"The Reality Is, Half Of Americans Can’t Afford To Write A $500 Check"

The CEO of Assurant appeared on Bloomberg TV to explain why demand for his services is likely to increase: the chief executive of the mobile phone insurer said he expects a surge in demand as carriers charge customers more to replace their devices. “If you think back five years ago, you as a consumer didn’t know how much that phone cost, you thought it was free or close to free,” Assurant's Alan Colberg said Monday. “Now you’re paying $600, that’s a lot. So we’ve actually seen the attachment rate, or the number of people buying the product, going up a little bit in the last couple of years.”

He then proceeded to give Bloomberg his traditional sales pitch: Assurant is counting on growth at its business covering phones and appliances to help counter a decline in the segment that insures foreclosed homes for lenders. While improvement in the real estate market has limited the number of vacant homes, Colberg said there are still many cash-strapped consumers. 

It is what he said next that caught our attention: “The reality is, half of Americans can’t afford to write a $500 check,” Colberg said. He spun that stunning statistic by saying that when US customers sign up for a cellular plan, they’re willing to buy protection in case “they lose that phone or something happens to it.” 

In other words, there are millions of Americans who don't have $500 in the bank but are willing to dish out more than that on a cell phone, and then are stupid enough to make monthly payments that ultimately end up being far higher than $500 to protect their purchase... which they clearly couldn't afford in the first place. 

That said, we decided to look into the CEO's claim about the woeful state of US finances. What we found is that according to a recent Bankrate survey of 1,000 adults, 57% of Americans don’t have enough cash to cover a mere $500 unexpected expense. Turns out the CEO was right. And while that may appear dire, it is a slight improvement from 2016, when 63% of U.S. residents said they wouldn’t be able to handle such an expense.

The survey's findings have shed light on how the so-called recovery of the past 8 years has skipped about half of the US population, which literally live paycheck to paycheck, and reflects a country in which many households continue to struggle with their basic finances more than seven years after the official end to the recession. 

Putting the numbers in context: despite steady job growth during the Obama administration - which have been focused on minimum wage industries - wages have been predictably slow to recover, with the typical American household still earning 2.4% below what they brought home in 1999, when income peaked. Meanwhile, costs for essentials such as housing and child care have surged faster than the rate of inflation, placing stress on household budgets and making the accumulation of wealth, i.e., savings, impossible. 

The bottom line:  About four out of 10 Americans said they had enough in savings to cover a surprise $500 expense. Another 21% said they would rely on a credit card, while 20% said they’d cut back on other expenses. Another 11% said they’d turn to family or friends for the money. 

What is even more striking is that among Americans who earn more than $75,000 per year - a third more than the typical U.S. household earns - almost half also said they wouldn’t be able to cover a $500 surprise expense. Ironically, Millennials represent the generation most equipped to handle an emergency cost, with 47 percent saying they have enough in savings to cover one. 

The Bankrate survey findings echoed research published last year by the Federal Reserve, which found that 46% of respondents said they would be challenged to come up with even less, or $400, to cover an emergency expense, and would likely borrow or sell something to afford it. When the Fed asked what types of emergency expenses Americans had actually faced in the last year, more than one out of five cited a major unexpected medical expense. The average expense: $2,782, or almost seven times higher than the Fed’s hypothetical $400 surprise bill. 

How do cell phones fit in all of this? When it comes to reducing spending, dining out is the first place where consumers would cut back, with 6 out of 10 respondents saying they would eat out less. What is the "stickiest" expense? According to Bankrate, the least likely expense to face the chopping block are mobile phone plans, with the survey finding that only 35% said they would cut back on their wireless plans to save money. 

In other words, Americans would rather be hungry than cell phone free. In retrospect, it may turn out be that Assurant's CEO, whose business model is a big bet on human stupidity, just may have a goldmine on his hands.

Credit to Zero Hedge

The Anatomy of the Deep State

Doug Hagmann

What is the Deep State? How pervasive is it” Are they all powerful? What are their goals? Can they be stopped? What do we have to do?

Deep State Defined

People often ask me, what is the Deep State? Officially, this is the definition.

The Deep State is a state within a state and it is a political situation in a country when an internal organ (“deep state”), such as the armed forces and civilian authorities (intelligence agencies, police, administrative agencies and branches of governmental bureaucracy), does not respond to the civilian political leadership.

The Present Deep State

The Deep State has been with America for generations. However, under 8 years of Obama, the Deep State became all powerful. They control virtually every defense, intelligence and regular governmental agency.

How Is the Deep State Organized?

I interviewed Doug Hagmann about the organizational structure of the Deep State. The Deep State is omnipresent, and at the present time, they have more power that the President himself.

What Is Driving the Deep State?

There can be no question that Pizzagate is driving the timetable of the Deep State.  Many in the Deep State will take the perp walk when Jeff Sessons gets rolling on the Pizzagate indictments. The radical left, for whom this will mean prison time, are desparate to derail the process.

Excellent Analysis of the Deep State

Doug Hagmann’s information was the most complete I have heard on the nature and composition of the Deep State.  It make us all realize that the REAL Americans are in for the fight of their collective lives. If we do not roll up our sleeves and get to work, the America we know, the Constitutionally based America, will be a shadow memory in our history.

Here is Doug Hagmann’s analysis of the Deep State:

 Credit to Common Sense

IBM has patented a technology that will monitor your communications, in real-time and call police, when you transmit "fake news"

File Date (@US Patent Office): January 19, 2017
Patent: 20170019535 Family ID: 57775256 Kind Code: A1
Applicant: International Business Machines (IBM)
Super Easy Explanation:
A system that fact-checks live calls and takes action to “cause change” in any call that is “determined…as false”. [Abstract]

Now, to Break It Down a Bit Further:

Who’s Involved (initially) :
telecommunicating from &
an automatic program, ran on an artificial-intelligencia computing system.
What’s Happening :
The A.I. system “detects a fact statement made during a conversation” [0024]. It detects “alleged facts” by using NLP (Natural Language Processing) to identify a “defined grammatical construct” and “the presence of one or more keywords”. [0025]
“As some non-limiting examples” the system “can be configured to detect statements that include financial terminology…words referring to a location, an institution, an entity, and the like”. [0025]
The A.I. system “initiates a capture of a call segment”, recording the “fact statement”. The capture can retroactively record, including the conversation that occurred “at a time prior” to “wnhen the fact statement was made” [0026]. The call data is pre-processed and converted for fact-checking.
“The (call) data can include text, sound, graphical, or video information.” The A.I. “applies different methods to convert…the information.” [0035]
The A.I. system then sends that processed data set “for fact-checking…verifying the accuracy of the fact statement by using information from a third-party.” [0030]
As an example; call-data from a video transmission could include a text form of the “fact statement”, along with result data from ”sentiment analysis, facial expression analysis, or applied forensics” performed by the A.I. system.[0035] “Voice facts, such as timber or pitch of the voice can assist in verification.”[0037] The text data of the fact statement can be checked against third-party records, like “phone directories” [0038], “company directories” [0039], “financial or credit databases” [0040], “news databases” [0041], or any “social media site” [0055].
The A.I. system receives a “result of the fact checking operation…indicating that the fact statement is accurate, or inaccurate.” [0031]
“If the result indicates that the fact statement is inaccurate”, the A.I. system “takes action” “while the call in progress”. [0032]
“Some non-limiting examples of possible actions” the system can take are “terminating the call,…notify the (telecommunication device) user via a haptic interface, or notify a third-party such as law enforcement.” [0032]
This IBM A.I. system application “allows” telecommunication devices”to be “operated in a manner that prevents the perpetration of…undesirable activities.”[0045]
“If the application determines that the caller or the call has violated the law, the application may notify the appropriate law enforcement agency” [0090], as the A.I. simotaneously “determines whether to continue the call-monitoring”.[0091]

So You’re Absolutely Clear on This :IBM…the company that came up with the idea, and the system to number the Jews during the Holocaust…the company that created operating systems, like Linux….the company that created the “Smarter Cities” grid control program in 2008…the company that made the A.I. system that won Jeopardy! against the 74-game champ in 2011…and the A.I. system that beat the world’s chess champion
IBM…creator of the first supercomputer..the first personal computer with a standardized platform
IBM….who invented ATM’s…
IBM has patented a system which monitors calls, using Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing to take statements made during the call and fact-check them against a third-party database. These statements can be made in any transmitted verbal, visual, textual, or graphical data that is communicated between any two devices. Devices include, but are not limited to, phones, laptops, wearable devices, or tablets. The third-party database used to fact-check is configurable. It can be configured to an internal network-server database; it could be Wikipedia; or the Google/Oracle servers in whole; even the entire plethora of institutional recorded familial, educational, employment, legal, financial, and geological recorded data. This fact-checking is made in real-time, through the data network. If any statement made is deemed as “false”, IBM’s system will make a change in the call. These changes include, but are not limited to, ending the call, alerting the device’s user of the danger of “invalid” fact statements, or involving the appropriate legal agencies of the user’s “incorrect” statement, with or without the telecommuter’s knowledge, to arrange for arrest or any other correctional-type action from the alerted agency. This A.I. system can and will decide to continue a user’s communications, to an undefined extent or limitation, for data capture continued for any undefined reason.

The A.I. listens and scans all, deciphering all communications between device users; using self-determined emotion-analytics,based on voice patterns, body language,and facial motions made during statements between communicating device users; fact-checking statements on its own terms, against its configuration of decided facts; then empowered to take action during the data transmission between the users. The A.I. can act to get you arrested, put you on an agency’s alert list, or block the user from telecommunicating on that device.

Credit to northwestlibertynews.com

http://northwestlibertynews.com/ibm-patent-fact-checker-call-actionability/

Clif High-Chaos Starts Middle of March

IF EU BREAKS UP, GOLD SKYROCKETS

11 Quotes From Trump’s Speech To Congress That Show That The U.S. Economy Is In A State Of Collapse

After Tuesday night, nobody should have any more doubt that the U.S. economy has been in the process of collapsing.  Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress is being hailed as his best speech ever.  Even CNN’s Van Jones praised Trump, which shocked many observers.  Jones said that when Trump honored the widow of slain Navy Seal Ryan Owens that it “was one of the most extraordinary moments you have ever seen in American politics”, and Jones believes that Trump “became President of the United States in that moment”.  But Trump’s speech is not just being praised for that one moment.  He detailed many of the most important problems that our nation is facing, and he explained his prescription for addressing those problems.

Hopefully Trump’s words helped people to understand that our problems did not get fixed just because he got elected.  It is going to take extraordinary action to fix those problems, because our problems run very deep.  In particular, Trump made an exceedingly strong case that the U.S. economy has been badly deteriorating for a very long period of time.  The following are 11 quotes from Trump’s speech to Congress that show that the U.S. economy is in a state of collapse…

#1 “Ninety-four million Americans are out of the labor force”

#2 “Over 43 million people are now living in poverty”

#3 “Over 43 million Americans are on food stamps”

#4 “More than one in five people in their prime working years are not working”

#5 “We have the worst financial recovery in 65 years”

#6 “In the last eight years, the past administration has put on more new debt than nearly all of the other Presidents combined”

#7 “We’ve lost more than one-fourth of our manufacturing jobs since NAFTA was approved”

#8 “We’ve lost 60,000 factories since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001″

#9 “Our trade deficit in goods with the world last year was nearly 800 billion dollars”

#10 “Obamacare premiums nationwide have increased by double and triple digits. As an example, Arizona went up 116 percent last year alone.”

#11  “We’ve spent trillions and trillions of dollars overseas, while our infrastructure at home has so badly crumbled”

All of these quotes come from the transcript of the speech that was posted on the official White House website.

So many of the economic themes that Trump touched on are things that I have been writing about recently.  For example, I recently published an article entitled “11 Deeply Alarming Facts About America’s Crumbling Infrastructure” in which I discussed the horrific state of our roads, bridges, ports, dams, water systems and airports.  I greatly applaud Trump for wanting to do something about this growing national crisis, but I just don’t know where the money is going to come from.

Just over a week ago I also wrote a major article about Obamacare.  We have zero hope of turning our economy in a positive direction until we do something to fix our dramatically failing healthcare system, but at the moment Republicans in Congress seem extremely hesitant to take action.  Instead, many Republican leaders are now talking about trying to “fix Obamacare“, and that simply is not going to work.

You can’t “fix” a steaming pile of garbage.

All of the other facts that Trump listed about the economy were right on point too.  I have been screaming for seven years about our nightmarish trade deficit and the fact that tens of thousands of businesses and millions of good paying jobs were leaving the country.  It is refreshing to finally have a president that understands how badly America has been hurt by imbalanced trade agreements, and my hope is that he will start to take constructive action in this regard.

So much damage to the economy has already been done, and there are all kinds of indications that we are about to officially slide into yet another recession.  Yesterday we learned that the number of “distressed retailers” in this country is the highest that it has been since the last recession, and in recent weeks major retailers across the nation have announced the closing of hundreds of stores.  Lending standards are tightening, bankruptcies are rising, and employment growth at companies listed on the S&P 500 has gone negative for the first time since the last recession.

It is being projected that GDP growth for the first quarter of 2017 will be barely above zero, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if we actually had a negative reading.

If we indeed are heading into a new recession, Trump and his supporters need it to happen as soon as possible so that they can blame it on Obama.  If a recession begins a year from now, everyone will blame it on Trump even if it is not his fault.  But if a recession begins now, Trump and his supporters can pin responsibility for it on Obama and then take credit if and when a recovery occurs.

Trump’s speech on Tuesday night was very optimistic, and he seemed quite confident that every issue that we are facing as a nation can be fixed…

Everything that is broken in our country can be fixed. Every problem can be solved. And every hurting family can find healing and hope.

I hope that Trump is right, but I also know that the federal government is already 20 trillion dollars in debt, U.S. consumers are already more than 12 trillion dollars in debt, and corporate debt has approximately doubled since the last financial crisis.

You can’t squeeze blood out of an apple, and you can’t get out of a debt bubble by going into a lot more debt.

I understand that there are so many people out there right now that are deeply optimistic about the future, but the truth is that we have no hope of a positive future unless we fundamentally change our ways as a nation.  I wish that someone could show me evidence that this is happening, because I would be very glad to see it.  As it stands, we continue to steamroll toward the kind of apocalyptic future for this country that I have been warning about for a very long time.

It will take a lot more than words to fix America, and I think that Donald Trump understands this.

Hopefully many of his followers will start to get the message as well.

Credit to Economic Collapse

North Korea Fires Missile Capable of Hitting USA

Globalists interviewed: they admitted they controlled the government

This is a bombshell. It’s a crucial piece of history that has been ignored by mass media.

I’ve published this interview before. Here I want to make new comments.

First of all, David Rockefeller’s Trilateral Commission was born in 1973, in part because the Globalist plan to ensure “free trade” (no tariffs paid by predatory mega-corporations) had run into a glitch.

That glitch was President Richard Nixon. He began laying tariffs on certain goods imported into the US, in order to level the playing field and protect American companies. Nixon, a substantial crook in other respects, went off-script in this case and actually started a movement to reject the Globalist vision.

After Nixon’s ouster from the White House, Gerald Ford became president, and he chose David’s brother, Nelson Rockefeller as his vice-president. It was a sign Globalism and free trade were back on track.

But David Rockefeller and his sidekick, Brzezinski, wanted more. They wanted a man in the White House whom they’d created from scratch.

That man was a peanut farmer no one had ever heard of: Jimmy Carter.

Through their media connections, David and Brzezinski vaulted Carter into the spotlight. He won the Democratic nomination (1976), spread a syrupy message of love and coming together after the Watergate debacle, and soon he was ensconced in the Oval Office.

Flash forward to 1978, the second year of Carter’s presidency. An interview took place.

It’s a close-up snap shot of a remarkable moment. It’s a through-the-looking-glass secret—in the form of a conversation between a reporter, Jeremiah Novak, and two Trilateral Commission members, Karl Kaiser and Richard Cooper.

The interview concerned the issue of who exactly, during President Carter’s administration, was formulating and controlling US economic and political policy.

The careless and off-hand attitude of Trilateralists Kaiser and Cooper is astonishing. It’s as if they’re saying, “What we’re revealing is already out in the open, it’s too late to do anything about it, why are you so worked up, we’ve already won…”

NOVAK (the reporter): Is it true that a private [Trilateral committee] led by Henry Owen of the US and made up of [Trilateral] representatives of the US, UK, West Germany, Japan, France and the EEC is coordinating the economic and political policies of the Trilateral countries [which would include the US]?

COOPER: Yes, they have met three times.

NOVAK: Yet, in your recent paper you state that this committee should remain informal because to formalize ‘this function might well prove offensive to some of the Trilateral and other countries which do not take part.’ Who are you afraid of?

KAISER: Many countries in Europe would resent the dominant role that West Germany plays at these [Trilateral] meetings.

COOPER: Many people still live in a world of separate nations [!], and they would resent such coordination [of policy].

NOVAK: But this [Trilateral] committee is essential to your whole policy. How can you keep it a secret or fail to try to get popular support [for its decisions on how Trilateral member nations will conduct their economic and political policies]?

COOPER: Well, I guess it’s the press’ job to publicize it.

NOVAK: Yes, but why doesn’t President Carter come out with it and tell the American people that [US] economic and political power is being coordinated by a [Trilateral] committee made up of Henry Owen and six others? After all, if [US] policy is being made on a multinational level, the people should know.

COOPER: President Carter and Secretary of State Vance have constantly alluded to this in their speeches.

KAISER: It just hasn’t become an issue.

SOURCE: “Trilateralism: The Trilateral Commission and Elite Planning for World Management,” ed. by Holly Sklar, 1980. South End Press, Boston. Pages 192-3.

Of course, although Kaiser and Cooper claimed everything being manipulated by the Trilateral Commission committee was already out in the open, it wasn’t.

Their interview slipped under the mainstream media radar, which is to say, it was ignored and buried. It didn’t become a scandal on the level of, say, Watergate, although its essence was far larger than Watergate.

US economic and political policy run by a committee of the Trilateral Commission—the Commission had been created in 1973 as an “informal discussion group” by David Rockefeller and his sidekick, Brzezinski, who would become Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor.

Shortly after Carter won the presidential election, his aide, Hamilton Jordan, said that if after the inauguration, Cy Vance and Brzezinski came on board as secretary of state and national security adviser, “We have lost. And I will quit.” Lost—because both men were powerful members of the Trilateral Commission and their appointment to key positions would signal a surrender of White House control to the Commission.

Vance and Brzezinski were appointed secretary of state and national security adviser, as Jordan feared. But he didn’t quit. He became Carter’s chief of staff.

Flash forward again, to the Obama administration.

In the run-up to his inauguration after the 2008 presidential election, Obama was tutored by the co-founder of the Trilateral Commission, Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Four years before birthing the Commission with his boss of bosses, David Rockefeller, Brzezinski wrote: “[The] nation state as a fundamental unit of man’s organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force. International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation state.”

Goodbye, separate nations.

Any doubt on the question of Trialteral goals is answered by David Rockefeller himself, in his Memoirs (2003): “Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”

Patrick Wood, author of Trilaterals Over Washington and Technocracy Rising, points out there are only 87 members of the Trilateral Commission who live in America.

Obama appointed eleven of them to posts in his administration.

For example: Tim Geithner, Treasury Secretary;
James Jones, National Security Advisor;
Paul Volker, Chairman, Economic Recovery Committee;
Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence.

Here is the payoff. The US Trade Representative (appointed by Obama in 2013), who was responsible for negotiating the Globalist TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) treaty with 11 other nations, was Michael Froman, a former member of the Trilateral Commission. Don’t let the word “former” fool you. Commission members resign when they take positions in the Executive Branch of government. And when they serve in vital positions, such as US Trade Representative, they aren’t there by accident. They’re operatives with a specific agenda.

Flash forward one more time. Trump, who squashed the Globalist TPP treaty as soon as he was inaugurated, has been busy making staff appointments. Patrick Wood writes (2/6/17):

“According to a White House press release, the first member of the Trilateral Commission has entered the Trump administration as the Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs, where he will sit on the National Security Council:

“Kenneth I. Juster will serve as Deputy Assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs. He will coordinate the Administration’s international economic policy and integrate it with national security and foreign policy. He will also be the President’s representative and lead U.S. negotiator (“Sherpa”) for the annual G-7, G-20, and APEC Summits.”

Juster’s duties will take him into the heart of high-level negotiations with foreign governments on economic policy.

Keep your eye on Mr. Juster. Will he take actions in line with Trump’s avowed anti-Globalist stance?

Or will Juster work as one more covert Trilateral operative in the center of American decision-making?

If the answer is “covert operative,” does Trump know this? Does he condone what Mr. Juster will do?

Or is this a case of secret infiltration, on behalf the most powerful Globalist group in the world, the Trilateral Commission?

Credit to Jon Rapport

https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2017/03/02/globalists-interviewed-they-admitted-they-controlled-the-government/