Washington at Work--for the Wealthy Uncle Sam is concentrating America's wealth, not sharing it. By Sam Pizzigati October 13, 2010 "Other Words" - - Scroll through the right-wing blogosphere, or listen in at a tea party rally, and you'll find angry people ranting about an out-of-control federal government that's redistributing the nation's wealth to the undeserving poor. Those rants do have one point right: The federal government is shoveling hundreds of billions of dollars into programs that redistribute wealth. But these "wealth-building" programs aren't redistributing wealth from the top to the bottom. They're actually shifting more wealth to the top. "We cannot avoid the sad irony," as one new report has just concluded, "that government policy aimed at building wealth is largely helping the rich get richer." This new report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Corporation for Enterprise Development--Upside Down: The $400 Billion Federal Asset-Building Budget--dives deep into the programs that aim to help Americans "buy homes, start businesses, put their children through college, and retire comfortably." Upside Down's authors added up all the money the U.S. government devoted to these programs last year, and then tracked who exactly reaped the benefits. In nearly every instance, the... Continue reading

"I don' know a soul, who's not been battered I don't have a friend who feels at ease. I don't know a dream that's not been shattered, Or driven to its knees." ("American Tune", Paul Simon) What you are about to read below is going to absolutely shock many of you. But hopefully it will shock you enough to get you to take action. We desperately need to change course as a nation. The following are 24 statistics about the United States economy that are almost too embarrassing to admit.... #1 Ten years ago, the United States was ranked number one in average wealth per adult. In 2010, the United States has fallen to seventh. #2 The United States once had the highest proportion of young adults with post-secondary degrees in the world. Today, the U.S. has fallen to 12th. #3 In the 2009 "prosperity index" published by the Legatum Institute, the United States was ranked as just the ninth most prosperous country in the world. That was down five places from 2008. #4 In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use. Today it ranks 15th. #5 The economy of India is... Continue reading

The Secret Big-Money Takeover of America Thursday, October 7, 2010 Not only is income and wealth in America more concentrated in fewer hands than it’s been in 80 years, but those hands are buying our democracy as never before – and they’re doing it behind closed doors. Hundreds of millions of secret dollars are pouring into congressional and state races in this election cycle. The Koch brothers (whose personal fortunes grew by $5 billion last year) appear to be behind some of it, Karl Rove has rounded up other multi-millionaires to fund right-wing candidates, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is funneling corporate dollars from around the world into congressional races, and Rupert Murdoch is evidently spending heavily. No one knows for sure where this flood of money is coming from because it’s all secret. But you can safely assume its purpose is not to help America’s stranded middle class, working class, and poor. It’s to pad the nests of the rich, stop all reform, and deregulate big corporations and Wall Street – already more powerful than since the late 19th century when the lackeys of robber barons literally deposited sacks of cash on the desks of friendly legislators. Credit the... Continue reading

Wednesday, October 13, 2010 Some thoughts on homeschooling Using toys, we played "Which one is different?" game... This week we acknowledged our twenty-fifth day of homeschooling! It's been fun, challenging, and definitely one of the hardest couple of months in our lives, notwithstanding our choice to homeschool! Between my kidney, Kevin's infection in his arm, Lily's burn, Kevin being half around the world for more than two weeks, and the regular adjustment to the changing seasons, it has been an emotional and trying few weeks. They have also piggy-backed on to probably the best summer of our family-life) been some of the most purposeful and happy few weeks of my life. Life seems to be marked by these contradictions. Sophie had a week of ups and downs but the highlight was learning she earned the role of Susan in a local theater's production of Miracle on 34th Street! She auditioned beautifully and we are so proud of her! This means, however, that her already busy schedule just got a lot busier from now until mid-December. She will have practice or rehearsal every evening and a few mornings of every day of the week. We also got word that Maine State... Continue reading

Malnutrition increases risk of prolonged hospital stay — Hospital patients admitted with malnutrition or who don't eat for several days are at greater risk of a prolonged hospital stay, according to a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical... — [08:52 GMT, In: Health] Continue reading

August 2010 Foreclosure Rate Heat Map VTNHMARICTNJDEMDDC Foreclosure Rate Heat Map What are new foreclosures as a percentage of the housing market? More info 1 in every 381 housing units received a foreclosure filing in August 2010 http://www.realtytrac.com/trendcenter/ Continue reading

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/10-reasons-why-ordinary-hard-working-americans-are-about-to-really-start-feeling-the-squeeze The economic despair in the air is almost palpable. Already hordes of Americans are truly and honestly hurting and things are only going to get worse. The following are ten reasons why ordinary hard-working Americans are about to really start feeling the squeeze.... #1 Gas prices are going up again. AAA says that the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in the United States was $2.80 on Sunday. That is 32.6 cents higher than it was during the same time period in 2009. As oil and gas prices continue to go up, that is also going to have a significant impact on utility bills for American families this winter. #2 The price of food is poised to rise substantially. Bloomberg is reporting that the the cost of meat in the United States is going nowhere but up. But meat is not the only thing that you will soon be paying much more for at the supermarket. Wheat, corn, soybeans and almost every other major agricultural commodity is absolutely soaring this fall. As this continues, it is inevitable that ordinary Americans will seemuch higher food prices at their local grocery stores. On a previous article, a reader named... Continue reading

FROM:http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/09/congress-corporate-sponsors What if members of Congress were seated not by party but according to the industries which gave them the most money over their entire careers? The House SECTOR | # OF MEMBERS Labor 159 Finance, insurance, and real estate 159 Health 26 Agribusiness 23 Lawyers and lobbyists 20 Miscellaneous business 18 Energy and natural resources 10 Defense 7 Transportation 6 Communications and electronics 4 Construction 1 Unfilled seats 2 Total seats | 435 The Senate SECTOR | # OF MEMBERS Finance, insurance, and real estate 57 Lawyers and lobbyists 25 Health 5 Agribusiness 3 Labor 2 Energy and natural resources 2 Miscellaneous business 2 Communications and electronics 1 No money raised 3 Total seats | 100 Continue reading

Imagine being unable to access your checking account, your 401K, or, even worse, having your bank balance go to zero and, in the resulting chaos, being left with no way to prove the amount that should be in your account. After all, these days, all your sensitive banking data is stored in computer databases and, in the midst of a "cyber crisis," many (or all) recent transactions could be lost (or the banks could claim such). In such a scenario, the only real proof of funds would be whatever cash a consumer happened to have on hand. Many analysts such as Gerald Celente and Max Kaiser have been warning people about keeping their money in banks. As America's financial situation continues to deteriorate, a false-flag cyber attack would be a clever way to disguise the inevitable and blame the collapse on something (or someone) else. Also, with the nation's financial data compromised and/or missing altogether, it would conveniently force a "reset" of the banking system back to zero. Amidst the chaos of people trying to function with little-to-no cash while at the same time clamoring for a solution, the government could easily roll out a ration-card system much like the... Continue reading

Foreclosure-Gate In fact, the true legacy of Foreclosure-Gate may be the massive amount of bank failures that it causes. If you work in the mortgage industry or for a title insurer, you might not want to make any plans for the next six months. Foreclosure-Gate is about to explode. It is being alleged that many prominent mortgage lenders have been using materially flawed paperwork to evict homeowners. Apparently officials at quite a few of these firms have been signing thousands upon thousands of foreclosure documents without even looking at them. In addition, it is being alleged that much of the documentation for these mortgages that are being foreclosed upon is either "improper" or is actually "missing". As lawyers start to smell blood in the water, lawsuits challenging these foreclosures have already started springing up from coast to coast. In fact, some are already calling Foreclosure-Gate the biggest fraud in the history of the capital markets. JPMorgan Chase, Ally Bank's GMAC Mortgage and PNC Financial have all suspended foreclosures in the 23 U.S. states where foreclosures must be approved by a judge. Bank of America has actually suspended foreclosures in all 50 states. Now, law enforcement authorities from coast to coast... Continue reading

There is a yearning by tens of millions of Americans, lumped into a diffuse and fractious movement, to destroy the intellectual and scientific rigor of the Enlightenment. They seek out of ignorance and desperation to create a utopian society based on “biblical law.” They want to transform America’s secular state into a tyrannical theocracy. These radicals, rather than the terrorists who oppose us, are the gravest threat to our open society. They have, with the backing of hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate money, gained tremendous power. They peddle pseudoscience such as “Intelligent Design” in our schools. They keep us locked into endless and futile wars of imperialism. They mount bigoted crusades against gays, immigrants, liberals and Muslims. They turn our judiciary, in the name of conservative values, over to corporations. They have transformed our liberal class into hand puppets for corporate power. And we remain meek and supine. They want to transform America’s secular state into a tyrannical theocracy. These radicals, rather than the terrorists who oppose us, are the gravest threat to our open society. Those who shout most loudly in defense of the ideals of the founding fathers, the sacredness of Constitution and the values of... Continue reading

The Fed's Magic Money-Printing Machine, Act 2 Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Brendan Smialowski/Getty It’s amazing, given the attention the Tea Party allegedly is paying to government waste and government spending, that there hasn’t been more controversy about the now-seemingly-inevitable arrival of “QE2” – a second massive round of money-printing cooked up by the Fed to prop up both the government and certain sectors of the economy. A more overtly anticapitalist and oligarchical pattern of behavior than the Fed’s “Quantitative Easing” program could not possibly be imagined, but the country is strangely silent on the issue. What is “QE”? The first round of “quantitative easing” was a program announced by Ben Bernanke last March in response to the financial crisis, ending in March of this year. In what will soon be known as “QE1”(i.e. once QE2 is announced), Bernanke printed over a trillion dollars out of thin air, then used that money to buy, among other things, mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and Treasury Bonds. In other words, the government was printing money to a) lend to itself and b) prop up the housing market, with Wall Street stepping in to take a big cut. Matt Taibbi http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-opinion-section/83-83/3561-the-feds-magic-money-printing-machine-act-2 Continue reading

EARL NASH >>>>> “ It’s news to YOU ! " <<<<< HAPPY HORSESHIT ECONOMICS In "Cowboy English" the phrase "quantitative easing" means that the purchasing power of your dollar will go DOWN; you will be paying MORE dollars for the same amount of food and stuff that you buy. It is the same as reducing your salary; unless you get a raise, "quantitative easing" means the bond investors are making MORE profits and you are LOSING and falling further behind. When you hear some MSM Market Anal-ist say "quantitative easing"--just think "the Fed is printing more copies of paper dollars and my salary will buy less stuff." You may also hear them say "fiat currency" and that means that your paper money is backed up by NOTHING. Before Richard Nixon took the paper money off the "gold standard," a person could, legally, take his collection paper bills and drive on up to Fort Knox and ask to exchange the pieces of paper for gold. The "fiat", or decree, part means that you cannot trade your paper for metal anymore; its only value is what somebody will give you for it. Say you could get a pound of X for $5.99... Continue reading

Glenn Beck may not know it, but it is almost certain he is another victim of Rumsfeld Plague. On September 29, the New York Times published a long article about Beck. “His Mormonism forbids coffee, but he consumes a lot of Diet Coke and chocolate,” writes Mark Leibovich. Coke addict Coca-Cola began putting the “sugar substitute” aspartame in Diet Coke in 1982. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, aspartame accounts for over 75 percent of the adverse reactions to food additives reported to the FDA. Many of these reactions are very serious including seizures and death. In 1999, the Independent on Sunday discovered that the maker of aspartame, Monsanto, uses genetically engineered bacteria to produce the “sweetener” at its U.S. production plants. Aspartame is made by combining phenylalanine, which is naturally produced by bacteria, with another amino acid. To make the bacteria produce more phenylalanine, Monsanto has genetically engineered them. “Increasingly, chemical companies are using genetically engineered bacteria in their manufacturing process without telling the public,” said Dr. Erik Millstone, of the Science Policy Research Unit at Sussex University, and a member of the National Food Alliance, told the newspaper. Here’s what Glenn Beck needs to know... Continue reading

The Economic Collapse The U.S. economy is being slowly but surely destroyed and many Americans have no idea that it is happening. That is at least partially due to the fact that most financial news is entirely focused on the short-term. Whenever a key economic statistic goes up the financial markets surge and analysts rejoice. Whenever a key economic statistic goes down the financial markets decline and analysts speak of the potential for a "double-dip" recession. You could literally get whiplash as you watch the financial ping pong ball bounce back and forth between good news and bad news. But focusing on short-term statistics is not the correct way to analyze the U.S. economy. It is the long-term trends that reveal the truth. The reality is that there are certain underlying foundational problems that are destroying the U.S. economy a little bit more every single day. 11 of those foundational problems are discussed below. They are undeniable and they are constantly getting worse. If they are not corrected (and there is no indication that they will be) they will destroy not only our economy but also our entire way of life. The sad truth is that it would be hard... Continue reading

#1 Corporate insiders are getting out of the U.S. stock market at an absolutely blinding pace. It is being reported that the ratio of corporate insider selling to corporate insider buying last week was 1,411 to 1, and this week the ratio has soared even higher and is at 2,341 to 1. #2 Many of the world's wealthiest people are buying absolutely massive quantities of gold right now. #3 It is being reported that J.P. Morgan is gobbling up the rights to as much physical gold as it possibly can. #4 The United States Mint has announced that it has run out of 1-ounce, 24-karat American Buffalo gold bullion coins and that it will not be selling any more of them in 2010. #5 It is becoming increasingly difficult to explain the unusually high option volume that we are witnessing right now. #6 Some very large investors are making massive bets that the S&P 500 is going to take a serious tumble during the month of October. #7 On Tuesday, the Bank of Japan shocked world financial markets by cutting interest rates even closer to zero and by setting up a 5 trillion yen quantitative easing fund. #8 The president... Continue reading

Do you believe that you will always be able to run out to Wal-Mart or to the local supermarket and buy massive amounts of inexpensive food? If so, you might want to think again. During 2010, agricultural commodity prices have absolutely exploded. Nearly every single important agricultural commodity has seen a double digit percentage price increase. In fact, the S&P GSCI Agriculture Index recently surged to a fresh two year high. Now food producers and retailers are starting to pass those commodity price increases on to consumers. Today when I went to the supermarket I was absolutely startled by some of the price increases that I witnessed. On some of the items that I most commonly purchase, prices were up 20 or 30 percent. So just what in the world is going on here? Well, it turns out that there was a lot of bad weather around the world this year, so many harvests were worse than projected. In addition, the growing population of the world has an increasingly voracious appetite for food. When supply gets tighter as demand continues to go up that means that prices are going to increase. On a recent article on our sister site entitled... Continue reading

ED. NOTE: THIS IS NOT A PRANK OR A HOAX AFTER THE NOV. ELECTION THIS IS WHAT COULD BE IN YOUR FUTURE! COWARDS' CLUB "Sieg Heil!" you pig-fuckers! http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/ohio-republican-candidate-played-nazi-dressup-games-allegedly-bond-son/ Continue reading

UFOs and extraterrestrials have long been treated as the ultimate conspiracy theory by the establishment. Therefore, the growing chatter of mainstream news stories about UFOs and aliens seems very peculiar. Why the attention all of a sudden? Is the establishment conditioning us for the arrival of extraterrestrials? Could they have an agenda for doing so? Recent reporting of genuine events such as the multiple UFOs that forced the closing of separate airports in China; stories covering the release of new UFO books written by credible ex-military; UFOstampering with nuclear devices; the discovery of a "habitable" planet near Earth; a bizarre story about the Pope's astronomersaying he would gladly baptize an alien if asked; and the pending appointment of a U.N. space ambassador are bringing some legitimacy to the conspiracy. I imagine that most rational people have considered the possibility of life beyond Earth, but are still waiting for concrete evidence before committing to that reality. An apparently undeniable event must occur for the masses to fully "believe" the new nature of reality. Should extraterrestrials actually exist, there is certainly enough motivation by the controllers to keep them under wraps, as their existence dramatically threatens their earthly power structure -- especially... Continue reading

EARL NASH >>>>> “ It’s news to YOU!" <<<<< If Richard Nixon had not ordered his assassination, John Lennon would have been 70 years-old today. Anyone who still believes that John was killed by a random act by a loser obsesseed with the Beatles still believes that Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray, and Sirhan-Sirhan were "lone nuts"--and they probably still believes that 9-11 had no connection to Cheney, his Neocon traitors, and the Israeli Mossad. The film, The US vs John Lennon makes the case clearly: John and Yoko had become a rallying point for the anti-war movement and also for the anti-Nixon campaign and, like LBJ, Nixon used his Presidential powers and his black ops assassins to kill John Lennon. Q: If Mark Chapman was a such a fanatical Beatle/Lennon fan, who was obsessed with John, why didn't they find a single Beatle album in his apartment? Instead they found "heavy metal" music, often used by black ops for brainwashing and hypnotic suggestion operations. Imagine: a young man being triggered by the book Catcher in The Rye, and who, like Oswald, wanted to travel to Russia as a representative of the US government, and a man who "visited... Continue reading

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A FEMA videographer who has footage that conclusively proves top US government officials were aware of the 2001 terrorist attacks beforethey occurred is now wanted by the US government on murder charges. He is the only cameraman that filmed crucial images of Ground Zero in New York after the Twin Towers collapsed. Sonnenfeld, who lives in Buenos Aires with his Argentine family, says the footage proves that 9/11 was a lie. He still has the 22-hour footage that US authorities want. “I have promised to give my footage to the big investigators that are credible and widely known – investigators who will be able to detect anomalies that I or other people without scientific education might miss. With that in mind, I hope that there are many things they can discover that disprove the current official story of what happened,” Sonnenfeld told a Press TV correspondent. He says he fears for his life if he is sent back to the United States to face trial. The Denver police have claimed they have evidence that show he killed his first wife in the US. Social activists who are campaigning for Sonnenfeld to be given refugee status in Argentina say the Denver... Continue reading