US Cities Bankruptcy

Lifetime Servitude - The Real Cost of a College Education in the UK

Most people never even think about college education from an investment standpoint -

Government estimates show that their new university fees system is unsustainable, and that students will spend their whole working lives paying back the cost of a degree.

It is thought that only one in four will be able to pay back the full cost of their education show internal government figures, seen by the Independent on Sunday.

Ministers believe most graduates will spend their whole working lives making monthly payments simply covering their loans and interest, but never settling their debts.

According to a briefing note from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) only 25% of graduates will repay “at least 100 per cent of the original value of their loans in PV [present value] terms”.

Their ‘best case scenario’ sees a maximum of half of university leavers settling their debts, and 60% will never pay in full.

Labour have now questioned the sustainability of the new system, with shadow universities minister Gareth Thomas saying, “The Government’s figures look more and more questionable.

“When even they think such a high number of students will not be able to repay their loans in full, it underlines just how unfair and unsustainable it is trebling student fees.”

The Real Effect
Now, this is not to say that all college degrees are worthless, just most of them. What is actually needed is productive innovation and creativity not "education" or at the least what constitutes a modern education.

Think for a moment, if America, several hundred years ago could innovate and design its way out of poverty and lead the world into an industrial revolution, what is preventing us from doing it again? Namely our lack of liberty to make it so.

It's quite alright those because bankrupt systems inevitably reap the seeds that have previously sown in foolishness. This bloodshed will create the soil for new, vibrant institutions which will offer a competitive advantage to those who actually want it.

But what actually stymies me is the fact that so many students not only want the inferior product that is offered in the system, but that they think they can't live without it. Sorry kids, your grandparents made do, so can you.

Wikileaks Israels Plan to Shut Down US Internet in Action

Surveillance State - The US Is Quickly Entering the Techno-Fascist Realm

Can you tell it's Christmas? March out the terrorists! Sigh, what isn't a terrorist nowadays -

Attorney General Eric Holder has an urgent message for Americans: While he is confident that the United States will continue to thwart attacks, "the terrorists only have to be successful once."

"What I am trying to do in this interview is to make people aware of the fact that the threat is real, the threat is different, the threat is constant," he said. 

They only have to be successful once? What does that even mean? To what end?  This is annual nonsense that is designed solely to freak out average citizens and justify the monstrosity that the government is evolving into.


Holder continues -

In a rare and wide-ranging interview, the attorney general disclosed chilling, new details about the evolving threat of homegrown terror, and touched on topics ranging from Wikileaks to the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

What was uppermost on his mind, however, is the alarming rise in the number of Americans who are more than willing to attack and kill their fellow citizens. 

This is just disingenuous.  Notice how only the government can define the threat? Notice the lack of details how it's morphing into your cousin, your uncle, your brother?

In the last 24 months, Holder said, 126 people have been indicted on terrorist-related charges, Fifty of those people are American citizens.

"I think that what is most alarming to me is the totality of what we see, the attorney general said. "Whether it is an attempt to bomb the New York City subway system, an attempt to bring down an airplane over Detroit, an attempt to set off a bomb in Times Square ... I think that gives us a sense of the breadth of the challenges that we face, and the kinds of things that our enemy is trying to do."

Holder says many of these converts to al Qaeda have something in common: a link to radical cleric Anwar Al Awlaki, an American citizen himself.

That's rich, 126 people are indicted on terrorist-related charges. Ooooo sounds scary. I know that idiot that tried blowing up a plane by LIGHTING HIS PANTS ON FIRE is certainly scary.


The Real Effect
No in all seriousness, does the fact that the bogeyman Anwar Al Awlaki dined at the, Pentagon bother anyone?  Or many of these supposed terrorists are tied to him and are often, if not always set up by the government? Manufactured crisis anyone? Ordo ab chao.

It's easy to see why they are doing this. The government has a revolt on their hands because the serfs are tired of being treated like cattle with the non-stop intrusion by Big Brother into their mail, their data, their garbage, travel, places of business, health care, food, even their opinions.

Government is behaving like an out of control mother hen segregating and isolating her chicks into bubbles to "protect" them from the big scary world. Except the bubbles have a common name here in the real world.

Prison.

Milton Friedman - Abolish the FED!

2010 Year End Review Part 1

On December 31, 2009 I posted the following New Year's predictions for 2010. I broke the post into two parts with the prediction (Real Effect) followed by the review (Evidence) Let's review -

Unemployment
Real Effect -

U3 will hit 11.5 % and could go as high as 15%, the U6 as high as 30%, but the rates will certainly not go down very far, if they go down at all. 

Evidence -

U-3 comes in at 9.8%, U-6 is more notable at 17% and SGS-alt is at roughly 23%
Oooo, a swing and a huge miss. Not a good way to start things off but there is good reason as to why the prediction was inaccurate. People are hiding the facts. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has managed to downplay the severity of  numbers through various methods:

1. Releasing low initial estimates, then quietly revising the numbers upwards the next week. (To instill confidence in the market.)
2. Emphasizing the U-3 data and ignoring the historical U-6 data. Which coincidentally is officially approaching Depression levels.
3. They are totally ignoring the Labor Participation Rate which has individuals becoming not only unemployed, but off of unemployment as well. (No longer being reported in the statistics because they have given up searching)

The stimulus and positive "animal spirits" have plateaued unemployment. For now.

Points awarded (0 of 1)

Commodities
Real Effect -

According to economists John Williams and Bob Chapman gold is going to explode, perhaps as high as $7,000 and ounce. This temporary dip down is nothing more than a small technical correction.

Evidence -
October witnessed and explosion in the gold and silver markets with massive gains. Silver is holding at $30 an ounce and gold at $1400. One year ago they were at $18 and $1100 respectively for a massive gain of 67% and 27% YOY. Anyone that had invested in silver would have made some amazing profits for the year.

I would think returns upwards of 25% are an "explosion", especially when all the nay-sayers at the time were talking of precious metals as being in a bubble and actually going down. 
Points awarded (1 of 1)

Real Effect -

Food will probably be up 6% and we could possibly hit a scenario where we could physically run out.

Evidence -
Prediction achieved in Review I

Points awarded (1 of 1)

Real Effect -

Oil is currently at $78.97 and it could go somewhat higher, although I do not believe it will be as volatile as it was in years past. (Unless the Straits of Hormuz gets blocked)

Evidence -
Achieved in Review I

On a side note, inflation in commodities is a difficult thing to account for at the moment and definitely affected oil on the back half of 2010 with crude coming in around $90. It appears that it depends on when you catch it as overall, the black gold bounced back and forth between 80 and 90 for most of the year. (Gains AND losses of roughly 13%)

Points awarded (1 of 1)

Commercial Real Estate Collapse
Real Effect -

Is already in progress and gathering steam with the bankruptcy of CIT Group which is tied at the hip with CITI Group. In fact it has already fallen 37 percent in value in the last year and defaults are reaching 16 year highs.

Evidence -
Achieved in Review I

Points awarded (1 of 1)

Real Estate Collapse
Real Effect -

The second wave of the housing market collapse hits (The less risky ARM-A loans continue to default) and banks have yet to start unloading their “shadow inventory” in an attempt to stay solvent. I believe this is already underway as we see-

Evidence -
One of THE stories of 2010 is the foreclosure mess involving MERS. 6.3 million vacant homes, this one is a slam dunk.

Points awarded (1 of 1)


Total points awarded for Part 1:  (5 of 6) 83% on the first half. Pretty outstanding with the only black eye being a result of shenanigans on behalf of the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve. It's ok, you can't prop it up indefinitely.

Massive Brawl Rocks Ukraine Parliament

US Economic Support Pillars are Breaking

Karl Denninger puts out some sobering observations on unemployment -

Holy crap!  Now that's a nasty number.  +893,000?!  Uh, wow.

And the bad news is where it is showing up - the majority of this is in new claims in the regular state figures.  The roll into EUC continues but that +548 up above says that a huge percentage of the people who claimed in the last few weeks "stuck" - that is, there were no material roll-offs from people finding jobs in the weeks leading up to Black Friday.

Remember folks, claims is a "fuzzy" number.  It tells you who claimed but it doesn't tell you who found jobs.  Well, now we know.  And now we also know where the unemployment stats for November, where we lost an actual 500,000 jobs on the household survey, came from. 

Oh, I know, I know..... Nobody could have seen it coming.

 FedEx -

FedEx reported earnings that broadly missed expectations.

Excluding special items, the company reported a profit of $1.16 a share. Analysts, on average, had anticipated earnings of $1.31 per share for the quarter ended on Nov. 30, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Oops.  Or is that UPS.  I guess we'll eventually find out.

Oh wait - higher oil prices are good for shipping companies, right?  You know, commodity costs?  One of the largest expenses for such a company?  Yeah, that's good for earnings.

Riiiiiiiight.

They got hit for a couple of percent premarket, although at the low it was much worse.  We'll see what happens once the stock starts trading.  Revenue was in fact up, and they're expecting a "strong" holiday and improving economy, and thus raised guidance.

We'll see.

And overall economic conditions -

In recap:

• Orders up materially while shipments are down. (Bawhahahaha we know where will end up right?)
  
• Prices paid skyrocketing while prices received are going up - but much slower.  More margin collapse evidence.
  
• Number of employees dropped big.

Headline sounds great, but the internals on the table?  Not so much.

The Real Effect
As was stated at the end of 2009 -

While I don't believe the Mad Max WTSHTF scenario will play out in 2010 fully, barring a game changing terror attack, at a bare minimum people are going to start noticing this huge white elephant in the middle of the room.

In general, 2010 will be the year that the situational blinders come off and everyone realizes that this is serious business here. Think of it as a game of musical chairs where there are 300 million players and only a million chairs and the leader is reaching for the volume knob and if you lose, you lose everything you own.

As if that isn't fun, 2011 will be much worse.

This has definitely been true for this year so far but for further year end review, you shall have to wait a few days.

Visa and Mastercard Get Blown Out of the Water

Credit takes one directly to the face -

Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. plunged more than 10 percent in New York trading after the Federal Reserve Board proposed rules that could slash debit-card interchange fees by 90 percent.

The new rules, posted today by the Fed on its website, may aid retailers and cut profit for lenders who reaped about $15 billion from interchange fees last year. Currently, card networks charge merchants a percentage of the purchase price, regardless of cost. The Fed rules would force networks to rely on transaction fees, which could be capped at 12 cents each.

The result could be an 80 percent to 90 percent drop in funds that Visa and MasterCard pass on to banks that issue cards, according to Tien-tsin Huang, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Jason Kupferberg, an analyst at UBS AG, said investors had been braced for a 40 percent to 60 percent reduction. Overall, Kupferberg wrote to clients, there are “more negatives than expected” in the proposed changes.

“The initial view is that it is negative all around,” wrote Scott Valentin, an analyst at FBR Capital Markets, in a note to clients today. “This significantly impacts the business model for the networks.”

Visa fell $9.75, or 13 percent, to $67.19 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, the most in two years. MasterCard, ranked second among card networks and based in Purchase, New York, dropped as much as 12 percent, its biggest one-day slide ever. MasterCard finished down $25.73, or 10 percent, at $223.49. James Issokson, a spokesman for MasterCard, had no immediate comment.

Discover Financial Services, which said it’s “premature to speculate about the ultimate impact,” dropped 3.1 percent to $18.53. New York-based American Express Co., which doesn’t rely on debit cards, fell 3.4 percent to $44.57.

The Real Effect
That little move cost Visa/Mastercard BILLIONS in market cap. So the question becomes is this a good thing or a bad thing? I would say both and neither.

Credit, or more specifically capital investment, is absolutely critical to making the economy grow. However the devil is always in the details in these sort of things.

1. A line of credit from Visa is not synonymous with capital investment.
1. This type of credit is often created via leverage.
2. Just because a company has a given business model, that does not mean that they should be protected by law.
1. For instance - The mafia launders money, something the government has declared illegal.
2. Pickpocketing would yield a decent return, but would ultimately leave all but the pickpockets destitute.
3. A company going out of business is not necessarily a bad thing. This allows poorly allocated resources to redeploy to more productive endeavors.
1. If Bob's puppy abuse service went out of business, most would rejoice.
4. Many companies are over leveraged and irresponsibly positioned in this debt saturated economy.
5. Visa and Mastercard are not the backbone of the American economy. Their failure, while disappointing to some, would allow others to fill the gap in a better, perhaps more ethical way.
6. A lack of "credit" will force consumers to expunge their debts and return to fiscal health.
1. This is necessary for economic recovery.

This move might cost these companies money, so what? The more important question is why are these institutions not free to bargain their own agreements with the credit companies? Further, scalping Americans a piece at a time is not a good business model. So, I find it good that these companies have to think outside of the box, bad they're being managed, and immaterial as the whether they stay in business.

Outside of that, this will not help the unemployment numbers and that, is bad.

Ron Paul : Bernanke is World's Greatest Counterfeiter!

England Dispenses With the Pretenses of Freedom

Just like the gun laws, surveillance cameras, GPS, neighborhood stazi, murders and roundabouts this will soon be coming to an American city near you -

UK police chief Sir Paul Stephenson is considering whether to ask the British government to ban protest marches altogether in response to last week’s student riots, a move that would place Britain under a de facto state of martial law.

“It is one of the tactics we will look at and something we will keep under review, and if we think it is the right thing to do then we will do it,” said the Metropolitan Police commissioner.

I'm guessing the whole "Off with their heads" was getting a little too close for comfort.

The article continues -

Although the establishment media in Britain dutifully blamed the protesters for the violent scenes witnessed during the demonstrations, it later emerged that police had been behind a number of provocations that caused the running street battles, including pulling a disabled man out of a wheelchair and dragging him across the street, as well as repeatedly beating protesters on the head with batons.

The use of “kettling” to confine protesters into a tight area has also been heavily criticized for only heightening rage amongst the demonstrators.

Stephenson is considering whether to use the Public Order Act in an attempt to ban marches, despite acknowledging the fact that such a move could only exacerbate the situation. Other proposals are to use water cannons to disperse demonstrators, as well as snatch squads that would literally abduct so-called “trouble-makers” off the streets.

Given the fact that police are being ordered to conduct themselves in ways that only further anger protesters, the overall agenda seems to be aimed at creating agitation that can subsequently be exploited to justify excessive force.

Banning protest marches would extend the already existing no-protest zone which encompasses the area around the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, to the entire country.

The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA) bans the right of protest (unless it is cleared by a commissioner 6 days in advance) within a 1km radius of the UK’s seat of government. The area covers the Houses of Parliament, Downing Street, most government ministries, St Thomas’s Hospital, part of the South Bank and Lambeth Palace.

The Real Effect
Of course we have already seen a portion of this happening already with our "Free Speech Zones" and other such nonsense. Yet the real point here is that the elite are tipping their hands. They are talking about outright tyranny. You won't have the right to protest, because they say you don't.

Liberty is generally killed by its natural enemy, safety. Or in this case, the mere appearance of.

Police Beat Wheelchair Bound Student - Interview With Jody McIntyre

Action Video of Greece Riots as Fire Bombs, Stones Fly in Athens

Auschwitz Survivor on Palestine

The Real Reason Why the "Terrorists" Hate US

Who would want this?

In a series of air strikes launched yesterday in the Baghlan Province in northern Afghanistan, the NATO forces destroyed a public school as well as killing 30 “suspected Taliban militants,” according to the provincial governor.

The governor termed the attack on the school an “accident,” and so far there have been no reports of civilian casualties from that particular attack. The identies of the 30 slain in the other strikes have yet to be announced, beyond their being “suspects.”

NATO and the Afghan government have been struggling with a growing Taliban presence in the province over the past several year. Baghlan, as with much of the rest of northeastern Afghanistan, had virtually no Taliban presence ahead of the 2001 US invasion.

NATO also has yet to discuss the attack on the school or to provide any sort of explanation as to how the apparent accident happened. The destruction of the school will likely fuel more public opposition to the war effort.

The Real Effect
All you have to be is a "suspect" (often because of payoffs that their less than respectable countryman take to finger them) and suddenly you're with Al-Quaeda. Think about this for a second:

1. We invade.
2. We ask the locals who the "bad guys" are. We offer them cash. LOTS of cash.
3. Because they "cooperate" the locals become the good guys, the others by virtue of being identified are "terrorists".
4. We bomb the "bad guys", repeatedly, taking a SCHOOL with it.
5. The locals resent the collateral damage and then side with the "bad guys" against the invaders.(Who wouldn't?)
6. The fact that there are resisters is fact enough to justify to the American public that we need to "Finish the job".
7. Repeat.

Can anyone see the inherit moral and logical problem with this scenario? Easy solution - Remove the invaders, no more problems. Ah, but this won't permit TRILLIONS in dollars of weapons sales, increased budgets and patriotic promotions eh?

End this garbage now. Bring the troops home.

"Washington’s Role Is To Serve The Banks" Says Spencer Bachus Incoming House Banking Chairman

Moody's to Cut U.S. Rating?

The game becomes deadly serious -

Moody's warned Monday that it could move a step closer to cutting the U.S. Aaa rating if President Obama's tax and unemployment benefit package becomes law.

The plan agreed to by President Obama and Republican leaders last week could push up debt levels, increasing the likelihood of a negative outlook on the United States rating in the coming two years, the ratings agency said.

A negative outlook, if adopted, would make a rating cut more likely over the following 12-to-18 months.

For the United States, a loss of the top Aaa rating, reduce the appeal of U.S. Treasuries, which currently rank as among the world's safest investments.

"From a credit perspective, the negative effects on government finance are likely to outweigh the positive effects of higher economic growth," Moody's analyst Steven Hess said in a report sent late on Sunday.

After Obama announced his plan, Treasury prices fell sharply in volatile trade last week and yields have hit a six-month high, in part due to concerns over the effect the package will have on government debt levels.

If the bill becomes law, it will "adversely affect the federal government budget deficit and debt level," Moody's said. 

The Real Effect
Like an avalanche, the U.S. debt situation is reaching an untenable position. The arrogance of not only the Federal government, but its people as well is incredible. The position that is continually put out by many is that the U.S. can't go bankrupt.

While the reality is that the U.S. is already bankrupt, there is a modicum of truthiness in the statement that it can't go bankrupt or perhaps more succinctly - The government won't allow themselves to declare bankruptcy. In some ways, who blames them? Would you want to be known as the individual that was running the show when things blew up? I don't think there are many who would. But regardless of how we feel about the situation, reality must be confronted.

The biggest issue facing this country is our level of national debt and the percentage of that is the odious debt that is owed to the insolvent banking cartel. This debt must be repudiated. First, it is not the fault nor responsibility of the U.S. citizens that it's representatives entered into fraudulent contracts without their permission. Further, there is no mathematical way to pay this off, short of massively inflating and then destroying ours and others countries. We must, like Iceland, declare the debt invalid, try and finally imprison the bankers and Reps who did this to us and then cut government down to size.

Sure, the bankers will cry, they will protest, they might even mobilize tanks but this is the only way this once great Republic will survive the coming years.

9 TRILLION Dollars Missing from Federal Reserve, Fed Inspector General Can't Explain

Gerald Celente: Biggest Bank Robbery Non-Stop!

Religious Flames are Flamed as a Tree Gets Cut Down

Today we have this quite interesting piece from the Mail -

The Holy Thorn Tree of Glastonbury has been chopped down in what is being seen by some as a deliberately anti-Christian act.

A feature of the skyline surrounding the Somerset town, the tree has been visited by thousands retracing the steps said to have been taken by Joseph of Arimathea, who some say was Jesus’ great uncle.

According to legend, Saint Joseph travelled to the spot after Christ was crucified, taking with him the Holy Grail of Arthurian folklore.

He is said to have stuck his wooden staff – which had belonged to Jesus – into the ground on Wearyall Hill before he went to sleep. When he awoke it had sprouted into a thorn tree, which became a natural shrine for Christians across Europe.

To add to its sacred status, the tree ‘miraculously’ flowered twice a year – once at Christmas and once at Easter. It survived for hundreds of years before it was chopped down by puritans in the Civil War, but secret cuttings of the original were taken and planted around the town.

It is from one of the new plants that a replacement tree was planted in the original spot over 50 years ago.

The Real Effect
Now this is quite interesting for myriads of reasons, most notably my prediction in 2006 that religious flames will be kindled -

The global planners are literally banking on this bait-and-switch tactic in order to drive most decent people into believing that 'the other side out to get us' to goad us into 'getting them before they get us'. One only needs to look at the flimsy excuses being offered in the official 9/11 story to see this idea in action. (Like many of the alleged hijackers are still alive.)

I believe that this has moved past the propaganda phase and has moved into the implementation phase where they will drive the world into a religious war in an attempt to harmonize the religions into peace. Problem, reaction, solution.

In addition I'd like to make the following general notes:

1. Notice how these events are almost always random and unseen? The culprits are rarely caught and when they an individual or group is marched in front of the camera, there is rarely any question as to whether they actually did it.
2. This tree is a symbol. Nothing more, nothing less. I am amazed at individuals that will rail about a symbol being destroyed and inevitably end up murdering to avenge the symbol. If the tree is sacred, how much more sacred is the bearer of God's image, human life? Case and point, how many Muslim civilians have slaughtered over the image of the twin towers?
3. This particular tree was a replant from 50 years ago.

We all need to calm down and investigate, save the screaming and yelling for the real villains - The Globalist Banking Cartel.