Silent Crisis

So, while we are worrying about chaos, survival, fascism, the loss of individual liberty,  it pays to realize there is another big problem hiding in plain site.  I noticed it a few days ago when I heard China was blocking "rare earth" exports to Japan as part of a fight over some islands that Japan has had for a long time.  I looked into this area.

This is a word to the wise entry followed by an email from an investor service:

1.  Most of our high tech stuff uses "rare earth elements" and

2.   all of the high tech defense stuff, as well.

3.   These elements are essential to modern life and defense.

4.  China control 95% of the market.

5.   China will use its monopoly for political purposes

6.   The US, governed by idiots, has no way to refine these elements.  We are 15 years away from production.  Also, these elements are used in every hybrid car.  Ooops, being green strikes again. Too bad we have dimbos running things.

 That is about says it all to anyone who is paying attention.  Remember, some day economies will start to heat up and this market will be a monkey wrench.

Here is the email with more data. There are some investment ideas at the end.  I would like someplace to put my little money and forget about it, forget about the dollar crashing, Obama taxes kicking in, and so on.  This may be the place for a long term home.

Dear Gene, China and Japan are having a small but potentially painful dispute over the ownership of a small chain of islands in the East China Sea. These islands have very little significance other than the oil deposits that may lie around them. Whoever owns these islands would have claims to the mineral deposits on the ocean floors surrounding the islands. Tensions heated up when a Japanese coast guard boat collided with a Chinese fishing vessel on September 7. Japanese authorities detained the Chinese captain and tough talk flowed from both sides.

The culmination was the temporary halt of exportation of rare earth metals from China to Japan.

Rare earth? No, I'm not talking about the 1970's rock group nor am I talking about uranium or plutonium. I'm talking about a group of minerals that contain elements quite rare when discovered in Sweden in 1787.

If you've been an Uncommon Wisdom reader, you would have been alerted to this opportunity more than a year ago when my friend, Sean Brodrick, wrote about them here.

Maybe you've never heard of rare earth metals, but you use them every day of your life. They're used in things like cell phones, semiconductors, lasers, fiber-optic cable, plasma TVs, hybrid cars, microwave ovens, and scud missiles.

They — and just about anything electronic — contain some of the most obscure chemical elements on the planet known as rare earth metals.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has identified 17 elements that are considered rare earth metals, but nobody paid much attention to them until recent years because of the development of new technologies and electronic devices.

Most of the world's advanced defense, medical, and high-tech electronics simply won't work without rare earth metals. These metals have very special physical and chemical attributes, including high degrees of magnetism, luminosity, superconductivity and environmental non-toxicity.

What are these rare earth metals and what do they do? Here are a few of the most commonly used ones: Cerium is the most abundant rare earth metal. It is used in catalytic converters and other pollution control equipment. It's also added to diesel fuel to help it burn more efficiently. Dysprosium is used in lasers, fuel injectors, compact discs, and increasingly in hybrid vehicles. Europium is a part of the chemical process to screen for Down's syndrome. Erbium is used to produce photographic filters, sunglasses, jewelry, and fiber optical amplifiers. Holmium has the greatest magnetic strength of any element, and is used in medical/dental and nuclear control rods. Neodymium is used in magnets to increase the magnetic field. It is used in cell phones, computers, speakers, and miniature motors. Yttrium is primarily utilized to make red phosphors for use in red LED's and superconductors.

These obscure metals are so critical to our modern world that they are as strategically important as oil, copper, uranium, natural gas, and coal. And I believe that an investment in rare earth metals will be even more lucrative.

And what's this got to do with Asia? Tons! Keep reading and you'll understand exactly what I mean and why an investment in rare earth metals could be the best natural resources investment you can make.

Reason #1: Booming Demand. Ten years ago, the world used 40,000 metric tons of rare earth metals a year. Today, the world uses 125,000 tons, but is expected to grow to over 200,000 tons by about 2014.

The reason for the soaring demand is simple: The world is building and consuming more high-tech devices. Plus, new demand from green energy initiatives is gobbling up all the rare earth metals that the world can produce.

The consensus of the forecasts I've read predict a 40,000-ton shortage by 2015.

The U.S. Magnetic Materials Association said, "It is estimated that Chinese domestic consumption of rare earth materials will outpace Chinese domestic supply between 2012 to 2015. It is unclear whether rare earth material will be available outside China in the coming years."

Here is a link to a 2-minute Reuters news video about the demand for rare earth metals that I highly recommend you watch:http://link.e1.uncommonwisdomdaily.com/wisdom/eegezt6SrurfinSzhhS3jon5okSexqkSv0sdo/2/www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2CpFYCqZz8

No question, the world is headed for a supply/demand imbalance and that will push the price of rare earth metals higher. Much, much higher.

 Until 1948, most of the world's rare earth metals were sourced from placer sand deposits in India and Brazil when South Africa became the largest producer. India and South African still produce rare earth metals today, but China has zoomed past everybody since the 1980's.

This number is almost hard to believe, but it is absolutely true: China produces and controls 95% of the world's production of rare earth minerals. Yup, 95%!

The problem is that China currently uses about two-thirds of what it produces, but is on a consumption trajectory where it will use everything it produces in a few more years. When that happens, the U.S. and the rest of the world will be S.O.L.!

In September of last year, China announced plans to lower its export quota of rare earth metals to 35,000 tons per year in 2010-2015.

Wait, it gets worse. China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is considering a total ban on exports of terbium, dysprosium, yttrium, thulium, and lutetium.

It's part of a plan that Deng Xiaoping started almost two decades ago when he said that rare earth metals would "Do for China what oil did for Saudi Arabia."

Reason #3: A Matter of National Security. Every piece — and I mean EVERY piece — of high-tech military warfare is made with rare earth metals, including precision-guided munitions, night vision goggles, radar, and lasers.

If we lost our supplies of rare earth metals, our country's ability to produce many of these weapon systems would cease to exist. Since China controls 95% of the world's supply of rare earth metals, we are extremely vulnerable.

Rare earth metals are vital to the production of most defense, medical and high-tech electronics.

The General Accounting Office said that the U.S. produced zero rare earth elements in 2009 and that it will take up to 15 years to rebuild our own domestic rare earth supply chain.

"The United States has the expertise, but lacks the manufacturing assets and facilities to refine oxides to metals. Refined metal is almost exclusively available from China," states the GAO.

The U.S. Magnetic Materials Association said that the United States is already in a "silent crisis." And that "it is unclear whether rare earth material will be available outside China in the coming years."

In June of 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 2647, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Section 828 of the Act included language concerning "the availability of rare earth materials and components containing rare earth materials in the defense supply chain."

Section 828 noted that "less common metals" such as the rare earths and thorium were "critical to modern technologies, including numerous defense critical technologies and these technologies cannot be built without the use of these metals and materials produced from them and therefore could qualify as strategic materials, critical to national security."

Representative Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said "China is a rapidly rising military and economic power and the fact is that they cornered the market on these rare earth metals that are essential for a lot of our advanced weapons systems as well as a lot of manufacturing in the United States."

Representative Mike Coffman said, "We need to move aggressively on this issue now before it's too late."

Between now and the 15 years that it will take to rebuild our own rare earth metal supply chain, you can bet that our Military Industrial Complex is going to be a big buyer and a big stockpile of rare earth metals, the price of which is certain to go much higher.

Reason #4: Green Energy and Rare Earth Metals. Rare earth metals are also a back door way to profit from the "green" revolution. That is because most of the green energy initiatives cannot function with rare earth metals. Three green technologies — hybrid cars, solar panels, and wind turbines — use mountains of rare earth metals.

• Hybrid vehicles, like the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight, are big users of rare earth metals. Each car has about 2 kg of neodymium in it rechargeable nickel hydride battery and another kilogram or so of lanthanum and praseodymium in the drive train.

  
  

• Solar panel efficiency is measured as a percentage of light energy that is converted to electricity. Silicon solar panels are 25% efficient, but the newest generation of solar panels called multi-junction solar panels have efficiencies greater than 40%. These solar panels use the rare metal indium.

  
  

• Every wind turbine tower has a massive, highly engineered electromechanical system in it that couldn't operate without lanthanides.

Here is a link to a very informative video about the role that rare earth elements play in green energy:http://link.e1.uncommonwisdomdaily.com/wisdom/eegezt6SrurfinSzhhS3jon5okSexqkSv0sdo/2/www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxZLKiQd0yk

The Green Energy revolution is still in its infancy and its inevitable growth will place huge demand for rare earth metals and send the prices through the roof!

Reason #5: Brain Drain to China. Getting the raw materials out of the ground is just the first step. The next and equally important step is to refine that dirt into ready-to-use form. Not only does China have the raw resources, they also have most of the production capacity: Metal production, alloying, strip casting, magnetic powder production and, ultimately, magnet production.

The rest of the world is scrambling to open up new rare earth mines, but it will take decades to build the refining capacity. The biggest obstacle, however, is that most of the experience and knowledge is in China and can't be easily duplicated.

For example, the division of General Motors which deals with miniaturized magnet research shut down its U.S. office and moved its entire staff to China in 2006.

Reason #6: Not in My Backyard. The U.S. may talk about building its own rare earth supply chain, the reality is that mining and processing the finished materials is a dirty, polluting process and the environmental crowd in the U.S. will fight any efforts to build on American soil.

Here is a link to a CNN report on the environmental costs of rare earth metals mining.http://link.e1.uncommonwisdomdaily.com/wisdom/eegezt6SrurfinSzhhS3jon5okSexqkSv0sdo/2/www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO94WHkqHg4

Look at the obstacles oil companies have had to get permission to opening new drilling fields or refineries. Nobody wants them in their backyard and rare earth metal refining is even worse. I can't see any meaningful production capacity opened anywhere but third world countries that are willing to accept the pollution cost.

How can you invest in rare earth metals?

China Rare Earth Holdings produces about 20% of the world's supply of rare earth metals which makes it the Saudi Arabia of rare earth metals. China Rare Earth Holdings trades both on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (0769.HK) and the U.S. over-the-counter market (CREQF.PK).

Avalon Rare Metals owns a large but untapped mine in Canada. It trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange (AVL) and the U.S. over-the-counter market (AVARF.PK).

Lynas Corporation has one of the richest deposits of rare earth metals in the world. It trades on the Australian stock exchange (LYC.AX) as well as the U.S. over-the-counter market (LYSCF.PK).

Molycorp (MCP) went public earlier this year on the NYSE. It owns the Mountain Pass mine in Southern California, the largest rare earth metals deposit outside of China.

I should to disclose that my Asia Stock Alert subscribers already own China Rare Earth Holdings and we are sitting on a huge open gain. Even though we have a big gain, I am holding on for even more profits.

You need to do your own homework and decide if any of these rare earth stocks are appropriate for your situation. These are very volatile stocks, so stay away if you don't have a high tolerance for risk. The reward, however, should be big, big, big.

Best wishes,

Tony

The Federal Absurd

I came upon a fine interview, as I agree with it, so permit me to link you to Seeking Alpha.  Just click on the title.

Here is an excerpt:

...HRN: What would you recommend that the Federal Reserve do differently?

Dr. Marc Faber: The first action Mr. Bernanke should take is to resign. If I had messed up the system so badly, as he has done, I would have to resign. He has talked constantly about the Great Depression and what caused the depression but the problem is that he really doesn't understand what caused the depression, which was also excessive leverage at that time. I have to stress that in 1929 the debt to GDP ratio was of course minuscule in comparison what it is today. It was 186% of GDP but you didn't have Social security, Medicare and Medicaid and unfunded liabilities for Social Security and so forth. So, debt today, as a percent of GDP, is 379% and if you add the unfunded liabilities we are at over 800%. The Federal Reserve should pay attention to that.

HRN: With debt levels and liabilities so high, what solution is there for the United States?

Dr. Marc Faber: The solution is, basically, for the government to move out and not intervene in the economy.... 

I should put this in an Irregulars' email. 


People have to revert back to common sense and flee from Harvard Keynesian delusion. Unfunded debt is swtill debt.  One more time:

800 PERCENT OF GDP

I mentioned this before and no one bothered to attack it.  Either we all know this or, as I suspect, no one wanted to engage me our of fear.  Most of us think about what to do in a box, knowing there is another box outside of it, so we want to invest and then hunker down. The problem is there is no other box. Outside this one is anarchy, as many desire.  What follows this are massive taxes, and government control.  So, think seriously about that 401 k and the fear of a tax penalty for protecting your assets. 


The fat lady sang and is on the bus home.

Bye Bye Miss American Pie

I kept a wonderful article, but I wonder why.  Those of us who know, know.  Those of us not paying attention, don't pay attention.

Most of us lead lives of quiet stupidity punctuated by judgment against that which is not part of the hum of meaningless existence.  Being able to reject and mock make us feel good. After all, only gods can judge others. We need no longer read Lord of the Flies

In the slaving days, after the British made the trade illegal, the slaves were often pulled by their chains overboard by the first few who were thrown into the ocean. There was a chain reaction, literally, as the crime of trading slaves vanished with the last person to go into the water. I read one story where the British came upon an nearly empty ship with many bowls of farina on a table, still hot. Today, we have slaves who volunteer to jump and I do not want to be attached.

Below is good excerpt, I thought, that may awaken some people, but those who know, know and wonder what to do.  Those who don't know, won't even read the excerpt, which, now that I think about it, requires some awareness to even understand. Anyway, most people will just skim the crazy conspiracy talk, having been trained to think that conspiracy means fiction, then  check in at the concentration camp.

I usually find a funny or clever photo to capture the eye, but what's the point?  Those in the know, will be amused, but don't need it.  Those not in the know will add the image to cascade of meaningless data that passes by, as Vonnegut put it, their peep holes onto the world.

...Cloward and Piven were inspired by radical organizer [and Hillary Clinton mentor] Saul Alinsky:

"Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules," Alinsky wrote in his 1989 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system's failure to "live up" to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist "rule book" with a socialist one. (CourtesyDiscover the Networks.org)

Newsmax rounds out the picture:

Their strategy to create political, financial, and social chaos that would result in revolution blended Alinsky concepts with their more aggressive efforts at bringing about a change in U.S. government. To achieve their revolutionary change, Cloward and Piven sought to use a cadre of aggressive organizers assisted by friendly news media to force a re-distribution of the nation's wealth.

In their Nation article, Cloward and Piven were specific about the kind of "crisis" they were trying to create:

By crisis, we mean a publicly visible disruption in some institutional sphere. Crisis can occur spontaneously (e.g., riots) or as the intended result of tactics of demonstration and protest which either generate institutional disruption or bring unrecognized disruption to public attention.

No matter where the strategy is implemented, it shares the following features:

1. 
   

   The offensive organizes previously unorganized groups eligible for government benefits but not currently receiving all they can.

2. 
   

   The offensive seeks to identify new beneficiaries and/or create new benefits.

3. 
   

   The overarching aim is always to impose new stresses on target systems, with the ultimate goal of forcing their collapse.

Capitalizing on the racial unrest of the 1960s, Cloward and Piven saw the welfare system as their first target. They enlisted radical black activist George Wiley, who created the National Welfare Reform Organization (NWRO) to implement the strategy. Wiley hired militant foot soldiers to storm welfare offices around the country, violently demanding their "rights." According to a City Journal article by Sol Stern, welfare rolls increased from 4.3 million to 10.8 million by the mid-1970s as a result, and in New York City, where the strategy had been particularly successful, "one person was on the welfare rolls... for every two working in the city's private economy."...

No, you may think," this is crazy stuff.  Who would be so diabolical?"  You may think how good you are for being sensitive to those in need.  You may vote for Clinton because she speaks for women or some other nonsense.  What is this the Stockholm syndrome?

Then, you will go pay your school tax, your real estate tax, your federal income tax, your state income tax, your telephone tax, gas tax, tolls, social security premium, and read about how your electricity costs may double as that wonderful solution to no problem "cap and tax" may be enacted.  At least, we can feel good about supporting all the illegal aliens who can get here. This year, Clinton lectured the Pakistani:  tax everything, we do.

There is a cliff up ahead, to change metaphors.  I don't think I can watch anymore. There are a few historical instances of peoples throwing themselves off a cliff to avoid defeat or slavery, or to retain honor , but I can't find an instance where they jumped off because, well, come on, what is the big deal?

It may be time to set up a monastery to keep a library of what is being destroyed by the self-absorbed. those who don't trust other people, and a medieval religion. Or perhaps, find America's progeny and help dignity reawaken there. I wonder where that might be?

He's right, with a whimper.

NAZI-Islam follow up

Irene sent this to me after an email swap on the subject.  Some more on the NAZI connection to Islam.

Gene


Hoover Institute 

http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/5696 

FrontPageMag.com 

http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=20831 

From Atlas Shugs - documentation from Sept. 1945. 

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/02/us-confirms-role-of-mufti-as-nazi-leader-september-17-1945.html 

Another guy to look up and study is el Bana. Played big role too. 

http://frontpagemag.com/2010/03/26/anti-semitic-symbiosis-2/ 

Welcome to perspective

I began to listen to a message on a good investment site and was drawn into a long, quiet lecture that fully earns a giant OMG.  (Click on title)

The Middle East is far more complex that we thought, we being those outside the government who are, apparently, running around in a panic.  Here is a list of topics

1.  Sunni v. Shia (the return of the Ottoman Empire?)

2.  Tupi oil field

3.  China is planning to increase use of uranium TEN times.  (OK, that is not 10%, it is 1000%)  The rest of the world is close behind in a buidling spree. 

All the information makes sense and is known. The key here it all the diverse trends, seemingly so, have been tied together.  The consultant expects a war in the Middle East, and we are preparing for it, but it is not directed at us.

History shows a tremendous lift in oil  prices even with mild news. (Author predicts $220 in the coming year) In Brasil, the new Tupi oil find holds more oil than the middle east or Russia.  It is there all the deep water drilling rigs are going after the idiocy in the Gulf and the adminsitrations playing high school student council with oil drilling controls.

Finally, not only is urnanium logical, it will be HUGE and SOON.

Get a beer and listen to the talk.

Mork is pissed

Apparently, this is a real Robin Williams routine.  If not, who cares, it warms the hear.

Note number seven won't work, but Mr. Williams is not exactly up on crazy right-wing stuff like the economics of the fungible.

I did a little research to see if Williams actually said this stuff, as it didn't seem likely.  The circle is linking and he is becoming a libertarian

Leave it to Robin Williams to come up with the perfect plan .. what we need now is for our UN Ambassador to stand up and repeat this message. Robin William's plan...(Hard to argue with this logic!)

I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan for peace. So, here's one plan.

1) The US will apologize to the world for our "interference" in their affairs, past & present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Noriega, Milosevic and the rest of those 'good ole boys,' we will never "interfere" again.

2.) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting with Germany, South Korea and the Philippines. They don't want us there. We would station troops at our borders. No one sneaking through holes in the fence.

3.) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs together and leave. We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and deported immediately, regardless of who or where they are. France would welcome them.

4.) All future visitors will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days unless given a special permit. No one from a terrorist nation would be allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide here. Asylum would never be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers or 7-11 cashiers.

5.) No foreign "Students" over age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a "D" and it's back home baby.

6.) The US will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy wise. This will include developing nonpolluting sources of energy but will require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness. The caribou will have to cope for a while.

7.) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a barrel for their oil. If they don't like it, we go some place else. They can go somewhere else to sell their production. (About a week of the wells filling up the storage sites would be enough.)

8.) If there is a famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we will not "interfere." They can pray to Allah or whomever, for seeds, rain, cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army. The people who need it most get very little, if anything.

9.) Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island some place. We don't need the spies and fair weather friends here. Besides, the building would make a good homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.

10) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That way, no one can call us "Ugly Americans" any longer. The language we speak is ENGLISH.....learn it...or LEAVE...Now, isn't that a winner of a plan.

11.) "The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying 'Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling, "You want a piece of me?"

9/11 Rally Huge but ignored

The picture above belies, the stories in the press about the size of the rally at Ground Zero on 9/11 were absurd.  The AP reported the rally contained about 1,000 people. Little content was discussed and there was much talk of a pro mosque demonstrate. 

Just see if you can discern the edge of the crowd, on this one view. 

Of course, the media is lying.  It is part of the Big Brother's  Newspeak. 

"Journalists" believe their job, and I have heard this directly, is to promote a message.  You go to Columbia so you can promote social justice, not report the news. Also, you can matriculate, but not attend, if you want to be president.  Now you an understand why the various fascist states arrest journalists as spies.  That is what they are in their eyes.

What is far more interesting than the obvious lying are the comments to the image.  I just grabbed a bunch from the top.  The + followed by a number indicate the favorable votes; I don't see any negatives.  It is worth the times to read down the comments.  People are wide awake and every time  the statists pull an old tactic, it is seen for what it is - it puts into doubt the past.

It is like Toto has pulled back the curtain and revealed the guy from Kansas is really the Wizard of Ox.  The continued pretense of the Wizard become insulting.

Click on the title to go to a full summary of the event with pictures, video, speeches, and so on. 

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Smith_N_Wesson77p
Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice. ~Thomas Paine
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+17
Smith_N_Wesson 77p · 3 hours ago
This will be an ongoing problem until the ratings suffer so bad they have to change their business model. For some strange reason most of Hollywood falls for this liberal BS and i just don't understand. One would think they would mirror the sentiment of the national majority. It's okay to have an opposing opinion but its career suicide to displease your audience. The more they expose themselves as to their politics the more I know who to boycott.
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5 replies · active 1 hour ago
+9
evarilot 77p · 3 hours ago
The MSM is contributing to their own demise. They think that if they don't report it, no one will know. Anybody seen that 'Cops' episode when the fleeing suspects hid underneath the upside down kiddy pool in someone's backyard? Then when the cop pulled it off them, they lay very still thinking 'if I don't move, maybe they won't see me.' It does not work that way. MSM: lead, follow, or get out of the way!
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+10
Majiic12 92p · 3 hours ago
The MSM are traitors to freedom period. Liars thieves and manipulators of truth. They should feel damn lucky they are not held accountable as it was in the past. People would be in prison or be hanging by the end of a rope for treason.
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+9
Mikeyh0 90p · 3 hours ago
When I was a child, I used to cover my eyes and declare,"You can't see me!" Cute in a kid. In a news organization - not so much.
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+10
Petroglyph 82p · 3 hours ago
I liked the last sentence in this piece:

It’s going to be a long, hard struggle. Another reader summed it up: “We are going to have to march through hell, to save America.”

Correction, we ARE in hell because of this Administration. We have "one" vote upcoming, which will be our only chance to claw our way back out.
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17 replies · active 34 minutes ago
+9
GraficDav 77p · 3 hours ago
I suppose the idea of drastically under reporting the numbers at these rallies is to make anyone watching or reading who is supportive of, and in agreement with those attending feel that they are in a tiny tiny minority, and hence should keep their concerns to themselves.

Thank god for the FREE SPEECH on the internet and hand held video capability in cell phones. George Orwell's 1986, where BIG BROTHER is always watching may be true now, but he never figured on LIL' BROTHER having the same capability. We're watching too~!
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+10
The_Great_Satan 101p · 3 hours ago
North Korea's state run media is more honest than the leftwing propagandists at AP, Reuters, CNN, MSLSD, NYTimes, Washington Post, LaTimes, etc. Fortunately few people look to those rags for news.

It seems as if the democrats/liberals in the media are still under the impression they are the gatekeepers of information; this hasn't been the case for nearly 2 decades but since they're living in their little bubble they'll be the last to find out. Democrats/liberals believe their constituents are dumb, and you can't blame them. After all, no one with an IQ above 50 would have voted for an affirmative action community organizer who's a political neophyte and didn't even have the courage to vote Yea or Nay, instead Hussein opted for the cowards "present."

Democrats will tell the schmucks that vote for them that President Bush blew open the deficit, despite the fact that Hussein tripled the deficit under Bush. So how can they say this with a straight face? They think you're stupid.

Democrats will tell the schmucks that vote for them that President Bush brought about high unemployment, what they don't tell you is that Hussein has more than doubled Bush's unemployment rate. Again, they think you're stupid.

Hussein and the democrats spent nearly a trillion on "shovel ready" and "green" jobs with nothing to show for it. Now they want to spend $50 Billion more on the same promises. Why? They think you're stupid.

Hussein and the democrats tell you 95% of Americans will get a tax cut, what they don't tell you is that A) it's impossible considering 95% of Americans do not pay income taxes B) the cost of medical insurance will go up despite liberal claims that it will go down. How can they get away with this? They think you're stupid.

Show them who's stupid this November.
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+11
Axion 88p · 2 hours ago
Thanks Pamela Geller for setting the record straight. I watched one of the news reports where the media was implying the pro-mosque side was bigger. I could tell by the way they were cropping the pictures they were lying. But I surely didn't know that it was such a huge whopper of a lie --- until now.
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+7
Hucbald 98p · 2 hours ago
The MSM only preaches to their ever-shrinking choir now. While it's useful to point out their perfidy, I just don't care much anymore.
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+8
EdSki 131p · 2 hours ago
Forget the MSM. They are irrelevent. Stick with the new alternative media. They're rising while the MSM crashes.
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+9
LibertyWriter 96p · 2 hours ago
Ah, the numbers game. The MSM can keep on lying about attendance figures until the dems are voted out of office. Then, I dont know what excuse they will come up with, but I am sure it will be a doozy.
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+7
HonestAmerican 88p · 2 hours ago
Islamic scholar Abul Ala Maududi said it all :

"Islam wishes to destroy all states and governments anywhere on the face of the earth which are opposed to the ideology and programme of Islam regardless of the country or the Nation which rules it. The purpose of Islam is to set up a state on the basis of its own ideology and programme, regardless of which nation assumes the role of the standard-bearer of Islam or the rule of which nation is undermined in the process of the establishment of an ideological Islamic State. Islam requires the earth—not just a portion, but the whole planet .... because the entire mankind should benefit from the ideology and welfare programme [of Islam] ... Towards this end, Islam wishes to press into service all forces which can bring about a revolution and a composite term for the use of all these forces is Jiahd.... the objective of the Islamic ‘ Jihād’ is to eliminate the rule of an un-Islamic system and establish in its stead an Islamic system of state rule."
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StanH 119p · 2 hours ago
Great work Pam! These bastards in the press are on the short list for an attitude adjustment. They lie, obfuscate, anything for the liberal narrative, we’re hip to it and the day of reckoning will come, sooner or later.
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etc etc

Fahrenheit Florida 451

Eisenhower Warns Against Planned Burning of Mein Kampf

LONDON, June 19, 1944 — The top American commander in Normandy has warned that plans by a small Florida church to burn copies of Mein Kampf on Tuesday, the anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Russia, could play into the hands of the very extremists at whom the church says it is directing that message.

Burning copies of Mein Kampf, the founding document of Nazism, “would undoubtedly be used by extremists in Germany — and around the world — to inflame public opinion and incite violence,” the commander, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower said in a telegram to The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Echoing remarks the general made in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Friday, he said: “It could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort. It is precisely the kind of action the SS uses and could cause significant problems. Not just here, but everywhere in the world we are engaged with the Nazi community.”

In 1943, violent and sometimes lethal riots were set off around the world by a mistaken report by Newsweek that a Pentagon investigation had found that military interrogators of detainees at a camp in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, tried to flush a copy of Mein Kampf down a toilet. The same year, a Canadian newspaper that printed cartoons portraying Adolf Hitler also led to riots across the Nazi world.

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Terry Jones, the pastor of the tiny Florida church that plans the Mein Kampf burning, says that as an American Christian he has a right to burn Mein Kampf because “it’s full of lies.”

Some of his prior attempts to incite anti-Nazi fervor have met with less public attention. Last year, he posted a sign at his church declaring “Nazism is of the devil.”

Nazi leaders in several countries, including Holland and Hungary, have formally condemned him and his church, the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, which has 50 members.

In Normandy, meanwhile, a district governor from Rouen was assassinated by Gestapo insurgents on Monday night along the Caen-Bayeux highway in the north of Normandy, officials said.

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The above is from The Gates of Vienna blog.  Go see it.

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PS:  I just heard a clip from yesterday's presidential press conference where each response took seven minutes. During this odd event, Mr. Obama noted, and I just heard this, "I have" Muslims fighting in Afghanistan.  I refer you back to two earlier blogs about narcissism.

Trillion Dollar Conspiracy

Whitley Schriber's Dreamland show on the book Tillion Dollar Conspiracy. 

A YouTube review, of sorts. 

The book is now a NYT bestseller.  Before you judge, before reading, recall the devil's greatest success is he has convinced people he dos not exist.

In the radio interview, the author, Jim Marrs, replies as to what is the point of the concerted conspiracy:  to divide, confuse, and control.  The cabinets of Bush II and Obama are all CFR. There are no parties, only Wall Street.

Marrs recalls the tactic in 1984 was to have three blocks, Oceana, East Oceana, and Asia, that played off of each other. We have the EU, the North American Union is working its way through out government, without a vote by Congress, and Asia is next.  The stumbling block, that is left, is U.S. with its tradition of law and republican government, which is under attack. 

Sure, conspiracy.  Just happens that hundreds of trends and facts are a coincidence.

Vote everyone out and believe no one. The truth is not out there. 

Thunder in the canyons

A recent article from Bloomberg states that the US Government has resorted to buying its own treasuries to support the market, with "The Fed bought 14 of the 25 securities listed for possible purchase".

This means the government is kiting, which would be a fraud if you did it.  It is quite acceptable to Keynesians from Goldman Sachs and Harvard.  Imagine if you were discovered bidding up the prices at an auction where your stuff was for sale.

If you had three bank accounts and wrote a check over the balance of No. 1, you could then cover it with a check from No. 2, but, OMG, you are over the limit there, so you go to No. 3 and write a bad check hoping upon hope that money appears from somewhere.
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UNITED STATES v. NORTON

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Lawrence NORTON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 96-2552.

-- March 03, 1997

Before COFFEY, MANION, and EVANS, Circuit Judges. 

Barry Rand Elden, Chief of Appeals (submitted), Office of the United States Attorney, Criminal Appellate Division, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.Ralph E. Brown, Michael F. Braun, Schuyler, Roche & Zwirner, Chicago, IL, for Defendant-Appellant.

In a traditional check kiting scheme, a person artificially inflates a checking account balance during the “float” time that passes when a check moves between two or more banks.   Check kiting (assuming the victim is a federally insured financial institution) violates the federal bank fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1344.   But can one violate the statute when only one account at one bank is used in the scheme?   The answer is “yes.”...

You don't even need to have multiple accounts per the Norton case.  On top of the kiting theory, there is the old "watering" of stock crime. Cowboys used to let cows (stock) drink like crazy before selling them by the pound. The SEC was essentially started to stop this fraud.

Government operatives seem to be immune from its laws, so there is no resistance to its everyday fraud.

So, the question becomes, how does the government cover its ass in the middle of a kiting scheme where it is upside down to an extent that numbers no longer are relevant to normal people?

Traditionally, as Hillary says, the govenrment taxes everything, but that no longer is covering the short fall. Taxation will take too long, anyway, as new kiting or watering will be needed, soon, especially, if we are to pay for California and New York as they collapse into the socialist sewer.

The clear answer, and only remaining tool, is for the government to manipulate the dollar with high interest rates, if that doesn't happen naturally.  Deflation is a concern, but it runs afoul of the government's survival at all costs mode.

It seems to me that very high inflation is a necessary target, but an election is coming. So, the rates will be kept low, giving impetus to deflationary trends.  Low rates would be good if the government were borrowing within a sound budget.  However, it has massive debt and wants to add to the liability. This, in turn, will weaken the dollar more making a low interest rate more bizarre. Perhaps, I should say we are in a Ponzi scheme of international scope.

Eventually, investors will start to invest in more attractive places. We are safe here and that is the only thing keeping some of them around right now. At some point, the investors are backing out the door as orderly as possible, to avoid an instant collapse, which comes anyway.

The government has to attract investors in a big way which means high interest rates (to overcome fear) and to cause current obligations to be paid in cheaper dollars (which will incur fear). We are in paradox and the pressures building need to be released, not increased.  But, will the cycle of the economy and history permit the inflation game, again?

There is much talk of deflation and some say we are in it now.  As I noted earlier, one pro is all in and is maxed out on treasury investments; I am so confused by all this that I am not even sure what this fund is doing: keeping dollars in anticipation of deflation or projecting life as normal.  Then again, perhaps, the fund is in inflation bonds.

One indicator of the future is that it costs about $500 an ounce to mine gold; it has a spot price of $1,247 this morning.  Think about it.

I suspect history is of limited use in figuring out what will come.  There are tidal forces in the economy that the Fed is trying to block, not paying heed to the Tao Te Ching. It states it wants a modest inflation and fears deflation.  From my brief time on earth, it seems to me that the tidal forces will win, but if you mess with them, the eventual release of pent up forces will be powerful and the rip tides fierce.  The Mississippi River is so deadly because people have tried to hem in its flood waters.

Perhaps, the revolutionaries want a collapse to happen, some so argue, so they can step in to take control. It is an old communist trick - push the economy in to hell then offer to be the devil.  I don't see this working in the U.S.  While I bemoan the lowering of our ability to reason, we are not stupid and have tasted liberty.  I hope our path is not to arrive at the point of a counter revolution.

Peanut butter.

Health Care for Idiots and Democrats

Enslavement by Health Insurance

by Richard Amerling, MD

READ ARTICLE ONLINE & COMMENT

“You load sixteen tons, what do you get,
another day older and deeper in debt,
Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go,
I owe my soul to the company store”

—-“Sixteen Tons”    Merle Travis

Song

According to Wikipedia, the “company store” in this classic country song refers to the “truck system” where employees are paid in substitute currency, known as “scrip.”  This limits employees’ ability to choose how to spend earnings, generally to the benefit of the employer.  In closed economic systems, such as existed in various mining towns, workers had little choice but to buy from the company store, which often led to significant indebtedness, limiting their ability to leave the system.  This created a form of indentured servitude, prompting legislation that made payment in other than legal tender illegal.  

During World War II, the government imposed wage and price controls.  In an effort to attract and retain workers, companies offered health insurance in lieu of wages.  These benefits were not taxable for either the employer or employee.  When the war ended and controls lifted (everywhere except in New York City, where rent controls persist to this day), the tax subsidy for employer-sponsored health insurance was retained.   This explains why the majority of working Americans buy health insurance at work, at the “company store.”  This accident of history underlies much of what has gone wrong with health care in America.  

Since insurance is “in kind” payment in lieu of wages, it sustains the illusion that “someone other than you” is paying for your medical care and creates an incentive to use the benefits.  Along with low-deductible, “first dollar” coverage, this clearly led to overutilization of health care services, which drove up both prices for services and insurance premiums.  Most people are unaware of how much their insurance costs.  It is probably between $10-20,000 per year.  This money would be added to your paycheck, taxable, if there was no insurance provided.  When your employer deducts money from your paycheck for premiums, what they are really doing is shifting wages into non-wage benefits.  Assuming you are healthy and don’t use much health care, this is a bad deal financially and leaves you poorer.  

Employers naturally want healthy and happy workers, but they have bottom line requirements that compel them to shop for inexpensive policies.  This created a market for health maintenance organizations (HMOs) with their gatekeepers and intensive micromanagement that doctors and patients find so distasteful.  Employers must limit options for their employees, who are stuck unless they change jobs or refuse to buy “company store insurance.”  In the latter case, they will pay in after-tax dollars for an outside insurance policy.   

Employees, or their families, with chronic health issues may be quite reluctant to leave a job with a health plan, particularly if they have relationships with hospitals and doctors in that plan.  There are undoubtedly millions of Americans who are trapped in jobs they no longer like simply because they are worried about the consequences of changing health plans, or going without.  These people have “sold their soul to the company store” and are, at least partially, enslaved. 

Imagine how transformed the landscape would be if individuals purchased their own health insurance (as we do for all other types of insurance).   As proposed by George W. Bush and others, this could be done immediately and painlessly by transferring the tax break on health insurance from the employer to the individual.   A competitive market for individual health insurance policies would spring up overnight.  The majority of consumers would likely prefer a high-deductible policy to cover against a significant illness, coupled with a Health Savings Account, from which routine care could be financed.  Groups could form to enhance purchasing power, and to cover those with significant pre-existing conditions.  

According to 2008 Census data, of 45.6 million uninsured, 32.1 million earned over $25,000 per year (including 9.1 million earning over $75,000).  Many of these people chose not to buy health insurance, seeing it as the bad deal it is.  Many would likely buy a catastrophic policy were one available.  Far from being unable to get care, they can freely choose any physician they like and pay cash.   In many ways they enjoy more freedom than the 200 million covered by private insurance and the 87.4 million covered by government insurance.   Too bad we will all soon be enslaved under ObamaCare, and will “owe our soul” to the federal government.

Watch Dr. Amerling at Aug. 7 Doctors Tea Party

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 Richard Amerling, MD, is a nephrologist practicing in New York City.  He is an Associate Professor of at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, and the Director of Outpatient Dialysis at the Beth Israel Medical Center.  Dr. Amerling studied medicine at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium, graduating cum laude in 1981.  He completed a medical residency at the New York Hospital Queens and a nephrology fellowship at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.  He has written and lectured extensively on health care issues and is a Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Amerling is the author of the Physicians’ Declaration of Independence (http://www.aapsonline.org/medicare/doi.htm).

The mechanism described above is well known in Europe and in Canada.  Here, the "Progressives" used the tax code to work closer to control, the dullard representatives went along with the idea as there was a party later in the evening. The new health insurance take over, mislabeled a "health care bill," just takes control of the mechanism put in place that keeps employees as indentured serfs.