What are these events pointing to? By Bill Sardi, ShadowNews.com De facto martial law in Boston as police conduct a door-to-door search. Suddenly police in Philadelphia, PA and Valley Springs, CA prep citizens to be ready for “3-day detentions.” The New York P.D. now schedules deployment of “harmless” gas into subway system in upcoming terror response drill. These three events mentioned above are coupled with the following current events: JP Morgan sells off $6 billion of gold at a loss, tanking the price of gold. Wasn’t this move made to ensure gold would not be bought up by the masses as an alternative to the increasingly worthless paper money? Precious metals trader Jim Sinclair suggests this sell off was to give insiders an opportunity to buy up gold on the cheap before it will soar to unprecedented heights. Coincidentally, the US announces it will replace $100 bills on October 8 with new high-security notes. Would this be the timing for an official devaluation of the US dollar? Economist John Williams, writing at ShadowStats.com, says a “dollar sell off” is anticipated soon a foreign holders of US debt notes (IOUs aka US Treasury Notes) realize the US dollar is “toast” and will sell off their debt notes at a depreciated amount. This event, the sell-off of US IOUs at a discount, predicted by Senator Tom Coburn in his book DEBT BOMB, would force a devaluation of the US dollar. If the world financial and monetary system is on the verge of [...]
Worldwide Banking Plague: Where Will It Stop? By Bill Sardi While public health officials were warning we are “only three mutations away” from a strain of the flu that would surely create a deadly pandemic, another more heinous plague is encircling the earth – a banking plague that the bankers themselves have started by over-lending money. In Argentina it’s business as usual in this South American country, the third largest economy in Latin America, where another bank run is underway. Argentina confiscated bank accounts over a decade ago and wary depositors are withdrawing their money in droves to protect against a similar fate. In mid-May Argentinian banks lost $518 million in deposits. Jittery savers have pulled an estimated $3.5 billion of their money out of the financial system. A Wall Street Journal reports says Argentine depositors have probably stashed their savings in safe deposit boxes, under mattresses or put them into hard assets like automobiles and real estate. They fear a devaluation of the Argentine peso like what occurred in 2002 when dollar deposits were forcefully converted to pesos during a deep economic crisis. British bread and circus While The Bank of England is pumping more money into the economy, it appears all it is doing is making sure there is enough money to pay for all the increased taxes. For example, three quarters of a million British workers, among them nurses and teachers, will be thrust into the higher 40-per cent tax bracket. While The Bank of England is [...]
Obama wins, again and again! By Bill Sardi The President’s self-announced decision, by executive order, to skirt around Congress and allow as many as 800,000 young illegal immigrant children to apply for work permits and temporary legal status was interrupted by a news reporter, and you can see it was a set up. The President answered in a terse but scripted way. The idea is to make it appear the President is being picked on while he is fighting for the little guy. It doesn’t matter whether the President disregarded Constitutional government or not, or whether this action was right or wrong, he wins! Oppose his action and he looks even better. When Bill Clinton took on the tobacco companies and lying about lung cancer risks associated with smoking, it also was a no-lose proposition. Clinton didn’t give a rip about smoking and lung cancer, his motive was purely political, to take hundreds of millions of dollars away from the opposing party which was being funded by Big Tobacco. It was a very shrewd move and the GOP was left holding the bag as the so-called moral majority was caught inhaling tobacco smoke in a literal and figurative sense. So how does the challenging candidate handle this recent Presidential order? He stupidly says: “I think the actions the president took today make it more difficult to reach a long term solution because an executive order is, of course, just a short term matter than can be reversed by subsequent presidents.” [...]
Recent figures show there are about 1.3 million empty homes that have gone into foreclosure and another shadow inventory of 4 million homes that are non-performing loans that banks are hiding in their inventories. This hidden inventory of non-performing home mortgages is due to be converted into rentals. I do not see a large rental market occurring at this time. At this point renters must double up and get granny to move in to afford the rental or get thrown out into the street. I know of a woman who owns a restaurant and her Asian workers pay rent in a single family home she owns. There are four people paying rent in that home. If rent sharing is not possible, at that point I think you see people moving into motor homes. Go to Bonelli Park in San Dimas. There is a private motor home park there where you can rent a space permanently. There is no property tax, no utilities, no lawn to mow. A lot of $100,000 motor homes are parked there with people living beneath their means and somewhat beneath the radar. They have postal boxes as a mailing address. Some use money orders instead of having checking accounts. To reiterate, you still have to have full-time jobs and adequate incomes to afford the rentals. The rentals are only possible if people double-up. The larger problem is that incomes have not kept up with inflation. To deal with this, first women began to work and there [...]
Hammer Ready To Drop On Supplement Industry After Presidential Election By Bill Sardi · Major Food & Drug Companies Begin Buying Up Supplement Companies As Drug Patents Expire. · New FDA Safety Requirements Do Bidding For Pharma Companies Who Want To Consolidate Industry, Eliminate Competition After the Presidential election anticipate what amounts to terrorist attacks upon the dietary supplement industry as regulatory agencies and the news media do the bidding for big business in a predictable industry takeover now that vitamin pills are yielding greater profitability and unit sales growth than the American economy as a whole and drug patent expirations force pharmaceutical companies to search for replacements for their blockbuster drugs. Proctor & Gamble and Pfizer, two food and drug giants, announced acquisition of two dietary supplement companies, making it clear the vitamin pill business is up for grabs now that it is growing faster than the rest of the economy. One source predicts the supplement industry will grow at the clip of 9% per year during 2011-15. For comparison, the entire US economy is in the doldrums with less than a 2% annual growth rate. This growth is attracting pariahs and predictable pressure from regulatory agencies to rid the industry of competition. The first part of the strategy has been underway for some time – attack the industry, make false claims products are unsafe, and head off public demand. As big business buys up these supplement companies so they don’t have to pay millions or even billions of [...]
Comment: remember, Obama visited Mexico, met with Mexico’s and France’s presidents, and suddenly there was a (phony) flu outbreak in that country that later fizzled and was timed with the installation of a French-owned vaccine plant in Mexico. Now Obama visits Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu and predictably, something is going to happen and soon, both to get Obama re-elected and to strike at Israel’s avowed enemy. Iran says it will strike back at targets in Israel if attacked by the US. Israel says Iran will fire the first shots, much like Japan was accused of starting WWII with its Pearl Harbor attack. But the US had closed oil shipping lanes from Indonesia and had provoked the war. Similarly, the US has launched an economic embargo against Iran that has only one plausible objective… to get Iran to fire the first shots so Obama can look like a military hero and bring down the oil prices. Listen to Marc Faber as he urges people with money to get their wealth into equities (stocks) and gold before the shooting starts. Faber is saying the US will print more money to fund the war, but even more so, it may declare a bank holiday and usher in new devalued currency (likely 30% devaluation), which has already been printed. Don’t get caught on the wrong side of this one…… get your money out of the bank and into some high-profit margin private stock, now. March 8 is Purim, a date the Israel often picks [...]
When the banks began losing real estate loans as a profit center they petitioned to be allowed to invest their own money in Wall Street investments, that is, take greater risks to make up for the lost profits from the collapse of the real estate market. Thereafter a blur between investment banks like the old Lehmann Brothers and Goldman Sachs and regular consumer banks like B of A and Citibank was created. Banks also invented debit cards and began charging transaction fees for people to access their own money. This brought in billions in profits till these fees were limited by regulators. Now former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker wants to reign in the banks on their speculative trading on Wall Street. The new Volcker rule would take effect 5 months from now so bankers are lodging their protests in advance of the date when the rule goes into effect. Mr. Volcker basically says banks can do what they want with their own money, but not if they want to be taxpayer supported. Basically, with all of the recent bank bailouts, and the conversion of bank revenues from real estate loans to stocks and bonds, the federal government finds itself guaranteeing the trades these banks make. Without risk, trading may be more reckless, knowing the government will bail out the institution if it makes an investment that goes sour. US banks cry foul, saying the new Volcker rule will handcuff them, make them less competitive with foreign banks (some which [...]
However, the so-called shadow inventory of non-performing home loans or foreclosed properties may be much larger than that. The full extent of these toxic loans may be revealed in March 2012 when large banks are required to publish the results of stress tests which determine whether than can withstand a financial shock. A report published at CBS Marketwatch suggests the shadow inventory of toxic home loans may be much greater. According to Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve Chairman, “an additional 1 million foreclosed properties could be held by banks, guarantors and servicers ‘in each of the next few years’.” Yikes, that’s 4 million home mortgages! The Marketwatch article says the Federal Reserve wants to sell off all these bad home loans and turn them into rental properties. But that doesn’t mean such a huge glut of homes won’t further crash the value of existing homes. Anyone buying a home in the next four years beware, the value of your home is likely to implode because of a sudden increase in supply versus diminished demand. –Bill Sardi, Feb. 2012
The first Amendment of the Constitution makes the US a potential marketplace for religion (Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof). Since there can be no state-controlled religion, a variety of religions abound, though Christianity still predominates. As this Easter Sunday approaches, about 40 percent of Americans affiliate with Christian (Catholic and Protestant) churches, 1.3 percent practice Judaism and 0.5 percent are Muslims. Since 1990 the percentage of Christians in the US has dropped from 86 to 77 percent while those who identify with no religion jumped from 8 to 14 percent of the population. While most Americans still say they believe in God, nearly 30 million say they just don’t affiliate with a church, synagogue or mosque. Many factors are believed to be involved in this drop in church affiliation. Some factors often mentioned are the unexemplary lives of television evangelists, self-indulgence of the American public, Catholic priests who have been convicted as pedophiles and the feeling that wars are often promoted by religious zealots. Who founded the religions of the world? Just what did their founders have to say? Does Islam teach a jihad, a slaughter of infidels? Do followers of the prophet Mohammad embrace violence? More Americans want to understand Islam. It has been the subject of many radio talk shows. Moses, Mohammad, Jesus, Buddha and Confucius, are the founders of the world’s major religions. Under modern re-examination, one might be surprised to find that scholars have come [...]
But today’s financial system is mired in common practices that would certainly be condemned by the prophets of old, such as credit default swaps (a way of foisting off the risk on an IOU — bond, T-bill — onto someone else), futures trading (derivatives), fast electronic trades on the stock market (stealth fraud), fiat (counterfeit) money, fractional banking (phony IOUs backed by nothing), “cooking” accounting books (deception), debased currency via planned inflation, reserve banking (money is made up out of thin air), and debt-based rather than precious metal-based money. Surprisingly, Christianity, both from the personal investor side as well as the organized religion side, is deeply mired in an ungodly and non-Biblical financial system. It doesn’t take much effort to locate Christian financial counselors who recommend non-sin based investments that avoid profiting off of pornography, tobacco or alcohol. But not a negative word is said by these Christian investment counselors about the fraudulent financial system itself. There are centralized churches where tithes are funneled upwards to the top of the church hierarchy. By example, these would be Presbyterian, Lutheran, Catholic and other denominations. In virtually every instance, these denominations seek out parishioners to invest in church building funds, to support missionaries overseas, or funds for personal retirement that support the work of the church. All of these denominations are steeped in sanctioned investments that are largely fraudulent. In fact, if you examine some of them, they are yielding such small rates of return that they are losing money against an [...]