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U.S. Army Buying Millions of Rounds of Russian Ammo and Popular Civilian Firearms

The U.S. Army is now looking to stockpile nearly 3,000,000 live rounds of Soviet-era Russian ammo popular with civilian shooters.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

A U.S. Army solicitation posted July 18 on theFederal Business Opportunities web site asks for “non-standard” ammunition from vendors which includes:

- 2,550,000 rounds of 7.62x39mm ball ammo
- 575,000 blank rounds of 7.62x39mm ammo and
- 425,000 rounds of 9x18mm Makarov ball ammo

The army intends to store all these rounds in ammo storage facilities at both Camp Stanley in Boerne, Texas and the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky.

As the solicitation implies, the 7.62x39mm and the 9x18mm Makarov are not standard-issue in the U.S. military or NATO.

Rather they are calibers developed by the former Soviet Union which are now commonly used by civilian shooters in the United States.

The 7.62x39mm in particular is extremely popular with private gun owners due to the wide availability and affordability of both military surplus ammo and firearms chambered for this round, such as the AK-47 and the SKS.

Handguns chambered for the 9x18mm Makarov, such as the FEG PA-63, are common, inexpensive imports.

The desired list of calibers attached to aprevious, related acquisition request also included oddball rounds such as the .303 British and the 7.62×25mm Tokarev.

In addition to this solicitation for nearly 3,000,000 live rounds of Russian calibers popular with the public, the army made a similar request last year for a long-term weapon supplier who can ship both foreign non-standard and obsolete U.S. military weapons anywhere in the world.

According to this 2012 request, the U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) wanted to find a vendor who could “reach around the world at any given moment to gather and provide multiple types of weapons and weapon parts.”

The extensive list of desired weapons included firearms popular with civilians such as the aforementioned AK-47, 1911s, M1903 Springfields, Walther PP/PPKs (another common import), and other “commercial and para-military weapons.”

This solicitation also asked for “books, manuals, tools, and gauges” pertaining to the firearms.

Headquartered in New Jersey, ARDEC is primarily known for its research in advanced weapons such as lasers and nanotechnology.

These unusual requests prompt the question as to why the U.S. Army, and especially the army’s advanced weapons research and development division, needs a vast quantity of non-NATO rounds and decades-old – sometimes even 100-year-old – firearms popular with civilians for worldwide deployment “at any given notice.”

The ARDEC request in particular seems too broad.

Are World War I era M1903 Springfields really that common in today’s battlefields, or even the popular CZ-52 imports which have been retired from Czechoslovakian service since 1982?

Are these obsolete weapons used that frequently in current world conflicts to warrant specific mention in an army acquisition request?

Do century-old firearms really need to be shipped all around the world for “research and development?”

What about the huge purchase of 425,000 9x18mm Makarov rounds?

Are they going to somehow end up in the sidearms of Obama-backed Syrian rebels, especially after two congressional panels cleared the way for shipping small arms to Syria?

Handguns chambered in 9x18mm Makarov are still commonplace among Syrian militants because Syria received military aid from the Soviet Union for over 20 years.

These solicitations, with planned acquisitions ranging between $500,000 to $22,000,000, definitely forge fears of back door gun control by creating artificial scarcity that denies Americans access to a wide-range of firearms and ammo, especially in the wake of the U.N. arms trade treaty which was signed by Obama but rejected by the Senate.

Regardless of the army’s intentions, these large-scale purchases will only further intensify firearm and ammo shortages for gun owners across the country.

Infowars

Pentagon: Obama to halt F-16 delivery to Egypt amid unrest

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama has decided to halt the planned delivery of four F-16 fighter jets to Egypt, thePentagon said on Wednesday, amid the unrest that erupted after the military ousted Egypt's first democratically elected president.

The move came two weeks after Reuters reported US plans to go ahead with the delivery of the F-16s, and shows how the United States is struggling to respond to the removal of President Mohamed Morsi and an ensuing surge in violence.

Pentagon spokesman George Little declined to specify precisely what triggered the reversal but acknowledged what he referred to as the "fluid situation" on the ground.

"Given the current situation in Egypt, we do not believe it is appropriate to move forward at this time with the delivery of F-16s," Little said, adding that Obama's decision was made with the unanimous consent of his entire national security team.

Still, the Pentagon said it did not believe it was in the best interests of the United States to suspend overall military assistance to Egypt, which totals about $1.3 billion a year.

Little said this year's Bright Star military exercise with Egyptwould go ahead as planned, for example.

Washington has been treading a careful line since Morsi's ouster, neither welcoming it nor denouncing it as a "coup," saying it needs time to weigh the situation.

A US government decision to call it a coup would, by law, cut off US assistance to Egypt.

The Pentagon said the White House and the State Department were still conducting a review into how to define Morsi's removal.

"I would caution against premature conclusions with respect to that (review) process of determining whether or not there was a coup," Little said.

"This was a decision made about the F-16s and doesn't necessarily reflect what the outcome will be in that process."

Egypt's military chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, called for mass rallies on Friday to give him a mandate to tackle the unrest.

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel spoke with Sisi on Wednesday to inform him of the decision to delay the delivery of the jets, which are part of America's $1.3 billion in annual military aid to Egypt and are built by Lockheed Martin Corp .
They also discussed Sisi's call for rallies, Little said.

Jerusalem Post

TWO AMERICANS ENROLLED IN FOOD STAMPS FOR EVERY JOB OBAMA 'CREATED'

The White House has been touting the success of its economic agenda recently, claiming to have created 7.2 million jobs. But a look at the growing rolls of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) shows that for every job the administration says it created, two Americans have been added to the food stamp rolls.

In January of 2009, 32,204,859 Americans received SNAP aid, but as of April 2013, there were 47,548,694 Americans taking food stamps.

"That means that more than two Americans have been added to the food stamp rolls for every one job the administration says it has created," CNSNews reports.

Fifteen million more Americans have gone on food stamps since Obama took office in 2008.

Under Obama, 1.6 million more Americans are now collecting disability insurance, while 9.5 million workers have dropped out of the labor force altogether.


Breitbart

Israeli official: Turkey wants to humiliate Israel, not reconcile with it

Turkey is not interested in a diplomatic reconciliation with Israel, but rather in humiliating it and bringing it to its knees, Israeli officials said on Thursday.

The comments came after Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told the Turkish media that the reason for the deadlock in compensation talks with Israel over the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident was that Jerusalem was not willing to admit that the compensation payment was the result of a wrongful act.

Up until now the assumption was that the two sides were not yet normalizing ties because they could not agree on the size of the compensation package, with the Turks demanding much more than Israel was willing to pay.

But Arinc, leading the Turkish team in the three rounds of talks that have already been held, said earlier this week that money was not the issue.

“In our first meeting [the Israelis] showed no opposition to this. But in the second meeting, they intended to give an ex gratia payment [one made without the giver recognizing any liability or legal obligation] as a form of reparation because they fear compensation [as a result of their wrongful act] will set an example for other cases, which is not a concern to us,” the Turkish daily Hurriyet reported him as saying.

On March 22, just as US President Barack Obama was leaving Israel after his visit and at his urging, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and offered an apology for any operational errors that might have led to the death of nine Turkish activists on the Mavi Marmara ship trying to break the blockade of Gaza in 2010.

“The amount of money is not the problem,” Arınc said.

“There are two problematic areas. The first one is that Israel should accept that it’s paying this money as a result of its wrongful act. Nothing less than this will be accepted. And second, we are waiting for them to realize our third condition of cooperating with Turkey is making life conditions easier for Palestinians. We are not talking about the amount of money as our first two conditions have not been met,” he added.

One Israeli official said that Arinc’s comments reveal that Ankara is not genuinely interested in settling the dispute over the Mavi Marmara with Israel, but rather the aim is to humiliate Jerusalem.

“All of a sudden he says the money is not the issue. Indeed, they want to bring us to our knees and read the text that they dictate to us.”

The official said that the formula for the apology was very carefully crafted, so as not to admit any Israeli legal culpability. Now, he said, this is no longer enough for the Turks. Regarding lifting the blockade on Gaza, Israel has made clear that it has no intention of doing so, and that it will ease restrictions there to the degree that the rocket and missile fire from the area into Israel stops.

One senior Israeli official, when asked several weeks ago about the Turks apparent adding on conditions before returning their ambassador to Israel, replied that “enough is enough,” implying that Israel did what it felt it had to do to try and improve the ties with Turkey, but would go no further.

One Israeli official said on Thursday that while there was US pressure in the past on Israel to make gestures to reconcile with Turkey, there are currently no such demands. Netanyahu did what the Americans expected him to do, the official said, and from their standpoint this whole episode should now be over.

Jerusalem Post

6 Apocalyptic Technologies That Most People Have Not Even Heard About Yet

Are you ready for the future?  We live at a time when technology is advancing at an exponential pace.  Today, scientists are rapidly developing bizarre new technologies that most science fiction writers never even would have dreamed of a couple decades ago.  

For example, would you be willing to get rid of your bank card and start paying for things with only your face?  Would you be willing to allow a technology company to put one large computer chip or thousands of really, really small ones (“neural dust”) into your brain?  

These are some of the technologies that are coming.  Our world is changing at an absolutely mind blowing rate, and to be honest none of us really knows what our world is going to look like a decade from now.  Remember, ten years ago Facebook did not exist and five years ago the iPad did not exist.  Our planet is fundamentally being transformed, and our scientists are rapidly turning the “impossible” into the possible.  The following are 6 apocalyptic technologies that most people have not even heard about yet…

#1 Facial Recognition Software That Replaces Bank Cards

Will people soon pay for things by having their faces scanned at the checkout counter?  That may sound absurd, but according to the Daily Mail a company from Finland has already launched this technology…

Bank cards are already being replaced by phones and wristbands that have payment technology built-in but the latest threat to the lowly plastic in your pocket could be your face.

A Finnish startup called Uniqul has launched what it calls the first ever payment platform based on facial recognition.

The system doesn’t require a wallet, bank card or phone – instead a camera is positioned at the checkout and takes a photo of a shopper’s face when they are ready to pay.

It then scans a database for the face and matches it to stored payment details in order to complete the transaction.

#2 Facial Recognition Technology Already Being Used In Stores And In Digital Advertising Displays

Do you remember the billboards in the movie “Minority Report” that used facial recognition technology to scan faces and produce appropriate ads?  Personally, I never thought that I would see such a thing in my lifetime, but the truth is that a company called Amscreen already has over 6,000 digital screens that use this kind of technology.  In fact, their advertising screens are already being viewed by approximately 50 million people…

Advertising network Amscreen recently launched a unique face-detection technology, originally developed by automated audience measurement firm Quividi.

Cameras have been installed in Amscreen’s digital advertising displays that can scan a person’s face and determine their gender, age, date, time and volume of the viewers.

This is so adverts are served to the most appropriate audience.

Amscreen already has over 6,000 digital screens seen by a weekly audience of over 50 million people.

And according to NPR, this kind of facial recognition technology is now being used in some retail stores to identify VIPs…

This lack of recognition is precisely what the VIP-identification technology designed by is supposed to prevent.

The U.K.-based company already supplies similar software to security services to help identify terrorists and criminals. The ID technology works by analyzing footage of people’s faces as they walk through a door, taking measurements to create a numerical code known as a “face template,” and checking it against a database.

In the retail setting, the database of customers’ faces is comprised of celebrities and valued customers, according to London’s . If a face is a match, the program sends an alert to staff via computer, iPad or smartphone, providing details like dress size, favorite buys or shopping history.

#3 Google Wants To Put A Chip In Our Brains?

Would you allow a technology company to put a chip in your brain?

According to a recent article in a major UK newspaper, apparently this is exactly what executives at Google believe will happen someday…

It began, just 15 years ago, as a service that enabled you to type a request into a personal computer and be given links to associated websites. Things have rather moved on. Soon Google hopes to have the ubiquitous presence of a personal assistant that never stops working, capable of conversing naturally in any language. Ultimately, as Page and co-founder Sergey Brin have asserted, the goal is to insert a chip inside your head for the most effortless search engine imaginable.

In fact, on a recent visit to Google the reporter writing the article quoted abovewas told the following by Google Vice President of Search Ben Gomes…

Where will it end? Gomes agrees that a chip embedded in the brain is far from a sci-fi fantasy. “Already people are beginning to experiment with handicapped people for manoeuvring their wheelchairs,” he says. “They are getting a few senses of direction with the wheelchair but getting from there to actual words is a long ways off. We have to do this in the brain a lot better to make that interaction possible. We have impatience for that to happen but the pieces of technology have to develop.”

#4 The Pentagon Is Developing A “Terminator Robot” Named Atlas

Did you know that the U.S. military is building robots?

Okay, so they aren’t quite like “the Terminator” yet.  But apparently they are rapidly becoming very advanced…

ATLAS is 6 ft and 2 inces, it weighs 330 pounds. Its primary purpose is said to be joining in relief efforts particularly in those places where involvement of human beings is lethal or downright impossible. Boston Dynamics, who built the ATLAS body, say that the robot is strong and coordinated enough to climb using its hands and feet, as well as pick its way in congested spaces. The people who have been called in to work on the robot are tasked with programming it to interact in the most efficient way it can be made to. DARPA has released a video which shows ATLAS walking, avoiding obstacles, withstanding brute force applied at its torso and even climbing the stairs.

You can view that video of ATLAS doing those things right here.

So as these robots become more sophisticated, will there be any limits on how the U.S. military will employ them?  A recent article in the Washington Postpainted a frightening picture…

But what’s to stop the same indestructible robots that can walk over rubble, manipulate complex tools and enter burning buildings from being used in entirely different scenarios by the U.S. military? They might, for example, be able to march through debris-strewn war zones, manipulate weapons and hunt down terrorists, on a house-by-house basis. In other words, the DARPA Robotics Challenge could result in the creation of a real-life Terminator bot.

#5 Using Only Sound Waves To Levitate And Move Small Objects

Did you know that it is possible to levitate and move small objects using only small waves?  Just check out what a team of scientists in Switzerland recently discovered…

A team of researchers in Switzerland have developed a way of levitating and transporting small objects using nothing but sound.

Using ultrasonic waves – that is, sound waves whose frequency is too high for humans to hear – scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich have made water droplets, instant coffee crystals, styrofoam flakes, and a toothpick, among other objects, hang in midair, move along a plane, and interact with each other. It is the first time that scientists have been able to use sound to simultaneously levitate several objects next to each other and move them around.

#6 Ultrasonic Neural Dust

This is perhaps the most frightening technology on the list.  The advances in the field of nanotechnology that we have seen over the past decade have been absolutely mind blowing.  Now, some scientists are talking about actually being able to put thousands of tiny little computer chips inside our heads.  The following is from a recent Time Magazine article…

Here’s how it might work: First you pop through the skull and the brain’s dura (the membrane surrounding the brain), dipping into the brain’s neural sea itself, roughly two millimeters down, where you position thousands of low-powered CMOS chips (the “neural dust,” each as tiny as millionths of a meter) to begin capturing neural signals using electrodes and piezoelectric sensors, which convert the data to ultrasonic signals. Those signals are then picked up by a sub-dural transceiver (sitting just above the “dust” chips and simultaneously powering them ultrasonically), which relays the data to an external transceiver resting just outside the skull (ASIC, memory, battery, long-range transmitter), which in turn communicates wirelessly with whatever computing device.

Like most futurist notions, this one hasn’t been tested yet — it’s just a formal proposal — but it’s another fascinating glimpse into where we might be headed, bypassing clumsy literal BMI head-jacks for micro-scale interfaces that would link us, wire-free, to future galaxies of virtual information.

While many of these emerging technologies may sound very exciting, the truth is that it is important to remember that any technology is a two-edged sword.

A technology can be used for good or it can be used for evil.

And we certainly live at a time when the grip of the Big Brother surveillance grid that is being constructed all around us is rapidly getting tighter.

I think that it is important to step back and understand how much life has changed over the past several decades.  We used to have much more liberty and much more freedom than we have today.  Just consider the following examples from a recent article posted on the Economic Policy Journal…

In 1975:

1. You could buy an airline ticket and fly without ever showing an ID.

2. You could buy cough syrup without showing an ID.

3. You could buy and sell gold coins without showing an ID

4. You could buy a gun without showing an ID

5. You could pull as much cash out of your bank account without the bank filing a report with the government.

6. You could get a job without having to prove you were an American.

7. You could buy cigarettes without showing an ID

8. You could have a phone conversation without the government knowing who you called and who called you.

9. You could open a stock brokerage account without having to explain where the money came from.

10. You could open a Swiss bank account with ease. All Swiss banks were willing and happy to open accounts for Americans.

Yes, facial recognition technology could have some positive uses, but will we eventually be required to have our faces scanned wherever we go?

Yes, robots can be used to do a lot of great things, but will governments around the globe eventually be deploying armies of “killer robots” against all of us and against each other?

Just because technology is advancing does not mean that life will necessarily be better in the future.  For example, the video below was recently posted on shtfplan.com and it imagines what ordering a pizza might be like in the year 2015…

Yes, that video is very funny, but it also makes a very serious point.

Technology is increasingly being used to watch, track, monitor and control the things that we do.  As this web of technology gets even tighter, we may find that we do not really like how it has changed our lives.

That is why it is important for society to have some very important discussions about privacy, liberty and freedom while we still can.

If we don’t set up limits on the use of these technologies now, someday we might end up bitterly regretting it.

The Truth

Feds tell Web firms to turn over user account passwords

 

The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed.If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused.

"I've certainly seen them ask for passwords," said one Internet industry source who spoke on condition of anonymity. "We push back."

A second person who has worked at a large Silicon Valley company confirmed that it received legal requests from the federal government for stored passwords. Companies "really heavily scrutinize" these requests, the person said. "There's a lot of 'over my dead body.'"

Some of the government orders demand not only a user's password but also the encryption algorithm and the so-called salt, according to a person familiar with the requests. A salt is a random string of letters or numbers used to make it more difficult to reverse the encryption process and determine the original password. Other orders demand the secret question codes often associated with user accounts.
"This is one of those unanswered legal questions: Is there any circumstance under which they could get password information?"
--Jennifer Granick, Stanford University

A Microsoft spokesperson would not say whether the company has received such requests from the government. But when asked whether Microsoft would divulge passwords, salts, or algorithms, the spokesperson replied: "No, we don't, and we can't see a circumstance in which we would provide it."

Google also declined to disclose whether it had received requests for those types of data. But a spokesperson said the company has "never" turned over a user's encrypted password, and that it has a legal team that frequently pushes back against requests that are fishing expeditions or are otherwise problematic. "We take the privacy and security of our users very seriously," the spokesperson said.

A Yahoo spokeswoman would not say whether the company had received such requests. The spokeswoman said: "If we receive a request from law enforcement for a user's password, we deny such requests on the grounds that they would allow overly broad access to our users' private information. If we are required to provide information, we do so only in the strictest interpretation of what is required by law."

Apple, Facebook, AOL, Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner Cable, and Comcast did not respond to queries about whether they have received requests for users' passwords and how they would respond to them.

Richard Lovejoy, a director of the Opera Software subsidiary that operates FastMail, said he doesn't recall receiving any such requests but that the company still has a relatively small number of users compared with its larger rivals. Because of that, he said, "we don't get a high volume" of U.S. government demands.

The FBI declined to comment.

Some details remain unclear, including when the requests began and whether the government demands are always targeted at individuals or seek entire password database dumps. The Patriot Act has been used to demand entire database dumps of phone call logs, and critics have suggested its use is broader. "The authority of the government is essentially limitless" under that law, Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who serves on the Senate Intelligence committee, said at a Washington event this week.

Large Internet companies have resisted the government's requests by arguing that "you don't have the right to operate the account as a person," according to a person familiar with the issue. "I don't know what happens when the government goes to smaller providers and demands user passwords," the person said.

An attorney who represents Internet companies said he has not fielded government password requests, but "we've certainly had reset requests -- if you have the device in your possession, than a password reset is the easier way."




Source code to a C implementation of bcrypt, a popular algorithm used for password hashing.(Credit: Photo by Declan McCullagh)


Cracking the codesEven if the National Security Agency or the FBI successfully obtains an encrypted password, salt, and details about the algorithm used, unearthing a user's original password is hardly guaranteed. The odds of success depend in large part on two factors: the type of algorithm and the complexity of the password.

Algorithms, known as hash functions, that are viewed as suitable for scrambling stored passwords are designed to be difficult to reverse. One popular hash function called MD5, for instance, transforms the phrase "National Security Agency" into this string of seemingly random characters: 84bd1c27b26f7be85b2742817bb8d43b. Computer scientists believe that, if a hash function is well-designed, the original phrase cannot be derived from the output.

But modern computers, especially ones equipped with high-performance video cards, can test passwords scrambled with MD5 and other well-known hash algorithms at the rate of billions a second. One system using 25 Radeon-powered GPUs that was demonstrated at a conference last December tested 348 billion hashes per second, meaning it would crack a 14-character Windows XP password in six minutes.

CNET

Storms deliver triple digit winds, hail nearly 5 inches in diameter, street flooding

As sunrise brings fresh light to the aftermath of strong storms in southern Kansas from Tuesday night, authorities are beginning to assess the toll.

Hail as large as baseballs was reported in east Hutchinson, according to Reno County Emergency Management. Winds estimated as high as 100 miles an hour were reported in southern Reno County near Pretty Prairie. The town itself was hit hard by hail and strong winds, knocking down trees and blocking streets.

“Please Please Please stay away from Pretty Prairie for now. They are not letting people into town at this time,” a post on Reno County Emergency Management’s Facebook page implored.

A hail stone measuring 4.75 inches in diameter fell near Yoder in eastern Reno County and hail as large as tennis balls was also reported.

More heavy rain strong winds struck Argonia in Sumner County Tuesday night, which was still picking up the pieces from Monday night’s microburst storm that ripped portions of the roof off the high school and elementary school.

Officially, Wichita recorded 1.02 inches of rain, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Schminke. But heavier amounts were reported elsewhere in the city – including an inch of rain falling in just a half-hour at Central and Ridge Road in west Wichita.

Substantial rain over each of the past two days in the Cheney Lake watershed area is likely to boost water levels at the lake. With the ground already saturated, runoff into the lake – which until recently was Wichita’s primary water source – should be considerable.

The Wichita Eagle

Read more here: http://blogs.kansas.com/weather/2013/07/24/storms-deliver-triple-digit-winds-hail-nearly-5-inches-in-diameter-street-flooding/#storylink=cpy

Russian Defense Ministry Signs $100 Mln Deal to Overhaul 3 Tu-160 Bombers

MOSCOW, July 26 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's Defense Ministry has signed a 3.4 billion ruble ($103 million) contract with the Tupolev design bureau and Kazan Aircraft Plant to upgrade threeTu-160 Blackjack strategic bombers, Tupolev said Friday.

The delivery date for the supersonic, variable-geometry heavy bomber is December 31, 2015, the company said.

The ministry said last year at least 10 of the Russian Air Force’s Tu-160 bombers will be modernized by 2020, after which the upgraded aircraft will remain in service until a new-generation strategic bomber known as PAK-DA is developed.

The Tu-160, which entered service in 1987 and remains the largest supersonic aircraft in the world, is designed to engage strategic targets with nuclear and conventional weapons.

Ria Novosti

It Is Happening Again: 18 Similarities Between The Last Financial Crisis And Today

If our leaders could have recognized the signs ahead of time, do you think that they could have prevented the financial crisis of 2008?  That is a very timely question, because so many of the warning signs that we saw just before and during the last financial crisis are popping up again.  Many of the things that are happening right now in the stock market, the bond market, the real estate market and in the overall economic data are eerily similar to what we witnessed back in 2008 and 2009. 

 It is almost as if we are being forced to watch some kind of a perverse replay of previous events, only this time our economy and our financial system are much weaker than they were the last time around.  So will we be able to handle a financial crash as bad as we experienced back in 2008?  What if it is even worse this time?  

Considering the fact that we have been through this kind of thing before, you would think that our leaders would be feverishly trying to keep it from happening again and the American people would be rapidly preparing to weather the coming storm.  Sadly, none of that is happening.  It is almost as if they cannot even see the disaster that is staring them right in the face.  But without a doubt, disaster is coming. The following are 18 similarities between the last financial crisis and today...

#1 According to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch equity strategy team, their big institutional clients are selling stock at a rate not seen "since 2008".

#2 In 2008, stock prices had wildly diverged from where the economic fundamentals said that they should be.  Now it has happened again.

#3 In early 2008, the average price of a gallon of gasoline rose substantially.  It is starting to happen again.  And remember, whenever the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. has risen above $3.80 during the past three years, a stock market decline has always followed.

#4 New home prices just experienced their largest two month dropsince Lehman Brothers collapsed.

#5 During the last financial crisis, the mortgage delinquency rate rose dramatically.  It is starting to happen again.

#6 Prior to the financial crisis of 2008, there was a spike in the number of adjustable rate mortgages.  It is happening again.

#7 Just before the last financial crisis, unemployment claims started skyrocketing.  Well, initial claims for unemployment benefits are rising again.  Once we hit the 400,000 level, we will officially be in the danger zone.

#8 Continuing claims for unemployment benefits just spiked to the highest level since early 2009.

#9 The yield on 10 year Treasuries is now up to 2.60 percent.  We also saw the yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries rise significantly during the first half of 2008.

#10 According to Zero Hedge, "whenever the annual change in core capex, also known as Non-Defense Capital Goods excluding Aircraft shipments goes negative, the US has traditionally entered a recession".  Guess what?  It is rapidly heading toward negative territory again.

#11 Average hourly compensation in the United States experienced itslargest drop since 2009 during the first quarter of 2013.

#12 In the month of June, spending at restaurants fell by the most that we have seen since February 2008.

#13 Just before the last financial crisis, corporate earnings were very disappointing.  Now it is happening again.

#14 Margin debt spiked just before the dot.com bubble burst, it spiked just before the financial crash of 2008, and now it is spiking again.

#15 During 2008, the price of gold fell substantially.  Now it is happening again.

#16 Global business confidence is now the lowest that it has beensince the last recession.

#17 Back in 2008, the U.S. national debt was rapidly rising to unsustainable levels.  We are in much, much worse shape today.

#18 Prior to the last financial crisis, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke assured the American people that home prices would not decline and that there would not be a recession.  We all know what happened.  Now he is once again promising that everything is going to be just fine.

Are the American people going to fall for it again?

It doesn't take a genius to see how vulnerable the global economy is right now.  Much of Europe is already experiencing an economic depression, debt levels in Asia are higher than ever before, and the U.S. economy has been steadily declining for most of the past decade.  If you doubt that the U.S. economy has been declining, please see my previous article entitled "40 Stats That Prove The U.S. Economy Has Already Been Collapsing Over The Past Decade".

And the truth is that most Americans already know that we are in deep trouble.  Today, 61 percent of all Americans believe that the country is on the wrong track.

It isn't that so many people are choosing to be pessimistic.  It is just that an increasing number of Americans are waking up to the cold, hard reality that we are facing.

Decades of incredibly foolish decisions have brought us to this point.  We allowed our economic infrastructure to be gutted, we consumed far more wealth than we produced, our politicians kept doing incredibly stupid things but we kept voting the same jokers back into office again and again, and over the past 40 years we have blown up the biggest debt bubble in all of human history.

We have been living so far above our means for so long that most of us actually think that our current economic situation is "normal".

But no, there is nothing normal about what we are experiencing.  We are entering the terminal phase of a colossal debt spiral, and when it flames out the economic devastation is going to be absolutely spectacular.

When the next major wave of the economic collapse comes and unemployment soars well up into the double digits, millions of businesses close and millions of American families lose their homes, I hope that those that are assuring all of us that there will not be an economic collapse will come back and apologize.

There are tens of millions of people out there right now that are not making any preparations at all because they have been promised that everything is going to be okay.  When the next financial crash happens, most of them will be absolutely blindsided by it and many of them will totally give in to despair.

Don't let that happen to you.

Economic Collape