It has never been a recovery

The Fed's Next Monetary Move Is Upon Us.

Russia’s Central Military District to Receive Ten Armored "Tigers"

MOSCOW, June 6 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s Central Military District (CMD) is to receive ten new armored "Tiger" vehicles, Colonel Jaroslav Roschupkin said Friday.

"Tolyatti Special Forces will receive ten new armored SPM-2 GAZ-233036 ‘Tigers’. In accordance with the 2011-2020 state arms procurement program, the vehicles will be delivered by the end of 2014," Col. Roschupkin said.

Earlier this year, Col. Roschupkin reported that the CMD was to receive 24 "Tigers" by the end of 2014.

Last year, Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov said Russian Armed Forces’ demand for “Tigers” had reached unprecedented highs following the upgrades to "Tigers" that eliminate the previous advantages of Iveco’s “Lynx” light motor vehicles.

The SPM-2 GAZ-233036 “Tiger” is a high-mobility multipurpose military vehicle manufactured by MIC, a GAZ Group division, at the Arzamas machine-manufacturing plant.

It has a maximum speed of 150 kilometers per hour and can carry up to nine personnel or 1.2 tons of cargo.

Credit to RIA Novosti

Virginia Congressman Admits to the Existence of Child Trafficking in Fairfax County Virginia

Congressman Wolf has had enough

As readers know, I have covered the child abduction case of Monika Wesolowski, a State Department employee, with a security clearance, who has had her child stolen from her by the CPS/DFS of Virginia without so much of a charge or conviction for parental wrongdoing. And now, because she has had the audacity to tell her story to the media, the Virginian Department of Family Services has branded her as unstable and accuse of Monika of placing her son in danger by going to the media and they are preparing to totally strip Monika of any visitations with her son. Her son presently resides in foster care with “two fathers” in which Wesolowski is claiming sexual abuse is occurring as evidenced by rash on the rectum, a return to diapers and the boy is repetitively moving his arms in sexual gestures asking for people to “cut his arms off”. All of this information has been presented to the Virginia CPS/DFS, the local police and the Fairfax County Attorneys office and NOTHING is being done to protect the child. Why? Because the boy represents too much money for the system.

I have two former Virginia CPS workers who tell me that it is the goal of the Virginia CPS to remove as many kids as possible and that evidence is fabricated and papers are forged to this end. One of these sources is going public sometime in July.

Prior investigators such as the late Nancy Schaefer claim that children simply go missing from the care of the various CPS’ and these children end up in child sex trafficking rings such as the ones identified by Nick Bryant, the author of the Franklin Scandal.

A Lone Voice in the Wilderness

Despite the fact that Wells Fargo Wachovia was caught child sex trafficking and paid a $400 million dollar fine, nobody went to jail. Dyncorp was also caught doing the same and they paid a large fine, but nobody was held personally accountable. There are anonymous sources within the government who are leaking information that child sex trafficking profits are being used, in part, to fund regime change activities such as the ones in Libya and Syria in an Air America, Iran-Contra operation. Many investigators are beginning to believe that Ambassador Stevens was murdered two months before the 2012 election to conceals these facts.

Soon, there will be a chorus of voices demanding answers from a corrupt and criminal government.with regard to this topic.  It is likely that some federal officials and corporate types will be offered up in sacrifice to cover-up how far up in the ranks of the global elite that these practices go. Stay tuned, I am told that partial disclosure is coming. For the moment, we have one Congressman who is venturing into this land of the forbidden and is beginning to ask many of the right questions.

Congressman Frank Wolf

Congressman Frank Wolf of the 10th District in Virginia is on the warpath against human trafficking. From Congressman Wolf’s website here are some partial excerpts of his comments on this dire problem

“Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery. Not only is it an affront to human dignity, but it is an insidious criminal enterprise. Approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year, according to the U.S. State Department. This figure does not include the thousands who are trafficked annually within countries, including the United States. While the hidden nature of trafficking makes reliable numbers difficult to come by, we do know traffickers prey on the most vulnerable. Traffickers can make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year selling women and children, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Polaris Project, one of the leading anti-trafficking organizations in the country…”

Trafficking in Virginia

Again, from the Congressman Wolf’s website:

“People often think trafficking takes place overseas in places like Thailand. In reality, it takes place right here in Virginia.  The links below show how close to home trafficking takes place:

Click here to read a piece from Washingtonian Magazine about human trafficking in Fairfax County.

Click here to read about the sentencing of the owner of an Annandale-based massage parlor to 30 months in prison for transporting women to work as prostitutes and laundering the proceeds from the illegal activity.

Click here to read court documents involving a Georgia man who pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria in 2013 of trafficking young girls in northern Virginia. Be sure to read Section 15 on page 6 to see the names and locations hotels in the region where the young girls were prostituted.

Click here to read about how local gangs are finding trafficking women and young girls is more profitable than trafficking drugs.

Click here to read about gang members indicted for racketeering, sex trafficking, robbery, cocaine distribution, and multiple acts of violence.” End quote from Congressman Wolf’s website.

The Unanswered Question

God bless Congressman Wolf and his efforts in attacking this single biggest heinous act being perpetrated against the children of the United States.  However, Congressman Wolf does not quite go far enough as there is an unanswered question: “Where do these sex traffickers get their children from?” Investigative author Nick Bryant, the late State Senator Nancy Schaefer and Brian Gerrish all agree that children are “lost” from the system (e.g. CPS) and many children end up in these trafficking rings. All three investigators agree that many of these children die in snuff films and most are so drugged up that if they do ever escape with their lives, nobody will ever believe them because of their addiction status.

In Virginia, we find former CPS agents admitting that the goal of the agency is child abduction from the homes of law-abiding parents. The agencies are paid by the federal government for the procurement of each child. More is paid to the Virginia CPS/DFS when the child is a minority and even more is paid out when the child has a disability as is the case with Monika Wesolowski’s son.

An Old Familiar Story

I have been covering a very similar case to Monika’s that many of you know as the Stacy Lynne case. It has been 2.5 years since Stacy first contacted me and revealed how her son Jaden was stolen from her in relation to her anti-Agenda 21 activities in Fort Collins, CO. Going on three years ago, I promised Stacy that the resources of The Common Sense Show would be utilized in exposing the rampant corruption in her county related to the abduction of her son.

The criminal public officials in Stacy’s county fear her presence and the resumption of her political advocacy. I have been effective in doing numerous radio interviews in Stacy’s backyard about this corruption. In fact, only yesterday, Stacy, Monika and I appeared on Randy Yarbrough’s radio show emanating from Johnstown, CO. which is in Stacy’s backyard. I am beginning to see a difference in how the Stacy’s community is viewing the criminal, public element which has run Stacy’s county for too long.

To the public officials of Fairfax County, VA., you are ready to go under the national microscope. To Assistant County Attorney Chris Sigler, you will not be able contain the flow of information by writing to Monika’s attorney and telling her that you are very displeased that Monika has gone to the media over her perceived judgment that your office is displaying depraved indifference towards her son while Monika’s Constitutional liberties are being trampled upon. I have conducted 6 interviews, this week alone, on this case.

Unlike December of 2011, when the Stacy Lynne case was brought to me, I have exponentially more media contacts. I can safely say that I know personally know almost everyone of the major figures in my industry and to a person, they are interested in this case. My radio show has grown twenty  fold in the past two years and my articles are picked up by over 1500 websites around the country including some in the print media and my website is less than two years old and growing. I am not bragging because I am not motivated by money. I am solely motivated to carry out my God-given task of helping to right these terrible wrongs. I feel it is all of our responsibility to protect those that cannot protect themselves. And these Virginia officials need to take warning that a media tsunami is coming in the case of Monika Wesolowski with the goal of reunification of Monika with Dylan and a deep desire to make an imprint on how politics are conducted in Fairfax County.

What the officials in Fairfax County and the rest of Virginia need to know is that I know that Congress is looking into this issue and as the old saying goes, excrement rolls down hill. There is what you know and what you can prove. I can both logically conclude as well as feel it in my gut that children are disappearing from the Virginia foster home system operated under the auspices of CPS/DFS and they are ending up in child sex trafficking. On one hand, you Virginia flesh peddlers have a Congressman breathing down your neck who is in the process of connecting the dots. On the other hand, you have a newly awakened media who is just learning about this issue and is angered beyond description. It is not just Dave Hodges and The Common Sense Show that you Virginia CPS/DFS officials have to worry about. Many of my colleagues are now doing their due diligence on this topic, just as I did, and all hell is ready to break loose. I know that I am going to begin to receive more information as a result of this article which will lead up closer to the truth related to how children are being trafficked in Virginia.. Every time I receive pertinent information, I will see that it is forwarded to Congressman Wolf and my media contacts.

To you public officials who participate in these heinous practices, we will see that that there will nowhere you can hide as you will be brought to justice. And to the officials who have trampled on Monika’s rights, you have breach at the core of your concealed criminality, your veil of secrecy is going into meltdown and soon you will be forced to flee your facilities. And when you do, I will be standing outside taking names and kicking rear ends.

Meanwhile, the beat goes on as Monika and I are appearing on the last two hours of the Hagmann and Hagmann Report from 9-11pm, Eastern, this evening, June 6, 2014. It is D-Day for an all-out assault on child sex trafficking.

Credit to Common Sense

BLOOD ON THE ALTAR part number 6

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PART 6 - By The Typing Of Our Hands -- Something Wicked This Way Comes

s

Like you, the Krell forgot one deadly danger: their own subconscious hate and lust for destruction. The beast. The mindless primitive. Even the Krell must have evolved from that beginning. And so those mindless beasts of the subconscious had access to a machine that could never be shut down. The secret devil of every soul on the planet…all set free at once to loot and maim…and take revenge and kill! —MGM’s Forbidden Planet^[i]

Some of you may recognize the above quote as a conversation from the ending to MGM’s 1956 science fiction film, Forbidden Planet. This cult classic movie centers on a rather eccentric but brilliant scientist named Dr. Edward Morbius (played by Walter Pidgeon) and his innocent teenage daughter Altaira (Anne Francis). Morbius is the only surviving original member of a doomed expedition from earth sent to discover whether life exists in the Altair solar system. Commander John Adams (Leslie Nielsen) leads a rescue mission to Altair IV, but his team is attacked by an unseen “force”—the same monstrous “force” that killed all but Morbius, including his wife (Altair’s mother). Morbius is a linguistics expert, and he has uncovered ancient instrumentation and records that reveal clues to a long-extinct Altair IV race called “the Krell,” who died after inventing massive machinery that fed off energy within the Krell minds. However, this marvelous invention proved to be their downfall, for the Krell minds—once joined to the machine—had given birth to a great and terrifying monster.

Of course, this is all fiction, right? Humans could never produce an unseen something that would one day destroy us all. Perhaps it’s best that you not read this chapter when alone or at night, because such a monster is developing—even as I type these words, and, as with the Krell on Altair, this monster—this ravenous and very wicked Beast—may soon awaken and pit Christian against Christian, Jew against Jew, and all who worship this Beast against all who refuse to do so. To paraphrase the Second Witch from Shakespeare’s infamous “Scottish Play”: By the typing of our thumbs, something wicked this way comes.^[ii]

Need convincing? Let’s begin with a few terms.

Intelligence

One might assume this to refer to problem-solving skills, particularly those required for abstract reasoning. The term is derived from the Latin verb intelligere, which means “to comprehend, perceive, or understand.” In 1994, a group of fifty-two researchers penned their collective definition of intelligence:

A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—“catching on,” “making sense” of things, or “figuring out” what to do.^[iii]

I would add one additional modification that intelligence is based on freewill as given to mankind by God the Creator, this being the ability to make choices based upon any given set of options.

Sentience

This term is based on the Latin present participle sentiens,which means “feeling or perceiving.” In some ways, intelligence implies action, externalization, decision-making, and choices, while sentience evokes passion, internalization, thoughtfulness, and evaluation. Sentience serves and informs intelligence. Theologically, intelligence relates to the mind, while sentience relates to the heart. Though technically incorrect, sentience has come to mean “self-aware.” Thus, a sentient entity understands that he or she is a separate being within a complex system. Cogito ergo sum: “I think, therefore, I am.”^[iv] Theologically speaking, sentience is a gift from God, as mankind is created in His image. God is a sentient being; in fact, He is the Great I Am (the singular, superlative form of Rene Descarte’s “Thinker”). God gave man intelligence, freewill, and a compassionate heart. We can choose to react and act within the parameters of any given construct—be that reaction and or action good or evil; it is our choice.

Life

The traditional definition of life taught to all Biology 101 students is that an organism is considered alive when it possesses and exhibits the capacity to grow, metabolize, respond to stimuli, adapt to changing conditions, and reproduce. Recent revisions of this definition suggest that the organism must be RNA- or DNA-based. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has proposed adding a caveat that true life must demonstrate the ability and/or potential to evolve along Darwinian guidelines. Of course, biologists don’t have the luxury of observing a candidate for “life” over millions of years to prove it has evolved, which is why the “potential” to evolve is included. This merely requires inclusion of transposons (transposable elements that can jump to different positions on a chromosome) within a genome to qualify, and all genomes have these as just one component of a process called epigenetics.

Some biologists have even suggested the creation of an entire field of study with a single mission: to define life. Some say life is based only on carbon, others that life is cell based (excluding crystals). However, without a firm foundation in Christ, no scientist can truly appreciate the beautiful design within carbon-based life forms.

Synthetic Biology

According to distinguished (and very sentient) researcher Dr. Steven A. Benner, founder of the Westheimer Institute of Science and Technology and the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, synthetic biology must be considered a viable contender for “life” as we know it:

The goal of synthetic biology is to get, in the laboratory, a chemical system that can support Darwinian evolution. Our activities as synthetic biologists need not be constrained by any particular model for how life might have emerged on Earth. Any system will do, including one based on a biopolymer, or a collection of metabolic processes, or a mineral assembly.

Further, the system need not be self-sustaining; we would be happy if it were able to evolve and adapt, even if it needed continuous attention from a sentient being. Any synthetic molecular system that reproduces with error, if those errors are themselves reproducible, should be able to adapt to environmental changes, at least to the degree that its fundamental molecular capabilities allow.

Various efforts are underway to obtain such systems. These include work with DNA-like molecules that are built from six different nucleotide “letters”…artificial genetic systems that can be copied, with errors, where those errors are replicable.

Should artificial Darwinian chemical systems be obtained, they present a direct test to the definition-theory of life. They should be able to produce, in vitro, features that we value from living systems. Should they fail to do so, they will be analyzed to learn why they fail. This might lead to the identification of chemical features other than a polyelectrolyte that are needed to support Darwinian evolution. Or they may challenge the centrality of Darwinian evolution in any theory-definition of life.^[v](emphasis added)

Artificial Life

This includes software designed to evolve, robots intended to emulate humans or animals, and synthetic biology that involves an artificially designed, nucleic acid-based “life form” such as Craig Venter’s “Synthia.”^[vi] Evolutionists believe that all life on earth “evolved” from nonliving matter, which (either spontaneously or after being acted upon by an outside force) gave rise to self-replicating molecules. These then self-assembled into complex organic structures. This theory is called abiogenesis (no-egg-required thinking—thus, the chicken comes first; of course, it takes this proto-chicken many millennia to spring forth and therefore a very long time to cross the Darwinian road).

Internet

A global system of interconnected computers, based upon ARPAnet (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), a military network created by the precursor to DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency).

World Wide Web

A system of hyperlinked documents accessed via the Internet. The World Wide Web (WWW or W3) provides a user-friendly interface allowing anyone to join the Internet with a personal computer, tablet, smart phone, or other connected device (this will soon include appliances, cars, robots, and even external and internal medical and/or personal devices). It is interesting to note that the numerical value of “www” is 666.^[vii]

Deep Web

Also called Dark Web, DarkNet, the Invisible Web, and the Hidden Web, this realm of “stealth” websites, pages, images, files, and other documents cannot be accessed by typing in a .www URL (Uniform Resource Locator). Lying beneath the “Surface Web,” these sites are not indexed by search engines like Bing or Google, but require specific web crawlers and/or the manual submission of an Internet protocol or password. The Deep Web is estimated to be many magnitudes larger than the Surface Web. These murky depths provide cover for a shadowy world of illicit trade and criminal activities such as drug traffic, pornography, pedophilia, pederasty, snuff films, organ trafficking, and even slave trade, but they also provide deep cover for covert operations and spying. If you think the Surface Web contains disgusting imagery and ideas, you would be shocked at what slithers just beneath those Facebook “likes,” selfie-ridden Instagrams, and idle Tweets. The Internet that you and I and find so compelling contains both good and bad, but the nether regions of the DarkNet never see, nor do they benefit from, the light of day.

Now that we’ve unpacked a few definitions, let me offer a short history of the Internet, since that is where Leviathan, the monster from the Id now sleeps. ARPAnet was born from the vision of J. C. R. Lidicker, a psychologist cumcomputer scientist and former director of Behavioral Sciences Command and Control Research at DARPA (then called ARPA, the Advanced Research Projects Agency operated by the US Defense Department). During the 1950s, Lidicker was a major contributor to ARPA’s “SAGE” (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) project that sought to create a defense system based on computer/human responses. Computers fed data to human operators, who then made decisions for action—hence the term “semi-automatic.” However, this exposure to the possibilities inherent in computers stayed with Lidicker, and he eventually proposed what he called the “Intergalactic Network,” which sounds rather far-fetched, but with this vision, he wrote and discussed concepts such as “point-and-click” interfaces, e-commerce, digital libraries, and more. His dreams even included “cloud computing.”^[viii]

However, before ARPAnet could form, a subnetwork had to be created as a means to provide structure and connectivity while the “net” formed. This subnet was called the Interface Message Processor (IMP) and conjoined a variety of university scholars with the IPTO (Information Processing Techniques Office) at the Pentagon. Now, I won’t dwell on this, but it is interesting to note that ARPAnet is an anagram of “pan tare.” Pan, a mythological, goat-legged creature, was reputed to rape women and commit all manner of adulterous and lecherous acts. Pan has now come to serve as a prefix meaning “everywhere at once” or “worldwide,” as in “pandemic.” Tares are weeds and were used by Jesus as representing the evil that the enemy has sown in a field:

Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man who sowed good seed in his field;

            But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.

                But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also.

So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares?

He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up?

But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up thetares, ye root up also the wheat with them.

Let both grow together until the harvest; and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers,

Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn. (Matt. 13:24–30, emphasis added)

The tares are a type of so-called bastard wheat (actually a dark variety of darnel that resembles wheat but lacks nutrition, i.e., a weed). Now, I won’t dwell any more on this other than to say that the hint about tares everywhere riding on the backs of an IMP are metaphorically irresistible as relates to my theme of a slumbering Beast about to waken in this universal “field” we call the Internet.

Now, back to my short history.

Once the subnet and basic protocols were in place, four universities (Stanford, Utah, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the University of California, Santa Barbara) were selected to provide feedback in four major areas: network measurement, network information, interactive mathematics, and graphics. These four schools received an IMP, and these subnets eventually connected as a Network Working Group. From these humble beginnings arose ARPAnet, Usenet, IRC (Internet Relay Chat), TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, the protocol that made modems possible), and eventually HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), which even now forms the backbone of the Internet and websites. ARPAnet grew from a tiny idea to connect computers for use by the US military into the rapid transit system deployed by citizens and soldiers the world over. This system permits Christians to share joys and sorrows, cat pictures, triumphs, cries of despair and calls for prayer, sports scores, and family memories. But it also provides the means for sins of all shapes and sizes—defiance in the face of God, a rising anger and hatred of all things Christian that threatens to erupt from out of the deep web into the sunlit surface any day now. The tares among the wheat are beginning to ripen.

Credit to Raidersnewsupdate.com

Vodafone reveals existence of secret wires that allow state surveillance

Vodafone, one of the world's largest mobile phone groups, has revealed the existence of secret wires that allow government agencies to listen to all conversations on its networks, saying they are widely used in some of the 29 countries in which it operates in Europe and beyond.

The company has broken its silence on government surveillance in order to push back against the increasingly widespread use of phone and broadband networks to spy on citizens, and will publish its first Law Enforcement Disclosure Report on Friday. At 40,000 words, it is the most comprehensive survey yet of how governments monitor the conversations and whereabouts of their people.

The company said wires had been connected directly to its network and those of other telecoms groups, allowing agencies to listen to or record live conversations and, in certain cases, track the whereabouts of a customer. Privacy campaigners said the revelations were a "nightmare scenario" that confirmed their worst fears on the extent of snooping.

In Albania, Egypt, Hungary, India, Malta, Qatar, Romania, South Africa and Turkey, it is unlawful to disclose any information related to wiretapping or interception of the content of phone calls and messages including whether such capabilities exist.

"For governments to access phone calls at the flick of a switch is unprecedented and terrifying," said the Liberty director, Shami Chakrabarti. "[Edward] Snowden revealed the internet was already treated as fair game. Bluster that all is well is wearing pretty thin – our analogue laws need a digital overhaul."

In about six of the countries in which Vodafone operates, the law either obliges telecoms operators to install direct access pipes, or allows governments to do so. The company, which owns mobile and fixed broadband networks, including the former Cable & Wireless business, has not named the countries involved because certain regimes could retaliate by imprisoning its staff.


Credit to The Guardian

Japan's Greatest "Misery" In 33 Years

Back in early 2013, in article after article, we warned that Abenomics would be an epic disaster. Actually we take that back: we said it would be an epic disaster for most of Japan's citizens. A select very few, just like in the US, would benefit greatly from the unprecedented asset reflation to follow the massive currency devaluation that the prime minister had just launched.

Over a year later, we find that we were yet again accurate in our forecast.

Meet Mieko Tatsunami, a 70 year old retired kimono dresser from Tokyo. Unlike the scores of paid actors ordered to pitch Abenomics and to spread the gospel of rising asset prices, Mieko shares a most rare commodity in this day of pervasive propaganda: the truth.

“The price of everything we eat on a daily basis is going up,” Tatsunami, 70, a retired kimono dresser, said while shopping in Tokyo’s Sugamo area. “I’m making do by halving the amount of meat I serve and adding more vegetables.”

Ironically, that's what Americans are doing too. Only here the "halving" of the food is done by the food producers, while the consumers rarely if ever notice that they are being jobbed, and are paying the same amount for ever lesser amounts of food. At least in Japan they are honest about food inflation.

As Bloomberg shows, Tatsunami’s concerns stem from the price of food soaring at the fastest pace in 23 years after April’s sales-tax increase. Rising prices helped push the nation’s misery index to the highest level since 1981, while wages adjusted for inflation fell the most in more than four years.

Ah yes, the title. We weren't kidding. As of this moment, Japan's misery has not been higher in an entire generation! Its Misery indexthat is, which combines unemployment (3.6%) and inflation (3.4%), and results in an unprecedented 7.0%: the highest in 33 years!

To be sure, we warned explicitly about Japan's soaring food prices. And now, here they are:

With food accounting for one quarter of the consumer price index and the central bank looking to drive inflation higher, a squeeze on household budgets threatens consumption as Abe weighs a further boost in the sales levy. The prime minister may be forced to ease the pain with economic stimulus, cash handouts or tax exemptions championed by his coalition partner.

“Price hikes without confidence that wages are going to rise will hurt appetite for spending,” said Masamichi Adachi, senior economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Tokyo. “Abe has to raise people’s belief that the economy will improve.”

Food prices rose 5 percent in April from a year earlier, with fresh food climbing 10 percent. Onions soared 37 percent, and salmon -- a staple of the nation’s lunch boxes -- jumped 30 percent. Abe lifted the sales tax by 3 percentage points on April 1.

To be sure, it didn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out what would happen to food and energy prices in a country that is actively depreciating its currency and which is only 39% self-sufficient on a calorie basis and more reliant on inbound shipments of fossil fuels after the Fukushima disaster in 2011 - hence, would be forced to spend that much more (and pass through these costs) on food and energy imports.

Yet apparently not a single economist in the Abe cabinet couldn't comprehend what was sure to follow a 20% devaluation in the Yen.

The result is clear:

The cost of imported beef rose to 230 yen ($2.24) for 100 grams at stores in central Tokyo in April from 187 yen a year earlier, government data show. Growing vegetables in greenhouses is more expensive as a result of increased energy prices, according to Naoyuki Yoshino, the Tokyo-based dean of the Asian Development Bank Institute.

Yasunari Ueno, chief market economist at Mizuho Securities Co. in Tokyo, said food inflation likely accelerated in May and will remain high.

But it is not soaring food and energy prices that are crushing the Japanese economy under Abe more than under any of his predecessors: it is the collapsing wages. As we reported two days ago, base Japanese wages excluding bonuses (which are a benefit to just 20% or less of the workforce), have now declined for a near-record 23 months in a row. As Bloomberg, logically, adds, "the prime minister’s drive to fatten paychecks more than inflation is at risk of stalling, with wages excluding overtime and bonus payments falling for a 23rd straight month in April. "

So what are the "non-1%ers" like Tatsunami to do in this slimate of near record "misery"? According to the chief market strategist at Mizuho, Yasunari Ueno, an option for Abe would be to provide more cash handouts to help low-income households: something the US president has gotten the hang of quite well courtesy of his relentless debauching of the world's reserve currency (unknown for how much longer). Sadly, the Yen is nowhere near a reserve, and such a move would run counter to the government’s effort to reel in the world’s largest debt burden: considering Japan's debt/GDP is running around 240% these days, the last thing Japan can afford is even a faint hint of a debt crisis.

Which means no way out: with higher food prices, people will cut back on durables, luxury goods and eating out as they did after the sales tax was last increased in 1997. Japan then ended up in a recession. A recession in a time of Abenomics would crush the prime minister and promptly put an end to the BOJ's $70 billion per month liquidity injection, the proceeds of which mostly end up in the US stock market anyway.

And while the 1%ers will be fine in any situation, the elderly, many of whom are on fixed incomes, will be hit the hardest, said Hideo Kumano, executive chief economist at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo. Kumano estimates households headed by people over age 60 accounted for nearly half the nation’s consumption last year. “If prices keep rising, there is a risk that consumption by seniors may be damped as they don’t enjoy the benefit of wage increases,” Kumano said cited by Bloomberg.

We close with Tatsunami: “Abenomics may be helping the big corporations, but life’s tough for people like me,” said Tatsunami, who has seen her pension shrink. “We don’t go out as much as we did -- we’re having to cut back."

Ironically, this is precisely what we said over a year ago. And now even the common Japanese man has grasped it. In fact, everyone else too. Everyone expect Abe and Kuroda.

Which brings us to the next steps: we have said it before, so we will give Bloomberg the honors:

The squeeze on households could damage support for Abe’s administration, whose approval rating fell to 53 percent in a Nikkei survey in May from 62 percent when he took power in December 2012.

That's right: just like Abe's reign ended in humiliation (and diarrhea) the first time around, so to his second attempt to fix the Japanese economy will be a disaster: it is just a matter of time before someone finally admits that yet another emperor is wearing no kimono. The only question is when.

Ironically, this is the same question we asked in February of 2013:

And just like that Japan is about to learn that soaring stock prices always have a trade off, a lesson which even GETCO's S&P ramping algos will not be exempt from when the latest bout of soaring food inflation results in central banks scrambling to withdraw liquidity, just as they did in early 2011. The results will naturally be the same.

As for how long Abe's government will remain in power after energy and food inflation sweep through the net importing nation, that is anyone's guess.

We hope - for their sake - that Japan's ordinary citizens,  not the 5-10% who benefit from the Nikkei's surge, but the 90% or so who couldn't care less what the stock market does but have no choice but to care very much about the price of food, make the right decision and get rid of their catastrophic government soon, before it is far too late.

Credit to Zero Hedge

To promote ecumenical prayer and interfaith understanding Joel Osteen, Tim Timmons and Gayle D. Beebe met the Pope

A small group of political and religious leaders from the United States, including Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, met privately with Pope Francis at the Vatican today.

Part of a multiday, unofficial visit to Italy to promote ecumenical prayer and interfaith understanding, Lee was joined in the private audience by former U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne; Lakewood Church pastor and televangelist Joel Osteen; Tim Timmons, a pastor and author based in Newport Beach, California; and Gayle D. Beebe, president of Westmont College, an evangelical school in Santa Barbara, California.

Lee said The International Foundation, a private nonprofit, arranged the trip.

The Utah Republican conversed with the Pope in Spanish, which is the pontiff's mother tongue, about the need for faith in Jesus Christ and to build families. Lee, who served a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, speaks fluent Spanish.

"I was told it would not only be the proper protocol, but also appreciated if I were to address him in Spanish," Lee said in a telephone interview from Rome. "The invitation to meet came from Pope Francis' desire to invite more people to come unto Jesus Christ," he added.

Lee said Francis asked his guests to pray that more people would serve and protect the family.

Ecumenical outreach
Lee and his wife were apparently the only members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the delegation.

"There was a very good spirit with him. I enjoyed the interaction," Lee added. "He's a very humble man."

Lee said he told Francis about the ecumenical prayer breakfasts held in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, and that the pope replied he supported such ventures. But beyond that and the usual pleasantries, Lee said, the pontiff had no specific message for him.

During his days in Rome, Lee said, he observed Francis in action when the pope met with more than 50,000 charismatic Roman Catholics during a worship service at Rome's Olympic Stadium. After arriving in a Ford Focus and asking the crowd for prayers, Lee said, the pontiff knelt on the ground to pray, the traditional "kneeler" cushion not being available.

A former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See, Francis Rooney, applauded the pope for meeting with the group. "I think the Pope, in reaching out, is broadening the concept of ecumenical dialogue, and he's reaching out to people who can touch other Christians," Rooney said

He noted that Pope John XXIII reached out to Jewish leaders, "having served as a papal nuncio (ambassador) and appreciated (their) plight" during World War II. And Pope John Paul II, who along with John XXIII was canonized in April, continued the outreach to Jews and included Eastern and other Orthodox Christian leaders, Rooney explained, and now Francis is widening the circle.

"This pope's a whirlwind," Rooney said. "He's making a great contribution to the world, I think. He's doing great things for the world. … I think the Pope, in reaching out, is broadening the concept of ecumenical dialogue and he's reaching out to people who can touch other Christians."

Credit to Deseret News

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