Governments Everywhere Having Deep Money Problems

April 13, 2012

International Forecaster

By Bob Chapman

“If you thought you had money problems, just take a look at countries around the world. Everyone is in big trouble.” –KTRN

It was 13 months ago we disclosed that the administration passed a stimulus bill known as the $17.5 billion “Hiring Incentives Act” to restore employment. It required that foreign banks not only withhold 30% of all outgoing capital flows, and disclosure of the full details of transactions of non-exempt holders to the Internal Revenue Service. They want the structure of how money ended up at that bank. In addition banks, particularly in Switzerland are required to close the account. That is equivalent to capital controls, so in future it will be easy to put currency controls of all funds entering or leaving the US.

Now we have a new gem on our hands, Senate Bill 1813, which was presented by California Senator Barbara Boxer. The bill has been passed in the Senate 74-23 under the “Moving ahead for progress legislation in the 21st Century Act.”

Section 4034 of the legislation states that any individual who owes more than $50,000 to the IRS will have their passport confiscated, revoked, or put on special terms and they will be denied exit or entry, out or into the US. The bill is loosely written, so as usual the interpretation is left up to bureaucrats in Washington. Hopefully this inclusion will be struck down in the House. Inasmuch almost all our Congress is bought and paid for – you will have to lobby very hard to eliminate it from the bill. This is not about tax evasion; it is about people control and their assets. E-mail, fax, write and call all House members to stop another nail being put in our coffin.

As we pointed out in past issues, Operation Twist, was just another surreptitious attempt to mask a QE 3 operation the Fed sold the short end of the bond market and bought the long end in order to keep mortgage rate down, which we find was unsuccessful. Thus, the regular QE 3 is ready to be launched.

Click here for the report.

Stimulus Helped Grow Debt, Not Economy

March 14, 2012

Bloomberg

By Ramesh Ponnuru

Last week’s release of the February employment report set off the predictable partisan squabbling, with Democrats emphasizing the positive (227,000 new jobs) and Republicans the negative (the still-shrunken labor force and still-high unemployment rate).

Democrats say the economic recovery shows that the stimulus bill that President Barack Obama signed in 2009 worked. Republicans deny it. Although we can’t know how the economy would be faring if Congress hadn’t passed a stimulus, we have good reason to doubt that it did much good.

Media fact-check organizations have no such doubts. Factcheck.org says it’s “just false” to deny that the stimulus has created jobs. It cites the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that the stimulus had saved or created millions of jobs. But the CBO, as its director has explained, hasn’t really checked the effect of the stimulus. It has merely reported what the results of additional federal spending and tax credits would be if you assume that spending and tax credits are stimulative.

In other words: If you assume that stimulus works, it must have worked. This circularity doesn’t bother PolitiFact, a group that seeks to elevate the tone of our political debates but usually lowers it. Relying on the CBO and other groups that use similar methods, it says people who deny the effectiveness of the stimulus have their “pants on fire.”

Click here for the full report.

Gold Up On China Stimulus Hope

January 18, 2012

Reuters

By Frank Tang

Gold prices rose on Tuesday, in tandem with the euro, on technical buying and as lackluster economic data lifted investor hopes for monetary stimulus in China.

Bullion prices gained after weak growth suggested that China

– called by some the world’s economic engine — may try to boost productivity through monetary easing. But gold ended off a five-week high hit earlier in the session as a U.S. equities rally fizzled.

The fact that a flurry of credit downgrades in Europe and ongoing debt fears have failed to further boost gold showed that bullion could be near its decade-long bull run, analysts said.

“A lot of the issues regarding the euro zone debt crisis are already priced in, and the downgrade was a confirmation of what investors already knew,” said Erica Rannestad, analyst at commodities consultant CPM Group

Rannestad said she expects the European crisis may not provide as much momentum to gold buying as it has in the past.

Spot gold was up 0.4 percent at $1,650.30 an ounce by 3:09 p.m. EST (2009 GMT), having peaked at $1,667.41.

U.S. gold futures for December delivery settled up $24.80 an ounce at $1,655.60. Prices are up 5.5 percent this year after falling 10 percent in December.

Trading volume was about 50 percent above its 30-day average as U.S. traders returned after the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday on Monday.

Technical support was cited as gold has closed above resistance at its 200-day moving average in the past five sessions.

“Gold now looks to test the trend resistance at $1,688. A close above would open the way for the November 2011 highs and double-bottom neckline at $1,803,” said Tom Fitzpatrick, chief technical strategist of CitiFX, Citigroup’s technical research unit.

Gold extended gains as the euro rose against the dollar after two days of losses. The metal’s rise since the start of this year had occurred without the benefit of a weaker dollar.

The outlook for the single currency remained negative after Standard & Poor’s downgraded the euro zone’s EFSF bailout fund by one notch to AA+ following multiple euro zone downgrades on Friday.

Click here for the full report.

Dollar Falls Sharply

July 13th, 2011

Reuters

By: Steven C. Johnson

The dollar fell against most major currencies on Wednesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank could resort to more monetary stimulus if a sluggish U.S. economy weakens further.

That pushed the euro near $1.42, moving it further from the prior session’s four-month low beneath $1.39 and on track for its best day since mid-January.

Surprisingly swift Chinese growth data also helped divert attention, at least temporarily, from a worsening euro zone debt crisis after Fitch Ratings said an ambitious Italian deficit reduction plan would help stabilize its credit rating.

“The comments from Bernanke and Fitch amount to a double whammy for the dollar and a boost for the euro and riskier assets. It’s all positive for risk,” said Brian Dolan, chief strategist at Forex.com in Bedminster, New Jersey.

In testimony before a House of Representatives committee, Bernanke said: “The possibility remains that the recent economic weakness may prove more persistent than expected and that deflationary risks might re-emerge, implying a need for additional policy support.

The Fed ended its most recent asset-purchase program in June. Traders said another round of easing would flood the financial system with more money and encourage investors to reach for higher-yielding currencies and assets.

Major U.S. stock indexes rose more than 1 percent and gold hit a record high. The euro was last at $1.4177, up 1.4 percent, after touching $1.4193 on trading platform EBS. It also rose 1.8 percent against the yen.

The high-yielding, commodity-sensitive Australian and New Zealand dollars rose sharply.

Fitch’s remarks eased worries about Italy, which saw its borrowing costs soar this week for fear a default in Greece would hurt European banks and strain other countries’ finances.

Italy is considered especially vulnerable, as it has the euro zone’s second-largest debt-to-output ratio, which would become harder to finance with higher borrowing costs.

Still, some analysts said markets remained anxious. European leaders, set to convene an emergency meeting on Friday, have yet to agree on a second Greek bailout.

“I’d call this a short-term respite,” said Firas Askari, head of FX trading at BMO Capital Markets. “If we don’t hear anything substantial from Europe by the weekend, people will be back to shorting the euro next week.”

In the options market, one-month risk reversals were elevated in favor of euro puts — options to sell the currency, with plenty of event risks ahead, including the results of stress tests on euro zone banks due on Friday.

Reflecting that unease, the yen soared against the euro and hit its highest level against the dollar since Japan’s March earthquake as investors unwound risky trades funded with yen.

The dollar was last at 78.98 yen, up 0.3 percent, not far from its 78.481 four-month low hit on EBS earlier in the global session.

That brought warnings from top Japanese officials worried that a strengthening yen will hurt Japan’s fragile economy, raising the possibility authorities could intervene to weaken the currency.

The dollar fell to a fresh record trough of 0.81939 Swiss francs after Bernanke’s testimony, and Askari said markets were also on edge about a pending deadline to lift the U.S. debt ceiling.

“We still have not seen the political will in either Europe or the United States to resolve the key issues,” Askari said, which makes positioning for currency investors difficult.

“With currencies, it’s hard to be short everything. The Swiss franc is appreciated, but even Swiss banks won’t be immune from a meltdown in Europe,” he said.

Click here for the full report Reuters

Governments and Central Banks Are Bringing on Second Round of Economic Crisis

October 19th, 2010

Sic Semper Trannis

By: Mark Matheny

Although President Obama and his bought and paid for media (The Ministry of Truth) are calling this year the “summer of recovery”, it is apparent to anyone living in our nation that it should be more likely called the “summer of discontent”.

As the U.S. economy feels the withdraw symptoms of a failed “bailout” and “stimulus” high, the UK’s economy is also feeling the effects of the robber barrons as their road to recovery leads only to more coming dissappointment.

According to a report on Russia Today, certain respected financiers are blaming the Bank of England as the culprit for UK’s economic woes, saying that instead of solving the issues that lead to the last crisis, governments and central banks, like the Bank of England are leading the world toward a bigger meltdown.

Although many economists see another crisis looming, there is no agreement between the institutions on how to avert it. On the one hand, the powers that be in Europe are stopping the printing presses, while the Federal Reserve Bank in the United States has the printers at full steam ahead. The Ministry of Truth (the media) in the United States then converts the real language of “inflating the monetary system” into the new speak term “quantitative easing”.

According to Patrick Young, editor of The Gathering Storm, no one is on the right track to true economic recovery:
“Nobody is right – I mean that’s really the problem. The difficulty is that when you’ve drunk three bottles of vodka, then you may well think that you are capable of putting the world to right. But at the same point in time you know you are going to wake up in the morning with a hangover. This is the point where we’re waking up in the morning with a terrible hangover.”

Many people in the UK are in denial to the fact that things will get worse and not better. Most people (in the UK as well as the U.S.) are ignorant to the fact that policy makers around the world are applying outdated models to their economic projections which will more than likely lead to inflation hitting the average citizen dramatically.

The government of the UK is expected to announce large cuts to public services this week, in an effort to stave of the looming crisis ahead.

Steve Lewis, Founding Partner of Monument Derivatives warns there could be much worse episodes of collapse to come:

“We shouldn’t assume that the period of extreme global weakness which followed the Lehman Brothers’ collapse is the worse episode in this long drawn out depression. There could be much worse episodes still to come.”

In an interview on the Glenn Beck Show back in the early part of 2010, Congressman Ron paul stated that all of his attempts at auditing the Federal Reserve, (in order to get at the heart of the real reasons for the crisis) have been stonewalled by the administration, and blames both Republicans and Democrats for this blocking of H.R 1207 and other attempts at transparency.

“I know one thing, if Obama wanted change, and change in the system, at least exposure, ah he could do something, but you know he got nearly a million dollars from Goldman Sachs… so we don’t expect anything from the administration……this to me is a perfect example of my argument that I made… there’s not a whole lot of difference between the two parties. You know they’re owned by the same people..”

And if you think Ron Paul stumbled on to some new revelation, then think again. Here’s what Carroll Quigley wrote in his book Tragedy and Hope:

“The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers…Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can “throw the rascals out” at any election without leading to any profound or extreme shifts in policy.”
(1910-1977) Professor of History at Georgetown University, member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), mentor to Bill Clinton

In the interview with Glenn Beck, Ron Paul continued by saying:

…as this system continues to falter, they’re not going to give up, they’re going move all these shananigans over to the IMF (International Monetary Fund), they’re gonna have a world organization. So the powerful Elite then will have a world currency. That’s….what they’re planning for right now..”

To back up what Ron Paul is stating in regards to the powerful Elite’s plans for a world currency, a document called Reserve Accumulation and International Monetary Stability was published by the IMF on April 13, 2010, shortly after the interview where Ron Paul stated the facts.

In short, all the currencies of the world are Fiat currencies now, and are only as good as the governments backing them (God Help Us), and so we surely will see a world currency soon, if we don’t step up our act of preserving our Sovereignty and ending the Criminal organizations of the IMF and the Federal Reserve.

Carroll Quigley also stated once:

“Thus, the use of fiat money is more justifiable in financing a depression than in financing a war.”

While our government pretends to fight “the War on Terror” the real war will be once again our war for independence and freedom from a Feudalist World Regime.

Click here for the full report from Sic Semper Tyrannis

The Kevin Trudeau Show: 10-12-10

Today, back LIVE in the studio, Kevin reveals vital information behind the corruption within the banking industry and exactly how town hall meetings are 100% complete scams! Plus, be the first to know about Kevin’s newest product line that will absolutely revolutionize the health industry!

Self Help:
Protect Your Body
KT On Your Station

Health:
Abbott Labs Pulls Weight Loss Pill Over Heart Risk
Blue Buffalo Dog Food Recalled
Glenn Beck’s Health Deteriorating Due To Diet Soda
Avandia: The Death Medicine
The McDonald’s Experiment

Wealth:
72,000 Stimulus Payments Went to Dead People
Foreclosures Go From Sluggish to Frozen
Wall Street Pay to Hit Record High This Year
Is Jim Cramer Mad About Money or Just Simply Mad?

Everything Kevin:
Become An Insider!
Support Kevin!
Kevin is on YouTube!
Sign Up For Kevin’s FREE Podcast
Follow Kevin on Twitter
Become Kevin’s Friend on Facebook
Kevin’s Film Club
Kevin’s Book Club

Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!

Click HERE to watch Part Two of The Kevin Trudeau Show LIVE!

GE Gets $25M in ‘Stimulus,’ Cuts 18,000 Jobs

October 12, 2010
CNS News
Fred Lucas

The Obama administration gave corporate giant General Electric—the parent company of NBC–$24.9 million in grants from the $787-billion economic “stimulus” law President Barack Obama signed in February 2009, according to records posted by the administration at Recovery.gov.

Despite getting $24.9 million from U.S. taxpayers, GE decreased its U.S.-based employees by 18,000 in 2009, according to the company’s 2009 annual report.

According to Standard & Poor’s, GE took in $156 billion in revenue in 2009.

GE was the primary recipient of 14 stimulus grants, a spokeswoman for Recovery.gov confirmed to CNSNews.com. These 14 grants provided GE with $24.9 million in tax dollars. On four additional stimulus grants, the primary recipient of the federal money hired GE as a contractor. Recovery.gov is the administration’s website that tracks stimulus expenditures.

At the end of 2008, GE employed 152,000 U.S. workers, according to its 2009 annual report. But at the end of 2009, according to the report, it employed only 134,000 U.S. workers, a decline of 18,000 workers.

The Energy Department provided GE with 9 stimulus grants, the Department of Health and Human Services provided the company with 3, and the Justice Department and the Commerce Department each gave the company 1 stimulus grant.

All of these federal stimulus grants went to GE’s Global Research Center.

The earliest of the stimulus grants went to GE in July 2009 and the latest in April 2010.

CNSNews.com asked a GE spokesperson if the company contested Recovery.gov’s representation that GE had received 14 stimulus grants worth $24.9 million, and also whether the company now employed more or fewer workers as a result of receiving the grants.

In an e-mail response, GE spokeswoman Anne Eisele said, “I’m afraid I must politely decline to comment.”

What did all the money to GE go for? Recovery.gov posts brief explanations of each grant. For example, the Department of Justice gave GE $999,955 in stimulus money. “The goal of this program,” said Recovery.gov, “is to develop a comprehensive reasoning system for event and scenario recognition for an intelligent video system.”

In addition to the $24.9 million it received in stimulus grants, GE was also awarded $5 million in federal contracts under the economic stimulus law. These contracts were payment for services provided by the company.

Click here for the full report from CNS News.

Why Obama Is Losing the Political War

October 11, 2010
TIME
Mark Halperin

Barack Obama is being politically crushed in a vise. From above, by elite opinion about his competence. From below, by mass anger and anxiety over unemployment. And it is too late for him to do anything about this predicament until after November’s elections.

With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters. This view is held by Fox News pundits, executives and anchors at the major old-media outlets, reporters who cover the White House, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and governors, many Democratic business people and lawyers who raised big money for Obama in 2008, and even some members of the Administration just beyond the inner circle.

On Friday, after the release of the latest bleak unemployment data — the last major jobs figures before the midterms — Obama said, “Putting the American people back to work, expanding opportunity, rebuilding the economic security of the middle class is the moral and national challenge of our time.” But elites feel the President has failed to meet that challenge and are convinced he will be unable to do so in the remainder of his term. Moreover, there is a growing perception that Obama’s decisions are causing harm — that businesses are being hurt by the Administration’s legislation and that economic recovery is stalling because of the uncertainty surrounding energy policy, health care, deficits, housing, immigration and spending.

And that sentiment is spreading. Many members of the general public appear deeply skeptical of Obama’s capacity to turn things around, especially, but not exclusively, those inclined to dislike him — Tea Partyers and John McCain voters, but also tens of millions of middle-class Americans, including quite a few who turned out for Obama in 2008.

The misery afflicting the country has no political affiliation. Listen to the voices from this striking TV ad for Rob Portman, the Republican former Congressman and Bush budget director who is running for Senate from Ohio. One woman at a Dayton career fair says starkly, “There are no jobs.” A man announces plaintively and with obvious frustration, “I’ve been looking for a job now for 13 months.” Events like this job fair are becoming the grim iconic gatherings of our time, the breadlines for the Obama years.

Most of Obama’s private (and sometimes public) rebuttals to the voices slamming him on all sides are justified or spot on. He did inherit a lot of problems from the Bush Administration. He did act quickly in the initial weeks of his Administration to stave off a worldwide depression. His efforts at job creation have been obstructed by Republicans (even the proposals based on policies supported by the GOP in the past). His opponents haven’t put forth specifics of their own, nor offered genuine compromise, while the media have allowed the right’s activists and gabbers to run wild with criticism without furnishing legitimate alternative solutions.

But Obama has exacerbated his political problems not just by failing to enact policies that would have actually turned the economy around, but also by authorizing a series of tactical moves intended to demonize Republicans and distract from the problems at hand. He has wasted time lambasting his foes when he should have been putting forth his agenda in a clear, optimistic fashion, defending the benefits of his key decisions during the past two years (health care and the Troubled Asset Relief Program, for example) and explaining what he would do with a re-elected Democratic majority to spur growth.

Throughout the year, we have been treated to Obama-led attacks on George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Congressman Joe Barton (for his odd apology to BP), John Boehner (for seeking the speakership — or was it something about an ant?) and Fox News (for everything). Suitable Democratic targets in some cases, perhaps, but not worth the time of a busy Commander in Chief. In the past few days, we have witnessed the spectacle of the President himself and his top advisers wading into allegations that Republicans are attempting to buy the election using foreign money laundered through the Chamber of Commerce, combining with Karl Rove and his wealthy backers to fund a flood of negative television commercials. Not only is this issue convoluted and far-fetched, but it also distracts from the issues voters care about, frustrating political insiders and alienating struggling citizens (not that many are following such an offbeat story line). Feinting and gibing can’t obscure those job numbers.

The President and Democrats have passed many significant measures (the stimulus spending, the auto-company rescue, the health care law and the financial regulation effort) that someday may be seen as brave and bold, the foundation for a better economy. Obama and his closest aides certainly think that will happen. But the President was correct when he said Friday, “the only piece of economic news that folks still looking for work want to hear is, ‘You’re hired,’” and that’s still not occurring for too many Americans.

The politically good news for Obama is that no matter what the outcome of the midterm elections, everything changes in January. Republicans will have a greater obligation, politically and morally, to help govern, rather than thwart and badger. The President will get a chance, in his State of the Union address and in his budget proposal, to show he is turning the page on the political horrors of 2010 for his party and the nation. But before then, Republicans are almost certainly going to demonstrate that you can beat something with nothing, especially when Americans seem to think that the Obama Administration hasn’t much to offer either, except more of the same that isn’t working.

Click here for the full report from TIME.

72,000 Stimulus Payments Went to Dead People

October 8, 2010
Associated Press
Stephen Ohlemacher

WASHINGTON – A government investigator says 89,000 stimulus payments of $250 each went to people who were either dead or in prison.

The Social Security Administration’s inspector general said in a report Thursday that $18 million went to 72,000 people who were dead. The report estimates that a little more than half the payments were returned.

The report said $4.3 million went to a little more than 17,000 prison inmates.

The payments were part of the government’s massive economic recovery package enacted in February 2009. Under the law, the $250 payments were sent to about 52 million Social Security recipients and federal retirees.

Click here for the full report from The Associated Press.

The Kevin Trudeau Show: 9-22-10

Today, Kevin explains the significance of the Unites States dropping to the 50^th best country to start a business and why banks around the world are failing at record rates!

Self Help:
Lose A Pound A Day
Help Others
Switch To Grass Fed Beef
Make Your Voice Heard

Health:
FDA’s Real Agenda Behind The Massive Amount of Food Recalls
Study Finds Nearly 1 Million Kids Misdiagnosed With ADHD
Drug-Resistant Superbugs Found in 3 States
HFCS Getting Rebranded To Deceive Customers

Government:
Tea Party Fear
Four Al-Qaeda-Linked Prisoners Escape US Custody In Iraq
New 1099 Requirements for B2B Transactions

Wealth:
Unemployment Rates Rise… AGAIN!
US Falling Behind In The Markets

NWO:
Monsanto Contracted Blackwater Spies to Infiltrate Opposition

Everything Kevin:
Become An Insider!
Support Kevin!
Kevin is on YouTube!
Sign Up For Kevin’s FREE Podcast
Follow Kevin on Twitter
Become Kevin’s Friend on Facebook
Kevin’s Film Club
Kevin’s Book Club

Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!


Click Below to watch The Kevin Trudeau Show LIVE!

Next Page »