Infowars.com
Fury is building over rolling nationwide blackouts triggered by the Obama administration’s deliberate agenda to block the construction of new coal-fired plants, as local energy companies struggle to meet Americans’ power demands amidst some of the coldest weather seen in decades.
Read Paul Joseph Watson’s article. HERE
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
FEMA Requests Information on the Availability of 140 Million Packets of Food, Blankets, and Body Bags
Alex
The Intel Hub
UPDATE: The Department of Homeland Security is also looking for a vendor that can supply “various fuels in support of disaster relief.”
DHS specifically cites the states that it will be needed in. North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida. That’s right, the Gulf of Mexico.
FEMA is also looking for Hydration Supplies for a disaster in the New Madrid Fault System just as they are looking for food, blankets, and underwater body bags.
I want to start out by stating the importance of an article such as this as well as the importance of NOT jumping to conclusions or doing irrational things out of fear caused by the actions of FEMA. I believe that one of the major powers of FEMA is the fear that it instills in people who consider themselves awake.
That being said, preparing has never became more important. Food, water, and ammo are a must, REGARDLESS of what company you choose to purchase your supplies from.
FEMA has issued multiple RFI’s(Request For Information) in regards to the availability of 140 million packets of food specifically for a disaster in the New Madrid Fault System. Normally this sort of information would seem like disinformation or fear mongering but this particular situation is heavily documented.
FEMA RFI
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) procures and stores pre-packaged commercial meals to support readiness capability for immediate distribution to disaster survivors routinely. The purpose of this Request for Information is to identify sources of supply for meals in support of disaster relief efforts based on a catastrophic disaster event within the New Madrid Fault System for a survivor population of 7M to be utilized for the sustainment of life during a 10-day period of operations. FEMA is considering the following specifications (14M meals per day):
- Serving Size – 12 ounce (entree not to exceed 480 calorie count);
- Maximum calories – 1200 and/or 1165 per meal;
- Protein parameters – 29g-37g kit;
- Trans Fat – 0;
- Saturated Fat – 13 grams (9 calories per gram);
- Total Fat – 47 grams (less than 10% calories);
- Maximum sodium – 800-930 mg;
Requested Menus to include snacks (i.e. fruit mix, candy, chocolate/peanut butter squeezers, drink mix, condiments, and utensils). All meals/kits must have 36 months of remaining shelf life upon delivery. Packaging should be environmentally friendly.
Interestingly enough, FEMA is also requesting information on millions of blankets for the EXACT same reason. Does FEMA know something we don’t or are they doing this to simply prepare for a disaster in order to help the American people? Most educated people understand that history repeats itself and the history of FEMA is that of an agency that has been completely unprepared and at times, unwilling to help the American people.
While many individuals within FEMA are good, hard working people, their masters have secretly set up thousands of FEMA camps throughout the country specifically for the American people. A few years ago the idea that FEMA camps were real was looked upon as complete bs yet the alternative media continued to push and the facts have been exposed. This is not fear mongering, this is documented fact.
documented fact.
FEMA RFI
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) procures and stores blankets to support readiness capability for immediate distribution to disaster survivors routinely. The purpose of this Request for Information is to identify sources of supply for blankets in support of disaster relief efforts based on a catastrophic disaster event within the New Madrid Fault System for a survivor population of 7M to be utilized for the sustainment of life during a 10-day period of operations. FEMA is considering the following specifications (14M blankets per day):
- 100% cotton;
- White;
- 66″ x 90″
These requests line up directly with NLE 2011. In this National Exercise, FEMA plans to run drills simulating a catastrophic disaster along the New Madrid Fault System. This exercise is scheduled for May 2011. Past National Level Exercises have resulted in 70,000 people being evacuated in central Texas while the mainstream media (CORRECTION) mostly ignored it.
Is a massive earthquake set to strike the New Madrid Fault Zone? How do HARRP and the gulf oil disaster play into this possible mega disaster?
In June, a report from the University of Illinois warned that the possibility of a 7.7 magnitude or higher earthquake striking the New Madrid Zone was very high.
“If a quake that size did hit, the report estimates at least 3,500 people would be killed and more than 80,000 others hurt,” reported the Chicago Headlines Examiner.
Other estimates from the report include:
■715,000 buildings damaged
■7 million people homeless
■2.6 million households without power
■$300 Billion economic impact
Adding to seriousness of this situation, the Department of Homeland Security has also contacted multiple vendors in regards to the availability of underwater body bags.
RFI – Department of the Navy
The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWARSYSCEN) Atlantic, Advanced Technology Branch (Code 51610) is seeking information on commercially-available underwater body bags used for recovery operations of bodies and body parts.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Authorized Equipment List (AEL) item number for this equipment is 03WA-01-BAGB: Underwater Body Bags. The target audience for this information is public resource dive teams within theemergency responder community, and all submittals should be suited to their specific needs.Review of this information is being performed for the DHS System Assessment and Validation for Emergency Responders (SAVER) Program, which aims to conduct objective comparative assessments and validation of commercial equipment andsystems and provide those results with the emergency responder community. For more information on the SAVER Program, visit https://www.rkb.us/saver.
It is interesting to note that this is happening at the same time as people are ordering a massive amount of food and food riots are being predicted by globalists throughout the world.
I cannot stress enough the importance of stocking up on food. There are many different companies and places that you can purchase store able food. Pick One!
View Original Article HERE
The Intel Hub
UPDATE: The Department of Homeland Security is also looking for a vendor that can supply “various fuels in support of disaster relief.”
DHS specifically cites the states that it will be needed in. North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida. That’s right, the Gulf of Mexico.
FEMA is also looking for Hydration Supplies for a disaster in the New Madrid Fault System just as they are looking for food, blankets, and underwater body bags.
I want to start out by stating the importance of an article such as this as well as the importance of NOT jumping to conclusions or doing irrational things out of fear caused by the actions of FEMA. I believe that one of the major powers of FEMA is the fear that it instills in people who consider themselves awake.
That being said, preparing has never became more important. Food, water, and ammo are a must, REGARDLESS of what company you choose to purchase your supplies from.
FEMA has issued multiple RFI’s(Request For Information) in regards to the availability of 140 million packets of food specifically for a disaster in the New Madrid Fault System. Normally this sort of information would seem like disinformation or fear mongering but this particular situation is heavily documented.
FEMA RFI
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) procures and stores pre-packaged commercial meals to support readiness capability for immediate distribution to disaster survivors routinely. The purpose of this Request for Information is to identify sources of supply for meals in support of disaster relief efforts based on a catastrophic disaster event within the New Madrid Fault System for a survivor population of 7M to be utilized for the sustainment of life during a 10-day period of operations. FEMA is considering the following specifications (14M meals per day):
- Serving Size – 12 ounce (entree not to exceed 480 calorie count);
- Maximum calories – 1200 and/or 1165 per meal;
- Protein parameters – 29g-37g kit;
- Trans Fat – 0;
- Saturated Fat – 13 grams (9 calories per gram);
- Total Fat – 47 grams (less than 10% calories);
- Maximum sodium – 800-930 mg;
Requested Menus to include snacks (i.e. fruit mix, candy, chocolate/peanut butter squeezers, drink mix, condiments, and utensils). All meals/kits must have 36 months of remaining shelf life upon delivery. Packaging should be environmentally friendly.
Interestingly enough, FEMA is also requesting information on millions of blankets for the EXACT same reason. Does FEMA know something we don’t or are they doing this to simply prepare for a disaster in order to help the American people? Most educated people understand that history repeats itself and the history of FEMA is that of an agency that has been completely unprepared and at times, unwilling to help the American people.
While many individuals within FEMA are good, hard working people, their masters have secretly set up thousands of FEMA camps throughout the country specifically for the American people. A few years ago the idea that FEMA camps were real was looked upon as complete bs yet the alternative media continued to push and the facts have been exposed. This is not fear mongering, this is documented fact.
documented fact.
FEMA RFI
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) procures and stores blankets to support readiness capability for immediate distribution to disaster survivors routinely. The purpose of this Request for Information is to identify sources of supply for blankets in support of disaster relief efforts based on a catastrophic disaster event within the New Madrid Fault System for a survivor population of 7M to be utilized for the sustainment of life during a 10-day period of operations. FEMA is considering the following specifications (14M blankets per day):
- 100% cotton;
- White;
- 66″ x 90″
These requests line up directly with NLE 2011. In this National Exercise, FEMA plans to run drills simulating a catastrophic disaster along the New Madrid Fault System. This exercise is scheduled for May 2011. Past National Level Exercises have resulted in 70,000 people being evacuated in central Texas while the mainstream media (CORRECTION) mostly ignored it.
Is a massive earthquake set to strike the New Madrid Fault Zone? How do HARRP and the gulf oil disaster play into this possible mega disaster?
In June, a report from the University of Illinois warned that the possibility of a 7.7 magnitude or higher earthquake striking the New Madrid Zone was very high.
“If a quake that size did hit, the report estimates at least 3,500 people would be killed and more than 80,000 others hurt,” reported the Chicago Headlines Examiner.
Other estimates from the report include:
■715,000 buildings damaged
■7 million people homeless
■2.6 million households without power
■$300 Billion economic impact
Adding to seriousness of this situation, the Department of Homeland Security has also contacted multiple vendors in regards to the availability of underwater body bags.
RFI – Department of the Navy
The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWARSYSCEN) Atlantic, Advanced Technology Branch (Code 51610) is seeking information on commercially-available underwater body bags used for recovery operations of bodies and body parts.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Authorized Equipment List (AEL) item number for this equipment is 03WA-01-BAGB: Underwater Body Bags. The target audience for this information is public resource dive teams within theemergency responder community, and all submittals should be suited to their specific needs.Review of this information is being performed for the DHS System Assessment and Validation for Emergency Responders (SAVER) Program, which aims to conduct objective comparative assessments and validation of commercial equipment andsystems and provide those results with the emergency responder community. For more information on the SAVER Program, visit https://www.rkb.us/saver.
It is interesting to note that this is happening at the same time as people are ordering a massive amount of food and food riots are being predicted by globalists throughout the world.
I cannot stress enough the importance of stocking up on food. There are many different companies and places that you can purchase store able food. Pick One!
View Original Article HERE
Police Trained That FEMA Camps Are Perfectly Normal
Milo Nickels
Activist Post
Picture it: You are sound asleep next to your spouse. Your children are safely tucked away in their bedrooms. Despite the chaos in the world which surrounds you–the riots, the food shortages, the deadly pandemic, the nationwide power outage, and the apparent societal collapse–you are safe and comfortable in your house. Although the world has seemingly gone crazy, you are doing all you can to weather the storm and (for the moment) everything is quiet and peaceful. Suddenly, there is a loud crash! You jerk awake from your slumber. Within seconds, before you can even get to your feet, you are blinded by streams of intense light. You can hear your spouse screaming, and your children crying in the distance, but all that noise is drowned out by the loud, harshvoices behind those blinding lights. “Get down!” “Don’t move!” If you hesitate for even a second, they will violently throw you to the ground. You are dragged from your own house along with the rest of your family. As several officers remain behind to search your house, you are thrown onto a fortified bus without any explanation, and whisked away to a “secure facility”. This is your new home–uniforms, prisoner numbers, forced vaccinations, ID markings, armed guards, barking guard dogs, and a fence with barbed wire pointing in.
Yes, I’m talking about FEMA camps. I’m not sure if I actually believe that they exist or not, but I have absolutely no doubt that our government is capable of such a thing. These are, after all, the same people who want to see all travelers naked–and grope their genitals. Honestly, how much of a stretch would camps really be? With all of the rules, laws, taxes, license plate readers, face scanners, traffic cameras, security cameras, metal detectors, speed cameras, and (recently) unmanned spy drones we are pretty much in a giant camp already–they just haven’t built the fence yet.
This article is not about the “reality” of FEMA camps. Plenty of other people have written articles and made movies which offer “proof” that FEMA camps exist. If you want information concerning the Japanese internment camps of WWII, legislation that opens the door to prisoner camps, or even maps of supposed FEMA camp locations, may I offer the following resources for you:
Camp FEMA – American Lockdown(full movie – video – 86 minutes)
Jesse Ventura – Conspiracy Theory(Season 2, Episode 4 – video – 44 minutes)
American Concentration Camps(website)
Google maps marked with all alleged FEMA camps(website)
I’ve watched all the movies and visited all the websites. The information is sometimes compelling, sometimes absurd. There is a plethora of facts and an abundance of wild speculations. Although, I’m not sure what I believe, I have acquired an interesting piece of information that I want to share with all of you. One of my biggest questions concerning FEMA camps has always been this: how on earth would they convince military and police to go along with the roundup?
It’s actually not as difficult as you might suspect. Think of all the unconstitutional, victimless-crime laws that the police willingly and aggressively enforce every single day. Take the “seatbelt law” for example. Although this law is clearly a violation of the constitution and a glaring display of government overstepping its bounds, it was justified to the police as being “necessary because it saves lives”. The government offers a rationalization, the law gets passed, police supervisors give out the orders, and police do as they are told.
It all starts with the justification/rationalization.
It would stand to reason that, if placing people in camps could be justified/rationalized to the police as a “necessary act to save lives”, the police would likely go along with it. But are the police actually being indoctrinated that camps may be necessary to save lives? Sadly, the answer is yes. I recently received the following email, and it blew me away:
Dear Milo, I love your site. I noticed you haven’t discussed FEMA camps yet, but here’s some information that you might find interesting.
I’m a police officer in [withheld to protect officer's identity] State. Everyone in my department was recently required to take an online course sponsored by FEMA about the “Incident Command Structure” (ICS). The Incident Command Structure is the system of control set in place following a disaster, catastrophe, terrorist strike, or other such event. All of the documents from that course can be found on FEMA’s website:
http://training.fema.gov/EMIweb/IS/is100lst.asp
In particular you should pay attention to Unit 6: ICS Facilities. Here’s that direct link:
http://training.fema.gov/EMIweb/IS/ICS100CR/ICS100IG/06ICS100ICSFac_NMSept05.pdf
First, I’d like you to notice page 6-8 which is actually entitled “CAMPS“!!! Now, they claim in this training that “camps” are temporary facilities and may not be required. I feel that they do this to condition the police that camps are perfectly normal and may be necessary–so that we won’t hesitate to place people in camps upon command.
Secondly, I’d like you to notice page 6-4 which mysteriously states “some incidents may require facilities not included on the standard list”. The use of the word “facilities” would lead me to believe that these locations are already in place and are permanent in nature. But then you have to ask: what kind of facilities are important enough to already have in place, but too secretive to leave out of your police training?
I found it very interesting and thought I’d share.
Keep up the good work,
[Name Withheld]
Interesting, indeed! It’s quite unsettling that FEMA is educating police officers around the nation that citizens may have to be placed into CAMPS at some point (for their own safety, of course), and that this practice is completely normal.
Now, I know that I bust on cops a lot on my site. Truthfully though, I don’t actually dislike most individual police officers, but the corrupt governmental institution they serve. Most cops are just honest, hard-working people–working a very difficult job. They don’t want to violate people’s rights, but they also don’t want to get in trouble with their supervisors and risk losing their livelihoods. I actually have several friends who are cops and, like the author of this letter, I can’t picture any of them voluntarily placing American Citizens into camps. I’m hoping that, by sharing this email with all of you, maybe some other police who have received this training will realize what’s really going on, and how they are being conditioned. Placing citizens in camps is not normal, it’s not necessary, and it never will be.
View Original Article HERE
RELATED ARTICLES:
FEMA Advising Australia Amid Takeover of America?
FEMA Requests Information on the Availability of 140 Million Packets of Food, Blankets, and Body Bags
When The Collapse Comes, Will FEMA Camps Look Like Club Med
Activist Post
Picture it: You are sound asleep next to your spouse. Your children are safely tucked away in their bedrooms. Despite the chaos in the world which surrounds you–the riots, the food shortages, the deadly pandemic, the nationwide power outage, and the apparent societal collapse–you are safe and comfortable in your house. Although the world has seemingly gone crazy, you are doing all you can to weather the storm and (for the moment) everything is quiet and peaceful. Suddenly, there is a loud crash! You jerk awake from your slumber. Within seconds, before you can even get to your feet, you are blinded by streams of intense light. You can hear your spouse screaming, and your children crying in the distance, but all that noise is drowned out by the loud, harshvoices behind those blinding lights. “Get down!” “Don’t move!” If you hesitate for even a second, they will violently throw you to the ground. You are dragged from your own house along with the rest of your family. As several officers remain behind to search your house, you are thrown onto a fortified bus without any explanation, and whisked away to a “secure facility”. This is your new home–uniforms, prisoner numbers, forced vaccinations, ID markings, armed guards, barking guard dogs, and a fence with barbed wire pointing in.
Yes, I’m talking about FEMA camps. I’m not sure if I actually believe that they exist or not, but I have absolutely no doubt that our government is capable of such a thing. These are, after all, the same people who want to see all travelers naked–and grope their genitals. Honestly, how much of a stretch would camps really be? With all of the rules, laws, taxes, license plate readers, face scanners, traffic cameras, security cameras, metal detectors, speed cameras, and (recently) unmanned spy drones we are pretty much in a giant camp already–they just haven’t built the fence yet.
This article is not about the “reality” of FEMA camps. Plenty of other people have written articles and made movies which offer “proof” that FEMA camps exist. If you want information concerning the Japanese internment camps of WWII, legislation that opens the door to prisoner camps, or even maps of supposed FEMA camp locations, may I offer the following resources for you:
Camp FEMA – American Lockdown(full movie – video – 86 minutes)
Jesse Ventura – Conspiracy Theory(Season 2, Episode 4 – video – 44 minutes)
American Concentration Camps(website)
Google maps marked with all alleged FEMA camps(website)
I’ve watched all the movies and visited all the websites. The information is sometimes compelling, sometimes absurd. There is a plethora of facts and an abundance of wild speculations. Although, I’m not sure what I believe, I have acquired an interesting piece of information that I want to share with all of you. One of my biggest questions concerning FEMA camps has always been this: how on earth would they convince military and police to go along with the roundup?
It’s actually not as difficult as you might suspect. Think of all the unconstitutional, victimless-crime laws that the police willingly and aggressively enforce every single day. Take the “seatbelt law” for example. Although this law is clearly a violation of the constitution and a glaring display of government overstepping its bounds, it was justified to the police as being “necessary because it saves lives”. The government offers a rationalization, the law gets passed, police supervisors give out the orders, and police do as they are told.
It all starts with the justification/rationalization.
It would stand to reason that, if placing people in camps could be justified/rationalized to the police as a “necessary act to save lives”, the police would likely go along with it. But are the police actually being indoctrinated that camps may be necessary to save lives? Sadly, the answer is yes. I recently received the following email, and it blew me away:
Dear Milo, I love your site. I noticed you haven’t discussed FEMA camps yet, but here’s some information that you might find interesting.
I’m a police officer in [withheld to protect officer's identity] State. Everyone in my department was recently required to take an online course sponsored by FEMA about the “Incident Command Structure” (ICS). The Incident Command Structure is the system of control set in place following a disaster, catastrophe, terrorist strike, or other such event. All of the documents from that course can be found on FEMA’s website:
http://training.fema.gov/EMIweb/IS/is100lst.asp
In particular you should pay attention to Unit 6: ICS Facilities. Here’s that direct link:
http://training.fema.gov/EMIweb/IS/ICS100CR/ICS100IG/06ICS100ICSFac_NMSept05.pdf
First, I’d like you to notice page 6-8 which is actually entitled “CAMPS“!!! Now, they claim in this training that “camps” are temporary facilities and may not be required. I feel that they do this to condition the police that camps are perfectly normal and may be necessary–so that we won’t hesitate to place people in camps upon command.
Secondly, I’d like you to notice page 6-4 which mysteriously states “some incidents may require facilities not included on the standard list”. The use of the word “facilities” would lead me to believe that these locations are already in place and are permanent in nature. But then you have to ask: what kind of facilities are important enough to already have in place, but too secretive to leave out of your police training?
I found it very interesting and thought I’d share.
Keep up the good work,
[Name Withheld]
Interesting, indeed! It’s quite unsettling that FEMA is educating police officers around the nation that citizens may have to be placed into CAMPS at some point (for their own safety, of course), and that this practice is completely normal.
Now, I know that I bust on cops a lot on my site. Truthfully though, I don’t actually dislike most individual police officers, but the corrupt governmental institution they serve. Most cops are just honest, hard-working people–working a very difficult job. They don’t want to violate people’s rights, but they also don’t want to get in trouble with their supervisors and risk losing their livelihoods. I actually have several friends who are cops and, like the author of this letter, I can’t picture any of them voluntarily placing American Citizens into camps. I’m hoping that, by sharing this email with all of you, maybe some other police who have received this training will realize what’s really going on, and how they are being conditioned. Placing citizens in camps is not normal, it’s not necessary, and it never will be.
View Original Article HERE
RELATED ARTICLES:
FEMA Advising Australia Amid Takeover of America?
FEMA Requests Information on the Availability of 140 Million Packets of Food, Blankets, and Body Bags
When The Collapse Comes, Will FEMA Camps Look Like Club Med
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Lindsey Williams Returns: China Owns The United States
Infowars.com
America has been swallowed up by the globalists and will now be run from Beijing.
America has been swallowed up by the globalists and will now be run from Beijing.
12 Economic Collapse Scenarios That We Could Potentially See In 2011
The Economic Collapse
What could cause an economic collapse in 2011? Well, unfortunately there are quite a few "nightmare scenarios" that could plunge the entire globe into another massive financial crisis. The United States, Japan and most of the nations in Europe are absolutely drowning in debt. The Federal Reserve continues to play reckless games with the U.S. dollar. The price of oil is skyrocketing and the global price of food just hit a new record high. Food riots are already breaking out all over the world. Meanwhile, the rampant fraud and corruption going on in world financial markets is starting to be exposed and the whole house of cards could come crashing down at any time. Most Americans have no idea that a horrific economic collapse could happen at literally any time. There is no way that all of this debt and all of this financial corruption is sustainable. At some point we are going to reach a moment of "total system failure".
So will it be soon? Let's hope not. Let's certainly hope that it does not happen in 2011. Many of us need more time to prepare. Most of our families and friends need more time to prepare. Once this thing implodes there isn't going to be an opportunity to have a "do over". We simply will not be able to put the toothpaste back into the tube again.
So we had all better be getting prepared for hard times. The following are 12 economic collapse scenarios that we could potentially see in 2011....
#1 U.S. debt could become a massive crisis at any moment. China is saying all of the right things at the moment, but many analysts are openly worried about what could happen if China suddenly decides to start dumping all of the U.S. debt that they have accumulated. Right now about the only thing keeping U.S. government finances going is the ability to borrow gigantic amounts of money at extremely low interest rates. If anything upsets that paradigm, it could potentially have enormous consequences for the entire world financial system.
#2 Speaking of threats to the global financial system, it turns out that "quantitative easing 2" has had the exact opposite effect that Ben Bernanke planned for it to have. Bernanke insisted that the main goal of QE2 was to lower interest rates, but instead all it has done is cause interest rates to go up substantially. If Bernanke this incompetent or is he trying to mess everything up on purpose?
#3 The debt bubble that the entire global economy is based on could burst at any time and throw the whole planet into chaos. According to a new report from the World Economic Forum, the total amount of credit in the world increased from $57 trillion in 2000 to $109 trillion in 2009. The WEF says that now the world is going to need another $100 trillion in credit to support projected "economic growth" over the next decade. So is this how the new "global economy" works? We just keep doubling the total amount of debt every decade?
#4 As the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve continue to pump massive amounts of new dollars into the system, the floor could fall out from underneath the U.S. dollar at any time. The truth is that we are already starting to see inflation really accelerate and everyone pretty much acknowledges that official U.S. governments figures for inflation are an absolute joke. According to one new study, the cost of college tuition has risen 286% over the last 20 years, and the cost of "hospital, nursing-home and adult-day-care services" rose 269% during those same two decades. All of this happened during a period of supposedly "low" inflation. So what are price increases going to look like when we actually have "high" inflation?
#5 One of the primary drivers of global inflation during 2011 could be the price of oil. A large number of economists are now projecting that the price of oil could surge well past $100 dollars a barrel in 2011. If that happens, it is going to put significant pressure on the price of almost everything else in the entire global economy. In fact, as I have explained previously, the higher the price of oil goes, the faster the U.S. economy will decline.
#6 Food inflation is already so bad in some areas of the globe that it is setting off massive food riots in nations such as Tunisia and Algeria. In fact, there have been reports of people setting themselves on fire all over the Middle East as a way to draw attention to how desperate they are. So what is going to happen if global food prices go up another 10 or 20 percent and food riots spread literally all over the globe during 2011?
#7 There are persistent rumors that simply will not go away of massive physical gold and silver shortages. Demand for precious metals has never been higher. So what is going to happen when many investors begin to absolutely insist on physical delivery of their precious metals? What is going to happen when the fact that far, far, far more "paper gold" and "paper silver" has been sold than has ever actually physically existed in the history of the planet starts to come out? What would that do to the price of gold and silver?
#8 The U.S. housing industry could plunge the U.S. economy into another recession at any time. The real estate market is absolutely flooded with homes and virtually nobody is buying. This massive oversupply of homes means that the construction of new homes has fallen off a cliff. In 2010, only 703,000 single family, multi-family and manufactured homes were completed. This was a new record low, and it was down 17% from the previous all-time record which had just been set in 2009.
#9 A combination of extreme weather and disease could make this an absolutely brutal year for U.S. farmers. This winter we have already seen thousands of new cold weather and snowfall records set across the United States. Now there is some very disturbing news emerging out of Florida of an "incurable bacteria" that is ravaging citrus crops all over Florida. Is there a reason why so many bad things are happening all of a sudden?
#10 The municipal bond crisis could go "supernova" at any time. Already, investors are bailing out of bonds at a frightening pace. State and local government debt is now sitting at an all-time high of 22 percent of U.S. GDP. According to Meredith Whitney, the municipal bond crisis that we are facing is a gigantic threat to our financial system....
"It has tentacles as wide as anything I’ve seen. I think next to housing this is the single most important issue in the United States and certainly the largest threat to the U.S. economy."
Former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan is convinced that things are so bad that literally 90% of our states and cities could go bankrupt over the next five years....
#11 Of course on top of everything else, the quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble could burst at any time. Right now we are watching the greatest financial casino in the history of the globe spin around and around and around and everyone is hoping that at some point it doesn't stop. Today, most money on Wall Street is not made by investing in good business ideas. Rather, most money on Wall Street is now made by making the best bets. Unfortunately, at some point the casino is going to come crashing down and the game will be over.
#12 The biggest wildcard of all is war. The Korean peninsula came closer to war in 2010 than it had in decades. The Middle East could literally explode at any time. We live in a world where a single weapon can take out an entire city in an instant. All it would take is a mid-size war or a couple of weapons of mass destruction to throw the entire global economy into absolute turmoil.
Once again, let us hope that none of these economic collapse scenarios happens in 2011.
However, we have got to realize that we can't keep dodging these bullets forever.
As bad as 2010 was, the truth is that it went about as good as any of us could have hoped. Things are still pretty stable and times are still pretty good right now.
But instead of using these times to "party", we should be using them to prepare.
A really, really vicious economic storm is coming and it is going to be a complete and total nightmare. Get ready, hold on tight, and say your prayers.
View Original Article With Links HERE
What could cause an economic collapse in 2011? Well, unfortunately there are quite a few "nightmare scenarios" that could plunge the entire globe into another massive financial crisis. The United States, Japan and most of the nations in Europe are absolutely drowning in debt. The Federal Reserve continues to play reckless games with the U.S. dollar. The price of oil is skyrocketing and the global price of food just hit a new record high. Food riots are already breaking out all over the world. Meanwhile, the rampant fraud and corruption going on in world financial markets is starting to be exposed and the whole house of cards could come crashing down at any time. Most Americans have no idea that a horrific economic collapse could happen at literally any time. There is no way that all of this debt and all of this financial corruption is sustainable. At some point we are going to reach a moment of "total system failure".
So will it be soon? Let's hope not. Let's certainly hope that it does not happen in 2011. Many of us need more time to prepare. Most of our families and friends need more time to prepare. Once this thing implodes there isn't going to be an opportunity to have a "do over". We simply will not be able to put the toothpaste back into the tube again.
So we had all better be getting prepared for hard times. The following are 12 economic collapse scenarios that we could potentially see in 2011....
#1 U.S. debt could become a massive crisis at any moment. China is saying all of the right things at the moment, but many analysts are openly worried about what could happen if China suddenly decides to start dumping all of the U.S. debt that they have accumulated. Right now about the only thing keeping U.S. government finances going is the ability to borrow gigantic amounts of money at extremely low interest rates. If anything upsets that paradigm, it could potentially have enormous consequences for the entire world financial system.
#2 Speaking of threats to the global financial system, it turns out that "quantitative easing 2" has had the exact opposite effect that Ben Bernanke planned for it to have. Bernanke insisted that the main goal of QE2 was to lower interest rates, but instead all it has done is cause interest rates to go up substantially. If Bernanke this incompetent or is he trying to mess everything up on purpose?
#3 The debt bubble that the entire global economy is based on could burst at any time and throw the whole planet into chaos. According to a new report from the World Economic Forum, the total amount of credit in the world increased from $57 trillion in 2000 to $109 trillion in 2009. The WEF says that now the world is going to need another $100 trillion in credit to support projected "economic growth" over the next decade. So is this how the new "global economy" works? We just keep doubling the total amount of debt every decade?
#4 As the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve continue to pump massive amounts of new dollars into the system, the floor could fall out from underneath the U.S. dollar at any time. The truth is that we are already starting to see inflation really accelerate and everyone pretty much acknowledges that official U.S. governments figures for inflation are an absolute joke. According to one new study, the cost of college tuition has risen 286% over the last 20 years, and the cost of "hospital, nursing-home and adult-day-care services" rose 269% during those same two decades. All of this happened during a period of supposedly "low" inflation. So what are price increases going to look like when we actually have "high" inflation?
#5 One of the primary drivers of global inflation during 2011 could be the price of oil. A large number of economists are now projecting that the price of oil could surge well past $100 dollars a barrel in 2011. If that happens, it is going to put significant pressure on the price of almost everything else in the entire global economy. In fact, as I have explained previously, the higher the price of oil goes, the faster the U.S. economy will decline.
#6 Food inflation is already so bad in some areas of the globe that it is setting off massive food riots in nations such as Tunisia and Algeria. In fact, there have been reports of people setting themselves on fire all over the Middle East as a way to draw attention to how desperate they are. So what is going to happen if global food prices go up another 10 or 20 percent and food riots spread literally all over the globe during 2011?
#7 There are persistent rumors that simply will not go away of massive physical gold and silver shortages. Demand for precious metals has never been higher. So what is going to happen when many investors begin to absolutely insist on physical delivery of their precious metals? What is going to happen when the fact that far, far, far more "paper gold" and "paper silver" has been sold than has ever actually physically existed in the history of the planet starts to come out? What would that do to the price of gold and silver?
#8 The U.S. housing industry could plunge the U.S. economy into another recession at any time. The real estate market is absolutely flooded with homes and virtually nobody is buying. This massive oversupply of homes means that the construction of new homes has fallen off a cliff. In 2010, only 703,000 single family, multi-family and manufactured homes were completed. This was a new record low, and it was down 17% from the previous all-time record which had just been set in 2009.
#9 A combination of extreme weather and disease could make this an absolutely brutal year for U.S. farmers. This winter we have already seen thousands of new cold weather and snowfall records set across the United States. Now there is some very disturbing news emerging out of Florida of an "incurable bacteria" that is ravaging citrus crops all over Florida. Is there a reason why so many bad things are happening all of a sudden?
#10 The municipal bond crisis could go "supernova" at any time. Already, investors are bailing out of bonds at a frightening pace. State and local government debt is now sitting at an all-time high of 22 percent of U.S. GDP. According to Meredith Whitney, the municipal bond crisis that we are facing is a gigantic threat to our financial system....
"It has tentacles as wide as anything I’ve seen. I think next to housing this is the single most important issue in the United States and certainly the largest threat to the U.S. economy."
Former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan is convinced that things are so bad that literally 90% of our states and cities could go bankrupt over the next five years....
#11 Of course on top of everything else, the quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble could burst at any time. Right now we are watching the greatest financial casino in the history of the globe spin around and around and around and everyone is hoping that at some point it doesn't stop. Today, most money on Wall Street is not made by investing in good business ideas. Rather, most money on Wall Street is now made by making the best bets. Unfortunately, at some point the casino is going to come crashing down and the game will be over.
#12 The biggest wildcard of all is war. The Korean peninsula came closer to war in 2010 than it had in decades. The Middle East could literally explode at any time. We live in a world where a single weapon can take out an entire city in an instant. All it would take is a mid-size war or a couple of weapons of mass destruction to throw the entire global economy into absolute turmoil.
Once again, let us hope that none of these economic collapse scenarios happens in 2011.
However, we have got to realize that we can't keep dodging these bullets forever.
As bad as 2010 was, the truth is that it went about as good as any of us could have hoped. Things are still pretty stable and times are still pretty good right now.
But instead of using these times to "party", we should be using them to prepare.
A really, really vicious economic storm is coming and it is going to be a complete and total nightmare. Get ready, hold on tight, and say your prayers.
View Original Article With Links HERE
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Feds Come Knocking For Home Inspections
Bob Unruh
WorldNetDaily
Some citizens outraged, calling probe 'illegal search and invasion' of property.
A sanitation district in Pennsylvania has notified homeowners that its representatives will be making personal visits to every structure served by its network of drainpipes because that's what the federal Environmental Protection Agency is demanding.
The letter informs homeowners the inspections will probably take only about 15 minutes, but that all properties "will be considered a source of clear water discharges until an inspection can be conducted."
The effort, according to officials at the Coplay Whitehall Sewer Authority, is to prevent water from sources such as sump pumps or downspouts from being channeled into a water treatment process.
But homeowners are concerned about the mandatory government inspections of their properties.
"I do consider this the equivalent of illegal search and invasion of my home without just cause and [it] establishes a situation where I am guilty and must prove innocence," one homeowner, who asked that his identity be withheld, told WND.
"This inspection is to determine if I am 'discharging' 'clean water' into the sewer system. At no point in the letter does it say exactly what will be looked at, (I guess leaky faucets will be a crime) what else may be being evaluated while my property is being inspected, what is on the 'check list' or report that is being done, and really exactly who is doing the inspection," he said.
Officials with the sanitation district confirmed that they dispatched the letter and said the inspections are being demanded by the EPA. However, officials at the regional EPA office and those at its Washington headquarters declined to respond to WND questions about the process or its goals.
The letter to homeowners said the district was served "with a United States Environmental Protection Agency Administration Order which requires elimination of all Sanitary Sewer Overflows (SSOs) and the elimination of all clear water from entering each respective municipality's sanitary sewer system."
"The Administrative Order carries severe penalties and fines if compliance with the Order is not achieved," the letter said.
"In order to meet the requirements of the EPA Order, the CWSA finds it necessary to conduct door to door inspections of all properties connected to the CWSA system to ensure your property is not contributing clear water discharges to the sanitary sewer systems."
The letter warned that "failure by the CWSA to comply with the EPA order will result in fines and penalties levied against the CWSA which in turn will be passed on to CWSA customers through increased sanitary sewer rates."
The homeowner told WND, "I find myself becoming more and more angry as I process the ramifications of this whole issue. This may be just to look for 'clean water discharge' (what a joke – I wonder if they will look to see if I'm in the shower too long and not standing under the flow of water enough and I better not run the water for a glass of cold water), but this is, like the sexual assaults of the TSA, the beginning of accepting illegal and unwarranted searches.
"It is happening here, but from the letter I get the feeling that it is being done elsewhere with the goal of having the EPA visit every single home/apartment in America to collect who knows what information … and if this is for clean water, what will be next?" the homeowner said.
The sanitation district's own website confirms there apparently are other ways to obtain some information, since it describes how it "utilizes a 'state of the art' television inspection system, reviewing 30 miles of line/year to assure maintenance of an exemplary 'tight' system."
The district website confirms that there are 13,500 properties served by the "approximately 120 miles of line," meaning that the entire system could be reviewed once every four years with the separate system it uses.
It advises that "rainwater, downspouts, basement drains and sump pump discharges" should not be connected or piped into the sanitary district's drains.
View Original Article With Links HERE
WorldNetDaily
Some citizens outraged, calling probe 'illegal search and invasion' of property.
A sanitation district in Pennsylvania has notified homeowners that its representatives will be making personal visits to every structure served by its network of drainpipes because that's what the federal Environmental Protection Agency is demanding.
The letter informs homeowners the inspections will probably take only about 15 minutes, but that all properties "will be considered a source of clear water discharges until an inspection can be conducted."
The effort, according to officials at the Coplay Whitehall Sewer Authority, is to prevent water from sources such as sump pumps or downspouts from being channeled into a water treatment process.
But homeowners are concerned about the mandatory government inspections of their properties.
"I do consider this the equivalent of illegal search and invasion of my home without just cause and [it] establishes a situation where I am guilty and must prove innocence," one homeowner, who asked that his identity be withheld, told WND.
"This inspection is to determine if I am 'discharging' 'clean water' into the sewer system. At no point in the letter does it say exactly what will be looked at, (I guess leaky faucets will be a crime) what else may be being evaluated while my property is being inspected, what is on the 'check list' or report that is being done, and really exactly who is doing the inspection," he said.
Officials with the sanitation district confirmed that they dispatched the letter and said the inspections are being demanded by the EPA. However, officials at the regional EPA office and those at its Washington headquarters declined to respond to WND questions about the process or its goals.
The letter to homeowners said the district was served "with a United States Environmental Protection Agency Administration Order which requires elimination of all Sanitary Sewer Overflows (SSOs) and the elimination of all clear water from entering each respective municipality's sanitary sewer system."
"The Administrative Order carries severe penalties and fines if compliance with the Order is not achieved," the letter said.
"In order to meet the requirements of the EPA Order, the CWSA finds it necessary to conduct door to door inspections of all properties connected to the CWSA system to ensure your property is not contributing clear water discharges to the sanitary sewer systems."
The letter warned that "failure by the CWSA to comply with the EPA order will result in fines and penalties levied against the CWSA which in turn will be passed on to CWSA customers through increased sanitary sewer rates."
The homeowner told WND, "I find myself becoming more and more angry as I process the ramifications of this whole issue. This may be just to look for 'clean water discharge' (what a joke – I wonder if they will look to see if I'm in the shower too long and not standing under the flow of water enough and I better not run the water for a glass of cold water), but this is, like the sexual assaults of the TSA, the beginning of accepting illegal and unwarranted searches.
"It is happening here, but from the letter I get the feeling that it is being done elsewhere with the goal of having the EPA visit every single home/apartment in America to collect who knows what information … and if this is for clean water, what will be next?" the homeowner said.
The sanitation district's own website confirms there apparently are other ways to obtain some information, since it describes how it "utilizes a 'state of the art' television inspection system, reviewing 30 miles of line/year to assure maintenance of an exemplary 'tight' system."
The district website confirms that there are 13,500 properties served by the "approximately 120 miles of line," meaning that the entire system could be reviewed once every four years with the separate system it uses.
It advises that "rainwater, downspouts, basement drains and sump pump discharges" should not be connected or piped into the sanitary district's drains.
View Original Article With Links HERE
Austerity In America: 22 Signs That It Is Already Here And That It Is Going To Be Very Painful
The Economic Collapse
Over the past couple of years, most Americans have shown little concern as austerity measures were imposed on financially troubled nations across Europe. Even as austerity riots erupted in nations such as Greece and Spain, most Americans were still convinced that nothing like that could ever happen here. Well, guess what? Austerity has arrived in America. At this point, it is not a formal, mandated austerity like we have seen in Europe, but the results are just the same. Taxes are going up, services are being slashed dramatically, thousands of state and city employees are being laid off, and politicians seem to be endlessly talking about ways to make even deeper budget cuts. Unfortunately, even with the incredibly severe budget cuts that we have seen already, many state and local governments across the United States are still facing a sea of red ink as far as the eye can see.
Most Americans tend to think of "government debt" as only a problem of the federal government. But that is simply not accurate. The truth is that there are thousands of "government debt problems" from coast to coast. Today, state and local government debt has reached at an all-time high of 22 percent of U.S. GDP. It is a crisis of catastrophic proportions that is not going away any time soon.
A recent article in the New York Times did a good job of summarizing the financial pain that many state governments are feeling right now. Unfortunately, as bad as the budget shortfalls are for this year, they are projected to be even worse in 2012....
While state revenues — shrunken as a result of the recession — are finally starting to improve somewhat, federal stimulus money that had propped up state budgets is vanishing and costs are rising, all of which has left state leaders bracing for what is next. For now, states have budget gaps of $26 billion, by some estimates, and foresee shortfalls of at least $82 billion as they look to next year’s budgets.
So what is the solution? Well, for state and local politicians from coast to coast, the answer to these financial problems is to impose austerity measures. Of course they never, ever use the term "austerity measures", but that is exactly what they are.
The following are 22 signs that austerity has already arrived in America and that it is going to be very, very painful....
#1 The financial manager of the Detroit Public Schools, Robert Bobb, has submitted a proposal to close half of all the schools in the city. His plan envisions class sizes of up to 62 students in the remaining schools.
#2 Detroit Mayor Dave Bing wants to cut off 20 percent of the entire city from police and trash services in order to save money.
#3 Things are so tight in California that Governor Jerry Brown is requiring approximately 48,000 state workers to turn in their government-paid cell phones by June 1st.
#4 New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is proposing to completely eliminate 20 percent of state agencies.
#5 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has closed 20 fire departments at night and is proposing layoffs in every single city agency.
#6 In the state of Illinois, lawmakers recently pushed through a 66 percent increase in the personal income tax rate.
#7 The town of Prichard, Alabama came up with a unique way to battle their budget woes recently. They simply stopped sending out pension checks to retired workers. Of course this is a violation of state law, but town officials insist that they just do not have the money.
#8 New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recently purposely skipped a scheduled 3.1 billion dollar payment to that state's pension system.
#9 The state of New Jersey is in such bad shape that they still are facing a $10 billion budget deficit for this year even after cutting a billion dollars from the education budget and laying off thousands of teachers.
#10 Due to a very serious budget shortfall, the city of Newark, New Jersey recently made very significant cuts to the police force. Subsequently, there has been a very substantial spike in the crime rate.
#11 The city of Camden, New Jersey is "the second most dangerous city in America", but because of a huge budget shortfall they recently felt forced to lay off half of the city police force.
#12 Philadelphia, Baltimore and Sacramento have all instituted "rolling brownouts" during which various city fire stations are shut down on a rotating basis.
#13 In Georgia, the county of Clayton recently eliminated its entire public bus system in order to save 8 million dollars.
#14 Oakland, California Police Chief Anthony Batts has announced that due to severe budget cuts there are a number of crimes that his department will simply not be able to respond to any longer. The crimes that the Oakland police will no longer be responding to include grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism.
#15 In Connecticut, the governor is asking state legislators to approve the biggest tax increase that the state has seen in two decades.
#16 All across the United States, conditions at many state parks, recreation areas and historic sites are deplorable at best. Some states have backlogs of repair projects that are now over a billion dollars long. The following is a quote from a recent MSNBC article about these project backlogs....
More than a dozen states estimate that their backlogs are at least $100 million. Massachusetts and New York's are at least $1 billion. Hawaii officials called park conditions "deplorable" in a December report asking for $50 million per year for five years to tackle a $240 million backlog that covers parks, trails and harbors.
#17 The state of Arizona recently announced that it has decided to stop paying for many types of organ transplants for people enrolled in its Medicaid program.
#18 Not only that, but Arizona is do desperate for money that they have even sold off the state capitol building, the state supreme court building and the legislative chambers.
#19 All over the nation, asphalt roads are actually being ground up and are being replaced with gravel because it is cheaper to maintain. The state of South Dakota has transformed over 100 miles of asphalt road into gravel over the past year, and 38 out of the 83 counties in the state of Michigan have transformed at least some of their asphalt roads into gravel roads.
#20 The state of Illinois is such a financial disaster zone that it is hard to even describe. According to 60 Minutes, the state of Illinois is six months behind on their bill payments. 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Croft asked Illinois state Comptroller Dan Hynes how many people and organizations are waiting to be paid by the state, and this is how Hynes responded....
"It's fair to say that there are tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people waiting to be paid by the state."
#21 The city of Chicago is in such dire straits financially that officials there are actually toying with the idea of setting up a city-owned casino as a way to raise cash.
#22 Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is desperately looking for ways to cut the budget and he says that "hundreds of jurisdictions" in his state could go bankrupt over the next few years.
But everything that you have just read is only the beginning. Budget shortfalls for our state and local governments are projected to be much worse in the years ahead.
So what is the answer? Well, our state and local governments are going to have to spend less money. That means that we are likely to see even more savage budget cutting.
In addition, our state and local politicians are going to feel intense pressure to find ways to "raise revenue". In fact, we are already starting to see this happen.
According to the National Association of State Budget Officers, over the past couple of years a total of 36 out of the 50 U.S. states have raised taxes or fees of some sort.
So hold on to your wallets, because the politicians are going to be coming after them.
We are entering a time of extreme financial stress in America. The federal government is broke. Most of our state and local governments are broke. Record numbers of Americans are going bankrupt. Record numbers of Americans are being kicked out of their homes. Record numbers of Americans are now living in poverty.
The debt-fueled prosperity of the last several decades came at a cost. We literally mortgaged the future. Now nothing will ever be the same again.
View Article With Links HERE
Over the past couple of years, most Americans have shown little concern as austerity measures were imposed on financially troubled nations across Europe. Even as austerity riots erupted in nations such as Greece and Spain, most Americans were still convinced that nothing like that could ever happen here. Well, guess what? Austerity has arrived in America. At this point, it is not a formal, mandated austerity like we have seen in Europe, but the results are just the same. Taxes are going up, services are being slashed dramatically, thousands of state and city employees are being laid off, and politicians seem to be endlessly talking about ways to make even deeper budget cuts. Unfortunately, even with the incredibly severe budget cuts that we have seen already, many state and local governments across the United States are still facing a sea of red ink as far as the eye can see.
Most Americans tend to think of "government debt" as only a problem of the federal government. But that is simply not accurate. The truth is that there are thousands of "government debt problems" from coast to coast. Today, state and local government debt has reached at an all-time high of 22 percent of U.S. GDP. It is a crisis of catastrophic proportions that is not going away any time soon.
A recent article in the New York Times did a good job of summarizing the financial pain that many state governments are feeling right now. Unfortunately, as bad as the budget shortfalls are for this year, they are projected to be even worse in 2012....
While state revenues — shrunken as a result of the recession — are finally starting to improve somewhat, federal stimulus money that had propped up state budgets is vanishing and costs are rising, all of which has left state leaders bracing for what is next. For now, states have budget gaps of $26 billion, by some estimates, and foresee shortfalls of at least $82 billion as they look to next year’s budgets.
So what is the solution? Well, for state and local politicians from coast to coast, the answer to these financial problems is to impose austerity measures. Of course they never, ever use the term "austerity measures", but that is exactly what they are.
The following are 22 signs that austerity has already arrived in America and that it is going to be very, very painful....
#1 The financial manager of the Detroit Public Schools, Robert Bobb, has submitted a proposal to close half of all the schools in the city. His plan envisions class sizes of up to 62 students in the remaining schools.
#2 Detroit Mayor Dave Bing wants to cut off 20 percent of the entire city from police and trash services in order to save money.
#3 Things are so tight in California that Governor Jerry Brown is requiring approximately 48,000 state workers to turn in their government-paid cell phones by June 1st.
#4 New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is proposing to completely eliminate 20 percent of state agencies.
#5 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has closed 20 fire departments at night and is proposing layoffs in every single city agency.
#6 In the state of Illinois, lawmakers recently pushed through a 66 percent increase in the personal income tax rate.
#7 The town of Prichard, Alabama came up with a unique way to battle their budget woes recently. They simply stopped sending out pension checks to retired workers. Of course this is a violation of state law, but town officials insist that they just do not have the money.
#8 New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recently purposely skipped a scheduled 3.1 billion dollar payment to that state's pension system.
#9 The state of New Jersey is in such bad shape that they still are facing a $10 billion budget deficit for this year even after cutting a billion dollars from the education budget and laying off thousands of teachers.
#10 Due to a very serious budget shortfall, the city of Newark, New Jersey recently made very significant cuts to the police force. Subsequently, there has been a very substantial spike in the crime rate.
#11 The city of Camden, New Jersey is "the second most dangerous city in America", but because of a huge budget shortfall they recently felt forced to lay off half of the city police force.
#12 Philadelphia, Baltimore and Sacramento have all instituted "rolling brownouts" during which various city fire stations are shut down on a rotating basis.
#13 In Georgia, the county of Clayton recently eliminated its entire public bus system in order to save 8 million dollars.
#14 Oakland, California Police Chief Anthony Batts has announced that due to severe budget cuts there are a number of crimes that his department will simply not be able to respond to any longer. The crimes that the Oakland police will no longer be responding to include grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism.
#15 In Connecticut, the governor is asking state legislators to approve the biggest tax increase that the state has seen in two decades.
#16 All across the United States, conditions at many state parks, recreation areas and historic sites are deplorable at best. Some states have backlogs of repair projects that are now over a billion dollars long. The following is a quote from a recent MSNBC article about these project backlogs....
More than a dozen states estimate that their backlogs are at least $100 million. Massachusetts and New York's are at least $1 billion. Hawaii officials called park conditions "deplorable" in a December report asking for $50 million per year for five years to tackle a $240 million backlog that covers parks, trails and harbors.
#17 The state of Arizona recently announced that it has decided to stop paying for many types of organ transplants for people enrolled in its Medicaid program.
#18 Not only that, but Arizona is do desperate for money that they have even sold off the state capitol building, the state supreme court building and the legislative chambers.
#19 All over the nation, asphalt roads are actually being ground up and are being replaced with gravel because it is cheaper to maintain. The state of South Dakota has transformed over 100 miles of asphalt road into gravel over the past year, and 38 out of the 83 counties in the state of Michigan have transformed at least some of their asphalt roads into gravel roads.
#20 The state of Illinois is such a financial disaster zone that it is hard to even describe. According to 60 Minutes, the state of Illinois is six months behind on their bill payments. 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Croft asked Illinois state Comptroller Dan Hynes how many people and organizations are waiting to be paid by the state, and this is how Hynes responded....
"It's fair to say that there are tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people waiting to be paid by the state."
#21 The city of Chicago is in such dire straits financially that officials there are actually toying with the idea of setting up a city-owned casino as a way to raise cash.
#22 Michigan Governor Rick Snyder is desperately looking for ways to cut the budget and he says that "hundreds of jurisdictions" in his state could go bankrupt over the next few years.
But everything that you have just read is only the beginning. Budget shortfalls for our state and local governments are projected to be much worse in the years ahead.
So what is the answer? Well, our state and local governments are going to have to spend less money. That means that we are likely to see even more savage budget cutting.
In addition, our state and local politicians are going to feel intense pressure to find ways to "raise revenue". In fact, we are already starting to see this happen.
According to the National Association of State Budget Officers, over the past couple of years a total of 36 out of the 50 U.S. states have raised taxes or fees of some sort.
So hold on to your wallets, because the politicians are going to be coming after them.
We are entering a time of extreme financial stress in America. The federal government is broke. Most of our state and local governments are broke. Record numbers of Americans are going bankrupt. Record numbers of Americans are being kicked out of their homes. Record numbers of Americans are now living in poverty.
The debt-fueled prosperity of the last several decades came at a cost. We literally mortgaged the future. Now nothing will ever be the same again.
View Article With Links HERE
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