How's reform working out for you?.....

Oops! my bad There hasn't and won't be any reform and the next crash will be worse than the last.

6 Shocking Revelations About Wall Street's "Secret Government" | Economy | AlterNet

We now have concrete evidence that Wall Street and Washington are running a secret government far removed from the democratic process. Through a freedom of information request by Bloomberg News, the public now has access to over 29,000 pages of Fed documents and 21,000 additional Fed transactions that were deliberately hidden, and for good reason. (See here and here.)

These documents show how top government officials willfully concealed from Congress and the public the true extent of the 2008-'09 bailouts that enriched the few and enhanced the interests of giant Wall Streets firms. Here’s what we now know:

The secret Wall Street bailouts totaled $7.77 trillion, 10 times more than the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) passed by Congress in 2008.

Knowledge of the secret bailout funds was not shared with Congress even while it was drafting and debating legislation to break up the big banks.

The secret funding, provided at below-market rates, gave Wall Street banks an additional $13 billion in profits. (That’s enough money to hire more than 325,000 entry level teachers.)

The secret loans financed bank mergers so that the largest banks could grow even larger. The money also allowed banks to step up their lobbying efforts.

Maybe the Jews ain't going back to the ovens....

News from the Edge | Has a New War Started? | unknowncountry

Secret attacks on Iran's nuclear facilities may be under way by Israel. Israeli officials said in a recent report that a "mysterious explosion" two days ago at an Iranian nuclear facility was "no accident." Satellite images show smoke coming from an Iranian uranium enrichment facility.
In the November 30th edition of the New York Daily News, Corky Siemaszko quotes retired Israeli Major-General Giora Eiland as saying, "There aren't many coincidences. When there are so many events, there is probably some sort of guiding hand, though perhaps it’s the hand of God "

This is the second attack on an Iranian nuclear site in a month. Two weeks ago, there was another suspicious blast on a military base near Tehran, which killed General Hassan Moghaddam, the head of Iran’s missile defense program, and 30 members of the Revolutionary Guard.

Siemaszko quotes Israeli intelligence officer Dan Meridor as saying, "There are countries who impose economic sanctions and there are countries who act in other ways in dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat."

The Iranians clearly don't want to admit that their security could be breached in this way. The attack took place in a facility in the Iranian town of to Isfahan, and Siemaszko quotes the city's governor, Mohammad-Mehdi Ismaeli, as saying, "Maybe somebody's water heater exploded."

Oh goody....unemployment stats are lies......

 Not much change so far. Too many people are not being counted so Oba mama looking better. We are in a depression. A series of boom and bust is continuing as all the speculation in the European economy will come home.

But it will improve enough saving Oba mama's second term. That's the way to bet because the Republicans are being blamed for getting  us into this mess and the same gang bought by the criminal element in Washington is still in charge.

As soon as the Europeans elect new governments this "boom" is over. Give it a few more years of grinding poverty and the destruction of the middle class who always pay the bills in any society.

Too many people can't get it through their heads that borrowing money eventually has to be paid back and it always cost more than you borrow. Eventually costing enough to bankrupt everyone and then they have to start over again, broke and without assets.

In history this is called a dark age.

Broke dicks revolt and murder the bankers and the tyrants that own them and eventually  strong men (kings) who control a gang of thugs come on to the scene to police them because law and order disappears.

But, no one believes it can happen "here" just ask the Romans, ancient Greeks, Byzantines, Egyptians, Napoleon French , and countless other know it alls.

Meh. And I Say That With Feeling - NYTimes.com

December 2, 2011, 8:21 pm
Meh. And I Say That With Feeling

A belated reaction to today’s employment report (I’ve been closeted in a room with a bunch of men in suits, myself included, talking about the depressed and depressing world.) In a word: meh.

It could have been worse, but the basic story remains the same as it has been for 2 1/2 years: an economy that’s growing, but not enough to feel anything like a real recovery. The measured unemployment rate has trended down for a while, but it’s all basically reduced numbers of people actively searching. My favorite measure these days is the employment-population ratio for prime-age workers, which isn’t affected by changing demography. Here it is for the past decade; see the trend since the recession officially ended? Neither do I.

Of course, my meh corresponds to enormous and continuing waste, vast hardship, and millions of ruined lives. Maybe someone should do something.

Who knew?....no wonder we have so many problems.....

If Saudi Women Drive | FrumForum

The social consequences will be horrendous, warn Saudi Arabia’s clerics:

As part of his careful reform process, King Abdullah has allowed suggestions to surface that the ban might be reviewed.

This has angered the conservative religious elite – a key power base for any Saudi ruler.

Now, one of their number – well-known academic Kamal Subhi – has presented a new report to the country’s legislative assembly, the Shura.

The aim was to get it to drop plans to reconsider the ban.

The report contains graphic warnings that letting women drive would increase prostitution, pornography, homosexuality and divorce.

So?......

If we look at China as a huge corporation that owns everything we see that everything is private as long as the government says so.

Chinese vice premier praises private sector - 24-Hour Business News - The Buffalo News

BEIJING (AP) - A top Chinese economics official pledged strong government support Sunday for the country's private businesses, in remarks likely to hearten a sector beleaguered by a credit crunch and downturn in exports.

Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang said private industry is a force for social stability and an important part of China's hybrid "socialist market economy." Private businesses are major job creators and play a key role in establishing a comprehensive social security web, Zhang said in a speech to businesspeople in Beijing.

"The development of the private sector deserves our unswerving encouragement, support, and guidance," Zhang said.

Zhang's remarks will be welcomed by the private business community, which has suffered from a hollowing of demand in crucial export markets in Europe and a weakening real estate industry. Unable to obtain loans from state-run banks, thousands of small businesses have been forced to borrow privately at exorbitant rates and many are now failing or on the verge of bankruptcy.

Such woes have been compounded by Beijing's redoubled support for state industries following the global economic slowdown, including generous tax breaks and preferred access to land and state bank loans.

The boom is on....

All this money sloshing around over seas (trillions and trillions) as I predicted is now coming home as Europe melts down. But as soon as the voters over there fire the nuts who are cutting the budgets putting people in the poor house are gone they will pick up too.

Just read below, as the Fed pumps up the European banks so they can invest here to save their sorry asses because their politicians are nuts.

The rich take care of their own!

Housing still sucks but a year or two with a new Congress who can ignore, but pay lip service to, budget cutting will make a big difference. These bad loans, as I've been bitching about, have to be removed from the books. Default, payoff, or forgiven and 2+ million new families a year will be back in the market.

We are floating in oil and gold but there is no place for the speculators and pension funds to go for big enough returns to keep their investors happy. Expect gas prices to remain aver 3$ a gallon until the auto industries world wide replace the current inventory with 40- 50 and higher fuel misers.

But, nothing has really changed, and the boom and bust cycle will continue.

Mike Norman Economics: The whole world is short dollars!

Wednesday, November 30, 2011
The whole world is short dollars!


Today, like so many times in the past three years, we see the Fed stepping in and providing dollar liquidity to the world's central banks.

How many times do we have to see this?

The whole world is short dollars.

Let's face it...without the Fed’s intervention the dollar would soar to levels that no one would believe. It would restore American purchasing power, lower inflationary pressures, improve our real terms of trade and by so doing, raise our standard of living.

But what does the Fed do instead?

It “sells” the dollar on the cheap, to central banks that have every capability to sell their own currencies to provide dollar funding for their own, domestic needs.

Scandalous!!

Wall Street got their money's worth....

They buy our government and corrupt our electoral process and it's all "legal" because the dictators in black robes say so.

Think any of them are in on the take?

Grayson: Fed played ‘Russian roulette’ with U.S. money | The Raw Story

He added: “The regional banks of the Fed are actually populated and controlled by the local banks. And all of these bailouts were actually administered by the Federal Reserve bank of New York, which has on its board many Wall Street executives. I’m talking about current Wall Street executives. Not the Tim Geithers of the world, the people who used to be or in the future will work for Wall Street, but the current Wall St. executives on the board making decisions on who would get what themselves.”

The Government Accountability Office revealed that the Fed gave out over $16 trillion to U.S. and international financial institutions between 2007 and 2010 without revealing to Congress. Another $10 trillion was given out to foreign institutions in currency swaps.

Romney gets big Wall Street endorsement......

BlackRock, a Wall Street investment firm controlling over 2 trillion in assets, is getting ready for the next 8 years. Wonder what Romney would have to do for this? He is super rich already so it seems they are doing it for themselves and he will get little for it.

Yea, right!

Nothing happens with the big shots without payback. Nothing.

I wish I had written this guy's post....

I've been saying it long enough. But as I told my son most people want "experts" in  charge of their lives.

Like:

bankers who bribe our politicians, presidents who steal elections, assholes in Congress, scientists who know only what they read about in schools, guys at work who know only what TV tells them, priest who hide their pedophilia in church (Don't get me started on these scum) and let's not forget the Hollywood set.

But I really like the quote from MacArthur at the end of this piece.

dreamslaughter: Food For Thought

Civil disobedience, that’s not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem.
~ Howard Zinn

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear, kept us in a
continuous stampede of patriotic fervor, with the cry of grave national
emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some
monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not
blindly rally behind it.
~ General Douglas MacArthur

If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for them Mexicans.
~ Texas politician, Spanish as a second language

Nothing but the truth....

Gingrich is Clinton's kind of people. And paybacks are a bitch!

Clinton Gives Gingrich the Shiv | FrumForum

“He said, ‘OK, I don’t want to legitimize immigrants who came here undocumented, illegally.’ On the other hand, a lot of those people have been here for years, they worked hard, they paid taxes, they’ve got kids in the schools, they’re not criminals, we’re going to have a hard time sending them all home, there’s millions of them. So, I’d like to have a process where they could be here legally but not have a path to citizenship. That sort of splits the difference between the immigration reforms proposed by President Bush and President Obama, which would give a path to citizenship, and would be a version of what President Reagan did.”

Clinton was impressed that Gingrich devised a “red card” system that would be used to be used to stop normalizing the immigration status of illegals if efforts to control the border proved ineffective.“That was a thoughtful response,” Clinton said.

The former president also credited Gingrich for innovative thinking in his plan to give workers an option to invest their Social Security retirement funds privately. Gingrich said there should be a guarantee, so that, if markets nose-dive, workers would not receive less than they would have received under the old Social Security system.

“See, that’s a new wrinkle on this,” Clinton said, crediting Gingrich for thinking out of the box. “So he’s always . . . I think he’s doing well just because he’s thinking, and people are hungry for ideas that make some sense.”

Immigration amnesty and Social Security privatization! Two ideas that just overwhelmingly appeal to the elderly Newsmax readership!

Black friday has come and gone....

we made a fortune (I'm a stock holder) yesterday. Several thousand people tromped through the store and pissed and moaned every minute.

And no, I didn't get any $2 waffle irons because they only lasted 15 minutes.

Click and watch what happened at the store in Arkansas: Another example that our customers are stupid

David Frum says it like it is....

Few of us old time conservatives are happy with the Republican right. And don't get me started on the pygmies running for the Republican nomination.

And the fools on the left....pathetic.

You really need to read the whole article to understand:

When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality?

Some call this the closing of the conservative mind. Alas, the conservative mind has proved itself only too open, these past years, to all manner of intellectual pollen. Call it instead the drying up of conservative creativity. It’s clearly true that the country faces daunting economic troubles. It’s also true that the wrong answers to those problems will push the United States toward a future of too much government, too many taxes, and too much regulation. It’s the job of conservatives in this crisis to show a better way. But it’s one thing to point out (accurately) that President Obama’s stimulus plan was mostly a compilation of antique Democratic wish lists, and quite another to argue that the correct response to the worst collapse since the thirties is to wait for the economy to get better on its own. It’s one thing to worry (wisely) about the long-term trend in government spending, and another to demand big, immediate cuts when 25 million are out of full-time work and the government can borrow for ten years at 2 percent. It’s a duty to scrutinize the actions and decisions of the incumbent administration, but an abuse to use the filibuster as a routine tool of legislation or to prevent dozens of presidential appointments from even coming to a vote. It’s fine to be unconcerned that the rich are getting richer, but blind to deny that ­middle-class wages have stagnated or worse over the past dozen years. In the aftershock of 2008, large numbers of Americans feel exploited and abused. Rather than workable solutions, my party is offering low taxes for the currently rich and high spending for the currently old, to be followed by who-knows-what and who-the-hell-cares. This isn’t conservatism; it’s a going-out-of-business sale for the baby-boom generation.

I refuse to believe that I am the only Republican who feels this way.

Are we enjoying the stock market yo yo?.....

Our Walmart stock has been the same price, after up and down bouncing, for 4 years. good thing we got a 15% discount buying and a 1.4% DIVIDEND which gives me a profit. And thanks to Walmart's 6% match in my 401k I picked up $2500 over the last 12 months. Patti did also. (add 180$ bonus each for Xmas is icing on the cake.)

I wish I could afford to buy more stock as Walmart isn't going anywhere barring Congress destroying the economy with "austerity" (a code word for screwing people out of their government guaranteed checks!) (I wonder if the vets think they are safe.)

By the way, has anyone been listening to the Republican pygmies debating ramping up military spending to keep conquering poverty stricken brown people and gutting the social network saving us from the evils of senior citizens voting for them.

What planet are these guys from? 

Once they seriously, read that again, seriously go after the money to "cut the deficit" where are they going to look? The deficit is in our hands, our bank accounts, paid to us or our overseas creditors. In order to cut it  it's either rob the old, rob the rich, rob the gun owners or rob foreigners.

Which one are you betting on?

Boy, who in their right minds are going to vote for the rich stealing our checks so they can pay back all the bankers and Wall Street scum bags who own our sorry asses!

Time for my stress test...

Another bout of torture so if I don't post in a day or two you'll know why.

Ready or not the governments are falling apart...

Budget talks collapse now what? The stock market thinks it's the end of the world. Looks like they might be right if your depending on Social Security or if you have a military career.

And it ain't  going to be prety for the rest of us either!

LOL..... Poor babies....

If we don't kill the banks and punish the gang controlling them then the "market" will. Of course, you and I will pay for it.

In the meantime, our 10% discount on food begins and with coupon matching we are stocking up. it will help having a $180 bonus each.

Lenders Flee Debt of European Nations and Banks - NYTimes.com

Nervous investors around the globe are accelerating their exit from the debt of European governments and banks, increasing the risk of a credit squeeze that could set off a downward spiral.
Multimedia
Graphic
European Banks Reducing Sovereign Debt
Interactive Feature
Tracking Europe's Debt Crisis
Related

Bank Chief Rejects Calls to Rescue Euro Zone (November 19, 2011)
Monti Wins Broad Support in Parliament (November 19, 2011)
European Rift on Bank’s Role in Debt Relief (November 18, 2011)
Times Topic: European Debt Crisis

Financial institutions are dumping their vast holdings of European government debt and spurning new bond issues by countries like Spain and Italy. And many have decided not to renew short-term loans to European banks, which are needed to finance day-to-day operations.

If this trend continues, it risks creating a vicious cycle of rising borrowing costs, deeper spending cuts and slowing growth, which is hard to get out of, especially as some European banks are having trouble meeting their financing needs.

Might portend a coming boom or?....

Sales up and a pretty nice bonus for Xmas. Been several years but the worm turns.

But I'm sure it won't last after more cuts and tax increases. Oh yeah, Walmart has increased prices on most stuff and is keeping the lid on toy prices.

Going to be interesting next year when Europe tanks because I'm not sure even China will survive.

They know we are dangerous....

As soon as Xmas shopping is done, look out! LOL. We tend to forget that kids are impatient and go off half cocked. But it worked for the inner city blacks who got all kinds of goodies from the Federal Government, so who knows.

But once people get a job, kids, bills, etc. they slowly become Republican voters. No wonder these guys are gearing up. Better stomp them know, LOL.

Mike Norman Economics: Police state part of the military-industrial-governmental complex

Police state part of the military-industrial-governmental complex


"Well, there’s been a longstanding shift in North America and Europe towards paramilitarized policing, using helicopter-style systems, using infrared sensing, using really, really heavy militarized weaponry. That’s been longstanding, fueled by the war on drugs and other sort of explicit campaigns. But more recently, there’s been a big push since the end of the Cold War by the big defense and security and IT companies to sell things like video surveillance systems, things like geographic mapping systems, and even more recently, drone systems, that have been used in the assassination raids in Afghanistan and in Pakistan and elsewhere, as sort of a domestic policing technology. It’s basically a really big, booming market, particularly in a world where surveillance and security is being integrated into buildings, into cities, into transport systems, on the back of the war on terror...." — Stephen Graham, professor of Cities and Society at Newcastle University in the U.K and author of "Cities Under Siege: The New Military Urbanism." (emphasis added)


Read the whole interview at AlterNet
Police or Paramilitary Forces? The Militarization of American Law Enforcement
Amy Goodman, Nermeen Shaikh, and Stephen Graham
Edited transcript of Democracy Now!

More evidence that Ike was right in warning against the growing influence of the military-industrial-governmental complex as a threat to democracy.

My "big" flyfishing show.....

Flyfishing with Jake and Peanut

My son, Jeremy, gets upset with me...

I apparently read to many left-wing websites. However, You need to listen to both sides of the arguments put forth by the people who own us. I believe that right-left dichotomy in our politics is simply deprived to let us argue against each other and ignore the criminal scam that controls our world.

Any ways, one wonders just what part of the truth don't we want to hear!

Daily Kos: Over half of all U.S. tax subsidies go to four industries

While the federal corporate tax code ostensibly requires big corporations to pay a 35 percent corporate income tax rate, on average, the 280 corporations in our study paid only about half that amount. And many paid far less, including a number that paid nothing at all. [...]

Many people will be appalled to learn that a quarter of the companies in our study paid effective federal tax rates on their U.S. profits of less than 10 percent. Others may be surprised to learn that an almost equal number of our companies paid close to the full 35 percent official corporate tax rate.

The average effective tax rate for the 280 companies was 18.5 percent, but the range is surprising: 30 companies paid a negative effective tax rate over the three years, while 71 companies paid effective rates of over 70 percent. Note that this isn't because those companies made no money: members of the negative-tax club include General Electric and ... well, and a phalanx of financial, energy and telecommunications companies.

Over the 2008-10 period, our 280 companies earned almost $1.4 trillion in pretax profits in the United States. Had all of those profits been reported to the IRS and taxed at the statutory 35 percent corporate tax rate, then the 280 companies would have paid $473billion in income taxes over the three years. But instead, the companies as a group paid only about half that amount. The enormous amount they did not pay was due to the hundreds of billions of dollars in tax subsidies that they enjoyed. [...]

More than half of the total tax- subsidy dollars over the three years — $114.8 billion — went to just 25 companies, each with more than $1.9 billion in tax subsidies.

You wonder who put these men in suits in charge?.....

We have all kinds of experts on T.V. or in the  government tell us what we have to do. Who put these guys in charge of the world? (hint: the people who own us! )

Common sense would tell anyone that the same people who have been fucking up the world for all these years can't ever get it  right by now no matter how many college degrees they show up for and then get hired by people who don't have a clue.

Or, as I contend, they know exactly what they're doing and it ain't to help the working stiff. Even if I'm a little paranoid or am being conspiratorial doesn't mean I'm full of it!

What's really fun is watching the "elections." What a sorry ass collection on both sides of the aisle. Mostly clueless and corrupt they are vying to be the "world leaders of tomorrow". They'll fit right in with the clowns in Europe who insist on stealing from the people who work for a living and pay their pay checks.

But not to worry, the T.V. will keep them quiet.....NOT!

Austerity Then And Now - NYTimes.com

Today, by contrast, austerity is being imposed because men in suits say that it’s necessary to satisfy the invisible gods of the financial market. It’s understandable that the public is beginning to have its doubts, and not just because those invisible gods somehow demand sacrifices only from workers, never from the wealthy. For the fact is that those men in suits have no idea what they’re doing — a fact that was apparent to some of us early on, but it now becoming common knowledge.

And so if you want to contrast the stoicism of the postwar populace with the anger and confusion of today’s voters, don’t blame consumerism; blame our leaders, who have imposed gratuitous, unfair pain on their constituents, who are finally starting to figure it out.

Stil...there will be no cuts...

Any deal is predicated on "cuts" occuring after the next election. We've heard this before. Both parties tell their voters what the voters want to hear and then screw them in the ass.

But of course these sillies deserve it don't they?

Investors' Dread-Letter Day: 11/23 - WSJ.com

Call it Wall Street's other geopolitical driver, one played out not in Athens or Rome, but close to home in Washington.

As stock-market investors fret over sovereign-debt contagion in Europe, a Nov. 23 deadline for the U.S. Congress's so-called budget supercommittee is fast approaching. The committee is assigned to devise at least $1.2 trillion in deficit-reduction measures over 10 years, or else automatic cuts ordained by Washington's summer debt-ceiling agreement are triggered.

Friday's market action gave little hint that investors remain perturbed over Europe's debt situation, much less any happenings in Washington, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged by ...

First snow headed this way...

70% chance sounds like a sure thing, LOL. Of course, it will be here all week just to piss me off! But that's what you get living this far north in Idaho.

At least our store sales are o.k. and expect a bonus this Xmas hopefully a couple of hundred wouldn't hurt. Patti got her walker and the company approved her using it so she's not as tired and she can walk much better.

I'm on a saving kick so we can get rid of the rest of our payments and retire early and go back into business while she's healthy enough to travel. Still need to but a newer RV as I sold the 5th wheel because it was a pain in the ass to camp in around here and I don't think using a camp ground makes much sense until after you retire and I want something to use in the meantime. Probably get one of these.

This is the best the Republicans have?.......

Embarrassing. But makes it easier for Oba mama. Once the voters figure out these guys are for taking their government checks and giving the money to their rich buddies it's over.

Only Oba mama can lose the race if he goes along with screwing over Social Security and Medicare. Let alone screwing with VA benefits. Which way do you think I'm betting?

Oh yeah, the thing in Europe. There is an unknown number of  trillions looking for a safe home. Guess which country is considered "safe"? As I predicted, if and when this money comes home our economy will take off and all this budget cutting nonsense will get forgotten.

Of course, team Oba mama will take full credit and he squeaks by which ever nobody the Republicans choose.  (I remember McCain was considered toast this far out in 2007, so don't count anyone out!)

We really are only guessing until about the first week or so of March when voters actually pull some levers and choose in the primaries. I haven't met too many people that are all excited about any body so far, but this will change because many people think they count in this system.

Boy are they confused?

Poll: Cain tops 3-way race with Romney, Gingrich.

.

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Republican presidential candidates former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and businessman Herman Cain pose before a Republican presidential debate at Oakland University in Auburn Hills, Mich., Nov. 9, 2011.

(Credit: AP)

CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto.

In the Republican race for the presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich's support continues to slowly grow, and he is now tied with Mitt Romney for second place, while Herman Cain just edges both of them out for the top spot. Both Cain and Romney have lost support since late October.

In a new CBS News Poll, 61 percent of Republican primary voters say the sexual harassment accusations against Cain won't make any difference in their vote, but 30 percent say the charges make them less likely to back him, and that rises to 38 percent among women. Cain has lost support among women since last month - from 28 percent in October to 15 percent now. He has lost ground with conservatives and Tea Party supporters as well.

But the race could still change; seven in 10 Republican primary voters say it is still too early to say for sure which candidate they will support.

The field of Republican candidates now has three candidates within striking distance of each other at the top of the list: with 18 percent, Herman Cain is in the top spot, followed by Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich with 15% each. Support for both Cain and Romney has declined since late last month, and Gingrich is the only one of the top three whose support is steadily - if slowly - on the upswing.

Gingrich: White House race is wide open
Complete coverage: Campaign 2012

Cain has lost support among women since late October. Then, he led among women, garnering 28 percent of their support. Now, his support among women is just 15 percent. He has also lost ground with conservatives, from 30 percent to 23 percent now. And there has been some movement among Tea Party supporters as well; their support for Cain has declined from 32 percent to 19 percent. Romney has lost support among men, while Gingrich's support among that group has increased eight points.

Six in 10 Republican primary voters say the charges of sexual harassment against Cain make no difference to their vote. Still, 30 percent say the charges make them less likely to support him.

nce people realise these guys are going after their checks to protect the rich it's over

Poll: Cain tops 3-way race with Romney, Gingrich - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

November 11, 2011 7:02 AM

Poll: Cain tops 3-way race with Romney, Gingrich

Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Herman Cain

Republican presidential candidates former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and businessman Herman Cain pose before a Republican presidential debate at Oakland University in Auburn Hills, Mich., Nov. 9, 2011.
(Credit: AP)

CBS News Poll analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus and Anthony Salvanto.

In the Republican race for the presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich's support continues to slowly grow, and he is now tied with Mitt Romney for second place, while Herman Cain just edges both of them out for the top spot. Both Cain and Romney have lost support since late October.

In a new CBS News Poll, 61 percent of Republican primary voters say the sexual harassment accusations against Cain won't make any difference in their vote, but 30 percent say the charges make them less likely to back him, and that rises to 38 percent among women. Cain has lost support among women since last month - from 28 percent in October to 15 percent now. He has lost ground with conservatives and Tea Party supporters as well.

But the race could still change; seven in 10 Republican primary voters say it is still too early to say for sure which candidate they will support.

The field of Republican candidates now has three candidates within striking distance of each other at the top of the list: with 18 percent, Herman Cain is in the top spot, followed by Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich with 15% each. Support for both Cain and Romney has declined since late last month, and Gingrich is the only one of the top three whose support is steadily - if slowly - on the upswing.

Gingrich: White House race is wide open
Complete coverage: Campaign 2012

Cain has lost support among women since late October. Then, he led among women, garnering 28 percent of their support. Now, his support among women is just 15 percent. He has also lost ground with conservatives, from 30 percent to 23 percent now. And there has been some movement among Tea Party supporters as well; their support for Cain has declined from 32 percent to 19 percent. Romney has lost support among men, while Gingrich's support among that group has increased eight points.

Six in 10 Republican primary voters say the charges of sexual harassment against Cain make no difference to their vote. Still, 30 percent say the charges make them less likely to support him.

Need to clean up the garden.....

A lot of work at the end of the season because Patti insists I help. Of course, the vegetable garden is my idea so I guess I'm screwed. LOL

Had to borrow Patt's computer...

Patti's fault, of course. Hey her puppy chewed my power cord in to so if I can't fix it I'm out a hundred bucks we don't have. Want to buy a puppy? Hundred bucks? No? What do you mean your to young to die? LOL

We are in a Depression...

No breadlines? Government checks and food stamps is why. No one selling pencils?--- unemployment money. all this spending keeps me and Patti employed. So we need more government spending!

How I Learned to Stop Neoclassicizing and Love the Liquidity Trap: Peccavi Nimis et Mea Maxima Culpa Department

Safeguarding Wealth But something else happens on the path to equilibrium. The decline in interest rates and the rise in savings are accompanied by an increased desire among businesses and households to safeguard more of their wealth in cash. As a result, the speed with which cash turns over in the economy, the velocity of money, falls. And as the velocity of money falls, total spending falls, workers are fired, and their savings evaporate with their incomes. Thus the equilibrium turns negative, with high unemployment and low capacity utilization. In responding to a small financial disruption, the Federal Reserve can inject more money into the economy by buying bonds for cash, increasing the amount of cash so that even at the lower velocity of money we retain the same volume of spending. This eases the decline in interest rates, spending, employment and production into a decline in interest rates alone. Little Difference But when rates become so low that there’s little difference between cash and short-term government bonds, open-market operations cease having an effect; they simply swap one zero- yielding government asset for another, with their hunger to hold more safe, liquid assets unsatisfied. This is the liquidity trap. In this situation we need deficit spending. The government spends and borrows, creating more of the safe, cashlike assets that private investors want. As these bonds hit the market, people who otherwise would have socked their money away in cash -- diminishing monetary velocity and slowing spending -- buy bonds instead. A large, timely government deficit thus short- circuits the adjustment mechanism, avoiding the collapse in monetary velocity.

This story brings back a few memories..

Seeing is believing but few want to admit it. Those of us with these experiences don't need convincing but sceptics talk to an invisible man in the sky and laugh at us. Or that a small cache of bones prove that we are here by accident.

 

Witnesses along New York's Route 207 pull over to watch 'hovering egg' UFO - National ufo | Examiner.com

A Rock Tavern, NY, witness along Route 207 reports watching a hovering elongated egg-shaped object with an amber-yellow glow to an outer aura, according to November 3, 2011, testimony from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database. The witness had just left a meeting and traveled down Route 207, where two people who had been in the meeting had stopped along the side of the road and were outside observing "the thing in the sky." "We all started yelling at each other over what we're looking at in disbelief," the witness stated. "We were off of Route 207, up the street from Toleman. The object was in the trees hovering and it appeared to be over the MTA refuge area. Stewart Airport gets a lot of aerial traffic, but this thing was just hovering, not on a schedule to get somewhere." The witness described the object. "It was shaped like an elongated egg next to a racquet ball next to an egg <0O0> where the ends slope down to a point with three interior compartments. It had an amber-yellow glow to the outer aura, with a brighter yellow-whitish pulsating inner glow. Each compartment appeared to have a black center to it. Three of us watched this thing for a few minutes as it was above the trees, but from our vantage point it appeared to be in the trees. It was in a north, northwest sky from us at 9:30-ish at night."

Now if he hit upon a guy.....

Might be a story. However, since he's black (both parents) and had to work for a living he must be guilty of something, right?

And to think that reporters get paid for this shit!

Why Our Blacks Are Better Than Their Blacks - HUMAN EVENTS

Ann Coulter
Why Our Blacks Are Better Than Their Blacks
by Ann Coulter
11/02/2011
1336
Comments

By spending the last three decades leveling accusations of "racism" every 10 seconds, liberals have made it virtually impossible for Americans to recognize real racism -- for example, the racism constantly spewed at black conservatives.

In the last year alone, a short list of the things liberals have labeled "racist" include:

-- Being a Republican;

-- Joining the tea party;

-- The word "the" (Donald Trump's statement that he has a "great relationship with the blacks");

-- References to Barack Obama's playing basketball (Trump again);

-- Using Obama's middle name;

-- Scott Brown​'s pickup truck;

-- Opposing Obamacare;

-- Opposing Obama's stimulus bill;

-- Opposing Obama's jobs bill.

The surge in conservative support for Herman Cain​ confuses the Democrats' story line, which is that Republicans hate Obama because he's black.

Cain is twice as black as Obama. (Possible Obama campaign slogan: "Too Black!")

This is why the liberal website Politico ran with a story on Cain that had everything -- a powerful black man, a Republican presidential candidate, the hint of sexuality -- except facts.

All we learned was: About a decade ago, as many as two anonymous women accused Cain of making unspecified "inappropriate" remarks and one "inappropriate" gesture in the workplace. (We had more than that on John Edwards​' mistress a year into the media's refusal to report that story.)

If the details helped liberals, we'd have the details.

To have been accused of sexual harassment in the 1990s is like having been accused of molesting children at preschools in the 1980s or accused of being a witch in Massachusetts in the 1690s.

In the 1990s, one plaintiff won a $50 million jury verdict against Wal-Mart on the grounds that a "hostile environment" was created by her supervisor's yelling at both male and female employees. In another case, a plaintiff won a $250,000 award for sexual harassment based on her complaint that a male colleague had reached for a pastry saying, "Nothing I like more in the morning than sticky buns," while "wriggl(ing)" his eyebrows.

It got so crazy that a 6-year-old boy was suspended from class for a day for kissing a classmate on the cheek, and a Goya painting had to be removed from a Penn State classroom because a professor complained that it constituted sexual harassment.

With no standard other than the subjective offense taken by the accuser, absolutely anyone could be called a witch, i.e., a sexual harasser. So it's striking that the only two conservative public figures accused of being witches both happened to be conservative blacks: Clarence Thomas and Herman Cain.

Our sales are up.....

We actually had a $12 bonus for last quarter and expect a bigger one this Xmas. Even local real estate is selling  here and there are  jobs to be found in the area.

Internationally, the banks are toast and could screw us over if, as I expect, we see a few countries default and take the banking system down. (I hope you have an account with a local credit union and beat the rush.)

If so, my Social Security check should be large enough to buy a villa in Greece or Italy, LOL.

Speaking of SS, rumor has it that the Dem's are conniving with the Repub's to "save Social Security" by stealing the money from my kids so they can chase goat herders in the Middle East.

If so, we will see a lot of new faces in Congress because Social Security funds are separate from the general funds unless these crooks rob the fund.

And then we need to vote the bastards out!

In the meantime, I'm on a get out of debt move so Patti can  retire early and visit the kids before she becomes to ill to do it. I'll stay at Walmart and find a few investments or start another business.

keep you posted.

 

Keep your eye on the prize....

Many people on Wall Street want our Social Security taxes spent on Wall Street schemes and scams. If they can get it then they will have billions more to play with.

Do we not remember what they did with all that money from 401k's and government housing money?

Well?

They killed the fucking economy!

It's not often I side with the left but taking our money that we pay into the government for 40 years is war. Or do you think they will do better next time and we can trust them.

Social Security Bait And Switch, A Continuing Series - NYTimes.com

I’ve written about this repeatedly in the past, but here it is again: Social Security is a program that is part of the federal budget, but is by law supported by a dedicated source of revenue. This means that there are two ways to look at the program’s finances: in legal terms, or as part of the broader budget picture.

In legal terms, the program is funded not just by today’s payroll taxes, but by accumulated past surpluses — the trust fund. If there’s a year when payroll receipts fall short of benefits, but there are still trillions of dollars in the trust fund, what happens is, precisely, nothing — the program has the funds it needs to operate, without need for any Congressional action.

Alternatively, you can think about Social Security as just part of the federal budget. But in that case, it’s just part of the federal budget; it doesn’t have either surpluses or deficits, no more than the defense budget.

Both views are valid, depending on what questions you’re trying to answer.

What you can’t do is insist that the trust fund is meaningless, because SS is just part of the budget, then claim that some crisis arises when receipts fall short of payments, because SS is a standalone program. Yet that’s exactly what the WaPo claims.

This is what you call negative journalistic value added.

This is a serious scientific article.....

And people wonder why I'm skeptical of Evolutionary Theory. Just read this whole thing and you will see someone trying to make a case for life acquiring characteristics in virtually overnight circumstances and retaining them.

But no proof other than Evolution must have happened so the only evidence considered has to fit into the theory.

Now will someone explain to me why this is any different than Bible thumpers quoting genesis! 

Mountain beavers evolved thicker teeth to eat volcanoes

It all goes back to those teeth. The mountain beavers have hypsodonty, meaning their teeth are high crowned and extend way past the gum line. This, along with the extra thickness of the teeth, provides a lot of room for extra wear and tear. It's a feature that cows and horses have evolved to deal with the relatively gritty, fibrous material - grass, basically - that they usually eat. The problem is that mountain beavers don't eat anything like that.

Now Samantha Hopkins of the University of Oregon has the answer. The mountain beavers don't need those teeth now, but they did about 10 to 15 million years ago, which is when these teeth features first appear in the fossil record. During that span, the volcanoes in the Yellowstone hotspot and Columbia River Basalts had frequent minor eruptions, spewing out huge swathes of volcanic dust that blanketed the mountain beavers' habitat.

This unexpected volcanic seasoning turned a bunch of soft plants into gritty chunks of silicon. The mountain beavers had to basically eat their way out of this volcanic age, and they developed suitably thick teeth to survive. What's particularly remarkable is how isolated this effect was - while the mountain beavers in the northwestern United States and Canada had to develop these hypsodont teeth, their counterparts just a hundred miles away in the Sierra Nevada had no such need. There were still volcanoes down there, but they apparently didn't reach teeth-changing levels of intensity.

As I've posted before....

Send everybody a big check and we will spend or save it and some banks and companies will survive and some wont.

That means campaign bribery wont mean squat so don't hold your breath but that is the cure even if right wingers think it's socialism or something.

P.s Nixon, a conservative, gave us the earned income tax and that's pretty much a big check for being poor and having babies. So, call it an earned income tax for the rest of us.

Click on the jump and read the whole article.

interfluidity » Monetary policy for the 21st century

Here’s my proposal. We should try to arrange things so that the marginal unit of CPI is purchased with “helicopter drop” money. That is, rather than trying to fine-tune wages, asset prices, or credit, central banks should be in the business of fine tuning a rate of transfers from the bank to the public. During depressions and disinflations, the Fed should be depositing funds directly in bank accounts at a fast clip. During booms, the rate of transfers should slow to a trickle. We could reach the “zero bound”, but a different zero bound than today’s zero interest rate bugaboo. At the point at which the Fed is making no transfers yet inflation still threatens, the central bank would have to coordinate with Congress to do “fiscal policy” in the form of negative transfers, a.k.a. taxes. However, this zero bound would be reached quite rarely if we allow transfers to displace credit expansion as the driver of money growth in the economy. In other words, at the same time as we expand the use of “helicopter money” in monetary policy, we should regulate and simplify banks, impose steep capital requirements, and relish complaints that this will “reduce credit availability”. The idea is to replace the macroeconomic role of bank credit with freshly issued cash.

Of course we will still need investors. But all that transfered money will become somebody’s savings, and having reduced the profitability of leveraged financial intermediaries, much of that will find its way to some form of equity investing.

Does it make sense to save money?....

If your interest payment is 1% and inflation plus taxes is 5% why pile up money and lose your principle. In the depression times we are experiencing we might better borrow, right?

So how do we set this up?

How about a free and clear credit card for emergencies and using personal loans for shopping for large purchases?

I'm not neglecting retirement accounts like my 401k which has a match of 6% so if Patti and I put in $5000 a year Walmart puts in a matching $5000. (It's amazing that so few contribute!)

Anyways, my thinking is to continue to pay off my vehicle loans and then use the free and clear vehicles as collateral for 4 percent loans.

Make sense?

Now, I have my old pickup truck free and clear and can also use it as an emergency fund so I can relax as far as that goes. Should be able to get $5000 if I need it so I'm resting easy right now, how about you?

We cleaned up the criminal bankers before....

Bill Black @ #occupywallstreet on Arresting Banksters

Well, this weekend I put the garden to bed....

Below 30 temperatures did a number on it but that's Idaho for you. have a ton of Bell peppers and tomatoes this year and can't wait  til next.

Will post a Youtube vid this week end.

I'm for Cain.....

Be fun to see Obama go after Cain for being a real American black. Or something. Of course, all Obama has to do is run on his record.

Here's a list of some his accomplishments:

Lost a filibuster proof Congress, passed a health care bill that no one knows what's in it and no one wants it, bailed out his pay masters on Wall Street, raised the price of used cars, revitalized the Republican party that was dead in 2008, threatened to cut Social Security and Medicare if the Republicans would only agree and destroy their election chances, and gave a lot of speeches that no one remembers.

There's probably more great accomplishments but nobody cares.

Now can he be beat?

It would be tough for Romney, a liberal Republican, to even do as well as McCain in 2008. At least Mac was a war hero to soften his Liberal image and Romney is a super rich guy who wears funny underwear.

Perry, a lot of money on hand, can stick around for quit awhile. He sounds like Bush only dumber so some liberal media types will keep him around.

So that leaves the Republican black guy. Lot of fun on TV, libertarian (not liberal) on abortion,  pro military spending, pays lip service to budget balancing, etc. Only thing he has to do is talk up Obama's economic non policy and remind people that Oba mama is a liar.

The rest are of the Republican field is toast because the media likes controversy and Cain v.s Obama is it and the white guys (and Bachman) are boring!

i don't think killing Middle East dictators is working....

Every time we do oil prices sky rocket. Guess what that means for you and me.

Notice no one is talking about it now as proof is in the pudding.. Take apart the Empire and we all suffer.

Must be a lesson here somewhere, don't you think?

This will end badly......

Now the gang will need to bail out the new loans and pay off these. Pretty soon all the Euros in the world will have to be borrowed to bail out the current loans.

Can you spell PONZI!

Most Greek bailout money has gone to pay off bondholders - The Washington Post

BRUSSELS — More than half of the money lent to Greece so far by the International Monetary Fund and European nations has gone to repay bondholders, a transfer of billions of dollars from taxpayers around the world to European banks and pension funds that invested in the troubled Mediterranean nation.

As the country struggles with a collapsing economy, violent strikes and historic levels of unemployment, a new analysis of an international bailout program shows the degree to which money provided to support Greece has been used to pay off its debts to the private sector.

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 These leaders run the institutions that control interest rates and monetary policies that have been making recent headlines.

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Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Johannes Jooste, portfolio strategist at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, discusses European Central Bank monetary policy and its bond-purchase program. He speaks with Francine Lacqua on Bloomberg Television's "On the Move." (Source: Bloomberg)

Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Johannes Jooste, portfolio strategist at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, discusses European Central Bank monetary policy and its bond-purchase program. He speaks with Francine Lacqua on Bloomberg Television's "On the Move." (Source: Bloomberg)

More on this Story

In Europe, new fears of German might
Most Greek bailout money has gone to pay off bondholders
PHOTOS: Exploring the worst-case scenarios
Europe faces a summit strikeout

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Under an initial bailout program approved by the IMF and the European Union in May 2010, Greece’s government has been kept afloat by international loans that total $91 billion.

About $52 billion of that has been used to repay bonds that came due between the start of the program and last month, according to a review of the program done for European leaders gathered in Brussels to address financial problems in the 17-nation euro zone.

European banks are among the heaviest investors in Greek bonds. Officials in some developing countries have argued that the IMF, run by a European-dominated board and two consecutive French managing directors, seemed more interested in protecting private investors in Europe than it did when overseeing programs that wiped out dozens of banks during the Asian financial crisis.

A foreign country?...

What planet are these guys on?

California approves carbon market rules | Reuters

Reuters) - California regulators on Thursday approved final regulations for a carbon market that is one of the biggest U.S. responses to climate change.

The state believes the market for greenhouse gases, which starts in 2013, will let it address global warming in a low-cost way and become the center of alternative energy industries, like solar, although some businesses fear higher energy prices.

The most populous U.S. state is moving ahead with the plan years after federal regulators rejected a similar idea for the nation, partly on concerns of the effect on businesses.

The California Air Resources Board voted 8-0 to adopt the market regulations, which officials said are critical to the state's goal of cutting carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 -- about a 22 percent reduction from forecasted business-as-usual output.

Power companies and factories will be able to trade a gradually decreasing number of permits to emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases under the so-called cap-and-trade plan, which counts on market forces leading companies to find the cheapest way to cut emissions.

About 350 companies representing 600 California factories and oil refineries must begin complying with the program in

All troops out of Iraq.....

Must be an election year, right? One less lie for team Obama.

I did.....

Good old credit unions. great service, great loan rates, convenience, and free services!

CBC.ca | Day 6 | Bank Transfer Day

A new movement is picking up steam, and it isn't Occupy Wall Street. It was sparked by a woman in Los Angeles who is urging people to close their accounts with big banks, and transfer their savings to not-for profit-credit unions. And she wants everyone to make the move by November 5th - the day she's calling "Bank Transfer Day". Kristen Christian spoke to Brent from Los Angeles.

Yea, the good old days....

Where White Man Went Wrong

Indian Chief ‘Two Eagles’ was asked by a white U.S. government official, “You have observed the white man for 90 years. You’ve seen his wars and his technological advances. You’ve seen his progress and the damage he’s done.”

The Chief nodded in agreement.

The official continued, “Considering all these events, in your opinion where did the white man go wrong?”

The Chief stared at the government official and then replied, “When white man find land, Indians running it, no taxes, no debt, plenty buffalo, plenty beaver, clean water. Women did all the work, Medicine man free. Indian man spend all day hunting and fishing; all night having sex.”

Then the chief leaned back and smiled, “Only white man dumb enough to think he could improve system like that.”

Missed......

Idiot Almost Blows His Brains Out

Your next, Vets.....

Told you they want to take your check and Medical benefits. Add that to the Social Security rape that's coming and it's time to clean house in Washington!

McCain open to changes in military health benefits - Washington Times

WASHINGTON (AP) — The top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee is recommending that a special committee searching for ways to slash the deficit consider some of President Barack Obama’s proposed changes to health and retirement benefits for the military.

In a letter to the bipartisan panel, Arizona Sen. John McCain signaled he was open to cost-saving steps in military benefits, a move certain to send shock waves through Congress and among powerful groups of retired officers and veterans resistant to change.

The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter.

The Pentagon’s health care costs have skyrocketed from $19 billion in 2001 to $53 billion, but lawmakers and various groups argue that members of the military and their families sacrifice far more than the average American, with a career that includes long and dangerous deployments overseas that overshadow civilian work

Who got the money?......

What kind of black hole sucked up all these billions? The money is out there somewhere looking for a home. And it's all American so eventually it will come here.

But someone robbed these investors, don't you think? I'm assuming that most were pension and insurance funds gambling on the boom.

401 k money. Mine and yours. Still like Wall Street?

How Have the Bankers Done in the Lesser Depression?

How Have the Bankers Done in the Lesser Depression?

Investors in Goldman Sachs have lost more than half their money since 2007:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc The GS US Stock Quote Analysis Bloomberg

Investors in Morgan Stanley have lost more than three-quarters of their money since 2007:

Morgan Stanley MS US Stock Quote Analysis Bloomberg

Investors in Citigroup have lost 93% of their money since 2007:

Citigroup Inc C US Stock Quote Analysis Bloomberg

Investors in Bank of America have lost 85% of their money since 2007:

Bank of America Corp BAC US Stock Quote Analysis Bloomberg

Investors in Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch lost more than 90% if their investments as well…

Talk about a bunch of people who had a really strong financial incentive for reflation...

Need more?... Romney closet Dem?....

Romney-Kennedy Health Care Bill Signing

I'll keep track of anyone who knows the solution....

debt jubilee and send us a check. Sounds incredible but that's the only way out of a depression. broke dicks can't spend or borrow enough to kick start the economy.

Most employed people are paying down debt and saving for retirement. The unemployed are sharing a cardboard box or moving in with Dad and Mom.

How about you? Buying a new house next year? Car? Going to borrow big to start a business? Will you find a new job? Or will you be unemployed?

Then what?

Now multiply your position with a hundred million or so and you will understand.

We are broke? You can't give your house away for the mortgage on it.

Might be room under a bridge if the damn thing doesn't fall on your head!

It's in all our interests to understand how to stop another Great Depression | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian

President Obama justified the bank bailout on the grounds that "a dollar of capital in a bank can actually result in eight or 10 dollars of loans to families and businesses. So that's a multiplier effect." But the money multiplier didn't happen. The $1.3 trillion that Bernanke injected scarcely raised the amount of money in circulation: the 110% increase in M0 money led not to the 800% or 1,000% increase in M1 money that Obama predicted, but a rise of just 20%. The bail-outs failed because M0 was not the cause of the crisis. The money would have achieved far more had it simply been given to the public. But, as Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy demonstrated over the weekend, governments have learnt nothing from this failure, and seek only to repeat it.

Instead, Keen says, the key to averting or curtailing a second Great Depression is to reduce the levels of private debt, through a unilateral write-off, or jubilee. The irresponsible loans the banks made should not be honoured. This will mean taking many banks into receivership. Otherwise private debt will sort itself out by traditional means: mass bankruptcy, which will generate an even greater crisis.

Coffee and gas prices were bad enough...

Now we're getting serious!

Stock Up on Peanut Butter Now Before Prices Get Ridiculous

Stock Up on Peanut Butter Now Before Prices Get Ridiculous

The time to buy peanut butter is now, friends. The Wall Street Journal reports that prices for Jif, Peter Pan, and other peanut butter jars will be going up as much as 40% starting in a couple of weeks.

In just one year, the wholesale price of peanuts has skyrocketed from $450 a ton to $1,150 a ton, thanks to Mother Nature and human folly. As a result:

Wholesale prices for big-selling Jif are going up 30% starting in November, while Peter Pan will raise prices as much as 24% in a couple weeks...Skippy [prices] are 30% to 35% higher than a year ago. Kraft Foods Inc., which launched Planters peanut butter in June, is raising prices 40% on Oct. 31

Invest now in a few jars of your favorite peanut butter brand (and, presumably, peanuts too) before this food staple becomes a luxury item.

Look what the gang gets for a billiion or so....

Pretty good deal. Tax cuts, no regulations, no prosecutions and you get to live in the best neighborhoods.

Pretty much what the French nobility had in 1790.

Two Political Parties For The Prices Of $1,188,644,055 | ZeroHedge

The next time someone tells you that political party X is not entirely purchased by Wall Street, specifically Goldman, Merrill (aka Bank of Countrywide Lynch) and Morgan Stanley, or that Barack Obama is not the most "gifted" politician in history, show them the following infographic...

Not a nickels difference, no really.....

Oba mama has been bought and their is nothing anyone can do about it. And the next president will be also. Get used to it because it perfectly legal to give these guys money and for them to reciprocate quid pro quo.

The goal is for the gang on Wall Street to get your Social Security and Medicare money. PERIOD!

New Economic Perspectives: Don’t Let Him Get Away With It

The problem facing Mr. Obama is obvious enough: How can he hold the support of moderates and independents (or as Fox News calls them, socialists and anti-capitalists), students and labor, minorities and others who campaigned so heavily for him in 2008? He has double-crossed them – smoothly, with a gentle smile and patronizing patter talk, but with an iron determination to hand federal monetary and tax policy over to his largest campaign contributors: Wall Street and assorted special interests' cash. The Democratic Party’s Rubinomics and Clintonomics core operators, plus smooth Bush Administration holdovers such as Tim Geithner, not to mention quasi-Cheney factotums in the Justice Department.

President Obama’s solution has been to do what any political demagogue does: Come out with loud populist campaign speeches that have no chance of becoming the law of the land, while more quietly giving his campaign contributors what they’ve paid him for: giveaways to Wall Street, tax cuts for the wealthy (euphemized as tax “exemptions” and mark-to-model accounting, plus an agreement to count “income” as “capital gains” taxed at a much lower rate).

So here’s the deal the Democratic leadership has made with the Republicans. The Republicans will run someone from their present gamut of guaranteed losers, enabling Mr. Obama to run as the “voice of reason,” as if this somehow is Middle America. This will throw the 2012 election his way for a second term if he adopts their program – a set of rules paid for by the leading campaign contributors to both parties.

This will give you a better idea.....

Michael Hudson - Occupy Wall St & 'Obama's attempt to hi-jack' (6-Oct-11)(POLITICAL ECONOMY)

Romney can't win in the south.....

He makes John McCain look like a fire breathing Reagan, for Christ's sake. And he comes across as "slick" which reminds Republicans of Clinton.

Perry is in deep do do because of his immigration amnesty for illegals children rewarded people for bringing children into the country and soaking the taxpayers who can't afford college for their own kids!

And the religious fanatics will never vote for a Mormon!

The Crash and Burn Death Spiral of the Perry Campaign | RedState

the majority of my tea party will do the same and believe they can’t trust a single word the media writes or utters(sadly FOX is now also in this category), short of Perry committing murder or a felony crime, all of these people will still vote for him. The same cannot be said about Romney- we hear an alarming amount of people stating(mostly the seniors) that they will not vote for him period. If there is a third party they will vote for that person instead . One elderly guy said very matter of factly to me,” If these young voters turn out to be fools and decide to go for ANOTHER greasy car salesman who will say anything to be elected then let them own it, I ain’t gonna live for ever and I will not vote for a non conservative, so if all that is left is a protest vote-so be it” I’ve said this many times, but IMHO, Romney cannot be elected in the South- he is pro/anti/pro/anti abortion and both he and his wife donated to Planned Parenthood,he is a decidedly anti-2nd amendment, big government, AGW believing, pro taxing and the real clincher is Romney care. Even selecting a Rubio or a southern VP will not save him with those stances. He has no chance whatsoever in our area. These meetings only solidify for me the feeling out here away from the D.C. beltway and metro areas.

Read 'em and weep....

Want to save the country? Fire the assholes in Washington. Any of them that have been there over 5 or 6 years and start over. 

How Capital Crushed Labor - HUMAN EVENTS

U.S. wages are higher than they are almost anywhere else. Our health, safety and environmental laws are among the most stringent. Our affirmative action demands are the most exacting, except possibly for those of Malaysia and South Africa.

Does the cost of production here in America alone explain the decline in manufacturing and stagnation of workers' wages?

No. For since the Revolution, America has had a standard of living that has been the envy of the world. From the Civil War through the 1920s, as we became the greatest manufacturing power the world had ever seen, our workers enjoyed pay and benefits that were unmatched anywhere.

Yet our exports in those decades were double our imports, and our trade surpluses annually added 4 percent to the gross national product. How did we do it?

We taxed the products of foreign factories and workers and used the revenue to finance the government. We imposed tariffs of up to 40 percent on foreign goods entering our market and used the tariff money to keep taxes low in the United States.

We made foreigners pay a price to get their products into our market and made them pay to help finance our government. We put our own country and people first.

For corporate America, especially industrial America, this was nirvana. They had exclusive free access to our market, and foreign rivals had to pay a stiff fee, a tariff, to get their products in and try to compete with U.S. products in the U.S. market.

Why does the left think Oba mama is one of them?....

Because he ran as a Democrat? Must be. But he can't seem to leave invading countries left and right.  Of course. no president can buck the industrial-military establishment so I guess he has to keep using up those weapons and keep these fat cats giving him those big campaign contributions.

When ever anyone says there is a big difference between the Republicans and the Democrats, other than their bullshit, just re-read the above.

All politicians are hand picked by the money guys and then you get to vote for the pathetic clowns  presented as "the people's choice".

Do you really think they get all excited over which one wins? No. But they went nuts when Ross Perot pounded them into the sand and they had to force him out to quit ruining the feed bag.

Right now Oba mama is doing just fine by them as he made sure the gang got made whole from all the crimes they committed robbing you out of your home equity and 401k's. Now all they have to do is keep this  idiot to rob our Social Security and VA checks, right?

You think they won't?

Imagine the fees if 200 or 300 billion from Social Security went directly into the stock market, hmm? Think they might be tempted to fix a few elections?

And why do they laugh at Ron Paul? Can you imagine how ridiculous he would look killing the Defense budget?

How about an honest woman like Michelle Bachman? The poor thing doesn't have a clue on how our system works. No woman can win the nomination on the right? Too many people think woman are too flighty and emotional to handle the job let alone stand toe to toe with foreign leaders.

Cain is interesting as I've pointed out before. I think black is the way to go. Takes race baiting off the table but can the whites in the south support him? He has no political experience which is a plus for me because he'll be able to tell a lot of suck holes to drop dead. Of course, another great thing is he won't have Congress getting much done unless the Democrats get completely destroyed and lose control of the Senate then Congress might pass a bunch of big time budget cuts and we crash again.

Romney's toast! Northern liberals should just join the Democrats and get it over with! Bad enough he's a Mormon who wears magical underwear (all the devout wear special underwear considered sacred) but his pro-abortion, pro-illegal immigration, and especially, pro-gun control screws him royal!

Perry... Kind of guy you'd probably whore around with but he sure looks stupid. I mean even G.W. couldn't hold a candle to this guy. But in a match up between him and Romney, he's the nominee.

The rest don't matter. They are just on a traveling expense paid vacation. Some will be gone in a few weeks some will campaign forever, like Romney.

But the Empire is relatively safe as Oba mama looks much better next year when it comes down to nut crunching time and he gathers a half billion dollars or so to campaign with.

Now, he has a great deal of problems with his own base but they have no where to go because they are dewy eyed dreamers of Messianic bliss who only  pay attention to the elite who will simply tax the wealthy into the poor house to pay for handouts to the favored amongst us.

Get it?

And the Conservatives will hold their noses and vote for the same expert elites (the faces change but the same gang pulls the strings) who got us into this DEPRESSION in the first place!

William Blum :: Anti-Empire Report, Number 95

Libya: Unending American hostility

If I could publicly ask our beloved president one question, it would be this: "Mr. President, in your short time in office you've waged war against six countries — Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya. This makes me wonder something. With all due respect: What is wrong with you?"

The American media has done its best to dismiss or ignore Libyan charges that NATO/US missiles have been killing civilians (the people they're supposedly protecting), at least up until the recent bombing "error" that was too blatant to be covered up. But who in the mainstream media has questioned the NATO/US charges that Libya was targeting and "massacring" Libyan civilians a few months ago, which, we've been told, is the reason for the Western powers attacks? Don't look to Al Jazeera for such questioning. The government of Qatar, which owns the station, has a deep-seated animosity toward Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and was itself a leading purveyor of the Libyan "massacre" stories, as well as playing a military role in the war against Tripoli. Al Jazeera's reporting on the subject has been so disgraceful I've stopped looking at the station.

Alain Juppé, Foreign Minister of France, which has been the leading force behind the attacks on Libya, spoke at the Brookings Institution in Washington on June 7. After his talk he was asked a question from the audience by local activist Ken Meyercord:

"An American observer of events in Libya has commented: 'The evidence was not persuasive that a large-scale massacre or genocide was either likely or imminent.' That comment was made by Richard Haass, President of our Council on Foreign Relations. If Mr. Haass is right, and he's a fairly knowledgeable fellow, then what NATO has done in Libya is attack a country that wasn't threatening anyone; in other words, aggression. Are you at all concerned that as NATO deals more and more death and destruction on the people of Libya that the International Criminal Court may decide

Bring a gun to a knife fight..... NOT!....

Shooting Machetes with the Slingshot

Obama has to be ecstatic if this guy is his opponent.....

Give me the black guy. At least he has class and more brains than this turnip.

I posted before that the Republican's field of candidates were pygmies but no one wanted to believe me. 

Hey, the worst thing that could happen if this guy is elected but the second worse thing would be that Oba mama is elected .


So I guess we are screwed!

Rick Perry's Spectacular Fall From Grace | Mother Jones

Just to recap, in less than two months Rick Perry has:

Suggested that maybe Ben Bernanke should be lynched.
Declined to back off his contention that Social Security is an unconstitutional Ponzi scheme.
Called climate change a "contrived phony mess" that was cooked up by scientists who have "manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling in to their projects."
Pissed off the conservative base by defending his decision to (in Michele Bachmann's immortal words) give "government injections" to "innocent little 12-year-old girls." Said Perry condescendingly: "What I don't get is what parents don't understand about an opt out."
Further pissed off the conservative base by suggesting that if you disagree with his policy on in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, "I don't think you have a heart."
Mangled a prepackaged debate attack on Mitt Romney so badly, and then followed up with a statement on Pakistan so inscrutable, that even his supporters started to wonder if he has a three-digit IQ.
Proposed that U.S. troops should be used to fight Mexican drug lords. In Mexico.
Had to defend himself against revelations that his family leases a hunting spot called "Niggerhead."

We still are in the toilet......

Not much to brag about in the economy. I don't expect much change until after the elections are over and all those new faces in Congress go after the budget.

Prepare for the worse!

Sales at the store are still soft but we are all still working and people are being hired. I expect to pay more for insurance as the gang on Wall Street sticks it to the little guy who is still working.

In depression periods like this a paycheck is like gold. Even bankrupt people will be given loans as the banks run out of customers. Interest rates are as close to zero to maintain prices and profits but change is a coming.

The "normal" boom after a recession I predicted is still a fizzle as the various state governments and most business' are cutting personnel.

In the meantime, those of us with jobs and credit are becoming VIP's. My credit union lends me money without down payments and told me they won't even bother checking my credit report!

I posted years ago get you budget in order, pay off your debts, borrow on free and clear assets and save as much as you can in your retirement account in U.S. bonds.

And I warned everyone about house or rent payments! The blood suckers won't do you any favors so don't buy a house using a bank. Plenty of people will take payments so don't tell me it can't be done.

Personally. I'm sticking to buying mobile homes and paying them off. You'd be surprised how good it feels to only pay $ 180 bucks a month on lot rent and save 400 or 500 a month. Especially come retirement time when I get my Social Security check and can go back into business and travel again after the Depression we are in alleviates. (Don't worry it will crash again because our economy is run by gangsters and idiots!)

If you want to get an idea when recovery is happening watch the price of oil. As it's price  goes down for an extended period  and gas price speculation ends the world economy booms.

Of course, This assumes the  main impetus for it to go down is when the pension funds finally settle down and quit speculating in commodities.

Be a while so don't bet the farm!

Periods of depression are no fun as fear pushes trillions of dollars back and forth in the market place and no steady investments can be done.

But the biggest reason for fear is the clowns in Washington. Can you see anyone there that you trust? Or even stand? Hopefully we'll get a new bunch to complain about because these guys are really hopeless.

Stay tuned.

Make sure you use their card......

You'd have to be the stupidist shit on the planet to bank with these people. But they didn't get rich and huge because smart people bank with them and not use a credit union did they?

BofA has been ripping people off for years and guess what?......

These nitwits deserved it!

Have to emphasise time to pay down debts and clean up your credit as the economy tanks. I don't see much change coming until the 2012 elections are over. if your ready you can even get more bargains as the world economy deflates and interest rates continue to be so small as to be immaterial. For instance:

The monthly payment for borrowing 20 thousand for a car at 0 % over 5 years is  333.4 dollars per month. I can borrow 20000 at my credit union at 2.69 % for 5 years at approximately 350 a month. You'd save approximately 16 dollars a month, the price of a pizza.

You can see from the above that lowering interest rates is a waste of time because broke people don't borrow money from banks only from soft touch relatives and loan sharks last time I checked.

And consumers are still broke and will be as long as we slash government spending and take away their checks.

We can argue about reducing government spending during a boom and I can tell you a lot of our problems stem from cutting taxes on the rich under Bush and not shrinking the government under the Democrats in Congress.

But right now the voters are pissed from the liars in Washington bailing out the gang on Wall Street screwing us out of our homes and retirement monies.

And it will be exciting to watch the heads role next year and the new guys running around in Washington trying to stop the DEPRESSION!

Bank of America to charge $5 monthly fee for debit card purchases - latimes.com

Most Bank of America customers will soon see a new charge on their statements -- $5 for any month in which they use a BofA debit card to make a purchase.

Consumers should prepare for more such charges, analysts say, as big banks strive to recover revenue they have lost to financial reforms adopted in the aftermatch of the economic meltdown.

The new Bank of America fee will be phased in early next year, said Anne Pace, a spokeswoman for BofA, the nation's largest retail bank.

Customers will still be able to use their cards at the bank's automated teller machines without being charged, the bank said Thursday.

They also can make debit purchases free if they have a mortgage from Bank of America or if they have a total of $20,000 on deposit at Bank of America and in certain Merrill Lynch accounts (you may recall that Bank of America's corporate parent bought Merrill Lynch as the financial crisis set in).

The bank, like others, has been testing ways to recover debit-card revenue that is going away because of new regulations.