The End of Growth for Europe - Infinite Growth Model Has Peaked #peakgrowth

Amplify’d from www.businessinsider.com

IT'S YOUR CHOICE, EUROPE: Rebel Against the Banks OR Accept Debt-Serfdom

Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds | Dec. 5, 2011, 7:45 AM | 1,365 | 10

The European debt Bubble has burst, and the repricing of risk and debt cannot be put back in the bottle.

It's really this simple, Europe: either rebel against the banks or accept decades of debt-serfdom. All the millions of words published about the European debt crisis can be distilled down a handful of simple dynamics. Once we understand those, then the choice between resistance and debt-serfdom is revealed as the only choice: the rest of the "options" are illusory.

1. The euro enabled a short-lived but extremely attractive fantasy: the more productive northern EU economies could mint profits in two ways: A) sell their goods and services to their less productive southern neighbors in quantity because these neighbors were now able to borrow vast sums of money at low (i.e. near-"German") rates of interest, and B) loan these consumer nations these vast sums of money with stupendous leverage, i.e. 1 euro in capital supports 26 euros of lending/debt.

The less productive nations also had a very attractive fantasy: that their present level of productivity (that is, the output of goods and services created by their economies) could be leveraged up via low-interest debt to support a much higher level of consumption and malinvestment in things like villas and luxury autos.

According to Europe's Currency Road to Nowhere (WSJ.com):

Northern Europe has fueled its growth through exports. It has run huge trade imbalances, the most extreme of which with these same Southern European countries now in peril. Productivity rose dramatically compared to the South, but the currency did not.

This explains at least part of the German export and manufacturing miracle of the last 12 years. In 1999, exports were 29% of German gross domestic product. By 2008, they were 47%—an increase vastly larger than in Italy, Spain and Greece, where the ratios increased modestly or even fell. Germany's net export contribution to GDP (exports minus imports as a share of the economy) rose by nearly a factor of eight. Unlike almost every other high-income country, where manufacturing's share of the economy fell significantly, in Germany it actually rose as the price of German goods grew more and more attractive compared to those of other countries. In a key sense, Germany's currency has been to Southern Europe what China's has been to the U.S.

Flush with profits from exports and loans, Germany and its mercantilist (exporting nations) also ramped up their own borrowing--why not, when growth was so strong?

But the whole set-up was a doomed financial fantasy. The euro seemed to be magic: it enabled importing nations to buy more and borrow more, while also enabling exporting nations to reap immense profits from rising exports and lending.

Put another way: risk and debt were both massively mispriced by the illusion that the endless growth of debt-based consumption could continue forever. The euro was in a sense a scam that served the interests of everyone involved: with risk considered near-zero, interest rates were near-zero, too, and more debt could be leveraged from a small base of productivity and capital.

But now reality has repriced risk and debt, and the clueless leadership of the EU is attempting to put the genie back in the bottle. Alas, the debt loads are too crushing, and the productivity too weak, to support the fantasy of zero risk and low rates of return.

The Credit Bubble Bulletin's Doug Nolan summarized the reality succinctly: "The European debt Bubble has burst." Nolan explains the basic mechanisms thusly: The Mythical "Great Moderation":

For years, European debt was being mispriced in the (over-liquefied, over-leveraged and over-speculated global) marketplace. Countries such as Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy benefitted immeasurably from the market perception that European monetary integration ensured debt, economic and policy making stability.

Similar to the U.S. mortgage/Wall Street finance Bubble, the marketplace was for years content to ignore Credit excesses and festering system fragilities, choosing instead to price debt obligations based on the expectation for zero defaults, abundant liquidity, readily available hedging instruments, and a policymaking regime that would ensure market stability.

Importantly, this backdrop created the perfect market environment for financial leveraging and rampant speculation in a global financial backdrop unsurpassed for its capacity for excess. The arbitrage of European bond yields was likely one of history’s most lucrative speculative endeavors. (link via U. Doran)

In simple terms, this is the stark reality: now that debt and risk have been repriced, Europe's debts are completely, totally unpayable. There is no way to keep adding to the Matterhorn of debt at the old cheap rate of interest, and there is no way to roll over the trillions of euros in debt that are coming due at the old near-zero rates.

Never mind actually paying down debt, sovereign, corporate and private--the repricing of risk and debt mean even the interest payments are unpayable. Consider this chart of one tiny slice of total EU debt:

There is no way to push the repricing genie back in the bottle, and so there is no way to roll over this debt and add to it--and to support the high-cost structure of Euroland's welfare-state governments and their astounding debt, then debt must be added, and in staggering quantities.

Austerity won't put the repricing/bubble burst genie back in the bottle. A funny thing happens when more of the national income is diverted to debt service (making interest payments and rolling over existing debt into new higher-interest debt): there is less surplus available for investment and consumption, which means that both productivity based on investment and consumption based on debt will plummet.

This leaves the nation with lower productivity and lower GDP, which means there is also less tax revenues being collected and more bankruptcies as companies and individuals accept the reality that their debts cannot be paid.

The repricing genie responds to this decline in national income, surplus and taxes by repricing risk of default even higher, and so the interest rate is also repriced higher. This makes servicing the mountain of existing debt even more costly, and so even less national income is available for consumption, investment and taxes.

This is called a positive feedback loop: each action reinforces the other, i.e. a self-reinforcing feedback loop. Debt and risk are repriced higher, the burden of debt service reduces national income available for investment, consumption and taxes, which further reprices risk higher, and so on.

So you see, Europe, there is only one choice: either accept the endless debt serfdom of ever-rising interest payments and lower income and productivity, or rebel against your pathetic lackey leadership and renounce the entire mountain of unpayable debt. Grasp the nettle and renounce the euro as the fundamental cause of your fantasy and collapse, and revert to national currencies which enable the market to discover the price of your underlying productivity and ability to borrow money.

Renouncing the euro does not mean renouncing the freedoms of the European Union: the two are only bound at the hip in the minds of your enfeebled leadership, who are in thrall to the leveraged-26-to-1 banks that are poised on the edge of insolvency.

Let the banks implode in bankruptcy, clear the worthless "assets" of debt from the books, and let the market price currencies and everything else. The only other choice is debt-serfdom.

All the other schemes and proposals are simply variations of one single fantasy: that the feckless leadership can fool the repricing genie with parlor tricks. They can't. Everybody with any understanding of the situation knows that the debt bubble has already burst, and risk and debt cannot be repriced back to fantasy levels.

That repricing has already occurred, and cannot be revoked or shoved back in the bottle. The Great European Debt Bubble has already burst, and so now it boils down to a simple choice: debt serfdom or open rebellion against the banks that profited so handsomely from the euro-fantasy.

There is no middle ground, as the debt cannot be repaid, not now and not in the future. It cannot be reshuffled, masked, or hidden; it can only be renounced.

It's your choice, Europe; choose wisely. If you want a model for sanity and growth, look to Iceland. They renounced their unpayable debts and debt-serfdom, and let the market reprice their currency, debt and risk. The nightmare is past for them; they chose wisely. Now it's your turn to choose.

The debt-serfdom will fall to you, not the banks or your Elites.

Charles Hugh Smith Email | URL Charles Hugh Smith is a novelist and economic commentator Recent Posts The 13 Trends That Will Determine The Future Of Jobs In America Unleashing the Future: Advancing Prosperity Through Debt... Unleashing the Future: Advancing Prosperity Through Debt... Read more at www.businessinsider.com

 

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Cold War 2, The battle for Eurasian Resources

Amplify’d from antiwar.com

August 19, 2008

Who Started Cold War II?

by Patrick J. Buchanan

The American people should be eternally grateful to Old Europe for having spiked the Bush-McCain plan to bring Georgia into NATO.

Had Georgia been in NATO when Mikheil Saakashvili invaded South Ossetia, we would be eyeball to eyeball with Russia, facing war in the Caucasus, where Moscow's superiority is as great as U.S. superiority in the Caribbean during the Cuban missile crisis.

If the Russia-Georgia war proves nothing else, it is the insanity of giving erratic hotheads in volatile nations the power to drag the United States into war.

From Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, U.S. presidents have sought to avoid shooting wars with Russia, even when the Bear was at its most beastly.

Truman refused to use force to break Stalin's Berlin blockade. Ike refused to intervene when the Butcher of Budapest drowned the Hungarian Revolution in blood. LBJ sat impotent as Leonid Brezhnev's tanks crushed the Prague Spring. Jimmy Carter's response to Brezhnev's invasion of Afghanistan was to boycott the Moscow Olympics. When Brezhnev ordered his Warsaw satraps to crush Solidarity and shot down a South Korean airliner killing scores of U.S. citizens, including a congressman, Reagan did – nothing.

These presidents were not cowards. They simply would not go to war when no vital U.S. interest was at risk to justify a war. Yet, had George W. Bush prevailed and were Georgia in NATO, U.S. Marines could be fighting Russian troops over whose flag should fly over a province of 70,000 South Ossetians who prefer Russians to Georgians.

The arrogant folly of the architects of U.S. post-Cold War policy is today on display. By bringing three ex-Soviet republics into NATO, we have moved the U.S. red line for war from the Elbe almost to within artillery range of the old Leningrad.

Should America admit Ukraine into NATO, Yalta, vacation resort of the czars, will be a NATO port and Sevastopol, traditional home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, will become a naval base for the U.S. Sixth Fleet. This is altogether a bridge too far.

And can we not understand how a Russian patriot like Vladimir Putin would be incensed by this U.S. encirclement after Russia shed its empire and sought our friendship? How would Andy Jackson have reacted to such crowding by the British Empire?

As of 1991, the oil of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan belonged to Moscow. Can we not understand why Putin would smolder as avaricious Yankees built pipelines to siphon the oil and gas of the Caspian Basin through breakaway Georgia to the West?

For a dozen years, Putin & Co. watched as U.S. agents helped to dump over regimes in Ukraine and Georgia that were friendly to Moscow.

If Cold War II is coming, who started it, if not us?

The swift and decisive action of Putin's army in running the Georgian forces out of South Ossetia in 24 hours after Saakashvili began his barrage and invasion suggests Putin knew exactly what Saakashvili was up to and dropped the hammer on him.

What did we know? Did we know Georgia was about to walk into Putin's trap? Did we not see the Russians lying in wait north of the border? Did we give Saakashvili a green light?

Joe Biden ought to be conducting public hearings on who caused this U.S. humiliation.

The war in Georgia has exposed the dangerous overextension of U.S. power. There is no way America can fight a war with Russia in the Caucasus with our army tied down in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nor should we. Hence, it is demented to be offering, as John McCain and Barack Obama are, NATO membership to Tbilisi.

The United States must decide whether it wants a partner in a flawed Russia or a second Cold War. For if we want another Cold War, we are, by cutting Russia out of the oil of the Caspian and pushing NATO into her face, going about it exactly the right way.

Vladimir Putin is no Stalin. He is a nationalist determined, as ruler of a proud and powerful country, to assert his nation's primacy in its own sphere, just as U.S. presidents from James Monroe to Bush have done on our side of the Atlantic.

A resurgent Russia is no threat to any vital interests of the United States. It is a threat to an American Empire that presumes some God-given right to plant U.S. military power in the backyard or on the front porch of Mother Russia.

Who rules Abkhazia and South Ossetia is none of our business. And after this madcap adventure of Saakashvili, why not let the people of these provinces decide their own future in plebiscites conducted by the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe?

As for Saakashvili, he's probably toast in Tbilisi after this stunt. Let the neocons find him an endowed chair at the American Enterprise Institute. Read more at antiwar.com

 

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US Underground Economy Growing As Official Market Shrinks Seen as Sign of Collapse

Amplify’d from earlywarn.blogspot.com

Early Warning

Risks to Global Civilization

Monday, November 14, 2011

Sharon Astyk had a thought provoking post last week: Here is the single biggest question to consider about the economic, energy and environmental unwinding we are facing - what will the economy look as we go? I get more questions about this than about anything else - what should people do for work, what should they do with savings, how should they begin to prepare themselves for a lower energy world. What I find, however, is that among both the prepared and the unprepared, there's a whole lot of people kidding themselves. There are those who imagine that there is no economy outside the world of the stock market and formal jobs - that a crash in those things is the end of the world, which means to them either that it can't happen or they should buy a bunker and some ammo. Others have imagined themselves "free' of all economic structures larger than the neighborhood, cheerfully providing most of their needs or bartering and never again touching cash. Both ideas fall into the realm of fantasy. Let us remind ourselves that the informal economy is, in fact, the larger part of the world's total economy. When you add in the domestic and household economy of the world's households, the subsistence economy, the barter economy, the volunteer economy, the "under the table" economy, the criminal economy and a few other smaller players, you get something that adds up to 3/4 of the world's total economic activity. The formal economy - the territory of professional and paid work, of tax statements and GDP - is only 1/4 of the world's total economic activity. We know from peasant economist Teodor Shanin and others working in the field that when the formal economy fails people all over the world, they shift into the informal economy. This explains why, in the former Soviet Union, although conventional economic models showed that people "should" be starving to death, they weren't. This is how people with functionally no income can still eat - although often not well. I frequently disagree with Sharon, but I do find some points of agreement on this question of the informal economy.  My sense of the likeliest evolution of society in coming decades is that global economic capitalism will persist but that it become more efficient by continuing to become more automated.  Thus it will be able to serve the interests of economic and cultural elites while requiring fewer resources (particularly oil) because it will increasingly not require the services of, or serve the interests of, the masses.  I've written on a number of occasions of how I think one of the earliest symptoms of the gradual approach of the "singularity" is the continued lowering of the US male employment/population ratio: Levels are particularly low amongst the young: and the less educated I would expect that the increasing lack of need for many classes of men in US society would be associated with an increase in the size of the underground economy: drug production and dealing, crime, casual cash labor, off-the-books construction projects, etc.  I would also expect that the size of the informal economy would continue to grow further as the US experiences more globalization, more immigration, more automation, and less access to oil and other resources. I was curious to know what efforts had been made to estimate the size of the informal economy.  After some poking around, I discovered Edgar Feige, a widely cited Professor Emeritus of Economics at University of Wisconsin-Madison who seems to have devoted much of his career to this question.  His latest estimates are in this paper, and here's the bottom line: This shows two estimates of the size of the underground economy estimated as the ratio of all unreported income to reported income.  Note that the graph is not zero-scaled.  This indicates that the underground economy more than doubled in size during WWII (in response to rationing), fell during the rapidly growing years of the fifties and sixties, increased sharply in the seventies with the oil shocks, improved a bit in the eighties and nineties, but then has started to reach new heights in the difficult years of the aughties.  This is more-or-less what I would have expected.  I predict that these ratios will continue to go higher in future years. It's worth noting that there are considerable (and rather fascinating) measurement issues that have to be overcome to produce these estimates and the results should be viewed as somewhat uncertain.  Some sense of the issues can be gained from these quotes from the paper: One of the most reliable economic statistics is the amount of U.S. currency in circulation held outside of depository intuitions by the public. By the end of 2010, U.S. currency in circulation with the public had risen to $920 billion dollars, amounting to $2950 for every man, woman and child in the country. Over the past decades we have witnessed a host of cash-saving financial innovations, leading to widespread predictions of the advent of a “cashless society”. But contrary to these expectations, the demand for U.S. dollars continues to rise and we remain awash in cash. Over the last twenty years, real per capita currency holdings increased by 79 percent and currency as a fraction of the M1 money supply rose from 30 percent to 49 percent. To put these figures in perspective, they imply that the average American's bulging wallet holds 91 pieces of U.S. paper currency, consisting of: 31 one dollar bills; 7 fives; 5 tens; 21 twenties; 4 fifties and 23 one hundred dollar bills. Few of us will recognize ourselves as “average” citizens. Clearly, these amounts of currency are not normally necessary for those of us simply wishing to make payments when neither credit/debit cards nor checks are accepted or convenient to use. Federal Reserve surveys (Avery et al. 1986, 1987) of household currency usage found that U.S. residents admitted to holding less than 10 percent of the nation's currency supply. Businesses (Anderson, 1977; Sumner, 1990) admitted to holding 5 percent. It seems that the whereabouts of roughly 85 percent of the nation's currency supply is unknown. This anomalous finding suggests that the “currency enigma” (Feige 1989, 1994) and the problem of “missing currency” (Sprenkel, 1993) is still very much with us. The currency enigma has both a stock and a flow dimension. First we must determine who holds the outstanding stock of U.S. cash. Specifically, how much of this currency is abroad, (the dollarization hypothesis) and how much is held domestically (the underground economy hypothesis) by citizens reluctant to admit to their true cash holdings? The flow issue concerns the amount of cash payments sustained by that missing currency. If half of the missing currency is hoarded and the other half is used as a medium of exchange, turning over at an average velocity of between 30 and 50 transactions per year, (Feige, 1989a) the missing circulating currency stock would give rise to a flow of “missing payments” of an order of magnitude comparable to the entire GNP of the United States. In essence it's first necessary to produce estimates of what fraction of the unknown currency is actually overseas, and then it's necessary to estimate how fast the domestic underground cash is turning over in order to get to estimates of the amount of underground income. The entire paper is well worth a read. Read more at earlywarn.blogspot.com

 

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9/11: A Conspiracy Theory Written by the National Security Advisor to Jimmy Carter in 1997 - A New Pearl Harbor

Amplify’d from www.corbettreport.com

9/11: A Conspiracy Theory

Everything you ever wanted to know about the 9/11 conspiracy theory in under 5 minutes.

(Watch French, German, Spanish or Portuguese translations of this video.)

TRANSCRIPT: On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 men armed with boxcutters directed by a man on dialysis in a cave fortress halfway around the world using a satellite phone and a laptop directed the most sophisticated penetration of the most heavily-defended airspace in the world, overpowering the passengers and the military combat-trained pilots on 4 commercial aircraft before flying those planes wildly off course for over an hour without being molested by a single fighter interceptor.

These 19 hijackers, devout religious fundamentalists who liked to drink alcohol, snort cocaine, and live with pink-haired strippers, managed to knock down 3 buildings with 2 planes in New York, while in Washington a pilot who couldn’t handle a single engine Cessna was able to fly a 757 in an 8,000 foot descending 270 degree corskscrew turn to come exactly level with the ground, hitting the Pentagon in the budget analyst office where DoD staffers were working on the mystery of the 2.3 trillion dollars that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had announced “missing” from the Pentagon’s coffers in a press conference the day before, on September 10, 2001.

Luckily, the news anchors knew who did it within minutes, the pundits knew within hours, the Administration knew within the day, and the evidence literally fell into the FBI’s lap. But for some reason a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists demanded an investigation into the greatest attack on American soil in history.

The investigation was delayed, underfunded, set up to fail, a conflict of interest and a cover up from start to finish. It was based on testimony extracted through torture, the records of which were destroyed. It failed to mention the existence of WTC7, Able Danger, Ptech, Sibel Edmonds, OBL and the CIA, and the drills of hijacked aircraft being flown into buildings that were being simulated at the precise same time that those events were actually happening. It was lied to by the Pentagon, the CIA, the Bush Administration and as for Bush and Cheney…well, no one knows what they told it because they testified in secret, off the record, not under oath and behind closed doors. It didn’t bother to look at who funded the attacks because that question is of “little practical significance“. Still, the 9/11 Commission did brilliantly, answering all of the questions the public had (except most of the victims’ family members’ questions) and pinned blame on all the people responsible (although no one so much as lost their job), determining the attacks were “a failure of imagination” because “I don’t think anyone could envision flying airplanes into buildings ” except the Pentagon and FEMA and NORAD and the NRO.

The DIA destroyed 2.5 TB of data on Able Danger, but that’s OK because it probably wasn’t important.

The SEC destroyed their records on the investigation into the insider trading before the attacks, but that’s OK because destroying the records of the largest investigation in SEC history is just part of routine record keeping.

NIST has classified the data that they used for their model of WTC7′s collapse, but that’s OK because knowing how they made their model of that collapse would “jeopardize public safety“.

The FBI has argued that all material related to their investigation of 9/11 should be kept secret from the public, but that’s OK because the FBI probably has nothing to hide.

This man never existed, nor is anything he had to say worthy of your attention, and if you say otherwise you are a paranoid conspiracy theorist and deserve to be shunned by all of humanity. Likewise him, him, him, and her. (and her and her and him).

Osama Bin Laden lived in a cave fortress in the hills of Afghanistan, but somehow got away. Then he was hiding out in Tora Bora but somehow got away. Then he lived in Abottabad for years, taunting the most comprehensive intelligence dragnet employing the most sophisticated technology in the history of the world for 10 years, releasing video after video with complete impunity (and getting younger and younger as he did so), before finally being found in a daring SEAL team raid which wasn’t recorded on video, in which he didn’t resist or use his wife as a human shield, and in which these crack special forces operatives panicked and killed this unarmed man, supposedly the best source of intelligence about those dastardly terrorists on the planet. Then they dumped his body in the ocean before telling anyone about it. Then a couple dozen of that team’s members died in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

This is the story of 9/11, brought to you by the media which told you the hard truths about JFK and incubator babies and mobile production facilities and the rescue of Jessica Lynch.

If you have any questions about this story…you are a batshit, paranoid, tinfoil, dog-abusing baby-hater and will be reviled by everyone. If you love your country and/or freedom, happiness, rainbows, rock and roll, puppy dogs, apple pie and your grandma, you will never ever express doubts about any part of this story to anyone. Ever.

This has been a public service announcement by: the Friends of the FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, SEC, MSM, White House, NIST, and the 9/11 Commission. Because Ignorance is Strength. Read more at www.corbettreport.com

 

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Vampire Shadow Government Manage US Market with VooDoo Economics & Enron Accounting to Cause High Unemployment with Inflation #EndTheFed #crisis #peakoil #ehm

The USA is a target market for large corporations looking to suck the blood and natural resources out of the land, water, and people. American has been Hoodwinked as John Perkins, former economic hitman from the 1970 and 1980's would say.



The process of hoodwinked is this:



A corporation wants to do business in a specific geographic market. The path of least resistance is to start illegal businesses, such as drug running, software piracy, sex trade, etc. But it has to be discrete, so they follow the laws at first.



If the law allows them to rape, pillage, and plunder, then they do. If the sovereign nation that is targeted refuses to allow market entry or doesn't agree to the terms the Corporation wants, then they hire "consultants" to persuade. Those consultants can be businessmen in suits from the local banks, or oilmen, construction companies, or management consultants.



If they are able to generate the profit and plunder as desired, they continue until they've robbed the victim blind. Literally leaving the soil parched, the water polluted, the gold and silver mines hollow, and the oil wells empty.



If the good people of the nation recognize what's happening and enough of them stand up, they can actually kick out the foreign devils. Unless of course the military, police, or some armed militia fails to stand up and protect itself.



The way they keep the game going, and how you know is to look around you. Is cheap money everywhere? Is everything getting more expensive? Are more people losing their jobs and livelihoods? Are more families losing their homes?



Who is hoodwinking the USA? Fed, BigOil & BigBanks, Congress, ThinkTanks and Foreign Entities.



Either way they suck the blood out of Mother Earth until enough of us die that population, money supply, and energy are under control again.

Amplify’d from www.shadowstats.com

Alternate Inflation Charts

The CPI chart on the home page reflects our estimate of inflation for today as if it were calculated the same way it was in 1990. The CPI on the Alternate Data Series tab here reflects the CPI as if it were calculated using the methodologies in place in 1980. In general terms, methodological shifts in government reporting have depressed reported inflation, moving the concept of the CPI away from being a measure of the cost of living needed to maintain a constant standard of living.

CPI Year-to-Year Growth

The CPI-U (consumer price index) is the broadest measure of consumer price inflation for goods and services published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

While the headline number usually is the seasonally-adjusted month-to-month change, the formal CPI is reported on a not-seasonally-adjusted basis, with annual inflation measured in terms of year-to-year percent change in the price index.

In the charts to the right we show two SGS-Alternate CPI estimates: One based on the pre-1990 official methodology for computing the CPI-U, and the other based on the methodology which was employed prior to 1980.

Please note:  Our Data Download is currently only providing the 1980-Based numbers, but 1990-Based numbers will be introduced shortly.

See more at www.shadowstats.com

 

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Fed's New Communication Strategy: Continue to LIE LIE LIE! VooDoo Economics #cw3 #ww3 #crisis #collapse

Funny statistics. Wasn't it Mark Twain that said there are lies, damn lies, and statistics? The Fed is afraid of triggering inflation above 2% by allowing unemployment to fall. Do you get it? Either the White House (government) or the Federal Reserve (private corporation with government sponsored MONOPOLY) has control of the economy. Or not...



Obama says he wants unemployment down, but the Fed continues to talk inflation and not about money & energy supply constraints. That's why it's VooDoo Economics. Or I call it Twisted Economix

Amplify’d from www.businessinsider.com

REPORT: The Fed's New Communication Strategy Is Taking Shape

For months, the Federal Reserve has indicated it was working toward improving its communications strategy, which it could effectively use as a policy tool.

Now it seems that the new communications strategy is starting to take shape, reports the Wall Street Journal's Jon Hilsenrath and Luca Di Leo:

They are likely to spend much of their Dec. 13 meeting ironing out unresolved pieces of the new communications strategy and seem on pace to unveil it early next year. They have two major objectives: Be more explicit about the Fed's goals for inflation and employment, and articulate more clearly the interest-rate strategy to meet those goals. ... Informally, the Fed already has made clear it wants the annual inflation rate to run at 2% or a bit lower over the long-run. A formal statement would codify the commitment. Such a declaration would likely run alongside a description of the Fed's goals for employment, which Congress requires it to mind along with inflation. Most Fed officials believe the unemployment rate could fall to 5% or 6% without triggering higher inflation.

To articulate its interest-rate strategy, the Fed would expand its quarterly release of the officials' projections for economic growth, inflation and unemployment. It would add details on the Fed's interest rate expectations underlying its economic projections, along with some description of the policy it expects to employ to reach its goals.

Read the full story here. Read more at www.businessinsider.com

 

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War with Iran will Crash the Economy with $250/brl Oil #peakoil

Unless of course the American government has something up their sleeve that will relieve the world of the price of oil and gas.

Amplify’d from peakoil.com

Page added on December 4, 2011

Iran says oil would go over $250 if exports banned

Page added on December 4, 2011 2144 Votes             i   Iran says oil would go over $250 if exports banned Iran warned the West on Sunday any move to block its oil exports would more than double crude prices with devastating consequences on a fragile global economy. “As soon as such an issue is raised seriously the oil price would soar to above $250 a barrel,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said in a newspaper interview. The comments come as Iran strives to contain international reaction to the storming of the British embassy last week, a move which drew immediate condemnation from around the world and may galvanize support for tougher action against Tehran. Washington and EU countries were already discussing measures to restrict oil exports after the United Nations nuclear watchdog issued a report in November with what it said was evidence that Tehran had worked on designing an atom bomb. Iran says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful. The U.S. Senate voted on Thursday to penalize foreign financial institutions that do business with Iran’s central bank – which takes payment for the 2.6 million barrels Iran exports a day. The European Union is considering a ban — already in place in the United States — on Iranian oil imports. So far neither Washington nor Brussels has finalized its move against the oil trade or the central bank amid fears of the possible impact on the global economy of restricting oil flows from the world’s fifth biggest exporter. But the British embassy attack dragged relations with Europe to a long-time low and Iran is now facing rising rhetoric about a direct hit on its main source of foreign earnings. Until recently, Iran had dismissed as ineffective mounting sanctions aimed at forcing it to halt its nuclear activities. Mehmanparast’s comments show a more defensive stance. “No one welcomes the sanctions, we know that sanctions create obstacles, but we want to say we will overcome these obstacles,” Mehmanparast told Sharq daily. “Imposing sanctions on oil and gas is among the sanctions that, if one wants to do that, the consequences should be fully considered before taking any action,” Mehmanparast said. “I do not think the situation in the world and especially in the West today is prepared enough to raise such discussions.” Britain’s embassy in Tehran was ransacked on Tuesday after London announced unilateral sanctions on Iran’s central bank. London evacuated staff, closed the embassy and the biggest EU states withdrew their ambassadors in protests. Rising tensions were enough to push up crude prices with ICE Brent January crude up 95 cents on Friday to settle at $109.94 a barrel. Mehmanparast warned the EU on Saturday to avoid tying itself to British interests. Reuters Read more at peakoil.com

 

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the coment says it al: Flying a military aircraft in soveriegn airspace without the given authority of that country is an act of war in itself.



We are provoking any retaliation that unfolds.



All without the say of the people or the Congress.

Amplify’d from peakoil.com

Page added on December 4, 2011

Iran Military Shoots Down US Drone

Iran’s military said on Sunday it had shot down a U.S. reconnaissance drone aircraft in eastern Iran, a military source told state television. “Iran’s military has downed an intruding RQ-170 American drone in eastern Iran,” Iran’s Arabic-language Al Alam state television network quoted the unnamed source as saying. “The spy drone, which has been downed with little damage, was seized by the Iranian armed forces.” Iran shot down the drone at a time when it is trying to contain foreign reaction to the storming of the British embassy in Tehran on Tuesday, shortly after London announced that it would impose sanctions on Iran’s central bank in connection with Iran’s controversial nuclear enrichment programme. Britain evacuated its diplomatic staff from Iran and expelled Iranian diplomats in London in retaliation, and several other EU members recalled their ambassadors from Tehran. The attack dragged Iran’s relations with Europe to a long-time low. Washington and EU countries have been discussing measures to restrict Iran’s oil exports since the United Nations nuclear watchdog issued a report in November with what it said was evidence that Tehran had worked on designing an atom bomb. Reuters One Comment on "Iran Military Shoots Down US Drone" FarQ3 on Sun, 4th Dec 2011 5:07 pm  Flying a military aircraft in soveriegn airspace without the given authority of that country is an act of war in itself. Read more at peakoil.com

 

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1jc37

So What Are the Issues? Do they Affect Me or My Family?

Most middle class Americans could go their entire lives without taking action to defend their country, their communities, or even their families.  But what if these issues that affect others around the country affected you?

Pollution of air, water, and food
Tax dollars being used to support large corporate monopolies
Fellow citizens being sent to war to protect foreign and corporate assets and interests
Neighborhood business closing their doors because large corporations leverage power and greed to make competition crumble
Shifts in climate and natural disasters destroying homes, businesses, lives, wildlife, and ecosystems
Dishonest banking causing the loss of wealth and loss of home for millions of people
Laws being made to support large corporate interests over citizen needs because Congress has been bribed
Taxes diverted from education and schools to support large corporate profits
The glutenous waste of natural resources to overconsumption and inneficiency
Medical negligence (overmedication and overuse of medical procedures) to support hospital, doctors, and pharmaceutical companies need for profits

the list goes on...

Waking Up and Taking Action

Would you speak up to protect your family? your country? your company? your community? your food sources? your race? your religion? your money? your home?

Would you take action to protect any of those things?

What form of action would you take if you saw all previous forms of action fail? Would you write letters to Congressmen? Would you visit your Senator? Would you protest?

Or would you hide your concerns, your disgust, and your frustrations behind your own personal Berlin wall?

What would hold you back? What is holding you back? Are you afraid of losing your job? Of looking kooky in front of your friends, family, or coworkers?

Or do you not feel anything? Do you believe those around you that the problem is caused not by the large corporations and government institutions but by the lazy greedy people within your community that look different than you.  Perhaps they dont make the same amount of money as you. Perhaps they dont have hair like you or your friends.  Perhaps they dress differently, or worse, they are of a different race, religion, or national identity.

How much evidence is needed? At what point would you accept that something is wrong and that something needs to be done about it? Would you simply accept the status quo as a fact of life because that how we've always done it.

What if the problem threatens your children? Not with an immediate physical act of violence but a long deteriorating, debilitating cancer like infection.  What if was financial terrorism, debt enslavement and poor health that threatened your children's quality of life?

When would you wake up and take action? Or would you simply ignore the evidence, blame others, and deny that it is a problem.

The End of Diplomacy with Iran, Sanctions to be Followed by Military Action

Isn't that the typical American response to national leaders and governments that do not comply with our way of thinking? Isolation, Demonization, followed by sanctions, jackals and SWAT teams, and in the end, when none of that works, MILITARY ACTION.



Keep in mind, Iran is still pissed that the USA CIA took out their democratically elected leader in 1953 and replaced him with a friendly puppet so we could exploit their oil. They have every right to be pissed.



Will China step up to the international stage and put the USA back in its place? Will the USA collapse like the USSR after it was obvious their system didn't work? Have we not learned anything from history or than to repeat it?

Amplify’d from news.xinhuanet.com

EU countries call back ambassadors, threathen new sanctions against Iran after British embassy attack

English.news.cn   2011-12-01 06:32:18

BRUSSELS, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- The storming of the British embassy compound in Tehran sparked an angry response across Europe, as EU powers called back their ambassadors from Iran and threatened more sanctions. Britain has already evacuated all its staff from Tehran and closed its embassy after a group of protestors broke into the embassy compound and burned British flags on Tuesday. "As of the last few minutes, all out UK-based staff have now left Iran," British Foreign Secretary William Hague told reporters on Wednesday, " if any country makes it impossible for us to operate on their soil they cannot expect to have a functioning embassy here." He added that he had ordered the immediate closure of the Iranian embassy in London and had demanded all its staff to leave the country within 48 hours, a move that could lead to further retaliations according to Iranian authorities. Tuesday's incident was the most violent so far as relations between Iran and Britain deteriorated quickly over a report on the former's nuclear program by the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Britain announced last week that it was halting all transactions with Iran's financial system, including its central bank. Iran's highest legislative body, the Guardian Council of the Constitution, retaliated by approving a bill to downgrade the diplomatic ties with Britain in response to its "hostile" policy against Iran. According to Hague, however, Britain was not severing all relations with Iran entirely. "This does not amount to the severing of diplomatic relations in their entirety. It is action that reduces our relations with Iran to the lowest level consistent with the maintenance of diplomatic relations," he said. Meanwhile in Paris, French President Nicolas Sarkozy also condemned the "scandalous" attack on the British embassy. French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero announced the ministry had decided to recall its ambassador to Iran for "consultations," and that the charge d'affaire of the Iranian embassy in Paris had been summoned by the French foreign ministry. Similar moves was taken by Berlin, which described Tuesday's attack in Tehran as "unacceptable." "In light of yesterday's events in Tehran, Foreign Minister (Guido)Westerwelle decided that the German ambassador in Iran should be recalled to Berlin for consultations," a statement from the German foreign ministry read, adding that it had summoned Iranian ambassador to Germany for the matter as Berlin acted in "solidarity" with London. Norway on Wednesday said it had closed its embassy in Tehran, while Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said Rome was evaluating the situation to decide whether it would do the same. FRESH SANCTIONS ON THE HORIZON EU foreign ministers are scheduled to meet in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss a European reaction to the recent IAEA report which suggested that Iran has engaged in nuclear weapon-related research activities. The nuclear watchdog, however, did not conclude that Tehran is currently attempting to develop such weapon. Iran had dismissed the findings in the IAEA report as fabricated by Western countries and insisted the country's nuclear activities is purely for peaceful purposes. But Tuesday's incident could provide extra ammunition to European governments pushing for stronger sanctions against Iran. According to French government spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse, the attacks on the British embassy had "confirmed" French President Sarkozy's decision to impose news sanctions against Iran. The sanctions could include freezing the assets of the Bank of Iran, and the embargo on Iranian oil exports, even though such a move could drive up the global crude oil prices while Europe is struggling on the brink of recession amid an escalating debt crisis. The Dutch government is also in favor of sanctions against Iran, according to local media, whereas British Prime Minister David Cameron warned of "serious consequences" for Iran's failure to protect Britain's embassy staff. "We will consider what these measures should be in the coming days," Cameron said on Tuesday. Read more at news.xinhuanet.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1j9is