the manufacturing of certain guitar parts. This seems to be a trend affecting manufactures and owners of vintage musical instruments.
Controlling even musical instruments is an outrageous example of the trend of the government regulating all aspects of people's lives. The UN and US laws for sustainability calls for the control of all resources.
Besides the control of the raw materials for the manufacturing the control of labor resources is also of issue here. Gibson is renowned for its label and quality of American made. The developments in this case have lead to the fact that the DoJ has recommended that Gibson manufacture their guitars in Madagascar to avoid interference from the DoJ. Due to all the international trade agreements the DoJ is trying to make it illegal to work these protected woods due to the fact that they are not grown in America. Again America undermines its own businesses for the sake of upholding international laws and bureaucratic regulations. When will we stop this trend of the last forty years where we send all our work abroad?
To see the CEO of Gibson discuss the latest developments watch this latest interview:

       The Federal Reserve should be held accountable for the way they oppress the people of America (and the world) through collusion with the whole banking system. We can not stop here. The constitution says only congress can coin money. This problem here is congress gave the Fed this power, so it is legal according to the constitution. We need to wipe out the Fed for failed practices. We also needed to confront Congress for their poor choices and change the American system so that Congress can never again sell its people down the river to some banking system. It is just as much the bankers fault as it is Congress and the Constitution. Our founding fathers failed to exclude these abuses from the language of the Constitution irregardless of what we interpret their intent to be today.

Audit the Fed: Bernanke and the Bankers Are Running Scared

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
November 28, 2009
Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve mob boss, is running scared. He is deathly afraid an audit of his criminal organization.
“These measures are very much out of step with the global consensus on the appropriate role of central banks, and they would seriously impair the prospects for economic and financial stability in the United States,” Bernanke wrote in the CIA’s favorite newspaper, The Washington Post.

Maybe Bernanke is worried he will be obliged to wear an orange jumpsuit in the wake of an audit.

Bernanke penned his tribute to central banking and globalism prior to his scheduled testimony before a Senate panel on his renomination to serve a second four-year term as Fed mob boss.
Bankster tool Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, tried to derail an effort to audit the Fed but failed. A proposal to audit the Fed’s monetary policy deliberations won a committee vote recently over Frank’s objections.
In his Mockingbird media editorial, Bernanke “conceded the Fed had missed some of the riskiest behavior in the lead up to the crisis. But he said the Fed had helped avoid an even more damaging economic meltdown and has stepped up its policing of the financial system.”
In fact, the Fed was specifically designed to create financial crises. It was all plotted in 1910 when minions of J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, the Rothschilds and Warburgs met on Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia. In 1913, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank was created as a direct result of that secret meeting. Said Congressman Charles Lindbergh on the midnight passage of the Federal Reserve Act: “From now on, depressions will be scientifically created.”
In order to scientifically create an economic depression, the Fed prompted irresponsible speculation by expanding the money supply sixty-two percent between 1923 and 1929. The so-called Great Depression followed. This depression “was not accidental. It was a carefully contrived occurrence,” declared Congressman Louis McFadden, Chairman of the House Banking Committee. “The international bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair here so that they might emerge as rulers of us all.”
In March of 1929, Paul Warburg issued a tip that the scientifically created crash was coming. Before it did, John D. Rockefeller, Bernard Baruch, Joseph P. Kennedy, and other banksters got out of the market.A few years later, the banksters and their minions met in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, and plotted the creation of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The purpose of these two criminal organizations was to set-up a global Federal Reserve system and wage economic warfare on billions of people. The weapon they used was debt and the loss of sovereignty that follows.
In 1971, then president Nixon fit one of the last pieces into the puzzle — he signed an executive order declaring that the United States no longer had to redeem its paper dollars for gold. It was a great day for the banksters and the global elite. The gold standard ensured predictability and regularity in the economy and the banksters wanted to put an end to that. For the bankers, order and control is realized out of chaos and misery.
Fast-forward to the present day. Bernanke’s Fed has meticulously sabotaged the economy in order to create a crisis in classic Hegelian fashion. The corporate media tells us the crisis is the result of ineptitude and mismanagement at the Federal Reserve. Au contraire. Like the Great Depression, the even Greater Depression now on the horizon was scientifically created.
The Fed is the primary instrument the bankers are now using to destroy the middle class, hand over all public assets and resources to them, implement a crushing austerity, usher in a new era of global corporatist feudalism and build a sprawling planet-wide slave plantation based on China’s totalitarian model.
It is the ultimate dream of the banking cartel. It will be used as the foundation to build world government. Destroying the dollar as the world’s reserve currency is only the beginning.
Bernanke knows Ron Paul and the audit the Fed movement are extremely dangerous. That’s why he is pushing this facile “oops” theory. In order to fix things, the Fed will use its “knowledge of complex financial institutions” in order to supervise them, he writes in his Mockingbird editorial. Allowing audits of Federal Reserve monetary policy would increase the perceived influence of Congress on interest rate decisions, he says.
No, it would lay bare the criminality of the Federal Reserve. Maybe Bernanke is worried he will be obliged to wear an orange jumpsuit in the wake of an audit.
As for Congress, Bernanke needs to read Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. Congress shall have exclusive power to “coin Money, regulate the Value thereof,” not a criminal cartel of monopoly men who dream of a prison planet.

At one time I liked Bill Maher, but time and time again he has showed himself to be a tool for the liberal side of this control system. Congrats to Richard Belzer for doing his homework and showing that Bill Maher just goes with the main stream beliefs without doing his own studying.

*Warning* As of late the news has been making the economic problems to be less dire then they really are. We need to realize that NOTHING has been fixed. The problems are in the bankers and the government collusion. Through our tax payer bailout we have allowed this to continue and delay the true effect. Most economic events take over a year to see the real consequences. Look into this. There is more money in derivatives than the total of the world's annual GDP. How can we allow our government to continue to save a system that is set up for only those who can afford to gamble in the millions of dollars? The people are not the problem!

The $531 Trillion Dollar Derivatives Time Bomb

Wise Up Journal / Sovereign Independent - Sept/Oct issue, page 12
01.09.2009
By Gabriel O’Hara

What are derivatives? Some investors describe them as “dormant economic weapons of mass destruction”. They essentially are large leveraged bets on top of stocks, bonds and commodities. Money can be made within months or seconds by betting if a stock will go up, down or even remain the same. With no credit rating you can place a bet worth double your account balance. Big time investors get greater leverage with these instantaneous loans.

The New York Times, Oct 8th 2008: “The derivatives market is $531 trillion, up from $106 trillion in 2002″. This market is setup with odds similar to a racetrack. Trillions are won and lost (transferred) every second. But unlike a racetrack the big players have ultimate control. Their trillions can make stocks move. A 4% up swing in a stock can cause a derivative bet to rise more than 100% in value or vice versa. A low performing stock that rises only 6% a year could actually have many 3, 6 or 9 percent swings weekly or monthly (some stocks daily). There are billions to be made over and over again by the people that control billions and trillions thus the markets. A grand game approved by the top.

The globe’s GDP is at $60.1 trillion. The globe’s total financial assets were reported as $167 trillion in 2006. A few trillion lower today no doubt. The highly volatile derivatives market is worth noting because it dwarfs the entire world’s GDP and total financial assets combined.

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Americans are about to re-learn that bank deposit insurance isn't free, even as Washington is doing its best to delay the coming bailout. The banking system and the federal fisc would both be better off in the long run if the political class owned up to the reality.

We're referring to the federal deposit insurance fund, which has been shrinking faster than reservoirs in the California drought. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. reported late last week that the fund that insures some $4.5 trillion in U.S. bank deposits fell to $10.4 billion at the end of June, as the list of failing banks continues to grow. The fund was $45.2 billion a year ago, when regulators told us all was well and there was no need to take precautions to shore up the fund.

The FDIC has since had to buttress the fund with a $5.6 billion special levy on top of the regular fees that banks already pay for the federal guarantee. This has further drained bank capital, even as regulators say the banking system desperately needs more capital. Everyone now assumes the FDIC will hit banks with yet another special insurance fee in anticipation of even more bank losses. The feds would rather execute this bizarre dodge of weakening the same banks they claim must get stronger rather than admit that they'll have to tap the taxpayers who are the ultimate deposit insurers.

It isn't as if regulators don't understand the problem. Earlier this year they quietly asked Congress to provide up to $500 billion in Treasury loans to repay depositors. The FDIC can draw up to $100 billion merely by asking, while the rest requires Treasury approval. The request was made on the political QT because, amid the uproar over TARP and bonuses, no one in Congress or the Obama Administration wanted to admit they'd need another bailout.

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