The Ruthless Truth blog

in this issue

Nationwide Recess Rally: August 22nd, 12 Noon

Reno Federal Building: Protest Nationalized Health Care on Wednesdays!

Meeting with Harry Reid: Friday August 14th at 3:00pm in Carson City

Updated Dissection of the Health Care Reform Bill

Facts are Stubborn Things: Flag@WhiteHouse.GOV

Face to Face with Harry Reid this Friday at 3:00pm, please join us!
Recess Rally on August 22nd at 12:00 noon across Nevada.
Wednesday’s at the Federal Building in Reno for Health Care Reform Bill Protest.
Please send an update on how the Nevada Patriots Cap & Trade protest went at UNLV today!  Congratulations to everybody who came out to have their voices heard.
See below for details on all planned events.
We are all in this together!
Debbie Landis
www.angerisbrewing.com

Nationwide Recess Rally
August 22, 2009

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What: Nationwide Recess Rally against the Government takeover of Health Care
When: August 22nd, 12:00 Noon
Why: The US Government hasn’t managed to pass tort reform due, in no small part, to plaintiff lawyers’ (special interest) dedicated financial support of the progressive agenda.  The US Government is attempting to cap salaries and bonuses executives and business owners while simultaneously funneling billions of taxpayer dollars into these same companies (special interest). The US Government has already taken over some banks and car companies (special interest), The health care bill was designed and written by special interest and includes (regardless of what the white house has said) payoffs to Community Organizations (Acorn?), federal funding of abortion, rationed care for the elderly, payoffs to Community Organizations (Acorn?) for member recruitment, mandatory yearly audits for companies attempting to maintain private health care coverage, and severely limits coverage for things like autism and dementia.
We have our own "special interest" groups.  We call them "family", "community", and "small business".  We demand that the government of the United States of America, on behalf of WE THE PEOPLE, recognize us as the largest, most important, special interest group in the U.S..
Where:
Offices of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid:
400 S. Virginia St, Suite 902 Reno, NV 89501
Phone: 775-686-5750 Fax: 775-686-5757
600 East William St, #302 Carson City, NV 89701
Phone: 775-882-REID (7343) Fax: 775-883-1980
333 Las Vegas Boulevard South Suite 8016 Las Vegas, NV 89101
Phone: 702-388-5020 Fax: 702-388-5030
Offices of Senator John Ensign:
333 Las Vegas Boulevard South, Suite 8203 Las Vegas, Nevada 89101
Phone: (702) 388-6605  Fax: (702) 388-6501 Nevada Toll Free: (877) 894-7711
400 South Virginia Street, Suite 738 Reno Nevada 89501
Phone: (775) 686-5770  Fax: (775) 686-5729 Nevada Toll Free: (877) 894-7711
600 East William Street, Suite 304  Carson City, Nevada 89701
Phone: (775) 885-9111   Fax: (775) 883-5590 Nevada Toll Free: (877) 894-7711
Offices of Representative Shelley Berkley:
2340 Paseo Del Prado, Suite D-106  Las Vegas, NV 89102
Phone:(702) 220-9823  Fax: (702) 220-9841
Offices of Congressman Dean Heller:
400 S. Virginia St., Suite 502 Reno, NV 89501
775-686-5760 (Office)   775-686-5711 (Fax)
405 Idaho St., Suite 214  Elko, NV 89801
775-777-7920 (Office)   775-777-8974 (Fax)  
600 Las Vegas Blvd., Suite 680  Las Vegas, NV 89101
702-255-1651 (Office)  702-255-1927 (Fax) 
Offices of Congresswoman Dina Titus:
8215 S. Eastern Avenue, Suite 205 Las Vegas, Nevada 89123
Phone:  (702) 387-4941  Fax: (702) 837-0728

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Reno Federal Building – Oppose the Health Care Bill
Every Wednesday, From 4:30 – 7:30 pm through August 19th

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By popular demand with an overwhelming amount of support, the health care demonstration at the Federal Building in Reno has been extended. 
We will be gathering Wednesday, August 12 and August 19th, from 4:30 – 7:30pm at the Reno Federal Building.
Please join us and bring your signs!

• NO HEALTH CARE BY COMMITTEE
• NO RATIONING
• NO ADDITIONAL TAX BURDEN
• REFORM? YES!  GOVERNMENT CONTROLLED HEALTH CARE? NO!
• NO FEDERAL FUNDING OF ABORTION
• NO MANDATORY KICKBACKS TO ACORN FOR FUTURE HOSPITAL EXPANSION
• NO END OF LIFE COUNSELING REQUIREMENTS
• NO GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE IN FAMILY COUNSELING
• NO BLANKET COVERAGE OF NON-US CITIZENS, NO QUESTIONS ASKED
• NO FORCED TRANSITION FROM PRIVATE INSURANCE
• NO MANDATORY YEARLY AUDIT FOR COMPANIES THAT SELF INSURE
• NO DIRECT GOVERNMENT ACCESS TO INDIVIDUALS BANK ACCOUNTS
• NO SUBSIDIES TO UNIONS AND ACORN TO PAY FOR THEIR MEDICAL COVERAGE
• NO RESTRICTIONS FOR "SPECIAL NEEDS" INDIVIDUALS
• NO PAYMENTS TO ACORN FOR ENROLLING PEOPLE IN THIS IRRESPONSIBLE PLAN

Meeting with Harry Reid
Friday, August 14th 3:00pm

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Have you received your invitation to meet with Harry Reid, from "Organizing for America"? 
TruthSeeker forwarded her invitation to me today, so I followed the link.  I, under info@AngerisBrewing.com, have an appt. with the man, the myth, the legend himself… Harry Reid, at 3pm this Friday:
From the tone of the appt. confirmation, I think they are looking for more support than we’re able to give for the Health Care Reform Bill, so this should be quite the event.

Thank you for signing up to make an Office Visit for Health Reform. Below you will find the details about the office and the time you scheduled:
Sen. Harry Reid
Carson City Office
600 East William Street, #302
Carson City, NV 89701 (Map)
Phone: (775) 882-7343
Your scheduled visit —
Date: Fri Aug 14 2009
Time: 3:00 p.m.
We put together a step-by-step guide you can use to plan your visit and maximize your impact. You can download the guide and additional information to drop off at the office here:
DOWNLOAD YOUR OFFICE VISIT GUIDE
These visits are extremely important. Representatives are feeling the heat from special interests and need to hear from their constituents how important health insurance reform is to them.
For our plan to work, we need everyone who’s signed up to stop by their Representative’s office during the time they agreed to go. It’s critical that they hear from as many people in their district as possible. If for some reason you can’t make your shift, let us know, but make sure you drop by sometime during office hours this week.
Thank you for standing up once again to fight for the change our country needs.
Organizing for America

I am looking for a delegation of 5 people to attend the visit.  I will happily sit the meeting out for those of you who have pressing concerns you are looking for answers to, right NOW.  The rest of us will be on the sidewalk out front waiting for an update from you!  Please join us at 600 E. William St. at 2:45pm on Friday!!!
Please feel free to make your own appointment with Senator Reid on Friday, and let me know when we should all be there for support. "Organizing for America" has generously created a very convenient appointment request form, click HERE to take advantage of it.  If you’d like to speak to the Senator at 3pm, please email me your contact information at info@angerisbrewing.com
For information: Senator Reid’s office confirmed that he will not be doing town hall meetings during the recess, "they don’t know why".

Updated Information on Health Care Reform Bill
From AmericaIsWatching.org

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Thank you to America Is Watching for this comprehensive dissection of HR 3200, the Health Care Reform Bill.
� Sec. 113, Pg 21-22 of the Healthcare (HC) Bill MANDATES a government audit of the books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure in order
to "ensure that the law does not provide incentives for small and mid-size employers to self-insure"!
� Sec. 122, Pg 29, lines 4-16 – YOUR HEALTHCARE WILL BE RATIONED!
� Sec. 123, Pg 30 – THERE WILL BE A GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE deciding what treatments and benefits you get.
� Sec. 142, Pg 42 – The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your benefits for you. You have no choice!
� Sec. 152, Pg 50-51 – Healthcare will be provided to ALL NON-US citizens.
� Sec. 163, Pg 58-59 beginning at line 5 – government will have real-time access to individual’s finances & a National ID Health care card
will be issued!
� Sec. 163, Pg 59, lines 21-24 – government will have direct access to your banks accounts for electronic funds transfer.
� Sec. 164, Pg 65 is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in unions & community organizations.
� Sec. 201, Pg 72, Lines 8-14 – government is creating an Healthcare Exchange to bring private plans under government control.
� Sec. 203, Pg 84 – government mandates ALL benefit packages for private Health Care plans in the exchange.
� Sec. 203, Pg 85, Line 7 – Specifications of benefit levels for plans means that the government will define your Healthcare plan and has the
ability to ration your Healthcare!
� Sec. 205, Pg 95, Lines 8-18 – The government will use groups to "inform and educate" (sign up) individuals for government plan.
� Sec. 205, Pg 102, Lines 12-18 – Medicaid eligible individuals will be automatically enrolled in Medicaid. No freedom to choose.
� Sec. 223, Pg 124, Lines 24-25 – No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No "administrative of judicial review" against a
government monopoly.
� Sec. 225, Pg 127, Lines 1-16 – Doctors and the government will tell YOU what you can make. "The Secretary shall provide for the annual
participation of physicians under the public health insurance option, for which payment may be made for services furnished during the year."
� Sec. 312, Pg 145, Line 15-17 – Employers MUST auto-enroll employees into public option plan.
� Sec. 313, Pg 149, Lines 16-2 – ANY Employer with payroll $400,000 and above who does not provide public option pays 8% tax on all
payroll.
� Sec. 313, Pg 150, Lines 9-13 – Businesses with payroll between $251,000 and $400,000 who do not provide public option pay 2-6% tax
on all payroll.
� Sec. 401.59B, Pg 167, Lines 18-23 – ANY individual who does not have acceptable care, according to government, will be taxed 2.5% of
income.
� Sec.59B, Pg 170 Lines, 1 – Any NONRESIDENT alien is exempt from individual taxes. (Americans will pay for their Healthcare.)
� Sec. 431, Pg 195, Lines 1-3 – Officers and employees of Healthcare Administration (government) will have access to ALL Americans’
financial and personal records.
� Sec. 441, Pg 203, Lines 14-15 – "The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax" Yes, it says that.
� Sec. 1121, Pg 239, Line 14-24 – The government will limit and reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors, low income and poor are
the ones affected
� Sec. 1121, Pg 241, Line 6-8 – Doctors, it does not matter what specialty you have; you’ll all be paid the same. "Service categories
established under this paragraph shall apply without regard to the specialty of the physician furnishing the service."
� Sec. 1122, Pg 253, Line 10-18 – The government "validates relative value unit’s" (sets value of doctor’s) time, professional judgment,
methods etc. (defining the value of humans).
� Sec. 1131, Pg 265 – Government mandates and controls productivity for private Healthcare Industries. "Incorporating Productivity
Improvements into Market Basket Updates that Do Not Already Incorporate Such Improvements."
� Sec. 1141, Pg 268 – The government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs.
� Sec. 1145, Pg 272 – Treatment of certain cancer hospitals: Does this mean that cancer patients and their treatment are open to rationing?
� Sec. 1151, Page 280 – The government will penalize hospitals for what government deems preventable re-admission. (Incentives for
hospital to not treat and release.)
� Sec. 1151, Pg 298, Lines 9-11 – Doctors, treat a patient during initial admission that results in a readmission and the government will
penalize you for that action.
� Sec. 1156, Pg 317, Line 13-20 – "PROHIBITION on physician ownership or Investment." government tells doctors what/how much they can
own.
� Sec. 1156, Pg 317-318, Lines 21-25, 1-3 – "PROHIBITION on Expansion of Facility Capacity." The government will mandate that hospitals
cannot expand ("number of operating rooms or beds").
� Sec. 1156, Pg 321, Lines 2-13-Hospitals have opportunity to apply for exception BUT community input required.
� Sec. 1162, Pg 335-339, Lines 16-25 – The government mandates establishment of outcome based measures. Rationing.
� Sec. 1162, Pg 341, Lines 3-9 – The government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans (Part B), HMOs, etc. This will force
people into a government plan.
"The Secretary may determine not to identify a Medicare Advantage plan if the Secretary has identified deficiencies in the plan’s
compliance with rules for such plans under this part."
� Sec. 1177, Pg 354 – Government will RESTRICT enrollment of Special needs people! "Extension of Authority of Special Needs Plans to
Restrict Enrollment."
� Sec. 1191, Pg 379 – Government creates more bureaucracy – "Telehealth Advisory Committee." Healthcare by phone or the Internet – (dial
1 for your Healthcare advice?)
� Sec. 1233, Pg 425, Lines 4-12 – Government mandates Advance (Death) Care Planning consultation. Some sick or elderly are NOT
COMFORTABLE discussing "end of life," so why MANDATE IT??  SOME IN THE ADMINISTRATION HAVE ALREADY DISCUSSED
RATIONING HEALTH CARE FOR THE ELDERLY.
� Sec. 1233, Pg 425, Lines 17-19 – Government WILL instruct and consult regarding living wills and durable powers of attorney. (Mandatory
end-of-life planning again, which many people and their families are not comfortable discussing.)
� Sec. 1233, Pg 425-426, Lines 22-25, 1-3 – Government provides approved list of end of life resources, guiding you in death.
� Sec. 1233, Pg 427, Lines 15-24 – Government mandates program for orders for life-sustaining treatment (i.e. end of life). The government
has a say in how your life ends.
� Sec. 1233, Pg 429, Lines 1-9 – An "advanced care planning consult" will be used as patient’s health deteriorates.
� Sec. 1233, Pg 429, Lines 10-12 – "Advanced Care Consultation" may include an ORDER for end of life plans – from the government.
� Sec. 1233, Pg 429, Lines 13-25 – The government will specify which Doctors (professional authority under state law includes Nurse
Practitioners or Physician’s Assistants) can write an end of life order.
� Sec. 1233, Pg 430, Lines 11-15 – The government will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life according to pre-set
methods (not individually decided).
� Sec. 1302, Pg 468, Lines 16-21 – "Community Based Home Medical Services means a non-profit community-based of state-based
organization."
� Sec. 1302, Pg 472, Lines 14-17 – PAYMENT TO COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATION: One monthly payment to a community-based
organization.
� Sec. 1308, Pg 489 – The government will cover Marriage and Family therapy. This will involve government control of your marriage.
� Sec. 1308, Pg 494-498 – The government will cover Mental Health Services including: defining, creating and rationing those services.
� Sec. 1401, Pg. 502 – Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research Established. Big Brother is watching how your treatment works.
� Sec. 1401, Pg 503, Lines 13-19 – The government will build registries and data networks from YOUR electronic medical records. "The
Center may secure directly from any department or agency of the United States information necessary to enable it to carry out this section."
� Sec. 1401, Pg 503, Lines 21-25 – The government may secure data directly from any department or agency of the US including your data.
� Sec. 1401, Pg 503, Lines 21-25 – The "Center" will collect data both "published and unpublished" (that means public & your private
information).
� Sec. 1401, Pg 506, Lines 19-21 – An "Appointed Clinical Perspective Advisory Panel" will advise The Center and recommend policies that
would allow for public access of data.
� Sec. 1401, Pg 518, Lines 21-25 – The Commission will have input from Healthcare consumer representatives.
� Sec. 1411, Pg 524, Lines 18-22 – Establishes the "Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund." More taxes for ALL.
� Sec. 1441, Pg 621, Lines 20-25 – The government will define "NEW Quality" measures in Healthcare.
� Sec. 1442, Pg 622, Lines 2-9 – To pay for the Quality Standards, government will transfer money from "qualified entities" (government Trust
Funds) to other government Trust Funds. More Taxes.
� Sec. 1442, Pg. 624, Lines 19-23 – Qualified Entities: "The Secretary shall ensure that the entity is a public, nonprofit or academic institution
with technical expertise in the area of health quality measurement."
� Sec. 1442, Pg 623, Lines 5-10 – "Quality" measures shall be designed to assess outcomes and functional status of patients
� Sec. 1442, Pg 623, Lines 15-17 – "Quality" measures shall be designed to profile you including race, age, gender, place of residence, etc.
� Sec. 1443, Pg 628 The government will give "Multi-Stake Holders" pre-rulemaking input into selection of "quality" measures.
� Sec. 1443, Pg 630-31. Lines 9-24, 1-9-Those Multi-Stake Holder groups include. Unions and groups like ACORN deciding what
constitutes quality.
� Sec. 1444, Pg 632, Lines 14-25 – The government may implement any "Quality measure" of Healthcare services as that bureaucrats see fit.
� Sec. 1444, Pg 632-333, 14-25, 1-9 – The Secretary may issue non-endorsed "Quality Measures" for physician and dialysis services.
� Sec. 1251 (beginning), Pg 634 to 652 – "Physician Payments Sunshine Provision" – government wants to shine sunlight on Doctors but not
government. "Reports on financial relationships between manufacturers and distributors . . . and between physicians and other health care
entities."
� Sec. 1501 (beginning), Pg 659-670 – Doctors in Residency – government will tell you where your residency will be, thus where you’ll live.
� Sec. 1503 (beginning), Pg 675-685 – government will regulate hospitals in EVERY aspect of residency programs, including teaching
hospitals.
� Sec. 1601 (beginning), Pg 685-699 – Increased funding to fight waste, fraud, and abuse. (Like the government with an $18 million website?)
� Sec. 1619, Pgs 700-703 – If your part of Healthcare plan isn’t in the government’s Healthcare Exchange, but you qualify for federal aid, you
don’t have to pay.
� Sec. 1128G, Pg 704-708 – If the Secretary determines there is a "significant risk of fraudulent activity," on Healthcare provider or supplier,
the government can do a background check.
� Sec. 1632, Pg 710, Lines 8-14 – The Secretary has broad powers to deny Healthcare providers and suppliers admittance into Healthcare
Exchange. Your doctor could be thrown out of business.
� Sec. 1637, Pg 718-719 – ANY Doctor who orders durable medical equipment or home medical services are REQUIRED to be enrolled in,
or eligible for, Medicare.
� Sec. 1639, Pg 721 – Government MANDATES that Doctors must have face to face with patient to certify patient for home health services.
� Sec. 1639, Pg 723-24, Lines 23-25, 1-5-The same government certifications will apply to Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s health plan:
Your kids).
� Sec. 1640, Pg 723, Lines 16-22 – The government reserves right to apply face to face certification for patient to ANY other Healthcare
service.
� Sec. 1651, Pg 734, Lines 16-25 – Proposes, for law enforcement sake, that the Secretary of HHS will give Attorney General access to ALL
medical data.
� Sec. 1701 (beginning), Pg 739-756 – The government sets guidelines for subsidizing the uninsured (and you have to pay for them).
� Sec. 1704, Pg 756-761 – The government will shift burden of payments to Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) to states (your taxes).
� Sec. 1711, Pg 764 The government will require preventative services – including vaccinations (no choice).
� Sec. 1713, Pg 768 – Government-determined Nurse Home Visitation Services (Hello union paybacks).
� Sec. 1713, Pg 768, Lines 3-5-Nurse Home Visit Services – Service #1: "Improving maternal or child health and pregnancy outcomes or
increasing birth intervals between pregnancies." (Compulsory ABORTIONS?)
� Sec. 1713, Pg 768, Lines 11-14 – Nurse Home Visit Services include determinations of economic self-sufficiency, employment
advancement and school-readiness.
� Sec. 1714, Pg 769 – Federal government mandates eligibility for State Family Planning Services. Abortion and government control
intertwined.
� Sec. 1733, Pg 788-798 – government will set and mandate drug prices, therefore controlling which drugs are brought to market. (Goodbye
innovation and private research.)
� Sec. 1744, Pgs 796-799 – Establishes PAYMENTS for graduate medical education. The government will now control your doctor’s
education.
� Sec.1751, Pg 800 Sec 1751 – The government will decide which Health Care conditions will be paid. Say "RATION!"
� Sec. 1759, Pg 809 – Billing Agents, clearinghouses, or other alternate payees are required to register. The government takes over private
payment systems too.
� Sec. 1801, Pg 819-823 – The Government will identify individuals "likely to be ineligible" for subsidies. Will access all personal financial
information.
� Sec. 1802, Pg 823-828 – Government sets up Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund. Another bottomless tax pit.
� Sec. 4375, Pg 828-832, Lines 12-16 – Government will impose a fee on ALL private health insurance plans including self-insured to pay for
Trust Fund!
� Sec. 4377, Pg 835, Lines 11-13 – Fees imposed by government for Trust Fund shall be treated as if they were taxes.
� Sec. 440, Pg 837-839 – The government will design and implement Home Visitation Program for families with young kids and families that
are expecting children.
� Sec. 1904, Pg 843-844-This Home Visitation Program includes the government coming into your house and teaching/telling you how to
parent!
� Sec. 2002, Pg 858 – The government will establish a Public Health Fund at a cost of $88,800,000,000 (That’s Billions).
� Sec. 2201, Pg 864 – The government will MANDATE the establishment of a National Health Service Corps.

o Sec. 2201 – "Fulfillment of Obligated Service Requirement"
o Sec. 2201, Pg 864-875 – The NHS Corps is a program where Doctors perform mandatory Healthcare for 2 years for partial loan
repayment.

� Sec. 2212, Pg 875-891 – The government takes over the education of Medical students and Doctors through education and loans.
� Sec. 340L, Pg 897 – The government will establish a Public Health Workforce Corps to ensure an adequate supply of public health
professionals.
� Sec. 340L, Pg 897 – The Public Health Workforce Corps shall consist of civilian employees of the United States as Secretary deems
necessary.
� Sec. 340L, Pg 897 – The Public Health Workforce Corps shall consist of officers of Regular and Reserve Corps of Service.
� Sec. 340M, Pg 899 – The Public Health Workforce Corps includes veterinarians. Will animals have heath care, too?
� Sec.2233, Pg 909 – The government will develop, build and run Public Health Training Centers.
� Sec. 2241, Pg 912-913 – Government starts a Healthcare affirmative action program under the guise of diversity scholarships.
� Sec. 2251, Pg 915 – Government MANDATES cultural and linguistic competency training for Healthcare professionals.
� Sec. 3111, Pg 931 – The government will establish a Preventative and Wellness Trust fund, with initial cost of $30,800,000,000 (Billions
more).
� Sec. 3121, Pg 934, Lines 21-22 – Government will identify specific goals and objectives for prevention and wellness activities. More control
of your life.
� Sec. 3121, Pg 935, Line 1-2 The government will develop "Healthy People & National Public Health Performance Standards." They will tell
us what to eat?
� Sec. 3131, Pg 942, Lines 22-25 – "Task Force on Community Preventive Services," More government? Under the Offices of Surgeon
General, Public Health Services, Minority Health and Women’s Health.
� Sec. 3141, Pg 949-979 – BIG GOVERNMENT core public health infrastructure includes workforce capacity, lab systems, health information
systems, etc.
� Sec. 2511, Pg 992 – Government will establish school based "health" clinics. Your children will be indoctrinated and your grandchildren may
be aborted!
� Sec. 399Z-1, Pg 993 – School Based Health Clinics will be integrated into the school environment. More government brainwashing in
school.
� Sec. 2521, Pg 1000 – The government will establish a National Medical Device Registry. Will you be tracked?

Constitutional Rights
Facts are Stubborn Things

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Here is the latest statement from the DNC:

"The Republicans and their allied groups – desperate after losing two consecutive elections and every major policy fight on Capitol Hill – are inciting angry mobs of a small number of rabid right wing extremists funded by K Street Lobbyists to disrupt thoughtful discussions about the future of health care in America taking place in Congressional Districts across the country.

However, much like we saw at the McCain-Palin rallies last year where crowds were baited with cries of ‘socialist,’ ‘communist,’ and where the birthers movement was born – these mobs of extremists are not interested in having a thoughtful discussion about the issues – but like some Republican leaders have said – they are interested in ‘breaking’ the President and destroying his Presidency."

Citizens are being asked to report people and organizations spreading misinformation on the Health Care Reform Bill to flag@whitehouse.gov.

Anger is Brewing agrees that this is absolutely necessary to ensure the dissemination of misinformation stops completely!

This is a three step process:

1. Download HR3200 by clicking HERE
2. Watch or listen to television or radio news and make a note of the things you hear from Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, President Obama, and others.
3. When they contradict (translated, "lie") the contents of the bill, send an email to flag@whitehouse.gov with the page and line number of the actual text (documented above) and attach a copy of HR3200 for their reference.

We are obligated to report abuses, we are ~ We the People!

Quick Links…

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Anger Is Brewing Home

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by Tom Eley.

Global Research, August 10, 2009

wsws.org – 2008-10-30

 

A report released in October 2008 by the Working Poor Families Project reveals that more than 28 percent of American families with one or both parents employed are living in poverty.

The report, "Still Working Hard, Still Falling Short," is based on data for the period from 2004 through 2006 gathered from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey and the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey.

The report finds that 9.6 million households can be described as low-income or "working poor"—defined as families that earn less than 200 percent of the official poverty level. There were 350,000 more such families in 2006 than in 2002. More than 21 million children now live in low-income working families—an increase of 800,000 in four years.

In 2006 there were more than 29 million jobs in the US that paid below the official poverty level—defined as $9.91 an hour for full-time labor—an increase of nearly 5 million poverty-wage jobs from 2002.

Family income inequality also increased rapidly between 2002 and 2006, the report says. In 2006, the top 20 percent of US households earned on average 9.2 times as much as the bottom quintile.

The report notes that working poor families "lack the earnings necessary to meet their basic needs—a struggle exacerbated by soaring prices for food, gas, health and education." About 60 percent of low-income working families are forced to spend more than one-third of their income on housing, and nearly 40 percent lack health insurance for one or both parents.

These families struggle under poverty conditions despite parents working long hours. According to the report, "Adults in low-income working families worked on average 2,552 hours per year in 2006, the equivalent of almost one-and-a-quarter full-time workers."

This total is about one third of all the hours that pass in a year. It is nearly twice the total yearly work hours of the average German worker, who works 1,362 hours per year, and 162 hours more per year than the average South Korean worker, according to statistics from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The report documents the sharp decline in living standards for wide layers of the working class, the result of decades of corporate downsizing and wage-cutting presided over by Democratic and well as Republican administrations. It shows that poverty-level jobs are increasingly common and are held by broad sections of the population. Contrary to certain stereotypes promoted by the media, the majority of families living on poverty wages are neither immigrants, minorities or families with a single parent.

Some 72 percent of poor families, according to the report, hold jobs. More than half are headed by married couples, 69 percent have only American-born parents, 89 percent have a parent between the ages of 25 and 54, and 43 percent have white non-Hispanic parents. Only 25 percent receive food stamp assistance.

The study breaks its statistics down to the state level. In general, the conditions of working families are worst in the South and the non-Pacific West. Texas, for example, has the fourth highest number of working families defined as low-income, the second lowest percentage of low-income families who have a high school diploma or its equivalent, the second highest number with no post-secondary school experience, the fewest with health insurance, and the third highest family income inequality.

New York has the highest family income inequality in the nation, California the fourth highest.

The impoverishment of ever-larger sections of the working class population is the outcome of a number of processes: the dismantling of large sections of basic industry, the wave of union-busting and strike-breaking in the 1980s, the gutting of social welfare programs, the betrayal of the working class by the trade union organizations.

The other side of this process is the vast enrichment of the top 10 percent of the US population and the ever-greater concentration of wealth in the hands of the financial elite.

A survey carried out in March by Equilar and reported by the New York Times revealed that the CEOs of the 200 largest publicly traded companies earned an average of $11.7 million in 2007.

In 2005, the top 1 percent of US households accounted for 21.8 percent of all pre-tax income, twice the figure in 1970s. This represented the greatest concentration of income since the year before the onset of the Great Depression, 1928, when about 24 percent of national income went to the top percentile.

It should be noted that the "Still Working Hard, Still Falling Short" report reflects conditions that existed prior to the eruption of the financial crisis in August of 2007 and the subsequent slide into recession.

Global Research Articles by Tom Eley

by Charles E. Carlson

Global Research, August 10, 2009

We Hold These Truths

 

According to the Associated Press:

ÈEurope’s 19 central banks, including the European Central Bank, the Swiss National Bank and the Sveriges Riksbank agreed to put a new five-year cap on gold sales. These institutions decided that their annual sale of gold will not exceed 400 tonnes over the five-year period and total sales will not exceed 2,000 tonnes. The Swiss National Bank said it has no plans for any further gold sales in the foreseeable future. With gold holdings amounting to 1,040 tonnes, it holds a substantial part of its currency reserves in the form of gold." (http://news.ino.com/headlines/?newsid=80720090545) 

What is the significance of this agreement among 19 European Central Bankers to limit gold sales to 400 tons per year and not more than 2000 tons in five years?

As far as a commitment to those of us who hold currency in our bank accounts is concerned, the European Central Bankers signed agreement on gold, The announcement (Associated Press August 07, 2009) means nothing because the central bankers can change it, or ignore it, and they do not have to tell us what they are doing.

This announcement was likely made to convince us that tons of gold, are going to be put on the market, therefore the price will be unstable, a poor investment compared to paper dollars, we are told to believe.

Note that the only central bank to make an individual announcement is Switzerland, which owns a relatively large amount of gold. (1004 tons). According to their statement, they have no plan to sell any.

There is no reason to believe any central banker, even the Swiss, but let’s look at the significance in the event they do what they say and sell 400 tons a year.

Lets start with, how much a ton of gold is. It’s about the value of the signing bonus demanded by one 21-year old football pass catcher named Michael Crabtree. He says he will sit out the season unless the San Francisco 49er’s management promise him lots more than the offered $20 million (2/3 ton of gold) to sign.

Here is the calculation: a metric ton of gold is about 32,500 troy ounces, multiplying by $950 per troy ounce equals about $30.5 million per ton, about what Mr. Crabtree thinks he is worth as a pass catcher. So the sale of 400 tons of gold might produce enough dollars to pay one year’s payroll of the NFL, or the executive bonus of a few Wall Street Bankers, some run as high as 4 tons in a year.

Thus the whole 2000 tons that might be sold in five years is worth $65 billion at today’s prices, ($3.2 million per ton times 2000 tons) a pittance when we consider that the US Treasury, and the Fed (the US central bank), (not including the 19 European bankers) have printed and spent somewhere between $6 trillion and $12 trillion dollars in the last 12 months alone. It is hardly worth arguing which number of trillions is the right number because any number we use will be overrun within a year or two.

Putting Washington and The New York FED spending in a gold perspective, six trillion dollars would constitute , at $950 per ounce, 200,000 Metric Tons of gold, or about 100 times as much gold as the European bankers have suggested they might sell, and almost twice as much gold as the world has ever produced, including every ounce lost, and in our teeth and old eyeglass frames in museums.

According to the World Gold Council, which was my first click in my Google search for the world gold supply, all the governments in the world hold about 30,000 tons of Gold ( the USA holding the most with 8000 tons) and only about 110,000 tons have been accumulated by everyone world wide since the dawn of man. Thus our estimate that the FED and the Treasury have borrowed and or printed enough money in a year to buy all the gold owned by all governments 7 to 14 times over (depending on whose figure you use of the deficit spending), and nearly twice as much gold than is owned by all people and governments combined! Notes(1) (2)

So how are gold, the Central Bankers, and high cost of a pass receiver related? Usury is a bible word for cheating people who have money by diluting the value of what they have. I would say you should not worry too much if your gold collection (if you are lucky enough to have one) drops in dollar price as a result of this propaganda campaign by the central bankers. It is really the value of the dollar that is fluctuating up and mostly down. It appears that developing countries, including China, Russia and India are buying up gold faster than the central bankers can sell it.

Sources

(1) The Gold Council http://www.research.gold.org/supply_demand/

(2) Freemarket Gold and Money Report: http://www.fgmr.com/gold.htm

Global Research Articles by Charles E. Carlson

by Mike Whitney

Global Research, August 8, 2009

The World needs a breather from the US. And they’ll get it sooner than many think
We’re making this way too complicated. It’s simple really.

The Fed has only one tool at its disposal; to create more money. Typically, the way the Fed adds to the money supply is by lowering interest rates. When the Fed lowers rates below the rate of inflation; they’re basically selling dollars for under a buck. That’s a good deal, so, naturally, speculators jump on it and trigger a credit expansion. What follows is a frenzy of market activity that ends in a housing, credit, tech or equity bubble. Eventually, the bubble bursts and the economy goes into a tailspin. Then, after a period of digging-out, the process resumes again. Wash, rinse, repeat. It’s always the same. The moral is: Cheap money creates bubbles; and bubbles move wealth from workers to rich motherporkers. It’s as simple as that. That’s why the wealth gap is wider now than anytime since the Gilded Age. The rich own everything.

The Federal Reserve is the policy arm of the big banks and brokerage houses. Period. Ostensibly, its mandate is to maintain "price stability and full employment". Right. Anyone notice how many jobs the Fed has created lately? How about the dollar? Is it really supposed to zig-zag like it has been for the last decade? The central task of the Fed is to shift wealth from one class to another. And it succeeds at that task admirably. The Fed’s "mandate" is public relations claptrap. Bernanke hasn’t lifted a finger for homeowners, consumers or ordinary working stiffs. "Yer on yer own. Just don’t expect a handout. That’s socialism!" All the doe is flowing upwards…according to plan. The Fed is a social engineering agency designed to serve as the de facto government behind the smokescreen of democratic institutions. Did you really think a black, two year senator with no background in foreign policy or economics was calling the shots?

Puh-leeese! Obama is a public relations invention who’s used to cut ribbons, console the unemployed, and convince Americans they live in a "post racial" society. Right. (Just take a look at the footage from Katrina again) The Fed has complete control over monetary policy and, thus, the country’s economic future. Bernanke doesn’t even pretend to defer to Congress anymore. Why bother? After Lehman caved in, Bernanke invoked the "unusual and exigent" clause in the Fed’s charter and declared himself czar. Now he has absolute power over the nation’s purse-strings.

The $13 trillion the Fed has committed to the financial system since the beginning of the crisis –via loans and outright purchases of mortgage-backed garbage and US sovereign debt–was never authorized by Congress. In fact, the Fed stubbornly refuses to even identify which institutions got the "loans", how much the loans were worth, what kind of collateral was accepted for the loans, or when the loans have to be repaid.

In truth, the loans are not loans at all, but gifts to the industry to keep asset prices artificially high so that the entire financial system does not come crashing down. Check this out:

"In an analysis written by economist Gary Gorton for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta’s 2009 Financial Markets Conference titled, "Slapped in the Face by the Invisible Hand; Banking and the Panic of 2007", the author shows that mortgage-related securities ballooned from $492.6 billion in 1996 to $3,071.1 in 2003, while asset backed securities (ABS) jumped from $168.4 billion in 1996 to $1,253.1 in 2006. All told, more than $20 trillion in securitized debt was sold between 1997 to 2007. "

$20 trillion! How much of that feces paper–which is worth just pennies on the dollar– is sitting on the balance sheets of banks and other financial institutions just waiting to blow up as soon as the Fed asks for its money back? And the Fed will never get its money back because the prices of complex securities and derivatives will never regain their pre-crisis values. Why? Because these derivatives are linked to underlying collateral (mortgages) which have already declined 33% from their peak and are headed lower still. Also, these toxic assets were sold as risk-free (many of them were rated triple A) and have now been exposed as extremely risky or fraudulent. Because these assets were heaped together in bundles to strip out their interest rates, they cannot be easily separated which means that they are worth considerably less than the 33% that has been lost on the underlying collateral (mortgages) The securitization markets are not expected to rebound for a decade or more, which means that the Fed will have to find other more-creative way to goose the credit system to avoid a downward spiral.

But how?

Zero percent interest rates haven’t worked because qualified borrowers are cutting spending and saving their disposable income, while people who need to borrow, no longer meet the banks’ tougher lending standards. Bank credit is shrinking even though excess bank reserves are nearly $900 billion. When banks stop lending, the economy contracts, business activity slows, unemployment soars and growth sputters. Presently, the economy is still contracting, but at a slower pace than before. "Less bad" is the new "good". All the recession indicators are still blinking red–income, employment, sales, and production–all down big! But it doesn’t matter because it’s a "Green Shoots" rally; plenty of cheap liquidity for the markets and a freeway off-ramp (for sleeping) for the unemployed.

The Fed’s lending facilities are designed to pump liquidity into the system and inflate another bubble by generating more debt. Unfortunately, most people accept Bernanke’s feeble defense of these corporate-welfare programs and fail to see their real purpose. An example may help to explain how they really work:

Say you bought a house at the peak of the bubble in 2005 and paid $500,000. Then prices dropped 40% (as they have in Calif) and your house is now worth $300,000. If you only put 5% down, ($25,000) then you are underwater by $175,000. Which means that you own more on the mortgage than your house is currently worth. (This is essentially what has happened to the entire financial system. The equity has vaporized, so institutions are using dodgy accounting tricks instead of reporting their real losses.) So Bernanke comes along and gives you $175,000 no interest, rotating loan to you so that no one knows that you are really busted and you can continue spending just as you had before. Not bad, eh? This is what the lending facilities are all about. It is a charade to conceal the fact that a large portion of the nation’s financial institutions are insolvent and propped up by state largess.

But there’s more, too.

Now that Bernanke has given you $175,000 no interest, rotating loan; you expect that eventually he will ask for his money back. Right? So your only hope of saving your home, in the long run, is to engage in risky behavior, like dabbling the stock market. It’s like playing roulette, except you have nothing to lose since you are underwater anyway.

This is exactly what the financial institutions are doing with the Fed’s loans. They’re betting on equities and hoping they can avoid the Grim Reaper.

Here’s how former hedge fund manager Andy Kessler summed it up last week in the Wall Street Journal: "By buying U.S. Treasuries and mortgages to increase the monetary base by $1 trillion, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke didn’t put money directly into the stock market but he didn’t have to. With nowhere else to go, except maybe commodities, inflows into the stock market have been on a tear. Stock and bond funds saw net inflows of close to $150 billion since January. The dollars he cranked out didn’t go into the hard economy, but instead into tradable assets. In other words, Ben Bernanke has been the market." (Andy Kessler, "The Bernanke Market" Wall Street Journal)

Only a small portion of the money that has gone into the stock market in the last 6 months (since the March lows) has come from money markets. The fed’s loans are being laundered into stocks via financial institutions that are rolling the dice for their own survival. The uptick in the markets has helped insolvent banks raise equity in the capital markets so they don’t have to grovel to Congress for another TARP bailout. Everybody’s elated with Bernanke’s latest bubble except working people who have seen their wages slashed by 4.5%, their credit lines cut, the home values plunge, and their living standards sink to third world levels. And the Fed’s spending-spree is not over yet; not by a long shot. The next wave of home foreclosures (already 1.9 million in the first half of 2009) is just around the corner–the Alt-As, option arms, prime loans. The $3.5 trillion commercial real estate market is capsizing. The under-capitalized banking system will need assistance. And there will have to be another round of fiscal stimulus for ailing consumers. Otherwise, foreign holders of US Treasurys will see that the US can no longer provide 25% of global demand and head for the exits.

Bernanke’s back is against the wall. The only thing he can do is print more money, shove it though the back door of the stock exchange and keep his fingers crossed. The rest is up to CNBC and the small army of media cheerleaders.

There is some truth to the theory that Bernanke saved the financial system from a Chernobyl-type meltdown. But that doesn’t change the facts. Accounts must be balanced; debts must be paid. The Fed chief has committed $13 trillion to maintain the appearance of solvency. But the system is bankrupt. The commercial paper market, money markets, trillions of dollars of toxic debt instruments, and myriad shyster investment banks and insurance companies are now backed by the "full faith and credit" of the US Treasury. The financial system is now a ward of the state. The "free market" has deteriorated into state capitalism; a centralized system where all the levers of power are controlled by the Central Bank. If Bernanke’s Politburo withdraws its loans–or even if he raises interest rates too soon– the whole system will collapse.

The economy is now balanced on the rickety scaffolding of the dollar. As the Obama stimulus wears off, the rot in the economy will become more apparent. Household red ink is at record highs, so personal consumption will not rebound. That means US assets and US sovereign debt will become less attractive. Foreign capital will flee. The dollar will fall.

The world needs a breather from the US. And they’ll get it sooner than many think.

Mike Whitney is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Mike Whitney

by Bob Chapman.

Global Research, August 8, 2009

The International Forecaster

 

The starting point for all analysis of the ongoing bailout orgy that is currently being used in crony capitalist fashion to transfer wealth from our middle class to the financial elites and their transnational conglomerates is whether these bailouts are authorized by the US Constitution.  The answer is a resounding NO!  
Nothing in the Constitution could ever be interpreted in any manner that would in any way allow the conversion of our quasi-capitalist republic into a police state, which is the last thing our Founding Fathers had in mind.
How can our government simply hand over fiat money created out of thin air, which in itself totally violates the provisions in our Constitution dealing with the issuance of money, to whoever they deem to be too-big-to-fail?  The very idea of such targeted bailouts violates every precept upon which our nation was founded, and our Constitution in no way allows the bailout of any private person or business entity, especially where this creates special privileges to be given to a chosen few "anointed" entities at the expense of our citizens in general.  Regulation of interstate commerce does not mean doling out crony capitalist bailouts, which amount to nothing short of the implementation of feudalism under the Puppet Master oligarchs of our Shadow Government.  Regulation would mean fining and jailing these criminals and allowing them to fail so better run companies can acquire their assets via liquidation to be supervised by regulators.  You reap what you sow in this nation.  You do not reap profits for yourself and have everyone else pay for your losses.  That is pure poppycock detritus.
But where is our redress?  We have a President who is a usurper pushed into office by the Puppet Masters in another violation of our Constitution that limits the Presidency to natural born citizens, we have a bogus Congress beholden to the Puppet Masters for the filling of their campaign coffers in a political system where elective offices are bought and sold based on wealth instead of ability and integrity, and we have a Kangaroo Court System where the judges know not to bite the hands that appointed them, lest their skeletons be released from their closets or worse.  Our regulators, who are in on almost every scam and public rip-off (i.e. the Madoff debacle), look the other way or issue chump change fines without requiring any accountability.  The only redress left now are forceful public demonstrations, and if the President and Congress still turn a deaf ear, then there is always the Second Amendment, which is the option which we predict will eventually be used to create a change in our government from total corruption back to public service.  Obama wanted "change," and that is what the American people are going to give him, not what he is going to give us.  And let’s also make that perfectly clear to the Illuminati, whose boots Obama daily licks like a slobbering dog.

When the subprime/credit-crunch debacles first unfolded, we took the position that there should absolutely be no bailouts because such things are illegal, unfair, immoral and flagrantly unconstitutional.  You do not mess with private contract rights, or dole out special privileges to a chosen few on a whim, lest you become known as just another Banana Republic. We are a nation of laws and legal precedents.  You don’t throw out hundreds of years of legal precedent by subordinating secured bondholders to unsecured creditors, all with the blessing of our Supreme Kangaroo Court and its nine numbskulls, who are appropriately dressed like Darth Vader, and then expect any other nation in the world to take you seriously.  Our nation has lost any modicum of credibility and integrity, and the only nations who continue to deal with our government are the ones whose governments are even more criminal than ours is and/or who are caught in a "dollar trap."  This fact alone is enough to kill the bond markets.  This total disregard of the law and of legal precedents creates tremendous risk in the minds of foreign investors, and that means higher interest rates, and lower bond values, both public and private.  And never mind the coming hyperinflation! We deserve to have the dollar lose its reserve status and to have our treasuries rated as "junk" bonds based on the actions of our leaders alone, much less the state of our economy.  No contract is sacred anymore.  They just make up the rules as they go along.

When we recommended against bailouts, we initially were referring to the subprime borrowers who lied on their applications and never should have been given mortgages in the first place.  Bailing out failed financial institutions was the farthest thing from our mind because it was simply unthinkable.  Instead, we have seen subprime borrowers given token help and watched in horror as the failed Illuminist financial institutions were given the key to Goldman Sachs South and its Treasury Department.  We watched slack-jawed as the United States of America became the "Crony Capitalist Bailout Nation."  If anyone is going to be bailed out, it should be the taxpayers and not the elitist transnational corporations and financial institutions who park their foreign profits offshore and don’t pay any taxes on those profits!  COME ON!!!

But the bailouts of "anointed" Illuminist companies have served one purpose very well.  They have provided us with the smoking gun that proves the existence of the Illuminist agenda which we discuss in every issue of the IF.  What do we mean by that? As Joan Rivers would say: "Let’s talk."

Let us first say that the only sensible solution to all the ongoing debacles, other than an immediate purging of the economy which is what we recommended because it would minimize the pain of financial excess and maximize the speed of recovery, would have been to correct the defaults that were causing the various real estate and other credit derivatives to lose value.  The defaults could have been corrected by making the loans current or even by paying them off altogether.  
The math is totally obvious.  Anyone with a high school diploma, a calculator and Internet access could have figured it out.  Yet apparently the people with 1600 combined SAT scores, Ivy League diplomas and many years of Wall Street experience apparently could not figure this out. Do you really believe that?  If so, you are incredibly naive.  You probably also believe that the psychopathic leverage, moronic lending standards and outlandish ratings on bonds and derivatives were the product of mistakes, greed and poor judgment.  Again we say:  COME ON!

Y
Yes, the underlings were simply doing as they were told to get their million dollar bonuses even though they knew that what they were doing seemed very imprudent, but the people at the top, from the upper tier of the Illuminist cabal, knew exactly what they were doing.  The top dogs created the framework for the underlings to work in.  That framework was intentionally and fatally flawed by maniacal leverage, rampant fraud and total lack of any meaningful regulation.  Even a minor problem could be magnified into a major issue via excessive leverage.  And any major problem could, by that same excessive leverage, be magnified into a catastrophic financial meltdown that would destroy the US economy, and even the world economy. You have to kill off the old system utterly, so you can install your fascistic police state and one world government in the ensuing chaos, and that is exactly what is happening right under your nose, right before your very eyes.  Does God have to club you over the head from His throne in Heaven to get you to take notice?  Get a freaking clue, America!!!

Now, let’s look at some numbers.  According to mortgage loan servicers handling 64% of all first liens, they were managing $34 million loans totaling $6 trillion dollars of which two thirds were prime loans. That would make the average mortgage somewhere in the area of $175,000.  If we add in the other 36% of first liens, and assuming the same overall average principal for these loans, we would have a total of about 53 million first liens with an average of $175,000 per mortgage.  The TARP money was 700 billion dollars.  That means we could have completely paid off 4 million mortgages, or cut 8 million mortgages in half whose borrowers would then be able to easily refinance with their high newfound equity.  And Realty Trac tells us that from 2005 to 2008, inclusive, about 7.5 million properties had foreclosure notices of default, orders of foreclosure and/or notices of sale served/filed against them.  There is a lot of double counting there because multiple filings could affect the same properties in different years and not all properties go to foreclosure, but it does give us an outside/maximum figure for loans in serious default.  All those mortgages could have been cut in half with the TARP money and saved from foreclosure, and refinanced down to affordable payments.

What would such a bailout have meant for America?  Bear Stearns would still be here, Lehman Brothers would still be with us, AIG and the insurers would have manageable claims and still have decent ratings, all the subprime lenders would be solvent, all the Wall Street legacy investment banks and commercial banks would still be functioning and would not have become penny stocks, municipal bonds would be selling like hot cakes, the Dow might be past 14,000, most people would still have their jobs, pensions would be flush, the real estate market would still be sledging along, and the world economy would still be humping.  And we haven’t even touched the $787 billion of pork from the stimulus plan, or the two trillion dollars that the Fed doled out to both foreign and domestic banks and that is still unaccounted for!  With those funds we could have paid off everyone’s general purpose credit cards (one trillion), cut another 8 million mortgages in half (700 billion), and still had over a trillion left over to take care of the defaulted car loans, student loans, commercial mortgages and future residential mortgage defaults! Even the foreign banks could have been saved! 

Why would this be so?  Because if the defaults were cured, the de-leveraging of the big commercial and investment banks, which were, and still are, leveraged at a rate of about 50 to 1, would not have become necessary, at least not right away.  This need to de-leverage to absorb losses when they occur by banks that are leveraged at 50 to 1 is what makes a trillion dollar problem into a 50 trillion dollar problem, and this is where we are headed when the Derivative Death-Star ignites and/or banks are forced to mark-to-market again.  All this pain could have been avoided by the curing of loan defaults.

Would it have been fair to bail out the liar loans?  Of course not.  This drips of moral hazard.  But would you rather bail out the bankster-gangsters instead?  Is it more fair to do what our government has done for the criminals on Wall Street?  Heaven forbid! And besides, the bailout of the liar loans would have automatically bailed out the bankster-gansters in any case!!!  Do you mean to tell us that the geniuses of corporate America, Wall Street and Goldman Sachs South could not figure this out?  Again we say:  COME ON!!!

But it gets even better.  We are told by our government bean counters that they think it will take about $24 trillion to bail out the so-called too-big-to-fail banks.  So let’s have some fun with this money. In the private sector, we have $13.8 trillion in household debt, $11.1 trillion in business debt, and $17.2 trillion in debts of financial institutions. We could take the $24 trillion and totally pay off all household and business debts.
That means the financial institutions would collect all that money and use it to pay off their debts as well.  The whole system could have been de-leveraged and the derivatives canceled by regulators.  Would we have hyperinflation as a result of all this bailing out?  Of course!  And some deflation as well.  But would you rather go into hyperinflation debt free, or in hock up to your ears?  You’re going to get hyperinflation whether you get bailed, or the banks get bailed.  And if you get bailed, the banks automatically get bailed.  And for those banks that were totally careless, they would get to fail and be absorbed by the thousands of good banks who would jump at the chance. 
Large amounts of pain are being inflicted on you needlessly while the criminal Illuminati and their nefarious bankster-gangsters get bailed out, thus sucking all your blood out like a vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, as Goldman Sachs was recently described by Matt Taibbi.  This is why all the efforts to cure defaulted loans have been half-hearted at best, and non-existent at worst.  The Illuminati know that this is the best cure for the sheople, so we most certainly can not have that.  Else, how could they form their Orwellian one world police state of feudality and become lords of the universe over their future serfs?  This whole bailout bonanza for financial criminals is the smoking gun.  This is irrefutable evidence that the leaders of corporate America, Wall Street and Goldman Sachs South are venomous traitors who want to enslave you and put you and your posterity into bondage forever!

The percentage of occupied living units in the US that were owned as opposed to being rented was about 62% in 1960.  All the shenanigans with Fannie and Freddie and the loosening of loan standards so that anyone breathing could have a mortgage has caused that home ownership percentage to fluctuate in an upward trend with the ebbs and flows of various real estate bubbles since that time, with a peak of almost 69% in 2005.  If we were to trend back to 1960′s 62% ownership, some five million owners would have to become renters again.  We see this as inevitable, and it may get much worse as we move into the most disastrous state of the US economy in our nation’s entire history.  With long-term unemployment at over 20%, which could double if the Illuminati have their way with the ridiculous bailouts of bankster-gangsters, and with hyperinflation on its way, we could see the percentage of home ownership easily drop to 55%, or even less.  We also see prices for housing potentially reverting back to the levels that existed at the beginning of the 1990′s, which is before profligate expansion of money and credit by the Fed began in earnest as the totally criminal Clinton Administration got underway in 1993.  That wild-eyed monetary expansion by the Fed has distorted asset values across the board, and has grown worse with time to cover over the destruction of our economy via free trade, globalization, off-shoring, outsourcing and both legal and illegal immigration. 

Foreclosures, coupled with much higher interest rates on account of hyperinflation and elevated risk, could potentially become bad enough to reduce the median house price to 120,000 as it was in 1991, when the real estate market was partly cleansed.  The deflation could get even worse as our government fires up the subprime market for another round of rampant fraud which could extend defaults even beyond 2012.  Then there is the deflation in the aftermath of hyperinflation.  It is just too terrible to even contemplate where this whole thing could go.

In our last issue, we reported that trailing P/E ratios using GAAP principals for calculating earnings were really 761, not the reported 24 or so that was obtained without taking write-downs into account.  With a trailing P/E ratio of 761, the stock markets would have little, if any, value.  Again, it is too ugly to even contemplate.  The next leg down in this bear market is going to be a killer.

The Illuminati are attempting to start back up where they left off when Meredith Whitney cut them off with her exposure of Citigroup’s toxic waste, but this time it is the taxpayers who are at risk on account of continuing government bailouts of so-called too-big-to-fail legacy banks. To accomplish this recommencement of the subprime and other derivative fraud, they have their losses held at bay with bogus mark-to-model bond and derivative values while Buck-Busting Ben lends them interest-free money which they are parking with the Fed at interest, investing in treasuries, and/or pouring back into the stock and derivative markets.  This is where all the green shoots are coming from, namely, from money created by printing press prestidigitation out of thin air by Bernanke that is being invested by Illuminist financial institutions instead of being loaned to consumers.  The dollar volume in the stock markets far exceeds the money coming out of money markets, so dollar volume and stock prices are being greatly exaggerated as a result of all this profligate money and credit.  This is yet another reason why the Fed stays silent about what institutions received all the money and credit that it has loaned out.  That would enable canny investors to trace the stock market volume to its real source, being digital dollars provided by the Fed to keep the sucker’s rally going.  This rally mirage will come back to haunt anyone who stays in the stock market, other than owning gold and silver related shares.

Meanwhile, as all this transpires, in yet another parlor trick, Bernanke is exchanging dollars created out of thin air by the Fed for other fiat currencies also created out of thin air by foreign central banks in various currency swap arrangements.  This keeps foreign banks out of US credit markets whenever they need dollars to settle transactions, such as oil purchases and credit default swap settlements.  These swapped dollars are also used by foreign central banks to purchase treasuries in order to support the dollar and US treasury bond values, which of course helps to maintain the value of their own existing dollar-denominated reserve assets in US treasury and agency paper.  These swap arrangements are how the Fed is able to maintain the near zero interest rates in US credit markets which are crucial to Illuminist banking profits.

These swap arrangements are little more than smoke and mirrors economics.  They have to keep swapping, or interest rates in US credit markets will rise, treasury values will plummet, and the Fed will be forced to monetize more treasuries to counteract these trends.  These swaps swell the amount of dollars held by foreigners, which will come back to haunt us later when these foreigners implement big dollar bailouts and create a dollar carry trade.  This flood of dollars back to our shores will be the atmosphere that leads to dollar devaluation.  The repatriation of dollars from foreign central banks alone is more than enough to create hyperinflation, much less all the money and credit sloshing around in our national economy already as our government miscreants deficit-spend us into oblivion.  The swaps are being used to sterilize dollars, delaying the inevitable so they can continue to milk the system as long as possible.

The Illuminati may well pull the plug on the stock and oil markets to chase money into dollars and treasuries to save those markets again, which are the seat of Illuminist power, and to help fund an FDIC bailout of what could be hundreds of billions from hundreds of bank failures that would be tallied up during the upcoming bank holiday where the small fry will once again be culled out so the big bankster-gangsters can eliminate the competition and acquire their accounts and assets for pennies on the dollar.  The bank holiday would be used as the excuse for the PPT to withdraw its support from the stock markets, letting them crash under their own weight by virtue of countless negative fundamentals. Congress is going to grant authority for the issuance of $500 billion in treasuries to fund the FDIC bailouts, and it is the Fed’s hope that the flush of liquidity from the PPT’s crashing of foreign and domestic stock and oil markets into dollars and treasuries will reduce the amount of those FDIC bailout bonds that the Fed will have to monetize.  Precious metals will undoubtedly become beneficiaries of this flushing out as well. This will be the dollar and bond markets’ last hurrah, and will pave the roads leading to devaluation of the dollar, and to the greatest bull market in gold and silver of all time.  The next leg up will make up for all the big profits that have eluded newer investors in precious metals thus far. The best is yet to come.  Buy your tickets now, and make sure that you’re already on the train when it leaves the station!  

Market In Review
The Challenger job cuts rose 31% to 97,373 month-on-month. This is the first rise in job cuts since January.

Can you imagine the federal government is asking Goldman Sachs about its compensation packages and credit derivative instruments? The government will do absolutely nothing, – Goldman controls our government.

Besides supplying foreign currencies via loans to friendly countries called swap facilities, the Fed is also using this front to buy Treasuries. The friendly countries are England, So. Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

The reason the Treasury reconfigured its figures on foreign central bank Treasury sales was to boost foreign participation in Treasury auctions. That allowed foreigners to show larger auction purchase numbers to cover up Fed purchases of US Treasuries. These swaps allowed a cover for the continued monetization via Treasury purchases and at the same time make it look like the foreigners were the buyers. This way they do not have to continue to use secret offshore accounts in the Caribbean. The actions could explain why the Japanese tried to smuggle US Treasury bearer bonds from Italy into Switzerland for sale before the dollar tanked. The US is in a box and they cannot get out. They have to print money and issue credit or deflation will take charge.

We are now seeing the result of such policies in the value of the dollar as it plummets downward. Obviously others have caught on to what the Fed is up too. If you throw all this monetization into perspective you have to realize it’s hyperinflationary.

Then there is the $2 trillion budget deficit, which could become much worse if Cap & Trade and Health Reform become law. That could guarantee double digit deficits as far as the eye can see, never mind what fiscal madness could be cooked up over the next 3-1/2 years. How would you feel if you were holding dollar denominated assets? In addition the administration’s failed programs have to make you cringe. Instead of applying the stimulus package quickly most of it will occur next year, which was purely a political decision, which will prove to be a costly one for the overall economy. Put this together with the rampant corruption in wall Street and banking, the insider trading by Goldman Sachs and others aided and abetted by the New York Stock Exchange; tremendous political pressure to disband the Fed and a public that is finally catching on to what is really going on and you have a formula for disaster. We also shouldn’t forget the enablers of the Wall Street-Government crime syndicate, the SEC and CFTC, which cover up all these illegal activities.

Every large dollar holder knows going in that it has been US policy for years to inflate its currency. They should have recognized this as a cost of doing business. This inflation in part allowed US consumers the ability to continue to buy massive amounts of foreign products. That meant that in time the dollar was doomed to fall in value. Eventually dollar holders will lose 2/3’s of their dollar purchasing power via devaluation and default. As a result of these profligate US policies we hear rumors that secret deals have been made with creditors to keep them from dumping their dollar denominated assets. It is finally becoming clear to foreigners that today’s American financial system is built on fraud benefiting a small group of elitists who control Wall Street, banking and our government. Then again foreigners are not without fault. Almost every one of them have manipulated their currencies and secretly and openly subsidized their industries. Thus, there is plenty of blame to go around.

Inflation has continued to recede worldwide as monetization is neutralized by the pull of deflation. We are frequently asked when is inflation going to start moving upward or where is hyperinflation? Be patient it is on the way. Our financial system, after two years of crisis, still is insolvent and will continue to need massive infusions of monetized capital. That will be especially true if the FASB changes their rules back to mark-to-market from mark-to-model. We are looking at budget deficits of over a trillion dollars or more as far as the eye can see and we are looking at continued increasing unemployment. That means continued massive money and credit creation. Eventually that will bring the higher inflation and hyperinflation. As a result of this policy of throwing money at the problem the dollar is paying a price. It was but two months ago that we recommended the sale of the dollar and the assumption of short positions at 89.5 on the USDX. As we write that index is at 77.60. We believe it is headed toward 71.18, its former low by the end of October. We projected all this in mid-May some three months ago. We at that time moved based on fundamentals and in June we found the elitists at the Bilderberg Meeting in Greece decided that the dollar could no longer be defended at then present levels.

America is still a great importer of goods and the increase in the cost of goods purchased is a very strong stimulus for price inflation. That T-shirt from China that once cost $1.00 would rise to $1.50 and soon. The idea for the elitists is to hold the dollar decline at 71.18. At first they’ll be successful, but in time that level will be broken and the dollar will fall to 40 or 50. It could take six months or three years dependent on what transpires. The anecdote is gold as it has been for centuries. Gold is wealth preservation that preserves assets whether we have inflation or deflation.

Some governments will continue to create money and credit, such as the US and England. Some may decide to bite the bullet now, as we believe the eurozone may now be doing. The ECB has dropped M4 from 12.8% to 4.7% over the last two years, which could well be an indication they have decided to enter deflationary depression – we will see.

A lower dollar 15 years ago would have been helpful for exports, but in today’s environment a 71.18 USDX dollar would only add ½ of 1% to GDP.

Few talk about it but chances are excellent that in September and October that the stock market could take a heavy hit, falling quickly and deeply back to 6600 on the Dow. De-leveraging has a piece to go with banks still at 40 or 50 times deposits. Eight to ten times is normal. This recent bear market rally is very similar to the 1930 rally, which ended percentage-wise just about where we are presently. Unemployment is rising and that means earnings cannot maintain. Who will they sell too? Get out your parachutes; it is time to jump.

On Thursday, there was a rumor on Wall Street repeated by CNBC that the Labor Department would adjust unemployment from January thru July by 500,000 to 1 million additional lost jobs. This wouldn’t be surprising considering Washington lies about everything. If this is true the market will be seriously affected.

Goldman Sachs made $100 million in trading revenue, a company record 46 separate days in the second quarter. You can only achieve this on inside information. In the second quarter they only had two losing trading days. As a former trader for 25 years and official member of the Los Angeles Traders, I find that totally impossible without inside information. They made $50 million a day. These people are criminals, especially for what they have done to the gold and silver markets.

Commercial paper expanded last week up $10.7 billion to $1,076 trillion. Asset backed paper fell $3 billion after being up $900 million the prior week, to a total of $434.8. Unsecured financial issuance fell $400 million after falling $26.6 billion the previous week.

CEO Index, the only one of its kind, fell to 63 in July. The overall confidence was 75.7 in May. 88.8% rated current conditions as bad, up from 86.3% in June and 81.6% in May.

The employment confidence index fell 25% with 57% of CEO’s expecting a continued decrease in employment in the next quarter. More than 95% rated the rate of current employment environment as bad, the highest level for 2009. 0.4% thought they were good.

Thirty-nine percent expect capital spending to drop and the consensus was we are treading water. They thought the government is only delaying the inevitable. 33% believe the worst is yet to come. They think the President’s healthcare reform if approved would have a devastating effect on the economy. Cap & trade if passed would be equally devastating.

Rumors reach us that a major investment house will put out a call to get its clients out of the ETFs due to anticipated accounting issues. Could it be that GLD and SLV will be exposed as Enron-type frauds?

The continuing saga of Pat Kiley

In the ongoing saga of Pat Kiley we do not know if any money will be rescued, but we figure about $190 to $200 million disappeared. As you know we heard rumors that large amounts of cash were dispersed worldwide to Zurich, Scandinavia, Greece, London and Panama. We hope the FBI is about to move on this unfortunate scandal.

The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for state jobless benefits fell last week, providing another glimmer of hope that the economy may be on the road to recovery.

Initial claims for jobless benefits fell by 38,000 to 550,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis in the week ended Aug. 1, the Labor Department said in its weekly report Thursday. The four-week average of new claims, which aims to smooth volatility in the data, fell by 4,750 to 555,250, the lowest level since Jan. 24.

The tally of continuing claims — those drawn by workers for more than one week — rose by 69,000 during the week ended July 25 to 6,310,000, the highest level since July 4.

For months, issuers have raised credit card rates and fees at a dizzying pace. Now, a growing number are starting to tack on new card fees for inactivity or purchases made outside the U.S.

In June, Fifth Third Bank began charging a $19 fee if credit card borrowers have no account activity in 12 months. Discover now levies a 2% fee on purchases made outside the U.S., and Chase has introduced a $30 annual fee on its popular Freedom credit card.

Citigroup, meanwhile, has rolled out a policy where certain credit card borrowers who pay late are subject to a "reinstatement fee" to be able to redeem accumulated points for rewards. This fee is currently $0. But it won’t stay that way, predicts Robert Hammer, who consults with the industry, if Citigroup finds cardholders aren’t objecting to the policy. Citigroup spokesman Samuel Wang says, "We currently have no plans to raise it."

The fees represent issuers’ latest attempt to mitigate the effects of a credit card law passed in May, which restricts rate increases and marketing to college students. Analysts say that because most provisions don’t take effect until February 2010, issuers are finding ways now to bolster their income despite consumers’ precarious financial situations.

Issuers are "hoping to slip in fees where they’re least likely to be noticed," says Adam Jusko, founder of IndexCreditCards.com, a card comparison site.

Mortgage rates in the U.S. fell for the first time in three weeks, boosting the potential for further stabilization in the housing market.

The average 30-year rate dropped to 5.22 percent from 5.25 percent, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac of McLean, Virginia, said today in a statement. The 15-year rate averaged 4.63 percent for the week ending today.

Lower rates may increase demand for homes in the fourth year of the housing recession. New and existing-home sales rose in June as falling prices and a government tax credit lured buyers. The S&P/Case-Shiller home price index rose 0.5 percent in May from the prior month, the first gain since July 2006.

“If you’re a homebuyer and you’re employed, you can’t complain,” said Donald Rissmiller, chief economist at New York- based Strategas Research Partners. “Policy makers have to consider this a success.”

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke is trying to lower loan costs with a program to purchase securities backed by mortgages. The central bank’s purchases brought down yields on government debt and mortgage-backed bonds issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae, allowing lenders to reduce rates on new loans and still sell the securities at a profit.

The Federal Reserve’s $1.25 trillion plan for buying mortgage-backed securities helped drive rates to a record low 4.78 percent twice in April. Falling rates helped boost refinancing and purchase applications for home loans.

Rates started climbing in May along with Treasury yields on investor concern that higher government debt would fuel inflation. The 10-year Treasury note rose to 3.75 percent today from 3.61 percent last week.

The pace of U.S. job losses slowed more than forecast last month and the unemployment rate dropped for the first time since April 2008, the clearest signs yet that the worst recession since the Great Depression is easing.

Payrolls fell by 247,000, after a 443,000 loss in June, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The jobless rate dropped to 9.4 percent from 9.5 percent.

Fannie Mae plans to tap $11 billion in new government aid after posting another massive quarterly loss as the taxpayer bill from the housing market bust keeps growing.

The mounting price tag for the rescue of Fannie and its goverment-sponsored sibling, Freddie Mac, is surpassed only by insurer American International Group Inc., which has received $182.5 billion in financial support from the government so far.

Fannie Mae’s new request for $10.7 billion from the Treasury Department will bring the total for Fannie and Freddie to nearly $96 billion. Freddie is expected to report its quarterly results on Friday.

The government has pledged up to $400 billion in aid for the two companies, which play a vital role in the mortgage market by purchasing loans from banks and selling them to investors. They have been under government control since last September, when their near-collapse helped set off the financial crisis.

Together, Washington-based Fannie and McLean, Va.-based Freddie own or guarantee almost 31 million home loans worth about $5.4 trillion. That’s about half of all U.S home mortgages.

With assets of that size, "it’s hard for their problems to be small," said Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics, a consulting firm that advises financial institutions.

Fannie Mae posted a second-quarter loss of $15.2 billion, or $2.67 per share, including $411 million in dividend payouts. That compares with a loss of $2.6 billion, or $2.54 per share, in the year-ago period.

"We are dependent on the continued support of Treasury in order to continue operating our business," Fannie Mae said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing late Thursday.

The results were driven by $18.8 billion in credit losses due to declining housing market conditions, made worse by rising unemployment. Nearly 4 percent of the loans Fannie Mae owns or guarantees were delinquent as of June 30, up from 1.4 percent a year earlier.

The two companies lowered their standards for borrowers during the real estate boom and are reeling from the bust. High-risk loans, now defaulting at a record pace, have come back to haunt the companies. Worse still, the recession is causing formerly reliable homeowners with good credit to default.

The Obama administration is expected to unveil its plans for Fannie and Freddie early next year. Options being considered include keeping the companies private, winding down their operations, merging them into a federal agency or separating out their bad mortgage assets into a new company backed by the government.

Meanwhile, the head of the federal agency that regulates Fannie and Freddie Mac, James Lockhart, is stepping down at the end of the month. Edward DeMarco, chief operating officer of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, was named acting director on Thursday.

DeMarco, 49, has worked at the agency since October 2006. Before that, he worked at the Social Security Administration and the Treasury Department.

Joseph Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes  —  7/07/2009

Last week the U.S. "stood down" in Iraq, finalizing the pullout of 140,000 troops from Iraqi cities and towns — the first step on the long path home. After more than six years, most Americans are war-weary, even though a smaller percentage of us have been involved in the actual fighting than in any major conflict in U.S. history.

But not so fast. The conflict that began in 2003 is far from over for us, and the next chapter — confronting a Taliban that reasserted itself in Afghanistan while the U.S. was sidetracked in Iraq — will be expensive and bloody. The death toll for U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan reached 5,000 in June. An additional 80,000 Americans have been wounded or injured since the war in Iraq began. More than 300,000 of our troops have required medical treatment, and Army statistics show that more than 17 percent of our returning soldiers suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Meanwhile, in Iraq, even though most of the population has long told pollsters they can’t wait for U.S. forces to leave, U.S. officials have said we are likely to station 50,000 troops at military bases in the country for the foreseeable future. This is because the situation in Iraq is highly precarious.

Moreover, the U.S. barely has begun to face the enormous financial bill for the war. By our accounting, the U.S. has already spent $1 trillion on operations and related defense spending, with more to come — and it will cost perhaps $2 trillion more to repay the war debt, replenish military equipment and provide care and treatment for U.S. veterans back home. Many of the wounded will require indefinite care for brain and spinal injuries. Disability payments are ramping up and will grow higher for decades. The stress of extended, multiple tours to Iraq means that a whole generation of U.S. military men and women may now be suffering from long-term mental health issues. The suicide rate in the Army is at its highest level since record-keeping began.

This wartime spending undoubtedly has been a major contributor to our present economic collapse. The U.S. has waged an expensive war as if it required little or no economic sacrifice, funding the conflict by massive borrowing. As we’ve observed in the past, you can’t spend $3 trillion on a reckless foreign war and not feel the pain at home.

Burned by the difficulties in Iraq, our political leaders have no illusions about the length and difficulty of the challenge facing us in Afghanistan. But in other respects we seem set to repeat the same mistakes that we made in Iraq. The president has just signed yet another "emergency" supplemental appropriations measure ($80 billion) to fund continuing operations in Iraq and expansion into Afghanistan. This means that for the 30th time since 2001, war spending has been rushed through the budget process without serious scrutiny.

Obstacles continue to beset returning veterans too. Despite an increase in the Department of Veterans Affairs budget, the backlog of disability claims has reached its highest level.

Early this year, President Barack Obama committed 20,000 troops to a "surge" in Afghanistan. That, combined with a large, ongoing presence in Iraq and continued reliance on private contractors for virtually every aspect of military support, remains a recipe for staggering out-of-control expenditures. Surely we can draw some lessons from the Iraq debacle and set aside money to care for our veterans, crack down on fraud and profiteering, and account for the true costs of the war in the budget so the American taxpayer can see what we are paying for.

Linda J. Bilmes of Harvard University is a former assistant secretary of Commerce. Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University is a winner of the Nobel Prize in economics and a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors. They are the co-authors of "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict."

Former congressman William J. Jefferson was convicted of corruption charges Wednesday in a case made famous by the $90,000 in bribe money stuffed into his freezer and a legal battle over the raid of his Washington office that reached the highest levels of the U.S. government.

Federal jurors found the Louisiana Democrat guilty of using his congressional office as a criminal enterprise to enrich himself, soliciting and accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to support his business ventures in Africa. The eight-woman, four-man jury convicted Jefferson of 11 of 16 counts that included solicitation of bribery, racketeering and money laundering.

Bloomberg reports the reason for RDN’s better earnings: Radian’s results improved as other mortgage insurers, pressured by higher default rates, reported losses. The insurers pay lenders when homeowners default and when foreclosure doesn’t recoup costs. Radian has rescinded, or rejected, a growing number of claims on grounds that false information voids coverage.

“Our recent denial and recisions are much higher than historical levels, reflecting our loss management efforts to review more claims and the significant concentration of loans in our delinquency portfolio” originated in 2006, 2007 and early 2008, Chief Financial Officer Robert Quint said today in a conference call. Radian’s provision for mortgage insurance losses was $142.8 million, compared with $449.2 million in the same period last year. The insurer paid $167.7 million in mortgage insurance claims in the second quarter, compared with $208.8 million in the year-earlier period. The insurer said it expects to pay between $275 million to $300 million in first- and second-lien claims in the third quarter.

The Obama administration launched a broad government effort this week to overhaul mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and is considering splitting the companies and putting their troubled assets in a new federally backed corporation, administration officials said.

The move would dispense with one of the biggest burdens created by the financial crisis: the hundreds of billions of dollars in money-losing home loans owned by District-based Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The government has already pledged nearly $2 trillion, including $85 billion in direct aid, to keep the mortgage market working through the firms.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. made more than $100 million in trading revenue on a record 46 separate days during the second quarter, or 71 percent of the time, breaking the previous high of 34 days in the prior three months.

Trading losses occurred on two days during April, May and June, down from eight in the first quarter, the New York-based bank said today in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company made at least $50 million on 58 of the 65 trading days in the period, or 89 percent of the time.

Only five percent say the president’s policies have cut the deficit, and 10% say they have had no impact. Thirteen percent(13%) are not sure.

The Institute for Supply Management’s index of non- manufacturing businesses, which make up almost 90 percent of the economy, fell to 46.4 from 47 in June, according to the Tempe, Arizona-based group. Fifty is the dividing line between expansion and contraction. ADP Employer Services said companies cut staff last month more than economists anticipated.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s move to ban so-called flash orders may help NYSE Euronext take back market share of U.S. stock trading at the expense of three-year-old rival Direct Edge Holdings LLC.

Senator Charles Schumer said yesterday the SEC will seek to stop the practice in which some brokers get a split-second advantage in viewing requests to buy and sell stock, after discussing the issue with Chairman Mary Schapiro. NYSE Euronext, the only one of the top four U.S. exchanges that doesn’t use flash orders, has seen its portion of the nation’s share trading slip to 30.3 percent in the second quarter from 35.5 percent a year earlier, while Direct Edge’s doubled since November.

“
The big existing exchanges are going to be benefiting because the pendulum is swinging back in that direction in the area of transparency,” said Thomas Caldwell, who manages about $1 billion, including NYSE shares, as chairman of Caldwell Financial Ltd. and president of Urbana Corp. in Toronto.

Flash orders grew to 2.4 percent of the shares traded in the U.S. in June, three years after the practice began as a way of increasing the odds an order would be filled, according to data compiled by New York brokerage Rosenblatt Securities Inc. Schumer said the delay in routing transactions to other exchanges makes it easier for brokerages with the fastest computers to get an edge calculating demand for a stock.

MBA Mortgage Applications up 4.4% last week.

The pace of layoffs may be easing. Private-sector jobs in the U.S. fell 371,000 in July, according to a national employment report published Wednesday by payroll giant Automatic Data Processing Inc. (ADP) and consultancy Macroeconomic Advisers.

The expected loss compares with the 350,000 drop in the ADP survey projected by economists in a Dow Jones Newswires survey. ADP revised its June job loss figure to 463,000, down from 473,000 first reported.

The ADP survey tallies only private-sector jobs, while the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ non-farm payroll data, to be released Friday, includes government workers. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expect the Bureau of Labor Statistics will report July job cuts totaling only 275,000, about half the loss of 467,000 reported in June. The July unemployment rate is projected to rise to 9.7% from 9.5% in June.

Economists think that economic output may have stopped contracting in the second quarter, but any turnaround in the labor markets is still months away.

Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, noted that the decline was the smallest since October 2008, but added, "Despite recent indications that overall economic activity is stabilizing, employment, which usually trails overall economic activity, is likely to decline for at least several more months, albeit at a diminishing rate."

The latest ADP report showed large businesses with 500 employees or more shed 74,000 jobs and medium-size businesses lost 159,000 workers last month. Small businesses that employ fewer than 50 workers cut 138,000 jobs in July.

Chris Varvares, president of Macroeconomic, noted that job losses are easing in major industries. Service-sector jobs fell 202,000 in July, less than the 225,000 average in the previous three months. Factory employment dropped 99,000 in July, compared with the 150,000 average in the prior three months.

Varvares said payrolls are unlikely to turn up until early 2010. Macroeconomic forecasts the unemployment rate to peak at 9.9% in the fourth quarter of 2009, with the rate possibly rising above 10% for one month or two.

ADP, of Roseland, N.J., says it processes payments of one in six U.S. workers, while Macroeconomic Advisers, based in St. Louis, is an economic consulting firm.
In another Wednesday job report, TrimTabs Investment Research estimated that job losses accelerated last month, with 488,000 workers laid off in July, worse than the ADP estimate. TrimTabs uses daily income-tax withholdings to the U.S. Treasury to estimate changes in employment.

"While Wall Street is convinced the recession is over, the economy continues to shed jobs at an alarming rate,"said Charles Biderman, chief executive of TrimTabs.
Also on Wednesday, outplacement firm Challenger Gray & Christmas said that the number of layoffs announced by U.S. companies jumped 31% in July to 97,373. Challenger said that so far this year, employers have announced 994,048 job cuts, 72% more than the 579,260 announced in the first seven months of 2008.

Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the kingdom’s former ambassador to the United States, is reportedly under house arrest over a conspiracy against the monarch.

Saad al-Faqih, head of the opposition group Islamic Reform Movement, told Arab-language TV al-Alam that Prince Bandar has been disappeared and the media has published no word from the ex-diplomat’s whereabouts since nearly three months ago.

According to al-Faqih, the prince first disappeared in Britain but he returned to the kingdom shortly afterwards.

He added that after Saudi officials discovered that he had provoked 200 agents working for the Saudi security service to stage a coup against King Abdullah, he was put under house arrest.

Al-Faqih said people close to the king had disclosed Bandar’s plots and foiled them. ]

He said Saudi sources believe that intelligence provided by some Arab countries help the Saudi monarch foil Prince Bandar’s conspiracy.

Power struggle between members of the Saudi royal family has been common as power is shared among some 200 princes out of the estimated 7000 family members.

Known as Bandar Bush because of his close relations with former US President George W Bush, the prince is son of Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz.

75% of Americans and at least 276 Congress members and 19 Senators want to audit the Fed, but the Fed is fighting tooth and nail to keep everything hidden.

Most people assume that the Fed wants to keep secret the list of banks which received bailout money. You know, something along the lines of "we gave Goldman Sachs $100 billion".

But what the Fed is really struggling to keep hidden is the fact that the entire financial system is based on massive manipulation and fraud by the Fed and its primary dealers.

Specifically, the Fed is desperately trying to hide that many trillions of the government’s bailouts have gone to inflating the stock market, buying up the U.S. government’s own treasuries, and gaming the currency and gold markets.

Of course, when the New York Federal Reserve’s "primary dealers" (the dealers through which the Fed carries out its open market operations in general, and its PPT, ESF, and other schemes through) get the huge sums of cash from the Fed, they place bets based on inside knowledge of where the money flows are going (they also, supposedly, skim off part of the cash, but that’s for another essay).

In other words, the Fed’s primary dealers engage in insider trading and front-running on a scale which would make your normal white collar felons look like a silver nanoparticle.

Finally, the Fed is not the only central bank engaging in manipulation. An audit would show how the Fed is playing footsie with other private central banks in an international con game.

Don’t believe me? Show me the books and prove me wrong.

The California dream has faded since the 1970s for many in the Golden State, according to a new Field Poll.

Just 41 percent of registered voters agree the state is “one of the best places to live,’’ a sharp drop from the 76 percent who thought so 30 years ago when Field first asked that question.

The survey, released yesterday, found that Republicans were the most likely to have lost that lovin’ feeling about their state.

Just 30 percent of GOP respondents said that California remained a great place to live, compared with 80 percent in 1977.

The decades after that year brought dramatic growth in the state’s population, from 22.8 million in 1978 to the latest estimate of 38.3 million people, a 68 percent increase.

The Field Poll report compared Californians’ attitudes on a range of social and lifestyle issues over the last 30 years.

Findings were based on Field Polls taken from 1975 to 1978 and from 2006 to 2009.

Among the biggest changes found in attitude was the increasing support for gay marriage, now favored by 49 percent of Californians and opposed by 44 percent.

In 1977, voters were opposed by a 62-to-31 ratio.

President Barack Obama’s approval rating is falling on concern unemployment is rising and the budget deficit will grow, a Quinnipiac University poll shows.

Exactly half of the registered voters surveyed from July 27 to Aug. 3 by Quinnipiac said they approve of the job Obama is doing, compared with 42 percent who disapprove. That’s down from 57 percent approval and 33 percent disapproval in a poll taken in late June, according to results released today.

The poll found that voters disapprove of the way Obama is handling the economy by 49 percent to 45 percent. On his effort to overhaul of the health-care system, 52 percent disapprove of his handling of the issue while 39 percent approve.

Only foreign policy offered a bright spot: 52 percent of poll respondents approved of his job on this front, compared with 38 percent who disapproved.

Quinnipiac took the poll in the middle of a controversy over Obama’s remarks about the arrest of Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. Gates, who is black, was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge after a confrontation at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a white police officer.

Obama, asked about the incident during a July 22 news conference, said police “acted stupidly” in making the arrest. In the poll, voters by 49 percent to 33 percent said Obama acted “stupidly” when he waded into the matter. Even so, 55 percent said they approved of the way Obama is handling race relations.

The poll surveyed 2,409 registered voters nationwide and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Maurice “Hank’’ Greenberg, who led American International Group Inc. for 38 years until his ouster amid state and federal accounting probes in 2005, will pay $15 million to settle US claims he manipulated the insurer’s earnings.

Greenberg, 84, and former AIG chief financial officer Howard Smith “directed several different accounting transactions to materially affect AIG’s reported financial results,’’ the Securities and Exchange Commission said in a lawsuit filed yesterday in federal court in Manhattan. Smith will pay $1.5 million to resolve the suit. [Another giant fraud, no jail time, and a penalty that is ridiculously low. As you know Greenberg is a guiding light of the Council on Foreign Relations, and an Illuminist. This is how the system works.]

Transaction prices of commercial property sold by major institutional investors fell by 18 percent in the second quarter of 2009, according to an index developed and published by the MIT Center for Real Estate (MIT/CRE).

The 18.1 percent drop in the transactions-based index (TBI) for the second quarter is by far the biggest quarterly decline in the gauge’s 25-year history. (The second-biggest down quarter was the fourth quarter of last year, at -10.6 percent.) This was the fifth consecutive quarterly drop and the seventh in the past eight quarters. The index is now down 22 percent year-to-date, down 32 percent from where it was a year ago and down 39 percent from its mid-2007 peak — far greater in nominal terms than the 27 percent drop the index experienced in the previous major commercial property downturn in the late 1980s and early 1990s (the two drops are now tied in real terms, net of inflation, at 41 percent), and substantially greater than the current drop in national housing prices (about 30 percent).

"The big news this quarter is not just the magnitude of the drop, but the fact that transaction volume actually increased in the presence of this decline, the first volume increase since last summer," said Professor David Geltner, director of research at MIT/CRE. "Perhaps most important, the supply-side index of the prices property owners are willing to sell at plunged a record 18.5 percent, suggesting a degree of ‘capitulation’ which may help to bring market prices finally to a bottom; this is the kind of thing that could begin to rebuild liquidity in the market."

MIT/CRE publishes not only the price index based on closed deals, but also compiles indices that separately gauge movements on the demand side and the supply side of the market that it tracks. The demand-side index tracks the changes in prices that potential buyers are willing to pay (sometimes called a "constant-liquidity" index of the market, because it tracks how much prices would have to change to keep a constant ability to sell as many properties at the same rate of trading volume). That index has now fallen steadily for all of the past eight quarters. It fell again in the second quarter, almost in lock-step with the supply-side index, bringing the demand index now to a level 48 percent below its mid-2007 peak.

"As is generally the case, the results posted by our index are corroborated by recent evidence from another commercial property price index whose methodology was developed at the MIT/CRE: the Moody’s/REAL Commercial Property Price Index, produced by Moody’s Investors Service," said MIT/CRE Research Technician Holly Horrigan. "The Moody’s/REAL report released by Moody’s on July 20 indicated that index dropped 16 percent during April and May alone, which by May put it already down 22 percent year-to-date and 35 percent below its 2007 peak," Horrigan noted. The TBI tracks the prices that institutions such as pension funds pay or receive when transacting commercial properties like shopping centers, apartment complexes and office towers. The MIT Center’s TBI is based on prices of National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries (NCREIF) properties sold each quarter from the property database that underlies the NCREIF Property Index (NPI), and also makes use of the appraisal information for all of the currently 6,000 NCREIF properties. Such an index — national, quarterly, transaction-based and by property type — had not been previously constructed prior to MIT’s development of it in 2006. NCREIF supported development of the index as a useful tool for research and decision-making in the industry.

Monster Worldwide Inc., an online careers and recruiting firm, said its employment index edged down three points in July to 114 from 117 in June. The current month’s reading is 27 percent below the 157 mark seen a year ago.

On Thursday, JP Morgan again saved the stock market after disappointing retail sales data. CBOT sources say JPM bought about 1000 SPUs after the opening collapse. Then JPM bought 1k after noon and continued its SPU buying through the close. They had to have known the unemployment numbers. They must have been passed to them by Treasury or the BLS.

There is no second foreclosure wave coming, says Sam Khater, senior economist, First American CoreLogic. “To say there is a second wave implies the (current) wave has receded,” Khater told me. “I don’t see that the wave has receded.”

If you look at the 90-day rate it has been heading straight up — it has not receded…the foreclosure rate and REO rates have been impacted by government tinkering in the market. He said federal and state efforts have mostly delayed foreclosures, preventing few. The same is true for loan modifications — they fail about half the time.

Obama’s biggest obstacle is the 68% of voters who rate their health coverage as good or excellent.

If Obama believes a 31-year old with no auto or significant business experience can be the czar of GM, who will be appointed health care czar? Perhaps to reward rabid Hollywood support a cast member of “Grey’s Anatomy” can run the US health care system.

A new CNN poll shows: After 6 Months, More View Obama’s Presidency as a ‘Failure’ than Bush’s.

The biggest U.S. television networks are posting declines of 15 percent or more in advertising commitments for the prime-time season starting next month, based on results at CBS and NBC.

So-called upfront sales at General Electric Co.’s NBC will fall 15 percent to 20 percent, a person with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. Sales were $1.9 billion last year, a person familiar said then. CBS Corp. will collect about $2.1 billion, down from an estimated $2.5 billion, according to Michael Morris, an analyst at UBS AG.

“We’ve been the strongest player in these very protracted negotiations,” CBS Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said on a conference call yesterday. “We’re very pleased with how things have progressed.”

Networks are holding more inventory, betting advertisers will pay a higher price as the economy improves. New York-based CBS, the most-watched network among all viewers, is almost done and will pre-sell about 65 percent of its available ad time, compared with 75 percent to 80 percent last year, Moonves said. NBC will is selling 70 percent of its inventory, down from 80 percent, according to the person.

Small businesses that received $682 million in IOUs from the state say California expects them to pay taxes on the worthless scraps of paper, but refuses to accept its own IOUs to pay debts or taxes. The vendors’ federal class action claims the state is trying to balance its budget on their backs.   Lead plaintiff Nancy Baird filled her contract with California to provide embroidered polo shirts to a youth camp run by the National Guard, but never was paid the $27,000 she was owed. She says California "paid" her with an IOU that two banks refused to accept – yet she had to pay California sales tax on the so-called "sale" of the uniforms.   The class consists mostly of small business owners, many of whom rely on income from government contracts to keep afloat. They say California has used them as "suckers" as it looks for a way to bankroll its operations while avoiding its own financial obligations.  "Instead of seeking funds through proper channels, the State has created a nightmare," the class says. "Many of these businesses will not survive if they are required to wait until October 2009 to have these forced IOUs redeemed by the State."      The class claims the state is violating the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. It demands that California be ordered to honor its own IOUs, plus interest. They are represented by William Audet. 

Bank of America announced its intention to extend “quantitative easing” by another 40% from $200 billion to $280 billion. We call that insolvency.

There is a rumor that Goldman Sachs will kick back 10% of profits so Congress won’t investigate them.

On Friday on CNBC Rick Santelli made the comment, “When markets traded freely.”

The Battle Dry Index, which tracks transportation costs on international trade routes fell 135 points or 4.6%, to 1,772 points on Friday for a weekly loss of 175.

Retail sales are off 6%; consumer spending is less than 70% of GDP; personal income is the lowest in years and continues to fall; 24% of homeowners are under the water on their mortgages and U6 unemployment is 20.8%.

July average hourly earnings fell 0.2% and the average weekly hours were 33.1.

Since December 2007 officially 6.7 million jobs have been lost.

Bob Chapman is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Bob Chapman