Free Republic

THREE MILLION PREPPERS IN AMERICA Are Getting Ready For The End of the World As We Know It Mac Slavo February 11th, 2012 In the autumn of 2008, as Presidential hopefuls sparred over whether we had entered a recession or not and well before the onset of the most serious global crisis since the 1930′s, trend forecaster Gerald Celente advised his Trends Journal subscribers to prepare for the worst and plan for the best. “It will be,” warned Celente, “like nothing we’ve ever seen in our lifetime.” The aware and prepared … those understanding just how out of control society...

The Collapse Of America In Raw Numbers *Video* Mac Slavo February 9th, 2012 Looking at the numbers behind our federal budgets reveals that the majority of our government’s spending goes not to running the day to day operations of government, but rather, to social safety net programs like Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, welfare, food assistance, rental stipends and a host of other entitlement programs. In many cases, the programs themselves are used as a marketing tool during election campaigns, with the winner of an election often being the candidate who promises the most benefits to their constituents. While this strategy...

Worth watching.... and thinking about. But do so soon, because if we don't the system will collapse, and then there will be no benefits at all. Bill puts into graphs in a couple of minutes what I've been writing about for the last five years. Your choice is to either act on it or go to the store, right now, and buy all the vasoline you can find -- because if you don't act you're going to need it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u24nH03NccI&feature=player_embedded#!

Bob Chapman, The International Forecaster, is back again discussing the imminent departure of Greece from the Euro. While it may seem extremely painful and destructive for now, in the long run it will be a plus. They won't be able to borrow money, which will force them to produce more at home and to build a sustainable economy. They will be on a COD basis with the rest of the world, but perhaps the Chinese and Russians will extend them some credit. And may be GE Capital will come to their rescue. Whenever there's a high profile bankruptcy stateside, GE...

Fed chief Bernanke issues debt warningBy North America correspondent Jill Colgan, ABC February 3, 2012, 11:08 am United States Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has warned that the US economy could face the same fate as troubled European countries if it fails to curb its growing debt. Mr Bernanke delivered a sobering assessment of the economy that defies recent attempts by the Obama administration to talk up the economic turnaround. Testifying before a House Budget Committee, he said the pace of recovery had been "frustratingly slow". He urged lawmakers to be more aggressive in reducing the nation's $15 trillion debt...

People often talk about the Baltic Dry Index as being a "canary in the coal mine". But right now, maybe "elephant in the room" might be more fitting. The index of shipping rates for dry bulk commodities - such as iron ore, coal and grains - has long been considered by market afficionados as an advance warning system for changes in economic fortunes. When the index surges, it means shipping demand is spiking, a strong sign for a pick-up in economic activity. When the index plunges, it means ships are sitting empty - a sign of evaporating demand for goods....

Read Between The Lines: Hollywood Mogul Buys 2,600 Acres Of Farmland; Moving To New Zealand Mac Slavo February 1st, 2012 James Cameron, the Hollywood producer responsible for blockbuster films like Terminator, Titanic and Avatar, is reportedly preparing to exit stage left. While the move for the Canadian born Cameron may initially be perceived as a rejection or denouncement of American policies and ideals, Cameron, who has made campaign donations to the Democrat Party in the past, most notably during the 2004 Presidential election where he supported democrat John Kerry, may have ulterior motivations, as evidenced by where he’s planning on...

One Dam Metaphor For The 2012 Global Financial SystemJanuary 30, 2012Charles Hugh Smith What do you do when flood waters threaten the dam? If you're the Federal Reserve, you close the floodgates and let the water rise. Metaphors have an uncanny ability to capture the essence of complex situations. Here is one dam metaphor that distills and explains the entire global financial system in 2012. The way to visualize the current situation is to imagine a dam holding back rising storm waters. The dam is the regulatory system, the rule of law, trust in the transparency and fairness of the...

Is Now The Time To Move Away From Major U.S. Cities?January 26, 2011 As the U.S. economy falls apart and as the world becomes increasingly unstable, more Americans than ever are becoming "preppers". It is estimated that there are at least two million preppers in the United States today, but nobody really knows. The truth is that it is hard to take a poll because a lot of preppers simply do not talk about their preparations. Your neighbor could be storing up food in the garage or in an extra bedroom and you might never even know it. An increasing...

Geithner: I won't serve second termBy Peter Schroeder - 01/25/12 04:27 PM ET Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner does not anticipate serving a second term under President Obama. Geithner said in an interview with Bloomberg Television that he is "pretty confident" the president would not ask him to stay on if he is reelected. "I'm confident he'll be president. But I'm also confident he's going to have the privilege of having another secretary of the Treasury," he said, adding that he planned to do "something else." Geithner mulled leaving the administration this summer once a deal to raise the federal debt...

The Troika Are Just Keeping Markets From Panicking And Buying Governments Time Wolf Richter Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at 7:50PM "The case of Greece is hopeless," Otmar Issing said today during an interview. He should know. He was a member of the Executive Board of the Bundesbank and of the Governing Council of the ECB. Another substantive voice in an increasingly loud chorus. But it’s legally impossible to kick Greece out of the Eurozone. So he suggested a procedure: Tell the country that it has to implement reforms as a condition for financial help. When implementation is lacking, the basis...

Are George Soros, The IMF And The World Bank Purposely Trying To Scare The Living Daylights Out Of Us? Michael SnyderJanuary 25, 2012 Over the past couple of weeks, George Soros, the IMF and the World Bank have all issued incredibly chilling warnings about the possibility of an impending economic collapse. Considering the power and the influence that Soros, the IMF and the World Bank all have over the global financial system, this is very alarming. So are they purposely trying to scare the living daylights out of us? Soros is even warning of riots in the streets of America....

George Soros Warns Of Financial Collapse, Class Warfare And The Rise Of Evil Gus Lubin Jan. 24, 2012, 8:00 AM Soros George Soros warns of financial collapse and class warfare in a chilling interview with Newsweek's John Alridge. “At times like these, survival is the most important thing,” he says, peering through his owlish glasses and brushing wisps of gray hair off his forehead. He doesn’t just mean it’s time to protect your assets. He means it’s time to stave off disaster. As he sees it, the world faces one of the most dangerous periods of modern history—a period of...

PETER ORSZAG: The US Is Facing A Perfect Storm Early Next Year Simone Foxman Jan. 24, 2012, 12:30 PM Early 2013 could just be the next perfect storm for political catastrophe in the United States, according to Peter Orszag, the Vice Chairman of Global Banking at Citigroup, who spoke at the Bloomberg Link Sovereign Debt Conference today. That's when Congress will face its next test--passing crucial legislation on the Bush-era tax cuts, defense spending, and raising the debt ceiling. "It's going to be rare that we have that [legislative] trifecta where you can actually do anything," Orszag said, arguing that...

A notary public who signed tens of thousands of false documents in a massive foreclosure scam before blowing the whistle on the scandal has been found dead in her Las Vegas home. NBC station KSNV of Las Vegas reported that the woman, Tracy Lawrence, 43, was scheduled to be sentenced Monday morning after she pleaded guilty this month to notarizing the signature of an individual not in her presence. She failed to show up for her hearing, and police found her body at her home later in the day. It could not immediately be determined whether Lawrence, who faced up...

If The U.S. Government Keeps Spending Money Like This We Are Doomed And If The U.S. Government Stops Spending Money Like This We Are DoomedMichael T SnyderJanuary 23, 2012 If you increased your credit card spending by a couple thousand dollars per month would your lifestyle improve? Of course it would. By going into large amounts of debt, it is possible to live a lifestyle that you can't really afford, at least for a while. But if you keep racking up huge amounts of credit card debt every single month, eventually it gets to a point where it is extremely...

5 – North Korea Implosion or Explosion Don’t be fooled by stories of how smoothly the transition is proceeding in Pyongyang. The first rule of analyzing North Korea—it’s the world’s most opaque regime and no one really knows what’s going on inside—has not changed. Maybe things really are going smoothly. Maybe they’re already off the rails. We do know that North Korea is a nuclear power, that provocation is its traditional foreign policy tool of choice, and that North Korean collapse is the likeliest way to bring American and Chinese soldiers face to face in an unpredictable and dangerous security...

Getting Out Of Dodge By Doug Casey 01/19/12 Louis: Doug, a lot of readers have been asking for guidance on how to know when it’s time to exit center stage and hunker down in some safe place. Few people want to hide from the world in a cabin in the woods while life goes on in the mainstream, but nobody wants to get caught once the gates clang shut on the police state the US is becoming. How do you know when it’s time to go?Doug: Well, the first thing to keep in mind is that it’s better to be...

Doctor Doom Warns: “World War III Will Occur In the Next Five Years” January 17th, 2012 Well known economist, trend forecaster and Gloom, Boom and Doom Report publisher Dr. Marc Faber joined some of the world’s leading investment minds at the Barron’s 2012 Roundtable to discuss what’s in store for 2012 and beyond with respect to the economy, inflation, political stability and a host of other issues. As is generally the case, Dr. Faber doesn’t mince words and warns that, despite what happens in the near term, the end game is global conflict. Excerpted from Barron’s 2012 Roundtable via SGT...

Global investment in clean energy reached a new high of $260 billion (€203 billion) last year, despite the financial crisis and the anti-environment agenda of Republicans in the US Congress, a United Nations investors' summit was told on Thursday (12 January). Data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which tracks clean energy investment, showed a 5% increase compared with 2010, driven largely by a surge of money going to the solar industry. Investment in solar power rose 36% last year to $136.6 billion. And while the US domestic political scene was riven by the furore over a $535-million government loan to...

The European debt crisis has just gone to an entirely new level. Just when it seemed like things may be stabilizing somewhat, we get news of huge financial bombs being dropped all over Europe. Very shortly after U.S. financial markets closed on Friday, S&P announced credit downgrades for nine European nations. This included both France and Austria losing their cherished AAA credit ratings. When the credit rating of a country gets slashed, that is a signal to investors that they should start demanding higher interest rates when they invest in the debt of that nation. Over the past year it...

ALBERT EDWARDS: This Will Be The 'Final Year Of Pain And Disappointment' Sam Ro Jan. 11, 2012, 8:17 PM The last time we heard from SocGen's Albert Edwards was back in November when he re-dubbed the BRICs as "Bloody Ridiculous Investment Concepts." Well, it seem the permabear is now out of hibernation. Earlier today, SocGen hosted an event titled "2012: The Final Year of Pain and Disappointment." If you're a glass-half-full type of person, then you might think this means SocGen is optimistic about 2013. But if you think it seems odd to put "Albert Edwards" and the word "optimistic"...

Consequences Of Collapse: Access To Critical Medicines Is Disappearing In Greece Mac Slavo January 11th, 2012 When a nation goes into economic crisis the paradigm to which its people have become accustomed begins to deteriorate. Access to critical supplies becomes difficult, sometimes immediately. In the case of Greece, which has been dealing with a loss of confidence in its debt instruments and economic policy, the collapse of life as Greeks know it has taken place over the last several years. While we have been fortunate enough to avoid as severe a calamity here in the United States, many of the...

Binge drinking rates in the U.S. are at a much higher rate than previously thought, according to a report released Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC found that more than 38 million Americans binge drink four times a month—consuming an average of eight drinks each time. And it’s not just young adults. Although it is more common between the ages of 18-34, those 65 and older reportedly binge drink more often—five to six times a month. The frequency of binge drinking is higher in households with an income of $75,000 or more. But the disturbing...

We Are All Occupiers Now. If Romney’s opponents embrace the rhetoric and class warfare of the Occupy Wall Street crowd any closer, they’re going to start pooping on police cars. [emphasis mine] So, here we are, at the day of the first primary, and the main objection to Mitt Romney from Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry is that he fired a bunch of people? More than his liberal-softie sounding rhetoric in 1994 and 2002? More than his crusade to liberate us from the individual mandate of Obamacare in order to leave the states free to enact their own individual mandates?...

How To Prepare For The Difficult Years AheadMichael SnyderJanuary10, 2012 How should people prepare for the difficult years that are coming? I get asked about that a lot. Once people really examine the facts, it is not too hard to convince them that an economic collapse is coming. But once they accept that reality, most of them want to know what they can do to prepare themselves and their families for the hard times that are ahead. Well, the truth is that it does not have to be complicated. Many of the things discussed throughout this article are things that...

Geraldo: You Shouldn't Become Parent Unless Licensed By Government By Jack Coleman Created 01/09/2012 - 7:55pm Think your government has more than enough on its hands? Geraldo Rivera wants it to do so much more. On his new WABC radio show Friday, Rivera cited an incident that day involving a Brooklyn mother suspected of killing her 3-year-old daughter, saying this (audio clips after page break) -- I swear to God, you talk about sickos, you talk about sickos. You should need to have a license to have a child. You should be vetted. I think I can't stand these stories....

A woman who expected her Civic Hybrid to be her dream car wants Honda to pay for not delivering the 50 mpg it promised. But rather than joining other owners in a class-action lawsuit, Heather Peters is going solo against the automaker in small-claims court, an unusual move that could offer a bigger payout. And if successful, it could open the door to a flood of similar lawsuits. A trial was set for Tuesday in Torrance, where American Honda has its West Coast headquarters. Peters, a former lawyer, says that as her vehicle's battery deteriorated, it got only 30 mpg....

Pitched to the American voter as the vanguard of a “greener” future, the heavily subsidized Chevy Volt was dubbed one of the worst product flops of 2011 by Yahoo Finance’s 24/7 Wall Street site. The low sales volume—-an estimated 8,000 vehicles for 2011 (all of which are currently under recall notices to correct defects)–-has made the effective unit cost for each car amount to around $250,000. Representative Hansen Clarke (D-Mich) insists that “despite the reluctance of the American driver to buy these cars we must not falter in our efforts to make them understand the necessity for government’s role in...

This will drive the Enviro-weenies nuts! http://www.chathamdailynews.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3425246

I believe I should have been more specific when explaining the historical precedent of how government uses the military against the people. There have been no exceptions to this historical trend. However, the troops have not always attacked the people. On August 19th, 1991, the attempted coup in Russia propelled Boris Yeltsin to position of President when he had the courage to stand on the tanks and plead with the troops to stand down. There was the unknown rebel who stood down the tanks in Beijing on June 5th, 1989. ----------------------- Page 2----------------------- Byzantine Emperor Justinian (527-565AD) had established a...

Look Out Below – The Nightmarish Decline Of The Euro Has BegunJanuary 6, 2012 The euro is a dying currency. On Thursday, the EUR/USD fell below 1.28 for the first time since September 2010. In fact, as I write this the EUR/USD is sitting at 1.2791. Back in July, the EUR/USD was over 1.45. But this is just the beginning. The euro is going to go a lot lower. At this point, there are several major European nations that are on the verge of default, the European financial system is overflowing with debt and toxic assets, and most major European...

China REQUIRES all foreign investors to give up their technology to them for the "right" to build goods there. Obama-seized GM can deny it till the cows come home, but it's still a lie. Dismantling America, chunk by chunk, piece by piece. Anybody see the tyrant-in-chief's body language, facial expressions and hand gestures, not to mention his words, at his Ohio press conference today? He simply can't hide his hatred for America. The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War on America -- read it. GM deal moves electric car development to China -- a 'shakedown'? USA Today (hat tip Van)...

Grand Rapids - A Michigan man knowingly had unprotected sex with thousands of people whilst diagnosed with HIV, hoping to spread the infection. Police in Rapid Springs, Michigan, have released information hoping to alert potential victims of a serial philanderer who deliberately had unprotected sex with thousands of people, in an effort to spread HIV. David Dean Smith, 51, turned himself in to Michigan police last week, confessing that he hoped to spread his infection to others.

The Number One Catastrophic Event That Americans Worry About: Economic CollapseDecember 30, 2011 Can you guess what the number one catastrophic event that Americans worry about is? There are certainly many to choose from. Many Americans are deathly afraid of a major terrorist attack. Others live in constant fear of natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes. Still others are incredibly concerned that a massive pandemic will break out at any time or that World War III will erupt in the Middle East. Yes, there are certainly a lot of potential catastrophic events that one can worry about in...

40 Hard Questions That The American People Should Be Asking Right NowDecember 27,2011 If you spend much time watching the mainstream news, then you know how incredibly vapid it can be. It is amazing how they can spend so much time saying next to nothing. There seems to be a huge reluctance to tackle the tough issues and the hard questions. Perhaps I should be thankful for this, because if the mainstream media was doing their job properly, there would not be a need for the alternative media. Once upon a time, the mainstream media had a virtual monopoly on...

The Department of Homeland Security makes fake Twitter and Facebook profiles for the specific purpose of scanning the networks for 'sensitive' words - and tracking people who use them. Simply using a word or phrase from the DHS's 'watch' list could mean that spies from the government read your posts, investigate your account, and attempt to identify you from it, acccording to an online privacy group. The words which attract attention range from ones seemingly related to diseases or bioweapons such as 'human to animal' and 'outbreak' to other, more obscure words such as 'drill' and 'strain'. The DHS also...

Personally and collectively, the Greeks don’t understand and can’t cope with what’s happening now, let alone what will happen next. The welfare state is being swiftly and deliberately dismantled without any time to set up replacements..... ....Having seen off their worthless leaders, Greeks may not know who the enemy is any more.

"This bankrupt belief has taken complete control of our government, educational system, medical industry, and our corporations. And unless we demand better from each other and our political leaders, our society is doomed to collapse under the crushing weight of the Corruption of America. It's time we got back to our traditions as Americans and started doing more to take care of our families, communities, and ourselves." This is a small outtake of a very long article. If you have 15 minutes go and read this as the author raises some very good points about things that are leading to...

~~snip~~ "A Gingrich campaign official prior to the move by the Republican Party of Virginia said the problem is how the rules are set up, arguing that the party is, for apparently the first time, cross-checking the addresses that signature-givers gave against the electronic voter database file for accuracies. A name without a proper address match was tossed, the official said."

WEST BOUNTIFUL — In a closet inside Gary Turley's West Bountiful home, an empty spot now shows where his most valued material possession used to sit. It was a safe, containing nearly $200,000 in cash — he thought was safer there than in a bank. "It was my life savings," Turley said. "I had stuff from my grandpa, who's dead now: his pocket watch, stuff like that. My Social Security cards, Visas, passports, birth certificates, checking — everything to do with my checking (was in the safe)." How it disappeared is almost worse that losing it in the first place....

After an economic crisis and with a “benevolent” authoritarian figure in charge, you can expect the following: ■Expect Corruption: Maybe in their minds, it’s not even corruption. The high ranking politicians simply do extra-legal “favors” for one another, and perhaps they even believe their own BS speech, that they are doing them for “the greater good.” Or perhaps not. Perhaps they are just greedy, lying crooks from the very start.

Banks gorged on €489.19bn of cheap loans offered by the European Central Bank (ECB) - but the gargantuan refinancing effort still failed to decisively address the raging debt crisis. A total of 523 banks scrambled to take up the ECB’s offer to exchange illiquid assets for cut-price funding in the first of two three-year refinancing operations. The record half-trillion euro take-up – which was far greater than the market had expected – initially triggered a “sugar rush” of euphoria as the move was hailed as a decisive “game changer”. But stock markets fell as economists and financiers recognised that while...

Items in the U.S. cost half what they do in Brazil, due to taxes, inflation and the real. Above, a Macy's crowd. Ana Ligia Paladino traveled 5,000 miles from her home in southernmost Brazil last month to jostle for Black Friday bargains at Macy's in New York City. Waiting in line by 5 a.m., she soon notched her first buys in a planned 10-day shopping spree. "It was a bagunça!" she recalled, using a Brazilian expression that means both mess and mayhem to describe the scene. Brazilian shoppers are taking the U.S. by storm this holiday season, a welcome boost...

An unpatched critical flaw in 64-bit Windows 7 leaves computers vulnerable to a full 'blue screen of death' system crash. The memory corruption bug in x64 Win 7 could also allow malicious kernel-level code to be injected into machines, security alert biz Secunia warns. Fortunately the 32-bit version of Windows 7 is immune to the flaw, which has been pinned down to the win32k.sys operating system file - which contains the kernel portion of the Windows user interface and related infrastructure.Proof-of-concept code showing how to crash vulnerable Win 7 boxes has been leaked: the simple HTML script, when opened in...

Essay: Are we witnessing the U.S. empire head into its final decline? Obama is drifting. Republican candidates inspire little confidence. But viewed from Europe, which is more skeptical than ever, it’s worth taking a closer look at a nation with the Peter Pan gift of never growing up. ******** BERLIN -- When it’s not busy with its own problems, Europe looks across the Atlantic and shakes its head. America would appear to be on an unstoppable downward spiral. While neo-conservative dreams of the “unipolar moment” disperse, troops are withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan, the ups and the downs of the...

(CNN) -- A Louisiana lawmaker wants the National Guard to patrol the streets of New Orleans after a toddler who was four days shy of her second birthday was shot and killed in a drive-by. "She was out here as a innocent bystander. She's dead now," said Rufus Ruck, the child's cousin. Keira Holmes Gordon was gunned down in a double shooting at the B. W. Cooper Housing development on Sunday. She was one of two people hit when gunmen from two separate cars opened fire on a man who was standing nearby. According to police, the man ran into...

With credit rating agencies warning that the deal struck by EU leaders this month might not save the single currency from collapse, the Sunday Times has revealed that the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office is drawing up plans to evacuate thousands of British expatriates from Spain and Portugal should their banking systems collapse. With one million Britons living in Spain and some 50,000 UK resident in Portugal – The Foreign Office is concerned that expats who have invested savings in their adopted countries could be left stranded, unable to withdraw cash and facing losing their homes if the banks call...

China's plan for a new $300 billion sovereign wealth fund is as much a warning to Washington as it is a body blow to Brussels. It's the clearest sign yet of Beijing's waning faith in bonds issued by Europe and the United States. Europe's festering debt debacle, record low yields on U.S. Treasuries and a depreciating dollar all add weight to the view in China that the time is ripe to change investment tack. "China has decided that real assets are better than broken debt fix promises and low interest rates," says Paul Markowski, president of MES Advisers and a...

Global Economic Crisis: The U.S. An Insolvent And Ungovernable Country Economics / Global Debt Crisis 2012 Dec 18, 2011 - 11:57 AM By: LEAP As announced in previous GEABs, in this issue our team presents its anticipations on the changes in the United States for the period 2012-2016. This country, the epicentre of the global systemic crisis and pillar of the international system since 1945, will go through a particularly tragic in its history during these five years. Already insolvent it will become ungovernable bringing about, for Americans and those who depend on the United States violent and destructive economic,...