Economists: The U.S. Economy Shrank In Q1, But Better Days Are Just Around The Corner

During the first three months of this year, the U.S. economycontracted at a 1 percent annual rate.  Despite this, mainstream economists flooded the mainstream media with assurances that much better days are just around the corner on Thursday.  In fact, many of them boldly predicted that U.S. GDP would grow at a 3 or 4 percent annual rate in the second quarter.  None of them seem the least bit concerned that another major recession is rapidly approaching.  Instead, they just blamed the bad number for the first quarter on a "severe winter", and the financial markets responded to the GDP news quite cheerfully.  In fact, the S&P 500 soared to another brand new record high.  No matter how bad the numbers get, almost everyone in the financial world seems quite optimistic.  But is there actually good reason to have such optimism?

As Zero Hedge has pointed out, if it wasn't for dramatically increased healthcare spending due to the implementation of Obamacare, U.S. GDP would have actually dropped at a 2 percent annual rate during the first quarter of 2014.

That would have been an absolutely disastrous number.

But within a very short time of the revised U.S. GDP number being released, the mainstream media was inundated with positive stories about the news.

For example, CNN published a story entitled "U.S. economy shrinks, but it's not a big deal" and CNBC released a survey of nine prominent economists that showed that their consensus forecast for the second quarter of 2014 is GDP growth at a 3.74 percent annual rate.

It just seems like almost everyone wants to forget about what happened during the first quarter and wants to look ahead to a great number for quarter two.

Joseph Lavorgna, the chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank, is boldly forecasting a 4 percent growth rate for the second quarter.  So is Jim O'Sullivan.  In fact, it is hard to find any "expert" in the mainstream media that does not expect rip-roaring economic growth this quarter.

For example, just check out these quotes...

-Stuart Hoffman, the chief economist for PNC Bank: "The first quarter was disappointing, but rather than view that as an omen of a recession or the first of a down leg in the economy, I see the seeds of a big bounce back in spring."

-Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics: "For those worried about a recession, it's worth remembering that employment increased by nearly 300,000 in April."

-The Bank of Tokyo's Chris Rupkey: "2Q growth seen at nearly 4%... Weak 1Q is stone cold dead as an indicator of where the economy is headed."

-Jan Hatzius of Goldman Sachs: "Because of weaker inventory investment in Q1, we increased our Q2 GDP tracking estimate by two-tenths to 3.9%."

-Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp. CEO Jeffrey Stibel: "Using an alternative model for projecting job growth, we see an entirely different scenario, one in which the U.S. unemployment rate will fall below 5 percent by no later than the middle of next year."

Hopefully they are right.

Hopefully we are not heading into another recession.

But as I discussed in an article earlier this week, evidence continues to mount that another recession has already begun for much of the country.

And there was another number that was released today that seems to confirm this.  According to CNBC, there was a 6 percent drop in exports in the first quarter of 2014 when compared to the first quarter of 2013...

The U.S. economic reversal was led by a 6 percent drop in exports year over year, until recently hailed as a key driver of the U.S. recovery, and which had risen 9.5 percent in the last three months of 2013.

The slackening of trade has spread to the developing world, where emerging economies are seeing less demand from the U.S., Europe and China for raw materials and other exports.

We saw a similar decline happen in mid-2008 as the U.S. economy plunged into recession.

And Bloomberg's Consumer Comfort index has fallen to the lowest level that we have seen in six months.  U.S. consumers are increasingly tapped out, and the ongoing "retail apocalypse" is evidence of that fact.

A declining middle class simply cannot support the massive retail infrastructure that America has developed.  As the middle class has fallen to pieces, it was just a matter of time before big trouble started erupting for the retail industry.  This is something that David Stockman recently wrote about...

It does not take much analysis to see that these bell ringers do not represent sustainable prosperity unfolding across the land. For example, around 1990 real median income was $56k per household and now, 25 years later, its just $51k—-meaning that main street living standards have plunged by about 9% during the last quarter century. But what has not dropped is the opportunity for Americans to drop shopping: square footage per capita during the same period more than doubled, rising from 19 square feet per capita at the earlier date to 47 at present.

This complete contradiction—declining real living standards and soaring investment in retail space—did not occur due to some embedded irrational impulse in America to speculate in real estate, or because capitalism has an inherent tendency to go off the deep-end. The fact that in equally “prosperous” Germany today there is only 12 square feet of retail space per capita is an obvious tip-off, and this is not a teutonic aberration. America’s prize-winning number of 47 square feet of retail space per capita is 3-8X higher than anywhere else in the developed world!

Without middle class jobs, you can't have a middle class.  That is why our employment crisis is at the very heart of our economic problems.  Even using the government's highly manipulated unemployment figures, there are still quite a few cities out there that have official unemployment rates in the double digits...

The unemployment rate in Yuma, Ariz., is 23.8%. In El Centro, Calif., it is 21.6%. El Centro sits in an area of California in which unemployment in many metro areas is double the national average. In Merced the figure is 14.3%, in Yuba City the figure is 14.5%, in Hanford it is 13.1% and in Visalia it is 13.4%. In several metros close to these, the figure is above 10%. Most of them are inland from San Francisco and the area just south of it, which also happens to be among the nation’s most drought-plagued regions. This means jobs recovery is highly unlikely.

But of course the truth is that if the government actually used honest numbers, the unemployment rate for the entire nation would be in double digits.

And as I like to remind people, according to the government's own numbers approximately 20 percent of the families in the entire nation do not have a single member that is employed.

So how is it possible that the "unemployment rate" is just a little above 6 percent?

It is a giant sham.

But that is what they want.

They want us feeling good and thinking that everything is going to be okay.

Unfortunately, they used the same approach back in 2007 and 2008, and we all remember how that turned out.

Economic Collapse

CONFIRMED! U.S. Navy Official Now Admits Flight 370 Cover-up

Ukraine's 'Road of Death': GRAPHIC aftermath of Donetsk airport approach gunfight

Russian Paratroopers Receive Newest Verba Shoulder-Fired Missiles

MOSCOW, May 30 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian Airborne Forces have started receiving the newest Verba man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS) equipped with an automated fire control system that has no foreign rival, military spokesman Yevgeny Meshkov said Friday.

"The surface to air-missile regiment of the Ivankvsky Airborne Forces division is the first to have started receiving and studying the modern system of air defense battle," Meshkov said.

The systems automatically provide information on the air environment, fix the target and command a strike against the target within several seconds. "This gives time to an AA sniper armed with the Verba MANPADS to prepare for the meeting and hit the target beforehand," he said.

These systems exclude the human factor, while saving ammunition and increasing the effectiveness of air-defense sub-elements. "An automated control system over the battle allows finding an air target, defining its characteristics and sharing targets between AA snipers and fire means, taking into consideration their location," Meshkov said.

A commander of the SAM regiment, Col. Andrei Musiyenko said modern air defense battles are highly mobile and dynamic confrontations with the usage of aerial warfare weapons, demanding modern armament and operational control.

"Until now, the control over air defense battle in Airborne Forces divisions was not automated and the time elapsed following the major commander finding the target and ordering an AA sniper to launch the missile took from 3 to 5 minutes," he said.

The process has become more than 10 times faster with the new systems.

Credit to RIA Novosti

US FOOD INFLATION RUNNING AT 22%

After five years of the federal government telling the public that despite a $3.5 trillion increase in monetary expansion, the inflation rate is below +2%, the Department of Agriculture (DOA) just warned the American public that the consumer price index for food is up by 10% this year.

The DOA tried to blame food inflation on the drought conditions in California, but last year’s drought was worse and food prices fell by -6%. The real problem is Federal Reserve monetary stimulus is stimulating inflation. I reported in "Food Price Inflation Scares the Fed” two months ago that commodity food costs were exploding on the upside. Given the lag in commodity costs impacting prices on grocery store shelves, annual U.S. food inflation is now running at +22% and rising.


Credit to blacklisted News

'Death of money': Author Rickards predicts collapse of global monetary system

Here is the inetrview link:http://103.5.149.34/business/162084-dollar-collapse-monetary-system/


The collapse of the monetary system awaits the world in the near future, says financial expert James Rickards. Russia and China's desire to rid the US dollar of its global reserve currency status is an early sign of the “increasingly inevitable” crisis.

“China has three trillion dollars, but they are buying gold as fast as they can. China worries that the US is going to devalue the dollar through inflation so they want to have a hedge if the dollar goes down, so the gold will go up,” Rickards told RT.

As one of the key events in support of his forecast, Rickards points to the words uttered by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the 18th International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg that took place earlier this month.

“Putin said he envisions a Eurasian economic zone involving Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Russia. The Russian ruble is nowhere near ready to be a global reserve currency, but it could be a regional reserve currency,” he said, as quoted by ETF Daily News.

Rickards’ book about the demise of the dollar was released in April under quite an apocalyptic name – 'The Death of Money.' However, the author is surprised that the events are unfolding much faster than he predicted.

“If anything, the tempo of events is faster than expected. Therefore, some of these catastrophic outcomes may come sooner than I wrote about.”

Last Wednesday, China and Russia signed a historic US$400 billion gas deal which will provide the world's fastest growing economy with the natural gas it needs to keep pace for the next 30 years. Experts say this could be the catalyst that dethrones the greenback as the world's reserve currency.




James Rickards


The best-selling author writes that the “linchpin” of the collapse is the approaching failure of the dollar since it is at the foundation of the system. Powerful countries such as Russia, China, Iran, and India do not rely on the US in their national security and would benefit from the US economy being weaker, thus desiring to break free from the dollar standard.

He elaborates that the dual collapse “looks increasingly inevitable.”

“The mistakes have already been made. The instability is already in the system. We’re just waiting for that catalyst that I call the snowflake that starts the avalanche,” he said, as quoted by ETF.

There are three big international factors that are pressuring the dollar right now – Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia.

“Since the 1970s, Saudi Arabia [has been] the leader in what’s called the petrodollar. It basically means that Saudi Arabia and, by extension, OPEC, price oil in dollars, so the world market is in dollars.

“Russia is a major natural resource exporter; they price their exports in dollars as well. But Russia now is engaged in a financial war with the US around the issues in Crimea and Ukraine.”

The threats to the dollar are “ubiquitous,” the author states in his book. The only way the US can pay off its $17 trillion debt is with inflation, which would drive other countries away from the dollar while the accumulation of gold by Russia and China presages the shift to a new reserve asset.

“The next time we will have a liquidity crisis in the world it’s going to be bigger than the ability of central banks to deal with it. The IMF will basically have to bail out the world by printing the SDRs (an international reserve asset created by the IMF in 1969 to supplement its member countries' official reserves). By that time, you will see the SDR emerge as the new global world currency,” Rickards told 

RT.

BLOOD ON THE ALTAR part Number 4

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PART 4 - Will Beast Tech Provide Conditions For A Global "Lucifer Effect"

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In 2013 I published the book Beast Tech. In it is considered how much of technology today appears to be sufficient for use by the coming Man of Sin—in particular, human tracking and monitoring utilities, including versions of embeddable smart tattoos and biochip devices that may provide some aspect of the Mark of the Beast.

A related area of equal concern we did not have time to address in that book involves the social implications involving technology and how it can be used by unseen forces to challenge religious faith or to open channels for spiritual warfare. This has been illustrated in thousands of ways down through time—from the creation of Ouija boards for contacting the spirit world to online pornography gateways. But, lately, the course on which technology and transhumanist philosophy seems to be taking mankind threatens to quantitatively elevate the potential for a global Lucifer Effect.

How so?

Given that the key to Dr. Milgram’s and especially professor Philip Zimbardo’s findings (see parts 2 and 3 of this series) involved the need to deindividualize the victims of abuse, the Internet and associated forms of electronic information-driven technology are important to understand in light of how they are creating a new kind of society by “rewiring our brains’” ability to sympathize with others, says Nora Volkow, world-renowned brain scientist and director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse. For one thing, the lure of “digital stimulation” can actually produce dopamine releases in the brain that affect the heart rate and blood pressure and lead to drug-like highs and lows. Studies show this addictive craving for digital stimulation is leading to the electronic equivalent of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) among a growing population in which constant bursts of information and digital stimulation undermine one’s ability to focus—especially in children (tomorrow’s adults), whose brains are still developing and who naturally struggle to resist impulses or to neglect priorities. A growing body of literature is connecting such digital dependence to personality fragmentation, cyber relationships over personal ones, and the very type of psychosocial issues that were manifest in the Stanford Prison and Milgram experiments. Today, Volkow and similar researchers see these antisocial trends leading to widespread, diminished empathy between people—what Antichrist will need—as a result of humans paying more and more attention to iPads, cell phones, and computer screens than to each other, even when sitting in the same room. New research shows this situation becoming an electronic pandemic as people escalate their detachment from traditional relationships while consuming three times as much digital information today as they did only a decade ago, checking e-mails, texting thirty-seven times per hour, and spending twelve hours per day on average taking in other e-media. Add to this phenomenon how brain-machine interfacing (BMI)—one of the hottest emerging trends in the marketplace—will multiply the divide between human-to-human relationships versus human-machine integration, and substantial concern for readers should be raised for several reasons, including how: 1) BMI will naturally exasperate the decline of the family unit and interpersonal relationships upon which society has historically depended; 2) the increase of euphoric cybernetic addiction will multiply as cerebral stimulation of the brain’s pleasure centers is added to existing natural senses—sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch; and 3) the threat of computer viruses or hijackers disrupting enhanced human neural or cognitive pathways will develop as cyber-enhanced individuals evolve. To illustrate the latter, Dr. Mark Gasson, from the School of Systems Engineering at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, intentionally contaminated an implanted microchip in his hand that allows him biometric entry through security doors and that also communicates with his cell phone and other external devices. In the experiment, Dr. Gasson (who agrees that the next step in human evolution is the transhuman vision of altered human biology integrated with machines) was able to show how the computer virus he infected himself with spread to external computer systems in communication with his microchip. He told BBC News, “With the benefits of this type of technology come risks. We [will] improve ourselvesbut much like the improvements with other technologies, mobile phones for example, they become vulnerable to risks, such as security problems and computer viruses.”^[i]

Such threats—computer viruses passing from enhanced humans to enhanced humans via future cybernetic systems—are the tip of the iceberg. The real danger, though it may be entirely unavoidable for some, will be the loss of individuality (or, as Zimbardo phrased it, social deindividualizaton), anonymity, privacy, and even free will as a result of cybernetic integration. Dr. Christopher Hook contends, “If implanted devices allow the exchange of information between the biological substrate and the cybernetic device,” such a device in the hippocampus (the part of the brain involved in forming, storing, and processing memory) for augmenting memory, for instance, “would be intimately associated with the creation and recall of memories as well as with all the emotions inherent in that process.” Hook continues:

If this device were to allow the importation of information from the Internet, could the device also allow the memories and thoughts of the individual to be downloaded or read by others? In essence, what is to prevent the brain itself from being hacked [or hijacked by Antichrist]? The last bastion of human privacy, the brain, will have been breached.^[ii]

Despite these significant ethical and social dangers, industry and government interest in the technological dream of posthumanism, as documented in the highly recommended book Forbidden Gates, is more thanlaissez-faire. The steady migration toward the fulfillment of biologically and cybernetically modified humans, combined with corporate and national investments, will predictably fuse this century, ultimately leading to strong cultural forces compelling all individuals to get “plugged in” to the grid. Whoever resists will be left behind as inferior Luddites (those who oppose new technology), or worse, considered enemies of the collectives’ progress, as in former counterterrorism czar Richard Clark’s Breakpoint, which depicts those who refuse technological enhancement as “terrorists.”

According to the work Human Dignity in the Biotech Century, this pressure to become enhanced will be dramatic upon people in all social strata, including those in the middle class, law, engineering, finance, professional fields, and the military, regardless of personal or religious views:

Consider whether the military, after investing billions in the development of technologies to create the cyborg soldier would allow individual soldiers to decline the enhancements because of religious or personal qualms. It is not likely. Individuals may indeed dissent and decline technological augmentation, but such dissenters will find job options increasingly scarce.

Because the network of cyborgs will require increasing levels of cooperation and harmonious coordination to further improve efficiency, the prostheses will continue to introduce means of controlling or modulating emotion to promote these values. Meanwhile, the network [will be] increasingly controlled by central planning structures to facilitate harmony and efficiency. While everyone still considers themselves fully autonomous, in reality behavior is more and more tightly controlled. Each step moves those who are cybernetically augmented toward becoming like the Borg, the race of cybernetic organisms that inhabit the twenty-sixth century of the Star Trek mythology. The Borg, once fully human, become “assimilated” by the greater collective mind, losing individuality for the good of the whole.^[iii]

Lest anyone think the writers of Human Dignity in the Biotech Century are overly paranoid, consider that NBIC (Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information Technology, and Cognitive Science) Director Mihail Roco, in the US government report, Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance, wrote,

Humanity would become like a single, distributed and interconnected “brain” based in new core pathways in society. A networked society of billions of human beings could be as complex compared to an individual being as a human being is to a single nerve cell. From local groups of linked enhanced individuals to a global collective intelligence, key new capacities would arise from relationships arising from NBIC technologies. Far from unnatural, such a collective social system may be compared to a larger form of biological organism. We envision the bond of humanity driven by an interconnected virtual brain of the Earth’s communities searching for intellectual comprehension and conquest of nature.”^[iv]

Nowhere will the struggle to resist this human biological alteration and machine integration be more immediate than in those religious homes where transhumanism is seen as an assault on God’s creative genius, and where, as a result, conservative Christians will seek to maintain their humanity. Yet the war against such believers is poised to emerge over the next decade as much from inside the “organized church” as it will from external social influences.

Already, the Internet “has unlocked something dark in humanity,” says acclaimed author Anthony Horowitz in a recent newspaper interview.^[v] Horowitz, a best-selling children’s fiction writer in the UK, was speaking at the Oxford Literary Festival when he described how parts of the Internet are “foul, disgusting and cruel” and that “evil is getting the upper hand.”^[vi] His passionate comments came on the heels of relentless and vicious online feedback he received following a television appearance. Mr. Horowitz is certainly not alone in this experience, as any notable writer can attest—especially Christians who pen edgy, newsworthy, or prophetic material.

And yes, that includes me and people like me. In fact, every leader with whom I am associated in news, print, television, and social media has been under growing attack the last few years, and not from those you would expect. Religious Christians, not unbelievers per se, form the largest part of the swelling ranks of warfare aimed at silencing our work. Because such discontents cannot (yet) stop people from hearing our voices, they (and/or the spirit behind them) at a minimum seek to divide and confuse ungrounded babes in Christ who, while seeking a deeper relationship with Jesus, end up online. Those who would destabilize these believers have always existed, of course. I witnessed ingrates in every town where I pastored throughout the 1970s–1990s. But today the Internet has given such malcontents a place to hive and to hide behind screens while using spiritual-sounding titles and websites to voice their ungraciousness. And while their audiences are very small at this time, their contaminated spirits threaten to take root and could explode under the coming legions that will fuel the empire of the Son of Perdition. In fact, I can say unequivocally from decades of experience that the most powerful instruments of satanic conflict by far are those demons of religion who can infect and infest institutional Christianity. As we noted in Forbidden Gates:

Just as a lying spirit filled the mouths of the prophets in 2 Chronicles 18, and just as Jesus confronted unclean spirits inside the synagogue (Mark 1:23) and connected some of the priestly leaders of the Temple to the strongest power of Satan on earth (John 8:44; Matt. 13:38 and 23:15), robust echon daimonion exists today from the lowest to the highest levels of denominational establishment among institutional members who are possessed (whether they perceive it as such or not) by luciferian ambition. This will come as no surprise to seasoned spiritual warriors, as it is the result of a common military strategy. The church represents the single establishment on earth capable of undoing Satan’s plans, and is therefore the natural enemy of the kingdom of darkness and the epicenter against which all spiritual wickedness must ultimately be focused. The church, through its hierarchies and institutional constructs, is therefore the primary target for infiltration by agents of darkness wherever human weakness allows for penetration by daimonions. Among others, the apostle Paul recognized this specific danger, warning the church in Corinth that “false apostles” were masquerading among them as ministers of Christ. “And no marvel,” he revealed, “for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness” (2 Cor. 11:13–15).^[vii]

Writing about such activity within evangelical institutions, Rev. David Wilkerson reported a short while before his death that:

A number of [former] witches are warning that Satanists are infiltrating the church—especially charismatic churches. Some of these [are] telling of a diabolical plot by evil witches to enter congregations posing as super-spiritual Christians. Many of these evil witches, they say, are already firmly established in numerous churches, controlling both the pastor and congregation and causing great confusion, wickedness, divorce—even death. We have received many letters in our office from people who say they believe their pastor must be under some kind of demonic influence—and I believe many of these letters are very legitimate.^[viii]

Wilkerson, who at one time was a member of the same organization we [Tom and Nita Horn] served, was correct in asserting that some of those who pose as super-spiritual Christians, online “teachers,” department leaders, pastors, and even state office holders and denominational headquarters executives are in fact instruments of evil. Thankfully, there are other church members, pastors, and leaders who, as sincere believers, have become increasingly aware of this sinister invasion into organizations by daimonions and in recent years have made special efforts to teach their congregations how to identify the differences between “religious spirits” and true Christianity.

Sometimes “identifying” their misdeeds is not really all that hard to do.

For example, just about every solid Bible expositor I know has been tirelessly harassed online the last few years by fake defenders of the faith. Yet, not once have these self-proclaimed “guardians of the truth” actually followed the Bible’s mandates themselves, mandates that very specifically outline how believers are to deal with error in the church. The New Testament books of Matthew, Galatians, Thessalonians, Romans, and others provide guidelines for dealing with differences between true believers. These verses teach us that if we perceive a brother or sister as falling into error, we are to go to him or her PRIVATELY in a spirit of humility and redemption. If those we approach will not receive our advice, we go to the elders of the church PRIVATELY and share our concern. If the elders believe the issue is legitimate, they go to the person PRIVATELY in hopes of restoring him or her. If the person still refuses council, the church is to have nothing more to do with him or her. With that in mind, the next time you are online reading some diatribe about Chuck Missler, Gary Stearman, Steve Quayle, David Flynn, J. R. Church, L. A. Marzulli, Cris Putnam, Jonathan Cahn, yours truly, or any of the other current favorite targets, ask yourself if the hatchet people attacking them ever bothered to obey Scripture and go to the person PRIVATELY with their concerns in a loving spirit of restoration (they haven’t), and then “be careful little eyes what you read,” because destructive forces seek to contaminate your mind and spirit (see Prov. 4:23–27) in order to prep you for service to the dark side.

Be absolutely clear about this, too: NOTHING in Scripture allows for setting up websites, blogs, or other mediums to PUBLICALLY and routinely lambast believers with accusations—that is the job of Satan and his followers! He is the father of lies and the “accuser of our brethren…which accused them before our God day and night” (John 8:44; Rev. 12:10).

Simply put, the words of Jesus that “ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:15–16) have never been more important. These instructions of Christ should also serve as a warning to all believers to monitor their own motives, to examine their hearts, if truly they are altruistic or if in fact they are energized by selfish ambition, because the latter is the Lucifer Effect Antichrist will use to energize the coming war between Christian vs. Christian, a time when it will be eternally important to know you are on the right side.

Credit to Riaders News Update

Biden Echoes Bush's NWO at USAFA Graduation

Iranian commander says collapse of US empire is near

Iran’s Foreign Minister slams Israel’s attempts to set red lines on the country’s nuclear program.


Hossein Salami, deputy head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. Photo: REUTERS


The deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Brig.-Gen. Hossein Salami said that the US’s status in the world has deteriorated and that its collapse is near.

“Today nowhere in the Muslim world” does anyone pull out “a red carpet for American officials and that’s why [US President Barack] Obama secretly” showed up at Bagram military base in Afghanistan without first letting President Hamid Karzai know, said Salami according to a report by Iran’s Fars news agency.

“And this shows that the US empire is coming to an end,” he said.

Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan on Sunday and spoke to the Afghan president, but did not meet with him.

Karzai previously rejected an invitation extended through the US Embassy to meet Obama at Bagram.

“President Karzai said he would warmly welcome him [Obama] if he comes to the palace, but in no way would he go [to] Bagram to meet him,” Abdul Karim Khurram, Karzai’s chief of staff, told Reuters.

A US official said the White House was not surprised that the proposed visit did not work on short notice.

The commander also said, according to the report, that Iran continued to gain military and economic power, warning the country’s enemies that their plots against it would fail.

“Any enemy formula will entail an unexpected ending for him and this is due to the Iranian nation’s reliance on religious and Islamic beliefs,” added Salami.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif slammed Israel’s attempts to set redlines on the country’s nuclear program at a ministerial conference of the Non-Aligned Movement in Algeria on Wednesday.

“Is this not insolence towards the international law and the Non-Proliferation Treaty that [Israel], a non-member of NPT, which has massive nuclear arsenals and poses major existential threats to the entire Middle East region, sets redlines on Iran’s peaceful nuclear program?” asked Zarif, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported.

Zarif said that attempts to paint Iran as a threat to the region and the world have repeatedly turned out to be “total lies” and that the country is opposed to nuclear weapons.

Separately, Iranian and Russian officials met in Tehran on Wednesday in order to expand trade cooperation, Fars reported.

Russian Ambassador to Iran, Levan Djagaryan, met the head of Iran’s Customs Administration, Massoud Karbasiyan.

“Iran and Russia are going to sign a new document on customs cooperation,” said Karbasiyan.

The Russian envoy called for improved bilateral trade.

Current trade is worth about $5 billion a year.

Credit to Jerusalem Post

Shell Shock: Kid's hospital caught in Kiev crackdown

500% Rise in Spain's Long-Term Unemployment

With yields at record lows and stocks soaring, is it any wonder that the politicians of Europe's periphery are proclaiming victory over the crisis (and yet oddly imploring Draghi to do moar?). Perhaps, just perhaps, they are keeping one eye on the 'real' economic progress that is being made (or un-made) in their nations... such as Spain, where there are now 1.26 million people who have been jobless since 2010 and the long-term unemployment rate has risen by more than 500% since 2007.

Via Matthew Bennet of The Spain Report,

There are now 1.26 million Spaniards who have not had a job since 2010, and the total continues to rise, according to an adjunct report to the National Statistics Institute’s Active Population Survey published on May 23.

“In 2013, there were 1.276 million unemployed people who lost their job three years ago or longer, 234,200 more people than in 2012″.

The institute notes that this represents an increase of 22.5% on the figure for 2012, and that the very-long term unemployed now represent 23.1% of the total.

Edward Hugh, an independent British economist in Barcelona, told The Spain Report that: “The cost of the crisis has been distributed very unequally in Spain. Some barely have noticed it, while a growing number of others have been out of work for more than three years. Many of these people are now “structurally unemployed”, and many of those over 50 may never work again. It’s a national disaster.”

In the United States, long-term unemployment is considered to be those who have been out of work for longer than six months, but in Spain, 691,000 Spanish women and 584,000 Spanish men had not worked for more than three years.

Training For Unemployment

The break down of unemployment according to the subjects unemployed Spaniards had studied shows that, overall, those with a basic level of education are the worst hit: 32.5% are unemployed.

For men, the worst training programme to have followed in terms of finding a job upon graduation was: “environmental protection”, which shows an unemployment rate of 47.7%.

Education courses related to veterinary services, personal services, architecture and construction, and personal development also produced unemployment rates higher than 25%.

For women, the worst training option was architecture and construction, which produced a 30.7% unemployment rate.

Additionally, training programmes related to security services, manufacturing activities, social services, personal services and personal development all produced unemployment rates among women of more than 25%.

The programmes that produced the lowest rates of unemployment were mathematics and statistics (7%) and security services (7.8%) for men, and mathematics and statistics (6.6%) and life sciences (13.8%) for women.

But don't worry becaus ethe government is on it...

• *SPAIN TO BOLSTER POLICIES TO HELP LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED: GUINDOS

Credit to Zero Hedge

Fed Creating Inflation to Escape Debt

Meet Directive 3025.18 Granting Obama Authority To Use Military Force Against Civilians

Credit to Zero Hedge

While the "use of armed [unmanned aircraft systems] is not authorized," The Washington Times uncovering of a 2010 Pentagon directive on military support to civilian authorities details what critics say is a troubling policy that envisions the Obama administration’s potential use of military force against Americans. As one defense official proclaimed, "this appears to be the latest step in the administration’s decision to use force within the United States against its citizens." Meet Directive 3025.18 and all its "quelling civil disturbances" totalitarianism...

As The Washington Times reports,

Directive No. 3025.18, “Defense Support of Civil Authorities,” was issued Dec. 29, 2010, and states that U.S. commanders “are provided emergency authority under this directive.”

“Federal military forces shall not be used to quell civil disturbances unless specifically authorized by the president in accordance with applicable law or permitted under emergency authority,” the directive states.

“In these circumstances, those federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the president is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances” under two conditions.

The conditions include military support needed “to prevent significant loss of life or wanton destruction of property and are necessary to restore governmental function and public order.” A second use is when federal, state and local authorities “are unable or decline to provide adequate protection for federal property or federal governmental functions.”

A U.S. official said the Obama administration considered but rejected deploying military force under the directive during the recent standoff with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy and his armed supporters.

“Federal action, including the use of federal military forces, is authorized when necessary to protect the federal property or functions,” the directive states.

Military assistance can include loans of arms, ammunition, vessels and aircraft. The directive states clearly that it is for engaging civilians during times of unrest.

There is one silver lining (for now)...

“Use of armed [unmanned aircraft systems] is not authorized,” the directive says.

And the full Directive is below...

Dod

BIDEN URGES AIR FORCE CADETS TO CREATE ‘NEW WORLD ORDER’

Under a blazing sun, Vice President Joe Biden challenged graduating Air Force Academy cadets on Wednesday to help create a “new world order for the 21st century.”

Scroll to 40:30.

Biden called on images from the end of World War II, part of a White House push to burnish a foreign policy that has been challenged by Russian aggression and continued trouble from North Africa to Afghanistan.

“I believe we and mainly you have an incredible opportunity to lead in shaping a new world order for the 21st century in a way consistent with American interests and common interests,” Biden said before shaking hands with 995 members of the class of 2014.

Credit to Infowars

China Deploys Nuke Subs in South Pacific Dispute

Unless You Want to Go to Prison, Read This Before Taking Money Out of Your Bank

What do they say about those people who fail to lose the lessons of history?

George Soros won’t go to prison for taking his money out of the bank, but you could, if you are not very careful.

In response to yesterday’s article which detailed how it is a good idea to monitor George Soros’ money movements, because they are predictive of future economic collapses as they have been so many times before. We should all be more a little more than nervous when Soros, in the first quarter of 2014, removed his money from three megabanks.
“Rick” wrote to me following the publication of yesterday’s article with some very pointed concerns and questions. Here is his response:

“Ok, the idea of removing your money from the bank for me is a joke! I have a substantial amount in 3 different accounts. It’s VERY difficult to remove more than $8,000 or $9,000 at a time without extreme scrutiny from the IRS and the DEA. Plus, the banks will tell you that frequently they don’t have enough on hand to give you even $8,000. If you close your account, guess what? They give you a check, NOT cash! So you have to go to another bank WITH A CHECK once more!

So, how does one remove their money from the bank without causing  major transaction reports to be filed with the government about your banking activities????

Dave, thus, please give us tips on how to remove substantial amounts of cash without incurring the wrath of the government, and how to take out large amounts of cash to begin with, as the banks discourage taking out more than $1,000 to $3,000 dollars in any given transaction.”

At first glance, Rick appears to be correct. The odds are stacked against all average depositors. With all that is available to read on this topic, it is mind boggling regarding how few people are preparing to act to preserve what assets they have remaining by not removing their money from the bank. Because you have put your money in the bank, you no longer own your money.

The courts have ruled that once you deposit your money in the bank, the bank owns your money. You virtually are paid no interest for the hard earned money that you place in the bank. And if inflation is only at a modest 5% rate, your hundred thousand dollars is worth only $95,000 after one year. In a decade, your real buying power is reduced by about 50%. And where did the other 50% go? Because of fractional reserve banking, the biggest money scam in history, the banks can take $10,000 and turn it into at least $90,000 by doing absolutely nothing but adding some zeroes after your name, on a computer scree, and then loaning out the money, at interest, while you are paid a minuscule interest rate. This practice adds to the inflation rate and further erodes your savings.

All of the above, dictates that we should all take our money out of the bank. Why do I risk starting a run on my former and biggest holder of my money, Bank of America, by withdrawing my money and presuming that many fellow depositors will read this and rush to withdraw their money too? The very biggest reason to is because they pay me near zero interest. Also, even if there is an infinitesimal chance Bank of America will not repay me in full, whenever I ask, switches the cost-benefit conclusion from stay to flee.

The biggest reason to take your money out of the bank is because it has absolutely no protection. The FDIC has only about $25 billion in its deposit insurance fund, which is mandated by law to keep a balance equivalent to only 1.15% of insured deposits. If a banking collapse were to be on the near horizon, the banksters are not going to notify you because they would not want to incite a bank run. With only 1.15% of all deposits being insured by the FDIC, your money would be left vulnerable and only the elite would be warned as they quietly transfer their money to a safer haven. How do I know this? Because this is exactly what my research discovered on the money movements preceding the Gulf oil spill, as it was revealed that on the morning of the explosion, Goldman Sachs issued a “put option for preferred insiders” in Transocean (the owner of the Deep Water Horizon oil rig) and the elite had their stock profit margin guaranteed while everyone else took a financial bath! This is the undeniable pattern of the global elite.

Additionally, your bank account has been collateralized against the derivatives debt.

The bankruptcy reform laws stemming from the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005, derivatives counter-parties are given preference over all other creditors and customers of the bankrupt financial institution, including FDIC insured depositors. This gives what the experts call “super priority” in terms of the line of succession from which to collect bankruptcy monies. Bank of America has conspicuously co-mingled their derivatives debt with your savings account and as such they have every legal right use your money to cover their debt. Oh, they would never do that you say?  I have bad news for the uninformed, they already have done that very thing. In the MF Global debacle, the reason that MF Global  customers lost their segregated account funds was because the MF Global debt load was caused primarily because of their derivatives debt which, under bankruptcy laws, gave derivatives claimants super-priority in the bankruptcy proceedings. In short, you do not matter.

Times Have Changed

Taking what was your money out of the bank is no longer a matter of walking up to your friendly teller with a withdrawal slip and the teller cheerfully honors your request and you calmly exit the bank with your money in tow. In fact, your teller is trained to look for certain indicators in any cash withdrawal of any significance.

As you move to withdraw the bulk of your money, there are three federal banking laws that you should be cognizant of, namely, Cash Transaction Report (CTR), a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) and structuring. Before proceeding with the planed withdrawal of your money, I would strongly suggest that you read the following federal guidelines as it relates to CTR’s as produced by the The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). All the federal regulations contained in this article are elucidated in this series of federal reports.

Before withdrawing your money, there are three regulations to be concerned with.

CTR

Federal law requires that the bank file a report based upon any withdrawal or deposit of $10,000 or more on any single given day.The law was designed to put a damper on money laundering, sophisticated counterfeiting and other federal crimes.

To remain in compliance with the law, financial institutions must obtain personal identification, information about the transaction and the social security number of the person conducting the transaction.

Technically, there is no federal law prohibiting the use of large amounts of cash. However, a CTR must be filed in ALL cases of cash transaction regardless of the reason underlying the transaction. This means your cash transaction will be on the radar.

Structuring and SAR

There will undoubtedly be some geniuses whose math ability will tell them that all they have to do is to withdraw $9,999.99 and the bank and its protector, the federal government will be none the wiser. It is not quite that simple. Here are a few examples of structuring violations that one should be aware of:

1. Barry S. has obtained $15,000 in cash he obtained from selling his truck. He knows that if he deposits $15,000 in cash, his financial institution will be required to file a CTR. Instead he deposits $7,500 in cash in the morning with one financial institution employee and comes back to the financial institution later in the day to another employee to deposit the remaining $7,500, hoping to evade the CTR reporting requirement. Barry should have used multiple accounts to conduct this transaction.
2. Hillary C. needs $16,000 in cash to pay for supplies for her arts and crafts business. Hillary cashes an $8,000 personal check at a financial institution on a Monday. She subsequently cashes another $8,000 personal check at the bank the following day. Hillary is careful to have cashed the two checks on different days and structured the transactions in an attempt to evade the CTR reporting requirement. Hillary should have made irregular deposits on staggered days.
3. A married couple, Bill and Hillary, sell a vehicle for $12,000 in cash. To evade the CTR reporting requirement, Bill and Hillary structure their transactions using different accounts. Bill deposits $8,000 of that money into his and Hillary’s joint account in the morning. Later that day, Hillary deposits $1,500 into the joint account, then $2,500 into her sister’s account, which is later transferred to Bill and Hillary’s joint account at the same bank. Again, Bill and Hillary should have used multiple banks.
The aggregate total of the three transactions totals more than the $10,000 threshold, therefore, a SAR would be filed by the bank and you would be the subject of a federal investigation as all three of the above cases clearly violate the federal banking laws related to structuring. It is a federal crime to break up transactions into smaller amounts for the purpose of evading the CTR reporting requirement. In these instances, the bank is required to file a SAR which serves to notify the federal government of an individual’s attempt to structure deposits or withdrawals by circumventing the $10,000 reporting requirement.

Structuring transactions to prevent a CTR from being reported can result in imprisonment for not more than five years and/or a fine of up to $250,000. If structuring involves more than $100,000 in a twelve month period or is performed while violating another law of the federal government, the penalty is doubled.

Enforcement

Much like the enforcement of our tax laws, the federal government’s enforcement of its banking laws as it relates to CTR’s, SAR’s and subsequent structuring is quite draconian. Civilian asset forfeiture laws come into play. The government can seize your bank accounts while it determines if a crime has been committed. The government can literally seize your assets in perpetuity without an order of the court. Of course, you could try and sue but you will be up against the deep pockets of the federal government and the case could take years. By the time your case is decided, the financial banking crisis that you are so desperately trying to avoid by withdrawing your money, could be over.  So, proceed with caution.

If you ever become the target of a federal investigation, do not, under any circumstances, allow yourself to be interviewed by federal officials without an attorney present. In many cases, people go to jail and pay huge fines, not because they have committed a federal crime, but because federal officials state that they have lied or misled them. And if you do not have an attorney present, it is your word versus the federal government. This is how the federal government sent Martha Stewart to prison.

What to Do

The best way to avoid getting your money caught in the bank in the midst of a bank run would be to not let the lion’s share of your money ever cross the bank. Do not allow your employer to direct deposit your check to the bank. Keep some cash at home by taking out a large portion of the money you receive from your employer. Don’t  put cash in a safety box because the courts have also ruled that the banks own your safety boxes.

Use electronic transfers to buy into a mutual funds and also use checks to buy silver coins from several different companies

Open multiple banking accounts ranging from the big five megabanks to your local credit unions. You could withdraw much smaller amounts until the sum total of your accounts is greatly diminished and is in your possession. To open the accounts, simply write a personal check from your home bank. Of course, in these cases, the bank could hold the check for 15-30 days.

Use checks and case to pay all of your debts.

Prepay your taxes and some other obligations with checks. Make sure you only pay safe entities. Your local government is not going to disappear, even in a depression. Therefore, you can prepay property taxes.

Find a safer bank than the mega banks. Use credit unions as they are one level removed from the Federal Reserve.  .

Please add to the list with your comments.

Conclusion

I predict the Federal Reserve will steal your money by faking a cyber attack In fact, last year, FEMA and DHS actually practiced for this event on October 23rd and 24th of last year.

To people like “Rick” you probably will not be able to save everything, but rest assured, you can still save something to live on. The time to have acted was yesterday.

I can anticipate what some of you are now thinking, because I have thought the same thing!  If all of us attempt to take even just a portion out of the bank, the Federal Reserve and their servant, the federal government, will move to stop all cash withdrawals. Won’t that kind of move serve to expose the criminality of the Federal Reserve and the federal government for all to see? Awareness is the first step to action and we have the ability to force several issues out on the open at this time.

Credit to Common Sense