Truth is Liberty

Life as an American Citizen 2020?

2012-10-11T16:16:00.001-04:00

(video) Senator Bernie Sanders Sounds off With Elliot Spitzer over Impending Austerity

2012-10-10T00:46:00.003-04:00

Will Obama Use Lame-Duck Session to Smash Social Security and Implement Austerity?

2012-10-09T12:33:00.002-04:00

During "silly season", typically in reference to the second half of an election year, we are often treated to an array of buzzwords used to mask policy reform agendas. Most often these words are carefully chosen in blatant attempt to confuse and mislead the public. 2012 is no different, especially with the fragile economic recovery following the "Great Recession", the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s Great Depression.

Fiscal Cliff is a term used in reference to the conundrum the United States economy faces if a deal is not reached by Democrats and Republicans to the expiring temporary payroll tax cuts, the end of the Bush era margin tax cuts and the impending spending cuts planned as part of the debt ceiling deal agreed upon by both parties in 2011. The IMF and other economic agencies have warned economic growth is threatened if a deal cannot be reached by politicians. Although both Presidential prospects haven't offered a clear plan in regards to the impending crisis it seems President Obama will reduce the deficit by allowing planned spending cuts agreed to in 2011 by both sides and increasing taxes on those who make more than $250,000 per year. Presidential contendor Mitt Romney, who often features the popular nation debt clock on the campaign trial, wants to achieve economic growth through 5 trillion dollars in tax cuts and an additional 2 trillion in military spending. As the forth straight year of $1 trillion dollar deficits looms, the political climate appears to be sour for any measures to reduce spending. House Speaker John Boehner is not optimistic on a compromise

“I think that’s difficult to do,” he told Politico. “And frankly, I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do — have a lot of retiring members and defeated members voting on really big bills. That’s probably not the appropriate way to handle the lame duck.”

The Grand Bargain is term use to describe the agreement between Democrats and Republicans to reduce the federal deficit and shore up entitlement programs over the next decade. The New York Times reports on the details

The White House agreed to cut at least $250 billion from Medicare in the next 10 years and another $800 billion in the decade after that, in part by raising the eligibility age. The administration had endorsed another $110 billion or so in cuts to Medicaid and other health care programs, with $250 billion more in the second decade. And in a move certain to provoke rebellion in the Democratic ranks, Obama was willing to apply a new, less generous formula for calculating Social Security benefits, which would start in 2015.

With the lame duck looming fears in the Democratic ranks have warned of possible cuts in Social Security as part of a post-election deal between both parties. Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont warned Obama may be signaling to Republicans that he may attack Social Security and the benefit structure by delaying full benefits for retirees by re-calibrating the mechanism used to calculate the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Top Obama campaign advisor also hinted at the possibility of a bargain on Social Security reform, but would not devuldge many details.

"[T]he approach has to be a balanced one," Axelrod told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "We've had discussions in the past. And the question is, can you raise the cap some? Right now Social Security cuts off at a lower point. Can you raise the cap so people in the upper incomes are paying a little more into the program? And do you adjust the growth of the program? That's a discussion worth having. But again, we have to approach it in a balanced way. We're not going to cut our way to prosperity. We're not going to cut our way to more secure entitlement programs -- Social Security and Medicare. We have to have a balance."

First Televised Presidential Debate 1960

2012-10-04T11:32:00.001-04:00

Ari Fleischer Reads 9/11 Report In Response To Evidence Bush Ignored Intel About 9/11

2012-09-12T01:36:00.001-04:00

Paul Ryan Agent of the Banking Class

2012-08-11T21:06:00.000-04:00

Bloomberg Reports

Highlights...

Rep. Paul Ryan has more than $5.4 million in his campaign account
Romney’s campaign raised more than $1.2 million after announcing Ryan’s addition to the ticket
Ryan opposes the 2010 financial regulation law that imposed new rules on an industry blamed for contributing to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression (wants more deregulation)
Lobbyists including the American Banking Association and the Financial Services Roundtable scheduled a fundraiser for Ryan’s leadership political action committee
Lobbyists for lenders that make short- term loans online held a fundraiser for Ryan’s re-election campaign

Ryan’s budget proposal to end traditional Medicare for future generations would benefit private insurers!!!

Insurance employees and political action committees have given $815,328 to Ryan’s election efforts over his career

Wisconsin based private insurance Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. and related family have been donating more than $89,000 annually to Paul Ryan's campaign.

Employees of the National Beer Wholesalers Association have been contributing $75,000 annually to Paul Ryan's campaign

Paul Ryan's Net Worth estimated between $927,100 and $3.2 million (2010)

Top Contributors: Baker Tilly Virchow Krause LLP, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Northwestern Mutual, Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), Abbott Laboratories (ABT), Abbott Laboratories (ABT), UBS AG (UBSN) and Home Depot Inc. (HD)

- Ryan’s Prosperity PAC had $724,265 cash on hand at the end of June, according to FEC reports. His campaign account of more than $5 million can be turned over to the Republican National Committee; it can’t be used directly by Romney’s campaign.

HARRY REID IN 1995 ABOUT AUDITING THE FED, SOUNDING LIKE RON PAUL

2012-08-10T13:26:00.003-04:00

the House voted 327-8 to pass Ron Paul’s “Audit the Fed” bill. But the legislation is dead on arrival in the Senate, thanks to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who has vowed not to allow the Senate to vote on it. But it wasn’t always this way with Reid.

Reid championed the legislation, according to watchdog govtrack.us.

In the video of the 1995 speech, Business Insider writes, Reid sounds a lot like Paul:

“I have sponsored legislation every year that would call for an audit of the Federal Reserve system. I offer that amendment every year, every year it gets nowhere,” Reid says. “I think it would be interesting to know about the Federal Reserve. I think we should audit the Federal Reserve — it‘s taxpayer’s money that’s being used there. But we don’t do that.”

“People just don’t care about the Federal Reserve. Maybe it‘s because it’s a subject that’s not very interesting — it’s not pornography, it’s not murder, it’s not an issue that deals with the Wild West.”

Webster Tarpley Lays It All Out

2012-08-08T01:10:00.000-04:00

(youtube) Eyewitness to Colorado Theater Shooting Reports Holmes was not Alone

2012-07-24T04:03:00.002-04:00

U.S. Discretionary Spending: Fiscal Year 2011

2012-07-06T11:26:00.001-04:00

MAP OF THE SEGREGATED ROAD SYSTEM IN ISRAEL/GAZA/WEST BANK

2012-05-29T14:45:00.001-04:00

Gas Prices % Minimum Wage

2012-03-20T13:27:00.000-04:00

Jim Grant (Ron Paul's Pick For Interim FED Chairman) on the slow (but inevitable) transition of US from fiat to Gold Standard

2012-02-27T03:01:00.000-05:00

Discovery Channel – An Inside Look at Gold

2011-09-14T03:38:00.000-04:00

Rahm Emmanuel Breaks Down into Profanity-Laced Tantrum in front of President of Teacher's Union

2011-09-09T21:05:00.000-04:00

Chicago Sun Times

CTU President Karen Lewis made the allegations in a Friday morning press release detailing a complaint filed by the union to the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board over the ongoing battle between the union and City Hall.

“A couple of weeks ago I sat down with the mayor in his office to talk about how to roll out a longer school year and what components would go into making it a better school year for our students but he did not want to have that conversation,” said Lewis. “When I explained to him that a longer school day should not be used for warehousing or babysitting our youth he exploded, used profanity, pointed his finger in my face and yelled. At that point the conversation was over — soon thereafter we found ourselves subject to a full-scale propaganda war over a moot point.”

Asked for his version of the incident at an event Friday with U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Emanuel said “I’m not going to get into a he-said, she-said. ... We had a good meeting. ... She hugged me at the end of the meeting.”

However, Lewis, the CTU and its parent union, the Illinois Federation of Teachers were conspicuously absent from Friday’s event featuring key players in passing Illinois new school reform bill. All had been invited.
Duncan took the opportunity to tell a crowd of mostly officials and reporters that “teachers have been beaten down too long” and “I think we need to double the salaries for teachers... Great teachers should make $130,000, $140,000, $150,000. They shouldn’t have to wait to age 55 to make a good living. They shouldn’t have to take a vow of poverty.”
The teachers union on Thursday filed its first major legal salvo in the battle over a longer school day as Lewis charged that district brass and the mayor had “declared war’’ on the union through an illegal campaign to bypass it.
The union’s complaint with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board Illinois National Labor Relations Board came as teachers at a fourth school — Benjamin Mays Elementary in Englewood — voted to waive the existing CTU contract and add 90 more minutes to the school day in exchange for 2 percent raises and other perks.
At other schools, the CTU complaint alleged, the district conducted “sham elections” with non-union members, “intimidated” some teachers with the threat of layoffs and offered “inducements’’ to others “in an attempt to bypass the CTU’’ and the wages it already negotiated.
“They are going around us to negate the contract with our members, and that is unlawful,’’ Lewis said.
“This is just out-and-out disrespect and war. That’s what this is. This is an attempt to take down and make irrelevant the Chicago Teachers Union because if the CTU goes, they can roll over every union in the city.’’
Thursday’s CTU complaint contends waivers should be canceled at two schools — STEM Magnet and Skinner North — that allegedly conducted “sham elections’’ by allowing non-CTU members to vote. Systemwide, it asks that CPS be barred from “dealing directly’’ with employees about the length of the school day and extra compensation for it.
At STEM Magnet, the complaint charged, teachers were told the school STEM would be “the mayor’s new pet’’ if they approved a longer-day waiver. Mayor Emanuel later made his first school appearance of the new school year at STEM.
At Skinner, according to the complaint, the principal directed direced three non-CTU members who initially declined to vote to do so after the first ballot on the issue came back tied, 6-6.
CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said the CTU contract gives individual schools the right to waive any part of the contract they want. She said the CTU complaint was “ill-advised” and “lacks merit.”

3rd World America in Prices

2011-09-06T21:23:00.001-04:00

MIT Billion Prices Project Puts US Annual Inflation @ 4%

2011-08-31T11:31:00.000-04:00

bpp.mit.edu

indexes are designed to provide real-time information on major inflation trends, not to forecast official inflation announcements. We are constantly adding new categories of goods, but we do not cover 100% of CPI goods and services. The price of services, in particular, are not easy to find online and therefore are not included in our statistics.

Methodology

Data collection: our data are collected every day from online retailers using a software that scans the underlying code in public webpages and stores the relevant price information in a database. The resulting dataset contains daily prices on the full array of products sold by these retailers. Our data include information on product descriptions, package sizes, brands, special characteristics (e.g. “organic”), and whether the item is on sale or price control.

Daily Online Price Index Computation: The daily online index is an average of individual price changes across multiple categories and retailers. The index uses a basket of goods that changes over time as products appear and disappear from a retailer’s webpage. It is updated on a daily basis and leveraged to estimate annual and monthly inflation. This index is not designed to forecast official inflation announcements, but to provide real-time information on major inflation trends.

Monthly Inflation: The monthly inflation rate is the percentage change between the average of the daily online price index of the last 30 days and the average of the previous month. For example, on the last day of September 2010, we compared the average of the daily index between September 1st and September 30th to the average of the daily index between August 1st and August 31st. On the last day of each month, the value of our monthly inflation is equivalent to the monthly statistic reported by official offices.

Annual Inflation: The annual inflation rate is the percentage change between the average of the daily online price index of the last 30 days and the average for the same period a year ago. For example, on the last day of September 2010, we compare the average of the daily index between September 1st and September 30th 2010 to the average of the daily index between September 1st and September 30th 2009. On the last day of each month, the value of our annual inflation is equivalent to the annual (year-to-year) statistic reported by official offices.

National European American Leadership Seminar on September 17, 2011

2011-08-28T14:22:00.000-04:00

David Duke, PhD

On September 17 there will be a full day and evening European American Leadership seminar focusing on the Tactics of White Awakening and mobilization. It will not a be a hand-wringing session bemoaning the sad condition of our people and nations, but a practical seminar concentrating solely on what we can do about it. Specifically, it concerns itself with the high mountain highway of White preservation, renewal and empowerment. It will deal primarily with the ideological and verbal war against our heritage and how to counter anti-White racist ideology and psychology pervading the media and academia. It will focus on methods for our activists and leaders to abandon the defensive positions of traditional conservatism and go on the ideological and psychological offense. Also, it will teach how people how to avoid the traps of the anti-White ideologues and show how the anti-White minions are the true racists and hypocrites on these critical matters. The Seminar will be interesting, entertaining, exciting and inspiring! There will also be music and great fellowship for like-minded people from all over the United States and from many parts of the Western World.

The seminar is organized by dedicated activists in the Knoxville, Tennessee area but will also be sponsored by The Derek and Don Black Radio Program and by David Duke. Dr. Duke will be a main presenter and will give a practical and inspiring after dinner talk the evening of September 17. The event will have interaction atmosphere with a purposefully limited attendance and lots of audience participation and a practical workshop setup.

The speakers will include, among others, the brilliant attorney and writer, Sam Dickson, activist Paul Fromm of Canada, European American talk show phenom, James Edwards, the witty White activist, philosopher Bob Whittaker, Horus the Avenger of White Rabbit fame, and others. Contributors will also include Dr. Ed Fields and other notable attendees who be announced on the Day of this exciting event.
The venue is situated in the Smokey Mountains and there are ample opportunities for you and your family to enjoy the considerable attractions of nature in the area. On Sunday, there will be an Mountain walk and mountaintop discussion with Dr. Duke and Derek Black which promises to be a very special event, which a number of activists expect to be one of the most memorable experiences in their life.
Registration is only $45 dollars per person for the event that will last from 9 am Saturday, September 17, to 10 pm that evening. With a break for a catered lunch and supper (at a moderate extra cost). The optional mountain walk and session will take place Sunday morning.
To register go to http://www.stormfront.org/forum/announcement.php?a=63
Simply go to this link and put in a donation of $45 for each person registering and in the note section specify that the donation is for the conference. Due to security considerations, the exact location will not be released until just prior to the event. It is suggested that you plan to arrive in the Knoxville area for Friday evening by air or automobile, but be sure to refrain from making any hotel reservations until you are notified so that you will find accommodation close to the venue. If you fly into Knoxville, you should arrange for a rental car in order to reach your accommodations and the venue efficiently. Again, you can make flight or auto trip planning now, but wait to make any lodging reservations until we inform you more details closer to the event. There will be plenty of reasonably-priced rooms available in the area close the event. Thank You!

Ron Paul: "FEMA Creates Many Of Our Problems"

2011-08-28T14:15:00.000-04:00

Warren Buffett Attempts to Stick-Save Bank of America, Stock Gets Hammered

2011-08-25T11:18:00.000-04:00

LA Times Reports

Bank of America, under fire from shareholders and analysts, is getting a $5-billion investment from Warren Buffett's investment company. The banking giant's stock soared this morning on the news.
The investment by Berkshire Hathaway is reminiscent of a $5-billion investment Buffett made in Goldman Sachs in September 2008 in the depths of the financial crisis. That injection of capital helped restore confidence in Goldman and helped the Wall Street firm attract other investments.
As with the Goldman infusion, Buffett negotiated extremely favorable terms from Bank of America. He is set to receive BofA preferred shares that will pay Berkshire a 6% dividend each year. If the bank wants to redeem the shares it has to pay Buffett a 5% premium.

Market-Ticker.org

Marc Faber Bloomberg 08/24/11

2011-08-24T13:06:00.002-04:00

Trends Journal Alert: China Offshoring The Collapse of the Western World

2011-08-22T14:43:00.001-04:00

Paul Craig Roberts opines

How big is planet earth? Large if compared to the moon, small if compared to the solar system, and infinitesimal if compared to the universe. The point is that the size of something depends on that to which it is being compared.

The San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank www.frbsf.org and offshoring’s shills forgot this simple point. On August 8 the SF Fed put out an Economic Letter in which US imports of goods made in China (both by Chinese and US firms) were explained away as a mere 2.7 percent of US personal consumption expenditures.

I am confident that the staff of the SF Fed were competent to get the percentage correct. But does it mean anything? No.

For most Americans, their income is used up on housing, energy, car payments, food, and medical care. Very little income is left, especially these days, for durable (for example, furniture and household equipment) and nondurable (for example, clothing and shoes) manufactured goods.

The appropriate comparison of imports from China (from both Chinese owned and US owned corporations) would be with the percentage of personal consumption expenditures spent on durable and nondurable manufactures. As I do not think the US is yet importing cars from China, or at least not in any volume, we can deduct motor vehicles from US personal consumption expenditures on durables. The total personal consumption expenditures on furniture, household equipment, other durables, clothing and shoes comprise 9.9 percent of personal consumption expenditures.

This means that goods imported from China (those made by Chinese and US firms) account for 27% of US expenditures on durable and nondurable manufactured goods not including cars. In other words, imports from China absorb more than one-fourth of
Americans’ expenditures on manufactured goods. The relevant figure is thus ten times the figure delivered by the SF Fed’s Economic Letter, which was picked up and shouted by shills for offshoring.

As about half of US imports from China are the offshored production of US corporations, 13-14 percent of US personal consumption expenditures on manufactures (excluding cars) is on Chinese-made products of US firms.

The substantial part of the US economy that has been offshored to China is only part of the loss of US jobs, consumer incomes, tax base and GDP. US corporations sell to Americans their goods manufactured in Indonesia, Taiwan, S. Korea, Eastern Europe and elsewhere--anywhere labor can be employed at a wage below labor’s contribution to profits.

When you add up all the offshored production by US corporations that import their products back into the US to sell to Americans, who no longer have the jobs, or incomes from the jobs from producing the goods that they consume, we have a very high cost of offshoring that does not enter into the offshoring corporations’ costs of production.

Libertarians and “free market” economists praise Wal-Mart’s low prices achieved by offshoring, but these prices do not include the costs of the decimated state and local tax bases that are destroying American cities, the costs of the high unemployment and the personal depression, crime, and income support programs. These and other costs are expenses imposed on third parties by the movement of American jobs abroad in order to maximize profits.

The earnings of offshoring corporations and retailers do not include all of the real costs. If the costs of offshoring were included--the unemployment and destroyed careers, the cutback in public services, the impact of the trade deficit in reducing the exchange value of the US dollar, and so forth--offshoring would not pay and would not occur.

Here we see one of the greatest failures of capitalism--the ability to produce by imposing the costs of production on innocent third parties who do not participate in the gain.

We see the same high external costs imposed on societies and countries by the financial sector’s greed for profits. The smashing of people’s retirement hopes, the foreclosure of homes, the zero interest rate on the savings of the retired are all the result of a laissez faire financial sector that took the advantage and leveraged debt to previously unimaginable levels. When the bubble burst, the financial sector, both in the US and Europe, used government to raid the pocketbooks of ordinary people in order to prevent any loss to the financial sector from its fraud, greed, and utter irresponsibility.

Capitalism works only when the costs of production are included in the price of the product. With jobs offshoring this is not the case. Free trade works, if it works at all, only when capital and technology remain in the domestic economy and find their best use or comparative advantage. Offshoring is the contradiction of free trade. It is the pursuit of lowest factor cost and absolute advantage.

The loss of manufacturing to offshoring is not the only cost to Americans. Tradable professional services, such as software engineering, have been offshored, thus denying employment to US university graduates. In recent years, a college degree means unemployment, unserviceable student loans, and living with one’s parents.

Jobs offshoring has benefited Wall Street and corporate profits, but it has dismantled the ladders of upward mobility that made America an opportunity society. Yet, America’s political leaders have no clue. Recently President Obama said that part of the solution to the dragging US economy was to pass the “free trade” agreement with South Korea.

In other words, more jobs offshoring will solve the problem.

Many of the few who are aware of the problem blame China for “currency manipulation,” which is also a favorite scapegoat for offshoring’s shills. The argument is that China attracts jobs offshoring by keeping its currency undervalued to the dollar by “manipulating” its currency to keep it pegged to the dollar.

In other words, when the US government manipulates its currency by devaluing it, the Chinese currency follows it down.

This is just another false claim that originates from the offshoring corporations, the bought-and-paid-for economists and policymakers, and the presstitute media. China pegged its currency to the US dollar in order to assure the world that the questionable money of a communist country was as good as the dollar.

Because of US failures, the Chinese currency has become better than the dollar and is undervalued as a result of the peg. China has adjusted to this fact by replacing the fixed peg with a moving peg. The Chinese currency is gaining in US dollar value, but the dollar is depreciating faster than the moving peg is moving. Therefore, China’s currency remains overvalued.

But this is not the reason so many US corporations are producing in China for their American customers. As China, India, Indonesia, and other countries have large excess supplies of labor, labor can be hired at wages that are below labor’s contribution to profit.

The total lack of any patriotism by first world corporations toward their native lands is destroying, economically, Western civilization. As other factors are also destroying Western civilization, we are entering a collapse comparable to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the remaking of the world.

About the author: Former associate editor of The Wall Street Journal and columnist for Business Week, Dr. Paul Craig Roberts served on personal and committee staffs in the House and Senate, and served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration.

Ron Paul Classic: Predicts Housing Bubble in Monetary Hearing with Alan Greenspan 2004

2011-08-22T10:37:00.000-04:00

Russia PM Putin Proposes Reemergence of 'Soviet Era' Economic Union

2011-08-19T12:35:00.001-04:00

Twenty years after the Soviet Union collapsed, Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, may not, as is sometimes alleged, be trying to recreate it. But he is pursuing a different project – to build a “quasi-European Union” out of former Soviet states.

A customs union he launched a year ago between Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan has already removed tariffs and customs controls along the three states’ internal borders.

Come January this is due to expand into a “common economic space”, ensuring free movement of goods, services and capital across a single market of 165m people – 60 per cent of the former Soviet population.

At a Moscow summit this month, prime ministers of the three states set an even more ambitious target – turning the grouping into a “Eurasian economic union” by 2013. There is even talk, down the line, of a common currency. - FT

Bill Black Calls S&P Downgrade Mega Publicity Stunt

2011-08-17T11:38:00.002-04:00