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Spanish-Style Riots Coming To A Country Near YouJames GuzmanDollar Vigilante BlogApril 15, 2014 Screams and sirens pierce the air as rocks, firecrackers, and sharp glass go flying in every direction. Police try to beat back the hordes of protesters by smashing indiscriminately into the crowd with their billy clubs. This was the scene recently in Madrid, Spain, as tens of thousands of people took to the streets to fight against the budget cuts and tax increases put into place by Mariano Rajoy, the current Prime Minister of Spain. The protesters chanted “no more cuts” as they demolished storefronts and threw...

Recent weeks have led to a fairly significant drop in stock valuations, with many expert analysts struggling to figure out exactly why it’s happening. You’ll hear them cite the weather, or market overreaction, or any number of reasons for why stocks have seen their share prices reduced and why they’ll be rebounding in the near-term. What they won’t show you on mainstream financial channels is what’s really happening behind the scenes. Forget about all the minute-by-minute noise for a moment and take a look at the following chart. It gives a very simple overview of earnings growth trends for stocks...

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said today that Americans need to stand up to "a deliberate plan by the president of the United States" to collapse the nation's law enforcement system regarding illegal immigration.

A global clash of nations is underway in full gear. The time is finally right. The urgency is acute. The banking system insolvency is widespread. The illiquidity has reached the surface. The geopolitical chessboard has busy movements of many pieces, even with a delayed check in Ukraine after a devious capture of the Cyprus castle but not the Syrian knight. The Saudi support via OPEC for the Petro-Dollar has fallen out of view, dragging its pummeled chin on the desert sands. The Eastern superpowers are marching arm in arm, ready to challenge the West. It seems the Western leaders, in...

The level of employment in the United States has been declining since the year 2000. There have been moments when things have appeared to have been getting better for a short period of time, and then the decline has resumed. Thanks to the offshoring of millions of jobs, the replacement of millions of workers with technology and the overall weakness of the U.S. economy, the percentage of Americans that are actually working is significantly lower than it was when this century began. And even though things have stabilized at a reduced level over the past few years, it is...

I wish that this were just another bad April Fools' Day joke, but sadly, this story is all too real. Since President Barack Hussein Obama was inaugurated into office a little over five years ago, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have doubled America's publicly held debt, an increase of more than 6.3 trillion dollars: Date                   Debt Held by the Public         Intragovernmental Holdings   Total Public Debt Outstanding 03/31/2014        6,307,310,739,681.66          4,319,566,309,231.42          10,626,877,048,913.08 8/19/2011          12,619,319,113,193.99 ...

Here Are The States That Are Most Likely To Survive A Zombie Apocalypse Megan WillettMar. 26, 2014, 7:33 PM   There's some debate about how to survive the Zombie Apocalypse. Some say science will save us all, some will rely on math, and still others are banking on specialty gadgets. You can buy Zombie Apocalypse survival kits, and there are even Zombie Apocalypse maps that pinpoint where the danger zones would be in a zombie-mergency. But the geniuses at Estately have crunched the numbers and determined which U.S. states are the best prepared for any zombie-related disasters in the...

It's not the managers who are incompetent, it's the organization itself that is incompetent. I received a number of interesting reader responses to my previous entries on the incompetence of the Federal Reserve and the Deep State: The Federal Reserve: Masters of the Universe or Trapped Incompetents? (March 21, 2014) Why Is Our Government (and Deep State) So Incompetent? (March 6, 2014) Some readers thought I was underestimating the power of these institutions to pursue essentially unlimited money-printing and related global strategies. While I understand the apparent power of unlimited money-printing and global Empire, my point (poorly articulated the first...

In this video I discuss the collapse of Obamacare Tune in.

Many like to watch movies or read fiction novels as a way to relax and get away from work and other stresses of day-to-day life. I, on the other hand, find non-fiction to be much more interesting than almost anything dreamed up by a fiction writer. So, when I want to relax and get away from things I like to read and watch non-fiction books and documentaries. Given what is going on in China lately I have been nearly obsessed learning about China's history. It is easily one of the most interesting cultures on Earth with thousands of years of...

The U.S. government and the Russian government have both been forced into positions where neither one of them can afford to back down. If Barack Obama backs down, he will be greatly criticized for being "weak" and for having been beaten by Vladimir Putin once again. If Putin backs down, he will be greatly criticized for being "weak" and for abandoning the Russians that live in Crimea. In essence, Obama and Putin find themselves trapped in a macho game of "chicken" and critics on both sides stand ready to pounce on the one who backs down. But this is not...

What you have to keep in mind is that back in 2008 we had one of the greatest financial crises the United States ever faced. The system was on the brink of collapse at that point in time. What the Fed and the federal government did was spend every penny they could, anything they could create or anything they could guarantee. They did everything they could possibly do to keep the system from crashing. They guaranteed all bank accounts. So, they saved the system, but now what they did has not borne fruit. We have not seen an economic recovery....

Genesis Camona was a 22-year-old college student who participated in the protests. She was also a beauty queen, having won the title of Miss Tourism in her home state of Carabobo. According to her uncle, she and her mother were peaceful protestors wanting an end to the 15 years of socialism that have plagued the nation. He stated: ‘There’s no food, no milk, no baby food … It is horrible what is happening in this country,’ Gil said. ‘That’s why she was out at the protest.’ During the demonstrations, she was gunned down by members of armed militias known as...

In order for our current level of debt-fueled prosperity to continue, the rest of the world must continue to use our dollars to trade with one another and must continue to buy our debt at ridiculously low interest rates. Of course the number one foreign nation that we depend on to participate in our system is China. China accounts for more global trade than anyone else on the planet (including the United States), and most of that trade is conducted in U.S. dollars. This keeps demand for our dollars very high, and it ensures that we can import massive quantities...

There are eerie parallels between the stock market's recent behavior and how it behaved right before the 1929 crash. That at least is the conclusion reached by a frightening chart that has been making the rounds on Wall Street. The chart superimposes the market's recent performance on top of a plot of its gyrations in 1928 and 1929. The picture isn't pretty. And it's not as easy as you might think to wriggle out from underneath the bearish significance of this chart.

20 Signs That The Global Economic Crisis Is Starting To Catch Fire Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/14/2014 23:20 -0500 Australia Central Banks China default Evans-Pritchard Fail Federal Reserve Fitch fixed France Global Economy Greece Housing Prices India Italy Japan Nikkei None Quantitative Easing ratings Too Big To Fail Turkey Ukraine Unemployment inShare 12 Submitted by Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse blog, If you have been waiting for the "global economic crisis" to begin, just open up your eyes and look around. I know that most Americans tend to ignore what happens in the rest of the world because...

If you have been waiting for the "global economic crisis" to begin, just open up your eyes and look around. I know that most Americans tend to ignore what happens in the rest of the world because they consider it to be "irrelevant" to their daily lives, but the truth is that the massive economic problems that are currently sweeping across Europe, Asia and South America are going to be affecting all of us here in the U.S. very soon. Sadly, most of the big news organizations in this country seem to be more concerned about the fate of Justin...

Venezuela And Argentina: The Party Is Over Latin America’s weakest economies are reaching breaking-pointThe Economist Feb 1st 2014 WHEN the euro crisis was at its height it became commonplace for struggling European economies to insist that they were not outliers like Greece. Whatever their woes, they declared, Greece’s were in a class of their own. In Latin America, by contrast, the unwanted title of outlier has two contenders: Argentina and Venezuela. Both have been living high on the hog for years, blithely dishing out the proceeds of an unrepeatable commodities boom (oil in Venezuela; soya in Argentina). Both have been...

Some HSBC customers have been prevented from withdrawing large amounts of cash because they could not provide evidence of why they wanted it, the BBC has learnt. Listeners have told Radio 4's Money Box they were stopped from withdrawing amounts ranging from £5,000 to £10,000. HSBC admitted it has not informed customers of the change in policy, which was implemented in November. The bank says it has now changed its guidance to staff. New rules Stephen Cotton went to his local HSBC branch this month to withdraw £7,000 from his instant access savings account to pay back a loan from...

Event Phases: Phase 1 – Pre-Event Phase 2 – The Event Occurs. Phase 3 – Reaction of the General Public to the Event. Phase 4 – Government Reaction to the General Public’s Reaction to the Event. Phase 5 – Individual Reaction to the Governments Reaction to the Event: Phase 6 – Stabilization of Situation Post Event. Phase 7 – Long Term Adjustment of Population and Governments to Situations Resulting from the Event.

Have you been paying attention to what has been happening in Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, Ukraine, Turkey and China? If you are like most Americans, you have not been. Most Americans don’t seem to really care too much about what is happening in the rest of the world, but they should. In major cities all over the globe right now, there is looting, violence, shortages of basic supplies, and runs on the banks. We are not at a “global crisis” stage yet, but things are getting worse with each passing day. For a while, I have felt that 2014 would turn...

Did you know that financial institutions all over the world are warning that we could see a “mega default” on a very prominent high-yield investment product in China on January 31st? We are being told that this could lead to a cascading collapse of the shadow banking system in China which could potentially result in “sky-high interest rates” and “a precipitous plunge in credit“. In other words, it could be a “Lehman Brothers moment” for Asia. And since the global financial system is more interconnected today than ever before, that would be very bad news for the United States as...

Travel Restrictions. Confiscation of wealth. Food Shortages. Squatters Rebellions. Riots. Martial Law.

Like Enron, Greece, and Donald Trump before us, America is about to go bankrupt. Unfortunately, our bankruptcy will probably be more Enron and less Donald Trump because we're very unlikely to come back bigger and better in the lifetime of anyone reading this column. Instead, most Americans are probably going to experience skyrocketing taxes, spiraling inflation, widespread disorder, and a dramatically reduced standard of living. This isn’t a crisis that our great-grandchildren will have to figure out one day. To the contrary, it's entirely possible it will occur within the next decade and unless we make big changes no one...

European UnionIf you are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the "economic collapse", just open up your eyes and look at what is happening in Europe. The entire continent is a giant economic mess right now. Unemployment and poverty levels are setting record highs, car sales are setting record lows, and there is an ocean of bad loans and red ink everywhere you look. Over the past several years, most of the attention has been on the economic struggles of Greece, Spain and Portugal and without a doubt things continue to get even worse in those nations. But in 2014 and...

Archbishop Schevchuk: As a teenager, at that time I was not aware of the dangers because it was completely a secret and every teenager had his own secret. Neither my mother nor my father were aware of this and this was my personal secret. It was after a year that I understood the dangers that could have resulted had I been discovered by the secret police. My parents: my mother was a music teacher and my father was an engineer. Had I been discovered my parents would have lost their jobs. Many people in Ukraine, in the past, who were...

Late last week it was learned that some 40 million charge cards were obtained using physical processing systems located in Target retail locations nationwide. Though no details of the how the hack attack was executed have been released by Target, the FBI or other agencies investigating the breach, it is likely that the processing machines themselves were compromised. Target claims that the hack was sophisticated, but on the technical side, once hackers found a way into the credit card processing machines, probably via remote entry from servers somewhere in Eastern Europe or Russia, the theft of credit card data itself...

The Democratic Party gained prominence in the first half of the nineteenth century as being the party that opposed the Second Bank of the United States. In the process, it tapped into an anti-state sentiment that proved so strong that we wouldn't see another like it until the next century. Its adversaries were Whig politicians who defended the bank and its ability to grow the government and their own personal fortunes at the same time. They were, in fact, quite open about these arrangements. It was considered standard-operating procedure for Whig representatives to receive monetary compensation for their support of...

In just the last twelve months Congressional members and top level administrators at the Department of Homeland Security have warned of threats to the national power grid so serious that should they occur life in America as we have come to know it would change almost instantly. Former DHS head Janet Napolitano, in a letter to her successor, advised that “a massive and serious cyber attack” on the US Homeland is imminent and that a “natural disaster — the likes of which the nation has never seen — is also likely on its way.” This was followed up by a...

Seven people seriously hurt after part of Shaftesbury Avenue theatre collapsed during The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time .

Numbers of public sector unions in Wisconsin collapsed in the wake of an historic vote that ended on Thursday. The unions are acutely feeling the impact of Act 10, Governor Scott Walker’s controversy-generating collective bargaining reforms of 2011. The reforms require public sector unions to hold annual recertification votes. In order to be certified as unions by the state, the labor groups must get the approval of over 50% of their members. For several weeks now the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission has been holding an open and ongoing vote for over 400 unions, mostly made up of public school teachers...

Broke on Fox News within the last hour. The Apollo theater was showing a family show “The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime.” Injuries have been reported.

A week from now, the Federal Reserve System will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding. Resulting from secret negotiations between bankers and politicians at Jekyll Island, the Fed's creation established a banking cartel and a board of government overseers that has grown ever stronger through the years. One would think this anniversary would elicit some sort of public recognition of the Fed's growth from a quasi-agent of the Treasury Department intended to provide an elastic currency, to a de facto independent institution that has taken complete control of the economy through its central monetary planning. But just like the...

Some of the most respected prognosticators in the financial world are warning that what is coming in 2014 and beyond is going to shake America to the core. Many of the quotes that you are about to read are from individuals that actually predicted the subprime mortgage meltdown and the financial crisis of 2008 ahead of time. So they have a track record of being right. Does that guarantee that they will be right about what is coming in 2014? Of course not. In fact, as you will see below, not all of them agree about exactly what is coming...

A paper currency system contains the seeds of its own destruction. The temptation for the monopolist money producer to increase the money supply is almost irresistible. In such a system with a constantly increasing money supply and, as a consequence, constantly increasing prices, it does not make much sense to save in cash to purchase assets later. A better strategy, given this scenario, is to go into debt to purchase assets and pay back the debts later with a devalued currency. Moreover, it makes sense to purchase assets that can later be pledged as collateral to obtain further bank loans....

MARK LEVIN: They've got this massive debt reduction bill that cuts $23 billion over ten years and no future Congress will change its mind. Ever, never. He promises this. This would be the same Johnny Boehner who just two years ago -- really almost two and a half years ago -- signed off on the debt ceiling deal. Remember that one that had the sequestered cuts in it? And they're not going to back off of that, until they back off of it. No, ladies and gentlemen I will repeat what I told Paul Ryan yesterday. And you've heard it...

"We already live in a financial economy in which the debt and capital markets exceed the value of the real economy by far," Marc Faber explains to Germany's Finanzen100, "and that's before the current formation of bubbles." His most ominous warning, and one that fits perfectly with the seeming insanity of Federal Reserve (and all developed market central banks) is that "the next time a bubble bursts, then the capitalist economic system as we know will falter."

Socialism: As the U.S. fixates on ObamaCare, south of our border another "free and universal" health care system is collapsing, according to a report from the Associated Press. It's an uneasy portent. The idea of free, universal health care has always seemed like a perfect solution. At least that was the thinking behind Venezuela's constitutionally enshrined "right" to free health care since 1999, winning the late President Hugo Chavez a lot of elections and seeming to be the logic behind ObamaCare. But post-Chavez, Venezuela's health care system is a shambles. Massive shortages of basic supplies plague both public and private...

Moments ago BitCoin hit $395, and will likely cross $400 in the immediate future (the chart looks a little less scary in log scale). So as more and more pile into the electronic currency, some due to ideological reasons, some simply to chase momentum, some out of disappointment with the manipulated gold price looking to park their savings in an alternative, non-fiat based currency, which a year ago traded 40 times lower, the attention of the government is finally starting to shift to what has been the best performing asset class in the past year, outperforming even the infamous Caracas...

An essay comparing the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, 73 years ago today, to the near future collapse of the American civil society, from a blogger with the FR Seal of Approval. -- I. TACOMA NARROWS 73 years ago today, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in Washington State collapsed. The way in which it collapsed was brought on by a positive-feedback situation, where the destructive force was only bounded by the structural integrity of the bridge itself. There are some serious lessons in this collapse for the future of American society. First, let's get a basic understanding of why the...

In the first three parts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) of this disheartening look back at a century of central banking, income taxing, military warring, energy depleting and political corrupting, I made a case for why we are in the midst of a financial, commercial, political, social and cultural collapse. In this final installment I’ll give my best estimate as to what happens next and it has a 100% probability of being wrong. There are so many variables involved that it is impossible to predict the exact path to our world’s end. Many people don’t want to hear about...

Washington state legislator Rep. Matt Shea (R) says preparation is crucial to get ready for what he calls "the inevitable collapse" of the US economy. The Self-Reliance Rally event at an Idaho State Park had several speakers encouraging attendees to prepare by gathering arms and ammunition and considering forming militias. "When it happens, we need to look at this as a opportunity, not a crisis," Shea said. "Who's job is liberty? That's our job." Shea told the crowd to stock up on ammunition, stay in shape, practice shooting, learn self defense and special tactics. He related a story from when...

The U.S. unemployment rate dropped 0.2 percentage point to 7.4% in July and a broader measure of unemployment fell to 14% from 14.3%, but there was good news and bad news behind the declines. The drop in the main unemployment rate was driven by both positive and negative factors. Most of the drop was due to more people finding work. Some 227,000 more people said they were employed in July compared with June. But at the same time the overall labor force dropped by 37,000, a possible sign of discouraged long-term jobless dropping out. [] While the number of people...

Most astute observers and analysts understand that the world is on the brink of a widespread economic collapse. Our debt, the expansion of the U.S. police state, the militarization of governments, and geo-political posturing are all pointing to an end to life as we have come to know it in the modern world. We know it’s coming. The question is when? What signs should we be looking for? What will be the catalyst? The following micro documentary from Storm Clouds Gathering examines the complexity of the variables involved, the intentions of those making the decisions, and the various possibilities –...

Bix Weir is a tireless advocate for manipulation-free gold and silver markets. Weir says, “They are printing money, and the reason to control the price of gold is to control the perception the U.S. dollar is a sound currency.” The manipulation game is not going to go on much longer. Weir proclaims, “We’re at a point in our system and in the manipulation where people within the Fed and within our government are ready to pull the plug on the game and basically crash the system.” Weir goes on to say, “You’re looking at a complete wipeout of all debt...

Something peculiar has been going on the treasury market during the latest round of quantitative easing (QE). If we study the chart provided below we find that treasury rates increased as soon as a QE-program was enacted, and fell immediately after its termination. Take the TSY 10 year for example; as soon as QE1 was implemented rates rose rapidly from a low of 2.08 per cent to a high of 4.01 per cent. What is striking about this is the fact that the low was set three days into the program, while the high was set three days after the...

Economic blogger and author, Charles Hugh Smith, joins Rick for an in-depth discussion on cycles and why he foresees a banking crisis in 2015. Other cycles covered are cycles of war, and climate.

For over a month, JPMorgan managed to mysteriously avoid matching up the gold held in its (world's largest) vault with the Comex delivery notice update. However, as of today, that particular can will be kicked no more. Starting yesterday, JPM reported that just under 12,000 ounces of Eligible gold (the same Registered gold that two days earlier saw its warrants detached and convert to eligible) were withdrawn from its warehouse 100 feet below CMP 1. But it was today's move that was the kicker, as a whopping 90,311 ounces of eligible gold were withdrawn, accounting for a massive 66% of...

As the FED turns up the heat in the central bank frying pan, the frogs (public) don't realize they are being cooked to death by inflation. I am quite amazed how loud the sizzling sound has become, but for some odd reason hardly anyone notices it. Unfortunately, we are well past the point of no return. It's only a matter of time now before the whole "Financial Cliff" falls off the mountain side. Until then, gold and silver investors will have to put up with some of the worst analysis ever to come out of government and MSM. You see...

Greece and, for that matter, the rest of Europe are showing cracks again this morning. The Dollar is screaming higher (how's that "dollar collapse" thesis working out?) Gold is around $1,200; up fractionally on the day, but in general not in good shape -- and making a mockery of the "Gold to $5,000" callers. Interest rates are again going up, while The Fed is trying to claim that they really didn't say that they were going to taper. But that's a lie, because they have to stop the QE. This isn't about wanting to exit, it's about being forced to...