More Zimmerman Riots - Holylwood Riots covered up by LA Times

Guest post by:  Penny Hunter

LA Times Cover-Up:  When a  Riot is Not a Riot

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-hollywood-robbers-20130716,0,7455097.story

" packs of young people were roaming along Hollywood and attacking people"  "As many as 40 robbers were believed to be involved"

"two young black men were detained in handcuffs before being released with the terse explanation that they had mistakenly been stopped because they matched the general description of the robbers. "  (ie.  young and black)

"The crimes did not appear to be related to the protests over the George Zimmerman acquittal"

REALLY?  What are we, stupid now?  So you expect us to believe that in the immediate wake of the Zimmerman trial, among riots in Oakland and Sanford FL, and even a live cat burning, over a trial which has been teaming with government sponsored race baiting since day one, suddenly by sheer coincidence, FORTY young black men all decide to roam the streets attacking people and looting.  And that isn't considered a riot, much less a Zimmerman Riot??  How can that NOT be related to the Zimmerman case?

MSM SOP:  Cover up the illicit actions of the Blue team.  Bring to light and skew the truth of any actions or inactions of the Red team.  Nothing to see here.  Move along.

FUTURE HEADLINE: North Colorado secedes from Colorado, becomes 51st state!

By: Teresa Mull

According to CBS in Denver, “There’s a growing effort to create a 51st state out of parts of northeast Colorado.”

Organizers of the secessionist effort in a dozen rural counties in what some hope will become the state of “North Colorado” say their interest in breaking away stems from the fact that their “interests are not being represented at the state Capitol.”

We’re not talking here about a classic secession from the union, the kind Texas is always rumored to be on the verge of, but of the simple formation of a new state out of an existing one. West Virginia was created this way many moons ago, as were Maine, Kentucky, and Vermont.

Three other counties in Colorado and two in Kansas have also expressed interest in joining the secessionist movement. Leaders hope to have the measure voted on as early as November. Even if most voters decide that “North Colorado” is a good idea, however, the bill will still have to gain approval from the Colorado General Assembly and the U.S. Congress.

It may just be a temporary answer to the problem, anyway. Liberals have a way of invading the loveliest places in America and making them uninhabitable: e.g. Boulder, CO, Santa Fe, NM, and everywhere in California. What’s to stop liberals from moving in and undoing all the good secession might do? New Hampshire, where “Live Free or Die” was once taken seriously, is looking more and more like Massachusetts every day. With massive immigration, even Texas is not immune from the trend. Northern Colorado is a fast-growing area with lots of oil and gas that needs to be regulated.

Anti-secessionists love smugly to call Texas secession a pipe-dream on the basis that it “isn’t legal.” If you’re seceding, though, the goal is to break from the rules imposed upon you by the institution, so why would you stop and ask for its permission first? “Is it alright, parent, if I refuse to heed the rule you told me to obey?” 

And why are liberals against secession in the first place? Do they enjoy tormenting conservatives so much that they’d rather live in disharmony with them than let us go our separate ways? 

http://www.humanevents.com/2013/07/11/the-truth-about-secession/

Obama Suspends the Law (without constitutional authority to do so)

By 
• MICHAEL W. MCCONNELL

President Obama's decision last week to suspend the employer mandate of the Affordable Care Act may be welcome relief to businesses affected by this provision, but it raises grave concerns about his understanding of the role of the executive in our system of government.

Article II, Section 3, of the Constitution states that the president "shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." This is a duty, not a discretionary power. While the president does have substantial discretion about how to enforce a law, he has no discretion about whether to do so.

This matter—the limits of executive power—has deep historical roots. During the period of royal absolutism, English monarchs asserted a right to dispense with parliamentary statutes they disliked. King James II's use of the prerogative was a key grievance that lead to the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The very first provision of the English Bill of Rights of 1689—the most important precursor to the U.S. Constitution—declared that "the pretended power of suspending of laws, or the execution of laws, by regal authority, without consent of parliament, is illegal."

To make sure that American presidents could not resurrect a similar prerogative, the Framers of the Constitution made the faithful enforcement of the law a constitutional duty.

Attorneys general under Presidents Carter, Reagan, both Bushes and Clinton all agreed on this point. With the exception of Richard Nixon, whose refusals to spend money appropriated by Congress were struck down by the courts, no prior president has claimed the power to negate a law that is concededly constitutional.

Enlarge Image

David G. Klein

In 1998, the Supreme Court struck down a congressional grant of line-item veto authority to the president to cancel spending items in appropriations. The reason? The only constitutional power the president has to suspend or repeal statutes is to veto a bill or propose new legislation. Writing for the court in Clinton v. City of New York, Justice John Paul Stevens noted: "There is no provision in the Constitution that authorizes the president to enact, to amend, or to repeal statutes."

The employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act contains no provision allowing the president to suspend, delay or repeal it. Section 1513(d) states in no uncertain terms that "The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013." Imagine the outcry if Mitt Romney had been elected president and simply refused to enforce the whole of ObamaCare.

This is not the first time Mr. Obama has suspended the operation of statutes by executive decree, but it is the most barefaced. In June of last year, for example, the administration stopped initiating deportation proceedings against some 800,000 illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. before age 16, lived here at least five years, and met a variety of other criteria. This was after Congress refused to enact the Dream Act, which would have allowed these individuals to stay in accordance with these conditions. Earlier in 2012, the president effectively replaced congressional requirements governing state compliance under the No Child Left Behind Act with new ones crafted by his administration.

Republican opponents of ObamaCare might say that the suspension of the employer mandate is such good policy that there's no need to worry about constitutionality. But if the president can dispense with laws, and parts of laws, when he disagrees with them, the implications for constitutional government are dire.

Democrats too may acquiesce in Mr. Obama's action, as they have his other aggressive assertions of executive power. Yet what will they say when a Republican president decides that the tax rate on capital gains is a drag on economic growth and instructs the IRS not to enforce it?

Of all the stretches of executive power Americans have seen in the past few years, the president's unilateral suspension of statutes may have the most disturbing long-term effects. As the Supreme Court said long ago (Kendall v. United States, 1838), allowing the president to refuse to enforce statutes passed by Congress "would be clothing the president with a power to control the legislation of congress, and paralyze the administration of justice."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323823004578591503509555268.html

Meet the SECRET Supreme Court of the United States

by Mike

Background:

The United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) is a U.S. federal court established and authorized under theForeign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA) (50 U.S.C. § 1803, Pub.L. 95–511, 92 Stat. 1788, enacted October 25, 1978). The court oversees requests for surveillance warrants against suspected foreign intelligence agents inside the United States by federal law enforcement agencies (primarily National Security Agency and the F.B.I.). Congress created FISA and its court (also called the FISA Court) as a result of the Church Committee recommendations.[1]

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court

 

They have no jurisdiction except for requests for surveillance warrants against suspected foreign intelligence agents inside the United States.

 

The NSA PRISM wiretapping is not being used against foreign agents, but against US citizens, and PRISM does not wait for warrants.  To suggest that FISC has any jurisdiction to either authorize or oversee PRISM is laughable.

"This program, by the way, is fully overseen not just by Congress, but by the FISA Court — a court specially put together to evaluate classified programs to make sure that the executive branch, or government generally, is not abusing them, and that it’s being carried out consistent with the Constitution and rule of law. "

- President Barack Obama on June 7, 2013 (transcript here) 

Unlike the Supreme Court, the FISA court hears from only one side in the case — the government — and its findings are almost never made public. A Court of Review is empaneled to hear appeals, but that is known to have happened only a handful of times in the court’s history, and no case has ever been taken to the Supreme Court. In fact, it is not clear in all circumstances whether Internet and phone companies that are turning over the reams of data even have the right to appear before the FISA court. 

- From the July 6, 2013 New York Times article: In Secret, Court Vastly Broadens Powers of N.S.A. 

One of the most incredible things that has occurred in the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s NSA leaks has been President Barack Obama’s laughable attempt to justify the spying by claiming the process has judicial oversight, as he did in the quote above. What he fails to mention of course is the fact that the FISA court that signs off on all these activities is a secret court, the opinions of which are never made public. Does he think the American public is so brain-dead it is incapable of recognizing the difference between a regular court of law and a secret one? Apparently he does.  For those of you that have yet to get up to speed on America’s “parallel Supreme Court,” which also disturbingly happens to constructs its own laws, please read the article below from The New York Times: 

WASHINGTON — In more than a dozen classified rulings, the nation’s surveillance court has created a secret body of law giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast collections of data on Americans while pursuing not only terrorism suspects, but also people possibly involved in nuclear proliferation, espionage and cyberattacks, officials say. 

The rulings, some nearly 100 pages long, reveal that the court has taken on a much more expansive role by regularly assessing broad constitutional questions and establishing important judicial precedents, with almost no public scrutiny, according to current and former officials familiar with the court’s classified decisions. 

The 11-member Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, known as the FISA court, was once mostly focused on approving case-by-case wiretapping orders. But since major changes in legislation and greater judicial oversight of intelligence operations were instituted six years ago, it has quietly become almost a parallel Supreme Court, serving as the ultimate arbiter on surveillance issues and delivering opinions that will most likely shape intelligence practices for years to come, the officials said. 

Unlike the Supreme Court, the FISA court hears from only one side in the case — the government — and its findings are almost never made public. A Court of Review is empaneled to hear appeals, but that is known to have happened only a handful of times in the court’s history, and no case has ever been taken to the Supreme Court. In fact, it is not clear in all circumstances whether Internet and phone companies that are turning over the reams of data even have the right to appear before the FISA court.

Created by Congress in 1978 as a check against wiretapping abuses by the government, the court meets in a secure, nondescript room in the federal courthouse in Washington. All of the current 11 judges, who serve seven-year terms, were appointed to the special court by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., and 10 of them were nominated to the bench by Republican presidents. Most hail from districts outside the capital and come in rotating shifts to hear surveillance applications; a single judge signs most surveillance orders, which totaled nearly 1,800 last year. None of the requests from the intelligence agencies was denied, according to the court. 

The court has indicated that while individual pieces of data may not appear “relevant” to a terrorism investigation, the total picture that the bits of data create may in fact be relevant, according to the officials with knowledge of the decisions. 

Geoffrey R. Stone, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago, said he was troubled by the idea that the court is creating a significant body of law without hearing from anyone outside the government, forgoing the adversarial system that is a staple of the American justice system. “That whole notion is missing in this process,” he said. 

Sorry, but secret courts pretty much destroy the rule of law entirely.  We should all be outraged, offended and motivated to change this for good.

http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2013/07/07/meet-the-secret-supreme-court-of-the-united-states/

Are you prepared? Zimmerman-Martin riots begin in 5...4...3...2..

Reposted from BonnieGadsden

In light of the Trevon Martin racial hysteria, I'm doing a little research into the LA Riots of 1992 to see what we are to expect if fuel keeps being thrown on the fire and it rages out of control.  I found a series of posts on www.aussurvivalist.com from a man about his first hand experience in the riots


The  L.A. Riots:  A First hand experience

READ THE STORY AT:
http://whyguncontrol.blogspot.com/2013/07/are-you-prepared-zimmerman-martin-riots.html

Full Global Financial Collapse in next 12 months?

It looks like the collapse is at our doorstep knocking. With China, EU, UK, Japan etc. in full collapse mode. I am expecting to see major bank failures soon followed by bail-ins and extreme money printing later this year.

Think of this as 1996+/- in Japan. Seven years in after the Nikkei went kaput. The Japanese Central Bank apparatchik probably though the same. Not, and deflation still kicking their behind 17 yrs later.

Moral of the story is – If you save the Bankster you impoverish a sizeable percentage of the present population and you kneecap economic growth for the next generation.

I remember about 10 yrs ago hearing about “parasite singles” in Japan. About 4 yrs ago, I started hearing ” herbivore males”. All these are sign of an economically dead generation. A good majority of the Japanese kids coming of age since the Nikkei collapsed are member of this generation.


Japan’s decades of economic stagnation after pursuing a low interest rate policy should be a warning to all central banks, particularly the European Central Bank, according to Satyajit Das, a former banker and author of “Traders, Guns and Money”.


http://beforeitsnews.com/financial-markets/2013/07/the-market-trap-is-being-set-with-china-eu-uk-japan-etc-in-full-collapse-mode-major-bank-failures-soon-followed-by-bail-ins-and-extreme-money-printing-the-whole-world-is-turning-japane-2575376.html

Amerika - Government By Terror, Torture and Tyranny

 by Stephen Lendman

America governs lawlessly. Out-of-control rogues run things. Conditions go from bad to worse. Tyranny threatens everyone. So does possible global war.

Fear-mongering, saber rattling, hot wars, proxy ones, drone ones, geopolitical ones, financial ones, anti-populist ones, mass incarceration, censorship, lawless sanctions, subversion, sabotage, targeted assassinations, mass murder, cyber-war, and horrific draconian harshness reflect out-of control governance gone mad.

Lying is official policy. So is state terror. Independent governments aren’t tolerated. They’re targeted. Regime change is prioritized. World peace is threatened. Humanity’s menaced. Survival’s uncertain.

Daily revelations explain more. War is called peace. State-sponsored assassins are called freedom fighters. Real ones are called terrorists.

Capital has divine rights. Monied interests run things. Plundering the earth for profit is prioritized. Popular needs go begging. Social America’s dying. Poverty, unemployment, hunger, homelessness and human misery go unaddressed. Corporate rights alone matter.

Democracy’s a four-letter word. Out-of-control power is unaccountable. Rule of law principles are mocked. Tyranny’s the law of the land. Advancing America’s imperium matters most.

Workers are exploited. They’re unprotected. Human and civil rights are sacrificed. Wealth, power and privilege are served. Militarized control supports them. Nonbelievers aren’t tolerated.

Torture is official policy. Gitmo is America’s public face. Innocent detainees suffer. So do many others. Thousands of political prisoners fill America’s gulag. It’s the world’s largest. It operates globally. Mercy isn’t in Washington’s vocabulary.

Diktat power rules. Police state terror threatens everyone. Freedom’s fast disappearing. Dissent’s not tolerated. Heroic whistleblowers are criminalized.

Even retired four star generals aren’t safe. More on that below.
Journalists are spied on. So is everyone worldwide. Big Brother watches everyone. It’s no longer fiction.

Censorship prevents truth and full disclosure. Managed news misinformation substitutes. Students are debt entrapped for life. Millions have no futures. An entire generation’s lost.

Madness substitutes for sanity. Unconscionable wrongdoing persists. America’s unsafe to live in. Oblivion awaits. Most people are too out of touch to notice. Others are dismissive.

Failure to act responsibly matters. It lets Washington get away with murder and much more.

Rogues running America take full advantage. Who knows what’s next.

The Pentagon’s former second in command’s being investigated. General James (Hoss) Cartwright allegedly leaked information higher ups want suppressed.

Cyberwar is official US policy. In spring 2010, Iranian intelligence discovered Stuxnet malware contamination. Its Bushehr nuclear facility was affected. US/Israeli cyber-war bore full responsibility.

Cartwright perhaps explained. He ran cyber-operation Olympic Games. Obama ordered stepped up attacks. Targeting Iran is prioritized.

Perhaps there’s hope if retired four star generals become whistleblowers. Maybe other insiders will be emboldened to act. Legions more than ever are needed. Hopefully many will come forward responsibly.

Edward Snowden provided a vital service. He’s a hero in his own time. He’s globally recognized. He deserves praise, not prosecution. History won’t forget him. He revealed what everyone needs to know.

Unprecedented global spying is official US policy. It’s lawless. Spies “R” us defines it. Police states operate this way. America’s by far the worst. It’s unmatched in human history. No one’s safe anywhere any time.

Shoot the messenger. Snowden’s hunted. He’s a wanted man. Washington wants him arrested. It wants him prosecuted. It wants him imprisoned. It wants him silenced. Perhaps it wants him dead.

It wants information he knows suppressed. London’s Guardian revealed it. It plans telling more. On June 28, it headlined “US army blocks access to Guardian website to preserve ‘network hygiene.’ ”

It wants truth suppressed. It wants its message alone circulated. “The US army has admitted to blocking access to parts of the Guardian website for thousands of defense personnel across the country.”

“A spokesman said the military was filtering out reports and content relating to government surveillance programs to preserve ‘network hygiene’ and prevent any classified material appearing on unclassified parts of its computer systems.”

Pentagon officials lied. Censorship is official US policy. NETCOM On-Line Communication Services operates from San Jose, CA. It’s an Internet service provider.

Spokesman Gordon Van Vleet said it filtered “some access to press coverage and online content about NSA leaks.”

“The Department of Defense routinely takes preventive ‘network hygiene’ measures to mitigate unauthorized disclosures of classified information onto DoD unclassified networks.”

An Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM) spokesman said policy affects hundreds of defense facilities. Doing so suggests far worse future policy.

Washington may block anti-government content. It may do so routinely. Alternative media sites may be targeted. Vital truths more than ever may be suppressed.

Revealing them responsibly risks being criminalized. So may discussing what’s already known. Pointing fingers the right way is dangerous. Doing so risks being charged with aiding and abetting America’s enemies.

Van Vleet added:

“We make every effort to balance the need to preserve information access with operational security, however there are strict policies and directives in place regarding protecting and handling classified information.”

“Until declassified by appropriate officials, classified information – including material released through an unauthorized disclosure – must be treated accordingly by DoD personnel. If a public website displays classified information,” blocking it will follow.

“Classified” includes vital information people have a right to know. Suppressing it reflects police state harshness. Rogue states operate this way. It bears repeating. America’s by far the worst.

According to an unnamed Pentagon spokesman:

“The Guardian website is NOT being blocked by DoD. The Department of Defense routinely takes preventative measures to mitigate unauthorized disclosures of classified information onto DoD unclassified networks.”

On June 25, Guardian editors headlined “Edward Snowden: in defense of whistleblowers,” saying:

He’s no traitor. America’s First Amendment matters. It “prevents prior restraint and affords a considerable measure of protection to free speech.”

Obama violates its letter and spirit. He’s done so by “show(ing) a dismaying aggression in not only criminalizing leaking and whistle blowing, but also recently placing reporters under surveillance – tracking them and pulling their phone and email logs in order to monitor their sources for stories that were patently of public importance.”

Thanks to Snowden, we know more about what NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake called “a vast, systemic institutionalized, industrial-scale Leviathan surveillance state that has clearly gone far beyond the original mandate to deal with terrorism.”

Snowden is today’s Daniel Ellsberg. Releasing the Pentagon Papers got him targeted. He also faced Espionage Act charges.

He might have gotten life in prison. He was lucky. Gross government misconduct saved him. His 1973 trial collapsed. At the time, judge William Byrne, Jr. ruled:

“The totality of the circumstances of this case which I have only briefly sketched offend a sense of justice.”

“The bizarre events have incurably infected the prosecution of this case.”

Federal judges today don’t speak this way. Ellsberg later said:

“The public is lied to every day by the President, by his spokespeople, by his officers.”

“If you can’t handle the thought that the President lies to the public for all kinds of reasons, you couldn’t stay in the government at that level”

“The fact is Presidents rarely say the whole truth – essentially, never say the whole truth – of what they expect and what they’re doing and what they believe and why they’re doing it and rarely refrain from lying, actually, about these matters.”

Ellsberg’s a modern day hero. So is Snowden. Washington fears ugly truths revealed. Doing so arouses public anger.

Perhaps it emboldens others to tell more. Coming forward threatens America’s imperial ambitions. Preventing them responsibly matters most.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-30/guest-post-america-government-terror-torture-and-tyranny

The system is rigged: 5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor

Guest Post: 5 Things Nobody Tells You About Being Poor
By John Cheese

Foul Language Sanitised by [Annonie-Mouse]



Being poor is like a game of poker where if you lose, the other players get to [take advantage of] you. And if you win, the dealer [takes advantage of] you. A bunch of you reading this are among the 45 million “working poor” in America, and if you’re not, you know somebody who is. Like me.

I’m not blaming anybody but myself for getting into this situation and I’m not asking for anybody’s sympathy. What I am saying is that people are quick to tell you to pick yourself up by your bootstraps and just stop being poor. What they don’t understand is the series of intricate financial traps that makes that incredibly difficult.

If you’re not poor, that’s awesome. I’m not mad at you, or jealous. Hopefully you’ll never find out that …

#5. You Get Charged for Using Your Own Money

This is the future, where many businesses no longer accept cash as payment. That means you are required to have a checking account to function in the economy. And if you’re poor, that means at some point you’re going to get bank-[taken advantage of]. 

Because having a checking account while poor doesn’t just mean you have to be responsible and good at math — you have to be perfect. Meticulous, flawless record keeping is the difference between surviving and having the bank seize your next paycheck.

Let’s say you’re running late for work and hurriedly stop to get gas, paying with a bank card. In your haste you forget to write the $55 down (gas being $4 a gallon, you know). So while you spent the last week until payday thinking you had $50 in your account to absorb minor purchases, you actually were $5 in the red. 

So payday comes. You go to the bank to deposit your check, at which point the bank takes it, sticks it in their pocket and says, “Thank you very much! I’m buying myself a new pair of shoes with that [money]!” They then inform you that your account was at -$200 at the moment you deposited your check. 

The bank can hit you with a $35 fine for every charge that comes in while you are in minus territory. The bank will not tell you they charged you this money. You will have no idea anything is wrong. 

It’s a silent chain reaction in which every charge that comes through during those few days before payday draws the $35 fee. The $8 you spent at the gas station for cigarettes, the $24.99 that automatically comes out for your Internet access … for each, the bank silently zaps out the charge and $35 on top of it, until your next paycheck is gone. Five seconds of oversight gave the bank the right to take away a week’s worth of your labor. 

Some of you are saying, “Fine, just tell the bank to go [jump in a lake]. Walk out the door and just do everything by cash or money order.” Ah, but now when you get paid, you have to go somewhere to cash your paycheck — and businesses charge up to $8 to do it. If you’re working in the service industry, congratulations — an hour of your labor just vanished … just so you could use your own money. Some describe this as a “poverty tax.” Others refer to it as [explicitaves] 

The one piece of advice I can offer here is that you’ll be surprised how many businesses will give you some leeway if you just call them and beg. Banks are run by human beings (as of the writing of this article) and if you get a person on the phone you can get them to waive overdraft fees, particularly if it’s a first offense. Even businesses waiting on a payment will give you an extra week or two if you call and explain it. In this economy, they’re so used to people just taking the money and disappearing that they’re happy to hear you’re operating in some kind of good faith.

Otherwise, you’re going to be in a bind. And this is when you’ll find out …

#4. There is an Industry That Profits by Keeping You Poor

Think you’re too smart to ever use one of those shady “payday loan” places? Well, you should know that nobody thinks they’re a good deal. People go there because they’re choosing between which [Service] provides the [Least downside].

Say the gas bill is a month past due, and they’re threatening to turn it off (if so, it’s $150 to get it reconnected). Or you’re about to be late on a credit card payment (which would be a fee and a doubling of your interest rate). Or your favorite [TV] broke, and [a Sesame Street TV Marathon] is coming up. That is when you find yourself swallowing your pride and heading to the payday loan place. 

A standard 14-day “payday” loan charges $15.50 per $100 borrowed. So a $500 loan ends up being $577.50 (or 1.5 tanks of gas in interest). But if you don’t have it after 14 days, that’s fine — they offer to extend your loan to 180 days. It makes the payments minuscule. Oh, and you’ll be paying back $1,275 at 403.10 percent APR. 

Yes, you got [taken advantage of], in the name of your financial [institution] avoiding the credit card company’s [more harsh financial penalties]. And it’s a [heck] of a lot better than going over on your checking account again and starting up their infinite circular [financial catch 22].

All right, let’s say you wised up. You save and cut back. You resist an offer to, say, buy a computer on Best Buy’s finance plan, because you’re too smart to take on more debt. And no monthly cell phone payments for you, oh no. You’re not going to put yourself in a hole again!

Congratulations. You just did. It turns out …

#3. No Credit Can be Just as Damaging as Bad Credit

On the spectrum of financial responsibility, from “that billionaire who drives an old Dodge Dakota” down to “MC Hammer,” you’d think that the next step up from being overdue on a bunch of bills would be to have no bills at all. Don’t buy it if you can’t afford it, right? 

You’ll find out the problem the next time somebody does a credit check — having no credit will stop you from getting a loan or an apartment just as fast as having bad credit. And more importantly, if you have old bad credit due to a bunch of previous [unfortunate financial decisions], simply vanishing off the credit map doesn’t do anything to fix it.

t took me six months to find a place to rent after applying for every property that appeared in the paper across five towns. I was denied each time. It was my lack of credit due to years of me and lenders deciding to just stay out of each other’s hair, like those old sitcoms where roommates would draw a line down the middle of the house. I even used a prepaid cell phone where I’d just be buying minutes off the shelf rather than get locked into a contract with all those termination fees and [stuff]. When I needed something big, like a computer upgrade or furniture, I’d wait for a windfall, like a tax return, and pay cash. It’s called financial responsibility, [people]!

Nope. It turns out that to a business, a customer with no credit is like a girl giving you the silent treatment — they assume something is wrong. 

And everybody checks your credit — if I want to get Direct TV, I have to pay $310 worth of startup fees (the size of your up-front payments/deposits depends on your credit history). 

Utilities are even more — which means trying to move to a new place costs hundreds of dollars in deposits (remember the $150 to get my gas turned on). If I need a new car, well, let’s just say I need to show up at the dealership with a shoebox full of cash. 

So repairing credit means opening accounts (having a cell phone plan is a good one, having your utilities in your own name — as opposed to the landlord’s — is another) and, you know, making sure to pay your [finacial] bills on time. And don’t bother trying to shortcut the system by saving the shoebox full of cash, getting a loan, then paying it all off the next month. Length of credit is part of your credit score. They want to know your ability to make steady, long term payments without missing a month or being late

#2. Your Next Expensive Disaster is Always Around the Corner

[Stuff] happens, always at the exact worst time. A tire blows on my car and, without a spare, it instantly becomes a paperweight. There’s $80 for a new tire, $50 for a tow. Now, it’s a good idea to have a separate bank account set up specifically for these situations because they are unavoidable. It’s also a good idea to have a [winning lotto ticket in yout back pocket]. It’s not that simple. 

You get the same domino effect with sudden financial disasters as you do with the bank fees. For instance, I worked a [undesirable] service industry job, which meant I got paid by the hour, and didn’t get paid unless I showed up — no paid time off. But I couldn’t physically get to work because of the [unfortunate] flat tire. It’s a rural area, no subway or buses. So it’s double [unfortunate] — not just lost work time, but lost time that is spent paying for a tow and a tire. And if I didn’t happen to have that money sitting around, it meant waiting until payday, and missing work until then. 

Which meant my next paycheck would be short. By the time I get it fixed and add in the missed work time, that $80 tire just turned into a $250 [problem]. That’s life in a world with no financial margin for error. It’s like trying to climb out of a [hole and only falling deeper in]. 

Years ago, we bought a house with the help of our in-laws. You know, because owning property is the responsible adult thing to do. The very first [glorious] night of moving in, we got a massive water leak. I couldn’t just call the landlord — I was the landlord. I couldn’t call a plumber because we didn’t have the $150 to pay the guy, not until payday. So the leak was allowed to run until we could put the money together to pay one. So two weeks later, we hand the guy $150. And then, a week later, the water bill arrives. 

You find yourself thinking, “Man, we could get caught up if this bad [stuff] wouldn’t keep happening!” Then it finally hits you that bad [stuff] happens like clockwork. Not because God hates you, but because you’re poor and you’re using cheap [things] that break. Maybe you don’t pay the $150 for a plumber, but have a handy friend fix it for you for $50. Awesome, you saved $100! Then six months later you have a leak again, because it turns out he fixed it with rubber bands and Fruit Roll-ups. 

Everything in a poor person’s life is a cash vampire. My truck has 170,000 miles on it and the MPG is so bad that every time I start it, the ghost of an Indian appears in the passenger seat and cries. About twice a year, something under the hood grinds to a halt or melts — always another $500 on a tow and repairs. And that was the money I was saving to get a more reliable car. 

[Heck], even my own body does it to me. I lost my last job because of chronic back pain, losing my health insurance in the process. Which means I can’t treat my chronic back pain. Can’t afford to get dentist check-ups, so more expensive problems are allowed to grow and fester. And so on.

#1. You’re Always in Survival Mode

There’s a phrase in the working world that drives me crazy. One guy says, “The money’s not great, but I love my job.” And somebody responds, “Hey, happiness is all that really matters.” 

To be clear, that’s probably true for people at a certain level of income. If you aren’t struggling to pay the bills, then happiness is indeed a pretty [darned] awesome extra. But you know those movies like American Beauty, about the guy with the unfulfilling career who abandons it to live life to its fullest? Yeah, don’t forget that after quitting their jobs they still come home to houses that look like [Cape Cod]. 

But down here, at this level, you take what you can [be fortunate enough to] get. Fantasies about holding out for that dream job will ruin you. 

For instance, long before reading to this part, some helpful commenter has surely skipped down and chimed in with, “Why don’t you just get a job, you lazy [person]!” Wait, did you think I was unemployed? [Heck] no, it’s been years since I was out of work for any long period of time. I’ve always had jobs. [Lousy, Lousy] jobs. 

A huge chunk of this economy runs on shitty jobs now. Recently, McDonald’s held a job fair with 50,000 openings. They got more than 1,000,000 applications. Tens of millions of you will wind up in one of these jobs, it’s sheer math. 

These service jobs pay hourly, they give you little or nothing in terms of benefits and there is nothing in the way of security even from week to week — your hours could get cut at any time, for any reason. Sure, you can take a second part-time job. Though, that’s assuming you can find one that works around your primary job’s schedule — just mentioning that you have another job in an interview is often enough to stop that interview mid-sentence. Why hire you when there are 30 guys in line behind you with completely free schedules? 

So in answer to the inevitable, “You need to dream bigger, and strive forth to get a new career for yourself!” Hey, I totally agree. But now we’re back in the Catch-22 poverty [situation]. Once you’re in this tier of jobs, getting out isn’t just hard, it’s expensive. 

Sure, you can take classes at night at a community college or something. Maybe you’ll even get financial aid or loans to pay for your books or tuition. What they will not pay for is the time you missed at work while you were in classes or for a babysitter or for transportation. And you sure as [heck]better be certain that you have some kind of aptitude for whatever you’re studying (which, by the way, you won’t know until you’ve spent a year or two studying it) because that’s the only chance you’re going to get. 

You can do it the old-fashioned way, by working your way up the corporate ladder from within whatever [lousy] job you have. But that is also expensive because promotions often require you to move. I got offered a promotion at my [lousy] service job (washing semi trucks with high-pressure hoses, the job that eventually destroyed my back) that would have required me to move several hours away. And moving costs money — remember what I said about the cost of getting utilities turned on? And how landlords check your credit? 

And then there are the intangible costs. I would be abandoning my children, for instance — I share custody with my ex-wife, who obviously was not going to be moving with me. How many visits would I get in before my car broke down? And moving away from friends and family also comes with a cost — think of the favors you do for each other (i.e. the friend/brother/uncle willing to fix the truck for free, because you helped paint his porch, etc).

It’s not impossible, but it’s taking a huge risk. And if the new job doesn’t work out after you bet all of your chips, you’re triple [unfortunate].  And at that point the world will wag its finger at you and tell you how irresponsible it was to move when you were so poor. “Ha, you poor people are always doing stupid [things] like that!”

And on and on. People do get out of this situation — I got paid to write this, for instance. All I’m saying is that the journey is something like trying to go from the Earth to the Moon.




** WARNING:  Original link contains significant amounts of language that is NSFW. **

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-06-13/guest-post-5-things-nobody-tells-you-about-being-poor

Is this the next phase of persecution for those who do not support Obama?

It is no secret that the IRS has and is persecuting people for their political beliefs. It is also clear that Veterans are under persecution by DHS which on their list as likely terrorists. The below video is of a genuine authentic document that the government admits is real and exists. Is this the next phase of persecution for those who do not support Obama?


The following video details the contents of a department of defense document entitled "Internment and Resettlement operations" also known as FM 3-39.40.  The document is 325 pages long and is signed by Joyce E Morrow, administrative assistant to the Secretary of the Army.

It was created in 2010, however, it has just been recently leaked to the public via the internet and can now be downloaded from multiple sources.  In the description below you will find the download link for the document.  I strongly encourage you to download it yourself and verify everything that is being said here.

Highlights:

* Applies within US territory
* Addresses the detainment of US citizens
* SSN are to be recorded along photographs and fingerprints
* Cooperating agencies are listed as DHS, FEMA, DOD, and the UN
* Includes psychological operations officers to "identify malcontents, trained agitators, political leaders" and to "develop and executes indoctrination programs to reduce or remove antagonistic attitudes"
* Lists conditions for use of lethal force including terminating escape attempts
* snipers during riots for apprehension and fire lethal rounds.
* Shows basic layout for containment including interrogation area and mortuaries, double barb-wire fences, watched over by 24 guard towers.
* US Army has been running job ads for positions in these facilities since 2009.
* Created in 2010 under Obama Administration.
* Predates the NDAA of 2012 with authorizes the military detainment of US citizens - clearly showing a long term agenda at work


http://beforeitsnews.com/obama/2013/06/leaked-obama-document-is-this-the-next-phase-after-irs-tea-party-persecution-2452322.html

Death panels in action

By: John Hayward

“Someone lives and someone dies,” shrugged Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, when passing bureaucratic judgment upon the life of a 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl who will die in a matter of weeks unless she gets a lung transplant.  And a lot of someones owe Sarah Palin a huge apology for doubting her prescient warning about “death panels.”

Sarah Murnaghan has Cystic Fibrosis and is fighting for her life at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia as she awaits a life-saving lung transplant. Doctors believe she has only a few weeks to live.

The Department of Health and Human Services mandated that organ allocation policies must be based on medical need rather than waiting time or other considerations.

[Although] Sarah’s need is acute, because she is only 10 and not 12, she can’t [even] be on the list to receive an adult organ. Pediatric organ donors are in short supply and there is little chance that Sarah will receive a pediatric lung in time.

[PA Senators Pat Toomey and Pat Meehan, who are soliciting the DHS on Sarah's behalf,] are not asking for an exemption for Sarah, but rather asking the Secretary to follow rules available to her now. The lawmakers wrote that the Secretary has two options specified in the existing policy governing the organ transplant network. She can set aside the under-12 policy on an emergency basis. Or she can direct the organ donor network to conduct a pilot program to add to the research about the suitability of adult organs transplanted into children.

' We’re going to let a kid die over red tape. Somebody needs to stand up and say this isn’t right. This is a human issue this isn’t politics.’

http://www.humanevents.com/2013/06/05/hhs-secretary-refuses-to-save-dying-girl-someone-lives-and-someone-dies/

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Austerity has not failed!

AUSTERITY MYTH
By: John Stossel

Europe’s struggles prove that “austerity” fails!

So say the Big Spenders.


With a condescending sigh, they explain that Europe made deep cuts in government spending, and the result was today’s high unemployment. “With erstwhile middle-class workers reduced to picking through garbage in search of food, austerity has already gone too far,” writes Paul Krugman in The New York Times.

One problem with this conclusion: European governments didn’t  cut! If workers pick through garbage, cuts can’t be a reason, since they didn’t happen.

That doesn’t stop leftists from complaining about cuts or stop Europeans from protesting announced austerity plans. But if austerity means spending less, that hasn’t happened.

Some European countries tried to reduce deficits by raising taxes. England slapped a 25 percent tax increase on the wealthy, but it didn’t bring in the revenues hoped for. Rich people move their assets elsewhere, or just stop working as much.

If politicians honestly want to boost their nation’s economies, they should look to what happened in countries that bounced back from economic slumps.

Iceland was hit by bank collapses — but government ignored street protests and cut real spending. Iceland’s budget deficit fell from 13 percent of gross domestic product to 3. Iceland’s economy is now growing.

Canada slashed spending 20 years ago and now outranks the U.S. on many economic indicators.

Around the same time, Japan went the other way, investing heavily in the public sector in an attempt to jump-start its economy, much as the U.S. did with “stimulus” under President Obama. The result? Japan’s economy stagnated.

The left now claims Japan didn’t stimulate “enough.”

In the U.S., politicians imply spending limits would be “cruel” because vital programs are “cut to the bone.” But we are nowhere near bone.

Consider this family budget:

Annual Income —- $24,500
Annual Spending —- $35,370
New Credit Card Debt —- $10,870
Existing Debt —- $167,600

When I show that to people, they laugh and say the family is “irresponsible.” They are dismayed when I point out that those are really America’s budget numbers, with eight zeros removed:

Revenue —- $2,450,000,000,000
Spending —- $3,537,000,000,000
Deficit —- $1,087,000,000,000
Debt —- $16,760,000,000,000

Then people say: “That’s terrible! We have to balance the budget.”

Actually, we don’t need to “balance” it. We just need to slow spending growth to about 2 percent a year, so the economy can gain on our debt. But politicians won’t do even that.

I understand why. I ask people who say they are horrified by America’s debt, “What would you cut?” Most have no clue. They just stare. Some say things like, “Don’t cut education!”

C’mon. Federal bureaucrats spend $3.7 trillion! But most people can’t think of anything to cut?

When businesses face budget shortfalls, they can’t just give speeches about how much they care about fiscal responsibility — at least not for long. They must make real cuts. When they do, they often prosper. Years back, IBM and GE each laid off 100,000 workers. People were furious. But thanks to those cuts, the companies survived.

If the politicians don’t know what to cut, they should just accept Sen. Rand Paul’s proposed budget. Among other things, he would cut four Cabinet-level agencies: Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, Energy and Education. Why not? We don’t need a Commerce Department. Commerce just … happens. Education is funded by the states. The Energy Department gives money to politicians’ cronies.

I’d go further than Paul. Why do we need an Agriculture Department? Agriculture is done by farmers, not bureaucrats. Why do we need a Labor Department? And so on. All those things are better handled by a free market. I wish we had a real free market in America.

Government recently revised its dire forecasts about America’s coming bankruptcy. The numbers are a little better than once thought.

But make no mistake: As people my age retire and demand Medicare, America will eventually go broke.

The first step toward a solution is just being honest about the deep hole we’re in — giving up on the lie that governments elsewhere failed with “austere” budgets. They haven’t.

http://www.humanevents.com/2013/06/05/austerity-myth/

Unpossible! (sic)

Shocking! Sequester Wasn't The End Of The World!

—DrewM.

Unpossible! If the government spends a tiny bit less we were told there'd be riots and DC/NoVa residents would have to resort to cannibalism. Apparently not.

In the months since the automatic federal spending cuts known as the sequester took effect, the Washington area has added 40,000 jobs. Income-tax receipts have surged in Virginia, beating expectations. Few government contractors have laid off workers....
“The surprise is that the economy is as good as it is,” said Stephen S. Fuller, the economist who directs the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University. “We’ve done better than I expected.”
In January, Fuller predicted that the sequester, if enacted, would be an “end-of-the-world kind of hit” to the regional economy. He wrote an analysis of the cuts in March concluding they would kill more than 325,000 jobs in Virginia, the District and Maryland combined.
That estimate included both direct and indirect effects — that is, layoffs not just among federal workers and contractors, but also the workers, such as waiters or car salespeople, whose jobs depend on spending from federal paychecks.

So what's the lesson to be learned? Cut MOAR!

I can't say I'm surprised that the economic impact on the DC area hasn't been greater but I am disappointed. I think it's very unhealthy for the capital to be protected from the economic realities of the country as a whole. 

http://www.ace.mu.nu/

Is the Dollar Dying? Why US Currency Is in Danger

Is the Dollar Dying? Why US Currency Is in Danger
By: Jeff Cox

The U.S dollar is shrinking as a percentage of the world's currency supply, raising concerns that the greenback is about to see its long run as the world's premier denomination come to an end.

When compared to its peers, the dollar has drifted to a 15-year low, according to the International Monetary Fund, indicating that more countries are willing to use other currencies to do business.

While the American currency still reigns supreme -- it constitutes $3.72 trillion, or 62 percent, of the $6 trillion in allocated foreign exchange holdings by the world's central banks -- the Japanese yen, Swiss franc and what the IMF classifies as "other currencies" such as the Chinese yuan are gaining.

"Generally speaking, it is not believed by the vast majority that the American dollar will be overthrown," Dick Bove, vice president of equity research at Rafferty Capital Markets, said in a note. "But it will be, and this defrocking may occur in as short a period as five to 10 years."

Bove uses several metrics to make his point, focusing on the dollar as a percentage of total world money supply.That total has plunged from nearly 90 percent in 1952 to closer to 15 percent now. He also notes that the Chinese yuan, the yen and the euro each have a greater share of that total.

"To the degree that China succeeds in increasing its market share of the world's currency market, the United States is the loser," Bove said. "For years, I have been arguing that the move of the Chinese makes perfect sense from their point-of-view but no sense for the Americans."

For a country with a budget deficit in excess of $1 trillion a year, the consequences of losing standing as the world's reserve currency would be dire.

"If the dollar loses status as the world's most reliable currency the United States will lose the right to print money to pay its debt. It will be forced to pay this debt," Bove said. "The ratings agencies are already arguing that the government's debt may be too highly rated. Plus, the United States Congress, in both its houses, as well as the president are demonstrating a total lack of fiscal credibility."

Bove is not the only one sounding the reserve currency alarm, though the issue has fallen off the front pages as hopes for a sustained U.S. recovery have taken hold and the stock market has surged to near-record highs.

But the looming battle over budget sequestration in Washington could revive long-standing fears of fiscal stability.

"If (dollars) no longer offer the safety that investors have come to expect, they will not function as the stable collateral required by bank funding markets," Barry Eichengreen, a professor at the University of California, Berkley, warned in a Financial Times commentary late last year. "They will not be regarded as an attractive form in which to hold international reserves. And they will not be seen as a convenient vehicle for merchandise transactions."

To be sure, the markets at this point are not acting like the dollar is in severe trouble. The greenback has maintained its position as a general safe haven in times of trouble.

"Longer term, of course, countries are going to diversify away from the dollar if they can. There are more favorable investment opportunities out there if you can catch yield," said Christopher Vecchio, currency analyst at DailyFX, a trading firm. "Despite the increase in risk to the U.S. dollar and Treasury, investors still feel safest at home."

But the Federal Reserve's successive quantitative easing programs, which have created $3 trillion in new greenbacks, continue to spur worry over the dollar's status.

"The No. 1 security issue we have as a nation is the preservation of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency," said Michael Pento, president of Pento Portfolio Strategies. "It's a thousand times more important than a nuclear bomb being tested by North Korea. It's a thousand times more important that we keep the dollar as the world's reserve currency, and yet we are doing everything to abuse that status."

The dollar's seemingly precarious status is why Pento remains bullish on gold and believes the dollar's demise as the premier reserve currency could end even sooner than Bove predicts -- perhaps by 2015.

"Five to 10 years -- that would be an outlier," he said. "I would say 2015, 2016, that would be the time when it becomes a particularly salient issue. When we're spending 30 to 50 percent of our revenue on debt service payments, we enter into a bond market crisis. The dollar starts to drop along with bond prices. That would set off the whole thing."

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100461159

The re-election of Barack Obama is the End

Barack Obama and the End of an Era
By Steve McCann

The re-election of Barack Obama is the high water mark and the end of an era.  The period 1960 to 2014 will go down in American history as the era of never-ending crusades leading to the decline and potential downfall of the United States.   During this time frame America has been inundated with one cause after another.   The essential civil rights movement and the tragically successful Viet Nam protests spawned numerous causes, among them: feminism, environmentalism, global warming, and gay rights.

 For each generation born after 1940 it has been a rite of passage to take up the mantle of protest concurrent with mindless dedication to oftentimes absurd and erroneous beliefs, which have, in nearly all cases, resulted in disastrous societal and economic consequences.

 With the backdrop of unimaginable prosperity and lack of any national adversity since the end of the Great Depression, far too many have sought so-called meaning in their lives and for a cause to wholeheartedly and fervently embrace.  To countless Americans these movements became their religion and reason for being.  This mindset is unique among western democracies and it has been easily exploited by the American left -- a major factor in their rise to power and domination of the culture and government.  

As the left stealthily hijacked these causes, they were able to convince the True Believers in all these various movements that they stood with them; but more important was their ability to ingrain the conviction that anyone who opposed any of these evolving crusades was the incarnation of evil and must be defeated at all costs.  Political Correctness and its companion, unrestrained demonization of political opposition, was born.

The Civil Rights movement begun with best of intentions, and long overdue, achieved many of its original goals in breaking down the barriers to equality; however it soon degenerated into a battering ram as the liberals, in order to create a vast national dependency class, demanded, in the name of civil rights, innumerable and ever-expanding welfare programs as well as unending affirmative action for ever-evolving "minorities" (including women, a numerical majority).  The nation now faces a tsunami of unsustainable welfare and entitlement spending emanating from programs begun in the 1960's.

The Viet Nam war protests, while perhaps justified in light of the ham-handed manner in which the war was prosecuted, unleashed far more than just a demand for an end to the war.  Those that blamed America for all manner of alleged sins in the past and determined to transform the United States into a socialist nirvana were able to step out from behind the shadows and enter the mainstream of national legitimacy.  This swarm of locusts soon enveloped the higher levels of academia spawning countless clones to further infiltrate all levels of society -- most notably the mainstream media and entertainment complex as well as primary and secondary education.   These vital segments of the culture are now instruments of indoctrination and propaganda.

The feminist movement originally initiated to ensure workplace equality was quickly taken over by the self-described "Progressives" and transformed into a vehicle to alter American society primarily through the legitimization of abortion on demand under the rubric of "women's rights."   Since 1973 the nation has witnessed the killing of over 54.5 million children, which has eventuated in a grotesque disregard for human life, as exemplified by Kermit Gosnell in Philadelphia.  This catastrophic erosion in respect for the uniqueness of each individual has resulted in American society inexorably losing its moral compass.  Thus the people have become more susceptible to accepting deviancy and abandoning all pretexts of honor and integrity in themselves and in particular their national leaders.

As with other causes, the environmental movement began with the best of intentions: to clean up the air and water polluted through years of neglect.  However, it quickly evolved into an anti-capitalist crusade with the avowed intent of promoting socialist big government as the savior of the planet and the only means of curbing the evil and greedy capitalists.  Man-made global warming, perhaps the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on mankind, became the penultimate dogma to those dedicated to things "bigger than themselves" and who turned out to be ideal useful idiots for the left.   Today the free market is shackled by a Niagara Falls of regulations, mandates, taxes and oversight thus devastating the ability of the economy to create wealth and jobs.

While the nation slumbered, content in its prosperity, the American left, during the past fifty plus years of never-ending crusades, has succeeded in creating:

A)   a vast army of voters made up of:  1) those dependent on government largess, 2) low-information voters -- the natural outgrowth of the current education system, and 3) the easily manipulated and myopic single issue zealots.  The election of Barack Obama is a testament to the success of this strategy.
B)    national leadership devoid of character and integrity who, in their determination to seize and hold power, are guided by only one principle: the end justifies the means.
C)    an entrenched and unrestrained de facto oligarchy in Washington D.C.
D)   economic circumstances wherein, for the first time in American history, a succeeding generation will be far worse off than the one preceding it.   Meanwhile the ruling class is insistent on adding untold millions to the labor force by legitimizing, for political purposes, those in the country illegally.
E)    a deliberately ill-educated and fractured society destined for internal strife and chaos.

The prosperity that allowed this stealth war on United States to occur is no more.  This nation is subsisting on the residue of its past glory with no hope of regaining its former lofty status as long as it is governed by the most dangerous and radical regime in its history.  The American people, as their day to day lives continue to deteriorate, are becoming increasingly aware of the nation's precarious situation.

Beginning in 2014, as Benghazi and a myriad of other scandals combined with a rapidly declining standard of living for a vast majority of Americans marginalizes the Obama cabal, the focus of the nation will no longer be on bumper sticker platitudes and movements.  Instead it will, by necessity, be on individual survival as well as desperately finding a way, before the nation descends into chaos, to recreate what made the United States the most successful nation in the history of mankind.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/05/the_re-election_of_barack_obama.html

FedGov to target citizen's IRAs

President Obama’s budget, to be released next week, will limit how much individuals can keep in IRAs and other retirement accounts.

The senior administration official said that wealthy taxpayers can currently “accumulate many millions of dollars in these accounts, substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement saving.”

Under the plan, a taxpayer’s tax-preferred retirement account, like an IRA, could not finance more than $205,000 per year of retirement

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/domestic-taxes/292071-obama-budget-to-target-wealthy-iras

Why you never buy gold unless it is IN HAND.

By Tyer Durden

Earlier today, the CFTC issued an order and charges against two Boca Raton companies, (Joseph Glenn Commodities LLC and JGCF LLC, and their owners Scott Newcom and Anthony Pulieri) which accused the abovementioned of engaging in illegal, fraudulent off-exchange financed transactions in precious metals with retail customers

As alleged in the CFTC Complaint against Hunter Wise and according to the CFTC Order in this case, however, neither Joseph Glenn, JGCF, nor Hunter Wise purchased or held metal on the customers’ behalf, or disbursed any funds to finance the remaining balance of the purchase price. The Order finds that the Respondents’ customers thus never owned, possessed, or received title to the physical commodities that they believed they purchased

In other words: that physical gold that your trusted "held" on your behalf... they never really held it, and neither did you.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-27/physical-gold-you-thought-you-owned-you-didnt

Middle Class Extinction: Big government winning the war on middle class

Ponder the polarizing effect this has on our socio-economic status and the resulting class warfare, not to mention the deep impact on the economy....

Spending among the upper quintile of income earners is masking weakness elsewhere but it is jobs headlines that are really hiding the dismal reality in America. As the following chart shows,confirming our earlier discussion, the middle-class income-earner is becoming an endangered species (with no 'conservation group' willing to stand up for them) as the government holds the lowest income earners' hand and Bernanke the highest.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-14/progressing-extinction-us-middle-class

When the middle class collapses.... so goes the rest of the nation

On The Progressing Extinction Of The US Middle Class

By Tyler Durden

Beneath the positive headlines Bloomberg's Joe Brusuelas notes that there is evidence that a good portion of consumers continue to face a difficult adjustment to the $125 billion tax hike in January and the 15 percent increase in gasoline prices during the past four months. Spending among the upper quintile of income earners is masking weakness elsewhere but it is jobs headlines that are really hiding the dismal reality in America. As the following chart shows, confirming our earlier discussion, the middle-class income-earner is becoming an endangered species (with no 'conservation group' willing to stand up for them) as the government holds the lowest income earners' hand and Bernanke the highest.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-03-14/progressing-extinction-us-middle-class