Foreclosues, worst 5 states

We will continue to see more and more foreclosures, especially now that the government has ‘settled’ with the big banks that have abused the entire process from loan to foreclosure.

 

I am wondering what will happen to the funds awarded to the government to ‘help’ those homeowners that have been abused? I suspect that pennies on the dollar will actually end up in the hands of the abused and probably too late to matter, as the government in their efficient execution eats up all the dough and takes their sweet time in doing so.

 

The criminal activities will proceed most likely in many states. It appears to be difficult for these folks to actually follow the law while they use it to protect themselves. Way too much money involved here to not see abuses.

 

What have we come to?

 

States with the most homes in foreclosure

 

Five major U.S. banks accused of foreclosure abuses have agreed to a $26 billion settlement with the government, the largest payout from banks arising from the financial crisis. The amount, which will include aid from banks in the form of loan forgiveness and refinancing, is intended to help homeowners avoid mortgage default and foreclosure. Most economists believe this is a step in the right direction, albeit only a small one.

 

Homeowners in at least 49 states represented in the agreement will benefit, though some states have more homes in trouble than others. California, one the hardest-hit states in the foreclosure crisis, will reportedly receive mortgage relief of up to $18 billion. Based on Corelogic’s national foreclosure report, 24/7 Wall St. identified the states with the highest foreclosure rates.

 

Many of the states with the highest foreclosure rates experienced the worst of the housing crisis. However, analysis by 24/7 reveals that the primary driver of higher foreclosure rates is a lengthy foreclosure process.

 

Nearly all of the states with the highest rates also have the longest foreclosure periods. The average foreclosure process for the nation is 140 days. The average foreclosure process for the eleven states with the highest foreclosure rates is 220. As a result, many homes foreclosed in 2011 in these states were actually at the end of a process that began more than a year ago. New York, one of the states with the worst foreclosure rates, has an average processing period of 445 days.

 

The reasons why the foreclosure processing period is longer in these states is because it usually involves the court system. Judicial foreclosures are handled by the court and usual include filing motions and seeking a final judgment from a judge. Nonjudicial foreclosures, which tend to take less time to process, are governed by state law and do not require court intervention. Nine of the 11 states with the highest foreclosure rates have a judicial-only foreclosure process.

 

While some of the states with high foreclosure rates have had substantial improvements in their economies, others continue to be hit hard. In Nevada and Florida, two states with the highest foreclosure rates, homes lost roughly half of their value over the past five years — and prices are still falling. Foreclosures that began several years ago and that are still active cannot be the only reason nearly 12% of Florida’s homes with mortgages were in foreclosure last year. Home prices in the state fell nearly 50% over the past five years, unemployment remains extremely high, and 17.4% of people with mortgages in the state were 90 days or more late on their mortgage payments.

 

24/7 Wall St. reviewed housing data provided by Corelogic to rank the states that had the highest percentage of homes with mortgages that were in foreclosure in 2011. Corelogic’s report also provided the percentage of homeowners that were delinquent on their mortgages for 90 days or more last year. In order to highlight the conditions of these state economies and housing markets, we included unemployment rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and home price changes from Fiserv-Case Shiller.

 

Check out the five states with the most homes in foreclosure:

 

5. New York

2011 foreclosure rate: 4.6%

December, 2011 unemployment: 8% (23rd highest)

Home price change (2006Q3-2011Q3): -13.6% (23rd largest decline)

Processing period: 445 days

 

New York’s processing period for foreclosures is 445 days — by far the longest among all states. This could explain why the state has such a high foreclosure rate for mortgaged homes. And although New York’s housing prices didn’t decline as much as in other states, the 13.6% decline since the third quarter of 2006 is still quite large. Moreover, home prices are forecast to decrease among the most in the country over the next year and drop nearly 6% by the third quarter of 2012.

 

4. Nevada

2011 foreclosure rate: 5.3%

December, 2011 unemployment: 12.6% (the highest)

Home price change (2006Q3-2011Q3): -59.3% (the largest decline)

Processing period: 116 days

 

For Nevada, things aren’t going well. Its already dismal economy and housing situation are still getting worse. Nevada didn’t experience a glut of foreclosures last year because the state has a particularly lengthy foreclosure process. Between the third quarter of 2006 and the third quarter of 2011, the median home value in the state tumbled by nearly 60%. By the third quarter of this year, Fiserv-Case Shiller projects home prices will fall an additional 13.9% — by far the worst drop in the country. Nevada has the worst unemployment rate in the country, at 12.6%, and 13.4% of mortgage owners were delinquent on payments for 90 days or more last year.

 

3. Illinois

2011 foreclosure rate: 5.4%

December, 2011 unemployment: 9.8% (7th highest)

Home price change (2006Q3-2011Q3): -29% (7th largest decline)

Processing period: 300 days

 

Home prices in Illinois have dropped 29% from the third quarter of 2006 — one of the largest declines in the country. It also takes 300 days to process foreclosures in the state. And Illinois residents are not lining up to pay off their mortgages either. The state’s 90+ day delinquency rate for mortgage payments is 9.2%, the fourth highest in the country.

 

2. New Jersey

2011 foreclosure rate: 6.4%

December, 2011 unemployment: 9% (13th highest)

Home price change (2006Q3-2011Q3): -22.6% (14th largest decline)

Processing period: 270 days

 

New Jersey has one of the longest foreclosure processing periods in the country at 270 days. The state also has a 90+ day delinquency rate of 10.6%, which is the third highest rate in the country. On top of this, the state’s housing market is not expected to rebound for some time. In fact, home prices are forecast to decrease an additional 3.9% by the third quarter of 2012.

 

1. Florida

2011 foreclosure rate: 11.9%

December, 2011 unemployment: 9.9% (6th highest)

Home price change (2006Q3-2011Q3): -49% (3rd largest decline)

Processing period: 135 days

Florida’s 2011 foreclosure rate for mortgaged homes is not only the highest in the country, but it is almost twice that of New Jersey — the state with the second-highest rate. As with many other states on this list, Florida has a very long foreclosure processing period of 135 days. There is more to the state’s high foreclosure rate than just that, however. Home prices dropped 49% since the third quarter of 2006, which is the third-largest drop in the country. The state’s unemployment rate of 9.9% is among the highest as well. Finally, the state’s mortgage payment delinquency rate is 17.4% — the nation’s absolute highest

 

There is some good news though. Several cities in Florida including Miami have seen a bounce in home prices over the last year. Several other cities in the worst hit states have also recovered in home prices somewhat. I hope for the best here.

Scary Facts about the U.S. Debt

The article below list some of the scary facts about the U.S. debt. I would also like to point out the scariest fact of all, that we have politicians up the the District of Criminals that are supposed to represent ‘We The People’ yet they continue to shirk their duties to this country and it’s peoples by spending more than they take in.

 

Part of the responsibility for this scandalous affair lies directly with us, the people of this country that continue to take all the BS these guys hand out with little to no voice about how bad this really is…You might say well we can always throw the bums out if they don’t do as they say. Great in theory yet these rascals continue to behave poorly and pass laws that are quite frankly treasonous.

 

Read and weep!

 

 

 

 

As President Obama unveiled the 2013 fiscal year budget, the nation’s financial situation came back into sharp focus. Experts say partisan gridlock in Washington means the budget will probably go nowhere.

 

Considering this is an election year, however, expect politicians to harp on facts, figures and terms that most Americans weren’t taught in high school. To help out, it’s time to dredge up lots of scary facts to make you pay attention.

 

Before we get going, a quick primer on the number TRILLION:

 

$1 trillion = $1,000 billion or $1,000,000,000,000 (that’s 12 zeros)

 

How hard is it to spend a trillion dollars? If you spent one dollar every second, you would have spent a million dollars in 12 days. At that same rate, it would take you 32 years to spend a billion dollars. But it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend a trillion dollars.

 

And now, some scary facts about the debt and the deficit — some basics:

 

Deficit = money government takes in — money government spends

 

2012 US deficit = $1.33 trillion

 

2013 Proposed budget deficit = $901 billion

 

National debt = Total amount borrowed over time to fund the annual deficit

 

Current national debt = $15.3 trillion (or $49,030 per every man, woman and child in the US or $135,773 per taxpayer)

 

 

[Also see: Who Benefits From the Safety Net]

 

OK, let’s get started!

 

1. The U.S. national debt on Jan. 1, 1791, was just $75 million dollars. Today, the U.S. national debt rises by that amount about once an hour.

 

2. Our nation began its existence in debt after borrowing money to finance the Revolutionary War. President Andrew Jackson nearly eliminated the debt, calling it a “national curse.” Jackson railed against borrowing, spending and even banks, for that matter, and he tried to eliminate all federal debt. By Jan. 1, 1835, under Jackson, the debt was just $33,733.

 

3. When World War II ended, the debt equaled 122 percent of GDP (GDP is a measure of the entire economy). In the 1950s and 1960s, the economy grew at an average rate of 4.3 percent a year and the debt gradually declined to 38 percent of GDP in 1970. This year, the Office of Budget and Management expects that the debt will equal nearly 100 percent of GDP.

 

4. Since 1938, the national debt has increased at an average annual rate of 8.5 percent. The only exceptions to the constant annual increase over the last 62 years were during the administrations of Clinton and Johnson. (Note that this is the rate of growth; the national debt still existed under both presidents.) During the Clinton presidency, debt growth was almost zero. Johnson averaged 3 percent growth of debt for the six years he served (1963-69).

 

5. When Ronald Reagan took office, the U.S. national debt was just under $1 trillion. When he left office, it was $2.6 trillion. During the eight Regan years, the US moved from being the world’s largest international creditor to the largest debtor nation.

 

6. The U.S. national debt has more than doubled since the year 2000.

 

Under President Bush: At the end of calendar year 2000, the debt stood at $5.629 trillion. Eight years later, the federal debt stood at $9.986 trillion.

 

Under President Obama: The debt started at $9.986 trillion and escalated to $15.3 trillion, a 53 percent increase over three years.

 

 

7. FY 2013 budget projects a deficit of $901 billion in 2013, representing 5.5 percent of GDP, down from a deficit of $1.33 trillion in FY 2012, which was the fourth consecutive year of more than $1 trillion dollar deficits.

 

8. The U.S. national debt rises at an average of approximately $3.8 billion per day.

 

9. The US government now borrows approximately $5 billion every business day.

 

[Also see: States with the most homes in foreclosure]

 

10. A trillion $10 bills, if they were taped end to end, would wrap around the globe more than 380 times. That amount of money would still not be enough to pay off the U.S. national debt.

 

11. The debt ceiling is the maximum amount of debt that Congress allows for the government. The current debt ceiling is $16.394 trillion effective Jan. 30, 2012.

 

12. The U.S. government has to borrow 43 cents of every dollar that it currently spends, four times the rate in 1980.

 

You can track the national debt on a daily basis here.

 

And some people wonder why so many people continue to prepare for the worst possible scenario. Is it any wonder after reading the above? I for one continue to prepare for a total economic meltdown.

Trillions in Fake Treasury Bonds Discovered

Authorities just found 6 TRILLION in fake U.S. Treasury bonds in Italy. All I can say is WOW! I also wonder how many more of these are floating around out there…Corruption and Criminals…

 

By Elisa Martinuzzi – Feb 17, 2012 5:18 AM MT

 

Italian anti-mafia prosecutors said they seized a record $6 trillion of allegedly fake U.S. Treasury bonds, an amount that’s almost half of the U.S.’s public debt.

 

The bonds were found hidden in makeshift compartments of three safety deposit boxes in Zurich, the prosecutors from the southern city of Potenza said in an e-mailed statement. The Italian authorities arrested eight people in connection with the probe, dubbed “Operation Vulcanica,” the prosecutors said.

 

The U.S. embassy in Rome has examined the securities dated 1934, which had a nominal value of $1 billion apiece, they said in the statement. Officials for the embassy didn’t have an immediate comment.

 

The financial fraud uncovered by the Italian prosecutors in Potenza includes two checks issued through HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) in London for 205,000 pounds ($325,000), checks that weren’t backed by available funds, the prosecutors said. As part of the probe, fake bonds for $2 billion were also seized in Rome. The individuals involved were planning to buy plutonium from Nigerian sources, according to phone conversations monitored by the police.

 

The fraud posed “severe threats” to international financial stability, the prosecutors said in the statement.

 

HSBC spokesman Patrick Humphris in London declined to comment when contacted by telephone.

 

Phony U.S. securities have been seized in Italy before and there were at least three cases in 2009. Italian police seized phony U.S. Treasury bonds with a face value of $116 billion in August of 2009 and $134 billion of similar securities in June of that year.

 

The U.S. Secret Service averages about 100 cases a year related to bonds and other fictitious instruments.

 

To contact the reporter on this story: Elisa Martinuzzi in Milan at emartinuzzi@bloomberg.net

 

To contact the editor responsible for this story: eevans3@bloomberg.net

 

Be sure to check and recheck your treasuries if you have taken delivery…I would also suggest not buying them on ebay…hehe

Greece Bankruptcy, Money elite’s blackmail

In yet another move to consolidate their (the money elite/global cabal) power over the Greek currency, the demands are for cuts in minimum wage among other conditions. This on top of having had to already collateralize their national monuments, islands etc.

 

The Greek people are understandably ticked off, and plan some pretty big demonstrations as the government (it is a stretch to refer to it as ‘theirs’) continues to negotiate with the powers that be in the EC.

 

Why don’t they look at the Icelandic method? Just tell the international banksters to go fly a kite. Sure things can be hard for a couple of years but then they get better and without compromising the future of every single citizen.

 

 

Papademos Meets Creditors as ‘Sacrifice’ Looms

by Maria Petrakis, Marcus Bensasson and Natalie Weeks – Feb 6, 2012 4:15 PM MT

 

Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos began a second round of negotiations with international creditors in Athens to stave off default as political leaders waver on budget measures and unions call their first general strike of the year.

 

Papademos met with representatives from the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund to continue talks on possible spending cuts that Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said would determine whether Greece can stick to its plan to remain in the euro area.

 

“The salvation of the country, remaining in the euro, means great sacrifices,” Venizelos told reporters in Athens late yesterday after meeting with the so-called troika of representatives. “Failure of these talks, failure of the plan, the country’s bankruptcy, means even greater sacrifice.”

 

With Greece’s stability at stake and the country set to pay a 14.5 billion-euro ($19 billion) bond due on March 20, Papademos will bring the leaders of the three parties supporting him back to the table later today in a bid to forge agreement on terms for a second aid package to prevent the country’s collapse.

 

European leaders stepped up pressure on Greek politicians to meet the conditions of the 130 billion-euro bailout yesterday as Papademos delayed the meeting with party leaders a day. In Paris, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said time is running out. French President Nicolas Sarkozy said there could be no funds without reforms.

 

Allowing Greece to go bankrupt “isn’t an option,” he said.

U.S. and European stocks fell yesterday, driving the Dow Jones Industrial Average down from an almost four-year high, and the euro declined the most in three weeks. German bonds rose, and commodities dropped.

 

Greece’s efforts to win a second bailout from the troika have hung in the balance over the past four days as negotiations in Athens failed to clinch an agreement on measures demanded by lenders, which could include a cut in the minimum wage, lower pensions and immediate layoffs for state employees.

 

The country will sell 625 million euros of 26-week Treasury bills today, a week earlier than usually scheduled to allow for the rollover of 26-week bills due on the Feb. 10. Short-term debt sales like those are the only source of market financing available for the nation. Bonds repayable in 2022 are worth about a third of their face value.

Bailout Package

Euro-area finance chiefs told Venizelos on Feb. 4 that an increase in the bailout package wasn’t forthcoming, underscoring their frustration at a lack of progress on fixing the economy. Keeping Greece from tumbling into default presents what Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer Josef Ackermann calls a “make or break” moment.

 

Venizelos described the talks in Athens as a “Hydra’s head”, a reference to the monster in Greek mythology that grew back more heads than the one cut off.

 

Citigroup Inc. raised the probability that Greece will be forced to leave the euro area in the next 18 months to 50 percent from 25 percent to 30 percent previously.

 

“To remain in the euro area, the Greek government needs to exhibit a minimum degree of compliance with the fiscal and structural conditions of the bail-out program,” Chief Economist Willem Buiter said in an e-mailed note. “The hurdles for Greece set by euro area negotiators to receive the second bail-out are high.”

General Strike

 

Adding to pressure on Papademos and political leaders, the biggest public-sector and private-sector union groups, ADEDY and GSEE, hold a 24-hour general strike today, shutting down government services, courts, schools and ferry services. Dockworkers and bank employees will also walk off the job while a walkout by culture ministry workers will force the closure of museums and other tourist attractions.

 

Public transport in Athens will operate during the day to bring protestors to the city center. Workers from the state-run Hellenic Railways Organization, one of the biggest loss-making state-owned companies, will shut down rail service across the country.

 

“What is taking place isn’t a negotiation,” GSEE president Yannis Panagopoulos said in an e-mailed statement. “It’s raw, cynical blackmail against a whole people.”

 

Administration Minister Dimitris Reppas said the troika asked for 15,000 state jobs to be cut this year, part of plans by Greece to gradually phase out 150,000 employees by the end of 2015. He told Athens-based Mega TV he was opposed to “blind firings”.

Additional Reductions

 

Papademos and the party leaders agreed in a five-hour meeting two days earlier to make additional reductions this year equal to 1.5 percent of gross domestic product.

 

They have yet to iron out differences over policy measures demanded by lenders on recapitalizing banks, ensuring the viability of pension funds and reducing wages and non-wage costs to boost competitiveness.

 

Greece still needs to agree on 600 million euros of fiscal measures for 2012, a government official told reporters in Athens yesterday.

 

The troika argues that lower wage costs is among reforms necessary to boost competitiveness in the country. Those opposed say the cuts would deepen the country’s recession, now in its fifth year.

 

Antonis Samaras, the head of the second-biggest party, New Democracy, has indicated he will oppose measures that will deepen the country’s downturn.

Guarantees Key

 

Guarantees from Greek political leaders such as Samaras, who leads in opinion polls, are key to securing the funds from the EU and IMF. International lenders want assurances that whoever wins the next election will stick to pledges made now to receive financing.

 

George Papandreou, the former prime minister who leads the Pasok socialist party, the biggest in the Greek parliament, proposed that Papademos’s mandate be extended to boost confidence among lenders the pledges will be implemented.

 

That is an option likely to be opposed by Samaras, who has called for elections as soon as the new financing is agreed.

 

Open questions involve how much more aid Greece needs, how much more austerity is required, and how to involve the ECB in the private-sector creditor debt swap.

Rescue Blueprint

 

The rescue blueprint includes a loss of more than 70 percent for bondholders in a voluntary debt exchange that will slice 100 billion euros off 200 billion euros of privately-held Greek debt and loans that will probably exceed the 130 billion euros now on the table. A formal offer for the debt swap must be made by Feb. 13 to allow all procedures to be completed before the March 20 bond comes due.

 

Creditors are prepared to accept an average coupon of as low as 3.6 percent on new 30-year bonds in the exchange, said a person familiar with the talks, who declined to be identified because a final deal hasn’t been struck yet.

 

Greece has lagged behind budget targets set when it won an initial, taxpayer-funded rescue of 110 billion euros in May 2010, prompting euro-area threats to cut off aid. The country’s economy shrank 6 percent last year, according to the most recent IMF estimates, the budget deficit is still close to 10 percent of GDP and unemployment is about 18 percent.

 

Even after a second bailout, Greece may be saddled with too much debt, too little growth and too large a budget hole to do without even more money, which euro nations led by Germany are increasingly reluctant to offer.

 

The only way out for Greece is “a reduction in debt, progress on wages, on labor costs and the commitment by the Europeans to extend funds for as long as it’s needed,” International Monetary Fund chief economist Olivier Blanchard said in Washington yesterday. “Under these three conditions it’s still a terribly ugly and unpleasant path but it is at least one which can be tried.”

 

To contact the reporters on this story: Maria Petrakis in Athens at mpetrakis@bloomberg.net; Natalie Weeks in Athens at nweeks2@bloomberg.net; Marcus Bensasson in Athens at mbensasson@bloomberg.net

 

I wonder why people wonder why Occupy Wall street and other groups throughout the world are protesting. This global financial catastrophe has affected virtually everyone on the planet. A few for the better, the majority for the worse!

Gold & Silver continue to climb

When you see the world printing more and more paper money you always find more and more people fleeing to hard assets like Gold and Silver. Real estate, thanks to the rascals on Wall Street, is no longer an option as prices continue to fall amid the overhang in supply and foreclosures.

 

Gold and Silver are set to really get going this year as the printing presses work over time putting more ‘liquidity’ in the system…If it weren’t for the real estate crisis you would see inflation in the broader measures. Already you are seeing some price inflation in food.

f

 P.M. Kitco Metals Roundup: Comex Gold Ends Firmer, At 2-Month High; Bulls Have Technical Power
2 February 2012, 2:04 p.m.
By Jim Wyckoff
Of Kitco News

Kitco News) – Comex April gold futures prices ended the U.S. day session higher and near the daily high as bargain hunters stepped in to buy the early dip in prices. Prices hit a fresh two-month high today and bulls continue to build upon their upside near-term technical momentum. April gold last traded up $9.10 at $1,758.60 an ounce. Spot gold was last quoted up $12.80 an ounce at $1,756.25. March Comex silver last traded up $0.348 at $34.155 an ounce.

 

Gold and silver both started their rallies right around the time of Thursday morning’s testimony by Fed Chairman Bernanke to the U.S. House of Representatives. While Bernanke said nothing really new or surprising, he reiterated the U.S.’s path to better economic times remains a tough one. It’s likely that gold rallied in part due to Bernanke’s general reaffirmation of last week’s FOMC statement that pledged continued low interest rates well into 2013 and hinted more quantitative easing could be forthcoming—which was bullish for the precious metals.

 

The U.S. dollar index was slightly higher Thursday on a short-covering bounce following recent selling pressure. The dollar index bears still have some downside near-term technical momentum. Crude oil prices traded sharply lower Thursday and hit a fresh six-week low of $95.44 a barrel. Crude oil bulls are fading and that did somewhat limit the upside for gold and silver Thursday. Crude oil and the U.S. dollar index will remain the two key “outside markets” that will have a daily influence on gold and silver price moves.

 

There were a few fresh developments coming out of the European Union debt crisis Thursday. A Spanish bond auction saw mixed results but with lower yields fetched.

A debt- restructuring deal between the Greek government and the private sector has still not been reached, but an agreement is closer, reports said. The EU debt crisis appears to have stabilized for the moment. But if recent history plays out again, the EU debt crisis will be back on the front burner of the market place.

 

The London P.M. gold fixing was $1,751.00 versus the previous P.M. fixing of $1,740.00.

 

Technically, April gold futures prices closed nearer the session high Thursday and hit a fresh two-month high. Gold managed gains despite bearish “outside markets” that saw a firmer U.S. dollar index and sharply lower crude oil prices. Yet, gold rallied anyway on its technical strength. Gold bulls have the solid overall near-term technical advantage and still have upside near-term technical momentum on their side. A steep five-week-old uptrend is in place on the daily bar chart. Bulls’ next upside technical breakout objective is to produce a close above solid technical resistance at the December high of $1,769.70. Bears’ next near-term downside price objective is closing prices below chart trend-line and psychological support at $1,700.00. First resistance is seen at Thursday’s high of $1,763.80 and then at $1,769.70. First support is seen at $1,750.00 and then at Thursday’s low of $1,743.30. Wyckoff’s Market Rating: 8.0.

 

March silver futures prices closed nearer the session high Thursday and hit a fresh 2.5-month high. Silver also scored gains despite bearish “outside markets” that saw a firmer U.S. dollar index and sharply lower crude oil prices—showing its near-term technical strength. Silver bulls have the solid overall near-term technical advantage. A five-week-old uptrend is in place on the daily bar chart. Bulls’ next upside price breakout objective is closing prices above solid technical resistance at the October high of $35.68 an ounce. The next downside price breakout objective for the bears is closing prices below solid technical support at this week’s low of $32.93. First resistance is seen at Thursday’s high of $34.35 and then at $35.00. Next support is seen at $34.00 and then at Thursday’s low of $33.455. Wyckoff’s Market Rating: 7.0.

 

March N.Y. copper closed down 535 points 378.85 cents Thursday. Prices closed nearer the session low. The key “outside markets” were in a bearish posture for copper Thursday, as the U.S. dollar index was firmer and crude oil prices were sharply lower. Copper bulls still have the near-term technical advantage. Prices are in a six-week-old uptrend on the daily bar chart. Copper bulls’ next upside breakout objective is pushing and closing prices above major psychological resistance at 400.00 cents. The next downside price breakout objective for the bears is closing prices below solid technical support at 367.50 cents. First resistance is seen at 380.00 cents and then at 385.00 cents. First support is seen at this week’s low of 376.30 cents and then at 375.00 cents. Wyckoff’s Market Rating: 6.0.

 

Follow me on Twitter! If you want daily, or nightly, up-to-the-second market analysis on gold and silver price action, then follow me on Twitter. It’s free, too. My account is @jimwyckoff .

 

By Jim Wyckoff contributing to Kitco News; jim@jimwyckoff.com

 

I am always on the look out for dips in prices to buy more Gold and Silver…Silver especially!

Collaborative consumption as a potential model for a sustainable world

What do we all crave if it is not happiness and part of that is having our needs met, both from fresh foods, good housing, good company and more. In this presentation below consider this new model with an open mind. It is very different from what we have been taught to buy into but it certainly speaks to our humanity on many levels.

EU Agrees on Iran Oil Embargo to Target Nation’s Nuclear Program

Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) — European Union foreign ministers agreed to ban oil imports from Iran starting July 1 as part of measures to ratchet up the pressure on the Persian Gulf nation’s nuclear program, Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal said.

“As of July 1, we have a ban on the import of oil and oil products from Iran,” Rosenthal said in Brussels today. He said the EU was looking at ways to help limit damage from the ban on countries like Greece that are dependent on the oil imports from Iran and that possible “compensation” would have to be decided before the full ban comes into force.

Iran has threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf passageway for about 20 percent of globally traded oil, if the EU and the U.S. impose stricter sanctions. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait ship crude and liquefied natural gas through the strait.

“We can keep the Strait of Hormuz open and we will do what is necessary to achieve that,” Ivo Daalder, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, said in a BBC Radio 4 interview today.

Full Article

Did you realize we had dropped this far? Census shows 1 in 2 people are poor or low-income

Our current situation is leading many Americans to reconsider their priorities and determine how to move forward in a challenging world. Perhaps we have been unrealistic or perhaps simply the victims of unscrupulous politicians and greedy corporate factions. Read the article below but also be mindful and inquisitive, since solutions do abound, frequently obscured by the media distractions we face so often. Some of the most important ones have to do with being more self reliant.

 

Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income.

The latest census data depict a middle class that’s shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government’s safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.
“Safety net programs such as food stamps and tax credits kept poverty from rising even higher in 2010, but for many low-income families with work-related and medical expenses, they are considered too ‘rich’ to qualify,” said Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan public policy professor who specializes in poverty.
“The reality is that prospects for the poor and the near poor are dismal,” he said. “If Congress and the states make further cuts, we can expect the number of poor and low-income families to rise for the next several years.”
Congressional Republicans and Democrats are sparring over legislation that would renew a Social Security payroll tax reduction, part of a year-end political showdown over economic priorities that could also trim unemployment benefits, freeze federal pay and reduce entitlement spending.
Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, questioned whether some people classified as poor or low-income actually suffer material hardship. He said that while safety-net programs have helped many Americans, they have gone too far. He said some people described as poor live in decent-size homes, drive cars and own wide-screen TVs.
“There’s no doubt the recession has thrown a lot of people out of work and incomes have fallen,” Rector said. “As we come out of recession, it will be important that these programs promote self-sufficiency rather than dependence and encourage people to look for work.”
Mayors in 29 cities say more than 1 in 4 people needing emergency food assistance did not receive it. Many formerly middle-class Americans are dropping below the low-income threshold — roughly $45,000 for a family of four — because of pay cuts, a forced reduction of work hours or a spouse losing a job.
States in the South and West had the highest shares of low-income families, including Arizona, New Mexico and South Carolina, which have scaled back or eliminated aid programs for the needy. By raw numbers, such families were most numerous in California and Texas, each with more than 1 million.
The struggling Americans include Zenobia Bechtol, 18, in Austin, Texas, who earns minimum wage as a part-time pizza delivery driver. Bechtol and her 7-month-old baby were recently evicted from their bedbug-infested apartment after her boyfriend, an electrician, lost his job in the sluggish economy.
After an 18-month job search, Bechtol’s boyfriend now works as a waiter and the family of three is temporarily living with her mother.
“We’re paying my mom $200 a month for rent, and after diapers and formula and gas for work, we barely have enough money to spend,” said Bechtol, a high school graduate who wants to go to college. “If it weren’t for food stamps and other government money for families who need help, we wouldn’t have been able to survive.”
About 97.3 million Americans fall into a low-income category, commonly defined as those earning between 100 and 199 percent of the poverty level, based on a new supplemental measure by the Census Bureau that is designed to provide a fuller picture of poverty. Together with the 49.1 million who fall below the poverty line and are counted as poor, they number 146.4 million, or 48 percent of the U.S. population. That’s up by 4 million from 2009, the earliest numbers for the newly developed poverty measure.
The new measure of poverty takes into account medical, commuting and other living costs as well as taxes. Doing that pushed the number of people below 200 percent of the poverty level up from the 104 million, or 1 in 3 Americans, that was officially reported in September.
Broken down by age, children were most likely to be poor or low-income — about 57 percent — followed by seniors 65 and over. By race and ethnicity, Hispanics topped the list at 73 percent, followed by blacks, Asians and non-Hispanic whites.
Even by traditional measures, many working families are hurting.
Following the recession that began in late 2007, the share of working families who are low income has risen for three straight years to 31.2 percent, or 10.2 million. That proportion is the highest in at least a decade, up from 27 percent in 2002, according to a new analysis by the Working Poor Families Project and the Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit research group based in Washington.
Among low-income families, about one-third were considered poor while the remainder — 6.9 million — earned income just above the poverty line. Many states phase out eligibility for food stamps, Medicaid, tax credit and other government aid programs for low-income Americans as they approach 200 percent of the poverty level.
The majority of low-income families — 62 percent — spent more than one-third of their earnings on housing, surpassing a common guideline for what is considered affordable. By some census surveys, child-care costs consume close to another one-fifth when a mother works.
Paychecks for low-income families are shrinking. The inflation-adjusted average earnings for the bottom 20 percent of families have fallen from $16,788 in 1979 to just under $15,000, and earnings for the next 20 percent have remained flat at $37,000. In contrast, higher-income brackets had significant wage growth since 1979, with earnings for the top 5 percent of families climbing 64 percent to more than $313,000.
A survey of 29 cities conducted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors released Thursday points to a gloomy outlook for those on the lower end of the income scale.
Many mayors cited the challenges of meeting increased demands for food assistance, expressing particular concern about possible cuts to federal programs such as food stamps and WIC, which assists low-income pregnant women and mothers. Unemployment led the list of causes of hunger in cities, followed by poverty, low wages and high housing costs.
Across the 29 cities, about 27 percent of people needing emergency food aid did not receive it. Kansas City, Mo.; Nashville, Tenn.; Sacramento, Calif.; and Trenton, N.J., were among the cities that pointed to increases in the cost of food and declining food donations. Mayor Michael McGinn in Seattle cited an unexpected spike in food requests from immigrants and refugees, particularly from Somalia, Burma and Bhutan.
Among those requesting emergency food assistance, 51 percent were in families, 26 percent were employed, 19 percent were elderly and 11 percent were homeless.
“People who never thought they would need food are in need of help,” said Mayor Sly James of Kansas City, Mo., who co-chairs a mayors’ task force on hunger and homelessness.

A nation under paranoia is a nation easily manipulated, stressed and impacted on many levels including health

If you are constantly under stress it will start to affect your immune system. Awareness of the facts is important and learning how to deal with stress is also imperative. In this article from Natural News, read how we as a nation have been grossly manipulated with fear especially since September the 11th. Read also how stress will directly affect your health and immune system and how you can remedy that. Below is the Natural News article.

(NaturalNews) What if there weren’t any real terrorists threatening America and the whole thing was just made up to justify a military agenda? A rational person might say that if we’re all going to give up our rights, and our Fourth Amendment, and have U.S. troops in the streets running checkpoints, then logically there should at least be some evidence that America has been infiltrated with terrorists, right? Or, more specifically, evidence from a reliable source that has not already been caught lying about terrorism, which would exclude the federal government, of course.

Look around you today: Do you see any terrorists? Any “towel heads” aiming guns at your family? Anybody walking around with a vest full of explosives? Nope.

Have you ever seen the TSA catch a terrorist at the airport? Ever read a news report of the TSA catching a terrorist? Ever heard of an Air Marshall stopping a terrorist in-flight? Nope.

Have you ever heard of the FBI halting a terrorist plot that they didn’t fabricate, plan and carry out themselves? (All the terror plots “stopped” by the FBI are, on the record, planned and carried out by the FBI itself.) (http://www.naturalnews.com/033751_F…)

Seriously. Clear the cobwebs out of your head for a moment and think logically: Where are all these “terrorists” that we’re supposed to be afraid of and give up our rights for? Where are they?

Now, of course, the government can and will, from time to time, stage some sort of terrorist event to remind everyone to be afraid. That’s a given. In classic Orwellian protocol, any war that grants a government unlimited power will be indefinitely sustained.

This is why the “War on Terror” was declared against a tactic, not a nation or a person. That way, the so-called “war” can be carried out indefinitely. A war with no end. Perpetual tyranny. At first, if you remember, we were told we needed TSA agents at the airports because of Osama Bin Laden, remember? He was the “mastermind” who was going to cause airplanes to fall out of the sky. So what happened after he was killed and removed from the picture? The U.S. government announced the terror threat was now “even higher” because Bin Laden’s loyal supporters would now seek revenge!

Do you see how, under this brand of sick logic, the war on terror will go on indefinitely? They can always claim someone else is dangerous… there’s always a new boogeyman when it serves the interests of the state. That’s why it’s now obvious that this war has been entirely fabricated to achieve specific political and social agendas.

The war on terror is a hoax

The best article yet written on this subject was penned by none other than Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal.

As Roberts explains: (http://www.infowars.com/?p=62008)

“The US government creates whatever new bogeymen and incidents are necessary to further the neoconservative agenda of world hegemony and higher profits for the armaments industry.”

He goes on to provide details:

“If we look around for the terror that the police state and a decade of war has allegedly protected us from, the terror is hard to find. Except for 9/11 itself, assuming we accept the government’s improbable conspiracy theory explanation, there have been no terror attacks on the US. Indeed, as RT pointed out on August 23, 2011, an investigative program at the University of California discovered that the domestic “terror plots” hyped in the media were plotted by FBI agents.”

“As there apparently are no real terror plots for this huge workforce to uncover, the FBI justifies its budget, terror alerts, and invasive searches of American citizens by thinking up “terror plots” and finding some deranged individuals to ensnare. For example, the Washington DC Metro bombing plot, the New York city subway plot, the plot to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago were all FBI brainchilds organized and managed by FBI agents.”

Robert goes on to explain the real motivation behind the war on terror. It’s not to fight terrorism, as has been publicly claimed, but rather to scare Americans into a state of blind obedience to a police state government:

“When I observe the gullibility of my fellow citizens at the absurd “terror plots” that the US government manufactures, it causes me to realize that fear is the most powerful weapon any government has for advancing an undeclared agenda. Apparently, Americans, or most of them, are so ruled by fear that they suffer no remorse from “their” government’s murder and dislocation of millions of innocent people. In the American mind, one billion “towel-heads” have been reduced to terrorists who deserve to be exterminated.”

And commenting on the TSA’s total thuggishness and criminality, Roberts writes:

“One of America’s finest moments is the case, documented on YouTube, of a dying woman in a wheelchair, who requires special food, having her food thrown away by the Gestapo TSA despite the written approval from the Transportation Safety Administration, her daughter arrested for protesting, and the dying woman in the wheelchair left alone in the airport.”

A nation of gullible, paranoia-stricken slaves

What’s really amazing in all this is how easily the American people are sucked into believing all the imaginary fairytale terrorists. These stilted beliefs are driving national decisions about security, defense spending, Presidential elections and even the Bill of Rights.

What America needs to do right now is wake from its dreamy slumber and realize The Emperor Has No Clothes! The war on terror is a fabrication. The whole “if you see something, say something” campaign is a hypnosis script for mass paranoia. The airport security checkpoints are not designed to make flying safer but to make the American people more terrified.

Every element of the so-called “war on terror” is a complete fabrication, just as the original war on Iraq was a total fabrication with its WMDs and fabricated yellowcake uranium claims which turned out to be utter falsehoods.

Of course, if the American people actually got close to waking up and realizing the whole war on terror was a complete fabrication, you can rest assured an event would be staged to instill fear in the minds of the people once again. All the FBI would have to do, for example, is allow one of their many engineered terror plots to continue all the way. The FBI, as you probably know, already provides the terror plots, the weapons, the money, the grenades, ammunition, and anything else necessary for its chosen terror suspects to carry out these acts of violence. It then takes credit for halting these attacks, pretending to be protecting us from the very plots it engineered in the first place (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyAX…) (http://rt.com/usa/news/fbi-usa-terr…).

It obviously wouldn’t take much for the FBI to simply allow a mass shooting in a mall or a sports stadium, for example — even as such acts were carried out with hardware supplied by the FBI itself! Here, crazy kid, take some antidepressant drugs, an AR-15 and some FBI ammunition, and go shoot up the local mall, they might say. And there are crazy enough youngsters in America who would carry it out, sadly.

Such an act would immediately be heralded by the corrupt mainstream media as yet more evidence that we’re “losing” the war on terror and therefore we need police checkpoints at every street corner; we need military personnel strip-searching everyone in U.S. cities; and we need to eliminate cash from society so that we can track everybody’s purchases via electronic instruments. Heck, we need to just end the entire Bill of Rights! Who needs “rights” when all these police are everywhere to protect us, right?

So you can expect such acts of violence to be engineered and unleashed upon America in the very near future by the very institutions that claim to be protecting us from terror. In reality, they are the real terrorists in the classic sense of the word. “Terrorism” means, by definition, the use of fear tactics to achieve a political or social goal. There is no better example that fits the definition perfectly than the Department of Homeland Security itself, which is far more interested in figuring out how to INFECT people with fear rather than to PROTECT them from real terrorism.

America’s government owes the Arab-American community a huge apology

What is especially insidious in all this is how these government elements who fabricate all these terror plots specifically work to entrap Arab Americans and others who “look” like terrorists because they are of Middle Eastern descent.

Through these actions, the U.S. government has unleashed a generation of hatred against Arab-Americans, Iranian-Americans and other groups of completely innocent people who are now subjected to social shunning, ridicule and suspicion by the rest of American society. People of Middle Eastern descent are looked at in America today with the kind of condescending disdain that blacks once suffered under just a few generations ago (and in some areas, even today). Some of the demeaning vocabulary has even been grafted onto the new victims, who are viciously called “sand ni…ers” as if that somehow justifies marginalizing their very existence.

On this historical point, by the way, at least when African Americans were held as slaves, they knew they were enslaved! But all the delusional white people running around America today dialing 911 because they saw some guy using CASH — OMG! — still don’t realize that they are far more enslaved than the plantation workers ever were. All these CNN-watching, clock-punching, government-worshipping morons are slaving away 60 hours a week to feed their money into a system that has already plotted to destroy them (and steal their wealth, too). They are the “mindlessly enslaved masses” of our modern world, and they have no clue they are enslaved at all.

Government is guilty of hate crimes

Getting back to the condemnation of Arab-Americans and others of Middle Eastern descent, that the government has specifically targeted these people to be entrapped in terror plot crimes is one of the most outrageous examples of a hate crime against an entire society. It is shameful beyond belief that a government which wants to make it illegal for citizens to engage in “hate crimes” against other citizens has effectively unleashed the greatest hate crime in history by demonizing huge swaths of American citizens whose parents happened to be Persian, or Kuwaiti, or Iraqi, or Saudi.

You know who is carrying out the real terror in America today? It’s not the “towel heads” to borrow a vulgar a highly inappropriate phrase from those who push this agenda. No, it’s the beer-bellied, white-faced, ego-driven, child-molesting TSA agents who terrorize tens of thousands of innocent air passengers every single day by stripping them down in those secret little rooms behind the security checkpoint naked body scanners — which are themselves another form of electronic strip searches that violate fundamental human rights.

And all the people out there who acquiesce to the tyranny, the in-your-pants searches by the TSA, the restrictions of free speech protests, and the coming “secret detainment” provisions just passed by the U.S. Senate (http://www.naturalnews.com/034291_S…), you are all fools and suckers who have been brainwashed into a state of irrational paranoia.

Those who foolishly believe the fabricated war on terror are the ultimate pessimists

You who have bought into all this fabricated terror nonsense are the worst “doom-and-gloomers” of our time, living your lives in a constant state of fear and despair, fretting about invisible imaginary terrorists who you think are going to magically leap out of your luggage and blow up an airplane. You’ve been indoctrinated by the “if you see something, say something” paranoia, and you’ve been hoodwinked by a bunch of social engineers who know how to manipulate fear to achieve their desired political (and military) agendas.

It’s pathetic. And it’s the oldest trick in the government book, of course: Use the fear of terror to manipulate the public into supporting a police state agenda which concentrates power in the hands of the executive branch, which quickly becomes a military dictatorship. Read your history, folks, or you will stupidly repeat it.

It might also be worth your time to read George Orwell’s 1984novel, as it’s very nearly a blueprint for the Department of Homeland Security’s “perpetual war” fraud.

Germany continues to play chicken with Euro

As I have been saying, this game is far from over! Merkel is not buckling under to ‘outside’ pressure and will take this game to the very end! I don’t think the latest Central Bank Actions will do much for the overall health of the financial system, there nor here, in the medium to long haul…

 

 

Merkel Shuns ECB Role in Favor of Budget Limits

 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to snub investor pleas to back an expanded European Central Bank role in solving the debt crisis, as she pushes her demand for tighter economic ties in Europe as the only way forward.

In the days before a speech to German lawmakers tomorrow outlining her stance for a Dec. 9 European summit, Merkel has repeated her push to rework European Union rules to lock in budget monitoring and enforcement and seal off the ECB from political pressure. That risks a showdown with fellow EU leaders and extends her conflict with financial markets looking for immediate measures to end the contagion.

“The market is questioning Merkel’s tough approach,” Jacques Cailloux, chief European economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London, said by phone today. Investors want “clarity on what the framework will look like and what the financial bridge will look like” to fund euro-area governments and banks that need aid while fiscal ties are negotiated.

Merkel’s refusal to deploy the ECB is a rebuff to President Barack Obama after he exhorted Europe’s leaders to take more action to combat the crisis. The chancellor is loath to agree to follow the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England in policies she views as akin to fighting debt with more debt. Enlisting the ECB in battling the crisis would violate the central bank’s independence and set it on a course of action that might not work, destroying its credibility.

‘Damaging’ Solution

The ECB is independent and must choose its own method of ensuring the euro’s stability “without being praised or criticized” and states must protect that independence by improving their finances, the Westdeutsche Zeitung quoted Merkel as saying in an interview released today. The government sees joint euro bonds as “the wrong remedy in this phase of European development and even damaging,” she told the newspaper.

Underscoring the focus on debt cutting, Germany will propose that each euro country set up a national debt-reduction fund as one way to boost market confidence, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in Berlin today. Each country could pay into the fund every year until its debt level returns to the euro-area limit of 60 percent of gross domestic product, he told reporters.

Merkel’s drive to pursue economic and political convergence may still not be the final word. “You can’t put the cart before the horse,” she said in a Nov. 23 speech to parliament.

Draghi Signals

ECB President Mario Draghi signaled today that the central bank could do more to fight the crisis in return for fiscal union, one day after the ECB joined the Fed and four other central banks to lower financing costs for banks. Michael Meister, the parliamentary finance spokesman for Merkel’s party, has said that greater integration is a precondition for any German rethink of its opposition to “joint liability.”

“If the euro zone succeeds in agreeing on more political integration with clear consequences for breaching fiscal and economic rules, the German government should eventually give up its resistance to euro bonds,” Carsten Brzeski, an economist at ING Group in Brussels, said in a commentary for Bloomberg Brief.

Throughout the market turbulence and conflict with allies, Merkel hasn’t budged, saying that euro bonds aren’t the answer for now. Her refusal to sanction using the ECB clashes with French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government, while her focus on changing Europe’s rules irks countries such as the U.K. and Ireland, where voters twice rejected EU treaties in referendums.

‘More Strictly’

“Not everyone is enthusiastic about treaty change because that requires a difficult process of consensus in individual governments, parliaments and populations for some,” Merkel told reporters on Nov. 29. “Still, I believe that those who give us money for government bonds in Europe expect that we have to ensure enforcement of the Stability and Growth Pact more strictly than in the past.”

Germany is seeking changes to the EU’s rulebook to allow closer monitoring of euro countries’ budgets, with sanctions against persistent offenders and potential veto power over national spending plans wielded by the EU Commission, the EU’s Brussels-based executive. EU President Herman van Rompuy is due to present proposals for treaty change at the Dec. 9 summit.

Merkel, who has signaled she doesn’t want financial markets or even her own economic advisers imposing solutions for the debt crisis, is sticking to the crisis-fighting arsenal built up since Greece, the euro area’s most indebted country, was bailed out in May 2010. Six months later, as Ireland prepared to join Greece in requesting a bailout, Merkel said policy makers have to assert “primacy” over the markets in “a kind of battle.”

No Bazooka

Germany and Europe don’t have “unlimited financial strength” to counter the crisis, Merkel’s chief spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reporters Nov. 28. That’s “why the German government reacts so skeptically to the many calls for Europe to finally free up the really big, final financial reserves, which the Anglo-Saxon world likes to call showing the bazooka.”

In the latest bid to tame the crisis, European finance ministers said yesterday they would seek a greater role for the International Monetary Fund alongside their own bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility.

Schaeuble said the IMF option, along with the EFSF’s ability to buy sovereign bonds and guarantee as much as 30 percent of bond issues by troubled governments, guarantees that all euro-area members will meet their financing needs well beyond the first quarter of 2012.

‘Game of Chicken’

The EFSF looks like “yesterday’s story” as German policy makers play a “huge game of chicken” over future economic and monetary union to achieve their budget-tightening aims, said Jim O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

“How close to the edge do you want to take this?” O’Neill said yesterday in a Bloomberg Television interview with Francine Lacqua. “It needs Germany and the ECB to decide whether they want EMU to exist or not, because that’s how it’s going.”

Merkel and Sarkozy, at a Nov. 24 meeting in Strasbourg with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, agreed to stop discussing the ECB’s role in the debt crisis. Three days later, French Budget Minister Valerie Pecresse, who is also the government’s spokeswoman, suggested that more help from the ECB may be forthcoming if euro states implement tougher budget rules.

“A new fiscal compact” is “definitely the most important element to start restoring credibility,” Draghi told European lawmakers in Brussels today. “Other elements might follow, but the sequencing matters.”

Merkel’s insistence on debt and deficit reduction is yielding results. Crisis-driven government changes in Italy and Spain ushered in leaders who pledge budget cuts, while EU states including France agreed to look at locking debt reduction into its constitution. Forecast growth in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, of 2.9 percent compares with a euro-region average of 1.6 percent this year, according to the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Merkel’s refusal to put more German wealth on the line to save the euro area “is not a categorical rejection,” said Brzeski of ING Group. “It is all about the sequence of events and decisions.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Czuczka in Berlin at aczuczka@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net

 

Buckle up, it promises to be a bumpy ride from here on out! Buy some gold or silver and especially food just in case!

Next Page »