While they are correct in that the attack was not carried out by Al Qaeda the initial public statements were incorrect in not identifying the act as terrorism. The attack upon the IRS was carried out by something much worse, a domestic terrorist. The pilot of the aircraft had apparently earlier torched his house in an Austin subdivision and left behind a suicide note saying that he was mad as hell at his tax bill, and the national health care stalemate, and the bailout helping corporations rather than people. He opposed the federal government and our laws and flew an airplane into a federal occupied building housing an IRS tax unit to express his extreme anger at the United States government. If that’s not an act of domestic terrorism, then what is?

It is actually foolish and wrong for government officials and media talking heads to breathe a sigh of relief because the pilot was not a member of Al Qaeda. The fact that he is one of ours, a homegrown terrorist, is far worse. Consider the actions of homegrown terrorists at Oklahoma City, Virginia Tech, Columbine, and now a government occupied office building in Austin, Texas. Then consider how many millions of Americans own guns, are former military members trained in explosives and warfare, are fed up with the way our government is currently working, resent the bailout of wealthy bankers and corporate executives at the expense of the tax payer, and who are mad as hell about it all and near some kind of breaking point.

It is a sad state of affairs when government officials who are charged with protecting United States citizens from terrorist acts won’t even call an act by a homegrown terrorist, such as flying an aircraft into an office building, an act of terror. Perhaps their tune will change as more facts are known. Then an over reaction will probably occur. We may not be too far removed from being required to get a government permit to travel beyond our front yards.

The fact is that the risk of domestic terrorism is far greater than that of Al Qaeda being able to launch another terrorist attack on United States soil. An additional risk, as the government attempts to prevent further acts of domestic terror, even though the government will not publicly acknowledge domestic terrorist attacks as terrorist attacks, is that individual freedoms are further eroded due to a police state mentality of surveillance and regulation.

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Very likely, in the coming week or two a major leg down in the stock market will commence as the fear of financial contagion from the ongoing Greek tragedy of mismanagement, deceit, corruption, and incompetence, spreads from the euro zone to disrupt stock markets worldwide.

“Questions continue to mount about the near-term fate of Greece and the other PIGS nations,” wrote Kevin Giddis, head of fixed-income sales, trading and research at brokerage firm Morgan Keegan Inc. in Memphis, Tennessee, in a note to clients yesterday. “The latest worries are the lack of specificity about the true nature of the ‘determined and coordinated action’ pledged.”

Then there is Dubai, probably the greatest financial boondoggle that the world has ever experienced, except for perhaps China which is yet another bubble that will eventually pop as over building and wild speculation continues until it doesn’t. But China is a story worth writing about in a separate article so I’ll pass on it today. When the China bubble does pop it will be a hundred times, maybe a thousand times, the size of little Dubai so remain alert.

It would appear that an implosion of Dubai has only been delayed, not avoided. This past Friday the cost to protect against a default by Dubai increased to the highest level since state-controlled holding company Dubai World said last year it wanted to delay debt repayments. Credit- default swaps linked to Dubai debt jumped yesterday to 638 basis points, the highest since Nov. 27, according to CMA Datavision.

The sovereign debt issue is actually quite deflationary in nature. As nations such as Greece struggle to reduce their public debt to GDP ratio, they will be forced to drastically cut expenses and to reduce government services. These actions, while necessary, will reduce economic activity at a time when the world economy has still not fully recovered from recession. A feedback loop will inadvertently be created that will lead to further reductions in economic activity, thereby increasing deflationary forces.

Of course, Greece, euro zone countries, and Dubai, are small potatoes compared to the increasing excessive debt issues being experienced by the United Kingdom and the United States. The public debt levels of the UK and US are increasing exponentially and cannot be sustained. The greatest financial boom that the world has ever experienced began to unravel with the toxic waste home mortgage debacle beginning in 2006. We seem to be only in the early stages of the bust cycle.

Almost unbelievably, public sector debt levels have continued to increase as nations worldwide have continued to pile on additional debt in an effort to reverse deflationary forces. While it only stands to reason that the cure for an excessive debt problem cannot be realized by the addition of debt that hasn’t stopped the politicians of the world from creating additional debt as if it would never matter.

Great booms always end in great busts. Since we have recently experienced the greatest boom in the history of finance it is highly likely that we are entering a time when we must cope with the greatest bust. Sovereign debt issues may well be the triggering event that tanks the stock market and ushers in a long crisis of deflationary forces.

We will probably not have to wait very long to find out.

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Talk about a one-sided argument. Hedge fund manager Hugh Hendry makes Joseph Stiglitz and Charles Casajuana appear to be idiots not at all familiar with the real world as they discuss the Greek debt crisis and the role that the Euro zone countries will have to play in alleviating the crisis.

In my opinion, Mr. Hendry makes the entirely valid argument that an accelerating crisis caused by excessive debt can not be solved by the issuance of additional debt. While their discussion centers on Greece the same principle applies to the remainder of the euro zone countries as well as to Japan and the United States. Many countries in the developed world have created a mountain of debt that can no longer be supported by the economic growth that can be generated by their economies or by the level of economic growth that can be reasonally expected in the future.

Prof. Joseph Stiglitz appears especially flustered and foolish as he talks about how the Greek debt problem is easily managed by Euro zone members making additional loans available to Greece. The difference in viewpoints between the hedge fund manager and the Prof. and Amb. is the difference between the real world and the make-believe world of politicians and academics.

When Hugh Hendry states that it is just a matter of time before Greece and other sovereign countries default on their debt obligations, Prof. Stiglitz and Amb. Casajuana go berserk. The video is well worth watching just to see their reactions.

Unfortunately, the video reminds me of the disconnect between Obama and his team and the reality of what is taking place in the US economy. Clearly, the level of debt that is being created by the federal government is unsustainable and at some point in the future cannot be properly serviced. The United States will be forced to monetize vast amounts of debt, thereby guaranteeing hyperinflation, or default on its obligations. When Sec. of the Treasury Timothy Giether recently stated in a Bloomberg interview that United States would never default I took that as a confirmation that the financial future of the United States is terribly grim.

The unraveling of Greece and the euro zone is very likely a preview of our own future. When sovereign debts becomes so large that they cannot be serviced bad things are bound to occur. We are most likely at the beginning of a worldwide financial crisis that will dwarf anything that any human being has ever taken part in. Ever.

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However, when one looks at the Bernanke track record prior to and during the crises that occurred during his first term in office one has to wonder why in the world the man’s judgment could still be trusted? While he seems to be a sincere enough and nice enough guy, as shown in the video, he has consistently been wrong in his judgment as to the status of the US economy.

While considered to be an expert as to why the United States entered into a Great Depression and in how the nation was restored to economic growth Bernanke seems to have a simplistic view as to how the economy works. He seems to think that the economy works as some kind of mechanical machine. All one has to do to keep it running smoothly is to pull a few levers here and push a few levers there. Apparently he thinks that market forces can be overcome by fine tuning the machine. He shows no signs of realizing just how much human emotions enter into the mix.

While Bernanke acted aggressively and quickly once the economy began to fall apart during the latter part of 2007, as you will see in the video, he had absolutely no clue that bubbles were being formed in the real estate market as well as in equities that would soon pop with devastating results. Unfortunately, I fear that we will soon see that the actions of the Federal Reserve Bank, as led by helicopter Ben, may have helped early on to stabilize the economy the actions will have disastrous long-term effects.

For one thing under his leadership the Federal Reserve Bank engaged in a “cash for trash” program that extended credit to favored banks and institutions, such as AIG, in exchange for toxic assets of questionable value. The strength of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet had to be seriously impaired due to this and other actions initiated by Bernanke.

All one has to do is to watch the video to see how truly clueless Ben Bernanke was during his first term as chairman. However, the President and the Senate seem to still be confident that he is a man that we can trust to help guide the nation out of the economic wilderness. Based upon his track record so far, the question is why?

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This new short video explores that and looks at a key Japanese candlestick formation that could really make a difference and be the first clue in the demise of the Dow. The fact that early in the trading day the Dow rallied over 100 points on news that GDP for the fourth quarter of 2009 expanded at a 5.7% rate and then reversed in the afternoon to finish about 53 points lower is certainly bearish price action.

In the video I’ll also show and share with you a specific number to look for in February. Should this level be broken, then it will signal a major reversal to the downside for the Dow. We are not talking about a minor correction here, but a complete trend reversal, one that will be very violent and catch many traders by surprise.

Watch the video you see if it all makes sense to you. As always our videos are free to watch and there is no need to register. Bear Market Wave 3 Video Enjoy the video and let us know what you think on our blog.

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For investors in stocks this is “the last chance to get out with the Dow in quintuple digits,” Prechter added. Prechter is forecasting a long-term deflationary environment for the US economy which may last until 2014 to 2015. Prechter is a highly regarded financial analyst and is considered a leading authority in the application of Elliott Wave theory.

According to Prechter there is a very good probability that the highs have been seen in the Dow Jones industrial averages and that the rally from the lows from March 2009, even though the rally retraced about 53% of the losses from the all-time high, was merely a rally in a long-term bear market. Prechter compares the advance to one that occurred in 1931 in 1932 that advanced an almost identical 52.9% before the market collapsed to new lows.

Prechter is forecasting that wave three of the bear market has probably started and before the bear market has been completed the March lows of March 2009 will be taken out. Wave three is the wave that travels the furtherest in the shortest amount of time. Many traders will be taken completely off guard as the wave begins and will suffer heavy losses as the wave progresses.

Prechter is forecasting that the likely bear move will be violent and extremely severe. According to Elliott wave theory, as explained by Prechter, the current bear market involves a super bear cycle and will be the most severe for at least the past 200 years. The ensuing wave of deflation will take no prisoners, and will decimate stocks, bonds, commodities, as well as real estate. In fact, the deflation will be so severe that he thinks the only investment that makes sense as an asset class will be cash.

In regard to the US dollar, Prechter forecast that a deflationary period of depression will bring strength to the currency. The reason for this is that in a depression bankruptcies, structured settlements, foreclosures, and debt liquidation, create losses and take dollars out of circulation. For example, if a real estate project worth $100 million goes into foreclosure and eventually sales for $50 million dollars, the difference of $50 million is simply lost.

The money does not appear in anyone else’s account, it has just disappeared into money heaven. The fact that a depression causes dollar destruction means that the remaining dollars have more value. In a depression, cash becomes king. Those who have cash find that their cash becomes more valuable as they can purchase just about everything at lower prices.

While it is far too early to say with certainty that Robert Prechter is once again right with his forecast the price action of the last several days strongly suggest that he must be taken seriously. For the stock market to fall about 555 points on the Dow, only to rally today by 23 lousy points, is extremely bearish price action. Over the past two weeks weakness in the gold market and commodities in general have correlated with renewed strength in the dollar. All of this price action is in line with Prechter’s forecast.

If Robert Prechter is correct about this being wave three in a bear stock market the next few weeks, and indeed all of 2010, will likely be an extremely painful period for stock market bulls. A wave 3 in a bear market typically will have sharp sell-offs followed by weak rallies, each followed by another sharp sell-off, until the wave is eventually completed. The price action of the past four trading days will conform to that pattern if another sharp sell-off takes place.

The price pattern of the next few days will be critical. Any further sharp brutal sell-off would be fair warning that we are in a wave three of a bear market. If Prechter is correct about this being the beginning of a bear super cycle the year 2010 will be one long remembered by stock market traders. Unfortunately, it will only be short sellers that will be able to talk about 2010 with a smile on their faces. Those who are long stocks during such a cycle will probably never want to talk about stocks again.

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As many of the British troops have served in Iraq, Bosnia, Northern Ireland, and various other hotspots to state that fighting in Afghanistan is the most intense that they have ever experienced is quite a statement to make. It is easy to see from the video why the soldiers would make such a statement. In one long day they are under constant attack from Taliban forces that they never really see, run low on water and ammunition, and are nearly bombed three times by their own coalition aircraft. Not only that, the British forces are required to babysit with the Afghan National Army troops, whose average age appears to be about 18 years.

To make things even worse the compound that they captured from the Taliban is re-occupied just as soon as the troops move along to their next mission. The truth is that coalition forces do not have nearly enough boots on the ground to occupy and secure large areas of Afghanistan. Even with the 40,000 additional troops that president Obama is committing to Afghanistan coalition forces will be far short of the number of troops necessary to implement a successful clear and hold strategy. As a comparison, in Vietnam at the height of the war the US had almost 600,000 troops in country and we all know how well that turned out.

With the major interest of the Afghan National Army seemingly to be to smoke hashish at every opportunity the American exit strategy from Afghanistan of standing down as the Afghan army stands up seems to be only wishful thinking.

This video shows the type of coverage of conditions on the ground in Afghanistan that you never see in the mainstream media. The sooner that the American government accepts the reality that the Taliban will never give up in their quest to cause the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan the better off our troops and the American people will be. It is a total waste to be spending billions of dollars fighting a war that we cannot possibly win.

Watch the 15 minute video of a day in the life of British troops in Afghanistan and you will see exactly how impossible the situation is for coalition forces.

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Obama’s statement on the issue was triggered by a 5-4 ruling by the court’s justices on Thursday, January 21, 2010, that removed long-standing campaign finance limits and allowed corporations to spend freely in campaigns for president and Congress as well as in local elections. In the ruling, the court’s conservative majority said the limits had violated corporations’ constitutional right to free speech.

“This ruling opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. “It gives the special interest lobbyists new leverage to spend millions on advertising to persuade elected officials to vote their way — or to punish those who don’t. This ruling strikes at democracy itself,” Obama said.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the Supreme Court’s decision is that it grants corporations, that are definitely not individuals, constitutional rights to free speech. It is deeply disturbing that the Supreme Court, which is tasked with protecting American’s constitutional rights, should extend the right to free speech to legal entities such as corporations that clearly were not intended to have such rights by our founding fathers.

The decision rolls back all of the campaign funding laws in the American democracy that were designed to protect our democracy against the efforts of special interest groups, such as corporations and their lobbyists. Now with the 5 to 4 Supreme Court ruling, the floodgates are open for unlimited amounts of cash being used to buy politicians and to influence the voting process through TV advertising and other means.

President Obama’s statement that the decision is a direct blow to democracy is absolutely the truth. In the United States, much of the control of our government has already passed to special interest groups who use lobbyist and the use of cash to influence legislation that is favorable to their special interests. Now that the Supreme Court has opened the financial floodgates for corporate cash to flow through In unlimited amounts you can bet your bottom dollar that’s the corrupting influence of money will be felt throughout the political system.

January 21, 2010, is a sad day in American history. With our democracy already under severe attack by special interest groups the Supreme Court ruling May well be the death blow to any semblance of democracy within the American form of government. It is hard to believe that the five members of the Supreme Court who voted in favor of a corporation being granted constitutional rights to free speech, thereby giving them the ability to use unlimited amounts of cash to influence legislation designed for their benefit at the expense of the public, were thinking of protecting the Constitution.

One has to wonder if the wide spread corruption within our government has spread even to the highest court in the land. In my opinion, this five to four Supreme Court decision could not possibly be based upon the proper interpretation of the law of the land, but upon the influence that lobbyist groups already have upon certain Supreme Court justices.

Sadly, American democracy has become more like fascism than most Americans would care to admit. The recent Supreme Court decision will only make matters far worse as it places a tremendous amount of political power in the hands of corporations that will use that power to punish those politicians whose policies they disagree with and to reward those who help them to pass legislation favorable to their interests. The unsavory relationship between corporations and politicians that the Supreme Court decision will lead to is the very definition of fascism.

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Less than two weeks ago, Robert Prechter issued a rare emergency warning that the stock market was setting up for what he calls a super cycle crash. According to Prechter, super cycle crashes are rare events and the possibility that one could occur in 2010 must be taken very seriously. In a super cycle crash the direction of the market reverses in a most violent and severe manner. As is usually the case with any reversal in the stock market, the reversal takes place without warning and occurs when most stock market analysts and traders are at their most bullish and complacent.

Over the last two days the market has reversed from the high reached since the March 2009 low and quickly shed over 300 points on the Dow Jones industrial averages. The sudden losses in stocks have been accompanied by a surge in the strength of the US dollar, a fast drop in gold of over $40 an ounce, silver selling off by over one dollar per ounce, and a general rout in the price of commodities.

Robert Prechter has not only warned about an impending super cycle reversal in the stock market, but also about an intense long term deflationary wave that would affect not only stocks and commodities but all sorts of physical products, such as housing and commercial real estate.

While it is still too early to tell if the bear market rally in the stock market has been completed and a new severe down leg is getting under way, the price action of the last two trading days certainly suggest that at a minimum a long anticipated correction is underway. Should the move be merely a correction I would expect that the down move from the recent high would be on the order of 10 to 20%. Should the sudden drop be the beginning of Robert Prechter’s super cycle price 2010 will be a very rough year in the stock market indeed.

The next few trading days should give us a very good idea as to just how severe the drop may be. It is interesting that according to Robert Prechter’s technical indicators the stock market was ready for a severe sell-off just as president Obama felt that he was forced to play to the populist crowd due to the shocking results of the Massachusetts Senate seat election. He quickly decided to take a tougher stance against the big banks and their speculative trading practices. President Obama even brought Paul Volker out of the shadows to announce that there would be new rules and regulations designed to curb the speculative trading activities of banks.

Paul Volker, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank during president Jimmy Carter’s administration, is widely regarded as the man who broke the inflationary spiral of the late 1970s and early 1980s by raising interest rates. Paul Volker has been pushing for tougher regulations on the banks for some time but apparently was outgunned, until very recently, by Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner, who seem to be the best of friends with the banksters. It would be ironic, indeed, if new tough banking regulations proposed by president Obama, as suggested by Paul Volker, are the trigger for a super cycle stock market crash.

Putting the brakes to the bankers disgraceful and immoral activities may morally be the correct thing to do, and will certainly play well to disgusted and angry taxpayers, but a sharp drop in the stock market will further damage the prospects for an economic recovery, which will lead to even more frustration and anger by the American taxpayer. Really, there is no painless way out of the economic dilemma that several administrations, going back to at least president Reagan, have created for the United States of America.

Stay tuned to see if Robert Prechter is correct about a bearish rare super cycle kicking in. If he is correct, we won’t have long to wait. A super cycle move down will be severe enough to get our full attention.

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President Obama stated in his speech at the West Point Academy that the additional 40,000 troops he was committing to the Afghanistan war would begin to draw down by July 30, 2011. To many observers, including myself, this date is totally unrealistic. Afghan President Karzai has publicly stated that he feels that it would be at least five years before the Afghan army would be able to fully conduct their own operations against the Taliban. After watching the video, one might surmise that the five-year period could just as easily be never.

One might wonder why the Taliban can field a small force that is highly dedicated, motivated, disciplined, and determined to prevail against vastly superior coalition forces while the Afghan army seems to attract mostly uneducated, undisciplined, non-motivated, and juvenile troops. The answer likely it is for two major reasons. One, is that the Taliban draws from young students who graduated from the Madrassas which are located in Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan. The discipline experienced by these young men in the Madrassas is both constant and severe. Their religious training largely consists of memorizing the Koran from start to finish. To complete this task requires tremendous discipline, as well as perseverance.

While training in the Madrassas managed by the Taliban the young students are also trained to be warriors. After a few years of religious and military training the young men become highly disciplined soldiers with a hatred for all things American. In addition, the Taliban attract men from the Afghanistan population who have suffered losses at the hands of coalition forces.

Revenge is a matter of honor in Afghanistan. When an Afghan man has his mother,father, brothers, sisters, cousins, or close friends killed or wounded in attacks brought about by coalition forces he is expected to seek revenge on those who carried out the attacks. While the coalition forces count the killing and wounding of Afghan civilians as collateral damage those surviving members of the family suffering injury often feel honor bound to seek revenge. The most efficient way of doing this is by joining the Taliban.

The other major reason why the Afghan army seems to be so disorganized and unreliable is that the recruits tend to be young uneducated men who are motivated to join the army for one reason only, they need a job. Thus, the recruits have little if any sense of fighting for a central government, which many feel, probably quite correctly, is totally corrupt, but join the army only because they and their families desperately need the small salary that it provides. The troops are totally unmotivated by ideology. If they decide they don’t like army life they simply fade away and return to their home villages. If they get bored with the daily routine of army inspections and foot patrols they disappear to a corner of their camp and smoke a little hashish.

It is almost unbelievable that president Obama and the Pentagon could truly believe that the status of the Afghanistan Army could be drastically altered over the next 18 months or so. After nine years of attempting to upgrade and train the Afghanistan forces into self sufficient fighting units without success you would think that a more realistic exit strategy for American and coalition forces could be devised.

Probably, the president and the Pentagon realizes that there is no way that American forces can withdraw forces from Afghanistan with a victory over the Taliban within the next 18 months, or ever. More than likely team Obama is hoping that the escalation of the American troop commitment to Afghanistan will see some turnaround in the war effort and at some point vicory can be declared and a troop draw-down will become a realistic option.

However, after watching the video above it seems unlikely that the Afghanistan National Army will ever be a match for the disciplined Taliban forces. For one thing, it is apparent that many in the Afghan army are sympathetic to the Taliban’s goal of driving all foreign troops out of Afghanistan. There have already been a number of cases where Afghan Army soldiers have turned their weapons on coalition forces with deadly results.

No matter how often president Obama may dream of an American victory it is likely that the billions of dollars and hundreds, soon to be thousands, of American troops killed or wounded in action in Afghanistan will be a horrible waste. American hubris and the fear of a loss of face by withdrawing from Afghanistan seem to be the glue that keeps us attached to an impossible situation. President Obama has bet the farm by escalating the war in Afghanistan. In effect, he has doubled down on a losing hand. It is highly unlikely that his exit strategy has any likelihood of success. Again, watch the video to get a good idea as to the validity of that statement.

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