Preparing for Economic Turmoil...

... same laws... but still it happened... laws are written by men, not some greater power... existing laws are simply rewritten, or ignored altogether....
... you still have to survive.... every single person wishes they could go back in time...
...you can’t guess the future, all you can do is estimate what can happen and play the odds in your favor...
... our belief is that it cannot happen... really, it's just a wish that it doesn't...

After many years of apathy in Argentina, the insurrection exploded... spontaneous revolt of “faceless” people... all the way to the city’s vital centers.

What happened to Argentina? ... how was it possible that in so rich a country so many people were hungry? 

The country had been ransacked by a new form of aggression, committed in time of peace and in a democracy. A daily and silent violence caused greater social disruption, more emigration and death than the terrorism of the dictatorship and the Falklands War.

Ever since independence, 200 years ago, Argentina’s foreign debt has been a source of impoverishment and corruption, and the biggest scandals. Since the first loan negotiated in 1824 with the British Bank Baring Brothers, the debt was used to enrich Argentinean financiers, to control the finances and empty the country of its wealth.

This foreign debt always went hand in hand with big business, and with the complicity of nearly every government. The unending policy of indebtedness gave rise to generations of technocrats and bureaucrats, who favored banks and international corporations over their own country. Educated at Harvard, Chicago, Oxford, or other elite schools, their portraits hang in the official galleries of all government buildings.... 

... sound familiar?        ... but no way it can happen here... can it?

Argentina's Economic Collapse (Full Version)

Documentary on the events that led to the economic collapse of Argentina in 2001 which wiped out the middle class and raised the level of poverty to 57.5%. Central to the collapse was the implementation of neo-liberal policies which enabled the swindle of billions of dollars by foreign banks and corporations. The dollar was on par with the Argentine Peso... it was the Argentine equivalent of the roaring twenties...then chaos broke out as overnight the money left the country and the banks took the peoples money. The streets exploded and the government went through a succession of presidents in a few days. The film amazing as it shows just how easy it is for a country to go down the tubes by letting politicians worry about their interests more than those of the people. Many of Argentina's assets and resources were shamefully plundered. Its financial system was even used for money laundering by Citibank, Credit Suisse, and JP Morgan. The net result was massive wealth transfers and the impoverishment of society which culminated in many deaths due to oppression and malnutrition.   If you want to help prevent the same thing from possibly happening here, and it is starting to happen, right now,... join the revolution at the Kick Them All Out Project.

(side note - check out precious metal prices - less than 1% of the population owns any... 

...what happens when the REAL crisis arrives)

Preparing for Economic Collapse | The Matrix Sentry

The Face of Special Interest Money.

An important eight part video series exposes the Koch Brothers’ control over your job, your life, and your well-being.
You can be listed as a Producer for the Koch Brothers Exposed video series.

This project involved 4 months of hard work and MUST get finished and out to the world to educate the public.
It’s $40 billion of Koch money vs us!

Donate to become a Producer on this project.


What do Walmart, FOX News, and Koch Brothers have in common?

Government Should Not Have To....

 .... 'Continue To Take Care Of Us When We Repeatedly Insist On Doing Dumb Things.'

An issue we are going to have to soon address... in our new climate changed world we are going to have more and increasing dramatic weather related events.
How are we going to keep paying for them?
As storms increase in intensity and frequency, more and more individuals are going to be affected... in some areas, over and over again.

Like it or not, the endless pot of money is just not there to provide for each and every time disaster is going to strike... at some point the system has to reflect this fact, and it will keep breaking down until it does.
People are going to have to realize they will have to leave some of these more susceptible areas in order to survive. In many instances government didn't do its job... letting them be there in the first place.

Like it or not, the new reality will have to set in... otherwise the situation only becomes that much worse and completely unwieldy.
It will become an ever increasing conflicting issue, as costs continue escalating... eventually spiraling totally out of control.

ThinkProgress » Ron Paul: ‘Why Not?’ Abolish FEMA, Government Should Not ‘Take Care Of Us When We Do Dumb Things’

The Audacity of Genetically Modified Foods.

... consumers are largely unaware that 70 to 80 % of the processed foods we buy contain GM-Genetically Modified ingredients.

... we are 'largely unaware' because these foods are not labeled they contain GM ingredients.. even through 90% of consumers continuously state they want them so labeled.

... regulatory bodies and government are staffed with pro-GM people, a veritable revolving door from government to industry... a very serious issue that must be confronted and resolved.

... there are by design minimal requirements for independent testing of GM crops and foods.

... there is significant correlation between the increase in incidence of serious health problems and the introduction of various GM crops into our foods.

... more drastic are the cases of animals dying following their consumption of GM crops... not only lab test animals but farm animals.

... Monsanto and the biotech industry are well on their way to controlling the world`s seed markets.

... favorite fruits, vegetables and grains are being readied for the GM market that views us as guinea pigs.

This is an extremely serious issue... the real discussion should be about the audacity and illegitimate way GM crops have been forced on a reluctant United States and world.. and the money, corruption, politics and obfuscation characterizing its' rise to dominance.

The discussion should focus on how GM crops have taken over our food supply with little concern for safety or our right to choose, and our government's direct hand and continued complicity in support of corporate interests.

There are several truly important films dealing with this subject that you should watch...
...'The Future of Food'... 'Food Inc.'... 'The Future of Food.'  Additional information regarding them can be found under the heading 'FilmsYouShouldSee' on the blog's Home bar.


The audacity of genetically modified foods - Boulder Daily Camera

Sunspot Cycle 2012 Predictions

The Sun is more active currently than at any time in the past 11,000 years.

Potent enough CME's (Corona Mass Ejections) can knock out grids, satellites, microchip circuitry, as well as thousands of pole transformers... all in a single blow. And once this equipment fails, most of it will require more than an overnight service call to fix.

For a significant event, the radiation will send electrical current downward in an arc and triggered a cascading failure of power grids across the world.
An ejection can pack the wallop of a billion hydrogen bombs. In 1989, a small one struck Quebec, Canada, causing a 9-hour electricity blackout for six million customers.

A NASA-funded study published in 2009 went so far as to suggest electric power and communications to tens of millions of people in the industrialized world could disappear for months.
With communications satellites disabled and the power grid inoperative, everything from the water supply to public transit would go out of service. Gasoline could no longer be pumped from underground tanks, stoplights would fail, consumers couldn't buy groceries, hospitals would become inaccessible and law enforcement personnel would have no way to communicate with each other.

In February 2010, NASA launched the Solar Dynamics Observatory, to join the army of space probes monitoring the situation. But like the others, this one can do nothing to thwart the impact of a CME, only watch. 

The Previous Doomsday of 12,950 BC: what was it like?

Recent data shows that dramatic and potentially deadly effects can result from solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Substantial data suggests that an event, similar to the one anticipated in the 2012 'doomsday' scenario, occurred about 14,950 years ago and was recorded by ancient humans.
This event appears to have lasted for several years in duration and was responsible for the abrupt end of the last ice age.

The extreme solar event corresponded to powerful radiation coming from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy and was associated with gamma rays and cosmic dust. Recent observations have shown a dramatic increase in gamma ray energy in the Galaxy's equator which will be in maximum alignment with our solar system on December 12, 2012.
The past records in ice cores (strata from 13,880 to 13,785 BCE) suggest that intense radiation from this last event could have lasted many years.
It seems highly likely this alignment will cause another extreme solar event, since other factors precipitating a 'solar maximum' also converge on this exact same date...
...we have up until that time to prepare.

Sunspot Cycle 2012 Predictions: Effects on the Power Grid and beyond - Solar flares, Corona Mass Ejections and NASA

Close the 'School of the Americas'

Ask yourself a couple of questions... one...what, if anything, do you know about the 'School of the Americas'? You might not realize it, but it is having a dramatic and profound effect on all our lives, and those of  millions of others in various regions all over the world.

The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHISC or WHINSEC), formerly the School of the Americas (SOA; Spanish: Escuela de las Américas) is a United States Department of Defense facility at Fort Benning near Columbus, Georgia in the United States.

All in Latin America have ample experience with US terrorist tactics. In South America alone 90,000 people disappeared as a direct result of the operation of the School of the Americas and US "counterinsurgency" policies  (30 times more than the victims of the World Trade Center).
It is estimated that the 64,000 Latin American troops trained at SOA since the 1960's have been involved in around 75,000 murders in El Salvador, 200,000 in Guatemala, and thousands more in other violence-torn countries such as Columbia. 

According to the Center for International Policy, "The School of the Americas had been questioned for years, as it trained many military personnel before and during the years of the 'national security doctrine'... the dirty war years in the Southern Cone and the civil war years in Central America, in which the armed forces within several Latin American countries ruled or had disproportionate government influence and committed serious human rights violations in those countries."

And the next question... what is 'the second 9/11'? (Ours was not the first of dramatic importance.)
U.S. terrorism is far worse because we are a powerful state. Take what happened on 9/11, it was a serious terrorist act. In Latin America, they often call it 'the second 9/11'... because there was another one, namely September 11th, 1973  (the original 9/11... giving rise to increased hatred of the U.S. for it's role in the incident).

"Suppose that al Qaeda had not just blown up the World Trade Center, but suppose they’d bombed the White House, killed the president, established a military dictatorship, killed maybe fifty to a hundred thousand people, tortured seven hundred thousand, instituted a major international terrorist center in Washington, which was overthrowing governments around the world and installing malicious dictatorships, assassinating people, and brought in a bunch of economists who drove the economy into its' worst disaster maybe in history. Well, that would be worse than what we call 9/11... and it did happen... namely on 9/11/1973." 

Remembering September 11 1973 

Were the lives of those killed at the World Trade Center more valuable than the innocents murdered in Chile's U.S. backed coup.

SOA and WHINSEC graduates continue to surface in news reports regarding both current human rights cases and new reports.

Journalist and documentarian John Pilger focuses on the role played by the U.S. in promoting Latin American democracy, suggesting American leaders have often favored oppressive regimes over more democratic alternatives. Pilger, in his film 'The War On Democracy,' outlines the last five decades of political manipulation by the CIA and other U.S. agencies, focusing in particular on recent efforts to unseat the populist Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

THE WAR ON DEMOCRACY

It flies in the face of the false realities being promulgated by media and powers with vested interests in the area. This is an important film you really should take the time to watch to better understand the continuing international policies of the American government throughout the world, and their effect on how the world population views the interventionist role of our government. It's truly a 'must see' film.

SOA Watch: Close the School of the Americas

Ice-bound wonderlands.

Having been to the Antarctic just a few months back had to post a link for this TED video I came across recently.

Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world

TED is a great site... if you're not familiar with it, sign on to their subscription feed.
They send out an email once a week showing new presentations.
All are well done and always interesting.
(You can unsubscribe at any time).

Hope you enjoy.

Paul Nicklen: Tales of ice-bound wonderlands | Video on TED.com

Time to stand up... or give up.

Following the writings of individuals 'close to the ground' on these issues for some time... this is one of the most succinct I've recently come across.
Not only does Ronnie Cummins unflinchingly lay out the 'way it is' now... he does what many do not do... informing us of what we need do to 'get through' to our future.

Not wanting to believe it is going to happen is fast becoming a non-option...
... critical issue now is devising a survivable path & workable strategy for the kids & gk's to follow.
Cummins' perpends in his well written piece..."I’m horrified to ponder the thought my teenage son may have to struggle for sheer survival in a brutal, ecologically devastated, martial law state."... 

... we all have to be. 


The Xtremes... Recipes for Catastrophic Times | Common Dreams

Global Corporate Crime Wave

The world is drowning in corporate fraud,... money talks, and it is corrupting politics and markets all over the world.

There is scant accountability... two years after the biggest financial crisis in history, fueled by biggest banks unscrupulous behavior, not a single financial leader has faced jail.

Corruption pays in American politics as well... most corporate crimes go un-noticed... and politicians often look the other way when corporate behavior crosses the line.

Close connections of wealth and power with the law, make reining in corporate crime an enormous struggle. Politicians must emancipate themselves from corporate donations, to regain the ability to control corporate abuses.

This is a very tough challenge.. but how much longer can we continue on. The system is severely straining with the weight of all the many enormous issues burdening it, yet the powers that be would appear to have a very definite plan, with no indication they are willing in any way to relinquish even one iota of their control.

The Global Economy’s Corporate Crime Wave by Jeffrey D. Sachs - Project Syndicate

Seas rise up to 5 feet by ??

2100 is as good a guess as any... and seems a long way off.
But that date is not fixed, and undoubtedly will change and shorten again in the very near future...(and remember of course no way is 63" a 'set in stone' maximum).

The question no one wants to tackle is when will we actually start to notice the dramatic sea level rise that most surely will come. As soon as that time comes, it is going to get very crazy in our world, as such a huge percentage of the world's major infrastructure and expanded population are in precarious proximity to shorelines and low lying areas.

Just set your mind to imagining the changes that the world will have to undergo are mind-boggling...(think New Orleans spread over the entire planet... and it's permanent).
Even if we began a crash program starting tomorrow (which of course there seems little likelihood of us doing).. there would, in all probability, not be enough time to counter the extreme catastrophe looming in our future.

one meter rise

Seas could rise up to 1.6 meters by 2100: study | Reuters

Beyond Retaliation | Voices for Creative Nonviolence

... 850 children die there every day...

...it is termed the worst country in the world into which a child can be born... where average life expectancy is 42 years of age... 7.4 million live with hunger and fear of starvation... millions more rely on food help... 20% of children die before the age of five....

... 6000+ US Soldiers killed... trillions of dollars wasted.... hundreds of thousands of civilians killed... tens of thousands imprisoned... torture as part of foreign policy...

...and each week taxpayers in the US continue spend two billion dollars to continue a senseless war...

..this is Afghanistan.... we must end this war.

Atrocities in Afghanistan: A Troubling Timetable

Beyond Retaliation | Voices for Creative Nonviolence

Sanders Interview on Daily Show

Sanders saying LOTS that makes sense... thinkin maybe he should change his mind, and at run for President...
...if only to get some of what the other guys are not talkin bout into the debate.

Daily Show: Bernie Sanders Interview Pt. 1

Daily Show: Bernie Sanders Interview Pt..2

In this unedited, extended interview, Bernie Sanders believes the Republican plan to cut social programs while extending tax cuts for the wealthy is insane.

Exclusive - Bernie Sanders Extended Interview Pt. 1 - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 04/27/11 - Video Clip | Comedy Central

Free Bradley Manning

If you have not been following this case closely, then take up the cause... ask yourself honestly, how much do I know about it.

We should all be absolute awe of the undaunted spirit of this young American.
What he has had to endure NO one should ever have to be subjected to... and to think it comes at the hands of one's own government is beyond comprehension.

If this is what our country has become and now stands for, then I'm in fact ashamed to say this is my country.

Justice demands Bradley Manning's release.



Free Bradley Manning | Truthout

Corporate Stock Repurchases Manipulate Stock Prices

 The video had originally been labeled as 'private', and this was the first time I had ever seen that... anyway, it did finally get posted... here it is:

Interview with Paul Jay from The Real News and William Lazonick

William Lazonick: SEC allows corporate executives to make fortunes exercising stock options after large buybacks boost prices.

Corporate Stock Repurchases Manipulate Stock Prices

Bio
William Lazonick is a professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell where he directs the Center for Industrial Competitiveness, and co-founder and president of The Academic-Industry Research Network (theAIRnet). He is also affiliated with the University of Bordeaux and the University of Ljubljana, and collaborates extensively on research in Europe. Previously, Lazonick was Assistant and Associate Professor of Economics at Harvard University, Professor of Economics at Barnard College of Columbia University, and Visiting Scholar and then Distinguished Research Professor at INSEAD. Lazonick holds a B.Com degree from the University of Toronto (1968), a M.Sc. degree in economics from the London School of Economics (1969), and a Ph.D. degree in economics from Harvard University (1975). In 1991 Uppsala University awarded him an honorary doctorate for his work on the theory and history of economic development. He is the author or editor of twelve books, including Competitive Advantage of the Shop Floor (Harvard University Press, 1990) and Business Organization and the Myth of the Market Economy (Cambridge University Press, 1991), and more than 100 academic articles. His latest book, Sustainable Prosperity in the New Economy? Business Organization and High-Tech Employment in the United States (Upjohn Institute for Employment Research 2009) has been awarded the 2010 Schumpeter Prize by the International Schumpeter Society. Currently Lazonick is directing an international project on financial institutions for innovation and development, funded by the Ford Foundation, and a project on the stock market and innovative enterprise funded by the Institute of New Economic Thinking.

Warped Tax System: Taxpayers Subsidize Own Destruction

Blackmail, bribery, quasi-legal 'subsidies'... glories of the free market...another 'shining' business model...

... rush to tell and show your kids how this is the way to large a portion of our biggest and best US corporations function today... business as usual, in our 'corporate welfare system.'...

... where are we going to wind up?


The Warped US Tax System: Taxpayers Subsidize Their Own Destruction

Only Hope: You

Remember the old TV show... 'Who Do You Trust?'...
...we'll in today's hidden agenda world... ya gotta say... precious few...
....the Corporate State Always Wins...

".... see how you are manipulated? The Fed/TBTF/Govt/Media Complex is desperately clinging to power. Again, anyone with a brain knows that oil is rising because its denominated in dollars. Its the reason corn is rising. Its the reason gold is rising. Its the reason the stock market is rising. 
The world is awash in dollars, willfully printed by the Federal Reserve, to fund the U.S. government ponzi scheme. If you want to control inflation and bring the cost of crude oil down, you stop printing money and make the U.S. government function on revenues alone.

But that’s not going to happen, now is it? Nope. No way. So long as the politicians and their willing accomplices in the media can construct straw men upon whom you can vent your anger, change will never come. 

Your politicians will distract your neighbors from focusing on the real problem (them) by encouraging them to chase dead ends, instead."

We live in a fragmented society.... ignorant of what is being done to us.... diverted by the absurd and political theater....
....so again... who do you trust... ya gotta figure, you're pretty much on your own!!

The time to stand up is NOW!!

Our Only Hope: You | The Matrix Sentry

... a step away from recession...

... one shock away from a full-blown crisis...

... approaching national debt on par with the total GDP of the country.... is very serious because most economic research suggests countries tend to decelerate in their growth and have more and more severe economic problems, once their debt-to-GDP ratio gets above about 90 per cent.... we’re about to go through that level...

... with its own backyard in disarray, the US is hardly in a position to hand out financial advice to others....
America’s financial management can be best defined by a non-stop borrowing binge...

... problem is so bad the US president cannot ignore it, and the government seems not to know how to solve it....

... changes will come gradually... Turkey, Iran, Russia, China are increasing the irrelevance of Washington.


Note:  
Bank of China is now allowing American firms to trade in renminbi, another step in China’s effort to position the currency on the world stage.
Promoting the renminbi to Americans at a time when loose monetary policy on the part of the US Federal Reserve has some concerned the dollar’s value will continue to decline.

America only one step away from recession — RT

The Evil of Monsanto

Monsanto's Legal Battles against Farmers

Monsanto's 'Terminator Gene' is a gene put into a seed, when the seed becomes a plant, that plant will not seed again it will be terminated. Basically this accomplishes sterility in plants.
Monsanto will make this a law so that any farmer has to buy only GMO seeds from Monsanto over and over again and they will again dominate the world.

Another modification Monsanto has in store is called the 'Cheater Gene' which appears to be a normal plant but with the addition of more chemicals it becomes another terminator gene and the plant will not be able to seed or be reproduced through it’s own seeds.

Monsanto will kill any seeds that are organic, they will produce low quality chemicals put into seeds that will require an increasing amount of chemicals to maintain and only Monsanto chemicals like Round Up will be used.
The control will be with this corporation only and they want to control all farms and your food supply.

This is a very powerful corporation with 21,000+ employees and over $10 billion in annual revenues.
Harboring a pretty insane and evil philosophy, with some grand ideas of world domination.


There is a very good documentary about the food industry in America today... you should make it a point to look it up and watch it... (it's on Watch Instantly on Netflix).
It has a major segment dealing with Monsanto... absolutely infuriating to say the least.

'FOOD INC.'

...there may be more time... but how much is anyone's guess...

...the real problem for America may well be that it does not face a short-term crisis... cost of servicing America's debt today is actually lower than it was in 1998, at the height of the Clinton boom....
... why? ... even though the US debt now is much greater, interest rates are much lower... result is a lower bill...

... the real problem is that this short-term good news means Washington isn't really acting as if it faces a crisis, no matter the rhetoric....
people are still pushing their ideologies rather than fixing the problem...

... great danger is that once again, the American economy will momentarily outperform expectations and relieve politicians from having to make hard choices about entitlements and taxes...

...but it will only postpone the day of reckoning and make the crash that much more painful.... (be wise... take the time and prepare).


For U.S. Economy, Short-Term Good News Is Bad News -- TIME

Noam Chomsky - Who Owns the World?

Many are the authors who may wonder if anyone is paying attention to what they write.
Professor Noam Chomsky, MIT's preeminent linguistics authority, doesn't have that problem.

Recent research on citations in three different citation indices show that Professor Chomsky is one of the most cited individuals in works published in the past 20 years.
In fact, his 3,874 citations in the Arts and Humanities Citation Index between 1980 and 1992 make him the most cited living person in that period and the eighth most cited source overall -- just behind famed psychiatrist Sigmund Freud and just ahead of philosopher Georg Hegel.

Indeed, Professor Chomsky is in illustrious company. The top ten cited sources during the period were: Marx, Lenin, Shakespeare, Aristotle, the Bible, Plato, Freud, Chomsky, Hegel and Cicero.

But that isn't all.
From 1972 to 1992, Professor Chomsky was cited 7,449 times in the Social Science Citation Index-likely the greatest number of times for a living person there as well, although the research into those numbers isn't complete. In addition, from 1974 to 1992 he was cited 1,619 times in the Science Citation Index.

"What it means is that he is very widely read across disciplines and that his work is used by researchers across disciplines," said Theresa A. Tobin, the Humanities Librarian who checked the numbers.
"In fact," she added, "it seems that you can't write a paper without citing Noam Chomsky.

Chomsky is a 'huge deal'... what he says we all should be mindful of, and listen to very carefully. This lengthy article is a must read (at least a couple times to grab all its' message) for anyone interested in the state of the world today.
And search out and watch his YouTube interviews... he's very easy to listen to and understand, and what he says is crucial to all of us in today's world.

Note:  The list of url's for his speeches & interviews has been moved up top to the 'Home' bar on the blog... (ChomskyTalks).


Tomgram: Noam Chomsky, Who Owns the World? | TomDispatch