I realize that Thomas and Matthews aren’t talking about our current economic crisis in this MSNBC clip.
But maybe my fears of runaway inflation due to the overspending of the Bush-Obama years are unfounded.
After all, if Obama can deliver “…the world, once again, from evil” (Chris Matthews of MSNBC) and “he’s sort of God” (Evan Thomas of Newsweek), then perhaps I’m over-reacting.
“If increased government spending with borrowed or newly created money is a ’stimulus,’ then the Weimar Republic should have been stimulated to unprecedented prosperity, instead of runaway inflation and widespread economic desperation that ultimately brought Adolf Hitler to power.”
~Thomas Sowell (as quoted in the May 27, 2009 issue of the Rapid City Journal, and available online here).
The false left-right paradigm that divides Americans over this financial crisis continues to crumble, in spite of the tea parties which seemed to divide. I believe this divisiveness was stoked by the media and then latched onto by far too many participants and critics.
People seem to want to blame the financial crisis on conservatives in bed with the banking industry (deregulation) and excessive spending on liberals. I understand how tempting it is to have a party to believe in but sadly, these views are both incorrect in my opinion. Both parties are guilty on both counts.
Our problems as a nation are going to badger us until we realize that both Republicans and Democrats are in the pocket of the banking industry and other special interests (please see the “Buried News of the Week” below).
Bi-partisan action led to this crisis, and we’ll probably need bi-partisan action to get out of it, assuming politicians have the power and motivation to help in spite of the special interests.
This is a time to unite instead of fighting each other and pointing fingers at one party or the other. (Oh, I’ll so some finger pointing in this post, but it won’t have anything to do with one political party being superior to the other.)
The Monday, March 30 issue of the Rapid City Journal had a ground-breaking column by Robert Scheer on page A13. I’ve read several of Scheer’s columns in the past and walked away thinking that while the guy has interesting things to say from time to time, he seemed like a partisan hack and cheerleader for Obama. I was wrong about that.
I suspect Scheer just had unrealistic expectations of Obama after eight years of Bush and the Bush banker bailout.When he saw how Obama was going to govern, he again found the critical voice that he wielded against Bush.
For one of the best explanations of whom to blame for bringing us this financial crisis, please read Scheer’s column, “Obama’s toxic advisers are keeping the country from the bigger issue.” (Available online here.)
Scheer mentions Greenspan as one engineer of the economic crisis, but doesn’t mention the fact that Greenspan also helped fuel the housing collapse by slamming the accelerator down on the housing market with artificially low interest rates, thereby helping to create the housing bubble.
What’s Scheer upset about in regard to the housing and financial crisis?
Obama has appointed Gary Gensler to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
From the article, Scheer writes, “Gensler helped create this financial crisis when he was in the Treasury Department back in the Clinton era, when bipartisan cooperation with Wall Street lobbyists was all the rage.”
Scheer then quotes Sen. Bernie Sanders, explaining his reason for blocking Obama’s nomination of Gary Gensler for head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission: “Mr. Gensler worked with Sen. Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan to exempt credit default swaps from regulation, which led to the collapse of AIG and has resulted in the largest taxpayer bailout in U.S. history.” The disastrous legislation that these men supported was known as the Commodity Futures Modernization Act. (It was signed by former President Bill Clinton.)
It gets better (I mean worse). Who else supported this legislation during the Clinton years? Obama’s chief economic adviser, Lawrence Summers.
When Clinton’s CFTC appointee Brooksley Born “attempted to sound a warning (about the legislation), she was treated by the rest of Clinton’s team as the enemy. In response to Born’s warning, they drove her from government…”
Can you think of a better interview for 60 Minutes than a hard-hitting piece with this very bright and courageous woman? I don’t think they would touch it with a ten-foot pole because it would be too embarrassing for some very powerful people.
How ironic is it that the woman who sounded a very prescient warning on the credit default swap deregulation was driven out of government, while the man who was blind to the coming crisis gets her job?
How could so many smart people get this so wrong?One factor is that money from the banking industry greases the wheels of action with our Senators and Congress people.
Greed over-rides common sense, along with an arrogance that comes from being “too big to fail.”
Quote of the Week: “And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.”
In several prior blogs, I’ve noted the alarming executive orders and policy changes that seem to suggest that the U.S. may be moving from an open society to a closed one-from a constitutional republic to some form of tyranny.
I’m now suggesting that these moves may be leading up to the implementation of a North American Union tying Canada, the U.S. and Mexico together with open borders and one currency. I wonder if the next step could be global governance and if our current economic crisis may be used somehow as a catalyst-a pretext-to eventually bring all of this about.
The Wall Street Journal’s Market Watch ran an article on Tuesday, Jan. 28 2009 stating that Uniting U.S., Canada, Mexico money could result from crisis. The article also said that, The New World Order is upon us, full of hope, promise and a fair amount of fear.
As previously posted, the respected Financial Times of London also ran a recent commentary considering the increased likelihood of world government due to the financial crisis and other factors.
The above articles are well-done, but failed to cover the news items below, which lend credence to the idea that we could be headed for historic and unconstitutional changes in how our government functions.
Unfortunately, most Americans are still unaware that 4,700 troops were deployed stateside on Oct. 1, 2008; that Congress was threatened a few days later with martial law if the No Banker Left Behind Bail-out wasn’t passed; that the Pentagon has admitted that 20 thousand more troops are on the way for deployment stateside-duties to include civil unrest and crowd control; that Congress-even members of the Homeland Security Committee-have been denied access to executive branch continuity of government plans (PDD 51) (aka, NSPD 51) which authorize martial law; that American citizens can be declared enemy combatants and lose their constitutional rights-even if they’ve never left our country (Military Commissions Act of 2006); that evidence of detention camps being constructed or refurbished-potentially to confine American citizens-goes back to 1999, before the attacks of 9/11; that HR 45 calls for gun licensing and registration; that if/when reintroduced and passed, HR 1022 would allow Attorney General Eric Holder-who is an anti-second amendment activist-to confiscate virtually any firearm he chooses from the American people. The list goes on and on.
Don’t feel bad if you haven’t heard about all this. If you want to hold your breath waiting to see the mainstream media put all these puzzle pieces together for you, you’re going to turn blue and keel over.
The agenda setting mainstream media is complicit in keeping the American people from seeing the big picture. (Note for those who haven’t read Chomsky: The Rapid City Journal isn’t part of the agenda setting mainstream media. If they were, this blog probably would’ve been shut down by now, or more likely, never offered in the first place.)
Based on the comments I’ve received, a minority of my readers still think the prospect of global governance is something to laugh about and ridicule. Even if these people are paid posters, hopefully this blog will help quell the laughter and bring about what we need instead: motivation to hold our leaders accountable, especially in regard to respecting our Constitution.
Now onto my headline: Legislation has been introduced in the form of House Resolution 645 that lends credence to the story about detention camps for American citizens, as discussed in this San Francisco Chronicle article and other publications.
As noted by infowars.com, the National Emergency Centers Act or HR 645 mandates the establishment of national emergency centers to be located on military installations for the purpose of providing temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster, according to the bill.
The legislation also states that the camps will be used to provide centralized locations to improve the coordination of preparedness, response, and recovery efforts of government, private, and not-for-profit entities and faith-based organizations.
Ominously, the bill also states that the camps can be used to meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security, an open ended mandate which many fear could mean the forced detention of American citizens in the event of widespread rioting after a national emergency or total economic collapse.
Will the camps be used to detain American citizens who are declared enemy combatants and stripped of their constitutional rights?
Since the Army Times originally reported that the battle-hardened troops to be deployed stateside would be responsible for civil unrest and crowd control, this also raises the suspicions of many people regarding the use of these camps.
If troops were deployed stateside on Oct. 1 because of terrorism fears, why weren’t they sent until over seven years after the 911 attacks?
Is it possible that late last year, certain elements within our government knew more about what was coming than they told us?
Now, I’m sure there are explanations for all of this, but would they be true If the Constitution was still in place to protect Habeus Corpus from arbitrary revocation by the executive branch (Military Commissions Act of 2006), and Congress was allowed access to all of PDD 51, and if the Posse Comitatus statutes hadn’t been subverted, etc., etc., etc., I would feel much more comfortable.
As things stand, I wonder if certain elements of our government are gaslighting us and then providing us with the solutions they want to ease the anxiety they created. Could this be a deliberate strategy to implement policies and consolidate power in a way that Americans wouldn’t otherwise accept?!
Our country seems to be establishing the framework for socialism and tyranny!
Is the banker bailout a fraud that was never intended to help?!
If this is true, then I believe we will see more bail-outs approved even when we have proof that they don’t work.
For an eye-opening and fascinating lecture, please scroll down and listen to New York Times best-selling author Naomi Wolf discuss the 10 signs that an open society is transforming into a closed one. Wolf has studied history and sees all ten signs occurring today in the United States. I tend to agree with her.
Hearing a politically liberal person passionately defend the 2nd Amendment at 23:06 is worth the price of admission alone! Which would be, let’s see, ZERO! What a bargain!
Please keep in mind that when Wolf made this defense of the 2nd Amendment she was worried primarily about Blackwater Security.
Now there are 4,700 Army troops stationed stateside with another 20,000 admitted to be on the way, as I wrote earlier. I predict that we’ll see more than another 20,000 and sooner than 2011.
Wolf also gave this lecture before the banker bail-outs were even dreamed about. I think these facts make her presentation even more prescient.
Please check it out!
CALL TO ACTION: Please contact your U.S. Representative (Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin for South Dakota) and politely ask him/her how the abuse of these new governmental powers is going to be limited.
I recommend that PDD 51 (aka, NSPD 51) would be a good starting point. As I wrote earlier, this is the directive that includes executive branch continuity of government plans authorizing physical martial law in America, in the event of a catastrophic emergency.
The Homeland Security Committee and the entire Congress have been denied access to the classified portions of this document! THIS IS NOT THE AMERICAN WAY! Here’s a link to the clip I referred to earlier regarding PDD 51. Please ask Rep. Herseth Sandlin if congressional hearings on this power grab are forthcoming. WE NEED SOME ACCOUNTABILITY!
Contact Information:
U.S. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, 331 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515, Ph: 202-225-2801.
In Rapid City, 343 Quincy St., Suite 102, Rapid City, SD 57701, Ph: 605-394-5280
Contact Kim and Don with VOH at : kim_don2001@yahoo.com
Put in the subject line, “Film Suggestion,” and ask them if they would please consider The End of America, and if you’d like, please add why you think this film is important for VOH to show to the Rapid City community.
Thanks to everyone who writes!
Please check out the Youtube video below featuring the trailer for Naomi Wolf’s new documentary film.
We can get the film below shown at the Elks Theatre in Rapid City! Please contact Kim and Don and encourage VOH to show it! The agenda-setting mainstream media in the U.S. is not doing their job, so I believe we MUST step up to the plate to get the word out!
Quote of the Week: “A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”
~Edward R. Murrow
Does anyone else see the irony of a (Naomi) “Wolf” warning us about the “wolves” in the government? Is this the Universe’s/God’s sense of humor? Anyway…
PS: Check out this music video featuring A Perfect Circle at 2:13 for the sequence with the hooded sheep running around scaring the other sheep. (Be forewarned, it is graphic.) I see this as a metaphor for the reaction to the sort of warnings I talk about in this blog. Like the sheep that run away from the black ones, a certain percentage of the population will run away from what people like me say but won’t bother to check the facts and seriously consider them because of fear and/or denial. That, I believe, is the true source of the laughter in some cases.
If you’d like to hear ideas similar to what Naomi Wolf has to say but would rather hear it from a more politically conservative source, I recommend the following documentary from Alex Jones, which is available for free viewing on Google video. Please keep in mind that I don’t agree with everything Jones says and he’s not known for subtlety! However, he is good at citing sources for many of the allegations he makes and he’s obviously very intelligent and articulate, similar to Wolf-just with a different flavor.
If you like Police State 3: Total Enslavement, you can find more videos at Google video and Youtube, or you can go to his Websites to find more information at www.infowars.com or www.prisonplanet.com
Another good conservative voice is former Presidential candidate Ron Paul.
I hope I’m wrong about that, but so far it appears that spewing fiat money isn’t solving our problems.
My position is that this economic crisis was created predominantly by easy money, excess spending and debt. This situation led to a bubble in housing. Trying to re-inflate the bubble with more easy money and excess spending is only going to make our problems worse, leading to a collapse of this house of cards economy and another depression (assuming we’re not already in one).
So what is Obama’s plan? Do more of the same. This seems like a regular pattern with governments: When something doesn’t work, do more of it.
That being said, we may see an Obama bump in the economy, but I don’t think it will last. He does have some tax cuts on the agenda which may actually help a little. But basically, his main plan is to follow Bush’s lead and keep those fake money machines rolling.
My new downside target for the Dow is 5,500 or lower. Does anyone care to make a bet? (Be forewarned; if you’re an optimist, my portfolio has probably done better than yours, going back to about August of ‘07.)
I saw a funny cartoon the other day. It showed our major financial institutions on fire while Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson tried to put out the fire with fire hoses. The only trouble was, a massive stream of cash was coming out instead of water, feeding the fire. I believe this is an excellent illustration of what is happening.
To avoid making things worse, Obama should be listening to people who saw this crisis coming years ago.
Peter Schiff, former economic adviser to Dr. Ron Paul, was one of those people.
I’ve written in this blog before about Peter Schiff. He wasn’t the only person to see the credit crisis coming, but he was perhaps the most outspoken and well-known. Some supposedly very intelligent people ridiculed Schiff for his views, but he pushed back hard. (Here’s an example, from my previous blog.)
My main purpose in writing this blog is to highlight the fact that, according to Schiff, no one in our government has contacted Schiff for his input on how to get out of this mess! I think that’s nuts, since he was one of the few experts to see this recession coming the way it did!
In the video below, Schiff gives a great summary of why no one listened to him, why we’re in trouble, how to get out of it, and what will happen if we don’t. He also gives some advice on what to do with your money.
The only thing I disagree with him on is the inflation issue. I think we’re in for massive deflation for the foreseeable future.
I don’t think we’ll see really nasty inflation and a collapse of the dollar for many months or even years, but I do agree that it will come. (If I’m wrong about that, I’ll pay for it in my portfolio.)
See you all next time and I hope everyone’s new year is off to a good start!
Money Talks Trader’s Group Update: Tuke and I will be meeting at the Firehouse Brewing Company in Rapid at 3 pm on Saturday, January 17, 2009. Check my last blog to see what I look like. Everyone interested in investing, trading, or the crazy developments in this world is welcome! See you there!
Tuke is an excellent technical trader and has taught me a lot already about trading and reading the charts.
Portfolio Update: My ProShares UltraShort Real Estate ETF (SRS) did very well Wednesday. Then it started up huge early Thursday before dropping like a rock.
I got stopped out Thursday at $65 for a profit of $5.01 per share plus a dividend of .86 and capital gains of $164.40. This comes out to about 15.6% in 26 days. (Profit in my second batch of SRS-which I sold first- was much lower.)
I put in a limit order tonight for another dose of SRS at $56.50. I doubt I’ll get it Friday, but things are really volatile right now so who knows?
Quotes of the Week:
“Reality is a mass hallucination. We gauge what’s real according to what others say. And others, like us, rein in their words, caving in to timidity. Thanks to conformity enforcement and to cowardice, a little power goes a long, long way.”
UPDATE: I wrote this blog just last night, Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2008. My original headline stating that, “U.S. has pledged $7.76 trillion” for the bailouts was based on information obtained from a Bloomberg.com article from Nov. 24, 2008, just the day before. Pathetically, this information is already out-of-date, so I’ve changed my headline to reflect the new “$8.5 Trillion” figure. My source is this San Francisco Chronicle article.
For this post, I will rely heavily on a couple of excellent articles which I really can’t improve upon. However, I can link the two articles together in a meaningful way and bring them to your attention.
Both articles are from the mainstream financial press, but the candidness with which the reporters communicate is still relatively rare. That will change as the seriousness of our financial situation can no longer be denied, covered up, or rationalized away. Until then, these two articles may be considered aberrations or curiosity pieces by some. I don’t take such a view and I suspect most of our readers won’t either.
The article begins: “Will the U.S. Treasury repudiate its obligations to its creditors, be they citizens or investors around the world? Most observers would answer ‘no’ without hesitation. But congress, with the complicity of the White House and the Fed, has arguably embarked on a stealth repudiation.
In his famous treatise, ‘The Wealth of Nations,’ Adam Smith noted there had never been a ’single instance’ of sovereign debts having been repaid once ‘accumulated to a certain degree.’ We may have reached Smith’s threshold.’â€
What was that? Excuse me? Yes, this mainstream media article said that there is evidence that the U.S. may default on its debt, leaving its own citizens as well as foreigners holding the bag.(Iceland is currently going broke and may be the proverbial canary in the coal mine. They’re probably headed for a hyper-inflationary depression, so keep an eye on them. What they experience may give us a hint as to what things may look like in this country.)
The Wall Street Journal article is well done and builds an excellent case that such a scenario is plausible. However, the article was written before our financial situation became exponentially more serious. Things have changed, and you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Now some might ask, “Why in the world would the U.S. government be considering such a plan?â€I hope to illustrate why by utilizing these two articles.Our government can see the writing on the wall, but isn’t telling the American people the full extent of our problems.(Yes, even with all this “depression†talk.)
I will summarize the article as follows: “The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday. The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.
The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $3.18 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The commitment dwarfs the plan approved by lawmakers, the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Federal Reserve lending last week was 1,900 times the weekly average for the three years before the crisis.
Bloomberg News tabulated data from the Fed, Treasury and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and interviewed regulatory officials, economists and academic researchers to gauge the full extent of the government’s rescue effort†(end quote).
Good thing Bloomberg is doing their job since the full extent of the government’s rescue effort seems to be deliberately obfuscated. Their investigation gets better.
Bloomberg is suing the Fed under the Freedom of Information Act to “force disclosure of borrower banks and their collateral.â€
I suspect some of this collateral is fraudulent, so this will be a big fight.
The Fed will be fighting this lawsuit on the grounds that such a revelation would be “counter-productive,†according to Ben Bernanke. (I think what he is diplomatically saying is that this information would cause runs on the banks.)
The main point I wanted to make in this blog is that the $700 billion bailout is diverting the American people from the real cost of the bailouts that our government is perpetrating on the taxpayers and our system of capitalism.The following quote from the Bloomberg article illustrates my point.
“Too often the public is focused on the wrong piece of that number, the $700 billion that Congress approved,†said J.D. Foster, a former staff member of the Council of Economic Advisers who is now a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. “The other areas are quite a bit larger.â€
These “other areas†bring the total bailout bill to $8.5 TRILLION.This is where the media now needs to focus attention: the real costs of these bailouts.Let’s see how well they do now that Bloomberg has done the legwork.(I did hear Sean Hannity mention the Bloomberg article tonight on Hannity and Colmes.)
Mark Tobin, “principal of New York-based loan-sale consultants and investment bank Mission Capital Advisors LLC,†made one of the most provocative statements in the article.
He said, “’If you mark to market today, the banking system is bankrupt,’†Tobin said. “’So what do you do? You try to keep it going as best you can.’â€
“‘Mark to market’ means adjusting the value of an asset, such as a mortgage-backed security, to reflect current prices.â€
To put this in plain English, “current prices†have tanked, so that means mortgage backed securities have tanked.Our financial system is a zombie; dead but still walking around frightening people who respond by throwing money at it, hoping to make it go away.
Can our country afford to throw 60% of our GDP into these bailouts?I don’t have a PhD in Economics, but that sounds like an INSANE amount of money.I believe we are in fact throwing money down a black hole and only making matters worse, ultimately leading to a complete financial collapse and a new currency.
I know I’m probably sounding like a broken record to regular readers, but I’m not going to stop saying it. We could be on the road to a Weimar Republic scenario and eventually a North American or world currency.
Once this de-leveraging and deflationary spiral is over with, get your wheelbarrows ready for trips to the store.
I don’t dismiss the possibility that all this was engineered to reach the goal of a one-world government controlled primarily by central banks.Comments, anyone?
Happy Thanksgiving!
Quote of the week: “Someone should submit a proposal to make the paper that the depreciating dollar is printed on softer so it’s more Charmin-like, just in case.”~Anonymous
“You better hope aliens are real. The United States has borrowed 80% of the capital on earth, so if you need more, you’re going to have to go to other planets.”~Catherine Austin Fitts, on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory, quoting an unnamed Brit at an investment conference.
In a prior post, I lamented the lack of mainstream media coverage of the recent stateside troop deployment. I also wondered if the deployment was related to our financial crisis. I just found out that there’s a lot more to the story and the mainstream media, for the most part, isn’t covering this aspect either.
I wrote: “For the first time ever, according to the Army Times, a brigade of active duty, battle-hardened U.S. troops will be under the command of NorthCom and deployed stateside starting Oct. 1, 2008. The Times reported that the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team will begin this ‘permanent mission’ and that other active duty troops will take over after 12 months.
NorthCom is ‘a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.’
The Army Times reported that the duties of these troops could include ‘civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as a massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.”
I went on to state: “I’m no fan of Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., but according to Congressional Quarterly, Inc., he said that the 2006 act “’subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military’s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law.”
Just the other day, I found another piece to this puzzle when I came across this C-Span clip from Youtube.com. You’ll see U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman, D-California, claim that members of the House had been threatened with “Martial Law in America,” presumably by members of the Bush administration (Treasury Dept?), if the first bail-out bill wasn’t passed.
I believe the Congressman makes some good points. Any time someone stokes fear and tries to persuade you to get out your wallet without stopping to think, be very afraid.
The more I find out about the bail-out bill that passed (not the one Sherman was referring to), the more I think it stinks. I think both bills smell bad. This should be a good topic for a future post.
Now when you combine the Oct. 1 troop deployment with what this Congressman says, why wouldn’t this be a big story? I don’t get it.
If the thought of martial law doesn’t scare you, or even makes you feel more secure, please watch this clip of a press conference with former director of the National Security Agency (NSA), Gen. Michael Hayden, who is now Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). His interpretation of the fourth amendment to our constitution is unbelievable and downright frightening. I guess the General would like us to think he doesn’t know that probable cause is a vital part of the fourth amendment.
To go back to a cliche from the presidential campaign, isn’t that kind of like Joe the Plumber not knowing that plumbing pipes transport liquids from one point to another?
I would bet that every police officer in Rapid and many of its citizens have a better “understanding” of the fourth amendment than the man who is Director of the CIA.
If readers have any stories that you feel are important to our financial well-being but are under-covered by the media, please post your ideas in the comments section and I’ll check them out and possibly write a blog on the topic.
Quote of the day: “Barack Obama said today the government’s $700 Billion bailout should not be a blank check. Barack Obama says he knows that $700 Billion is a lot of money. In fact, it would take him at least 10 Hollywood fundraisers to come up with that kind of money.”~Jay Leno
For the first time ever, according to the Army Times, a brigade of active duty, battle-hardened U.S. troops will be under the command of NorthCom and deployed stateside starting Oct. 1, 2008. The Times reported that the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team will begin this “permanent mission” and that other active duty troops will take over after 12 months.
NorthCom is “a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities.”
The Army Times reported that the duties of these troops could include “civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as a massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack.”
There are plenty of conspiracy theories out there attempting to explain why, over 7 years after the 09-11 attacks, we are just now deploying active duty troops for a permanent mission in the U.S., especially if the reason for deploying them is the possibility of trouble at home. I’ll leave those alone for now.
I believe the questions are provocative enough.
Why has the mainstream media under-reported that US troops are coming, beginning WEDNESDAY, 10-01-08? (I’ve been unable to find any mainstream media reports online.)
Is the “lipstick on a pig” story exponentially more important than this one, based on the amount of coverage we’ve seen so far?
I’m no fan of Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., but according to Congressional Quarterly, Inc., he said that the 2006 act “’subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military’s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law.
The changes to the Insurrection Act will allow the President to use the military, including the National Guard, to carry out law enforcement activities without the consent of a governor,’ he said.
Moreover, he said, it breaks a long, fundamental tradition of federal restraint.
Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy.
And he criticized the way it was rammed through Congress.
It ‘was just slipped in the defense bill as a rider with little study,’ he fumed. ‘Other congressional committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals.’” (End Quote)
My final thoughts: Why now? Could this deployment be related to our financial crisis/bank runs, or the election that is supposed to occur in a few short weeks? Could this be related to potential retaliatory terrorist attacks if Iran is attacked?
After Googling for quite some time, the closest I could come to mainstream media coverage of this story was this short clip from the independent news organization, Democracy Now (not considered mainstream, but I can get them on Free Speech TV, channel 9415 on Dish Network).
I believe this story is much more important than the response we’ve seen so far from the agenda-setting media would tend to indicate. I hope they will pick it up soon. (The agenda-setting media are organizations like The New York Times, CNN, ABC, CBS etc. If these outlets don’t cover a story, the smaller ones usually don’t either, since they tend to follow the lead of the big dogs.)
I know my readers are noticing that we’re living in historic times and that it may be wise to pay attention to what’s happening in our country, even if Katie Couric has nothing to say on the topic.
Let’s talk about this! (I’d especially like to hear from military personnel, journalists and legal experts.)
Someone was published in the Rapid City Journal’s “Two Cents” on Sunday (09-21-08), complaining, “Where else can you sell something you don’t own except the stock market? Short selling should all be banned.”
Well, I’m all for the banning of so-called naked short selling, a situation where you can short stock you don’t own.
CNBC’s Jim Cramer complained about this situation and how the current administration’s laissez-faire SEC was unwisely allowing it, even though the rules against it were supposedly already on the books.
I don’t, however, agree that all short selling should be banned.
I don’t even agree with the SEC’s recent decision to ban short selling in just the financial sector. We’re supposed to be a capitalistic country, and we could see unintended consequences.
As our financial situation continues to worsen and the markets continue to slump, we may see a time in the near future when the SEC bans short selling in other sectors, especially if we see a crash similar to what happened during the Great Depression. At any rate, the more bans you see, the more desperate the situation has become.
I believe today’s (09-22-08) poor market performance was related to a shift in thinking about financial institutions, from them being “too big to fail” to being “too big to bail.” In other words, the smart money is realizing that our government can’t afford these bailouts, as I alluded to in a previous post.
At the same time, Democrats are complaining that the bailouts aren’t big enough! Nancy Pelosi is asking for money to go to the little guys hurt by the sub-prime crisis, when we can’t afford to bail out the big guys! (And should we even be bailing out anyone?)
We’re in a rough situation with or without bailouts, but I’m afraid that a precedent has been set which will eventually make a bad situation worse.
I’ll write more about this in a future post, especially since I got killed on Friday with ProShares UltraShort Financials (SKF). I sent $47.96 a share to money heaven, largely because of this ban on short selling in the financials.
Yes, this may have been a stupid panic sell, but how about a bailout for me, Nancy Pelosi? Wasn’t I smarter than those who were LONG financials and housing? After all, I was just a victim of the SEC!
According to Dylan Ratigan from CNBC’s Fast Money, today was the “sixth biggest session loss in history.” He’s calling today “Black Monday.”
The Dow was down over 500 points; the NASDAQ, over 80 points, and the S & P about 81 points.
What led up to today’s losses?
First it was Countrywide, then Bear Stearns, then Fannie and Freddie.
Today, the markets didn’t respond favorably to the Chapter 11 filing of Lehman Brothers and the fire sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America. Two historic pillars of Wall Street disappeared over the weekend.
AIG is also in trouble, pummeled 61% today.
Even the venerable Goldman Sachs took a big hit, probably exacerbated by Goldman mistakenly predicting higher oil prices, which have tanked instead.
I think the markets performance today is an indication that people are finally waking up to the fact that the sub-prime crisis is worse than many originally thought.
Some would still disagree with me and say we’re near a bottom.
I say we’re still in the beginning stages of this crisis! These are historic times and there’s more blood-letting to come! I will prepare myself accordingly.
I can’t blame our government for drawing a line in the sand regarding further bail-outs. Bail-outs reward risky, dumb behavior, and perpetuate the problems that got us into trouble in the first place.
But the biggest problem for me with any further bail-outs would be our national debt, which I discussed in a previous post.
Our economy and our people are in for massive pain whether the government tries to bail everyone out, or keeps going with more allowed failures. I believe their line in the sand is the lesser of two evils, which means we’ll see more failures.
I’m sure many if not most of our readers are feeling pain today. While it’s been rough for me the last year or so, today was different.
I have two Scottrade accounts. One was up $213.80 today, and the other was up $105.24.
How did I do it?
Well, for the last year or so, because of my attitude about the sub-prime crisis, I’ve hedged my accounts with gold (GLD), silver (SLV) and shorting the financial sector (SKF). I’ve also kept the majority of my accounts in cash.
Just in case my pessimism was wrong, I also bought a wind energy company called Broadwind Energy (BWEN) and the big pharma company, Merck (MRK). I’ve been getting killed in these two stocks after a short, quick profit in Broadwind over the summer. (I got in and out quickly for a nice profit and then got in again, which may have been a mistake.)
Although markets rarely go straight up or down, I’m not too optimistic at this point for the markets having a good opening tomorrow.
