Allison Bricker

Synopsis:

Global warming alarmists want Americans to believe that humans are killing the planet. But Not Evil Just Wrong, a new documentary by Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, proves that the only threats to America (and the rest of the world) are the fl awed science and sky-is-falling rhetoric of Al Gore and his allies in environmental extremism.   The film warns Americans that their jobs, middle-class lifestyles and dreams for their children will be destroyed if the government rushes to judgment and imposes job-killing regulations on an economy already mired in recession.

Not Evil Just Wrong exposes the deceptions about global warming that scientists, politicians, educators and the media have been force-feeding the public for years, including fear-mongering about floods and dying polar bears. The documentary shows how environmentalists are pushing the same kind of anti-human propaganda that triggered a ban DDT and condemned millions of children to death by malaria, a story recounted in the documentary. Not Evil Just Wrong asks: Is carbon dioxide the new DDT and are we taking the same risks with our future?

Source(s):

Allison Bricker

CNBC
Attention: Dennis Kneale, host
900 Sylvan Avenue
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 07632
(201) 735-2622 Office
(201) 735-3200 Fax

Re: The Blogosphere and the True State of the Economy

Dear Mr. Dennis Kneale:

Recently, you attempted to discredit the entire new-media/blogosphere based on several individual vitriolic blog posts criticizing your Keynesian analysis whereby you stated:

“the Great Recession is over.”

Dennis Kneale
CNBC
June 25th, 2009

In a subsequent display wholly unbecoming of a journalist, regardless of medium, and in lieu of offering further research to buttress your original statement, you opted to stoop to their logical fallacy of argumentum ad hominem and referred to your critics as “digital dickweeds”. Additionally, you then further attempted to construct a straw man by directing your ire towards the anonymity offered by the internet, when the crux of the matter is your analysis, not the benefit or detriment of anonymity.

Therefore, should you be open to an actual discussion regarding the causation, length, and the fundamental flaws of your economic philosophy, I would be happy to oblige. Moreover, my name and the legal names of all contributors to “The Smoking Argus Daily” have and shall remain in full view righteously pegged to their individual reports and editorials.

Admittedly, we may share a general dislike of anonymous blog posts; however, our nation has a rich history of pen names and anonymously penned editorials. One only need to think of the founding generation’s use during the time leading up to the ratification of the Constitution, as well as Mark Twain, to understand that anonymity is not solely the tool of those with low moral fortitude.

Respectfully,

Allison Bricker

P.S. If you would like me to fax over a copy of my driver’s license in order to prove the factualness of my name in order to avoid your condescending use of air quotes, just let me know.

Kelly

Martina Portnaya of Russia Today interviews Gerald Celente of the Trends Research Institute.  Celente describes the current trends of the United States government i.e. incremental fascism, as well as the current trends of the American people in a time of economic crisis.

Kelly

I wanted to sit down today and write about a topic that has  truly been on my mind now for the past several weeks.  A topic for me, while a reality for others that has unhinged and unsettled me in ways that I want to at least attempt to describe, as well as discuss.  Homelessness…is not a new phenomenon.  No matter how prosperous, or how free, or how much equality we attempt to inject into the playing field, homelessness would still exist to some degree, as it always has.  But, since the end of the Great Depression and America’s march towards world dominance, homelessness has mostly been chalked up to drug addicts, alcoholics and prostitutes (the ne’er do wells of society).  Interestingly, these are exactly the people that Jesus would have befriended.

As a child and a teenager, I wore my heart on my sleeve.  I was guided by emotion.  And with that, wanted to see the world become an utopia.  I believed that no one should have to starve, or be homeless, no one should be the victim of disease or war.  But quickly, as people do, I figured out that what should be and what is, is better reiterated as ideology versus reality, two paths that have yet to cross.

Ideologies eventually spin out of themselves in the real world.  Proponents of socialism and communism will claim that these ideological systems have yet to work because they have yet to be implemented correctly.  They will claim that never has a communism existed in a pure form.  But, that is exactly because the reality of human nature is not a fantastic utopia.

Thus far, free will has been the greatest solution.  Free will does not collectively ensure the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, rather free will is for the individual and ensures that only the individual has his/her best interests at heart.  Where does this leave those that have simply made poor choices?

Does it mean that people should never require a helping hand?  Does it mean that organizations should not be created to offer assistance?  Absolutely not.  But, to those who state that our government is not doing enough, I will say that far more harm has been the result of  endless legislation that has stifled the free will of Americans.  We have allowed our lawmakers to strap us with debt and laws, whereby we are now essentially turning to them to get us out of every mess thinkable.  We have become poisoned by an ideology that has beaten into the heads of generation after generation: You need us, you are not capable of solving your own ills, let alone the ills of an entire society.  And so, we have perpetually insisted that our government do more, help more, and fix more.  Unfortunately, it has not worked.  There are not fewer people on unemployment, there are not fewer people using food stamps, there are not fewer people whose existence is almost wholly subsidized by government, and there are not fewer homeless people.

Of course, it is easy to blame all of the rising statistics on the current economic crisis, collapse, recession, as though our economic state is some ominous dragon with an unknown origin.  But by now, we surely know that a fire-breathing dragon is not what’s behind the curtain.  We have been spectators for far too long.

I suppose that being a spectator is exactly what unsettles me most lately as I read another article or watch another documentary featuring the wave of new homelessness that is represented in the tent cities.  Can’t we do better than this?  Do we seriously live in a country where former Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, can launder billions of taxpayer dollars to his friends at Goldman Sachs while at the exact same time American people are putting up a tent that they can call home?

Regardless, I do not want for the government to come and rescue the tent city dwellers.  For one, the government cannot spend one single dime efficiently.  Two, a fenced in nefarious camp where people are accounted for by wristband is plain sick.  And three, I believe that individuals and the private sector can always do a much better job.  But, that begs the question, where is the private sector?  Or are these tent cities just an “American tradition,” as some have claimed?  It seems to me, where a vacuum exists, there is a solution waiting to be found.

Kelly

Every day I wake up to pour another cup of hot coffee and delight in a hot shower is another day that I am grateful to have been born on American soil.  I know we’ve had it good.

But lately, every day as I pass my fellow Americans at the grocery store or the gas station  I wonder,  do they know what is going on?  Are they paying attention?  Do they see what I see?

It is not that long ago,  a time when Americans were beginning to get very comfortable with a slogan and a way of life that claimed you could have anything you wanted, even if it meant that you could not afford it.

Instant gratification became the crack of middle class America.  Credit line after credit line, a new car there and a new computer here, snowballed in to a dozen other must-have gadgets. Gadgets for him, gadgets for her, and an  XBox 360 for every boy and girl.  Not happy yet?  Spend more money.  How should we fight terrorism?  Spend more money.  Do you need a 3000 sq ft home to compete for a status symbol?  Spend more money.  No down payment?  We’ve got credit.

Is there more to it than that?  Sure.  There’s speculation, and brokers, and bankers, and Wall Street.  There’s interest rates, and deficits, and mortgage backed securities, sub-prime and ARM’s.  There’s the Federal Reserve, and the IMF, and a pyramid scheme from hell…  and a list of illiquid assets that would stretch for miles long.

“Who will fix this mess?” We ask.  And the fixers step in…

* With that in mind, I wanted to share the following video commentary, entitled  America’s Controlled Economic Implosion.   It presents how the American people are falling victim to the current tailspin of “fixing.”

Allison Bricker

President Obama gave the first prime time press conference of his Presidency last evening, rehashing the speech he gave earlier in the day at Concord high school in Elkhart, Indiana. Using his unparalleled skills of oratory, President Obama offered up a comparison eerily reminiscent to the smoking-gun-mushroom-cloud analogy, warning of dire irrecoverable consequences if Congress did not pass the second bloated $834 Billion Dollar “stimulus” bill.

Desiring to compartmentalize and dismiss opposition to further government intervention into the economy, President Obama said:

“Doing little or nothing at all will result in even greater deficits, even greater job loss, even greater loss of income, and even greater loss of confidence.”

President Obama
East Room of the White House
February 9th, 2009

Additionally, the President attempted to cast off the growing debate over whether or not the massive interventionist policies begun by President Hoover and grossly expanded under President Roosevelt via the New Deal, ended the Great Depression. It is most assuredly doubtful that any loyalists to Keynesian economic theory could dare bring themselves to critically question a review of the actual historical record. However, a literal mountain of data points to a much darker reality. Government intervention did not end the depression; World War II at the steep cost of 416,800+ American lives unfortunately holds that distinction.

Only after President Roosevelt bypassed the Neutrality Act and authorized the “Destroyers for Bases Agreement” transferring fifty U.S. naval destroyers to Great Britain in September of 1940, did unemployment fall from 14.6% to 9.9% that following year¹. Up until the agreement, the unemployment rate refused to fall more than five points² from its all time high in 1933. In fact in the last half of President Roosevelt’s second term and prior to the agreement, after all the government programs, price fixing, gold confiscations, public works programs, etcetera, unemployment was again moving back up towards 20%.

It is possible that some might ask; how do we know that President Obama follows this Keynesian economic model? The answer to this question was most definitely confirmed during both the press conference last night and today in Fort Meyers, Florida when he quipped:

“Credit markets are the life blood of the economy.”

President Obama
East Room of the White House
February 9th, 2009

Credit, fellow readers, as I am sure you know, is merely a euphemism for “debt.” Thus, massive foreclosures³, unemployment, or any other pseudo-compassionate rhetoric that may dribble from his mouth is not his first priority. No this plutocratic pull-peddler’s most pressing desire is to jump-start and perpetuate the endless cycle of American consumerism following the same failed philosophy of buy now, pay later, save nil.

Perhaps rather than labeling credit as the “life blood” of our economy, a more accurate and succinct comparative would be heroine. While withdrawal is unquestionably painful, it is an addiction we must break. Keynesian philosophy at its rotted core, believes that credit and massive spending can forestall any and all economic downturns. It is possible, although not likely; this philosophy in the most minor of instances might be exercised successfully. A band-aid solution for an economy merely suffering a “skinned-knee”, otherwise wholly inappropriate for current circumstances.

However, the problems we now face are much more severe than a skinned knee. They are a fundamental and unequivocal failure wrought by this “band-aid” philosophy. Year after year, bubble after bubble, this corrupt government filled with its tax cheat bankers and narcissistic politicians have through their central Keynesian planning, left us at the precipice of financial ruin. Yet undaunted by facts, President Obama has the audacity to say:

“We can’t posture and bicker and resort to the same failed ideas that got us into this mess in the first place.”

President Obama
Concord High School
Elkhart, Indiana
February 9th, 2009

Mr. President, I could not agree more. Ironic is it not that he can say this with a straight face knowing that for the last ninety-five years, the largest and most insidious of all failed ideas, the private banker monopoly of the FEDERAL RESERVE has dictated American monetary policy?

Contrary to the empty suit rhetoric of our current President, those of us railing against this most recent expanse of centralized solutions, have much more in mind than simply “doing nothing”.

As history illustrates quite nicely, whether you look at the Panic of 1819, the Great Depression of the 1930′s, the stagflation of the 1970′s, or the current economic collapse, all were exacerbated by the inherent flaws of an expansionist monetary policy under the cold calculating hand of a central bank. Let us proclaim loudly and spread this most essential of fact from coast-to-coast. In addition, along with abolishing the 3rd central bank, vis-à-vis the FEDERAL RESERVE, we must repudiate its odious debt promulgated by the illicit practice of fractional reserve banking.

Fellow readers, now that the stimulus bill has cleared the faux opposition by Republicans, have we avoided a deepening of the crisis? Does this stimulus bill nullify the coming commercial real estate and credit card collapses? In your opinion what will be the state of our nation come July?

Source(s): ¹Naval Historical Center “Destroyers for Bases Agreement, 2 September 1940″ • ²Principles of Economics, Student Edition, Chapter 17 • ³Bloomberg “U.S. Taxpayers Risk $9.7 Trillion on Bailout Programs (Update1)

Joseph Marohl

In a blog on yesterday’s Huffington Post, John Fischer raises a pointed question: Are Americans afraid of the changes President Obama and a majority of Americans say we need? He even goes so far as to compare Obama’s inaugural address to McCain supporter Phil Gramm’s offhand comment that we’ve become a “nation of whiners,” while emphasizing that Gramm’s remark was basically a plea to ignore the current problems and just think positive, while Obama’s plea is to make sacrifices to solve those problems.

But do Americans know how to make sacrifices anymore? Do I, individually? And we should keep in mind that “making sacrifices” is a voluntary act, not simply “dealing with” losses we suffer but have had no say in. And, perhaps needless to say, “making sacrifices” means WE sacrifice something, not merely look to others to sacrifice.

Some of the other commentators on Obama’s address last Tuesday have noted that its audience failed to respond to the call for “sacrifice”—a word used only twice in the speech and in both cases comfortably couched in the past tense: our “ancestors” and American soldiers in “Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sanh.” But the idea of sacrifice is not far behind the rest of the address, notably in the phrase “the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves.”

The idea of the “common good” prevailed in olden days. The signers of the Declaration of Independence “mutually” put up “their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” as collateral to ensure the independence of the United States from Great Britain. Today, faced with scary economic prospects, how many John Hancocks would put up their weekends, their tax returns, and their partisan political stances to ensure the independence of the United States from its creditors (mainly China, Japan, and the U.K.) or from undue influence of lobbyists for global corporations or from religious fanaticism of every stripe? (Not to mention lobbyists for “special interests” such as my own.)

And do we today even believe that such sacrifice matters? Do we believe it could work? Do we have the confidence the original declarers of independence had that there even exists meaning outside ourselves?

Perhaps more to the point, the point of Fischer’s article anyway, is whether we Americans have become such wusses that the current economic downturn strikes us a much worse than it really is. According to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, cited by Fischer, our present recession does not stack up impressively against those of 1948 and 1957, much less the Great Depression, the most common historical analogy given as proof of how tough we all have it now. There’s no denying that things are dire and promise to get worse—but is the hand-wringing really called for? Can’t we just buckle down the way previous generations did and tough this thing out?

And even if the perspective of the report resembles Gramm’s can-do Pollyanna-ism (we are, after all, citing the dubious Federal Reserve), might it also be true that the sky is not falling? Or, if it is, that it has fallen much worse on our parents and grandparents, and they were just able to take it better than we are?

And are the solutions being proposed really addressing the larger problem, or do they simply treat the immediate symptoms that the general public are finding so scary? Is a Band Aid from Obama better than George W. Bush “kissing it and making the hurt go away” by telling us to visit Disney World to fight terrorism? “More now than ever,” writes Fischer, “we are confronted by the very real possibility that the system we rely on for our style of living has reached its breaking point.”

We have now had almost two decades to gloat over the failure of Soviet communism (while not being overly impressed by Russian capitalism’s propensity for gangsterism and government corruption). Is it now time for the other shoe to drop? Hasn’t American-style capitalism been limping for quite a while now—hurt either by creeping socialism or more probably, in my opinion, by the rise of consumer capitalism (over an economy based on actual productivity) and the rise of legally protected, publicly irresponsible, government supported, and media controlling corporations?

I’m just asking. And, yes, I’m asking a lot of questions … and giving no real answers. And, in passing, to those—and there are many—who just hate it when people complain about things but have nothing better to offer, I’d like to say, “That’s bullshit, and fuck you.” Asking the right questions is 99% of getting the right answers.

Maybe we Americans are spoiled on easy answers—no-diet, no-exercise fitness plans, and a smiling, cute-though-still-troublingly-Jewy-looking Jesus who is down with suburbia and conspicuous consumption.

Maybe we can’t take the truth, as Jack Nicholson once screamed in a movie. Maybe we face crises now by looking to others to make the sacrifices for us … or by finding bigger, cuddlier daddies to pick us up and promise to fix everything up for us, nice and easy, just the way we always like it.

We have our myths and paladins to remind us of who we once were as Americans. We have our role models even now—“the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.” Who and how many among us are really ready to pick up that mantle?

I may be complaining, but at least I’m not whining.

Kelly

The following videos are from an interview of Peter Schiff, financial expert and President of Euro-Pacific Capital, from 2002. His analysis of our nation’s economic future is quite alarming. Given the current circumstances, one might say that Peter Schiff was ahead of his time; perhaps the Paul Revere of today, warning us of our collapsing economy.

Part 1

Part 2

Allison Bricker

“Would you like fries with that unsecured loan?” This may not be too far off from reality now that the Federal Reserve has stepped in and decided to become the preferred drive-up ATM of multinational corporations.  The Federal Reserve has done such, due to Wall Street investment banks and global central banks utterly refusing to extend anymore of these loans, a.k.a Credit Crunch.

Yes, fellow readers, the Federal Reserve, under Section 13: Sub-Section 3 of the Federal Reserve Act (1913/Amended)¹, has decided to set up the Commercial Paper Funding Facility. The what you ask? Well let us see what the Federal Reserve says in its press release dated October 7th, 2008.²

* Green text denotes my attempt to decipher the double-speak legalese that follows.)

By eliminating much of the risk (i.e. bypassing the free market) that eligible issuers (private investment banks) will not be able to repay investors (your 401k) by rolling over (extending credit limit, delaying repayment) their maturing commercial paper obligations, this facility (the FED) should encourage investors to once again engage in term lending (more credit, more debt, more credit) in the commercial paper market. Added investor demand should lower commercial paper rates (interest rates) from their current elevated levels (free-market check/balance forcing interest rates high meant to stop businesses reliance on the endless cycle of debt to pay bills) and foster issuance of longer-term commercial paper.(bunches of more credit not due until a future generation and hey who cares we’ll all be dead) An improved commercial paper market will enhance the ability of financial intermediaries to accommodate the credit needs of businesses and households (perpetuating the addiction to debt and living beyond one’s means).

If this makes your head spin, let us just sum it up this way. “Commercial Paper” is an I.O.U written by Multi-National Corporation A, sold to Wall Street investment bank/global central banks for large sums of money so Multi-National Corporation A can pay its bills and employees. All this money is loaned from Wall Street investment bank/global central banks solely  based on a promise to repay; backed up by no real asset, i.e. a factory, a cement truck, etcetera.  Most of the time however, instead of demanding repayment of the loan, the investment bank merely rolls over the debt to be repaid at a later time with a higher rate of return and then stuffs them into their clients mutual funds and other crafty Wall Street “security instruments”.  Therefore in no time at all, a promise to repay $100 million becomes $150 million to $250 million and so on and so on.

So now that we know what “Commercial Paper” is, let us look at how the Federal Reserve will “fix” this problem. With the purchasing of Commercial Paper paper being refused by the banks, the Federal Reserve has put on its super hero cape (made from the finest Chinese silk, funded by the taxpayer of course) and has offered to buy up these I.O.U’s for companies the Fed decide “worthy”.   This effectively puts the Federal Reserve in a god-like position to determine which businesses survive while other businesses fail.

Don’t you just love the smell of a predatory market shell game in the morning?  We shall see the set up for mid to large sized Main Street/regional businesses to be absorbed into multi-national conglomerates or deemed a possible upstart competitor and thus allowed to fail.

Fellow readers, the international banking cartel cares not about Main Street. The Plutocrats who reside as the Secretary of the Treasury and Federal Reserve’s 7 member Board of Governors (appointed by President of the United States, confirmed by Senate) are solely concerned with amassing and consuming as much for themselves, the rest of us be damned. We must realize they look at us with scorn as parasites to be used up like any other commodity, you know, “human resources”.

Fellow readers, please do this very sleepy blogger a favor and do not misconstrue the aforementioned as Capitalism nor any semblance of a Free Market.  It is the power brokers practicing their brand of Greediocracy.  Let us do all we can to speak clearly, loudly, and in stark opposition to allowing these criminals to bypass the Constitution and amass any more power on their insidious march towards Feudalism 2.0

Source(s):¹http://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/section13.htm •
²http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/20081007c.htm

Kelly

Former economic adviser to Ron Paul and President of Euro Pacific Capital, Peter Schiff, has frequently been seen on cable news channels CNN, and CNBC as our current economic situation has heeded the call for intelligent and serious analysis. The following video was added to youtube a little over a year ago, by Gerard Hoeberigs of the Netherlands, however it is more relevant now than ever.

The Inevitable Collapse of the Dollar