August 2009 – Page 6 – Infinite Unknown

Paul Craig Roberts: Tent City America; The Expiring Economy

August 10, 2009 by Infinite

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

paul-craig-roberts
Paul Craig Roberts

Tent cities springing up all over America are filling with the homeless unemployed from the worst economy since the 1930s. While Americans live in tents, the Obama government has embarked on a $1 billion crash program to build a mega-embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, to rival the one the Bush government build in Baghdad, Iraq.

Hard times have now afflicted Americans for so long that even the extension of unemployment benefits from 6 months to 18 months for 24 high unemployment states, and to 46 – 72 weeks in other states, is beginning to run out. By Christmas 1.5 million Americans will have exhausted unemployment benefits while unemployment rolls continue to rise.

Amidst this worsening economic crisis, the House of Representatives just passed a $636 billion “defense” bill.

Who is the United States defending against? Americans have no enemies except those that the US government goes out of its way to create by bombing and invading countries that comprise no threat whatsoever to the US and by encircling others–Russia for example–with threatening military bases.

America’s wars are contrived affairs to serve the money laundering machine: from the taxpayers and money borrowed from foreign creditors to the armaments industry to the political contributions that ensure $636 billion “defense” bills.

President George W. Bush gave us wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that are entirely based on lies and misrepresentations. But Obama has done Bush one better. Obama has started a war in Pakistan with no explanation whatsoever.

If the armaments industry and the neoconservative brownshirts have their way, the US will also be at war with Iran, Russia, Sudan and North Korea.

Meanwhile, America continues to be overrun, as it has been for decades, not by armed foreign enemies but by illegal immigrants across America’s porous and undefended borders.

It is more proof of the Orwellian time in which we live that $636 billion appropriated for wars of aggression is called a “defense bill.”

Untested swine flu vaccine could be given to your children

August 10, 2009 by Infinite

untested-swine-flu-vaccine
The swine flu vaccine being offered to children has not been tested on infants

The swine flu vaccine which will be offered to 12 million children in the UK may not have been tested on infants by the time the first batches arrive.

Pharmaceutical companies manufacturing the jabs do not have any paediatric safety data for the drugs, which could be distributed to children in the autumn.

The first consignment of the vaccine is due to arrive at the end of this month but drugs firms have only just begun trials on adults.

Trials on children may not start for a few weeks.

Children are thought to be most at risk of developing a serious form of the H1N1 virus and also help to spread swine flu. It is expected they will be among the first to be vaccinated, along with health professionals, pregnant women and people with underlying health conditions.

Sugar Rallies 40% in Options, Price Surged 76% This Year

August 10, 2009 by Infinite

sugar-cane-field
Farmer Birbal Singh works in a sugar cane field in Asmoli, Aug. 6, 2009. Photographer: Keith Bedford/Bloomberg

Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) — Damaged crops from India to Brazil mean the world won’t have enough sugar for a second straight year.

Global demand will exceed output by as much as 5 million metric tons in the year through September 2010, leading to a record two-year shortfall, according to the International Sugar Organization in London. Parts of Brazil, the largest grower, are drenched by rainfall four times more than normal and too wet to harvest. India, the biggest consumer, had its driest June in 83 years and may double imports.

The number of options to buy sugar for delivery in March at 30 cents a pound, 44 percent higher than the Aug. 7 price in New York, has jumped more than 18-fold in four months. The rally is boosting expenses for food makers from Kellogg Co. to Kraft Foods Inc. and increasing profits for Cosan SA Industria e Comercio, the largest cane processor.

“I haven’t seen sugar fundamentals being so severely unbalanced in my time,” said Adam Leetham, the Gurgaon, India- based director of Czarnikow Group who has been tracking the domestic industry since 1994. “It’s not just India. You see fundamental deficits in a number of large markets. It certainly looks like we will enter uncharted territory.”

Hedge funds and other large speculators more than doubled net-long positions, or bets prices will rise, to 206,330 contracts this year, the most since a record 240,792 in January 2008, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show.

40-Cent Option

Sugar surged 76 percent this year, reaching 20.85 cents a pound last week, the highest since April 1981. Bajaj Hindusthan Ltd., India’s biggest producer, predicts it may reach 25 cents by yearend, and Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd. estimates 30 cents.

The number of 40-cent call options for March 2010 has quintupled to 18,800 contracts in the past four months. A call contract gives the holder the right but not the obligation to purchase a commodity at a given price by a specific date.

Global use may rise 1.3 percent to 161 million tons in the 2009-2010 marketing year, surpassing production of 156.9 million tons and draining inventories, according to Macquarie Bank Ltd. in London.

“Sugar is certainly going to go much, much higher during the course of the bull market,” Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings, said in an Aug. 6 interview in Singapore. “Sugar is still 70 percent below its all-time high and not many things in life are 70 percent below what they were in 1974. Sugar has a wonderful future.”

US banks to make $38 billion from overdraft fees: report

August 10, 2009 by Infinite

dollars
An employee of the Korea Exchange Bank counts one hundred dollar notes at the bank’s headquarters in Seoul February 24, 2009. (REUTERS/Jo Yong-Hak)

(Reuters) – Banks in the United States are poised to make $38.5 billion in customer overdraft fees this year, the Financial Times said, citing research by Moebs Services.

A large portion of the revenue is likely to come from the most financially stretched consumers, according to the paper.

It said the research showed that many banks have increased charges on overdrafts and credit cards in order to boost profits.

China’s east coast battered by typhoon

August 9, 2009 by Infinite

Waves as high as 9m have been reported on China’s south-east coast;
Taiwan hotel collapses after typhoon

Typhoon Morakot has struck China’s south-east coast, destroying hundreds of houses and flooding farmland.

Almost one million people were evacuated ahead of the storm, which crashed ashore in Fujian province with winds of up to 119km/h (74mph).

Flights were cancelled and fishing boats recalled to shore. A small boy died when a building collapsed.

Morakot has already hit Taiwan, killing at least three people and causing some of the worst flooding for 50 years.

In one incident, an entire hotel – empty at the time – was swept away by the waters.

General Sir David Richards: Afghanistan will take 30 to 40 years

August 9, 2009 by Infinite

The UK and the US are broke and the Afghanistan operation will be over in less than 3 years because of that.

– British Lance-Corporal refuses to go to Afghanistan, says the Afghan war is unjust
– Former SAS Comander: Afghan operation is ‘worthless’

Britain’s mission in Afghanistan could last for up to 40 years, the next head of the Army warns today in an exclusive interview with The Times.

General Sir David Richards, who becomes Chief of the General Staff on August 28, said: “The Army’s role will evolve, but the whole process might take as long as 30 to 40 years.”

He emphasised that British troop involvement, currently 9,000-strong, should only be needed for the medium term, but insisted that there was “absolutely no chance” of Nato pulling out. “I believe that the UK will be committed to Afghanistan in some manner — development, governance, security sector reform — for the next 30 to 40 years,” he said.

Three paratroopers from the Special Forces Support Group were killed yesterday when their Jackal armoured vehicle was blown up by a roadside bomb north of Lashkar Gah.

Their deaths raised the total number of servicemen and women who have died in Afghanistan to 195 since 2001. Four US Marines were also killed in a separate incident. Across the border in Pakistan, officials said that the leader of the Taleban in the country had been killed in a missile strike but analysts said that his death would have little impact on the battlefields of Afghanistan.

Liam Fox, the Shadow Defence Secretary, said that 30 to 40 years in Afghanistan was “unaffordable”.

Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds Finally Testifies Under Oath

August 9, 2009 by Infinite

Former FBI Language Specialist Sibel Edmonds finally gets to testify under oath, after being hit with a gag order.

For more information on her and the deposition: BradBlog.com

Don’t miss: Sibel Edmonds ‘Bombshell’: Osama Bin Laden Worked for US Until 9/11

The ultimate coincidence:
– Matrix (1999): Neo’s Passport expires on September 11, 2001

IMF: Total cost of crisis at $11.9 trillion

August 9, 2009 by Infinite

The cost of mopping up after the world financial crisis has come to $11.9 trillion (£7.12 trillion) – enough to finance a £1,779 handout for every man, woman and child on the planet.

The staggering total is is equivalent to around a fifth of the entire globe’s annual economic output and includes capital injections pumped into banks in order to prevent them from collapse, the cost of soaking up so-called toxic assets, guarantees over debt and liquidity support from central banks. Although much of the total may never be called on, the potential outlay still dwarfs any previous repair bill for the global economy.

The IMF calculations, produced ahead of the two-year anniversary of the crisis, underline the continually mounting cost. Most of the cash has been handed over by developed countries, for whom the bill has been $10.2 trillion, while developing countries have spent only $1.7 trillion – the majority of which is in central bank liquidity support for their stuttering financial sectors.

The IMF figures also show that Britain has been the biggest of all the spenders on emergency measures to support its financial sector, with its total bill for the clean-up amounting to 81.8pc of its gross domestic product – equivalent to £1,227bn.

UK: Police told to ignore European court of human rights ruling over DNA database

August 9, 2009 by Infinite

Chief constables across England and Wales have been told to ignore a landmark ruling by the European court of human rights and carry on adding the DNA profiles of tens of thousands of innocent people to a national DNA database.

Senior police officers have also been “strongly advised” that it is “vitally important” that they resist individual requests based on the Strasbourg ruling to remove DNA profiles from the national database in cases such as wrongful arrest, mistaken identity, or where no crime has been committed.

European human rights judges ruled last December in the S and Marper case that the blanket and indiscriminate retention of the DNA profiles and fingerprints of 850,000 people arrested but never convicted of any offence amounts to an unlawful breach of their rights.

Britain already has the largest police national DNA database in the world, with 5.8m profiles, including one in three of all young black males. Thousands more are being added each week.

So far the Home Office has responded to the judgment by proposing a controversial package to keep DNA profiles of the innocent, depending on the seriousness of the offence. The official consultation period ended today. for six to 12 years

Geithner Asks Congress to Increase US Debt Limit

August 9, 2009August 8, 2009 by Infinite

There are no ‘real’ signs that the economy is improving.

– About half of US mortgages seen underwater by 2011 (Reuters)
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The percentage of U.S. homeowners who owe more than their house is worth will nearly double to 48 percent in 2011 from 26 percent at the end of March, portending another blow to the housing market, Deutsche Bank said on Wednesday.

– US Bank Failures Rise to 72 With Collapses in Florida, Oregon (Bloomberg):
Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) — U.S. bank failures rose to 72 this year with the collapse of two lenders in Florida and one in Oregon amid the worst economic slump since the Great Depression.

geithner-asks-congress-for-higher-us-debt-limit

Washington — U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner asked Congress to increase the $12.1 trillion debt limit on Friday, saying it is “critically important” that they act in the next two months.

Mr. Geithner, in a letter to U.S. lawmakers, said that the Treasury projects that the current debt limit could be reached as early mid-October. Increasing the limit is important to instilling confidence in global investors, Mr. Geithner said.

The Treasury didn’t request a specific increase in the letter.

“It is critically important that Congress act before the limit is reached so that citizens and investors here and around the world can remain confident that the United States will always meet its obligations,” Mr. Geithner said in a letter to lawmakers.

Mr. Geithner said the that it is “clearly a moment in our history” that requires support from both Democrats and Republicans for the increase.

“Congress has never failed to raise the debt limit when necessary,” Mr. Geithner said.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said Thursday the federal government’s budget deficit reached $1.3 trillion through the first ten months of fiscal 2009, on track to reach a record high of $1.8 trillion for the 12-month period.

On the Edge with Max Keiser (08/07/2009)

August 8, 2009 by Infinite

1 of 3:

2 of 3: Brown’s Bottom: Gordon Brown sold half of Britain’s gold reserves at the bottom of the gold market.

3 of 3:

Peter Schiff on MSNBC: We are in the eye of the storm right now (08/06/2009)

August 8, 2009 by Infinite

Obama administration asks the Supreme Court to block detainee photos

August 8, 2009 by Infinite

The Obama Administration wants detainee abuse photos blocked by the Supreme Court. (AP)

The Obama Administration is asking the Supreme Court to block the public release of detainee abuse photos that were the subject of a high-profile reversal by President Barack Obama earlier this year.

On Friday afternoon, the Justice Department filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking it to overturn an appeals court decision requiring the Pentagon to disclose the photos, which depict alleged abuse of prisoners in U.S. military custody in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The President of the United States and the Nation’s highest-ranking military officers responsible for ongoing combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have determined that disclosure by the government of the photographs at issue in this case would pose a significant risk to the lives and physical safety of American military and civilian personnel by inciting violence targeting those personnel,” Solicitor General Elena Kagan wrote.

The photos are being sought by the American Civil Liberties Union as part of a long running Freedom of Information Act lawsuit pertaining to alleged abuse of detainees held abroad by U.S. forces.

RBS chief: Taxpayers will lose out if Royal Bank of Scotland is unable to pay bonuses

August 8, 2009 by Infinite

To fresh up your ‘RBS memory’:
– RBS chiefs handed £5m in bonuses, paid by the taxpayer
– Sir Fred Goodwin received £2.7m pension lump sum tax-free
– Ministers ‘to sue’ RBS directors over Sir Fred Goodwin’s pension
– RBS avoided £500m of tax in global deals
– The 1.3 trillion pound bank job
– RBS posts record £40bn pre-tax loss
– Bailed-out banks to add £1.5 trillion to public debt

rbs
Ruthless Banksters of Scotland

• Profits rise from £1bn to £5bn in Royal Bank of Scotland’s investment banking division
• Chief executive insists taxpayers will get £20bn share investment back at a profit

Taxpayers will lose out if Royal Bank of Scotland is unable to pay bonuses, its chief executive, Stephen Hester, claimed todayas he lamented the intense public scrutiny faced by the bailed-out bank.

As the bank’s shares fell 12% to 46.99p, Hester defended the bank’s need to pay bonuses after losing more of its best staff. “We must pay competitively because we must have good people and every taxpayer in the country should care about us having good people because without that we won’t have the outcome that everyone needs,” Hester said.

An increase in profits from £1bn to £5bn in the investment banking arm prompted speculation that RBS bankers were on track for big bonuses by the end of the year. Investment banking dominated the interim profits, which showed a £15m statutory profit, although Hester focused on the “poor” net attributable loss to shareholders of £1.1m.

Obama leaves Bush’s NSPD 51 intact

October 22, 2009August 8, 2009 by Infinite

“Change you can believe in!”

From the article:
“A directive (NSPD 51) by President Bush signed in May 2007 set in motion a classified
review at the White House that led to the changes put in place at the
very end of his administration.”

Related information: G. W. Bush and Adolf Hitler signed a Directive 51

bush

Power Shifts in Plan for Capital Calamity

WASHINGTON – A shift in authority has given military officials at the White House a bigger operational role in creating a backup government if the nation’s capital were “decapitated” by a terrorist attack or other calamity, according to current and former officials involved in the decision.

The move, which was made in the closing weeks of the administration of President George W. Bush, came after months of heated internal debate about the balance of power and the role of the military in a time of crisis, participants said. Officials said the Obama administration had left the plan essentially intact.

Under the revamped structure, the White House Military Office, which reports to the office of the White House chief of staff, has assumed a more central role in setting up a temporary “shadow government” in a crisis.

And the office, a 2,300-person outfit best known for flying Air Force One, has taken on added responsibilities as the lead agent in shepherding government leaders to a secure site at Mount Weather in rural Virginia, keeping classified lists of successors and maintaining computer systems, among other operational duties. Many of these types of tasks were previously handled by civilians at other agencies, led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Supporters of the plan inside the Bush White House, including Vice President Dick Cheney‘s office, saw the erratic response to the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as a mandate for streamlining an emergency response process they considered clunky because it involved too many agencies.

UK: Individual Insolvencies, Company Liquidations Soar to Record High

August 8, 2009 by Infinite

LONDON — Company liquidations and individual insolvencies in England and Wales soared to record levels in the second quarter as the economy was throttled by recession and the global credit crisis, data from the government’s Insolvency Service showed Friday.

There were 33,073 individual insolvencies in the second quarter on a nonseasonally adjusted basis, the highest level since records began in 1960. That compared with 30,253 in the first quarter of this year and marked a 27.4% increase from the second quarter of last year.

Company liquidations totaled 5,055 on a seasonally adjusted basis, the highest level since that series began in 1998. That was 2.9% above the total seen in the first three months of this year and represented an increase of 39.1% from the second quarter of last year.

Andrew MacCallum, managing director at restructuring and turnaround firm Alvarez and Marsal, said companies had survived the past year by significantly cutting costs, but many were now exhausted financially just as some positive signs (Where? All those positive signs are brought to you by ‘intentional misinterpretation’ of statistical data.) on the economy were emerging.

“More than five thousand companies may have gone into administration in the last quarter, but we can expect to see that figure exceeded in every quarter until at least the end of 2010,” he said in a note. “Credit is still tight and many businesses are loaded with debt that they can’t service.”

The breakdown of the figures showed there were 1,457 compulsory company liquidations, 6.8% less than in the first quarter but 8.7% more than in the second quarter of last year.

Gold: Royal Mint doubles gold coin production to meet surge in demand

August 7, 2009 by Infinite

Gold unlike fiat money will always have its value, whereas the US dollar and the pound may soon be worthless.

– Central Bank net gold sales show huge drop in first half 2009

– Northwestern Mutual: Buys $400 million in gold, price could double or even rise fivefold

– World’s top hedge fund manager has a gold position of at least $5.5bn

Gold is money. The moment the US dollar collapses gold will go ballistic.

The Royal Mint, established in the 13th century, doubled production of gold coins in the second quarter as demand surged for bullion to diversify investments.

Output climbed to 16,910 ounces from 8,030 ounces a year earlier, according to data obtained by Bloomberg News under a Freedom of Information Act request. First-half production jumped 86pc to 45,406 ounces, the figures show.

Demand for physical gold as a store of value and hedge against inflation has increased as governments spend trillions of dollars to combat the worst recession since World War II. Bullion holdings in gold-backed exchange-traded products rose to records in the second quarter. Gold is trading about 7pc lower than the record $1,032.70 an ounce reached in March 2008.

“There’s still interest in gold as a safe-haven asset,” said Stephen Briggs, an analyst at RBS Global Banking and Markets in London. “This whole sector will capture people who don’t have access to the futures market.”

Individual investors typically buy gold coins, bars or shares in exchange-traded products. Holdings in the SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest exchange-traded fund backed by bullion, were 1,120.55 metric tons on June 30, up 74pc from a year earlier. Investment in the fund, which reached a record 1,134.03 tons on June 1, was little changed from the first quarter.

British Lance-Corporal refuses to go to Afghanistan, says the Afghan war is unjust

August 7, 2009 by Infinite

Christopher King explains why it is the legal obligation of soldiers and officers who have been ordered to carry out illegal orders to disobey them, in accordance with the Nuremburg Principles, and why everyone, from army commanders to rank-and file soldiers, are personally responsible for the orders they carry out.

Lance-Corporal Joe Glenton, facing court-martial for refusing to be redeployed to Afghanistan, has written to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, saying in part:

The war in Afghanistan is not reducing the terrorist risk, far from improving Afghan lives it is bringing death and devastation to their country. Britain has no business there. I do not believe that our cause in Afghanistan is just or right. I implore you, sir, to bring our soldiers home.

Related article: Former SAS Comander: Afghan operation is ‘worthless’

Having served in Afghanistan, unlike Gordon Brown who has no services experience, Lance-Corporal (LC) Glenton knows what he is talking about. Further, he says:

It is my primary concern that the courage and tenacity of my fellow soldiers has become a tool of American foreign policy.

LC Glenton is clearly a young man of intelligence and thoughtfulness. Unlike Gordon Brown who stands to be paid off in cash by the Americans and Israelis like his friend Anthony Blair, LC Glenton has earned the right to form, hold and express his views on this war. And to act on them.

Of course, there should be an army hearing of some sort but it is absolutely improper and unjust to subject LC Glenton to court martial proceedings. He has expressed views consistent with the Nuremberg Principles that have the intention of outlawing unjust warfare and inhumanitarian acts related to war. I have previously commented on them here. The Nuremberg Principles have been adopted by the United Nations whose charter has been endorsed by the United Kingdom. They are therefore part of both international law and UK law. Whether LC Glenton specifically invokes them or not, they apply to his case and it is his right and duty to refuse to participate in a war that he believes is unjust and “…far from improving Afghan lives, it is bringing death and devastation to their country”.

What is disturbing is the attitude of our armed forces to the Nuremberg Principles. Flight-Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith defended his refusal to redeploy to Iraq on the basis that the war was illegal. Judge-Advocate Jack Bayliss refused to accept that argument. The services’ ruling in such cases is that only persons who have the ability to shape strategy and make executive decisions may be held responsible for war crimes.

Lying about Iraq made me quit, British military press officer claims

August 7, 2009 by Infinite

You have been lied to all of the time. Those soldiers are nothing more but cannon fodder in the eyes of those that rule your puppet politicians.

Listen to what a former SAS commander has to say about the “Snatch” Land Rover:

– Former SAS Comander: Afghan operation is ‘worthless’ (MUST-READ):

And, addressing the use of Snatch Land Rovers, which he deemed to be unsafe and prompted his decision to stand down, he said: “I had to resign.

“I had warned (the MoD) time and time again that there were going to be needless deaths if we were not given the right equipment, and they ignored this advice. There is blood on their hands.

“There was no other vehicle to use. The simple truth is that the protection on these vehicles is inadequate and this led to the unnecessary deaths.”

Having to peddle “government lies” about the safety of soldiers in Iraq led to a Ministry of Defence press officer suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, an employment tribunal will hear.

John Salisbury-Baker will claim that he suffered “intolerable stress” through having to “defend the morally indefensible” when responding to media inquiries about the ability of army vehicles such as the “Snatch” Land Rover to protect soldiers.

Mr Salisbury-Baker, 62, says he found it impossible to support the official line on deaths and injuries after seeing the suffering of soldiers’ families. After 11 years of service at Imphal Barracks near York, he could no longer keep working and is taking legal action against the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

The case takes place amid accusations over the government’s attempts to claw back compensation from two injured soldiers, as well as a rising toll of casualties from improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan.

Mr Salisbury-Baker’s partner, Christine Brook, said: “John is an honest, sensitive and moral person, and having to peddle government lies that soldiers in vehicles such as the Snatch Land Rovers were safe from roadside bombs made him stressed.

“He was particularly plagued by the thought that some of the bereaved families he was visiting might have previously believed their loved ones were safe, because of what he himself had said to the media.

I ate Hu Jintao’s dinner; China’s president, and the rest of the politburo eat only organic food

December 31, 2019August 7, 2009 by Infinite

And corporations want to convince you that GM food is healthy. GM food is lethal stuff.

It is the same with the Royals in the UK. They only eat organic food. Their deer for example are naturally raised (no pellets as food, no antibiotics, no hormones, no hormones and artificial sweeteners that the deer gain weight faster) and then the chief personally selects the deer that will be served for the Royals. All the fruits and vegetables are organically grown – all paid for by the taxpayer.

The funny thing is that the British Royals since 1714 are coming from the House of Hannover and the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The Royals are ‘really’ Germans.

The royal family’s official name, or lack thereof, became a problem during World War I, when people began to mutter that Saxe-Coburg-Gotha sounded far too German. King George V and his family needed a new, English-sounding name. After considering everything from Plantagenet to Tudor-Stuart to simply England, the king and his advisors chose the name Windsor.

God save the ….. Looks like I’ve got carried away here.

*****

hu-jintaos-dinner

A stone’s throw from the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square is Zhongnanhai, the walled compound where China’s top leaders live.

Each day the finest ingredients from all over China are delivered to the chefs in Zhongnanhai, by the Central State Organ for Special Food Supply.

Hu Jintao, China’s president, and the rest of the politburo get to eat specially-selected organic produce and wash it down with Red Robe tea, which only grows on a couple of bushes in Fujian.

Zhu Yong Lan, the head of the special food supply department, said no pesticides, fertilizers, antibiotics, growth hormones, pollution, artificial additives, preservatives, or genetic modification would ever make its way into the food eaten in Zhongnanhai, a rare feat in a country where the label “organic” is sometimes rather loosely applied.

No one else in China can eat this forbidden food. The only foreigners who taste it are guests at state banquets.

Why the Fed is REALLY Trying to Avoid an Audit

August 6, 2009 by Infinite

“When the President signs this act [Federal Reserve Act of 1913], the invisible government by the money power — proven to exist by the Monetary Trust Investigation — will be legalized. The new law will create inflation whenever the trusts want inflation. From now on, depressions will be scientifically created.”
– Charles A. Lindbergh, Sr.

“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country [by signing the Federal Reserve Act of 1913]. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
– Woodrow Wilson

More quotes here: Ron Paul on Glenn Beck: Destruction of the dollar

federal-reserve

75% of Americans and at least 276 Congress members and 19 Senators want to audit the Fed, but the Fed is fighting tooth and nail to keep everything hidden.

Most people assume that the Fed wants to keep secret the list of banks which received bailout money. You know, something along the lines of “we gave Goldman Sachs $100 billion”.

But what the Fed is really struggling to keep hidden is the fact that the entire financial system is based on massive manipulation and fraud by the Fed and its primary dealers.

Specifically, the Fed is desperately trying to hide that many trillions of the government’s bailouts have gone to inflating the stock market, buying up the U.S. government’s own treasuries, and gaming the currency and gold markets.

Of course, when the New York Federal Reserve’s “primary dealers” (the dealers through which the Fed carries out its open market operations in general, and its PPT, ESF, and other schemes through) get the huge sums of cash from the Fed, they place bets based on inside knowledge of where the money flows are going (they also, supposedly, skim off part of the cash, but that’s for another essay).

In other words, the Fed’s primary dealers engage in insider trading and frontrunning on a scale which would make your normal white collar felons look like a silver nanoparticle.

£27,000 swine flu bonus for GPs

August 6, 2009 by Infinite

Most doctors are only the salesman of the pharmaceutical industry.

Big Pharma makes billions with the swine flu scare and will destroy your health through utterly useless, toxic and contaminated vaccines.

( More information at the end of the article.)

The vaccine: GPs could get £7.51 for every jab they administer

Family doctors could see their salaries soar by £27,000 once a swine flu vaccination programme is in place, the Daily Mail can reveal.

Yesterday they were trying to thrash out a deal which could see GPs paid £7.51 for every jab they give to patients.

They are also negotiating with ministers over their performance-related pay.

They want assurances they will not miss out on bonuses even if they have to cancel routine check-ups due to swine flu pressures – which has already started happening.

Every swine flu patient GPs inoculate will need two doses of the vaccine. With the average GP having 1,800 patients, that means a salary boost of just over £27,000.

This figure would give doctors a pay rise some 25 per cent above their usual salary of £107,000.

There are 33,000 GPs in the country and the vaccination programme will cost the NHS £900million in payments to them.

Obama Urged to More Than Double Afghan Security Force

August 6, 2009 by Infinite

… a move that would cost THE TAXPAYER billions of dollars.

The US is totally broke. US federal tax revenue plummets most since 1932!

us-marines
US Marines of 1st Combat Engineer Battalion of 2nd Marine Expeditionary Brigade watch an explosion as their team performs a controlled detonation of an Improvised Explosives Device (IED) in Nawa district in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, on Aug. 2, 2009. Photographer: Manpreet Romana/AFP/Getty Images

Aug. 5 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama and top U.S. military commanders are being pressed by senators and civilian advisers to more than double the size of Afghan security forces, a move that would cost billions of dollars.

In letters and face-to-face meetings, the lawmakers and the advisers have urged Obama, National Security Advisor Jim Jones and the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan to boost the Afghan National Army and police from current levels of 175,000 to at least 400,000.

YouTube Pulls Hundreds of Ron Paul Videos

August 6, 2009 by Infinite

Popular C-Span Junkie user channel suspended, 6400 videos gone

youtube

You Tube has expanded its zealous copyright crusade by suspending the popular C-Span Junkie user channel, and in doing so has pulled hundreds of viral Ron Paul videos, which are now completely dead.

The C-Span Junkie user channel, a non-partisan archive of short clips taken from C-Span broadcasts of events in the Congress and the Senate, has been the home of the vast majority of You Tube videos you have seen of Bernanke, Geithner, Paulson and others being confronted in Congress, as well as Ron Paul’s speeches on the House floor. A total of more than 6400 videos in all have been pulled, hundreds of which featured the Texan Congressman.

Whether or not C-Span itself requested that You Tube pull the channel is not known, but it is clearly in the public interest and constitutes fair use to show a clip less than 10 minutes in length of what the people who are supposedly our Representatives are saying in Congress on our behalf.

As we have highlighted before, You Tube arbitrarily suspends accounts based on flimsy copyright claims that aren’t even properly investigated.

We had our own You Tube account suspended following a copyright complaint from a separate party who didn’t even own the copyright on the original material. In addition, the copyright claim was clearly erroneous as it was based on the fact that Alex Jones held up a printed version of an online newspaper story for a few seconds on camera. The channel was eventually reinstated after You Tube received a flood of complaints.

“I don’t know if you can imagine what it’s like to in a moment see 6400 videos gone,” writes the channel owner on the C Span Junkie website, “Figure 6400 hours (easily) poof GONE! I did this for the common good and now it all gone.”

The channel has now been replaced with a new account but it’s unlikely to survive long if the owner dares to post anything of substance.

Lost generation? US graduates work for free, look abroad

August 5, 2009 by Infinite

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Americans fresh out of university are discovering their expensive degrees are not the entry ticket to a job they had hoped in the face of high unemployment.

Some young graduates are working for free to enhance their skills and bolster their resumes. Some are looking abroad for work while others are determined to push their way into the U.S. job market.