Pocket Change

There’s a word that you may have heard this past year. In fact, it’s on everyone’s mind because of its recent usage by miracle-promising presidential candidates. This magic word appears in almost every political ad campaign and certainly every speech and televised debate. It even appears in the parodies and satires of those same debates and speeches. The pundits discuss it ad nauseam and try to determine which candidate has the divine right to use the term. It’s been seized by the one candidate, only to have the other grab hold and scream “MINE!” like a threatened child. It’s bandied about by the masses as if it were the fabled Elixir of Life, destined to save the dying Republic – and who knows? It could be. My thought is that, like the Hula-Hoop, the word is a fad, frivolous and an exercise in political vanity.
As this particular mantra is bludgeoned into our consciousness through the blunt trauma of incessant repetition, has anyone actually paused to consider what it will take? There was a time in the United States when Free Speech was a right, not something to be exercised in certain “zones” cordoned off far from any listening ears. People arrested for crimes were once presumed “innocent till proven guilty,” instead of instantly convicted by prime time’s Nancy Grace. An arrested person also could hope for a trial within a reasonable amount of time, instead of years’ worth of procedural delays and appeals.
Long ago the military was forbidden from policing city streets, until they stationed an army brigade to patrol within our own borders. In times gone by one could rest assured that the government wouldn’t force a religion on you – but it was also believed they wouldn’t stop you from practicing the once you had. It’s even rumored that doctors once spent a few minutes listening and looking before prescribing, and the dollar was strong enough to pay for their services. We used to go to war only in self defense, with people returning to their jobs and homes after hostilities had ended, instead of never-ending conflict and strife. . .
This list of problems could get as long and tedious as the political ads promising to solve them. The point is that we all know there are problems; we FEEL it, and our souls clamor for some kind of remedy. The question is this: does the Self-anointed One or the Prisoner-of-war Patriot really offer any kind of solution? Recovery isn’t going to be instantaneous on November 4th – much to the chagrin of the winning candidate’s supporters. It’s going to take sacrifice, grit, values and some re-prioritizing. We’re going to actually have to THINK, and not just talk about doing it “outside the box.” We’re going to have to compromise and come together, which means an end to finger pointing and hand wringing.
There’s plenty of determination to be found in this land of ours. We really can return to the principles and ideals that called out to the hopeless and downtrodden of the world. Our ancestors came here searching for the outline of a dream. Some of the points of that dream are found on a yellowing scrap of paper called the Constitution. You may have heard of it, it used to get the campaign buzz until we started longing for Change.

Winston Churchill:

"Men occasionally stumble on the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."

Amazing Slide Show!!!

Go to the site and click play; it's about 6.5 min.
Click Here

If I could beg you . . .

So I know I can overkill, but Naomi Wolf was on KUER Wednesday and I really think it would be beneficial if you listen to her. It's 45 minutes, she's well spoken and has some great ideas.

The link is to the KUER website and you can click on the little media "play" button to listen. It comes through very clearly.

Click Here

Naomi Wolf Interview - You should watch this 30 min video:

I don't agree with some things Naomi says, but she articulates some important points in this video, especially about what's going on in the US today. Her book is also fascinating, The End of America. I haven't read the second book she talks about in the interview.

A Giant Pyramid Scheme:

"A Ponzi scheme is a form of pyramid scheme in which new investors must continually be sucked in at the bottom to support the investors at the top. In this case, new borrowers must continually be sucked in to support the creditors at the top. The Wall Street Ponzi scheme is built on "fractional reserve" lending, which allows banks to create "credit" (or "debt") with accounting entries. Banks are now allowed to lend from 10 to 30 times their "reserves," essentially counterfeiting the money they lend. Over 97 percent of the U.S. money supply (M3) has been created by banks in this way. The problem is that banks create only the principal and not the interest necessary to pay back their loans. Since bank lending is essentially the only source of new money in the system, someone somewhere must continually be taking out new loans just to create enough "money" (or "credit") to service the old loans composing the money supply. This spiraling interest problem and the need to find new debtors has gone on for over 300 years."

- Ellen Brown, Global Research

Floating Exchange Rates Devalue Dollars

"The main role of money is to be a trusted anchor for pricing. People's holding of cash as a "store of value" has always been insignificant. As to a medium of exchange: it fulfills this function properly only when people trust its stability. When the dollar plunges in terms of other currencies by 40% to 60% within few years, and when street vendors in emerging countries refuse dollar bills or accept it at deep discounts, as now happens, it becomes less of a medium of exchange. True, the dollar remains the reserve currency of choice because other countries mismanage their currency too. But relying on the mistakes of strangers is not a good policy. People want to understand that a promise to be paid 5% on U. S. Treasury represents 5% in their own currency too-- rather than, suddenly, minus 10%. When this happens, everyone speaks the same standard monetary language."

Reuven Brenner, Financial Post, 10/01/08

For the rest of the story Click Here.

Sam Mathid 10/15/08:

"The construction of the collapse was loosely as thus:

1. Governments inflated their currencies.
2. Malinvestment resulted
3. To cope with the problems of malinvestment, governments inflated their currencies more.
4. Huge malinvestments resulted.
5. To cope with the problems of huge malinvestments governments inflated their currencies hugely.
6. Currencies utterly collapsed (still playing out).

Ludwig Von Mises:

"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."

Words from Bob Chapman's International Forecaster

"The heart of the current crisis is the quadrillion plus derivative market. Roughly half of these derivatives are listed on exchanges, but the other half are on the totally unregulated, totally opaque, poorly documented and mostly naked (no reserves or collateral given to secure performance) OTC derivatives market. The subprime and Alt-A mortgage debacles, and the soon to be recognized prime mortgage debacle, are little more than a side show with what will become their one to two trillion in losses which the Phony-Fraudie nationalization and the Paulson Ponzi Plunder Plan are meant to address, albeit futilely. However, the real estate derivative problems created by these debacles have been important catalysts leading to the loss of confidence that is preventing banks from lending to one another, because these problems, like a Zippo lighter on high flame, metaphorically speaking, have lit the fuse leading to the quadrillion dollar powder keg waiting to blow any day now, and Hanky Panky and Helicopter Ben are running around like raving, corporatist, fascist lunatics trying to stomp out the lit fuse before the whole world financial system goes up in a blaze of glory.
It is this powder keg that has everyone trembling with fear and foreboding, because the inevitable losses will be catastrophic, with losses which may exceed the entire world's GDP, thus obliterating the balance sheets of every major Wall Street commercial bank, including the Fed itself, while virtually every major bank and financial institution in nations throughout the world join them on the receiving end of a destructive juggernaut of loss, insolvency, failure and bankruptcy. In the aftermath, most will be nationalized. All of Western Civilization is about to become a smoldering collection of fascist police states. The entire world financial system is headed for oblivion, and there is nothing on earth that can stop it."

FEMA sources confirm coming martial law

Wayne Madsen
WMR
October 8, 2008

WMR has learned from knowledgeable Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) sources that the Bush administration is putting the final touches on a plan that would see martial law declared in the United States with various scenarios anticipated as triggers. The triggers include a continuing economic collapse with massive social unrest, bank closures resulting in violence against financial institutions, and another fraudulent presidential election that would result in rioting in major cities and campuses around the country.

In addition, Army Corps of Engineer sources report that the assignment of the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team (BCT) to the Northern Command’s U.S. Army North is to augment FEMA and federal law enforcement in the imposition of traffic controls, crowd control, curfews, enhanced border and port security, and neighborhood patrols in the event a national emergency being declared. The BCT was assigned to duties in Iraq before being assigned to the Northern Command.

On April 3, 2008, WMR reported on a highly-classified document regarding the martial law scenario: WMR has learned from knowledgeable sources within the US financial community that an alarming confidential and limited distribution document is circulating among senior members of Congress and their senior staff members that is warning of a bleak future for the United States if it does not quickly get its financial house in order. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is among those who have reportedly read the document. The document is being called the "C & R" document because it reportedly states that if the United States defaults on loans and debt underwriting from China, Japan, and Russia, all of which are propping up the United States government financially, and the United States unilaterally cancels the debts, America can expect a war that will have disastrous results for the United States and the world. "Conflict" is the "C word" in the document. The other scenario is that the federal government will be forced to drastically raise taxes in order to pay off debts to foreign countries to the point that the American people will react with a popular revolution against the government. "Revolution" is the document’s "R word.

German Army Invades Germany too

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MSN: 8 Ways to Stay Healthy

6. Don't ask for antibiotics

If you're suffering from a head cold, sinus infection, earache, bronchitis or the flu, don't assume your doctor will prescribe antibiotics. In fact, antibiotics in some cases can make things worse. A study reported in Clinical Infectious Diseases estimated that 142,000 emergency-room visits each year are due to adverse reactions to antibiotics, ranging from rashes to life-threatening allergic reactions. And for the common cold, flu, and many minor infections such as bronchitis, antibiotics don't seem to help. Overuse and overprescribing of antibiotics also has led to the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria that have become a serious public health concern, especially in hospitals. Your doctor is the best one to judge whether your illness needs an antibiotic. It's better to be cautious and not assume an antibiotic is necessary.