Steve Quayle live Friday night 6/15/12

Join Hawk and Steve Quayle for the latest breaking updates on the Euro Zone Crisis and how this could well affect our lives here in the U.S.

Euro Collapse Imminent

With Greece wanting out of the EC and further economic woes hitting all the ‘PIGGS’, some are reporting that the Euro has collapsed, at least unofficially.

 

A bit of background: MSM has reported that there have been huge capital outflows from Greece, in the billions per day and now Spain. It isn’t like this is just falling from the sky unannounced. Remember Ireland, Italy and Portugal all have been in the news with bailouts of some sort over the past year or two. The press has played this well, sort of like the frog in water who slowly dies as the water begins to heat up and boil.

 

Now it appears we might have hit critical mass with the problems in the EC. The Bailouts will continue to happen as we see more and more capital outflows, they will continue to get larger and larger as the liquidity issues mount. Much like the U.S. the ‘quantative easing(printing money) will be to infinity.

 

Which brings me to the point of this piece, as more money is printed and less and less economic activity there to back it up we will begin to see inflation hit the goods and services that we use on a daily basis. Moreover, the typical assets like real estate will most likely not enjoy such price inflation as no one will have the buying power to afford such purchases and without buyers prices will not rise as will prices in basic commodities, such as food and gas.

 

The governments are trying to fill the financial hole created by the banks and their insane lending and ‘betting’(read derivative) practices which have still not come to full force. We have been given a small insight into the destructive power of these instruments in the recent JP Morgan debacle, losing 2 billion in one 3 month period. There are trillion upon trillions of these dangerous bets floating around the world. When the music stops, we will all pay!

 

How can you prepare for this catastrophe should it come to pass (again many are saying that it is coming to pass right now!)?

 

I for one own some gold and silver, probably not enough but some. Many survivalists disagree with this strategy saying you can’t eat or drink the metals. I agree there but also see them as a short term solution to the things that I might need but haven’t seen that need yet. I do own quite a bit of storable foods, all organic, non-GMO foods that are high in nutrition. I urge everyone to educate themselves on the value of nutrition versus calories. Both are necessary but good nutrition is critical. Water is another necessity and I am fortunate enough to live very close to a river and own a gravity filter system to clean it up.

 

I hope everyone is somewhat prepared, if not physically mentally for what appears to be coming over the horizon. Stay Strong!

Another Large Japanese Earthquake

Just a couple of days after the 1 year anniversary the earth apparently decided to draw a bit more attention to the area and gave the NE area of Japan, one of those devastated last year, another large earthquake, 6.8 magnitude, and small tsunami.

 

As an aside, some of the Japanese people have filed to stop the restart of Nuclear plants in some areas.

 

Magnitude 6.8 earthquake strikes Japanese coast, tsunami wave hits coast

 

By Shingo Ito in Tokyo

From: AFP

March 14, 2012 10:50PM

 

 

japan quake

 

An earthquake close to Japan caused a small tsunami to reach shore.

 

20cm tsunami wave hits Japan’s northeastern coastline

6.8 magnitude quake struck around 210km off the coast

Agency confirmed an earlier 10cm wave had hit land

 

A small tsunami wave has hit Japan’s northeastern coastline, officials say, after a strong earthquake rocked the region a year on from the country’s worst post-war natural disaster.

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Today’s 20cm wave and 6.8 magnitude quake, which struck around 210km off the northern island of Hokkaido, prompted local authorities to issue an evacuation warning for coastal residents before it hit land.

 

Japan’s meteorological agency also confirmed that an earlier 10cm wave had hit land.

 

The waves hit two locations in Aomori prefecture, which was one of the areas in Japan’s northeast devastated by last year’s disaster.

 

The agency had initially said a tsunami could be as high as 50cm, but US monitors said there was no Pacific-wide tsunami threat.

 

The quake struck at a relatively shallow 10km below the seabed at 6.09pm local time (8.09pm AEDT).

 

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology said the tsunami posed no threat to mainland Australia, its islands or territories.

 

The tsunami warning – which was lifted at 9.40pm – comes after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake triggered a monster wave on March 11 last year that killed more than 19,000 people and crippled Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant.

 

The tsunami swamped cooling systems at the Fukushima site and sent three reactors into meltdown, spewing radiation into the environment and sparking the world’s worst atomic accident in a generation.

 

There were no immediate reports of damage at nuclear facilities in the area affected by today’s quake.

 

A spokesman for Tohoku Electric Power, which operates two nuclear power plants in the country’s northeast, said the facilities were unaffected.

 

“There was no damage to our nuclear power facilities following the earthquake,” he told AFP.

 

“We have not monitored any change in radiation levels around the facilities following the quake.”

 

The meteorological agency also warned the tsunami could reach the Kuril islands, off Hokkaido, which Russia has controlled since Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II.

 

On Sunday, Japan fell silent to remember last year’s tragedy, with tearful families gathering in towns and villages across the country’s shattered northeast to remember those they lost when the towering waves smashed ashore.

 

Tens of thousands were forced to evacuate a 20km exclusion zone immediately around the Fukushima plant, while many families with small children moved away from the prefecture completely.

 

At Sunday’s anniversary, thousands protested against nuclear power in demonstrations across the world.

 

Japan has temporarily shut most of its 54 commercial nuclear reactors, but plans to re-open the plants has set off a highly-charged debate in a country prone to earthquakes.

 

On Monday, a group of Japanese citizens filed a lawsuit to prevent the restart of a nuclear power plant, warning that there was little proof the reactors would were quake-resistant.

 

The disaster also hammered Japan’s already struggling economy, stoked fears about radioactive contamination in the food chain and set off multi-billion dollar reconstruction efforts.

 

I don’t know about you but living in an earthquake zone close to the coast would be somewhat silly if you weren’t prepared with an escape route and some supplies cached on high ground. Escaping the immediate threat is one thing, then you have to survive.

Earth and Asteroid on Collision Course?

So NASA has confirmed that a huge asteroid is headed on a possible collision course for earth. I really don’t know what to say about this one. It would be a huge event for the entire world and many people will certainly die.

 

There are many possibilities for this to be ‘fixed’ and one has to wonder, with all the cuts aimed at NASA is this a fabrication or is it real?

Blast it or paint it: Asteroid to threaten Earth in 2013

To avert a possible catastrophe – this time set for February 2013 – scientists suggest confronting asteroid 2012 DA14 with either paint or big guns. The stickler is that time has long run out to build a spaceship to carry out the operation.

 

­NASA’s data shows the 60-meter asteroid, spotted by Spanish stargazers in February, will whistle by Earth in 11 months. Its trajectory will bring it within a hair’s breadth of our planet, raising fears of a possible collision.

 

The asteroid, known as DA14, will pass by our planet in February 2013 at a distance of under 27,000 km (16,700 miles). This is closer than the geosynchronous orbit of some satellites.

 

There is a possibility the asteroid will collide with Earth, but further calculation is required to estimate the potential threat and work out how to avert possible disaster, NASA expert Dr. David Dunham told students at Russia’s University of Electronics and Mathematics.

 

“The Earth’s gravitational field will alter the asteroid’s path significantly. Further scrupulous calculation is required to estimate the threat of collision,” said Dr. Dunham, as transcribed by Russia’s Izvestia. “The asteroid may break into dozens of small pieces, or several large lumps may split from it and burn up in the atmosphere. The type of the asteroid and its mineral structure can be determined by spectral analysis. This will help predict its behavior in the atmosphere and what should be done to prevent the potential threat,” said Dr. Dunham.

 

In the event of a collision, scientists have calculated that the energy released would equate to the destructive power of a thermo-nuclear bomb.

 

In response to the threat, scientists have come up with some ingenious methods to avert a potential disaster.

­Fireworks and watercolors

 

With the asteroid zooming that low, it will be too late to do anything with it besides trying to predict its final destination and the consequences of impact.

 

 

A spaceship is needed, experts agree. It could shoot the rock down or just crash into it, either breaking the asteroid into debris or throwing it off course.

 

“We could paint it,” says NASA expert David Dunham.

 

Paint would affect the asteroid’s ability to reflect sunlight, changing its temperature and altering its spin. The asteroid would stalk off its current course, but this could also make the boulder even more dangerous when it comes back in 2056, Aleksandr Devaytkin, the head of the observatory in Russia’s Pulkovo, told Izvestia.

2012 DA14 orbit diagram

2012 DA14 orbit diagram

Spaceship impossible?

 

Whatever the mission, building a spaceship to deal with 2012 DA14 will take two years – at least.

 

The asteroid has proven a bitter discovery. It has been circling in orbit for three years already, crossing Earth’s path several times, says space analyst Sergey Naroenkov from the Russian Academy of Sciences. It seems that spotting danger from outer space is still the area where mere chance reigns, while asteroid defense systems exist only in drafts.

 

Still, prospects of meeting 2012 DA14 are not all doom and gloom.

 

“The asteroid may split into pieces entering the atmosphere. In this case, most part of it will never reach the planet’s surface,” remarks Dunham.

 

But if the entire asteroid is to crash into the planet, the impact will be as hard as in the Tunguska blast, which in 1908 knocked down trees over a total area of 2,150 sq km (830 sq miles) in Siberia. This is almost the size of Luxembourg. In today’s case, the destination of the asteroid is yet to be determined.

 

I would get prepared, spiritually, mentally and physically if I were you. Of course, these are all areas that all of us should be working on all the time!

Rising Gas Prices

Everyone is talking about the ‘new’ economic recovery yet gas prices are rising and may torpedo the process. Let’s face it, our economy responds to consumer purchases and with higher gas prices there is less left for us to buy anything.

 

The article below might help you find the best gas prices, the pennies, nickels and dimes you save add up over the long term. So for what it is worth….

 

 

ust as the economic recovery begins to accelerate, another roadblock has jumped in the way. In this case it’s America’s old familiar enemy: Rising prices at the gas pumps. The national average cost for regular unleaded gasoline is already 8% higher this year alone, now at $3.529 a gallon, according to AAA.

 

This is the highest price point ever seen this early in the year. Seasonally prices rise heading into the Summer driving season, but never has the average price of gasoline topped $3.50 this earlier in the New Year.

 

Furthermore, gasoline demand has dropped 10%; meaning Americans are driving less but the amount of money we’re spending on gasoline is rising.

 

As individuals we can’t do much about price hikes but Gregg Laskoski of GasBuddy.com says there are some things we can do to minimize the damage done to our personal finances every time to fill the tank. In the attached clip Laskoski discusses 5 ways to find cheap gas prices.

 

1. Track Prices Via Websites and Mobile Apps

 

Is your local station gauging you? The only way to know is to be aware of what you should be paying. Thanks to the Internet, drivers can drill down and find the average price by zip code. Laskoski’s Gasbuddy.com, Gaspricewatch.com or scores of other web sites or mobile applications make it easy to find gas stations taking the least amount of profit from consumers.

 

2. Inconvenience Yourself

 

It shouldn’t come as much of a shock but the easier it is to find a gas station, the more you’re going to pay. Laskoski says gas stations just off the highway cost more than others just down the way. If you’re willing to spend an extra ten minutes in your car you can find stations that make it time well spent. And, avoid affluent areas; that gas station conveniently existing right in the middle of town is likely charging a premium.

 

3. Fill Up at the Right Time

 

Urban legend says gas prices are lowest during hours when most folks are sleeping, from midnight to 5am. Laskoski debunks that myth, but says there is a best time to fill-up that most people wouldn’t think of: Wednesday. Gas prices are highest on weekends when the most people are out on the road. Filling up in the middle of the week saves you both sleep and money.

 

4. Mind the Fine Print on Your Credit Card & Reward Programs

 

Many companies offer “club” membership at their stations but the real savings come somewhere else. Liskoski says to look for partnerships between your local gas retailer and other merchants. Often times pairing the right card with the right grocery store is where you’ll find the benefits.

 

5. Get Out of the Car (Opt for Self-Service)

 

Despite the near-death of full-service, many gas stations will give you the option of having an attendant fill it up. The next time you’re tempted, take note of the premium being charged per gallon and start doing some math. At a reasonable-sounding quarter per gallon premium, you’re going to pay $5 more to fill a 20 gallon tank. One stop per week for a year works out to $260 a year for the right to sit in your car.

 

The bottom line is gasoline prices are going higher for all of us, and likely to get much worse. We can’t reverse that trend but with a few simple tips we can ease the pain, if only a little bit.

 

Let us know if you have other tips in the comment section below, visit us on Facebook, or Tweet me @Jeffmacke

 

For more money-saving ideas check out Yahoo! Shopping!

 

Good luck in the days to come. I hope this will help you save a few bucks.

More saber rattling in Iran…WW III coming?

The news never stops when it comes to Iran vs. The West/Israel. It certainly looks as if an armed conflict is on the horizon. The belligerence from all parties is getting pretty intense in my opinion.

 

With Russia and China both supporting Iran, looks like they are itching to see the pawns at play…Will the U.S. take the bait? Or will someone in D.C. become suddenly enlightened and figure a way out of this mess.

 

A war will be devastating for the population and the world economy. Then again, going further down the bunny hole, maybe that is what the power elite want…less people and more control over resources…anything is possible in my opinion.

 Iran threatens to hit any country used to attack its soil

 

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran will target any country used as a launchpad for attacks against its soil, the deputy Revolutionary Guards commander said, expanding Tehran’s range of threats in an increasingly volatile stand-off with world powers over its nuclear ambitions.

 

Last week, Iran’s supreme clerical leader threatened reprisals for the West’s new ban on Iranian oil exports and the U.S. defense secretary was quoted as saying Israel was likely to bomb Iran within months to stop it assembling nuclear weapons.

 

Although broadened and sharpened financial sanctions have begun to inflict serious economic pain in Iran, its oil minister asserted Saturday it would make no nuclear retreat even if its crude oil exports ground to a halt.

 

Iran says its nuclear program is for civilian energy purposes. But its recent shift of uranium enrichment to a mountain bunker possibly impervious to conventional bombing, and refusal to negotiate peaceful guarantees for the program or open up to U.N. nuclear inspectors, have thickened an atmosphere of brewing confrontation, raising fears for Gulf oil supplies.

 

“Any spot used by the enemy for hostile operations against Iran will be subjected to retaliatory aggression by our armed forces,” Hossein Salami, deputy head of the elite Revolutionary Guards, told the semi-official Fars news agency Sunday.

 

The Guards began two days of military maneuvers in southern Iran Saturday in another show of force for Iran’s adversaries associated with tensions over its disputed nuclear program.

 

Sunday Israel appointed a new air force chief who last month, in his position as top military planner, warned publicly that Israel could not deal a knock-out blow to its enemies, including Iran, in any regional conflict.

 

The United States and Israel, Iran’s arch-enemies, have not ruled out a military strike on Tehran if diplomacy fails to resolve the nuclear stalemate. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to visit Washington next month, his office said Sunday, and Israeli political sources said he is likely to meet U.S. President Barack Obama while there.

 

Iran’s Salami did not identify which countries he meant as possible hosts for military action against it.

 

The six, U.S.-allied Arab states in the Gulf Cooperation Council, situated on the other side of the vital oil exporting waterway from Iran, have said they would not allow their territories to be used for attacks on the Islamic Republic.

 

But analysts say that if Iran retaliated for an attack launched from outside the region by targeting U.S. facilities in Gulf Arab states, Washington might pressure the host nations to permit those bases to hit back, arguing they should have the right to defend themselves.

 

The Gulf states that host U.S. military facilities are Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait.

 

THREAT TO SHUT VITAL OIL CHANNEL

 

Iran has warned its response to any such strike will be “painful,” threatening to target Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf, along with closing the Strait of Hormuz used by one third of the world’s seaborne oil traffic.

 

Betraying nervousness about possible blowback from any military strike on Iran, two of its neighbors – Qatar and Turkey – urged the West Sunday to make greater efforts to negotiate a solution to the nuclear row.

 

Speaking at the annual Munich Security Conference attended by top world policymakers, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said an attack would be a “disaster” and the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program could be ended very rapidly.

 

“If there is strong political will and mutual confidence being established, this issue could be resolved in a few days,” he said. “The technical disputes are not so big. The problem is mutual confidence and strong political will.”

 

He added: “A military option will create a disaster in our region. So before that disaster, everybody must be serious in negotiations. We hope soon both sides will meet again but this time there will be a complete result.”

 

Turkey was the venue of the last talks between Western powers and Iran a year ago which ended in stalemate because participants could not even agree on an agenda.

 

Qatari Deputy Foreign Minister Khalid Mohamed al-Attiyah said an attack “is not a solution, and tightening the embargo on Iran will make the scenario worse.

 

“I believe that with our allies and friends in the West we should open a serious dialogue with the Iranians to get out of this dilemma. This is what we feel in our region.”

 

Tehran has warned several times it may seal off the Strait of Hormuz, throttling the supply of Gulf crude and gas, if attacked or if sanctions mean it cannot export its oil.

 

A military strike on Iran and Iran’s response, which might include an attack on the oilfields of No. 1 exporter Saudi Arabia, would send oil prices soaring, which could seriously harm the global economy

 

(Additional reporting by William Maclean in Munich and Michael Holden in London; Writing by Mark Heinrich; Editing by Sophie Hares)

 

I suggest prayer and lots of it might be in order here. Appears that the human logic to the situation is lacking.

 

You might want to consider preparing with some food and water stored up at home…just in case.

 

WW III…on the horizon?

In my mind WW III will begin with a strike on Iranian Nuclear facilities. China and Russia are firmly in the Iranian camp. That this will happen is almost a certainty now.

 

The best case is that the ‘super powers’ allow their pawns to fight it out and not get involved directly. Sure lots of covert business will most likely transpire but short of a ‘declaration of war’ or an invasion might keep the contest from spreading.

 

I personally hope and pray that all of this can be avoided. How is anyone’s best guess considering the belligerent stances of everyone involved.

 

By Nicole Gaouette and Jonathan Ferziger – Feb 3, 2012 2:21 PM MT

 

The U.S. and Israel are publicly disagreeing over timing for a potential attack on Iran’s disputed nuclear facilities, as that nation’s leader said it won’t back down.

 

The U.S. and Israel have a “significant analytic difference” over estimates of how close Iran is to shielding its nuclear program from attack, Aaron David Miller, a former Mideast peace negotiator in the Clinton administration, said today.

 

“There’s a growing concern — more than a concern — that the Israelis, in order to protect themselves, might launch a strike without approval, warning or even foreknowledge,” he said in an interview.

 

The differing views were underscored by public comments this week by senior Israeli and U.S. defense officials.

 

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said yesterday that Israel must consider conducting “an operation” before Iran reaches an “immunity zone,” referring to Iran’s goal of protecting its uranium enrichment and other nuclear operations by moving them to deep underground facilities such as one at Fordo, near the holy city of Qom.

‘Nearing Readiness’

 

“The world has no doubt that Iran’s nuclear program is steadily nearing readiness and is about to enter an immunity zone,” Barak said in an address to the annual Herzliya Conference at the Interdisciplinary Center campus north of Tel Aviv. “If the sanctions don’t achieve their goal of halting Iran’s nuclear weapons program, there will arise the need of weighing an operation,” Barak said.

 

The U.S. holds the view that “there is still time and space to pursue diplomacy” with Iran over its nuclear program, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said today in Washington. He added that the U.S. “is absolutely committed to preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons.”

 

In Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said today that his nation won’t abandon its nuclear efforts and warned that a strike against the nuclear program would damage U.S. interests in the Middle East “10 times over,” according to the Associated Press. He said, without providing details, that he would disclose a letter that he said President Barack Obama sent Iran’s leaders.

 

Referring to Israel as a “cancerous tumor,” Khamenei said in his Friday sermon that “if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will help.” He said that Iran has assisted anti-Israel groups such as Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas.

SWIFT Sanctions

 

The U.S. Senate Banking Committee unanimously approved yesterday a bill that would increase the economic pressure on Iran. The proposal targets Iran-related banking transactions, Iran’s national oil company and leading tanker fleet, joint ventures in mining and energy projects. It also would require corporate disclosure of Iran-related activity to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

 

One provision calls on the administration to provide a report to Congress within 60 days detailing Iran-related financial transactions facilitated by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, the Belgian member-owned institution known as Swift, and its competitors. The measure would give the president authority to sanction Swift to cut off such services. A similar bill, with stronger language mandating the imposition of sanctions, was submitted in the House yesterday.

 

Within Israel, there isn’t consensus that striking Iran is either good or necessary. Ephraim Halevy, a former head of Israel’s Mossad security agency, is one of two former intelligence chiefs who have spoken against a strike.

Panetta’s Concerns

 

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declined to comment directly on a report by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius that Panetta believes there is a strong likelihood Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June. Panetta and other U.S. officials have repeatedly warned Israel not to act alone.

 

“Israel has indicated that they’re considering this” through public statements, Panetta told reporters traveling with him yesterday in Brussels. “And we have indicated our concerns.”

 

Israelis think Iran will reach the immunity zone in “half the time the Americans think it will,” Miller said. “To take that difference and talk about a growing rift” between Israel and the U.S. “is by and large an overstatement,” he said.

Obama-Netanyahu Relations

 

Tension between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be complicating communications on the issue, a U.S. defense official said. “There’s no love lost between the two of them, and there’s a trust deficit,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the news media.

 

Defense officials have been concerned that Obama hasn’t warned Netanyahu directly enough about the risks of a Israeli preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, including for U.S. interests in the region such as bases in in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, according to the official.

 

James Clapper, the U.S. director of national intelligence, said Jan. 31 that communication with Israel was good. “We’re doing a lot with the Israelis, working together with them,” he told the Senate intelligence panel.

Unknown Intentions

 

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, has said it is “premature” to resort to military force because sanctions are starting to have an impact on Iran. In a Jan. 26 interview with National Journal, Dempsey said he delivered a similar message of caution to Israel’s top leadership during a visit to the Jewish state in early January.

 

U.S. intelligence agencies think Iran is developing capabilities to produce nuclear weapons “should it choose to do so,” said Clapper.

 

“We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons,” he said.

 

While leaders of both countries agree that time must be given to gauge the impact of the latest set of economic sanctions on Iran, Israel’s patience is shorter than that of the U.S., Ephraim Kam, deputy director of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, said.

‘Too Late’

 

“It will take at least six months to see whether sanctions are effective and by then it may be too late,” said Kam, author of the 2007 book, “A Nuclear Iran: What Does it Mean, and What Can be Done.”

 

“We’re definitely using different clocks,” he said.

 

Israeli Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz told the Herzliya conference on Feb. 1 that his nation must be “willing to deploy” its military assets because Iran may be within a year of gaining nuclear weapons capability. Gantz said international sanctions are starting to show some results.

 

Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s vice prime minister and its former top military commander, played down Iran’s ability to shelter its activities from a military attack. “It’s possible to strike all Iran’s facilities, and I say that out of my experience as IDF chief of staff,” he said at the conference, referring to the Israeli Defense Forces.

 

The U.S., its European allies and the International Atomic Energy Agency have challenged the government in Tehran to prove that its nuclear work is intended only for energy and medical research, as Iranian officials maintain.

 

Mehdi Khalaji, an Iran specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said in an interview that he doubts that the U.S. or Iran will launch a military strike this year. Rather, he cited the possibility than Iran might stage a provocation and use any response as an excuse to launch an asymmetrical attack against U.S. and Israel targets using proxies such as Hezbollah

 

My advice is to keep praying for peace and preparing for some hard times to come….food, water, guns and ammo. Preparedness is not a bad idea especially considering the hardship you could experience if you don’t…

Actions of a Police State

Even if you disagree with what the Occupy participants are protesting, although I can’t see how you could,they have the right to protest..in my opinion.

 

Further, the actions by the police in almost every instance of the ‘clearing them out’ exercises has been rather violent and intimidating and has resulted in needless injuries and arrests. The more the police state raises its ugly head the more galvanized we should all become!

 

Why do Wall Street Bankers get off with but a slap on the hand, if that, yet protesters, most of whom are non violent, are being harassed and thrown into jail? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

 

It is time to change America…past time!

 

 

Associated Press

 

WASHINGTON – Dozens of U.S. Park Police officers in riot gear and on horseback converged before dawn Saturday on one of the nation’s last remaining Occupy sites, with police clearing away tents they said were banned under park rules.

 

At least seven people were arrested in the move, which left large swaths of open space at the encampment and raised questions about exactly what would remain.

 

Police said they were not evicting the protesters. Those whose tents conformed to regulations were allowed to stay, and protesters can stay 24 hours a day as long as they don’t camp there with blankets or other bedding. Police threatened to seize tents that broke the rules and arrest the owners.

 

The police used barricades to cordon off sections of McPherson Square, a park under federal jurisdiction near the White House, and checked tents for mattresses and sleeping bags and sifted through piles of garbage and other belongings. Some wore yellow biohazard suits to guard against diseases identified at the site in recent weeks. Officials also have raised concerns about a rat infestation.

 

By Saturday afternoon, seven were arrested, including four who refused to move from beneath a statute and three who crossed a police line.

 

The National Park Service, which has allowed the protesters to remain in the park for months, has said it will give protesters notice if police decide to clear the park.

 

Protesters had braced for a confrontation when the park service said it would start enforcing the ban Monday, though no crackdown happened until Saturday.

 

Despite what police said, some protesters said the crackdown amounted to eviction.

 

“This is a slow, media-friendly eviction,” protester Melissa Byrne said. “We’re on federal property, so they have to make it look good.”

 

The officers poured into McPherson Square just before 6 a.m., some on horseback and others wearing routine riot gear. As a helicopter hovered overhead, they shut down surrounding streets and formed neat, uniform lines inside the park.

 

The police initially turned their focus to dragging out wood, metal and other items stored beneath a massive blue tarp — which protesters call the “Tent of Dreams” — that had been draped around a statue of Maj. Gen. James McPherson, a Union general in the Civil War. Protesters agreed to remove the tent.

 

Later, in a lighter moment, Park Police used a cherry-picker to remove a mask of 17th-century English revolutionary Guy Fawkes that had been placed on the statue.

 

The mood turned more tense, with occasional shoving, in the afternoon as protesters complained police were indiscriminately seizing tents.

 

Jeff Light, a lawyer who represents a couple of Occupy protesters and who was at McPherson Square, said he expected to challenge the police actions in court. He said he was frustrated because a lawyer for the government had said there were no plans to seize tents that complied with the regulations.

 

“Here they are,” Light said, “doing something different than what they said in court.”

 

The Washington demonstration is among the last remaining Occupy sites, enjoying First Amendment protections by virtue of its location on federal park service property.

 

Similar to the New York protesters, who strategically occupied a park near Wall Street to highlight their campaign against economic inequalities, the District of Columbia group selected a space along Washington’s K Street. The street is home to some of the nation’s most powerful lobbying firms

 

At every opportunity write about the police state, put up your personal experiences. Heck try to write one of the insensitive B*^&%$# in Congress…we must put forth the effort.

Unemployment Numbers Not as Good As Headlines

The not so funny thing about labor statistics, especially unemployment numbers, are the multiple ways to evaluate them and of course, Main Stream Media’s attempts to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear!

 

It appears that over 1 million jobs have just evaporated, thus reducing the overall workforce…ie people with real jobs. So the reverse is that some people just dropped out of the calculation of unemployment, which of course will make that number look better since there are fewer people unemployed included in the final calculation.

 

Also, there appears to be a ‘softening’ in the quality of jobs. Higher paying jobs are losing ground to the lower paying manufacturing and construction jobs. This is good and bad, more of the later mean that some type of rebound might be remotely possible now. Maybe, just maybe some of our manufacturing jobs are coming home! We can only hope this is the start of a trend….

 

 

It’s the headline that a President facing re-election with a dismal economic record didn’t want to see:

1.2 million people driven out of the workforce in a single month!

A frantic White House exploded into damage-control mode, as a deeply shaken President Obama retreated into his chambers. Nervous spokesmen fanned across the airwaves to stammer apologies, search for silver linings among the storm clouds, offer campaign boilerplate about “hope and change,” and desperately search for some way to blame George Bush for an absolute unemployment disaster that occurred over three years after he left office…

 

What’s that, you say? You didn’t see that headline? Well, of course not, silly. All you’re seeing in the headlines is good news, because the official, heavily-massaged U-3 unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent. Fewer people in the workforce means the percentage of unemployed people in the workforce drops.

 

ZeroHedge is incredulous:

 

A month ago, we joked when we said that for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he has to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55%. Looks like the good folks at the BLS heard us: it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million.

 

No, that’s not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation.

 

As for the quality of jobs, as withholding taxes roll over Year over year, it can only mean that the US is replacing high paying FIRE jobs with low paying construction and manufacturing. So much for the improvement.

 

Now, I suspect that while a lot of people dropped out of the workforce last month, part of what we’re seeing here is some numerical mutation that caused an abnormally large chunk of the labor-force reduction from the past year to be piled into a single month. There was some decent overall job creation in January, with about 243,000 jobs added to non-farm payrolls, and a nice 50,000 job bump in the manufacturing sector. That total is good enough to modestly outpace current population growth. With the usual backwards adjustment to previous months, it looks like the final quarter of 2011 pretty much kept pace with population growth.

 

However, the fact remains that even as we get back to the (dismal) 8.3 percent U-3 unemployment we last saw in February 2009, the work force is about half a million people smaller in absolute numbers, and that doesn’t include the increase in the working-age population over the past two years. Throw them in, and you’re looking at roughly 1.5 million jobs completely vaporized, to the point where they don’t even count in the official, widely-reported unemployment statistics.

 

Measuring unemployment is a complex endeavor, but the headlines always get boiled down to a single, heavily manipulated number, compiled using data that won’t really be finalized for another month or two. It also matters what type of jobs we’re talking about, how well they pay, how long they last, and how they are distributed across both geography and demographics. Whether or not the liberal grousing about “burger flipping jobs” accounting for those low Bush unemployment figures was accurate, the basic point is sound enough – you really don’t want an economy stuffed with minimum-wage, short-term menial labor.

 

There is no way to have sustained, robust job growth with the anemic GDP figures we’ve been seeing, and which the Congressional Budget Office forecasts to get even worse next year, causing unemployment to rise again. If we were experiencing strong job growth, GDP would be growing more as well.

 

But you don’t hear any of that “burger flipper” stuff out of liberals any more. All you’ll hear today is that we’re “moving in the right direction,” even as the American workforce collapses.

 

So the final analysis is: Read deeper into the good news, it isn’t all roses…sure there is some of the smell of roses but in my opinion the crop has not come in yet. Remember the MSM wants you to see the world through their rose colored glasses…to what end you might ask?

WHY CONGRESS MUST BE SCRAPPED OR DRAMATICALLY OVERHAULED

Have you lost confidence in congress? Are you wondering if the democratic process simply continues to place mostly corrupt or at least corruptible individuals into office. Well I have to say that, unfortunately, you are mostly correct in that respect. In order to illustrate the point take a few minutes to view this video about just what goes on in Washington.

I presume that you would agree that change is in desperate need in our nation’s capital.

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