The politics of greed is what keeps this world wrapped in corruption. If you want to stick around for a while longer, I suggest you educate yourself and try to do something constructive to help save what little good, honesty, and trust we have left.

A motto for us old vets: Take one with you!

Use your Go Back and Go Forward commands to get to where you were in a previous file.

Go to Home

Highest Go To numbers are the latest Links of all coruption pages.


Go to 12366
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=7843
Italian Says 9/11 Solved

American Free Press – December 14, 2007

Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga, who revealed the existence of Operation Gladio, has told Italy’s oldest and most widely read newspaper that the 9-11 terrorist attacks were run by the CIA and Mossad, and that this was common knowledge among global intelligence agencies. In what translates awkwardly into English, Cossiga told the newspaper Corriere della Sera:

“All the [intelligence services] of America and Europe…know well that the disastrous attack has been planned and realized from the Mossad, with the aid of the Zionist world in order to put under accusation the Arabic countries and in order to induce the western powers to take part … in Iraq [and] Afghanistan.”

Cossiga was elected president of the Italian Senate in July 1983 before winning a landslide election to become president of the country in 1985, and he remained until 1992.

Cossiga’s tendency to be outspoken upset the Italian political establishment, and he was forced to resign after revealing the existence of, and his part in setting up, Operation Gladio. This was a rogue intelligence network under NATO auspices that carried out bombings across Europe in the 1960s, 1970s and ’80s. Gladio’s specialty was to carry out what they termed “false flag” operations—terror attacks that were blamed on their domestic and geopolitical opposition.

In March 2001, Gladio agent Vincenzo Vinciguerra stated, in sworn testimony, “You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple: to force … the public to turn to the state to ask for greater security.”

Cossiga first expressed his doubts about 9-11 in 2001, and is quoted by 9-11 researcherWebster Tarpley saying “The mastermind of the attack must have been a sophisticated mind, provided with ample means not only to recruit fanatic kamikazes, but also highly specialized personnel. I add one thing: it could not be accomplished without infiltrations in the radar and
flight security personnel.”

Coming from a widely respected former head of state, Cossiga’s assertion that the 9-11 attacks were an inside job and that this is common knowledge among global intelligence agencies is illuminating. It is one more eye-opening confirmation that has not been mentioned by America’s propaganda machine in print or on TV. Nevertheless, because of his experience and status in the world, Cossiga cannot be discounted as a crackpot.


From the American Free Press December 24, 2008

Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute - as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
www.americanfreepress.net/html/9-11_solved118.html



Go to 12365
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=7846
Israel's Netanyahu Claims President Bush Promised Unilateral Nuclear Bomb Attack Against Iran
Veterans for Common Sense.org – January 10, 2008

Wire Services - US President George W. Bush promised Israel's opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu that the United States will join the Jewish state in a nuclear strike against Iran, Israel Radio reported today.

Former Prime Minister Netanyahu, opposition Likud party's hardline chairman who opposes the US-backed Annapolis peace process, reiterated to President Bush his stance, that a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Iran's nuclear installations was the only way to stop the Islamic nation's nuclear weapons ambitions.

"I told him my position and Bush agreed," Netanyahu told Israel Radio.

During their 45-minute meeting at King David hotel in Jerusalem Netanyahu also told Bush that "Jerusalem belongs to the Jewish people and will remain under Israeli sovereignty for eternity."

President Bush issued a stark warning to Iran over Strait of Hormuz incident, saying that "all options are on the table to protect our assets."

“There will be serious consequences if they attack our ships, pure and simple,” Bush said during the joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem. “And my advice to them is, don't do it.”

Bush criticized those who interpret the National Intelligence Estimate, which found that Iran gave up its nuclear weapons program in 2003, as a sign that Iran was no longer a threat.

"Let me remind you what the NIE actually said," Bush told reporters. "It said that as far as the intelligence community could tell, at one time the Iranians had a military -- covert military program that was suspended in 2003 because of international pressure. My attitude is that a non-transparent country, a country which has yet to disclose what it was up to, can easily restart a program."
www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=9104



Go to 12364
http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=6024
Organs To Be Taken Without Consent
01-13-2008
London Times

Gordon Brown has thrown his weight behind a move to allow hospitals to take organs from dead patients without explicit consent.

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, the Prime Minister says that such a facility would save thousands of lives and that he hopes such a system can start this year.

The proposals would mean consent for organ donation after death would be automatically presumed, unless individuals had opted out of the national register or family members objected.



Go to 12363
http://www.newstarget.com/022485.html
Merck Engaged in Blatant Scientific Fraud with Vytorin Cholesterol Study? (opinion)
Friday, January 11, 2008 by: Mike Adams

(NewsTarget Editorial) It's no surprise these days to hear about a pharmaceutical company committing scientific fraud and distorting clinical trials to get the results they want, but it's unusual to see it done as blatantly and arrogantly as what you're about to see here.

In June, 2002, Merck and Shering-Plough began a cholesterol study called "ENHANCE" to test the effectiveness of their blockbuster drug Vytorin ($3 billion in sales so far). The trial concluded in 2006, and the final results are still not available. Why? Because the companies are sitting on the data, trying to figure out how to manipulate the results enough to make them look good!

The trial was attempting to measure the reduction of arterial plaque in the carotid arteries, and this reduction was measured by a high-tech ultrasound imaging technique called intravascular ultrasound. The measurements from the study were murky and unreliable. Some were "biologically implausible," meaning the images were showing things that could not possibly exist in a human body. So instead of doing the scientifically correct thing and ditching the study results, they decided to do something arrogant (and scientifically invalid): They changed the definition of what the study was measuring, after the fact!

In other words, they decided to cherry pick the data they wanted to use by redefining the goal of the study after it was complete. This is such a blatant violation of scientific principles that it would earn you an "F" if you tried to pull this stunt in a high school chemistry class.

Upon hearing about this utterly non-scientific alteration of the trial goals, the medical community expressed outrage. Big Pharma critics leapt at the opportunity to point out how drug-company-funded clinical trials are little more than junk science designed to distort findings and produce the results desired by the study sponsor. Even Congress got in on the act, announcing an investigation of Merck for its apparent attempt to commit scientific fraud with Vytorin study results.

By the way, the FDA doesn't require medical studies to be non-fraudulent. The agency is happy to accept fraudulent studies from Big Pharma -- and it has done so for decades! When it comes to pharmaceuticals, the point of conducting studies is not to discover the scientifically-validated truth about a particular drug's effects on the human body, but rather to provide a sufficient amount of pseudoscientific cover to allow the FDA to approve the drug and proclaim it to be both safe and effective. It's all about sales, after all, and if a little science needs to be "redefined" along the way to earn another billion dollars a year in the marketplace, then that's easy to accomplish.

So now, instead of measuring three points along the carotid artery where plaque typically accumulates, the Vyrotin ENHANCE study will retroactively select just one point. And guess what? Merck gets to choose which point!

I sure would like to use this system the next time I got to Vegas. I'll just place my bet on the roulette wheel after the spinning stops! Or maybe I'll go to the poker table, have the dealer toss me ten cards, and then I'll decide which five cards I want to be in my hand! It sure would be nice to be able to cherry pick the results I want to "count" after the fact, wouldn't it?

That's what Merck is doing with this study: It's decided what data to choose after all the cards are on the table!

Now, I don't know what your definition of the Scientific Method is, but most people agree it goes something like this:

1. First, you define the goal of the study and declare what you're going to measure.

2. Next, you take your observations and measurements.

3. Then, you analyze the observations and measurements to reach a reasonable conclusion based on the data.

Merck apparently believes there should be a fourth step:

4. You discard whatever results don't match the outcome you wanted to see, then write up a conclusion based on the selective evidence.

This is what Big Pharma now considers to be "scientific."

I just call it quackery.

In fact, I just posted a YouTube video with a satire Vytorin ad that makes fun of this stupid scientific nonsense now being spouted by Merck. Check it out by clicking the link below:
Go to 12362
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwendcLch-4


Scientific fraud is routine in pharmaceutical medicine today
What's important in all this is not simply the fact that Merck is apparently engaged in scientific fraud in this particular study, but rather the fact that Merck thought selectively discarding data and redefining the goal of the study after the fact was an acceptable scientific practice!

This is an indication of just how completely drug companies have abandoned anything resembling the Scientific Method and are now just making up the science as they go along. It's sort of like listening to the Bush Administration talk about global warming: They just make up whatever goofy logic sounds good for the moment, and then declare that to be "scientifically sound." It's science by declaration!

More importantly, the only reason these drug companies have to keep fudging the data like this is because their drugs don't work! If the drug was any good, they wouldn't have to cherry pick the data, would they? The fact that this kind of scientific nonsense is taking place tells you just how shabby the data are in the first place.

Let's face it: If you're playing poker and the dealer hands you a royal flush right from the get go, you don't need new cards, do you?

Now, I'm not saying that testing pharmaceuticals is the same as playing poker in Las Vegas, but there's no doubt that if you base your decisions on the studies being funded by Big Pharma, you're gambling with your health.


Why "evidence-based medicine" is a joke
Modern pharmaceutical medicine has become a grand medical hoax. Beyond all the bribery, price fixing, corruption, dishonest advertising, monopoly prices and deadly drug side effects, underneath the whole thing it's all based on scientific fraud. We're not just talking about one drug and one study here, you see. This is the way Big Pharma routinely conducts business. It's all about getting the results they want to see, regardless of what it takes, who has to be bribed, which researchers have to be intimidated, and so on.

The result, of course, is an entire system of medicine that has produced the most diseased population in the history of modern civilization. While Americans pay more money (by far) than anybody else for medicine, they simultaneously rank dead last in avoiding preventable disease (Source: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 2008).

Americans are the most drugged and yet least healthy people among industrialized nations. Our FDA is the most corrupt drug agency among such nations, and our pharmaceutical companies are in my opinion the most dishonest. There's nothing they won't do to win approval for their dangerous chemicals, including committing blatant scientific fraud.

Modern pharmaceutical medicine, you see, is no longer about good science. It's all about good marketing. The science is gone, and it's been replaced with a profit agenda. It makes you wonder how any intelligent person can really trust pharmaceuticals, doesn't it?

The truth, of course, is that intelligent people don't take pharmaceuticals anymore. They've found healthier, natural alternatives that are safer, cheaper and far more effective, like turmeric root for cancer prevention, blueberries for cholesterol control and cinnamon for blood sugar control. They're adopted healthier lifestyles, turning to raw foods, juicing, superfoods and microalgae like spirulina and chlorella. They've realized that the drug companies are full of bunk, and that no pharmaceutical has ever cured any disease. Yet diabetics, heart disease patients and cancer patients and reversing their diseases like never before by turning to a plant-based diet, engaging in regular exercise and avoiding all toxic chemicals (including those in foods, drugs and personal care products).

To those people who still think for themselves, pharmaceuticals are largely irrelevant. The drug companies -- with all their slick marketing, scientific fraud, political influence and celebrity sponsorship -- will soon find themselves selling products only to the uninformed, low-IQ junk food eating consumers who simply don't know any better. All the smart, successful, sexy, healthy and productive people are turning to natural remedies and increasingly adopting plant-based diets.

It's pretty simple, really: Plants make you healthy; drugs make you sick. Plants protect your liver; drugs destroy it. Plants enhance brain function; drugs destroy brain function. Plants are naturally compatible with human biology; drugs are naturally toxic to human biology. Plants need no slick marketing; drugs require slick marketing. Plants were put here by God and Mother Nature; drugs were put here by greedy, criminal-minded drug company personnel who profit from your disease.

Which would you rather trust with your life: Mother Nature, or Big Pharma?

Be sure to watch my satire video on YouTube:
=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwendcLch-4

About the author: Mike Adams is a consumer health advocate with a mission to teach personal and planetary health to the public He is a prolific writer and has published thousands of articles, interviews, reports and consumer guides, reaching millions of readers with information that is saving lives and improving personal health around the world. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company.



Go to 12361
http://www.rense.com/ufo6/corrupt.htm
Corrupt Top IRS
Officials Face Exposure
In Dope Bust, Part 2
By Sherman H. Skolnick
1-10-2000


(Note - The views and statements contained in this story do not necessarily represent those of this website or its sponsors. Replies, comments, and rebuttals are welcomed as always.)


Here are more details of those incriminated by the dope bust in a narcotics "immunity" zone known as Kinsgspoint Condominiums, four large apartment buildings and surrounding area, in a suburb west of Chicago. As we told you in Part One of this story, corrupt top IRS officials took over the buildings, NOT for the public Treasury, but for themselves personally. The property was thus stolen from the original owner, Joseph Andreuccetti. More of those implicated in the dope trafficking:

ILLINOIS GOVERNOR GEORGE H. RYAN, dope laundry criminal and bribe-taker and bribe-giver: Elected Illinois Governor in 1998 amid a growing scandal that previously, as Illinois Secretary of State, he received massive bribery funds from various of his managers, supervisors, and examiners of his Vehicle and Drivers License Bureaus all over Illinois.

By extortion and shake-down and other such arrangements, they received or procured bribes to issue drivers licenses to truckers and others NOT eligible to have such licenses. Several have already pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges, although they contended THEY DID NOT KEEP THE BRIBES THEMSELVES but forwarded the bribes as they believe the system required, to Ryan for his political campaign funds.


As their former boss, Ryan contends he does not know any of these key people running his state-wide facilities when he was the State official heading the whole operation. He does not recall, he says, getting the bribery proceeds but to make some amends is willing to donate 130 thousand dollars to charity to show his supposed good faith.


Ryan was elected State Governor in 1998 in an extremely close race by reportedly bribing the State Board of Elections to push a third party candidate off the ballot. With only four per cent expected difference between Ryan as GOP candidate and his Democrat Party challenger, the third party candidate would have made it impossible for Ryan to win. A judge upholding the removal from the ballot of the third party candidate, also reportedly was bribed. All told, upwards of one million dollars [reportedly from the license bribery funds] in pay-offs reportedly was split between the Elections Board, the judge, and corrupt State and Federal Revenue bosses who blackmailed their way into the deal. An elite IRS team, however, has recommended to the Justice Department, the federal criminal prosecution of Ryan. Ryan has an unholy alliance with the Clinton White House, despite that they are supposedly of different political parties. [See our story, "Centers of Corruption, Intrigue, and How to Get Elected", visit our website: www.skolnicksreport.com]

In a one hour Cable TV Show I did just prior to the 1998 election, I pointed out that George H. Ryan reportedly works business deals with and for the narcotics gangsters from the Caribbean, such as Jamaica. Just after the election, Ryan as Governor-Elect went, naturally, to Jamaica. Part One of this story deals with an ocean-going boat, owned by former and current IRS and State revenue top officials,used reportedly as a criminal laundry for dope proceeds and such, the Caribbean, Mexico, and places in Europe. A purported floating international gambling casino, it apparently interfaces with a highly questionable riverboat casino, in Joliet, just south of Chicago, Empress Casino, under the thumb of Ryan, as governor, appointing his cronies as members of the Illinois Gaming Commission.


Law enforcement personnel contend that Empress somehow washes major dope funds late at night. Used as couriers, we have been told, reportedly have been airline employees often traveling out of the country. Luggage of airline personnel are generally not searched by U.S. Customs agents and officials. From time to time some of these couriers seem to stay at a mob-owned motel in a Northwest suburb of Chicago. The limousine service, naturally, that transports them from the airport to the motel and elsewhere likewise is owned by criminals.


As the dope traffic link to the "immunity" zone, to gambling operations, and to the boat, almost unraveled a few days after the dope bust, the Chairman of the Illinois Gaming Board, suddenly sent his resignation to Governor Ryan. The monopoly press said it was just a flap caused by the Board chairman, Robert Vickrey, somehow mishandling the supposed "new owner" of the Empress Casino. The whitewash was set in motion when Ryan appointed a former federal prosecutor as the new gambling czar.

Ryan's major financial support and arrangements is from the Berwyn-Cicero mafia enclave, Al Capone Land, adjoining Chicago. It is the location, as we told you, of First National Bank of CICERO, long-dominated by former Vatican Bank Chief, Bishop Paul Marcinkus, originally from Cicero. And Marcinkus is wanted in Italy for various crimes jointly with the American CIA and the traditional Italian and Sicilian mafia, dope smuggling and a lot more.


Governor Ryan tried to divert attention from his crimes by worldwide publicity of his trip to Cuba. Ryan has a great involvement with the dope traffic through the boat, Jamaica, and a few other places. The IRS bosses know that but have for the moment given Ryan a pass to save themselves and their dope traffic complicity.

ILLINOIS ATTORNEY GENERAL JAMES E. RYAN, long-time faker, mob-protector, and dope traffic accomplice: No relative of the other Ryan, this Ryan was at one time chief prosecutor in Du Page County, adjoining Cook County location of Chicago. And, Chicago's "old West Side mob" has moved to Du Page County. One of their national chieftains reportedly has been Aldo Botti, former officer of Military Intelligence, originally from Brooklyn, and reportedly with some of his law partners part of the Gambino Crime Family. With his Law Office in Oak Brook, Du Page County, Botti was at one time Chairman of the Du Page County Board. Knowledgeable sources contend the mobsters current stronghold center is Oak Brook. [Frank Sinatra jointly with his mob buddies were the major owners of Oak Brook Development Company, developers of the area.]

In 1995, Botti stopped our on-location TV production about Oak Brook, the mob, and him as the reputed head of the mob, by getting me falsely arrested for "trespass", although I and the TV crew were not on his law office property. His gangster-police came with attack dogs, stole my crutches, and demanded I get in their police car minus my crutches[which is not physically possible]. I was handled as rough as if I were caught robbing a major bank. Botti was bothered by us using the big sign with his name on it in front of his law office building, as a backdrop for our TV shots.

To protect the Kingspoint dope "immunity" zone, Aldo Botti's crony, Jim Ryan, has been committing various crimes to stop or interfere with our TV Shows about their criminality. In 1996, Ryan told us point blank he was going to "get" us for the TV Shows I and my TV Show associate volunteer, Joseph Andreuccetti were producing about Ryan's criminality. In 1997, Ryan instigated a four-person, heavily-armed, Gestapo-like team to force their way at gunpoint into Andreuccetti's residence which happens to be not far from where Ryan lives. Ryan's team threatened to shoot Andreuccetti's wife, who helps with our TV productions and studio work, and committed an assault and battery on her. Jim Ryan's Gestapo, tied to the crooked Illinois Director of Revenue, Kenneth Zehnder, WITHOUT A SEARCH WARRANT, searched out our confidential records and tapes and documents about THEIR CRIMES intended by us to be used for upcoming shows; the records and such then kept at Andreuccetti's residence. They plundered, grabbed, and stole such items. [Three civil damage suits by us are pending, some naming James E. Ryan as defendant along with Zehnder.]

To try to stop our work, Ryan as State Attorney General brought false charges against Joseph Andreuccetti and his wife, claiming that in a tiny business run by them, that they supposedly mishandled two thousand dollars in state withholding taxes which, in fact, were to have been paid by a Bankruptcy Trustee. The matter was instigated, as well,by Kenneth Zehnder, Director of the Illinois Department of Revenue, Illinois' highest and most crooked revenue official. As pointed out in undisputed court records, Zehnder is IN with the gambling casino rackets through reputed mobster William F. Cellini, owner of numerous gambling casinos. Likewise contended in court and not disputed, is that Zehnder's crony Cellini gets a corrupt, under-the-table rake-off from many gambling enterprises.


We did a taped, one hour Cable TV Show about how these local criminals are tied to the Clinton White House, entitled "Corruption: Chicago to the White House". To benefit Clinton and other fellow criminals, Jim Ryan had the master tape of our TV Production seized WITHOUT A SEARCH WARRANT, and in violation of State law prohibiting seizure of print and broadcast media items except after a special hearing. [No search warrant, no hearing.] (Do NOT waste our time telling us that as electronic journalists, we have First Amendment Constitutional rights. At the hands of such criminals, our rights are cancelled and worthless. And don't bother telling us these criminals are of different political parties. It is immaterial.)

One reason gangster-officials in Illinois persistently attack us, is that they have not forgotten that our work in the 1970s, sent to prison for bribery the then former Illinois Director of Revenue and his sidekick, a former Governor, at the time of jailing being a federal appeals judge, Otto Kerner, Jr. Kerner went on all the monopoly media and called us "liars". Note: he died an ex-convict just as I had accused him to his face. When Jim Ryan ran for State Attorney General in 1998, he sought public sympathy for a mysterious "ailment" he supposedly had. At times, he was mostly at home using a walker or wheelchair. In 1998 was pending a rare and notorious case called the "Du Page 7", with international press coverage. Several assistant Du Page prosecutors were charged with a conspiracy to frame up and send to prison for murder a person. Because of his "ailment", their former boss, Jim Ryan, who had been formerly Du Page chief prosecutor, was NOT himself criminally prosecuted as were his former underlings.

These former assistant prosecutors were apparently blackmailing whoever they could with our undisputed public court records about Jim Ryan, the crooked judges in Du Page, and others. So the charges against the "Du Page 7" were narrowed down. Result: they were turned loose.

During his 1998 re-election campaign as State Attorney General, Jim Ryan's sole challenger, a Chicago city official, Miriam Santos, a long-time outspoken reformer against corruption, was framed up on extortion charges and was on the way to being federal criminally prosecuted. So Jim Ryan was re-elected, unopposed. After the strange re-election, Jim Ryan mysteriously "recovered" as if nothing were ever wrong with him.

If you know a lot about the history of major criminals, all this is just standard procedures. Although asked to take action by another State official, Attorney General Ryan refused to punish or prosecute his crony, reputed gambling casino mobster William F. Cellini. Cellini was accused of cheating the State out of 18 million dollars in a crooked hotel deal underwritten with State funding. Ryan was asked to take action by Illinois Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, installed in her office with the aid of Bishop Paul Marcinkus, once head of the Vatican Bank and the corrupt influence of his First National Bank of Cicero. Previously, she was Illinois State Senator, her district being, naturally, Berwyn-Cicero, the mafia enclave. In 1994, when running the first time for Illinois Treasurer, Topinka was on our TV Show lavishingly praising the "wonderful" First National Bank of Cicero and Bishop Paul Marcinkus. In some capacity or another, she apparently did public relations work for that Bank, although she denied her title was "publicist", a splitting of hairs. So Topinka demanding that Jim Ryan take action against his crony Cellini may have all been shadow boxing.


As to Jim Ryan and George H. Ryan's crony Congressman Henry Hyde, the master criminal, see Part One of this story. Hyde at one time was the strategist and protector of the dope and gambling center known as Paradise Island in the Bahamas.


BOTTOM LINE: Corrupt top Illinois public officials including the Illinois Director of Revenue and corrupt top brass in the IRS are tied, through riverboat gambling casinos, and through their ocean-going money laundry boat, owned and operated by them or for them, to major dope trafficking. All this linked to Mexican drug bankers. As to top-level U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials jointly with the American CIA and Mexican drug bankers being themselves in the dope traffic, see the book "The Underground Empire" by John Mills. More details coming.



Go to 12360
http://nychousingbubble.blogspot.com/2008/01/banks-trying-to-wiggle-out-of.html
Friday, January 11, 2008
Banks Trying To Wiggle Out Of Accounting Rules Amid Credit Crisis

Banks Plead They Can’t Follow Rules by NYT - snips:

When you are shoveling money, keeping track of the paperwork is an awful burden. As the mortgage mess grows, we are learning more and more about just how sloppy things were in the mortgage-issuing business as loans were churned out, carved into securities and sold off. Judges have blocked some foreclosures with rulings that purchasers of mortgages could not prove that they owned them. The buyers of the mortgages complain that it is unfair to ask them to have complied with detailed rules. And now the banks are begging the accounting rule makers to allow them to ignore a rule that has been on the books for almost 15 years. They explain that they never had any idea that they would have to restructure a lot of home mortgages, and thus had no reason to develop systems to deal with the accounting for such restructurings. “No one anticipated a day when potentially hundreds of thousands of residential mortgage loans would be modified,” said Alison Utermohlen, an official of the Mortgage Bankers Association... She said many members of the association did not have computer systems adequate to comply with the rule, but she did not identify any specific banks. Some may doubt that the issue really is a systems problem at the banks, given that the accounting the banks prefer would allow them to report smaller losses as they restructure loans — and thus make their financial statements look better... In any case, the banks seem to have shared the general belief that house prices would always go up, so anyone unable to meet mortgage payments could sell the house... Banks now own loans they cannot sell. And many of those loans, made when lending standards were at historic lows, are likely to go bad and need to be restructured. The accounting rule in question...


Shiller Says Bank of America May `Have Some Problems' by Bloomberg - snips:

Robert Shiller, Yale professor of economics and co-creator of the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price indexes, said the falling U.S. housing market may cut the value of Countrywide Financial Corp., the mortgage lender being acquired by Bank of America Corp. "There's a tendency for people to underappreciate the risk of the housing market," Shiller said. "I might have a lower valuation of Countrywide than Bank of America does"... A record number of foreclosures has contributed to home price declines that leave many borrowers owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Shiller compared the housing slump to a "tidal force." "Maybe Countrywide and Bank of America are going to have some problems going forward," he said. "When people see that their houses are worth a lot less than their mortgage balance, they have an incentive to default. The troubled mortgages that Countrywide already has will be followed by even more troubled ones"...


Cleveland sues 21 banks over subprime mess by Cleveland.com - snips:

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson took aim at Wall Street on Thursday with a lawsuit against 21 major investment banks that he said have enabled the subprime lending and foreclosure crisis here. The one-of-a-kind suit, filed in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, accuses venerable institutions such as Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo of creating a public nuisance. Jackson contends the companies irresponsibly bought and sold high-interest home loans. The result: widespread defaults that depleted the city's tax base and left entire neighborhoods in ruins... "To me, this is no different than organized crime or drugs," Jackson said in an interview with Plain Dealer reporters and editors. "It has the same effect as drug activity in neighborhoods. It's a form of organized crime that happens to be legal in many respects"... Cleveland is the second major U.S. city this week to sue over the ills of subprime loans...


Consumer confidence sinks to record low by AP - snip:

Consumer confidence fell to an all-time low as worries about jobs, energy bills and home foreclosures darkened people's feelings about the country's economic health and their own financial well-being. According to the RBC Cash Index, confidence tumbled to a mark of 56.3 in early January. That compares with a reading of 65.9 in December — and a benchmark of 100 — and was the worst since the index began in 2002...


Merrill Lynch to Take $15 Billion Writedown on Subprime Losses by NYT - snip:

Merrill Lynch is expected to suffer $15 billion in losses stemming from soured mortgage investments, almost double its original estimate, prompting the firm to raise additional capital from an outside investor. Merrill, the nation’s largest brokerage firm, is expected to disclose the huge write-down when it reports earnings next week, according to people who have been briefed on its plans. The loss far exceeds the $12 billion hit many Wall Street analysts had forecast. To shore up its deteriorating finances, Merrill is now in discussions with investors in the United States, Asia and the Middle East, including American private equity firms, to raise about $4 billion in the coming days, these people said...


The $1.4 Trillion Question by The Atlantic - snip:

The Chinese are subsidizing the American way of life. Are we playing them for suckers—or are they playing us?...



Go to 12359
http://housingpanic.blogspot.com/2008/01/psst-ya-got-400000-cause-thats-what.html
January 11, 2008
Psst.. Ya got $400,000? 'Cause that's what each household in America is on the hook for with the entitlement bomb, or $53 TRILLION in total. Ouch.
Here's the good news though - it's only $175,000 per person.

We're $53 TRILLION in the hole folks. That's not per HP, that's per the General Accounting Office of the United States. The biggest Ponzi Scheme of all wasn't housing. No, no, no. It was Social Security / Medicaid / Medicare.

Our corrupt government doesn't include the cost of future liabilities on its balance sheet (like every business has to). It acts like nobody is going to retire, and like no benefits will ever have to get paid. And nobody running for president will touch this subject with a ten foot pole (except Ron Paul of course).

And you, the gullible and clueless American people, buy it all hook, line and sinker. Along with every other fool who invests in US debt that will never be paid back, or owns US dollars that will continue to lose value.

HousingPANIC should spin off BenefitsPANIC, but someone else take that on, OK? I've got enough on my hands here.

Here's a good video with Glenn Beck and the head of the GAO (who I expect to be fired or assassinated soon). My favorite quote: "If the private sector had trust funds like the government, someone would be going to jail!". Yup. Any questions now?

Watch this video. And think about whether you want to be part of this mess much longer.

Posted by keith at 1/11/2008
Labels: us bankruptcy



Go to 12358
http://www.rense.com/general80/take.htm
The Takedown Has Begun
Jim Kirwan
1-12-8

Bush & his Bandits have been watching too much FOX Television. Someone needs to tell George that he's not living an episode of "24,"

and that his view of a national threat is being influenced by believing in too many of his own skewed fantasies about national security. (1)

In view of yesterday's declaration by the Media that 'all States will comply with the National ID Act by this coming May, or their citizens will be refused permission to fly'-The governor's of the States within the United States need to rebel, as a body, against this completely unwarranted ORDER from the White House via Michael Chertoff, whose own US citizenship is in doubt. (2)

When the Decider took away the State's National Guard Units, to use them for his private war on Iraq: Bush violated both the spirit and the reasons behind the need for the National Guard in the first place. There are over two and half million men and women in US military uniforms, but apparently that was not enough force to complete his failed mission in Iraq. He claimed to NEED the services and equipment of all our National Guard units as well.

Has anyone in the thoroughly tarnished administration even heard of "states rights" - maybe the State's of the United States have NO RIGHTS AT ALL anymore! We know people no longer have any rights in the USA - now the same is apparently true for our supposedly sovereign States as well? (3)

However Bush has now gone further-he is threatening the citizens of every State that has made a choice against the National ID Card Act, with refusing to allow their citizens to fly. Bush has exceeded his authority because apparently he has never understood that in this country the individual States do have rights, especially when they confront the Federal Government. We have not yet become a total dictatorship!

This new "law" came into existence in complete secrecy, and was signed into law on 5-5-05. Why was it exactly that congress needed to pass the Real ID card legislation without ANY public discussion at all: and then after this piece of national treachery was signed, why was it essentially hidden by a near total news blackout - until now?

Its one thing to tell the nation what is needed - but another thing entirely to just pass a law by fiat - and then compound this obscenity by threatening to bar citizens from flying unless their individual States comply with the autocratic-will of an out-of-control executive branch. (4)

First this government (the same one that was supposedly blind-sided by 911) needs to conclusively prove to every citizen that they KNOW anything at all about "SECURITY" or data theft - and then the nation needs to have an open and very public discussion about the specifics of the supposed 'need' for this national ID Card.

Security does not come from make-believe credentials that can always be forged-the record of this fact goes all the way back to the very earliest beginning of recorded history itself. Real security involves using 'intelligence' to detect plans before they can commence. But in this case there has only been the total failure of 'our' supposed Airport Security Screeners, (TSA) virtually every time they've been actually tested. ­ and there have been no further attempted hijackings: Ergo what "threat" are these Bandits going to protect us from?

Yesterday's 'demand' also contained warnings about some need to prevent con men and others from fraudulently stealing identities and other minor crimes ­ this is not enough reason to subject every American citizen to divulging all their personal information to any jerk with a badge, that might think a given person might present a problem. In fact that's why the Amendments to the Constitution were written-specifically to protect PEOPLE from the government; and NOT the other way round.

To solve this current attack upon the right of citizens and States to refuse to abide by a secretly written federal mandate: The States should jointly refuse to collect Federal Income Taxes for the federal government, until Chertoff is sent back to Israel, and Bush rescinds this bogus threat against the rights of every American citizen to be secure in their person, their papers, and their lives.

Chertoff does not make the laws, and the Congress had the obligation to publicly debate this obscenity before they passed it-just as the media had an obligation to report on this 'ACT' at the time. None of this was done in the interests of the public that is now expected to not only suffer from it, but to pay for it as well. The Constitution is clear about how legislation is to be handled, so that the public is represented in ALL matters that concern the freedom and the individuality of both the States and the people.

This is an attempt by the administration to begin to turn this nation into a very thinly disguised concentration camp, and they must be stopped cold in this flagrant and illegal imposition against the people of this country!



Go to 12357
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=grass-makes-better-ethanol-than-corn
January 8, 2008

Grass Makes Better Ethanol than Corn Does
Midwestern farms prove switchgrass could be the right crop for producing ethanol to replace gasoline
By David Biello

GRASS GAS: Turning fields of switchgrass like this one in northeastern Nebraska into ethanol produces 540 percent more energy than the amount consumed growing the native perennial.
COURTESY OF USDA-ARS

Farmers in Nebraska and the Dakotas brought the U.S. closer to becoming a biofuel economy, planting huge tracts of land for the first time with switchgrass—a native North American perennial grass (Panicum virgatum) that often grows on the borders of cropland naturally—and proving that it can deliver more than five times more energy than it takes to grow it.

Working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the farmers tracked the seed used to establish the plant, fertilizer used to boost its growth, fuel used to farm it, overall rainfall and the amount of grass ultimately harvested for five years on fields ranging from seven to 23 acres in size (three to nine hectares).

Once established, the fields yielded from 5.2 to 11.1 metric tons of grass bales per hectare, depending on rainfall, says USDA plant scientist Ken Vogel. "It fluctuates with the timing of the precipitation,'' he says. "Switchgrass needs most of its moisture in spring and midsummer. If you get fall rains, it's not going to do that year's crops much good."

But yields from a grass that only needs to be planted once would deliver an average of 13.1 megajoules of energy as ethanol for every megajoule of petroleum consumed—in the form of nitrogen fertilizers or diesel for tractors—growing them. "It's a prediction because right now there are no biorefineries built that handle cellulosic material" like that which switchgrass provides, Vogel notes. "We're pretty confident the ethanol yield is pretty close." This means that switchgrass ethanol delivers 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, compared with just roughly 25 percent more energy returned by corn-based ethanol according to the most optimistic studies.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is partially funding the construction of six such cellulosic biorefineries, estimated to cost a total of $1.2 billion. The first to be built will be the Range Fuels Biorefinery in Soperton, Ga., which will process wood waste from the timber industry into biofuels and chemicals. The DOE is providing an initial $50 million to start construction.

"Cost competitive, energy responsible cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass or from forestry waste like sawdust and wood chips requires a more complex refining process but it's worth the investment," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said at the Range Fuels facility groundbreaking in November. "Cellulosic ethanol contains more net energy and emits significantly fewer greenhouse gases than ethanol made from corn."

In fact, Vogel and his team report this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA that switchgrass will store enough carbon in its relatively permanent root system to offset 94 percent of the greenhouse gases emitted both to cultivate it and from the derived ethanol burned by vehicles. Of course, this estimate also relies on using the leftover parts of the grass itself as fuel for the biorefinery. "The lignin in the plant cell walls can be burned," Vogel says.

The use of native prairie grasses is meant to avoid some of the other risks associated with biofuels such as reduced diversity of local animal life and displacing food crops with fuel crops. "This is an energy crop that can be grown on marginal land," Vogel argues, such as the more than 35 million acres (14.2 million hectares) of marginal land that farmers are currently paid not to plant under the terms of USDA's Conservation Reserve Program.

But even a native prairie grass needs a helping hand from scientists and farmers to deliver the yields necessary to help ethanol become a viable alternative to petroleum-derived gasoline, Vogel argues. "To really maximize their yield potential, you need to provide nitrogen fertilization," he says, as well as improved breeding techniques and genetic strains. "Low input systems are just not going to be able to get the energy per acre needed to provide feed, fuel and fiber."



Go to 12356
http://www.rense.com/general80/rrron.htm
Ron Paul's Official Statement
On NH Recount
1-12-8

After a careful investigation, I have decided against seeking a recount in New Hampshire. I am confident that not asking for a recount is the right decision.

I carefully considered the arguments for and against a recount before instructing my campaign staff not to pursue it. Without a firm belief that vote fraud had taken place, and without the possibility that a recount would have increased the chances for success of our campaign, a recount would have diverted campaign resources, time, and energy away from crucial battles elsewhere.

We have taken concerns about vote fraud seriously. In Iowa, campaign volunteers carefully monitored the caucuses. Campaign staff placed Paul supporters in every precinct to watch and verify the voting and count. We had supporters phone in results from their precincts to a campaign hotline while others ensured that those numbers were reflected on the official display board at the Polk County Convention Center. The numbers our caucus watchers reported agreed with the official tally, and both results also aligned with the campaign's internal polling. In relatively pro-Paul counties, our sampling pegged support at 11.5%. This is consistent with an overall 10% finish for the entire state.

In New Hampshire, while I would have hoped for a better result than eight percent, I am convinced that vote fraud played no role in this result. Rumors of vote fraud were investigated, and in the end they proved to be the result of errors in early media reports that were not reflected in the official numbers. In one notable case, when a campaign staff member contacted an individual who had on the evening of January 8 claimed that his vote had not been counted, the person said that he had made a mistake and that the next morning the error in reporting on a newspaper website had been corrected both in the media and -- most importantly -- in the official tally.

Many have expressed concerns that those ballots counted by machine yielded a 2% lower total than those counted by hand. However, machine counted vote totals were more than 2% lower for both John McCain and Mike Huckabee. Hand counted votes were more likely to be cast in rural areas. Results almost always vary between urban and rural areas.

My campaign staff and I have analyzed the numbers in New Hampshire and I have reached the conclusion that it was the high turnout -- not vote fraud or counting errors -- that left us with eight percent of the vote. Our total vote count of over 18,000 votes was well within what we projected given the efforts of our extensive statewide get-out-the-vote program, giving me no reason to believe that vote fraud played any role in the results of the Granite State's primary.

In both Iowa and New Hampshire there is much to be proud of. Taking both states together, I am honored that over 30,000 people cast their vote for me -- more than either Rudy Giuliani or Fred Thompson. Unlike many other candidates' efforts, our campaign for freedom is growing and our message is spreading.

Now is the time to redouble our efforts. Our resources must be spent on the upcoming primaries and caucuses, and on ensuring that, with your help, we organize every state yet to vote with our Precinct Leaders program.

We can't win primaries and caucuses that have already happened -- but we can win those yet to come. To become the Republican presidential nominee, a candidate must have 1,191 delegates. Iowa, Wyoming and New Hampshire determine only 32 delegates, so we have much opportunity remaining.

Today, I ask you to join me in focusing on the battles ahead as we continue our fight for liberty and our Constitution.

Sincerely,

Ron Paul



Go to 12355
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_len_hart_080112_princeton_university.htm
January 12, 2008 at 04:58:59
Princeton University Reveals How the GOP Steals Election
by Len Hart Page 1 of 2 page(s)
=http://www.opednews.com

Unless something is done, the GOP will steal the next election as well. Unless something is done, this series of primaries means absolutely nothing. The fix is undoubtedly in. Unless something is done, the GOP will walk away with another stolen election, another GOP nincompoop will foist upon the nation his personal and vainglorious ambitions of empire. The Military/Industrial complex is licking its chops and theocrats are lining up to play Torquemada.

The following video was produced by Princeton University. It explains precisely how the votes are stolen and will be stolen again.


Princeton Study Exposes Diebold Flaws

Princeton tested an AccuVote-TS which it obtained from a private party. The experiements were designed to determine whether the machine could be hacked under "real election practices", realistic scenarios in the real world. Princeton found the machine vulnerable to a number of "extremely serious attacks" that "undermine undermine the accuracy and credibility of the vote counts it produces." In other words, DieBold machines can be hacked and most have been.

Princeton points out that computer specialists are skeptical of Direct Recording Machines (DRE), essentially general purpose machines running specialized election software. The biggest flaw, according to Princeton, is that DREs are dependent upon the "correct and secure operation of complex software programs" In the real word, that simply does not happen. Ominously, DRE failures most likely go undetected.
Main Findings The main findings of our study are:
Malicious software running on a single voting machine can steal votes with little if any risk of detection. The malicious software can modify all of the records, audit logs, and counters kept by the voting machine, so that even careful forensic examination of these records will find nothing amiss. We have constructed demonstration software that carries out this vote-stealing attack.

Anyone who has physical access to a voting machine, or to a memory card that will later be inserted into a machine, can install said malicious software using a simple method that takes as little as one minute. In practice, poll workers and others often have unsupervised access to the machines.

AccuVote-TS machines are susceptible to voting-machine viruses - computer viruses that can spread malicious software automatically and invisibly from machine to machine during normal pre-and post-election activity. We have constructed a demonstration virus that spreads in this way, installing our demonstration vote-stealing program on every machine it infects.

While some of these problems can be eliminated by improving Diebold's software, others cannot be remedied without replacing the machines' hardware. Changes to election procedures would also be required to ensure security.
...

Abstract This paper presents a fully independent security study of a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine, including its hardware and software. We obtained the machine from a private party. Analysis of the machine, in light of real election procedures, shows that it is vulnerable to extremely serious attacks. For example, an attacker who gets physical access to a machine or its removable memory card for as little as one minute could install malicious code; malicious code on a machine could steal votes undetectably, modifying all records, logs, and counters to be consistent with the fraudulent vote count it creates. An attacker could also create malicious code that spreads automatically and silently from machine to machine during normal election activities - a voting-machine virus. We have constructed working demonstrations of these attacks in our lab. Mitigating these threats will require changes to the voting machine's hardware and software and the adoption of more rigorous election procedures.
--Ariel J. Feldman, J. Alex Halderman, and Edward W. Felten,Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine

See also: If your money was in a bank which had the safe guards of a "voting machine", you would be dead broke in a week!

Exit Polls: Obama Won New Hampshire Corporations control America's elections with secrecy and criminal fraud. Your vote means absolutely nothing! American Democracy is dead! It's nothing less than an insidious corporate revolution, an insidious subversion by corporatist vote snatchers. In less tolerant times, such culprits might hang. Perhaps, they should today.

Once again there is an "unexplainable" and a highly improbable descrepancy between exit polling and balloting. According to New Hampshire exit polls, Barack Obama won the New Hampshire primary 39% to 35%. In every other count, the exit polls have been spot on! Once again, questions arise about the credibility of Diebold voting machine, indeed, the credibility of the electorial process itself.

Here are the exit poll results at 8:01 PM when the polls closed and here is a chart with the final tabulation.
With voting over in New Hampshire, the big network exit poll is out and according to Fox News it shows:

Democratic candidates:

Obama 39%
Clinton 34%
Edwards 18%

Republican candidates:
1 | 2

=http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/



Go to 12354
http://www.infowars.com/articles/ps/diebold_vote_machine_contractor_exec_criminal_background.htm
Diebold Voting Machine Contractor Executive Has Criminal Background
Company responsible for machines throughout New Hampshire directed by convicted drug dealer

Infowars.net | January 10 , 2008
Steve Watson

It has been revealed that a high ranking executive at the company that was contracted to program all of New Hampshire's Diebold voting machines has a criminal record and has previously defended the illegal act of "swapping out" memory cards for the machines during live elections.

The revelations, which were uncovered by investigative journalist and vote fraud expert Bev Harris of Blackboxvoting.org and announced yesterday on the Alex Jones show, once again plunge Diebold and the controversial electronic voting systems into the spotlight.

Harris reports that Ken Hajjar, the Marketing and Sales Director at LHS Associates was arrested, indicted, and pleaded guilty to "sale / CND" (sale of controlled narcotic drugs) and sentenced to 12 months in the Rockingham County Correctional facility, and fined $2000. As things go for the politically connected, he was then given a deferred sentence and $1000 of his fine was suspended.

LHS Associates is a private company that counted over four fifths of the New Hampshire vote with no oversight whatsoever and also holds Diebold contracts for Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont.

Harris exclusively revealed some of the details on the Alex Jones show yesterday as she was still awaiting triple confirmation on the information and a full copy of the criminal record from a source who was investigating Hajjar regarding a separate matter.

"They program every single voting machine in New Hampshire, Connecticut, almost all of Massachusetts, Vermont, and Maine." Harris comments. "But did state officials in five New England states ever do a criminal background check on this company's executives? Do the laws of these five states even ALLOW them to hire convicted criminals for services paid for by the state? What about over 500 local towns and municipalities?"

The story becomes even more compelling given comments made by Ken Hajjar himself in a recent interview as he revealed that he totes memory cards around in the trunk of his car and defends the concept of swapping out memory cards during live elections!

Other LHS staff members we spoke with, including Mike Carlson and Tom Burge, provided similar comments. They said they would open machines up during an election and swap memory cards as needed. This is illegal under Connecticut law and Deputy Secretary Mara told us she has since informed LHS that such actions were in violation of Connecticut election laws.

"In 2006, as Hajjar argued in favor of their policy to change cards during elections, I asked him about about the laws which govern chain of custody issues. His response: "I mean, I don't pay attention to every little law. It's just, it's up to the Registrars. All we are is a support organization on Election Day".

He said he had three memory cards in the trunk of his car and, in the event they had to be used, the chain of custody issues wouldn't matter since, "once you run the [pre-election] test deck through, you're golden"."

Bev Harris has also asked for complaints filed on a threat allegedly made in recent years to a New Hampshire woman, and any other reports for Hajjar or LHS owner John Silvestro. The pair grew up together in Lawrence, Massachusetts before moving to Londonderry, New Hampshire.

As we detailed in our report on Tuesday , John Silvestro has been at the center of a long-running public dispute in trying to deflect accusations made by hacker Harri Hursti that the voting machines are wide open to tampering and can easily be rigged.

Video of John Silvestro as he tangles with Harri Hursti recently surfaced on the web:


The Hursti/Silvestro saga formed the centerpiece of the recent 80 minute HBO film "Hacking Democracy" .

The new revelations concerning LHS may prove even more explosive in the wake of Tuesday's New Hampshire results vastly differing from the pre-election polls and the emergence of clear widespread evidence of vote fraud involving the machines.

If the allegations are accurate, it won't be the first instance of Diebold employing a convicted felons to run its ballot printing operations.

Harris previously revealed that an embezzler named Jeffrey W. Dean, who specialized in sophisticated alteration of records of computerized systems, was a programmer of voting systems.

Dean was the senior vice president of Global Election Systems and a director of the company previous to Diebold's takeover in 2002. Despite Diebold's claim that Dean left the company when they took over it was later revealed that they retained Dean as a consultant.

Dean and his prison buddy John Elder, who did five years for cocaine trafficking, ran a ballot plant on the West coast and were also responsible for writing vote tallying software. Harris' research has further shown that Global Election Systems/Diebold vote machines were specifically built to allow tampering.

"It's weird, these guys are not even allowed to vote because they are convicted felons!" Harris commented yesterday.

Related Articles:

Clear Evidence Of Widespread Vote Fraud In New Hampshire

Report: Ohio voting machines have 'critical flaws,' could undermine '08 election

Vote machine flaws force scramble back to paper

NY fights US suit on voting machines

Colorado voting machines rejected



Go to 12353
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=7836
The Coming Economic Depression & Christmas On Threadneedle Street
By Darryl_R_Schoon – Market Oracle January 10, 2008

The address of the Bank of England is Threadneedle Street , EC2 London. Martha and I could not have been closer. On Christmas day, we were at the Threadneedles Hotel at 5 Threadneedle Street . But proximity to the Bank of England is measured not by distance but by influence. Those closest to the Bank of England are the moneylenders.

England 's reign as a world power actually began on Threadneedle Street . Then, no bank had its own building and bankers were but goldsmiths who lent money and rented space to do business. But after the moneylenders cut their bargain (and it was a bargain) with King William of England , things were never to be the same, either for England or the moneylenders—or the world.

In 1694, by bailing King William out of his debts incurred by England 's war with France , the moneylenders achieved enormous power and a new found respectability. They now called themselves bankers and would profit by the vast sums of credit that were to underwrite the greatest empire since imperial Rome —an era that is now about to end.

In THE GREAT WAVE – Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History ( Oxford University Press 1996), David Hackett Fisher chronicles the rise and fall of prices and the accompanying rise and fall of epochs. The ending of all such epochs, Fisher notes, are marked by a wave of rising prices lasting from 80 to 120 years. Each wave culminates in economic collapse and the resultant breakdown and transformation of society.

We are now in the final stages of a price wave that began in 1896, a wave that will end the era of England 's influence on our world. A period David Hackett Fisher calls “Victorian England”. But it could well be called “The Era of Credit”; for it was credit that built the era of Victorian England; and, it is the collapse of credit that will bring about its end—for just as day becomes night so too does credit become debt.


WHEN CREDIT WAS KING
THE REIGN OF CREDIT I
England —the cradle of credit

England could not have achieved its immense power nor moneylenders their extraordinary profits had not King William struck his Faustian pact with the moneylenders in 1694, a bargain that was to grant the King unlimited credit to wage war in exchange for the right of moneylenders to issue credit-based money. Both parties were to benefit immensely from the bargain—until now.

England ultimately leveraged its ability to wage war with credit into a world empire; and, the moneylenders, now called bankers, used England 's power to spread their system of credit-based money across the world, multiplying and increasing their profits thereby. And although England 's position as a world power has waned, the power of the moneylenders has grown. Today, bankers are even more powerful than governments.


The king to the banker did say
Tis I who ride you this day
This day it is true the banker did say
But tomorrow tis I who ride you

But the triumph of the bankers will be temporary. It will be short-lived because the United States has now irreparably damaged the credit-based system that England 's bankers so carefully constructed.

The power of the moneylenders originally came from their ownership of gold; and, as goldsmiths, they leveraged their position into a far more profitable enterprise—the charging of interest on the lending of gold and it was to the moneylenders that even the King of England came for money to pay for his wars.

But in their bargain with King William, the moneylenders acquired their most important customer, the public purse; and, granted the power to coin money by the King, the moneychangers instead coined credit, an altogether different beast but one with the government's backing became the accepted coin of the realm.

Paper debt-based money issued by the Bank of England replaced the gold and silver coins pre vio usly circulating as money. The people deposited their savings of gold and silver in government approved banks which were granted the right to make loans in the amount of ten times their actual deposits and profit thereby by charging interest on those loans.

Bankers are and always been moneylenders. Vast sums of credit from the Bank of England, England 's central bank, were thus made available and when the credit inevitably became debt, the interest charged became profits booked on the ledgers of the moneylenders.

To pay the interest due on the increasing amounts of debt created by credit based economies, economies have to continually expand. This was as true in Victorian England as it is today. When credit-based economies contract, the ability to service pre vio usly incurred debt is damaged. If the contraction is severe enough, the economy will collapse. This is what is about to happen to us on a very grand scale.

When the US succeeded England as a world power, the bankers instituted the same system of debt-based money in the US but with very different results. Now in 2008, after three centuries of fueling economic expansion, the magic of the moneychangers has reached its limits. The end of an epoch is at hand.


WHEN CREDIT FAILED
THE REIGN OF CREDIT II
Restraint is a word commonly used to describe the English. It is rarely used when referring to Americans—the cowboys of capitalism.

The effect of credit-driven expansion on the US was not foreseen except perhaps by those who opposed it. In 1913, the Federal Reserve Bank, the US version of the Bank of England, was established thereby replacing savings-based money in the US with credit-based money; and within ten years, this credit-based system was to underwrite the largest stock market bubble in history, a bubble which was to collapse in 1929 and send the US and world economy into its first Great Depression

The significance of the Great Depression cannot be underestimated. A financial breakdown of such magnitude was unprecedented. The constant demand necessary to credit driven economies not only slowed, it contracted; and, as credit collapsed, the lack of demand led first to recession, then deflation, and then to the Great Depression.


HISTORY IS ABOUT TO REPEAT ITSELF

The Great Depression is the great conundrum of economists. No monetary solution has ever been found that could reverse the coriolis-like effect of decreasing demand and increasing deflation that occurred during the Great Depression.


Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again

The response of the US government during this unprecedented monetary crisis bears examination. In 1933, the US government enacted three measures as a result of the crisis: The Emergency Banking Relief Act, and the Glass-Steagall Acts, I and II.

The Emergency Banking Relief Act of 1933 was a measure worthy of any police state. For the first time in history, citizens were prohibited from owning gold by their own government.


WHOSE INTERESTS
WHOSE GOVERNMENT

Such a demand on a citizenry had never before been ordered. When Americans were told to turn over their gold to the US government, it was described as confiscation. It was really an act of tyranny. It was also an indication of who really controls the US government.

Since the beginning of civilization and commerce, gold has represented savings, wealth and money. Prohibiting citizens from lawfully possessing gold is nothing less than tyranny; and that this occurred in a democracy is clear evidence of the limitations of constitutional law and what is believed to be limited government.


WHOSE GOVERNMENT
WHOSE LIMITS

The Glass-Steagall Acts I and II are interesting for different reasons. The first Glass-Steagall Act went right to the heart of fractional reserve banking. This system, concocted by England 's moneylenders, allows banks to issue loans in the amount of ten times the money they have on deposit, sic banks make money by loaning money they don't actually have.


FRAUD ISN'T THE REAL PROBLEM
THE REAL PROBLEM IS GETTING FRAUD LEGALLY CODIFIED

The first Glass-Steagall Act redefined money held on deposit to now include government and commercial obligations, sic debts. These debts were now to be considered, alongside ”real” money, as a demand deposit in the US banking system, a radical departure from the moneylender's system.

The second Glass-Steagall Act was enacted to prevent the occurrence of another speculative bubble such as occurred in 1929. The huge amounts of credit that fueled the 1920s stock market bubble would not have been available had not commercial and investment banking been joined.

The access to commercial bank deposits by investment bankers contributed to the excessive amounts of credit that fueled the 1920s stock market bubble. The primary purpose of Glass-Steagall Act II was to prevent another bubble by separating investment banks from commercial banks.

All attempts, however, by the US government could not halt the downward spiral of price deflation set in motion during the Great Depression. Indeed, some measures even had the opposite effect, i.e. the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 is widely considered to have been a contributing cause of the ensuing collapse of the world economy.


CONUNDRUM REVISTED

The collapse of the US dot.com bubble in 2000—a speculative bubble even larger than the 1929 bubble and Japan 's 1990 Nikkei—was to give Alan Greenspan and central bankers another chance at solving the economists' great conundrum. This time, Greenspan's solution was to preemptively make so much credit available a contraction of demand and credit might not occur.

But now in 2008, it is evident that Greenspan's gambit did not work. His cheap credit postponed the post-dot.com contraction but in the process created an even larger bubble—the 2002-2006 US property bubble; and, now the inevitable contraction will be magnified by the additional collapse of Greenspan's even larger bubble.

The collapse of such large sequential bubbles will again set in motion the events of the 1930s. As in the 1930s, we will see slowing demand followed by an economic recession leading into a deflationary depression even more severe than that of the 1930s—because this time, money is no longer backed by gold.

The removal of gold from the monetary system by the US in 1971 removed the very foundation stone of the moneylender's system of credit. The basis of the moneylender's credit was gold, albeit highly leveraged but still convertible on demand.

When the US declared the US dollar no longer convertible to gold in 1971, all money, all currencies became fiat currencies, sic government issued coupons. This had never happened before in the history of the world; and we are now about to experience the consequences of that act.

David Hackett Fisher noted in THE GREAT WAVE – Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History that price waves last from 80 to 120 years; that such waves end in economic collapse and the breakdown and transformation of societies. The current price wave began in 1896. Do the math.

On New Years Eve, Martha and I watched the fireworks over the Thames from our room at the Langham Hotel. It was a spectacular display and the English people appeared to be full of hope as the New Year's festivities began.

But I could not hold back the thought that 2008 will not be as the English want or expect. While many may fear an economic slowdown is in their future, few yet are aware of the severity of the coming contraction and collapse; and fewer still are aware of their government's complicity.

The triumph of the moneylenders over government is almost complete and because of it, in the coming crisis governments will protect the interests of bankers, not the people. The Glass-Steagall Act II, enacted in 1933 to prevent another depression, was repealed in 1999 by President Clinton, a Democrat, at the behest of the investment banks.

The very same year, 1999, Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer and a member of the Labour Party, sold 60 % of England 's gold at the bottom of the market allegedly to protect a US investment bank's bet on gold that could destabilize the markets. The moneylenders now own both sides of the aisle on both sides of the Atlantic.

As we watched the New Year's merriment from the Langham, I could not help but be reminded of the play, Cabaret , we had seen earlier that evening. Cabaret , set in 1931 Berlin , begins on New Years Eve and ends with the participants awaiting their respective fates in Hitler's Germany . Most were in denial about what was to occur. The same is true today.

The end of the story has not yet been written. It could end in many different ways. So fragile were the major trends that contingencies of various kinds threatened to disrupt them. A major war in the Middle East or Eastern Europe or some other trouble spot could reignite inflation. A collapse of overvalued security markets could cause panic, depression and deep deflation.

Page 234, THE GREAT WAVE – Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History , 1996, David Hackett Fisher

We are at the end of a price wave that marks the end of an epoch, the era of Victorian England. As Fisher states, such waves always end in economic collapse. Faith will be needed to get through the difficult times ahead—and gold will come in handy too.


Fiat money, in extremis, is accepted by nobody. Gold is always accepted .
Alan Greenspan in testimony before the US Congress, 1999

Note: I will be speaking at Gold Standard University Live in Dallas , TX , February 11-17 which is presented by Professor Antal Fekete . This is a unique opportunity to hear Professor Fekete who is an expert on gold and its role in monetary matters. Some scholarships are available. Details are available at www.professorfekete.com .

Darryl Robert Schoon
www.survivethecrisis.com
www.drschoon.com


About Darryl Robert Schoon

In college, I majored in political science with a focus on East Asia (B.A. University of California at Davis, 1966). My in-depth study of economics did not occur until much later.

In the 1990s, I became curious about the Great Depression and in the course of my study, I realized that most of my preconceptions about money and the economy were just that - preconceptions. I, like most others, did not really understand the nature of money and the economy. Now, I have some insights and answers about these critical matters.

In October 2005, Marshall Thurber, a close friend from law school convened The Positive Deviant Network (the PDN), a group of individuals whom Marshall believed to be "out-of-the-box" thinkers and I was asked to join. The PDN became a major catalyst in my writings on economic issues.

When I discovered others in the PDN shared my concerns about the US economy, I began writing down my thoughts. In March 2007 I presented my findings to the Positive Deviant Network in the form of an in-depth 148- page analysis, "How to Survive the Crisis and Prosper In The Process."

The reception to my presentation, though controversial, generated a significant amount of interest; and in May 2007, "How To Survive The Crisis And Prosper In The Process" was made available at www.survivethecrisis.com and I began writing articles on economic issues.

The interest in the book and my writings has been gratifying. During its first two months, www.survivethecrisis.com was accessed by over 10,000 viewers from 93 countries. Clearly, we had struck a chord and www.drschoon.com , has been created to address this interest
www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article3325.html



Use your Go Back and Go Forward commands to get to where you were in a previous file.