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 by Al Martin Working Class Republicans: Dazed and Confused in the Heartland (6-30-08) Working class Republicans have unfortunately been the greatest victims of Bushonomics. They have, on a percentage basis, seen the greatest numbers of their jobs exported under the Bushonian US Jobs Export Program. They have seen their real wages (net income minus inflation and taxation) lag behind the most of any group. Proportionately they have suffered the highest number of foreclosures on their homes. They have also suffered the highest number of repossessions on their loans for autos, motorcycles, boats, RVs, etc. On a prorated basis, they have also suffered the highest delinquency and default rates in credit cards and home financed lines of credits. Also the investments, traditionally held by working class Republicans like municipal bond funds, have lost as much as 50% of their value in the last six months. One in seven of all municipal bond funds have become illiquid and worthless. About 50 % of high yield funds, which are commonly held by many working class Republicans, have also failed. And, domestic common stock mutual funds, another mainstay of working class Republicans, have performed just as miserably. Working class Republicans have also been the greatest victims through the loss of their pension plans and health insurance. It can not be emphasized enough that Bushonomics, as defined by George Bush, Sr., is “the continuous consolidation of wealth and power into ever higher, tighter and righter hands.” In other words, Bushonomics is a continuous trickle-up of wealth – and working class Republicans have done more than their fair share in making Bushonomics work. Global Banks Warn of Economic “Catastrophe”; Is UBS Failure Coming Next? (6-23-08) Global equity markets, which have already been falling for weeks, came under renewed pressure last week, when on Wednesday (June 18) RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland), one of the largest banks on the planet, warned of dire pending economic conditions, advising clients “to brace for a full-fledged crash in global stock and credit markets.” The PATRIOT Act and You: Repossession, Body Writs and Debtors’ Prison (6-16-08) During the last couple months, we have been seeing that the Bush Cheney Regime is increasingly using the PATRIOT Act to expand the legal power of creditors. This is an absolutely essential step in attempting to reverse record repossession and foreclosure rates. It should be noted that there have also been record arrearages in property taxes and public utility bills, etc. This has become a real threat to the American economy, and it is of course one of the entrails of Bushonomics. Markets Gone Wild. What’s Next? (6-9-08) Friday’s market meltdown -- does it set up for the classic Friday / Monday trade and a new market panic? Inflationary Expectations vs. Economic Reality; Closing the Circle of Bushonomics (6-1-08) As we start to see the end results of Bushonomics and its wealth consolidation, which is working according to plan, we need to be reminded of the statements of the GAO from a half of a year ago, that the bottom 50% of the economic population now accounts for only 25% of the gross domestic product of the nation. Thus, by the classical Smithsonian definition of capitalism, the bottom 50% of the nation has been rendered economically unproductive. In other words, the cost of their consumption exceeds the value of their contribution. This then completes the circle in this country which also represents new investment opportunities, which we will further disclose. First of all, the beginning of this circle is the inordinate rise of inventories of commodities of all types. The coming problem in America? PIMCO Buys Junk: From ‘Dark Pools’ and ‘Dark Markets’ (5-26-08) Is Bill Gross making a “gross” mistake? Bill Gross, head of PIMCO, the world’s largest bond funds manager, has been recently seen on CNBC and Bloomberg consistently pooh-poohing US Treasuries. This seems odd, since most of the PIMCO bond funds are US Treasury oriented. The Fed's Bailout Efforts Turn America Red (5-19-08) So, is the notorious Bush Cabal lapdog Karl Rove really switching sides by being a Fox News commentator and "advising" Democrat candidates in the 2008 elections? Bye-Bye Pension Plans, Roving Hordes of BOVOBS and Here Come Body Writs – Again (5-12-08) Last week we saw increasing signs of further serious deterioration in the nation’s public and private defined benefits and pension system. Attention got refocused on this issue when State Street Bank, which is not only a large commercial and investment bank, but also happens to be the largest manager of public and corporate defined benefit pension plans in the United States, announced that it has taken fresh billions in write-downs due to its investments in subprime et al. Whether It’s Clinton, Obama or McCain, Bushonomics Must Be Maintained (5-5-08) Very simply put, Bushonomics, as George Bush Sr. defined it, is the continuous consolidation of money and power into ever higher, tighter and “righter” hands, which is accomplished by fostering an economic policy that relies on negative debt financed consumption in order to maintain economic growth. The Market Disconnect, Speculative Bubbles & That Popping Sound in the Distance (4-28-08) The disconnect in the markets continues as two-year Treasury notes fell back last week, when in fact news flows would suggest that they should be rising. (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) Wall Street-SEC-Fed Fraud; The Libor Conspiracy (4-21-08) Markets have continued to rally despite ongoing reports of operating losses and increasing asset write-downs. In fact activity in the markets reflects an Alice in Wonderland unreality that is unprecedented in history. It has reached a new level of absurdity even for traditional American Fantasy-Land Economics, which approaches the “Neronomics” (or necronomics as in the economics of death) in the last days of the Roman Empire. FED Actions Hide Global Financial Disaster (4-14-08) The Fed's recent actions in trying to manipulate the markets are masking much deeper and larger problems. In fact, what is becoming increasingly noticeable is that the Fed, having committed a full 40% of its balance sheet to so-called TAF and SuperTAF Short-term Money Auctions, is in a greater risk of running out of money. (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) Wall Street Cheers Bailout by U.S. Taxpayers (4-7-08) The Federal Reserve has engineered a bailout of the failed Bear Stearns bank using JPMorgan Chase in a move that is widely perceived as “corporate welfare” or “Wall Street socialism.” While U.S. homeowners continue to suffer due to the widespread mortgage debacle, Wall Street is being rescued from its risky and speculative deals by the Fed itself in a bailout package, which has effectively become the stealth nationalization of the banking industry in America. In Fed We Trust (3-17-08) The economy of the American Empire is declining daily as shown by the increased volatility of the markets on Friday March 14, which was caused by the near-collapse of Bear Stearns, which would have been finished had not the Fed come to the rescue. The Decline & Fall of the American Empire (Part 2); The Collapse of the Carlyle Capital Scam (3-31-08) The Bush White House is using US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to try to consolidate regulatory powers in the Federal Reserve at the expense of other federal regulatory agencies like the SEC, CFTC, etc. It appears to be another federal centralization of power, as was accomplished through the Department of Homeland Security several years ago. This action would turn the Federal Reserve into a federal "super-agency" which would have control of virtually all securities and investment banking regulations. (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) The Fall of the American Empire; $70/Barrel Oil -- How Soon? (3-10-08) A major meltdown in the markets was narrowly averted on Friday, March 7, when the Federal Reserve announced a doubling of its Term Auction Facility (TAF) money auction from $50 to $100 billion dollars per month (which is effectively 28 day money). In its announcement, the Fed said that the reason it was doing this was because of continuing illiquidity in the nation’s subprime markets, subprime municipal junk and junk bond market. In other words, by this action, the Fed is saying that $50 billion a month is not enough. It is not providing enough short-term liquidity to allow the financial institutions that carry inventories and make markets in these securities to do what they are in business to do -- to maintain liquid markets in these securities. This is very serious indeed. Is a Global Food Shortage Coming? Is the TAF (Term Auction Facility) Another Fed Conspiracy? Don’t Bet on It. (It’s Just Business as Usual) (2-3-08) US banks have “borrowed” $50 billion from the Federal Reserve using a relatively new credit facility called the Fed’s Term Auction Facility (TAF) against what analysts have been calling “dodgy collateral” also known as SIV’s and other mortgage backed paper. What does this mean? Bad News for Momentum Traders: Commodity Funds Create New Speculative Bubble (2-24-08) Last week commodity funds have created what we believe will be a whole new second speculative bubble in commodity prices -- far beyond what their underlying supply/demand equation can support. This bubble, however, is different than the bubble created in 2006, which fell apart in 2007. The Bush Cabal Buys Back America for Pennies on the Dollar (2-18-08) Last week the marketplace revealed yet another consequence of Bushonomics, namely, that the municipal bond market (which we have been warning people to get out of) began to unravel in earnest as liquidity in the municipal bond market simply dried up. By Wednesday’s session, we saw that three out of five municipal bond auctions were simply being cancelled due to lack of bids. In the daily municipal cash market where states, counties, municipalities have to turn to if they are unable to rollover securities, we saw that some districts, including the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, were forced to pay as high as 20% for money last Thursday. We also saw on Thursday in cash-market municipal borrowing that a wide variety of the nation’s counties, ranging from Harris County, Texas, to Bergen County, New Jersey, had to pay between 9% and 11% for money. This is an increase from 4% for money the week before – yet another ominous sign of the diabolical efficiency of Bushonomics. Deflation? Or Inflation? The Debate Rages On... (2-10-08) The Fed has cut rates once again, and the debate of the day remains -- is the US headed for deflation or inflation? What economic pundits are confused about (and it really shows a lack of understanding of Economics 101) is that with this tremendous surge in commodity prices and with interest rates being cut, which is traditionally inflationary, why isn’t there any inflation being created? Bushigula Strikes Again; Bogus Rogue Trader Fall Guy (2-4-08) The Fed cut rates another 50 basis points in line with expectation. This lead to short-covering rallies in all capital markets across the planet. However, that is all these rallies were. Also aiding last week’s advances, despite negative news flows from the United States, included the first decline in the monthly unemployment statistics in three years. This is very significant. Employment is clearly weakening. One of the last pins that was supporting consumption, as it were, is clearly weakening. However, what is really behind the market rallies is this idea in marketplaces that a consortium of global banks is going to come to the rescue of U.S. bond insurers, principally AMBAC and MBIA. Panic in the Markets: Investors Don’t Buy Bush’s Bogus Economic Bailout (1-21-08) The fiscal destruction of USA Inc. has arrived. Last week we saw the loss of $7 trillion of equity in U.S. capital marketplaces. In other words, $7 trillion in total equity value of all publicly traded U.S. capital marketplaces was lost in shareholder, bondholder or other equity stakeholder value. This is the greatest single weekly loss of equity holders ever. And since U.S. citizens hold about 75% of all domestic securities outstanding, they are the ones who felt the brunt of that diminishment. Bush-Cheney Regime Turns USA into United Serfs of America (1-14-08) Even the Bush Cabal has suffered unintended consequences through the practice of its economic policies, namely the enormous accrual of debt and the cost of servicing that debt under the current regime has forced the United States to become dependent on the money of China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Russia, the principal purchasers of U.S. debt, for its continuing existence as a nation state. However, what we have seen more recently is the trickle-down effect of Bushonian economic policies, in that even corporate America is becoming increasingly dependent on foreign monies to stay in business. No More Santa Claus Rallies in the Market? (1-7-08) Will the so-called Santa Claus and January Effect rallies become consigned to the annals of history? Last week markets had their worst first-week-of-January performance since 1932. This is a very dangerous portent -- but what does it exactly mean? The ‘Upside’ of Bushonomics Now and Then: How the Smart Money Makes More Money During Times of Wanton Deficit Spending (12-31-07) And now for something completely different… The post-war agenda made Bushonomics, i.e. government deficit spending and debt-financed consumption, both inevitable and necessary -- as we have previously written. When decisions were undertaken globally, by all nations acting in concert, not to restrain population growth in the post-war global regime, it was necessary for all nation states to change their economies from savings-generated to consumption-generated gross domestic product. The reason why that was necessary is because the old economic order that had existed on the planet, or at least prior to the Second World War, were economies that were based on savings. It could be called “savings-generated economic growth.” The problem with savings-generated growth is that it can only sustain a certain growth in population. Beware: Money Market Funds in Danger (12-24-07) This is the Christmas present from Bushonomics for you in 2007: Collapsing money market & bond funds. If you have your money in so-called money market funds, you may be in danger of losing it all. Why? Because unbeknownst to most, as they say, these funds may be invested in toxic unsaleable CDO’s and SIV’s. The Bushonomics Fire Sale Has Begun; Will Another Clinton Inherit Another Bushonian Mess? (12-17-07) It sure looks that way. The historical parallels are eerily similar. So let us assume that Hillary Clinton is the next President. It’s a reasonable assumption, so that on January 20, 2009, she will be inheriting another Bushonian fiscal mess, just as her husband Bill Clinton inherited the same in 1993. U.S. Conference of Mayors Releases Frightening Report on Housing Debacle (12-3-07) Last week, the U.S. Conference of Mayors came out with an extensive report of the current housing debacle and its projections for 2008. The report that was released was their annual report on the housing debacle, which drew on resources from a variety of associations and government agencies, such as the National Mortgage Brokers Association, National Association of Realtors, The American Bankruptcy Association, the Federal Home Loan Credit Board, etc. This was the most exhaustive report done on the housing debacle and the statistics were nothing short of frightening. This was absolutely the talk of the markets last week. In 2008, the report concluded that U.S. residential real estate will fall in value by another $1.2 trillion. Inflation AND Deflation in the USA? (Financial Doom-and-Gloomers & Gold Bugs Need a Lesson in Economics) (11-26-07) Last week the doom-and-gloomers and the gold bugs got more airtime than ever before because of the global financial apocalypse that is being unleashed. These individuals for the most part, however, are not sophisticated traders, nor are they professional economists. They only want to look at the dollar-gold relationship, which gold bugs talk about ad nauseum. This includes a so-called analyst by the name of Gerard Celente of the so-called Trends Research Institute who is predicting $2,000/ounce gold. Coming soon. He even coined a phrase called “Panic of 2008” ( you got to love the marketing angle). (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) The Old Wall Street Bulls Throw in the Towel… It’s All Falling Apart (The Financial Bloodbath Continues) (11-19-07) Last week was another major turning point in the worldwide financial debacle as prominent investors like George Soros and Jimmy Rogers pronounced the end of the U.S. dollar. Bloomberg reported that Rogers in an interview from Singapore where he has moved his family and business, is urging investors to get out of the dollar. He was quoted as saying, “If you have dollars, I urge you to get out. That's not a currency to own.'' …The dollar fell 9.5 percent this year against a basket of six major currencies as a housing slump slowed the economy and losses stemming from sub-prime mortgage defaults spread among U.S. banks.” Rogers also noted that he was shifting out of all his dollar assets and “plans to buy commodities, Japanese yen, the Chinese yuan and the Swiss franc.” Exposed! Official Lies of the Fed & Treasury; Stagflation Has Already Begun (Will BOVOBs Glow in the Dark?) (11-12-07) US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is publicly proclaiming that he supports a so-called “strong dollar” policy, even while the dollar is crashing around the world and losing value while we sleep. Officials of the Bush Cheney Regime, namely, the Treasury Secretary and the Chairman of the Fed Ben Bernanke, are now forced to publicly tow the regime’s line -- that the United States maintains a strong dollar policy, which, of course, is nonsense. What does his Orwellian double-speak really mean? How the Fed Rate Cut Sustains All Speculative Bubbles & What To Expect in the Future (11-5-07) Once again, by cutting interest rates, the Fed rides to the rescue of the market bubble. The Fed cut rates another 1/4 point as concern over excessive speculation in stock and commodity markets grows… The Anti-Bear Conspiracy: Markets Turned Upside Down (10-29-07) Who will tell the truth about how the markets are being manipulated? The market action we saw last week was unlike anything ever seen before. Particularly in the last two sessions of the week, it demonstrated the unbelievable level of coordinated manipulation that now exists among all markets, not simply in commodity markets, but equity and debt markets as well. This is simply the desperation of the bullish market shills to keep the markets afloat. The October Crash 20 Years Later: What Are Markets in Oil & Gold Telling Us Today? (10-22-07) As a reminder of Black Monday 20 years ago, the markets sold down sharply on Friday, Oct. 19, with the Dow losing nearly 400 points. Right at the end of the session, we saw some of the hedge funds come in with shill bids in the S&P at 1500. That was, by the way, to prevent the S&P cash index from settling below 1500, a key psychological level. And this, of course, has proved to be a common tactic of the hedge funds in their continuous effort to shill the markets. Future Not Bright for ‘Useless Eaters’ (10-15-07) Day by day, Bushonomics is making the future clearer. Wealth consolidation is speeding up. Expatriation is booming, and the newly formed class of so-called useless eaters will be seeing a not very bright future. In fact Bushonomics is accelerating the creation of the useless eater class. So let us paint a picture of what the next decade will look like. The picture became clearer last week with the release of income and wealth dispersion statistics within the United States, as seen on Bloomberg News as well as the newly released Zogby poll on expatriation. Boycott CNBC: Financial Media/ Retail Broker Conspiracy Enters Danger Zone (10-8-07) Somebody has to say it, and I might as well be the one. It’s time to boycott CNBC. Why? Because what I have called Wanton Bullish Shillism has crossed the line. CNBC, in its conspiracy with retail brokerages, who also happen to be advertisers, has continuously attempted to shill the markets and now it has become outright dangerous. In effect CNBC is teaching young investors, people just opening IRA and 401(k) accounts and starting to invest in securities, this “new” concept that “losses are good.” On Friday, October 5th, the segment done by David Faber on CNBC, announced that Merrill Lynch had taken a $4.5 billion loss in the third quarter. The inference then was when you lose $5B, you can sit back and watch your stocks go up. Greenspan Predicts Housing Market Collapse; Hillary Gets Full Support from Bush Cabal (10-1-07) Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan is still flogging his book “The Age of Turbulence,” (said turbulence having largely been caused by his policy decisions) and in the meantime is also predicting the collapse of the housing market. In fact his housing market predictions are frightening, even though what Greenspan is saying is nothing that hasn’t been said before. (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) The Bernanke Fed: Following the ‘Economic Collapse’ Script (9-24-07) This is the long and broad view of what Bernanke is doing with the Fed. He is simply inheriting and following the script, as it were, from the Greenspan Fed. The Greenspan Fed has been roundly criticized for reducing interest rates, thus creating a lot of cheap money, which has fueled speculative bubbles worldwide. Then there are the reasons why nobody applauds him because it’s an area that no one dares talk about… The Legacy of Alan Greenspan: Is He Responsible for the Global Speculative Bubbles?. (9-17-07) The Greenspan Fed policy consistently injected a lot of cheap money into the global economy -- money that was looking for a place to go. When there’s a lot of cheap money, because of a “loose-money” policy, that is very fertile ground for the creation of speculative bubbles in many asset classes. Greenspan is certainly largely responsible for the creation of asset bubbles, which would not have been created were it not for the Fed keeping interest rates too low for too long. Rich Republican Re-Gentrification Goes Global: A Bitch Slap to the Republican Working Class. (9-10-07) Regarding expatriation of US citizens, let us look at who they are, by breaking them down into classifications, like, for instance, retirees, who have expatriated from the United States since the late 1960s, which was the first expatriation wave into Mexico. The Bush-Bernanke Flop: No Safe Harbor For Investors During Current Economic Meltdown (9-3-07) The speeches by George Bush and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke were both flops. Their message? Help for the sub-prime junk bond debacle is NOT on the way. The Great Central Bank and Stock Market Conspiracies (That's Two - Two Conspiracies For the Price of One – And Guess Who's Paying?) (8-27-07) What has kept the sub-prime and related junk paper bubble from breaking and spreading financial ruin throughout the planet? This includes the conglomeration of junk debt and fictitiously priced Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) that were sold to investors around the world. After all, approximately $1.2 trillion of this junk paper has been packaged, repackaged and then sold to oftentimes unwitting buyers. What did the central banks do to keep this global debt bubble from popping? (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) Recession – Inflation – Deflation – Depression – Stagflation - Global Collapse…? (8-20-07) So what did the Federal Reserve do, why did they do it -- and most importantly, what can we expect next? On the Edge of the Precipice: How the Global Market Meltdown Was Averted – For Now… (8-13-07) Equity markets came down sharply last Thursday and most commodity boards also fell, after BNP Paribas, announced that they had effectively closed down the three sub-prime funds that they managed. Part of the problem is what they said as opposed to what their actions really were. This action touched a raw nerve that everyone has been trying to gloss over. In other words, these funds were suspended, meaning redemptions were suspended, which means effectively shutting them down. But it’s not because the funds ran out of money, it’s because they were unable to price the assets in the fund. Dictatorship in America: Protecting Corporate-Government Fraud (8-6-07) George Bush finally got his wish. When Bush became president in 2000, he famously stated, “If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier -- just so long as I'm the dictator.” (source) Now with new executive orders coming out with frequent regularity as well as the notorious PATRIOT Acts I & II and the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the American dictatorship is a fait accompli. (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) Market Analysis: Just a Sell-Off -- Not a Meltdown. So Far… (7-30-07) Global markets shuddered last week as the so-called “fear” bid prompted investors to transfer their holdings to government Treasury bonds, while $526.1 billion (half a trillion dollars) in shareholder wealth was wiped out from the stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500 index. Even though the market rebounded after a sharp drop, the so-called “flight to quality” bid continued amid concerns that the sub-prime mortgage debacle would infect other housing markets, while the yen carry trade, which facilitates cheap credit on a global scale, is now investors’ primary concern. The Multi-Trillion-Dollar Debacle: Anatomy of the Failing Hedge Fund Industry (7-23-07) The investment banks and their hedge funds are using their capital reserves to shore up their disappearing “assets” because of the failure of mortgage backed debt bombs also known as CDOs (Collateralized Debt Obligations), which are over-leveraged derivatives equivalent to junk debt. Bear Stearns is tapped out. Goldman Sachs has pretty deep pockets. But every day, they’re committing $150 million more of their own reserves to prevent having to mark down their junk bond inventories in what’s called “mark to the market.” So who’s actually pressuring them to go “mark to market”? What’s America’s Greatest Export? Junk Debt! And More on the Blackstone IPO Tax Scam (7-16-07) The decline of the American Empire continues apace. According to statistics released by the Department of Commerce last week, and as was widely reported in financial media, America’s leading export has now become junk debt in dollar terms. This is simply incredible for a once mighty manufacturing nation. Hedge Fund Industry Collapses; When Will The Derivative (CDO) Bubble Pop? (7-9-07) People don’t realize that the hedge fund industry has already begun to collapse. It’s just like that little bank in Austria that failed, which signaled the start of the Great Depression, as noted in “The Sound of Music” when the Von Trapp Family had to leave. People don’t pay attention because the hedge fund failures are all relatively small failures, but this year, for instance, an average of two so-called “small” hedge funds are collapsing every week. These are generally considered to be hedge funds with $500 million or less in assets. So who has invested in these hedge funds and how vulnerable are you to this global financial train wreck? The Bush Cabal’s Supreme Court: It’s the Best “Justice” Money Can Buy (7-2-07) This is the story of how Bush Cabal friendly courts help the “consolidation of wealth and power into higher tighter and righter hands,” as George Bush Sr. once said. The Blackstone Group & The Secret History of Bush Cabal Frauds (6-25-07) The Blackstone Group floated a $4-billion Initial Public offering (IPO) on Friday, June 22, 2007, marking a new benchmark of Bush Cabal Fraud. It was comprised of 133 million shares, priced at $31. That was the IPO price. However, what they sneakily did (and this is a come-on or a shill game) was, at the last minute on Thursday night, they authorized their broker dealers, or the syndicate managers handling the IPO, to sell up to an additional 20 million shares to prevent too much of a run-up in the stock on the first day. Why is that done? Because when the Joe Six-Pack Investors see that, they think -- Oh, boy. They’re going to run this stock to $43, (the whisper number around the floor) as extensively reported in financial media. This how you how Financial Media conspires with certain IPOs in order to hype them and get more Joe Six-Pack Investors in there. Then to augment that contention, Blackstone came out (and they waited until Friday morning, about an hour before the stock was going to start to trade) and told their broker dealers that they could actually sell an additional 20 million shares to prevent severe gyrations in the stock. So is the Blackstone Group IPO, the usual Republican pump and dump stock fraud scheme like they were back in the 1980's? The Bond Market “Scare”: What Does It Mean? (6-18-07) Last week’s sell-off in U.S. Treasury bonds was certainly dramatic. The interest rate on the benchmark bonds of other countries has been steadily rising in recent months, while rates on U.S. Treasuries have only really been rising in the last 30 days. What does this mean? Bond yields begin to rise, and conversely the value of bonds fall on the expectation of future inflation. That is still widely believed as the “acceptable” answer in the marketplace. Yet what we see in the United States is consistently falling rates of inflation. Thus it has become to use former Fed Chairman Sir Alan Greenspan’s word a “conundrum” in the marketplace. Google and Wikipedia Continue the Dumbing Down of America (6-11-07) The latest evidence of the dumbing down of America is the recent 24/7 media coverage of the Paris Hilton “controversy,” which supposedly exceeded the media ratings of 9/11. The American people are more interested in celebrities behind bars than they are in falling buildings. So whose agendas are being served? CNBC: Fake Financial News-Analysis as ‘Entertainment’ (6-4-07) CNBC is the best in presenting fake financial news and stock market investing information as entertainment. In fact, CNBC has become the American Empire version of Roman bread and circuses for the Latter Day USA. Stock Fraud Goes Global: Beijing Buys into Blackstone & Goldman Sachs Invents “Private” Stock Exchange (5-28-07) The announcement that Beijing is going to take a 9.9 % holding in the Blackstone IPO is unprecedented. What does this mean? American Life in a Post-Economically Collapsed World: A Contrarian View of Gold (5-21-07) In order to dispel the many myths that have been promoted by the Doom and Gloom Crowd, it’s time to describe in greater detail what Americans can expect in a post-economically collapsed world. Pop! Goes the Bubble: Why P/E Ratios Are Still Important (5-14-07) Market shills in the media tell us that the stock market is in the New New Economic Paradigm, but this is just nonsense -- just as it was in the infamous Dotcom Bubble of 1999-2000. The Yen Carry Trade: Will It Trigger Global Economic Collapse? (5-7-07) The Smart Republican Money says YES. Why Republicans Plan to Lose the 2008 Election (4-30-07) What’s the evidence? First of all there is the lack of initiative and coordination by the Republican National Committee (RNC). By this time, the RNC should have had a complete operational agenda for the 2008 election. They should have a fund-raising calendar. They should have the state party whip’s offices open. And they should be burning up the phones to get the grassroots organizers out. The RNC has done none of this. The Republican front-runners Senator John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani aren’t doing that well either. Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT): The Conspiracy of Silence Between the Democrats and Republicans (4-23-07) The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) is not a new tax, as some people believe. This tax has actually existed, in various forms, since the mid-1970s, but its original intent, of course, was to ensure that citizens with a large amount of unearned income, i.e., dividend interest, capital gain distribution income, etc., who also had substantial amounts of deductions through depreciation, amortization, interest cost, etc., would pay a minimum tax. Often by using what became increasingly exotic tax shelters, wealthy US citizens were able to shelter 100% or more of their “unearned income” and, then by the 1980s, even “earned income.” Hedge Funds: The Ultimate Scam (4-16-07) Hedge funds are like a con-man’s financial Battle of the Bands. Now former hedge fund losers are arraying themselves for the next skirmish. This one can be called “Former Amaranth Losers vs. Former Enron Losers.’ The question is -- which loser will prevail in a race to lose investors the most? The Great Junk Bond Conspiracy (4-9-07) Whatever you call it -- junk bonds or junk debt, it’s all part of a great global conspiracy now. The alarming decline in governmental and corporate credit quality that has occurred under the Bush Cheney Regime, using the fiscally reckless practice of “Bushonomics” (negative-debt-financed consumption) has now become, if you will, an “economic school of thought” that is being embraced worldwide. And this could be the sign of another global debacle… Coming Soon? New Trade War with China – Or US Market Collapse (4-2-07) On Friday, March 30th, there was a surprise announcement by US Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez, who is considered one of the Bush Cheney Regime’s ‘China hawks.’ Gutierrez announced that the United States would file a complaint with the WTO and go ahead with trade sanctions against China regarding hard-coated paper. "This Administration has aggressively enforced our anti-dumping laws to combat unfair Chinese trade," Gutierrez said. "China's economy has developed to the point that we can add another trade remedy tool, such as the countervailing duty law. The China of today is not the China of years ago. Just as China has evolved, so has the range of our tools to make sure Americans are treated fairly. By acting on the petition filed last October, the United States today is demonstrating its continued commitment to leveling the playing field for American manufacturers, workers and farmers.” In essence the United States has decided to slap anti-subsidy duties on imports of glossy paper from China. This move by the United States, which marked a reversal in policy for the first time in more than 20 years, was made to counteract alleged Chinese government subsidies to exporters. So what does this challenge to China really mean? “Private” Equity Group Blackstone Goes “Public” -- What Does This Scam Really Mean? (3-26-07) Private equity group Blackstone has publicly (and ironically) announced that it will go public through an IPO (Initial Public Offering). Even though all of the firm is owned by its partners, it will offer about 20% of the partners’ equity to the “public.” So what does this mean to the so-called small investor? PATRIOT Acts: The Conspiracy Against the Small Investor (3-19-07) Since the passage of the PATRIOT Acts, the conspiracy against the small investor has expanded to unprecedented levels because the Department of Homeland Security has become so intertwined with enforcing regulations by the SEC and CFTC, as well as many other of the nation’s securities regulators. The Hedge Fund Conspiracy: Trigger For A Global Economic Collapse? (3-12-07) So why are hedge funds poised for collapse? Recently I had a conversation with a 28-year-old hedge fund manager responsible for managing $1.2 billion of artificially created, borrowed money. And that’s what everybody should be worried about – the hedge fund industry… The Washington-Tokyo ‘Yen Carry Trade’ Conspiracy (3-5-07) The greatest conspiracy between the United States and Japan was hatched in the post-WW II environment and has become active since about 2003 or so. It is a sublime conspiracy between Washington and Tokyo, with Washington exerting the pressure, and the Bank of Japan going along with it for the same reasons Washington has wanted to flood the world with cheap Japanese money through what is called the “yen carry trade.” Understanding America’s Debt Sovereignty & Why the Bush Cheney Regime Has Sold It (2-17-07) What we mean by debt sovereignty is the ability of a nation state to control its own debt. A nation state whose population is unable to purchase all of the debt issued by that nation state, by the treasury or central bank of that nation state, must rely on foreign capital, or seek foreign capital as purchasers of said debt. The more foreign capital that buys debt, the more sovereignty of that nation is transferred to others. Surreal America and the Collapse of Empire (2-12-07) There is a growing surrealism and a widespread denial that exists in the United States regarding not only the Bush Cheney Regime, but the deteriorating fiscal and corporate financial situation. What this has done, as has happened before in the United States, is that it creates in America, Land of the Naive and Home of the Provincial, a surrealism that is the result of the American empire unraveling. Gold: Everybody’s Favorite Topic (2-5-07) Gold is the asset you want to own as a foundation for the economic instability that will flourish in the next decade. That is not just my speculation. You only need to listen to the Comptroller General of the United States, who uses those very words -- economic instability of the next decade. American Economics: How Short Selling Saved the USA (1-29-07) The United States, that “great experiment,” to use Benjamin Franklin’s words, when he spoke before Congress in Philadelphia on July 5th, 1776, has begun to fail. The United States has always been a nation conceived in debt and built on credit. PATRIOT Acts: The New De Facto Constitution (1-22-07) Last week Attorney General Alberto Gonzales appeared before Senator Arlen Specter, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to testify about the domestic spying program, which has been stalled in its implementation because of squabbles regarding who’s going to run it and who’s going to have the oversight capacity. Initially NSA was exposed by the New York Times in December 2005, as being authorized by Bush to monitor international phone calls and e-mails of citizens without first obtaining a court warrant from FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court. Referring to the right of habeas corpus which guarantees people the right of due process (being formally charged and a “fair” trial), Gonzales said -- “There is no expressed grant of habeas corpus in the Constitution; there’s a prohibition against taking it away.” Specter then said, “The Constitution says you can’t take it away except in case of rebellion or invasion. Doesn’t that mean you have the right of habeas corpus unless there’s a rebellion or invasion?” Gonzales answered, “The Constitution doesn’t say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended except in cases of rebellion or invasion.” Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution states that “the privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” Gonzales talks about the Constitution, but then says nothing about the PATRIOT Act. Why? Nobody wants to refer to the PATRIOT Act because they know it’s not politically popular. The reason why they don’t refer to the PATRIOT Act is twofold. First, it’s politically unpopular to do so. They know it’s not popular with the American people. Public opinion polls consistently show that the majority of Americans didn’t want it. That’s the reason why they don’t refer to it. The Democratic Majority: A Rich Republican’s Best Friend (1-15-07) What I predicted was going to happen is now taking place -- the Democrats are knuckling under to the Bush Cheney Regime’s demands for more corporate welfare packages and more tax cuts for those earning more than $200,000 per annum, in exchange for Republican support for the Democrats’ agenda, including minimum wage, health care and so-called ethics reform. The War on Iraq however is not an issue for anyone – despite the grumbling of some Democrats and even some Republicans. The Democrats are still afraid of being labeled ‘soft on defense” the age old fear of all Democrats. This shows how deep-seated this fear is despite the fact that 72% of Americans want out of Iraq – yesterday… Why DNI John Negroponte Is Going Back to the State Department (1-8-07) The Deputy Secretary of State is a position, that, in Bushonian Regimes, they put somebody, not to fill the position, because the position is often unfilled, but because with the Deputy Secretary of State’s position goes control of the State Department’s FNCO, or Foreign Narcotics Control Office. The Secrets Saddam Took to His Grave; Bush-Cheney Regime Attempts To Revise History (1-1-07) Why isn’t anyone asking any questions about how and why Saddam’s execution was speeded up? Saddam was on trial for the so-called second genocide charge in the bill of indictment against him. That trial's proceedings were suspended two weeks ago when the court adjourned, to allow Saddam 30 days to obtain new counsel because his most recent counsel, like four of his other counsels, had been murdered. It should be noted that it was always his most competent lawyers that died first. The trial was actually due to resume on January 14, and that was the motion before the Iraqi court, which had been granted. So what about the rest of the "anomalies" in the death of Saddam? State of the Nation: Entering 2007. More Bush Fraud. Uh Oh… (12-26-06) The reason why we have not been recently reporting about fresh Iraq related Bushonian Fraud, or fraud that had its genesis in Iraq, is because, once again, as was the case in the 1980's, Bushonian Fraud has become so complex, through such an interlocking web, and with such an enormous and covert paper trail to chase, that it is difficult it unravel and explain. This was also the case in the 1980's, through various Congressional committee hearings, mostly from 1987 to 1992, which we’ve written about in the past on AlMartinRaw.com and in my book The Conspirators, so that eventually you can’t get public support for continuing investigations of Bushonian Fraud because it becomes so obtuse and so complex that the public simply tunes it out and will not politically support, even within the ranks of the opposing party, continued investigative efforts. More False Internet Rumors: Trillion Dollars Dumped by China? Not So. (12-18-06) Internet rumors claim that China will dump $1 trillion in U.S. reserves. What’s wrong with this picture? As usual conspiracy theorists miss the timing once again. The gold bugs and hard-money people have consistently been pushing this story and once again they are wrong. Strange Bedfellows: Pat Buchanan Defends Putin in the Litvinenko Affair (12-4-06) Why is perennial losing candidate for US President, Pat Buchanan, apologizing for Putin? The conservative Pat Buchanan is being uncommonly liberal with his pal Vlad Putin, in defending him in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian security service operative. Is Pat Buchanan really naive, or just pretending? Or is Pat simply trying to protect his syndication fee for the English-language edition of Pravda, which carries his columns? Only Pat knows... Spy vs. Spy: The Strange Death of Lt. Col. Alexander Litvinenko (11-27-06) Living in London, Alexander Litvinenko was a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB’s successor, the Russian Federal Security Service (RFSS). He had effectively defected to Britain, claiming that Russian president Vladimir Putin was committing wholesale murder of ex-KGB people and even some RFSS people who had been critical of him inside Russia and that, in fact, the Putin Regime had engineered assassinations of Russian dissidents outside of Russia. The people assassinated were those that had a soapbox to stand on to attack Vladimir Putin and the Putin Machine.One reason they didn’t let him in the United States was that U.S. shareholders, who were taking on enormous risks by U.S. companies, principally oil and mining companies, investing in Russia and the Putin Regime was simply confiscating assets, on a regular basis, of U.S. oil companies that had paid out billions for a share of these Russian assets. U.S. oil companies were so anxious to get a toehold in Russia that they were willing to invest billions and then had half of that money taken from them in some fashion a year or two later by the Russian government, or by being extorted by the Putin Regime. The Yukos debacle is a prime example of the Putin Regime’s activity in this regard. How the Bush Cabal Subverted Milton Friedman’s Economics (11-20-06) Economist Milton Friedman, who died at the age of 94 on November 16, always maintained the concept that if government would adhere to the law, it would act in the best interest of the people. In other words, he had no idea that the Bush Cabal would take his work and subvert it the way it was done. He could not envision what was done to his economic theories. When Friedman got into the real world of how everything really works, he really couldn’t handle it. In the late 1980s you didn’t see him on media as much anymore. He became very reclusive. So what exactly did the Bush Cabal do to effectuate their scam? The Secret and Sordid History of Robert Gates (11-13-06) Former CIA chief Robert Gates has been nominated to replace Donald Rumsfeld as the Secretary of the Department of Defense in another commingling of the military and so-called intelligence functions, just as former NSA chief General Michael Hayden has become the head of the CIA. The Iran Contra role of Bobby Gates has been discussed in my book The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider. So what are the implications of the Bush Regime mixing military and intelligence functions in this new appointment? Once again as in the 1980s the intelligence community is riding roughshod over the decisions of military commanders. Political expediency once again dominates military decision making. “Stuck in Iraq”? The Truth Has Its Consequences; Dictatorships-R-Us: America and Europe (11-6-06) Last week Senator John Kerry told Pasadena City College students that “if you study hard do your homework and make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” Naive flag-wavers, beware. Do you want semi-literate Appalachian trailer-park teens defending your nation? The only thing Kerry was doing was telling the truth. Naturally pro-Bush media outlets like FOX jumped all over him and said he was insulting our troops. In fact, if you saw the interviews, none of the actual troops really seemed to feel that way -- which brought out Kerry’s point that they weren’t smart enough to realize that they were being insulted. The War on Iraq: A Sordid & Tawdry Bushonian Farce (10-30-06) Bush made a national address on October 25th. He should have kept his mouth shut. The subject matter was Iraq, and he fumbled and fumbled. He was hanging on to the podium and looking around, trying to get his eyes focused. He seemed to say that he is no longer using the words, “We’ll stay the course.” Those words are out, at Karl Rove’s insistence, but “The Base,” not to be confused with al Qaeda, need not be concerned because “we will prevail,” no matter how many billions of dollars we have to borrow of other people’s money to pour into the endless sand dunes of Iraq. Now what the Bush Cheney Regime is trying to do is shift the blame. Now the War on Iraq is being described as, “the Iraqi debacle.” That is the new media term. Bush is attempting to disguise the fact that the situation in Iraq is completely destabilized. Even Tony Blair said this on the Prime Minister’s question section on BBC, that the situation in Iraq is totally destabilized. In fact, the more than $300 billion the United States has borrowed from the rest of the planet to pour into its prosecution of hostilities in Iraq has effectively been for naught. So now what? The American Gulag Bill & the Nancy Pelosi Stock Market Rally: Why the Bush Cabal Wants Democrats to Win the Election (10-23-06) On Oct. 17, in a White House ceremony, George Bush Jr. has signed the so-called Military Commissions Act of 2006. As such the construction of the American Gulag has received a major boost, with the signing of what we are calling the “American Gulag Bill.” Interestingly enough while George Bush was hanging precariously on the left side of the podium supporting himself, he said that the signing of this bill would help further prosecute the war on terrorism by terrorizing the nation. As you can imagine, this typical Bushonian gaffe was not replayed. It has also been confirmed through our sources, that, as we suspected, the portable podiums that George Bush uses to give speeches are now clamped down, so he doesn’t knock them over, when he’s leaning against them in an effort to prop himself up. When you’re three sheets to the wind, you need all the help you can get. Not George. It’s not three sheets to the wind -- if your last name is Bush. It’s three and a half sheets. But who’s counting? Bushonian Budget Deficits: The Great Lie of Bushonomics -- Why the Bush Regime Doesn’t Mind Losing the Election (10-16-06) The temerity of the Bush Cheney Regime jumped to another level last week when the regime touted the U.S. Treasury’s release of the final budget deficit for 2006. The United States fiscal year runs from September 30 to September 30. The Treasury then announced that the total Bushonian budget deficit for 2006 came in at $223 billion, and that was about $31 billion less than the most recent projections. George Bush, in a public address last Wednesday, touted the fact that the regime had met yet another one of its promises: to cut the budget deficit in half before it left office. This is so laughable because people forget that it was this regime which inherited a fiscal surplus, from which the budget deficit was created to begin with. Bush actually tried to play some revisionist history and intimated that the budget deficits were the fault of the preceding regime, despite the fact he inherited a $158-billion fiscal surplus. GOP Sexcapades in DC Babylon: The Hidden History (10-9-06) Before the Mark Foley gay sex scandal, there is a long and sordid history of the Gay Republicans in Washington DC, which includes the Cupid Club, the Capitol Club, and Capitol Escort Service Inc. There was even an incident when George Bush Sr. was allegedly caught in a completely accidental sting when the Washington police raided the wrong building. American Dictatorship: Sponsored By the Bush Regime and a Rubber Stamp Congress (10-2-06) With the complicity of a rubber-stamp Congress, which passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the Bush Regime continues its headlong rush into American Dictatorship. The Military Commissions Act has been accurately compared to Hitler’s 1933 Enabling Act, as well as the United States’ Alien and Sedition Act of 1798 and of course of 1942. The Post-Bush Regime Future: Stocks You Want To Own in an American Dictatorship (9-25-06) So what is the Post-Bush Regime Future? It is a permanent war economy, which means the continuous maintenance of a de-facto state of war, combined with increased privatization of public assets, along with a conversion of the United States from a democracy into a dictatorship. Of course, there are numerous historical parallels, since it has always been profitable for certain people who have the foresight to invest in companies that are going to see their revenues enhanced under a dictatorship. Welcome to Serf City, USA & The American Gulag: Bush Wants Torture Testimony Admissible in Court (9-18-06) The Bush-Cheney Regime was dealt a setback last week with regards to the establishment of a military tribunal system in the United States. The sticking point is not so much the establishment of such a system but the use of torture to extract information. Bush Cheney Regime Prepares More Laws for US Police State (9-11-06) The Bush-Cheney Regime is conspiring with Congress in a push to enact the remaining legislation to finalize a de facto US Police State. (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN – SUBSCRIBE NOW) Commodity Futures Trading: A Primer (9-4-06) It constantly amazes me -- the number of would-be commodity futures traders that come to InsiderIntelligence.com, eager to trade, yet who know absolutely nothing about commodity futures. More importantly, they don’t even know the very basic mechanics of the market. And that’s the purpose of this column. Before you can trade, you have to know the basics. In order to be a trader, what you need to learn before you ever start is the symbols for everything that you’re trading. You have to understand either the first or second letters of what is typically a 3-letter symbol to tell you what the commodity is. The final letter in the symbol is the contract month. So you need to learn the symbols and the months. Not only the individual items you’re trading, but you need to learn the symbol for each month. Bushonian Asset Seizure: Sanctified by US Courts; Thomas Jefferson Rolls Over in His Grave (8-28-06) The tempo of Bushonian asset seizure quickens, as currency and gold are targeted for confiscation due to the latest ruling by the 8th Circuit Court. A three-judge panel of the Federal Appeals Court in the 8th Circuit has ruled that if a motorist is carrying “large” sums of money, it is automatically subject to confiscation. In the case entitled: “United States of America v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency,” a man named Emiliano Gomez Gonzolez, who the court affirmed had a ‘lack of significant criminal history’ and was “neither accused nor convicted of any crime” had $124,700 seized which the appeals court has ruled has no recourse to recover his money. The facts of the case are that “on May 28, 2003, a Nebraska state trooper signaled Gonzolez to pull over his rented Ford Taurus on Interstate 80, after which his car was searched and his money was taken from him. The money happened to be the life savings of several people, who intended to purchase a refrigerated truck for a produce business. Gonzolez was not charged with the commission of any crime, but his money was charged with being illegal. This was done despite the fact that he was not charged with having garnered or earned that money in any unlawful capacity. Driving with money and/or gold is now a crime in Bushonian Cabalist America. Domestic Surveillance in America: Get Used to It; Pensions for Retirees: Forget About It (8-21-06) The National Security Agency’s (NSA) Spying-on-America program, also known as no-warrant wiretapping, was struck down by U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, finding the surveillance program to be unconstitutional, by violating the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution, the separation of powers principle laid out in the Constitution, and a 1978 law enacted to regulate domestic spying by the government (FISA). In her 43-page opinion, Taylor wrote that the Bush Regime “appears to argue here that ... because the president is designated commander in chief of the Army and Navy, he has been granted the inherent power to violate not only the laws of the Congress, but the First and Fourth Amendment of the Constitution itself.... There are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution… so all inherent powers must derive from that Constitution… The public interest is clear in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution.” So what’s the problem? First of all, this is not the first federal district judge to strike down, or attempt to strike down, the domestic surveillance program. This is the third time it’s happened. In the previous two cases, where district judges struck down the domestic surveillance-and warrant-less wiretapping program, these decisions were quickly reversed by the appropriate appellate circuits–once in the 9th Circuit, once in the 4th Circuit. RED ALERT: Danger Ahead for Wanna-Be Terrorists & Would-Be Pensioners (8-14-06) More wanna-be terrorists have allegedly been caught in the U.K. The whole plot unfolded at approximately 4 a.m. on Thursday August 10, when it was suddenly announced that British police had arrested 50, not suspects, but 50 wanton and hardened terrorists. They were allegedly coming to the United States on various UAL and Delta flights. Supposedly they were going to mix chemical explosives on the plane, seize the planes and then blow them up over cities or run them into buildings. The media called it “Britain says it foils mass murder plane bomb plot.” And all hell broke loose – just in time to get people scared before the November mid-term elections. Of course this wanna-be terrorist plot made great trading opportunities for the traders on Insider Intelligence.com The Bush Cheney Regime: Militarizing the Civilian Judicial System and Privatizing the Police State (8-7-06) The Bush Cheney Regime has declared open season on all Americans, by trying to circumvent the Supreme Court’s recent Hamdan decision in order to militarize the US justice system and make an end run around posse comitatus. The Washington Post noted this in an article called “White House proposal would expand authority of military courts.” (August 2, 2006). From the article, it is clear that the Bush Cheney regime wants to use special military courts that would expand the authority of the Bush administration to go after domestic so-called “enemies of the state.” This would “include trials for the first time of people who are not members of al-Qaeda, the Taliban or who are not directly involved in acts of international terrorism. The plan, which would replace the military trial system ruled [unconstitutional] by the Supreme Court, would also allow the Secretary of Defense to add crimes at will to those under the military court’s jurisdiction. The two provisions would be likely to put more individuals than previously expected before military juries.” This is the latest and most ominous move by the Regime. The first column written for the Al Martin Raw website in the winter of 2000 asked the question “What will it be like with George Bush Jr. as president?” The answer was – “It will be a return to the ‘Bushonian’ form of government -- namely a government of shadowy cliques, secret commissions and de facto star chambers.” What does this mean? (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN – SUBSCRIBE NOW) Bush-Cheney Regime Prepares U.S. for a Bleak Future (7-31-06) The Bush-Cheney Regime has been transitioning the nation from a democracy to a dictatorship, using PATRIOT Act legislation and gradually usurping the constitutional guarantees and protections of citizens. It should be noted that the Regime has also drawn up a plan to transition the nation from a First World nation into a Third World nation. These two transitions classically go hand in hand, by the way, and that shouldn’t come as any surprise to anybody, since dictatorships that used to be democracies are created when the economies of these democratic nation-states collapse. Of course, who better to draw up a master plan, as it were, for this transition from a First to a Third World nation-state than that regime whose economic policies are causing the decline of the American empire in the first place. So what does this portend for the U.S.? The Future of America? (7-24-06) Former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie is going to form a new and sinister group, using as the nucleus the mailing list from GeorgeBush.com, which was essentially the most rabid and most naive pro-Bush-faction people in the country within the grassroots Right. This new organization is going to be called Guardians of American Liberty, but it’s going beyond the political. It’s being very carefully organized to effectively coordinate a new individual citizen database with the National Security Agency and the Office of Internal Security. It will take the 3 million so-called loyalists that were put together under GeorgeBush.com and organize them to be utilized even better. By the way, this is going to cost millions to do this. The funding to do this is coming from a shadowy Netherland-Antilles registered offshore corporation called “Trilateral Communications Limited,” which we have mentioned before. It’s another Republican offshore slush fund, which was used in the Iran Contra era to finance payoffs. Geopolitics in the Middle East: What Will Happen in the Current Crisis? (7-17-06) We’ve been down this road many times before in the last 25 years, the situation in which Israel has invaded and re-occupied the so-called Northern Security Zone in Lebanon, an area that the Israeli government claims control over, and which goes about 20 miles inside or beyond the Israeli-Lebanese border just south of the city of Tyre, Lebanon. So what does the current situation between Israel and Lebanon really mean in terms of oil prices and the likely outcome of this conflict? In Defense of Enron (Defending Reality) (7-10-06) If Enron was established as a Bushonian fraud, it would be a more interesting story. But as is so often the case, Enron was a legitimate company, which originally started out life as Houston Energy. It didn’t start out life as a Bushonian fraud. And it didn’t end up as a Bushonian fraud. What happened to Enron towards the end is what frankly has happened to many corporations. The officers, principals and directors become desperate to prop it up because they had such a huge vested interest in it themselves. And therein lies part of the problem: SEC regulations that I have long pointed out. You don’t see that in other nations -- the high level of corporate fraud that exists in the United States. America: From Would-Be Empire to Wanna-Be Dictatorship (7-3-06) Using the pretense of allegedly fighting the so-called “War on Terror,” the Bush Cheney Regime has in effect declared war on the American investor. It has been using the PATRIOT II Act anti-terrorist money laundering statutes to significantly disrupt average investors, who are being harmed financially by these laws, not only in the United States, but globally because so many countries have signed onto this accord. However, the real intent of these statutes is still hidden to most US citizens. FBI Catches More Phony Terrorists; BOVOB Plot Fails (6-26-06) American citizens can sleep safely now. The Sears Tower toilets are secured, and a sinister gang of allegedly Haitian plumbers has been arrested. The would-be terrorist incident that the FBI set up is ludicrous. And it is a joke. The FBI and the Department of Justice have bungled once again in this goofy entrapment scheme. The problem is they let FBI director Robert Mueller talk last Friday at an FBI press conference. And he gave a completely different story at 10:30 a.m. Eastern than what Alberto Gonzales said at 11:30 a.m. Eastern at the Department of Justice press conference. Gonzales directly contradicted everything that Mueller had said as well as all information that has been put out by all other agencies. U.S. Supreme Court Murders the Fourth Amendment (6-19-06) The Supreme Court decision in Hudson v. Michigan effectively allows police and any law enforcement agency, including the military in a post- Posse Comitatus environment, to forcibly enter a U.S. citizen's premises, which means breaking down the door. While breaking and entering, they don't even have to identify themselves anymore as police. They have the right, granted them by the Supreme Court, to simply rush in and use whatever force is necessary, including explosives, to open the front door -- without identifying themselves, knocking on the door or ringing the bell. This is law enforcement getting its revenge. The Gold Bugs vs. Gold Bulls Conspiracy: Who’s Right? (6-12-06) Gold -- Has there been a global governmental conspiracy to depress its price? Yes. And No. Whistleblowers Beware: U.S. Supreme Court Rules You Have No Rights (6-05-06) The recent Supreme Court decision (Garcetti v. Ceballos) destroys the last vestiges of the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1986 and will effectively end any further government or corporate whistle-blowing. The decision effectively limits First Amendment protection for government whistleblowers since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protections do not extend to government employees for comments made while performing their official duties, even when the employee is acting to expose alleged government wrongdoing. In a 5-4 decision (Garcetti v. Ceballos) the court overturned a Ninth Circuit ruling, which extended free speech protection to an employee in the L.A. District Attorney’s office. The court majority wrote that: "Exposing government inefficiency and misconduct is a matter of considerable significance.... Public employees should 'as a matter of good judgment' be receptive to constructive criticism offered by employees that dictates a sound judgment, reinforced by the powerful network of legislative enactments such as whistleblower protection laws and labor codes available to those who seek to expose wrongdoing." Bush-Cheney Regime Winning Its War Against American Democracy (5-29-06) The constitutional crisis in America has been accelerated. The case of the German national Khalid el-Masri, who was kidnapped by the U.S. government and subsequently sued, was thrown out when the court ruled that this was a "state secrets" case. Meanwhile Bush has given intelligence czar John Negroponte the authority to waive SEC rules on behalf of corporations. Last week Louisiana Democrat William Jefferson's office was raided by the FBI, while House Speaker Republican Dennis Hastert is being investigated by the FBI in connection with the Jack Abramoff bribery scandal. On Friday, May 26, an alleged gunman turned the Capitol into a "lock-down," allowing a Swat team to search the Sam Rayburn Congressional Building door to door. What does it all mean? Is this a sign of a government coup d’etat that has moved from slow motion into fast mode? Conspiracies of State: Government Business As Usual (5-22-06) The hearings for Gen. Michael Hayden as the new CIA director are an example of how successful the Bush-Cheney Regime has been with its media allies in crafting confirmation hearings for sensitive posts. This was also the case with Bush Cabalist John Negroponte as the new head of intelligence as well as Bush Cabalist Porter Goss as the previous head of the CIA. The Regime has effectively sidelined news on confirmation hearings into smaller media outlets. In the Hayden confirmation hearings, the only media to provide full coverage, or so-called door-to-door coverage, was C-SPAN-2 and PBS. Only 13% of people even get PBS as part of their cable or satellite subscription. Now they have ensured that almost all of the questions that members of Congress intended to ask in open session could not be asked because the Regime had declared such questions to be matters of "National Security." Therefore, this was a hearing that was nothing more than a lot of pabulum, where nothing of any policy interest was really discussed. When Hayden was asked a question he would answer -- Well, Senator, you'll have to trust me. Hayden's attitude on everything was: You’ll have to trust me. He is saying that it's all based on personality, and that his confirmation is an issue of "character" and nothing else. This was in response to a question about whether Hayden would bring the CIA into the orbit of the DoD, which he frankly didn’t deny. Why didn't he deny it? He didn't have to, and he knew it. Who among the American public was listening? The Militarization of U.S. Intelligence: Pentagon Spying on America (5-15-06) There are at least two major Republican scandals in Washington. The Foggo-Goss Scandal at the CIA is just another typical Republican booze, sex and corruption scandal. The second scandal concerns Heinrich Himmler look-alike General Michael Hayden, the most recent former head of the NSA, who was one of the architects of the "Spying on America" program. Indeed, as head of the NSA, Hayden had a much more expansive database built, encompassing all "disloyal citizens", all citizens who had publicly criticized the leader, the Regime or its policies, or, in other words, all citizens who were potential "Enemies of the State." Hayden also has some very "peculiar" ideas about 4th Amendment. Hayden believes that 4th Amendment protections should be scrapped altogether, since "loyal citizens" do not need to hide behind constitutional guarantees. Only the "seditious" need such "protection." New Threat Looms: South America Begins Re-Nationalization of Resources -- And What It Means To You (5-8-06) The new left-wing Bolivian government of Evo Morales has moved to re-nationalize its oil and gas assets. The Morales government also said that it would act to re-nationalize its mining and agricultural industries. The word “re-nationalization” must be used in all south-of-the-border countries since all South American countries have acted at various times in the past 40 years to nationalize their assets. Why? The resurgence of the so-called Hard Left in Central and South America is a symptom of the failure of the CIA after Iran-Contra and Iraq-Gate to be able to successfully work with traditional right-wing elements (particularly in the military) in order to continuously suppress left-wing political factions -- as it has always been done. Washington has been always afraid of the far left south of the border. This is a problem of short term memory – the same symptom in South America that is also evident in the United States, since there have been enough people born in south-of-the-border countries that don’t remember the debacle that the nationalization of assets created the first time in the 1960-70s. So what happened? $3 Gas: The Bush Cabal Wins Again (5-1-06) The rise in gas prices is due to the egregious profits that the Bush Cheney Regime has allowed in refiners’ profit margins. For instance, last week, according to Platt’s, the nationwide average refiners’ profit margin was $22.76 a barrel. How did this happen? Rosneft: BushFraud Russian Style (4-26-06) The Russian state oil company Rosneft is preparing what has been called the world's largest Initial Public Offering (IPO) of stock. Rosneft, built with the assets of Yukos, which used to be Russia’s biggest oil company until it was forced into bankruptcy by Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who slapped a $28 billion back tax claim, precipitating its bankruptcy and the loss to small American investors of tens of billions of dollars. In essence the Russian government purposely bankrupted Yukos and wiped out shareholder equity by pr |
