Why Switzerland Has The Lowest Crime Rate In The World

Eureka! They Get it!

From NBC -

The village of Schaumburg bucked the national trend of raising taxes and fees to cover rising expenses when its board unanimously approved a 4.4 percent reduction to the 2010 property tax levy

You read that right: reduction.

But that's not all. Village officials also did away with vehicle sticker fees and moved to have property taxes cover garbage removal.

The tax reduction is actually part of a plan. Village big wigs promised to reverse the property tax when officials first established it last year to brace against the sagging economy. The village traditionally hasn't employed a property tax.

Now officials say revenues from hotel (up 6.2 percent) and sales (up 3 percent) taxes were large enough to cover their nut, so they don't need the property tax to make ends meet.

The proposed tax levy for 2009 was $23.7 million. In 2010 it's just $22.7 million. That means a home owner with a $250,000 home will pay about $12 less than last year. Couple that with $180 savings from the garbage fee and $20 a year for village stickers and some residents will experience a nice boost.

The Real Effect
A good start, but since they didn't need the tax before, they should eliminate the tax now to really pump up their economy. Think about it, if you want to be competitive you must lower your cost to your customer. You don't get competitive by jacking rates up, that's just idiotic.

Israel and World War III - Part 8, Act 1b: The US Response

Phase IV - The US counter attack 

• B2 bombers from Diego Garcia using bunker busters to break up all suspected "nuclear" sites
• Bombing runs by F-18s from aircraft carriers in the gulf
• Attacks come from the countries of Georgia (US special forces), Afghanistan, Iraq, Qatar, Turkey, Pakistan (Mostly US forces)
• US forces are in 11 countries - Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, Kuwait, Pakistan, Aszerb, Armenia, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kyrzastan
• If Russia is not on board, the area near Azerbaijan will be critical for the U.S. to control if Russia attempts to resupply Iran in a war. Russia rolled mobile nukes into the theater in response to the Georgia's war with Russia (U.S. Spec Op)/Russian War of 888. 
• Seize Tehran for regime change. Gain access to sea.
• If US forces in Iran are cut off, nuclear weapons will be fired to relieve the pressure

Phase V - Russian/ Chinese response (Syrian, Lebanese, Hezbollah attacks) Where is Egypt in this?

• If the Russians have been persuaded to look the other way then this step is ignored
• If not things are going to spill over into Georgia - Poti
• Iran moves to bomb route from Kuwait to Baghdad? (Resupply corridor)

There is a very strong chance that this will lead to a Russian invasion of Israel

Engdahl on Austerity Anger: Demand To Foot the Bill For Banks' Corruption

The US Spirals the Drain, the Endgame Is In Play

Denninger runs the numbers -

Our total debt service is projected (it's not quite over!) to be 4.63% of the budget, or about $165 billion. That's approximately 7% of revenues, incidentally.

That's an effective interest rate of about 1.27%.

Yes, 1.27%.

Now what happens if we take no more debt at all but rates normalize to 5%?

That would be $672 billion, or about $500 billion more than it is today. Incidentally, that's fifty-two percent of all (personal and corporate) income taxes, up from today's thirteen percent.

Of course the CBO says we will run about $1 trillion in deficits for the next ten years. Let's presume it's five years, and we'll give it the $1 trillion, although I think that's low - maybe by 25% or more.

So let's add $5 trillion to the total, for $18.5 trillion, and apply a 5% rate to it.

That comes to $925 billion, or dangerously close to all personal income taxes, which are $1.061 trillion.

Got it folks? All personal income taxes, or if you prefer all FICA and Medicare taxes, will go only to pay interest. 

We won't get there. Before that day comes the world, which buys our debt as a "safe haven", will discern this math and cut us off. It is a certainty. Look at what happened with Greece, where literally within days short-term interest rates went to 10% - a rate that, were it to happen here, would cause The United States to blow up monetarily and politically right here and now.

Even Ambrose Evans-Pritchard sees the wall now -

I apologise to readers around the world for having defended the emergency stimulus policies of the US Federal Reserve, and for arguing like an imbecile naif that the Fed would not succumb to drug addiction, political abuse, and mad intoxicated debauchery, once it began taking its first shots of quantitative easing.

My pathetic assumption was that Ben Bernanke would deploy further QE only to stave off DEFLATION, not to create INFLATION. If the Federal Open Market Committee cannot see the difference, God help America.

The Real Effect
What individuals don't get, is that when it becomes obvious that we are screwed as a country, it's too late to do anything about it. For instance, when CNBC comes on the air and basically states 'Welcome to the American Union" do you really think that you are going to have a dollar to spend? Let me rephrase, you could have a million dollars in your hands, is anyone going to accept it?

Let us consult the whipped horse of prognostication, circa 2008 -

The long and short is they are bleeding the real assets out of the United States and passing them into foreign control. Make no mistake, they will bleed this country dry. Savings, checkings, 401K, gold, assets, they want it all and will not stop until they get it. The only companies that survive will be those that primarily serve the industrial military complex. Overnight this country will be transformed into the new prison state for the Global Order. Get food, get water, get a gun and get ready to defend yourself.

We're running on fumes folks...

Israel and World War III - Part 7, Act 1a: The Iran Play

The Theater
Front 1 - Mideast
Front 2 - Gateway to Asia/Mideast; Specifically India/Pakistan (Wikileaks documents release)
Front 3 - Asia (China, Russia) - Japan, Taiwan and South Korea will probably trade sides
Front 4 - Northern America/Central America


Objective Targets:

• Qom (uranium enrichment facilities)
• Natanz (Nuclear Reactor)
• Esfahan (gas storage development)
• Bushehr (lightwater reactor)  
• Cities include - Tehran, Shiraz, Mashad

Phase I - Israeli attack on Iran
The big question is how - They will use the southern attack route (They upset Turkey, so unless the US is offering some sort of bribe, the northern route is out) Plus, they would need to seek U.S. authority to enter Iraqi airspace, an act that would upset the Muslims in the area and probably destabalize the region. As noted at 'The Officers' Club' is, Israel has no element of surprise so I believe the will resort to unorthodox tactics. Consider the following -

Israel, whose arms agreements with Turkey mounted to nearly $5 billion dollars over a period of years, had been training pilots in Turkey for bombing attacks on Iran. During these training missions, Israel was smuggling aircraft through Turkish airspace.

And the Stuxnet worm -

The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since set cyber warfare as a national priority, "up there with missile shields and preparing the homefront to withstand a future missile war", a senior source said on condition of anonymity. 

Disclosures that a sophisticated computer worm, Stuxnet, was uncovered at the Bushehr atomic reactor and may have burrowed deeper into Iran's nuclear programme prompted foreign experts to suggest the Israelis were responsible.

Phase II - US denial of involvement/political support of Israel, Hezbollah counter attacks

• Iraq - The Eastern border with Iraq is going to split wide open
• Cluster attack possible on Iraqi bases
• Destabilize Iraq by flooding the region with special forces and heavy arms, the resistance to the occupation becomes stronger.

Phase III - Iranian counterattack against Israeli (Gaza)/US forces closing of gulf (Turkey, Saudi Arabia)

• Will lead to closing of the Straits of Hormuz, 
• Gas up to $7 -10 a gallon
• attacks on our aircraft carriers (I'm guessing they will be placed strategically to get shot up by their new attack boats by being too close to the shores of Iran.) We will most likely lose a Nimitz aircraft carrier.
• Barricade/Mine the Strait of Hormuz. This would be an assertion of Iranian dominance
• Probable Iran attacks Saudi refineries in retaliation for logistical support of the Israeli plan

How?

• Super Sunburn Missiles longer range Shahab 3 and 4. Tor M-29 &; Tor M1 9M330, SCUD-B launchers, At one point Iran possessed possibly 100 missiles
• Shahab-3, a variant of North Korea's No Dong missile. It can be outfitted with high explosives, nuclear devices, EMP's (Electro Magnetic Pulse), and chemical weapons

This would be a problem for the U.S. military. Why? According to Scott Ritter -

"in 1991 not a single Iraqi Scud missile was successfully interdicted by any aspect of American military action (airstrike, ground action or antiballistic missile), and in 2003 the U.S. military had mixed results against the far less capable Al-Samoud missiles. Israel was unable to prevent Hezbollah from firing large salvos of rockets into northern Israel during the summer 2006 conflict"

Apple Fluctuations and General Market Volatility

Apple crashes hard, twice -

The flash crashes will continue until market confidence returns (this is the second one in Apple today). Who is even trading this insanity anymore? This entire market is about to break hard: any piece of bad news can topple Apple like a house of cards, and that, as we noted earlier, will take the entire market with it. Oh yes, this is supposedly the second most liquid name in the market!

The Real Effect
This demonstrates the general volatility underlying the markets at this point. When individuals and corporations are committing rampant fraud, politicians are looking the other way and Central Banks are pumping the economy like a doctor trying to bring a corpse back to life is it any surprise when common sense seems to have taken a dirt nap?

After being repeatedly correct in the month of August, we failed to anticipate the absolute insanity of the front running HFTs hell-bent on keeping the game going as they extended the ramp job into the stratosphere and proclaimed a new "bull market". Yeah right. Just remember the short term is much more volatile than the long term picture.

With consumer confidence collapsing again, the housing market in shambles, and gold making aggressive moves, the curtain isn't all that far away for many individuals as they realize the folly of their blind faith in their leaders.

Look for all sort of shenanigans as the rats become desperate to keep the ship upright, but things continue unraveling in the bond market, the dollar hits the death cross, stocks, corporate bonds, pensions and all things Americana as the people realize they've been had.

Republicans Position to Stab the Tea Party in the Back

The Republicans are up to the same old junk -

Sensing victory this fall, the Republicans have released a Pledge to America in imitation of the Contract With America that helped trigger the 1994 congressional landslide. Although Obama's unpopularity is such that a blind and flatulent wombat with a criminal record could probably win election so long as it was running as a Republican, the Republican leadership clearly wants to set the stage for claiming some sort of mandate should they take control of both the House and Senate, as appears likely. 

Since the country is messed up, do the Republicans offer a substantive difference in governance?

No. What is on offer is nothing more than a promise for even more federal micromanagement of the economy that we witnessed during the course of the Bush and Obama administrations. Only this time, they're going to do it right! "A plan to create jobs, end economic uncertainty and make America more competitive must be the first and most urgent domestic priority of our government." In other words, the Republican leadership is still clinging to the hoary old Keynesian myth that the government can somehow improve the operation of the economy through its actions. 

And although they vow to stop out-of-control spending and reduce the size of government, the fact that they already see fit to carve out "common-sense exceptions for seniors, veterans and our troops" means that virtually nothing is going to change. Reducing spending by $100 billion per year may sound significant, but only reduces the federal budget from $3.55 trillion to $3.45 trillion. Since revenues were $2.38 trillion in 2010, this promised spending reduction will still leave taxpayers facing a deficit of $1,070 billion. Republicans would have to cut spending by more than 10 times the promised amount to even begin eliminating the growth of the public debt. (Emphasis mine)

Get that? Republicans are "pledging" to cut a pittance of what Obama put in. Vox goes further and nails the problem -

The unfortunate fact is that cutting "government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels" simply isn't enough. It won't suffice to fix the problem because it was the "pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels" of government spending that caused the problem to occur in the first place. The depression – and it is a depression, the belated declaration of the Business Cycle Dating Committee that the recession ended more than a year ago notwithstanding – is not the result of recent bad policies, but of fundamental structural flaws with the financial system and the economy.(Emphasis mine)

The Real Effect
We addressed this issue back in January with the election of Scott Brown -

In 1994, Republicans surged into power with the Contract With America amid promises of shrinking the size of government, promoting lower taxes, greater entrepreneurial activity, tort reform and welfare reform. While one can quibble that this was achieved to a degree, the overall net effect during this time was the exact opposite. Government largess grew exponentially, myriads of wars were started, Federal departments were created and liberty was slashed to a nub. Towards the end of 2008, all that remained were entitled carcasses of what was in effect "dead" politicians.

Just like the ring of power, Republicans seized the power and then the power seized them. This is why we the Democrats were able to route the Republicans in 2008 amid "Hope and Change".

Now in 2010 we have individuals that are at best, moderates, clothing themselves in liberty dress in an attempt to garner votes. And we think this is going to change anything? Hardly.

The new Tea Party, 9/12, Turner, Hannity, Limbaugh, Petraeus, Palin, Beck, O'Reilly and Brown; these individuals are all Benedict Arnolds to the cause of liberty and will sell you down the river if the right situation arises.

Let us also not forget that the Republicans voted for war with Iran recently, (Just eight in the House voted against war) just after they proclaimed that the Iraq war was 'wrong',the Great Republican savior Scott Brown voted for "stimulus", Bush signed onto Medicare Part D, and so on...

While I agree with Vox's conclusions, I would also add that the GOP head is setting itself up for plausible deniability, if they don't aggressively handle the economic bomb in the U.S., they can pin things on Obama and his "Reign of Terror" much akin to the current administration's tendency to lay blame at the feet of Bush. I'm sure they will be all too willing at that point to implement, austerity.

After all, how could they have known, that they were in a depression? No one saw it coming...

'America Will Collapse'

America's Economic Foundation Cracks

The Washington Times looks at unemployment -

The tally of newly laid-off workers requesting unemployment benefits rose last week for the first time in five weeks as the job market remained sluggish.

Initial claims for jobless aid rose by 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 465,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. Many economists expected a flat reading or small drop.

The rise suggests that jobs remain scarce and some companies are still cutting workers amid weak economic growth. Initial claims have fallen from a recent spike above a half-million last month. But they have been stuck above 450,000 for most of this year.

and housing -

Separately, the National Association of Realtors said sales of previously occupied homes rose 7.6 percent in August from July, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.13 million. Still, it was the second-worst month for sales in more than a decade. July was the worst month for sales in 15 years, a factor unchanged by a slightly upward revision.

The Real Effect
I love how people can look at the obvious and still miss it completely. Housing is trashed and seeing as how it was in a bubble, it is not going to lead this country out of the depression. Oooops, that's right, the recession ended in June of last year. Will someone tell the people collecting these numbers that they're collecting bad data! The recession is over, therefore the numbers are supposed to be good.

But at least our credit isn't tanking. And our dollar is still strong...

Or is it possible that this has been only a slight blip up on a bigger train ride down? Sorry, but that's reality and I'm sticking to it.

The Brick Wall Cometh - US Starts the Negative Feedback Loop

The brick wall has been found as everywhere bad news pours in -

Today the

• S & P is down .46% and gaining steam
• The Dow is down .46% and gaining steam
• The Nasdaq is down 1.09%.
• Silver and gold are on a tear up and breaching new highs regularly.
• The USDX is only a few weeks away at best from a death cross as Bernanke goes nuts,
• The Housing market is tanking again
• Plus with news that households are not deleveraging willingly rather they are blowing their credit out the front door, then bankrupting themselves.

The Real Effect
Let's explain this simply:

The common wisdom has held that the dollar has never defaulted, therefore it won't/can't. Therefore a huge amount of foreign equity hoping to avoid overseas turmoil has plowed into the bond market, propping up US bonds and making borrowing for the Federal government easier. Like it always does, the Feds look at this through the 1-2 year goggles and assume they have good times ahead and spend, spend, spend.

Now, we stand at a crossroads -

Our dollar is diving and it is becoming conceivable that the once-great US just might not be able to float this much national debt. When this becomes obvious to all, there will be an enormous capitol flight OUT OF the dollar (bonds) and into something else, presumably precious metals. This will leave the government in the position of being unable to fund their debt at choice rates.

It as at this point that great cuts to services will be done (think healthcare/food) in order to "balance the budget." and "Restore fiscal sanity". Needless to say, many of the bureaucrats will keep their cake.

As I have stated -

However state and local governments don't have the benefit of an unlimited checkbook. Basic boil down - the consumers are broke, this is breaking the states and the Fed will back some amount of state debt. This is and will lead to a Federal debt bubble. This is the last line of defense and when this bubble breaks, all hell will break loose. The question I have is, who's head will be in the noose?

I have already explained what's going to happen, but to reiterate, now we move now from bleeding, to butchering as what's left of the US gets sliced up for the bankers.

9/11 - Foreknowledge

The Lone Gunmen -

Give It All to Us!

The following comes from over the pond -

Here's a way for the government to be sure it gets its due: Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs - the United Kingdom's version of the IRS - is proposing that all employers send employee paychecks to the government, which would deduct the amount it deemed appropriate and then forward it to the employee.

The Real Effect
Remember this bit?

The long and short is they are bleeding the real assets out of the United States and passing them into foreign control. Make no mistake, they will bleed this country dry. Savings, checkings, 401K, gold, assets, they want it all and will not stop until they get it.

At this point, all pretense has been formally dispensed with as you effectively become an employee of the government. Of course, they will see to it that you are paid (an adjustable percentage of) your wage in a timely (or somewhat less if "national security" demands it) manner.

Let us also remember that we tend to go the same route as our British cousins.

Give! GIVE to the gaping maw!

Ron Paul - "This Is Much Bigger Than The Great Depression!"

Michael Boldin at Nullify Now (Part 1 of 3)

Dow, Now Where Is That Brick Wall?

We pick up where we left off...

So far, we are right on target. As the market has fluctuated around the 10,000 level. If this target holds, and there is no reason to believe that it won't, we should have some major stock rumblings in very short order here.

The Dow closed up 255 points, a major move indeed and it could fulfill the ramp job I was talking about, just from a much higher position. For now, I laugh at your pathetic little jump as stocks are now massively overbought and have that much higher from which to plunge!

Stock rumblings indeed. The very morning I posted that the Dow jumped 255 points and since then has gained 558 points or a 82% retrace from the August 9th high of 10,698 on declining volume. It seems we may have already gotten our ramp job and now we are going to plunge. Even though the HFT algo market masters are desperate to not let this end, I smell death here.

California Jumps the Shark With Insane Calpers Move

From the Land of Fiscal Insanity -

California's $211 billion pension fund for public employees has been speaking with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration about providing it a $2 billion loan to help close the state government's $19 billion budget gap, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

The spokesman for the California Public Employees' Retirement System, best known as Calpers, said the talks about the loan plan, proposed by Schwarzenegger, are informal and that it is uncertain the fund can lend the money.

"We do have significant concerns about legal issues and actuarial soundness issues," the spokesman added.

 Legal issues? Gee you think?

The Real Effect
This is pure insanity. Of course the devil is in the detail so I would need to see a lot more before I could be resolute in my declaration, but I think we're pretty safe in making a few assumptions here.

• This will not fix California's budget problems.
• This will only delay the reckoning day.
• I'm guessing that the security would be the partial funds in the Calpers fund itself, therefore weakening the fund even more significantly.

 Looks like they're going to get your retirement funds one way or another.

Is Big Brother Watching You? The Cafferty File

Do Flu Shots Work? Ask A Vaccine Manufactu

Living Proof of Explosions on 911