PhillipBrennan.net
With the US Government preparing to seize private and public pensions in order to bankrupt the American People and bring them down into poverty as part of their Full Spectrum Dominance plans, the risk of American society collapsing into anarchy and rioting is extremely high over the next few months. Plans have already been in place for the past twenty-six years with Rex 84 to bring the USA under Martial Law in such an eventuality. The Military have been training extensively over this time period specifically to take on the American people with the National Level Program of army exercises. National Level Exercises 2010 (NLE10) have had exercises in Chicago, Illinois, entitled "Operation Vigilant Guard", where foreign troops were training with the US Military to take out Patriots and confiscate legally held guns from the American people.
In a PrisonPlanet.tv special video report with Rob Dew and Jason Douglass, Operation Vigilant Guard is well documented:
"...The National Guard told the media that foreign soldiers would be "observers," but as this Prison Planet.tv exclusive video reveals Polish soldiers participated in the activities, including a raid on what appeared to be a meth lab but is described as a weapons of mass destruction facility.
Operation Vigilant Guard reveals the on-going effort to not only destroy Posse Comitatus -- once upon a time designed to prevent the military from working with state and local law enforcement -- but the globalist effort to incorporate foreign "partners" into any future effort to impose martial law and gun confiscation in response not only to hurricanes but a contrived terrorist event..."
This is the final phase in the DDCN Doctrine of Demoralisation, Destabilisation, Crisis and Normalisation, ready for the Bancor to be brought in as the One World Currency, with a totalitarian One World Government regime.
In order for this hostile takeover to be successful, they have to first destabilise any potential resistance before the Crisis phase is fully enacted. This is why the Southern Property Law Center, under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security, are doing everything in their power to demonise Patriots and Constitutionalists, the Tea Parties and Veterans, Gun Owners and Libertarians - These people will be the first into the breach to resist tyranny. Meanwhile, the MIAC Reports and the Department of Justice are also trying to character assassinate large swathes of American society, as well as the Feds targeting disgruntled veterans.
As the Crisis phase swings into full economic melt down, the US Military will take over more and more of the infrastructure as cities can no longer afford to employ staff. The ability to do this has already been listed in several Presidential Executive Orders:
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 - allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 - allows the government to seize and control the communication media.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 - allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 - allows the government to seize all means of transportation, including personal cars, trucks or vehicles of any kind and total control over all highways, seaports, and waterways.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 10999 - allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 - allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 - allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 - designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 - allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 - allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 - allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 - specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad powers in every aspect of the nation. General Frank Salzedo, chief of FEMA's Civil Security Division stated in a 1983 conference that he saw FEMA's role as a "new frontier in the protection of individual and governmental leaders from assassination, and of civil and military installations from sabotage and/or attack, as well as prevention of dissident groups from gaining access to U.S. opinion, or a global audience in times of crisis." FEMA's powers were consolidated by President Carter to incorporate the...
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 - grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049 - assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 12148 - created the Federal Emergency Management Agency to interface with the Department of Defense for civil defense planning and funding. An "emergency czar" was appointed. FEMA has only spent about 6 percent of its budget on national emergencies. The bulk of their funding has been used for the construction of secret underground facilities to assure continuity of government in case of a major emergency, foreign or domestic.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 12656 - appointed the National Security Council as the principal body that should consider emergency powers. This allows the government to increase domestic intelligence and surveillance of U.S. citizens and would restrict the freedom of movement within the United States and grant the government the right to isolate large groups of civilians. The National Guard could be federalized to seal all borders and take control of U.S. air space and all ports of entry.
EXECUTIVE ORDER 12919 - Collects EOs 10995, 10997, 10998, 10999, 11000, 11001, 11002, 11003, 11004, 11005 and 11051 together into one new Executive Order.
National Security Act of 1947 - allows for the strategic relocation of industries, services, government and other essential economic activities, and to rationalize the requirements for manpower, resources and production facilities.
1950 Defense Production Act - gives the President sweeping powers over all aspects of the economy.
Act of August 29, 1916 - authorizes the Secretary of the Army, in time of war, to take possession of any transportation system for transporting troops, material, or any other purpose related to the emergency.
International Emergency Economic Powers Act - enables the President to seize the property of a foreign country or national. These powers were transferred to FEMA in a sweeping consolidation in 1979.
As more and more Patriots become leaders in their communities, some will become targets for assassination through either Predator Drone strikes or Kill / Capture Teams, especially those who are fully aware of all that is going on geopolitically and are standing up against it. Do not be deceived - this is not for Islamic militants hiding out in caves, it is for the American People.
With State Nullification and State Succession being openly discussed by many people who are either standing for office this November, or are supporting independent candidates, many of us are watching warily for signs of an October Surprise in the form of either another illegal War of Trade, a False Flag Terrorism Event, or even, the fall of the Republic before the November elections even take place and the declaration of Martial Law.
As the Alternative Intelligence Community chatter gets louder concerning impending Martial Law, and sources are noting the mobilisation of the 82nd Airborne Division, Marshals being called for inter-state training exercises under suspicious circumstances, and various other signs that suggest the imminent declaration of Martial Law, we have decided to put the Martial Law risk to Severe.
By exposing these Martial Law plans, we Patriots hope to stay their hand long enough for the danger to pass. Things brought out into the light can be dealt with, while things hidden cannot be. Meanwhile, it is incumbent upon all Americans to vote in Constitutionalist candidates no matter what their political affiliations are. There are many independent Constitutionalist candidates standing for office against those currently in office who are trying to bring in the New World Order, candidates who once in office will hold the feet of Congress and the President to the fire on these issues.
View Article With Links HERE
Friday, October 15, 2010
The Real Horror Story: The U.S. Economic Meltdown
theeconomiccollapseblog.com
This October, millions of Americans are going to watch horror movies and read horror stories because they enjoy being frightened. Well, if you really want to be scared, you should just check out the real horror story unfolding right before our eyes - the U.S. economic meltdown. It seems like more bad news for the U.S. economy comes out almost every single day now. Unfortunately, things are about to get a whole lot worse. The mainstream media has been treating "Foreclosuregate" as if it is a minor nuisance, but the truth is that the lid is about to be publicly lifted on years and years of massive fraud in the U.S. mortgage industry, and this thing has the potential to cause economic chaos that is absolutely unprecedented. Over the past several days, expert after expert has been coming forward and warning that this crisis could completely and totally paralyze the mortgage industry in the United States. If that happens, it will be essentially like pulling the plug on the U.S. economic recovery.
Not that there was going to be a recovery anyway. The truth is that economic statistic after economic statistic has been pointing to incredible trouble for the U.S. economy.
For example, the U.S. government just announced that the U.S. trade deficit went up again in August. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. trade deficit was $46.3 billion during August, which was up significantly from $42.6 billion in July.
So how much coverage did this get in the mainstream media?
Well, just about none.
We have gotten so used to horrific trade deficits that it isn't even news anymore.
But these trade deficits are absolutely killing our economy.
How long do you think that the U.S. economy can keep shelling out 40 or 50 billion more dollars than we take in every single month?
If you look at the countries around the world that have become very wealthy, almost all of them have gotten that way by trading with the United States.
Meanwhile, many of our once great manufacturing cities are turning into open sewers.
Every single politician in the United States should be talking about the trade deficit.
But hardly any of them are.
Is it because Americans have all become so dumbed-down that we don't understand these things anymore, or is it because we are so distracted by the various forms of entertainment that we are addicted to that we just don't care?
But the trade deficit is not the only economic statistic that is getting worse.
According to the Department of Labor, for the week ending October 9th the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims was 462,000, which represented an increase of 13,000 from the previous week.
We have an unemployment epidemic going on in this country, but what did the mainstream media do in response to this news?
They yawned. Instead, many of the "financial experts" were busy talking about how wonderful it is that the Stock Market is going up, up, up.
Well, as one reader recently reminded me, if you want to evaluate an economy by how much the stock market is going up, then the economy of Zimbabwe has had an absolutely wonderful decade!
The truth is that the stock market is not a good barometer for what is actually going on.
What is really happening is that the U.S. economic system is literally coming apart at the seams.
Yet another piece of really bad economic news that just came out is that the number of home repossessions by banks set a new all-time record during the month of September. The record total of 102,134 bank repossessions was the first time ever that bank repossessions climbed over the 100,000 mark for a single month.
The good news is that bank repossessions are about to come to a screeching halt.
The bad news is that it is because the U.S. mortgage industry is about to become completely and totally paralyzed by this foreclosure fraud crisis.
The following are three basic points to remember about this foreclosure mess....
A) Massive Fraud Was Committed At Every Stage By The Mortgage Industry
In a previous article entitled "Foreclosure Fraud: 6 Things You Need To Know About The Crisis That Could Potentially Rip The U.S. Economy To Shreds", I attempted to describe just how widespread the fraud in the mortgage industry has been....
The truth is that there was fraud going on in every segment of the mortgage industry over the past decade. Predatory lending institutions were aggressively signing consumers up for mortgages that they knew they could never repay. Many consumers were also committing fraud because a lot of them also knew that they could never possibly repay the mortgages. These bad mortgages were fraudulently bundled up and securitized, and these securitized financial instruments were fraudulently marketed as solid investments. Those who certified that these junk securities were "AAA rated" also committed fraud. Then these securities were traded at lightning speed all over the globe and a ton of mortgage paperwork became "lost" or "missing".
Finally, when it came time to foreclose on these bad mortgages, a whole lot more fraud was committed. Thousands upon thousands of foreclosure documents were "robo-signed", but the truth is that investigators are starting to discover a lot of things about these mortgages that are a lot worse than that.
B) Nobody Really Knows Who Owns Or Who Has The Right To Foreclose On Millions Upon Millions Of Mortgages
The legal rights to millions of U.S. mortgages has been scrambled so badly that it might actually be impossible to fully sort this mess out. In particular, MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems) has created a paperwork nightmare that may never be able to be completely remediated.
On a previous article, a reader named William left a comment that did a great job of describing the very serious problem that we are now facing because of MERS....
MERS – potentially the most serious problem because it affects who really owns the loans. Securitization mandates that loans be transferred into REMIC trusts within a strict timeframe. Late transfers are not allowed. In spite of the supposed “ease” of transfer through MERS, it now appears that perhaps 60% of US loans were never properly transferred. Absent remedial legislation, it is impossible to do so now. And the former owners may be out of business or bankrupt. So how do we get these loans to the trust beneficiaries who were supposed to own them? This is no simple paperwork correction. The train has left the station, with no more to follow.
C) Unprecedented Chaos Is Going To Erupt As Faith In The Mortgage System Completely Dies
So what is going to happen as a result of all of this fraud and confusion in the mortgage industry? Well, basically everybody is going to sue everybody. It is going to be absolute mayhem.
Charles Hugh Smith recently put it this way....
Real estate attorneys can rejoice: everyone will get sued, in every court in the land. Banks will get sued, title insurance companies will get sued, realtors will get sued, foreclosure mills will get sued, MERS will get sued, and so on. The attorneys general of the states will all sue the banks and mortgage mills, claiming billions in damages.
Meanwhile, virtually nobody will want to buy any house that has been foreclosed on in the past ten years or so until this mess is sorted out (which could take years and years).
Meanwhile, title insurance companies are going to avoid foreclosures like the plague.
Meanwhile, all of the investors that have been propping up the housing market by buying foreclosures are going to be fleeing the market in droves.
Meanwhile, the financial world is going to be trying to figure out which U.S. lending institutions are still solvent. The value of most mortgage-based assets is now totally up in the air.
Meanwhile, millions more homeowners across the United States will be emboldened to quit making payments on their mortgages as they realize that those holding their mortgages may not have the legal right to foreclose on them.
And that is where the true horror of this entire situation may lie. What is going to happen if millions upon millions of Americans holding underwater mortgages look at this situation and decide that they really don't have to be afraid of the threat of foreclosure any longer?
If a massive wave of homeowners suddenly decides to simply quit paying their mortgages, it would basically wipe out nearly the entire mortgage industry.
That would likely mean more government bailouts, more government control, much higher mortgage rates and eventually a serious crash in housing prices.
This crisis is incredibly complicated and it has a ton of moving parts, so it is extremely difficult to describe accurately. But the reality is that this mess has the potential to hurt the U.S. real estate market much more than "subprime mortgages" ever did.
Hopefully this crisis will not be "the straw that broke the camel's back" for the U.S. economy, but with each passing day this thing looks even more horrifying.
One way or another, real estate law in the United State is going to be changed forever as a result of this crisis. It is going to be extremely interesting to see how all of this plays out.
View Article With Links HERE
This October, millions of Americans are going to watch horror movies and read horror stories because they enjoy being frightened. Well, if you really want to be scared, you should just check out the real horror story unfolding right before our eyes - the U.S. economic meltdown. It seems like more bad news for the U.S. economy comes out almost every single day now. Unfortunately, things are about to get a whole lot worse. The mainstream media has been treating "Foreclosuregate" as if it is a minor nuisance, but the truth is that the lid is about to be publicly lifted on years and years of massive fraud in the U.S. mortgage industry, and this thing has the potential to cause economic chaos that is absolutely unprecedented. Over the past several days, expert after expert has been coming forward and warning that this crisis could completely and totally paralyze the mortgage industry in the United States. If that happens, it will be essentially like pulling the plug on the U.S. economic recovery.
Not that there was going to be a recovery anyway. The truth is that economic statistic after economic statistic has been pointing to incredible trouble for the U.S. economy.
For example, the U.S. government just announced that the U.S. trade deficit went up again in August. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. trade deficit was $46.3 billion during August, which was up significantly from $42.6 billion in July.
So how much coverage did this get in the mainstream media?
Well, just about none.
We have gotten so used to horrific trade deficits that it isn't even news anymore.
But these trade deficits are absolutely killing our economy.
How long do you think that the U.S. economy can keep shelling out 40 or 50 billion more dollars than we take in every single month?
If you look at the countries around the world that have become very wealthy, almost all of them have gotten that way by trading with the United States.
Meanwhile, many of our once great manufacturing cities are turning into open sewers.
Every single politician in the United States should be talking about the trade deficit.
But hardly any of them are.
Is it because Americans have all become so dumbed-down that we don't understand these things anymore, or is it because we are so distracted by the various forms of entertainment that we are addicted to that we just don't care?
But the trade deficit is not the only economic statistic that is getting worse.
According to the Department of Labor, for the week ending October 9th the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims was 462,000, which represented an increase of 13,000 from the previous week.
We have an unemployment epidemic going on in this country, but what did the mainstream media do in response to this news?
They yawned. Instead, many of the "financial experts" were busy talking about how wonderful it is that the Stock Market is going up, up, up.
Well, as one reader recently reminded me, if you want to evaluate an economy by how much the stock market is going up, then the economy of Zimbabwe has had an absolutely wonderful decade!
The truth is that the stock market is not a good barometer for what is actually going on.
What is really happening is that the U.S. economic system is literally coming apart at the seams.
Yet another piece of really bad economic news that just came out is that the number of home repossessions by banks set a new all-time record during the month of September. The record total of 102,134 bank repossessions was the first time ever that bank repossessions climbed over the 100,000 mark for a single month.
The good news is that bank repossessions are about to come to a screeching halt.
The bad news is that it is because the U.S. mortgage industry is about to become completely and totally paralyzed by this foreclosure fraud crisis.
The following are three basic points to remember about this foreclosure mess....
A) Massive Fraud Was Committed At Every Stage By The Mortgage Industry
In a previous article entitled "Foreclosure Fraud: 6 Things You Need To Know About The Crisis That Could Potentially Rip The U.S. Economy To Shreds", I attempted to describe just how widespread the fraud in the mortgage industry has been....
The truth is that there was fraud going on in every segment of the mortgage industry over the past decade. Predatory lending institutions were aggressively signing consumers up for mortgages that they knew they could never repay. Many consumers were also committing fraud because a lot of them also knew that they could never possibly repay the mortgages. These bad mortgages were fraudulently bundled up and securitized, and these securitized financial instruments were fraudulently marketed as solid investments. Those who certified that these junk securities were "AAA rated" also committed fraud. Then these securities were traded at lightning speed all over the globe and a ton of mortgage paperwork became "lost" or "missing".
Finally, when it came time to foreclose on these bad mortgages, a whole lot more fraud was committed. Thousands upon thousands of foreclosure documents were "robo-signed", but the truth is that investigators are starting to discover a lot of things about these mortgages that are a lot worse than that.
B) Nobody Really Knows Who Owns Or Who Has The Right To Foreclose On Millions Upon Millions Of Mortgages
The legal rights to millions of U.S. mortgages has been scrambled so badly that it might actually be impossible to fully sort this mess out. In particular, MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems) has created a paperwork nightmare that may never be able to be completely remediated.
On a previous article, a reader named William left a comment that did a great job of describing the very serious problem that we are now facing because of MERS....
MERS – potentially the most serious problem because it affects who really owns the loans. Securitization mandates that loans be transferred into REMIC trusts within a strict timeframe. Late transfers are not allowed. In spite of the supposed “ease” of transfer through MERS, it now appears that perhaps 60% of US loans were never properly transferred. Absent remedial legislation, it is impossible to do so now. And the former owners may be out of business or bankrupt. So how do we get these loans to the trust beneficiaries who were supposed to own them? This is no simple paperwork correction. The train has left the station, with no more to follow.
C) Unprecedented Chaos Is Going To Erupt As Faith In The Mortgage System Completely Dies
So what is going to happen as a result of all of this fraud and confusion in the mortgage industry? Well, basically everybody is going to sue everybody. It is going to be absolute mayhem.
Charles Hugh Smith recently put it this way....
Real estate attorneys can rejoice: everyone will get sued, in every court in the land. Banks will get sued, title insurance companies will get sued, realtors will get sued, foreclosure mills will get sued, MERS will get sued, and so on. The attorneys general of the states will all sue the banks and mortgage mills, claiming billions in damages.
Meanwhile, virtually nobody will want to buy any house that has been foreclosed on in the past ten years or so until this mess is sorted out (which could take years and years).
Meanwhile, title insurance companies are going to avoid foreclosures like the plague.
Meanwhile, all of the investors that have been propping up the housing market by buying foreclosures are going to be fleeing the market in droves.
Meanwhile, the financial world is going to be trying to figure out which U.S. lending institutions are still solvent. The value of most mortgage-based assets is now totally up in the air.
Meanwhile, millions more homeowners across the United States will be emboldened to quit making payments on their mortgages as they realize that those holding their mortgages may not have the legal right to foreclose on them.
And that is where the true horror of this entire situation may lie. What is going to happen if millions upon millions of Americans holding underwater mortgages look at this situation and decide that they really don't have to be afraid of the threat of foreclosure any longer?
If a massive wave of homeowners suddenly decides to simply quit paying their mortgages, it would basically wipe out nearly the entire mortgage industry.
That would likely mean more government bailouts, more government control, much higher mortgage rates and eventually a serious crash in housing prices.
This crisis is incredibly complicated and it has a ton of moving parts, so it is extremely difficult to describe accurately. But the reality is that this mess has the potential to hurt the U.S. real estate market much more than "subprime mortgages" ever did.
Hopefully this crisis will not be "the straw that broke the camel's back" for the U.S. economy, but with each passing day this thing looks even more horrifying.
One way or another, real estate law in the United State is going to be changed forever as a result of this crisis. It is going to be extremely interesting to see how all of this plays out.
View Article With Links HERE
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Family Farm Ordered to Destroy 50,000 Pounds of Cheese
Hartke Is Online
Family Farm Ordered to Destroy 50,000 Pounds of Cheese
By Kimberly Hartke | Published: October 11, 2010
Reality? Reason?
Nah, We’ve got Regulatory Authority!
by Guest Blogger, ©Doreen Hannes 2010
Morningland Dairy is the latest attempt by the FDA to fulfill the Healthy People 2020 objective to kill raw dairy. Morningland is owned by Joseph and Denise Dixon, who operate the cheese plant and make raw cheese from cows kept right on the property and managed by one of their eldest daughters. They have 12 children, 4 who still live at home, and they have been actively engaged in real food for decades. They were caught up in the Rawesome Raid dragnet and many believe the questionable California Dept of Food and Agriculture tests on their cheese are the legal justification for the multi-agency guns drawn raid at Rawesome.
Farm’s Perfect Safety Record Matters Not to Authorities
In the thirty years of Morningland Dairy operations NO ONE has become ill from consuming their products. Yet they have been ordered by the Missouri Milk Board to destroy ALL of their cheese without actual tests being performed on the cheese stock. This is nearly 50,000 pounds of cheese, or approximately $250,000.
Since the Milk Board and the FDA showed up at Morningland on August 26th, they have been “embargoed” from shipping or making any product. They dumped their milk for nearly six weeks before being approved to send it into homogenized, pasteurized distribution. All the while, they have had to pay the bill to keep the dairy and cheese plant operable.
On September 24th, the Milk Board verbally ordered Morningland to destroy their product. Morningland asked that this order be put in writing. One week later the order was hand delivered to General Manager/owner, Joseph Dixon. The order states that in three business days the Milk Board would contact them with when and how the cheese was to be destroyed.
Morningland Rebuts the Destroy Order and Offers a Solution
Morningland dared to publish a written objection to committing suicide, a rebuttal and proposed remedy. They rebutted many of the stated “facts” in the 10-page order, Destroy Orders: Morningland Dairy. The Morningland Dairy then offered a reasonable, logical, scientifically sound remedy to destruction on the afternoon of October 6th.
Gov’t Pushes Forward to Destroy Cheese, and Farm
The next morning, they were served with a restraining order and preliminary injunction by the Attorney General’s office of Missouri. They were to be in court the very next day. In sum, they were ordered to destroy their wealth on Friday, asked for logic and justice on Wednesday, notified they were being sued on Thursday and ordered to be in court on Friday.
At 4:50pm on Thursday, the Attorney General’s office called and canceled court because one or two of their witnesses couldn’t attend. Never mind that a family run dairy and cheese plant with 9 families making a living through it should mount a legal defense against destruction in one day. It’s another raid using Gestapo legal tactics that fit the MO of the FDA and their minions….or sub agents, if you prefer.
As readers of this blog and those in the real food movement know, the FDA has a mission. They have blatantly stated that you have no right to consume foods of your choice, and the FDA Plant and Dairy head has a documented Howard Hughes like fear of raw dairy. They are happy to use their resources to “protect” you from consuming things that don’t make any one ill. They’ve reduced science to superstition. If they get more power through S.510, they will regulate the family farm and real food to death and give you Cheez Whiz and Twinkies as government approved food.
What You Can Do to Help
To fight for your right to choose what you want to eat, Morningland must be able to go on the offense. They are willing to sacrifice everything they have worked for to stand for your ability to eat real food.
Friends of Morningland have put up a website, The Uncheese Party. They are asking supporters to sponsor a cheese to help the family out financially.
For as little as $5 you can tell the FDA and their minions that you are smart enough to decide what you want to eat and don’t need their permission or “help” to figure out what is “good for us”. This battle must be won.
For several years, Doreen Hannes has been actively exposing the agencies and organizations that desire to control the food supply through international agreements, treaties and the agency rule making and legislative processes. A married homesteader, raiser of food, critters and children, she has dedicated herself to exposing the truth behind the disinformation being spouted by those who would benefit financially from controlling independent agriculture.
View Original Article With Links HERE
Family Farm Ordered to Destroy 50,000 Pounds of Cheese
By Kimberly Hartke | Published: October 11, 2010
Reality? Reason?
Nah, We’ve got Regulatory Authority!
by Guest Blogger, ©Doreen Hannes 2010
Morningland Dairy is the latest attempt by the FDA to fulfill the Healthy People 2020 objective to kill raw dairy. Morningland is owned by Joseph and Denise Dixon, who operate the cheese plant and make raw cheese from cows kept right on the property and managed by one of their eldest daughters. They have 12 children, 4 who still live at home, and they have been actively engaged in real food for decades. They were caught up in the Rawesome Raid dragnet and many believe the questionable California Dept of Food and Agriculture tests on their cheese are the legal justification for the multi-agency guns drawn raid at Rawesome.
Farm’s Perfect Safety Record Matters Not to Authorities
In the thirty years of Morningland Dairy operations NO ONE has become ill from consuming their products. Yet they have been ordered by the Missouri Milk Board to destroy ALL of their cheese without actual tests being performed on the cheese stock. This is nearly 50,000 pounds of cheese, or approximately $250,000.
Since the Milk Board and the FDA showed up at Morningland on August 26th, they have been “embargoed” from shipping or making any product. They dumped their milk for nearly six weeks before being approved to send it into homogenized, pasteurized distribution. All the while, they have had to pay the bill to keep the dairy and cheese plant operable.
On September 24th, the Milk Board verbally ordered Morningland to destroy their product. Morningland asked that this order be put in writing. One week later the order was hand delivered to General Manager/owner, Joseph Dixon. The order states that in three business days the Milk Board would contact them with when and how the cheese was to be destroyed.
Morningland Rebuts the Destroy Order and Offers a Solution
Morningland dared to publish a written objection to committing suicide, a rebuttal and proposed remedy. They rebutted many of the stated “facts” in the 10-page order, Destroy Orders: Morningland Dairy. The Morningland Dairy then offered a reasonable, logical, scientifically sound remedy to destruction on the afternoon of October 6th.
Gov’t Pushes Forward to Destroy Cheese, and Farm
The next morning, they were served with a restraining order and preliminary injunction by the Attorney General’s office of Missouri. They were to be in court the very next day. In sum, they were ordered to destroy their wealth on Friday, asked for logic and justice on Wednesday, notified they were being sued on Thursday and ordered to be in court on Friday.
At 4:50pm on Thursday, the Attorney General’s office called and canceled court because one or two of their witnesses couldn’t attend. Never mind that a family run dairy and cheese plant with 9 families making a living through it should mount a legal defense against destruction in one day. It’s another raid using Gestapo legal tactics that fit the MO of the FDA and their minions….or sub agents, if you prefer.
As readers of this blog and those in the real food movement know, the FDA has a mission. They have blatantly stated that you have no right to consume foods of your choice, and the FDA Plant and Dairy head has a documented Howard Hughes like fear of raw dairy. They are happy to use their resources to “protect” you from consuming things that don’t make any one ill. They’ve reduced science to superstition. If they get more power through S.510, they will regulate the family farm and real food to death and give you Cheez Whiz and Twinkies as government approved food.
What You Can Do to Help
To fight for your right to choose what you want to eat, Morningland must be able to go on the offense. They are willing to sacrifice everything they have worked for to stand for your ability to eat real food.
Friends of Morningland have put up a website, The Uncheese Party. They are asking supporters to sponsor a cheese to help the family out financially.
For as little as $5 you can tell the FDA and their minions that you are smart enough to decide what you want to eat and don’t need their permission or “help” to figure out what is “good for us”. This battle must be won.
For several years, Doreen Hannes has been actively exposing the agencies and organizations that desire to control the food supply through international agreements, treaties and the agency rule making and legislative processes. A married homesteader, raiser of food, critters and children, she has dedicated herself to exposing the truth behind the disinformation being spouted by those who would benefit financially from controlling independent agriculture.
View Original Article With Links HERE
Government Trains Troops To Run American Cities
Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com,
Local government officials are training active duty military soldiers to run communities, re-igniting fears that troops will be used to deal with civil unrest in the event of a total economic collapse or other national emergency in a newly militarized America.
“The 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division met with City Manager Mary Corriveau, Mayor Jeff Graham and other City officials gaining insight about city infrastructure,” reports ABC 50.
“Government 101 is a new program that Fort Drum has established to learn from local officials about what it takes to run a community efficiently.”
The 10th Mountain Division is a light infantry division of the United States Army based at Fort Drum, New York that specializes in fighting under harsh terrain and weather conditions. The unit was deployed to Afghanistan in 2006 for one year and then to Iraq in April 2008.
The troops are being prepared for “A sitution where in essence they will become the local government,” said Corriveau.
Watch the clip:
The program is ostensibly aimed at preparing troops to govern occupied areas of Afghanistan, but as we highlighted over the last two years, the real purpose behind the training could hit a lot closer to home.
A similar program that was announced back in September 2008 involving the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team was geared around training troops who had recently returned from Afghanistan to conduct “homeland patrols” which began on October 1st of that year.
According to an Army Times report, part of the troops’ mission was to deal with “civil unrest and crowd control” by using non-lethal weapons against the American people. After the announcement caused controversy, the Army Times was forced to issue a clarification, claiming that the non-lethal weapons training was intended for use overseas, but the part about “civil unrest and crowd control,” a complete violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, was not retracted.
In November 2008, Northcom announced that over the course of the following three years, an additional 4,700 troops would be assigned for domestic homeland security missions.
The very next month, the Armed Forces Press Service initiated a propaganda campaign designed to convince the American people that deploying the 3rd Infantry Division in the United States in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act was a good thing, as fully uniformed soldiers were photographed helping to save car wreck victims, in another effort at incrementally conditioning Americans to accept troops on the streets as normal, despite the fact that it is the hallmark of corrupt dictatorships and empires in terminal decline like the former Soviet Union.
Under the pretext of “helping” local communities short of police in difficult economic times, U.S. troops are now occupying America as the country sinks into a state of de facto martial law.
The military are now being called upon to undertake roles normally designated to police as Americans are incrementally acclimated to accept the presence of troops on the streets as an everyday occurrence.
One example occurred in Kingman Arizona, where National Guardsmen were filmed “providing security” and directing traffic.
During the Kentucky Derby on May 2 last year, Military Police were on patrol to deal with crowd control.
We reported on numerous other instances of militarized units being used in traffic control, checkpoints, and security procedures.
With the government preparing to seize Americans’ private pensions as the economy further deteriorates, innumerable forecasters are predicting riots and mass civil unrest once the vanishing middle class finally rises from its slumber and realizes that their entire way of life is under immediate threat.
Unless we can communicate the fact that having troops patrol the streets is not normal and in reality is a warning siren for a country in dire straights, those same troops will soon be firing non-lethal weapons at angry American citizens – or worse.
As Gerald Celente often warns, once Americans have lost everything, they will begin to lose it – rioting in massive numbers and mirroring the growing civil unrest we are already seeing in Europe as people rise up en masse in a backlash against austerity measures and governments raising the age of retirement and seizing pensions.
View Article With Links HERE
Related Article: U.S. Troops to Deal With Rioting Americans HERE
Infowars.com,
Local government officials are training active duty military soldiers to run communities, re-igniting fears that troops will be used to deal with civil unrest in the event of a total economic collapse or other national emergency in a newly militarized America.
“The 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division met with City Manager Mary Corriveau, Mayor Jeff Graham and other City officials gaining insight about city infrastructure,” reports ABC 50.
“Government 101 is a new program that Fort Drum has established to learn from local officials about what it takes to run a community efficiently.”
The 10th Mountain Division is a light infantry division of the United States Army based at Fort Drum, New York that specializes in fighting under harsh terrain and weather conditions. The unit was deployed to Afghanistan in 2006 for one year and then to Iraq in April 2008.
The troops are being prepared for “A sitution where in essence they will become the local government,” said Corriveau.
Watch the clip:
The program is ostensibly aimed at preparing troops to govern occupied areas of Afghanistan, but as we highlighted over the last two years, the real purpose behind the training could hit a lot closer to home.
A similar program that was announced back in September 2008 involving the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team was geared around training troops who had recently returned from Afghanistan to conduct “homeland patrols” which began on October 1st of that year.
According to an Army Times report, part of the troops’ mission was to deal with “civil unrest and crowd control” by using non-lethal weapons against the American people. After the announcement caused controversy, the Army Times was forced to issue a clarification, claiming that the non-lethal weapons training was intended for use overseas, but the part about “civil unrest and crowd control,” a complete violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, was not retracted.
In November 2008, Northcom announced that over the course of the following three years, an additional 4,700 troops would be assigned for domestic homeland security missions.
The very next month, the Armed Forces Press Service initiated a propaganda campaign designed to convince the American people that deploying the 3rd Infantry Division in the United States in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act was a good thing, as fully uniformed soldiers were photographed helping to save car wreck victims, in another effort at incrementally conditioning Americans to accept troops on the streets as normal, despite the fact that it is the hallmark of corrupt dictatorships and empires in terminal decline like the former Soviet Union.
Under the pretext of “helping” local communities short of police in difficult economic times, U.S. troops are now occupying America as the country sinks into a state of de facto martial law.
The military are now being called upon to undertake roles normally designated to police as Americans are incrementally acclimated to accept the presence of troops on the streets as an everyday occurrence.
One example occurred in Kingman Arizona, where National Guardsmen were filmed “providing security” and directing traffic.
During the Kentucky Derby on May 2 last year, Military Police were on patrol to deal with crowd control.
We reported on numerous other instances of militarized units being used in traffic control, checkpoints, and security procedures.
With the government preparing to seize Americans’ private pensions as the economy further deteriorates, innumerable forecasters are predicting riots and mass civil unrest once the vanishing middle class finally rises from its slumber and realizes that their entire way of life is under immediate threat.
Unless we can communicate the fact that having troops patrol the streets is not normal and in reality is a warning siren for a country in dire straights, those same troops will soon be firing non-lethal weapons at angry American citizens – or worse.
As Gerald Celente often warns, once Americans have lost everything, they will begin to lose it – rioting in massive numbers and mirroring the growing civil unrest we are already seeing in Europe as people rise up en masse in a backlash against austerity measures and governments raising the age of retirement and seizing pensions.
View Article With Links HERE
Related Article: U.S. Troops to Deal With Rioting Americans HERE
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Dr. Riki Ott Speaks Out at Orange Beach Public Health Forum
BP Slick
ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — While the tourists were wandering around looking at the arts and crafts, listening to the music and munching on an array of grub Saturday at the National Shrimp Festival in Gulf Shores, another group of folks gathered at a church in Orange Beach to discuss what is apparently considered a taboo subject along the coast: the human health effects from the BP oil disaster.
The featured speaker was Dr. Riki Ott of Alaska, a recognized expert in chemical illnesses who has devoted her life to the cause since the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound in 1989.
While everyone from local town officials to the British Petroleum corporation and its private contractors to the Coast Guard and even the Obama administration at the top blocked efforts for scientists to tell the public just how bad the Gulf oil disaster could be — and the mainstream, corporate media has largely ignored the human health effects story — Dr. Ott says she now has information that the U.S. Navy knew about the problems and even suspended routine training exercises in the Gulf.
“We’re getting contradictory information, which is incredibly annoying,” Dr. Ott said. “The public face says one thing, and behind the scenes there’s an entire other thing going on.”
So she’s helping to launch a Gulf-wide, community-based health survey to assess the health problems with short-term diagnosis and treatment and a long-term monitoring program, along with a public information campaign to get the word out to people.
Since coming to the Gulf Coast back in May, she has gathered information from Terribone Parish, Louisiana to the east of Apalachicola, Florida on what symptoms people are experiencing. They range from upper respiratory problems to headaches, dizziness, sore throat, hoarseness, ear and nose bleeds and skin rashes to upset stomach. The routes of exposure are inhalation and skin contact.
“Those are exactly the symptoms associated with crude oil. We were also told after the Exxon Valdez spill, ‘oh, don’t worry. The volatile organic compounds are all going to evaporate’,” she said. “No!”
There are some sectors of the population more at risk than others, Dr. Ott said. In studying toxicology, you learn that “dose plus the host makes the poison,” she said. So young children who breath more of the polluted mist coming off the Gulf faster than an adult and weigh less are more susceptible. Just as in child medicine the dose is different, if a child breaths in as much as an adult they will get sicker, faster. Pregnant women, the elderly and those with immune system and other health problems are also more at risk.
“These symptoms don’t seem to be going away,” she said, so medical doctors with no training in chemical illnesses typically diagnose food poisoning, heat stroke, staff infections and even scabies, even though infections and scabies are contagious, and the BP crud and related maladies are not. Scabies and staff infections can be passed from person to another, in other words, but there is no evidence for that with the oil and chemical related Gulf illnesses.
Dr. Ott has now talked to workers who were directly exposed to oil in the cleanup effort who have been prescribed antibiotics, some on their third or fourth round, she said, “and it is not clearing up.”
“Our bodies only have so many ways to say we’re sick. So cold and flu-like symptoms, headaches, these are all common things,” she said. “But they could indicate an uncommon causation, a chemical illness.”
She said people need to seek medical help, but they may have to educate their doctors about chemical illnesses since diagnoses is not an easy thing.
“If everybody turned purple because they were chemically exposed, then it would be easy to diagnose,” she said. “But it’s not like that.”
She has talked to pharmacists at CVS, Walgreens and even Winn Dixie pharmacies who say they are seeing an increase in these symptoms along the entire Gulf Coast. Some of the symptoms are acute, meaning they happen fast, and some are more chronic, meaning they develop over the long-term.
If people are misdiagnosed, as they were in Alaska after Valdez, Dr. Ott said, serious long-term problems can develop.
“After Valdez people were told they had a cold or the flu, and told to take Tylenol, to the point where the whole West Coast ran out of Tylenol. I’m still dealing with people who thought they had the Exxon Valdez Crud in 1989,” she said, but it’s “still going on 20 years later? Isn’t this a little long for a cold or the flu?”
The problem is, she said, that “the longer you leave this stuff in your body, the more havoc it can wreak.”
People along the coast who suffer any of these symptoms need to seek out the appropriate medical care and to get it properly treated, she said, which would include a physical detox program. People should also consider psychological treatment, since stress can worsen the symptoms.
On the health study, Dr. Ott said, it is important for the public to be involved as a “Gulf Coast community.”
“Let’s do it as a people, and not leave it all up to the federal government, because (based on their record of covering up the problems),” she said, “that is a really bad idea.”
The public should get involved by reporting any health symptoms to local, state and federal health agencies, and fill out the community-based health survey soon to be online at RikiOtt.com. People should also call the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center and report health symptoms or dead or stressed wildlife at 713.323.1670.
View Original Article HERE
ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — While the tourists were wandering around looking at the arts and crafts, listening to the music and munching on an array of grub Saturday at the National Shrimp Festival in Gulf Shores, another group of folks gathered at a church in Orange Beach to discuss what is apparently considered a taboo subject along the coast: the human health effects from the BP oil disaster.
The featured speaker was Dr. Riki Ott of Alaska, a recognized expert in chemical illnesses who has devoted her life to the cause since the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound in 1989.
While everyone from local town officials to the British Petroleum corporation and its private contractors to the Coast Guard and even the Obama administration at the top blocked efforts for scientists to tell the public just how bad the Gulf oil disaster could be — and the mainstream, corporate media has largely ignored the human health effects story — Dr. Ott says she now has information that the U.S. Navy knew about the problems and even suspended routine training exercises in the Gulf.
“We’re getting contradictory information, which is incredibly annoying,” Dr. Ott said. “The public face says one thing, and behind the scenes there’s an entire other thing going on.”
So she’s helping to launch a Gulf-wide, community-based health survey to assess the health problems with short-term diagnosis and treatment and a long-term monitoring program, along with a public information campaign to get the word out to people.
Since coming to the Gulf Coast back in May, she has gathered information from Terribone Parish, Louisiana to the east of Apalachicola, Florida on what symptoms people are experiencing. They range from upper respiratory problems to headaches, dizziness, sore throat, hoarseness, ear and nose bleeds and skin rashes to upset stomach. The routes of exposure are inhalation and skin contact.
“Those are exactly the symptoms associated with crude oil. We were also told after the Exxon Valdez spill, ‘oh, don’t worry. The volatile organic compounds are all going to evaporate’,” she said. “No!”
There are some sectors of the population more at risk than others, Dr. Ott said. In studying toxicology, you learn that “dose plus the host makes the poison,” she said. So young children who breath more of the polluted mist coming off the Gulf faster than an adult and weigh less are more susceptible. Just as in child medicine the dose is different, if a child breaths in as much as an adult they will get sicker, faster. Pregnant women, the elderly and those with immune system and other health problems are also more at risk.
“These symptoms don’t seem to be going away,” she said, so medical doctors with no training in chemical illnesses typically diagnose food poisoning, heat stroke, staff infections and even scabies, even though infections and scabies are contagious, and the BP crud and related maladies are not. Scabies and staff infections can be passed from person to another, in other words, but there is no evidence for that with the oil and chemical related Gulf illnesses.
Dr. Ott has now talked to workers who were directly exposed to oil in the cleanup effort who have been prescribed antibiotics, some on their third or fourth round, she said, “and it is not clearing up.”
“Our bodies only have so many ways to say we’re sick. So cold and flu-like symptoms, headaches, these are all common things,” she said. “But they could indicate an uncommon causation, a chemical illness.”
She said people need to seek medical help, but they may have to educate their doctors about chemical illnesses since diagnoses is not an easy thing.
“If everybody turned purple because they were chemically exposed, then it would be easy to diagnose,” she said. “But it’s not like that.”
She has talked to pharmacists at CVS, Walgreens and even Winn Dixie pharmacies who say they are seeing an increase in these symptoms along the entire Gulf Coast. Some of the symptoms are acute, meaning they happen fast, and some are more chronic, meaning they develop over the long-term.
If people are misdiagnosed, as they were in Alaska after Valdez, Dr. Ott said, serious long-term problems can develop.
“After Valdez people were told they had a cold or the flu, and told to take Tylenol, to the point where the whole West Coast ran out of Tylenol. I’m still dealing with people who thought they had the Exxon Valdez Crud in 1989,” she said, but it’s “still going on 20 years later? Isn’t this a little long for a cold or the flu?”
The problem is, she said, that “the longer you leave this stuff in your body, the more havoc it can wreak.”
People along the coast who suffer any of these symptoms need to seek out the appropriate medical care and to get it properly treated, she said, which would include a physical detox program. People should also consider psychological treatment, since stress can worsen the symptoms.
On the health study, Dr. Ott said, it is important for the public to be involved as a “Gulf Coast community.”
“Let’s do it as a people, and not leave it all up to the federal government, because (based on their record of covering up the problems),” she said, “that is a really bad idea.”
The public should get involved by reporting any health symptoms to local, state and federal health agencies, and fill out the community-based health survey soon to be online at RikiOtt.com. People should also call the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center and report health symptoms or dead or stressed wildlife at 713.323.1670.
View Original Article HERE
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
10 Reasons Why Ordinary Hard-Working Americans Are About To Really Start Feeling The Squeeze
theeconomiccollapseblog.com
American families better get ready to tighten their belts again. There is every indication that we are all going to really start feeling the squeeze in the months ahead. The price of gas is starting to spike again. The price of food is moving north. Health insurance premium increases are being announced coast to coast and a whole slate of tax increases is scheduled to go into effect in 2011. Meanwhile, household incomes are down substantially all over the nation and the U.S. government is indicating that there will not be an increase in Social Security benefits for the upcoming year once again. So if the cost of most of the basic things in our monthly budgets is going up and our incomes are going down what does that mean? It means that average American families are about to be squeezed like nothing we have seen in decades.
The reality is that it is getting really hard to make it out there. Not only do most households have both parents working, but in many cases both parents are getting second or even third jobs. Things have gotten so bad that millions of Americans have felt forced to turn to the government for assistance just to survive.
It can be really disheartening to come to the end of the month and realize that despite your best efforts you have less money than you did at the beginning of the month. But that is where millions upon millions of American families now find themselves.
The economic despair in the air is almost palpable. Already hordes of Americans are truly and honestly hurting and things are only going to get worse.
The following are ten reasons why ordinary hard-working Americans are about to really start feeling the squeeze....
#1 Gas prices are going up again. AAA says that the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in the United States was $2.80 on Sunday. That is 32.6 cents higher than it was during the same time period in 2009. As oil and gas prices continue to go up, that is also going to have a significant impact on utility bills for American families this winter.
#2 The price of food is poised to rise substantially. Bloomberg is reporting that the the cost of meat in the United States is going nowhere but up. But meat is not the only thing that you will soon be paying much more for at the supermarket. Wheat, corn, soybeans and almost every other major agricultural commodity is absolutely soaring this fall. As this continues, it is inevitable that ordinary Americans will see much higher food prices at their local grocery stores.
On a previous article, a reader named Erica left a comment in which see detailed the stunning food inflation that she is seeing where she lives....
Food inflation is real, and it is here. Just yesterday I compared my receipt from a grocery run to prices I have from the same exact store from September 15, 2009. Bacon? Up 52% to $13.69 from $8.99 for 4 lbs. Butter? Up 73% to $9.99 from $5.79 for 4 lbs. Pure vanilla extract up 14% to $6.79 from $5.95. Chopped dried onions up a mere 2% but minced garlic (wet) was up 32%.
#3 It looks like those receiving Social Security are not going to be seeing cost-of-living increases again. The Associated Press is reporting that the U.S. government is expected to announce some time this week that the tens of millions of Americans that receive Social Security will go through yet another year without an increase in their monthly benefit payments. You see, Social Security cost-of-living adjustments are tied to the official government inflation numbers, and according to the U.S. government there is basically very little inflation right now. Of course we all know that is a lie, but it is what it is.
#4 The cost of health care continues to soar into the stratosphere. Americans already pay more for health care than anyone else in the world, and yet costs continue to spiral out of control. The cost of health care increased a staggering 9.6% for all U.S. households from 2007 to 2009. Now, health insurance companies from coast to coast are announcing that they must raise health insurance premiums substantially due to the new health care law that Barack Obama and the Democrats have pushed through. So in 2011 it looks like the average American family is going to have to carve out an even bigger chunk of the budget for health care.
#5 American families could desperately use a recovery in the housing industry, but that is simply not going to happen. Foreclosure-Gate is getting worse by the day, and it threatens to bring the U.S. real estate industry to a complete and total standstill. If it is ultimately proven that the paperwork for millions of mortgages in the United States is seriously deficient, it could push hordes of mortgage lenders into bankruptcy and render mountains of mortgage-backed securities nearly worthless. Regardless, it is now going to be much more difficult to get a mortgage, much more difficult to buy a home and much more difficult to sell a home. We could very well be looking at the next stage of the housing crash. Ordinary Americans could end up losing trillions more in home equity.
#6 More Americans than ever find themselves unable to pay their bills, and an increasing number of frustrated creditors are actually resorting to wage garnishment. Yes, you read the correctly. Creditors are starting to ruthlessly go after the weekly paychecks of debtors.
The following is an excerpt from a recent New York Times article that discussed the rise of wage garnishment as a weapon against debtors....
After winning, creditors can secure a court order to seize part of the debtor’s paycheck or the funds in a bank account, a procedure called garnishment. No national statistics are kept, but the pay seizures are rising fast in some areas — up 121 percent in the Phoenix area since 2005, and 55 percent in the Atlanta area since 2004. In Cleveland, garnishments jumped 30 percent between 2008 and 2009 alone.
So if you are getting behind on your debt, you better watch out - your creditors may soon decide to garnish your wages.
#7 Americans now owe more on student loans than they do on credit cards. As hard as that is to believe, that is actually true. Americans now owe more than $849 billion on student loans, which is a new all-time record.
Student loan payments can be absolutely crippling to a household budget. This is especially true for young Americans that have just gotten out of school. Sadly, student loan debt is nearly impossible to get rid of. Once you are committed, it will follow you around for the rest of your life.
#8 Even as expenses rise, incomes are down from coast to coast. Median household income in the U.S. declined from $51,726 in 2008 to $50,221 in 2009. There are very few areas that have not been affected. In fact, of the 52 largest metro areas in the United States, only the city of San Antonio did not see a decline in median household income during 2009.
#9 If all of this was not bad enough, now there are rumblings that the U.S. Federal Reserve is actually thinking that we need more inflation. A number of top Federal Reserve officials have come out recently and have publicly supported the notion that the Fed needs to purposely create more inflation in order to stimulate the economy. Of course what they don't tell the American people is that inflation is a hidden tax on every single dollar in our wallets and in our bank accounts. More inflation would be really bad news for ordinary Americans, because they are already having a tough time getting their dollars to stretch far enough.
#10 Apparently the U.S. government (and many state and local governments) think that this is a great time to stick it to the American people by hitting them with a slew of new taxes. There are so many tax increases scheduled to go into effect in 2011 that it is hard to keep track of them all. In fact, there are many (myself included) that are calling 2011 "the year of the tax increase". But the Americans that are going to get it the worst of all are those that are going to get hit with the Alternative Minimum Tax. One out of every six American households is going to be hit with a tax increase averaging $3,900 (thanks to the AMT) and most of them don't even know that it is coming.
So did you think that 2010 was bad?
Well, you haven't seen anything yet.
2010 was a Sunday picnic compared to what is coming.
Get ready to get squeezed.
Get ready for higher food prices, higher gas prices, higher health insurance premiums and higher taxes.
Get ready to try to do a lot more with a lot less.
Inflation is already here, but it is going to get a whole lot worse. Meanwhile, the U.S. government (along with state and local governments) is going to continue to have a voracious appetite for more revenue.
Average Americans are going to be squeezed until they have nothing left to give. Then they are going to be squeezed just a little bit more.
Are you ready?
View Article With Links HERE
American families better get ready to tighten their belts again. There is every indication that we are all going to really start feeling the squeeze in the months ahead. The price of gas is starting to spike again. The price of food is moving north. Health insurance premium increases are being announced coast to coast and a whole slate of tax increases is scheduled to go into effect in 2011. Meanwhile, household incomes are down substantially all over the nation and the U.S. government is indicating that there will not be an increase in Social Security benefits for the upcoming year once again. So if the cost of most of the basic things in our monthly budgets is going up and our incomes are going down what does that mean? It means that average American families are about to be squeezed like nothing we have seen in decades.
The reality is that it is getting really hard to make it out there. Not only do most households have both parents working, but in many cases both parents are getting second or even third jobs. Things have gotten so bad that millions of Americans have felt forced to turn to the government for assistance just to survive.
It can be really disheartening to come to the end of the month and realize that despite your best efforts you have less money than you did at the beginning of the month. But that is where millions upon millions of American families now find themselves.
The economic despair in the air is almost palpable. Already hordes of Americans are truly and honestly hurting and things are only going to get worse.
The following are ten reasons why ordinary hard-working Americans are about to really start feeling the squeeze....
#1 Gas prices are going up again. AAA says that the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in the United States was $2.80 on Sunday. That is 32.6 cents higher than it was during the same time period in 2009. As oil and gas prices continue to go up, that is also going to have a significant impact on utility bills for American families this winter.
#2 The price of food is poised to rise substantially. Bloomberg is reporting that the the cost of meat in the United States is going nowhere but up. But meat is not the only thing that you will soon be paying much more for at the supermarket. Wheat, corn, soybeans and almost every other major agricultural commodity is absolutely soaring this fall. As this continues, it is inevitable that ordinary Americans will see much higher food prices at their local grocery stores.
On a previous article, a reader named Erica left a comment in which see detailed the stunning food inflation that she is seeing where she lives....
Food inflation is real, and it is here. Just yesterday I compared my receipt from a grocery run to prices I have from the same exact store from September 15, 2009. Bacon? Up 52% to $13.69 from $8.99 for 4 lbs. Butter? Up 73% to $9.99 from $5.79 for 4 lbs. Pure vanilla extract up 14% to $6.79 from $5.95. Chopped dried onions up a mere 2% but minced garlic (wet) was up 32%.
#3 It looks like those receiving Social Security are not going to be seeing cost-of-living increases again. The Associated Press is reporting that the U.S. government is expected to announce some time this week that the tens of millions of Americans that receive Social Security will go through yet another year without an increase in their monthly benefit payments. You see, Social Security cost-of-living adjustments are tied to the official government inflation numbers, and according to the U.S. government there is basically very little inflation right now. Of course we all know that is a lie, but it is what it is.
#4 The cost of health care continues to soar into the stratosphere. Americans already pay more for health care than anyone else in the world, and yet costs continue to spiral out of control. The cost of health care increased a staggering 9.6% for all U.S. households from 2007 to 2009. Now, health insurance companies from coast to coast are announcing that they must raise health insurance premiums substantially due to the new health care law that Barack Obama and the Democrats have pushed through. So in 2011 it looks like the average American family is going to have to carve out an even bigger chunk of the budget for health care.
#5 American families could desperately use a recovery in the housing industry, but that is simply not going to happen. Foreclosure-Gate is getting worse by the day, and it threatens to bring the U.S. real estate industry to a complete and total standstill. If it is ultimately proven that the paperwork for millions of mortgages in the United States is seriously deficient, it could push hordes of mortgage lenders into bankruptcy and render mountains of mortgage-backed securities nearly worthless. Regardless, it is now going to be much more difficult to get a mortgage, much more difficult to buy a home and much more difficult to sell a home. We could very well be looking at the next stage of the housing crash. Ordinary Americans could end up losing trillions more in home equity.
#6 More Americans than ever find themselves unable to pay their bills, and an increasing number of frustrated creditors are actually resorting to wage garnishment. Yes, you read the correctly. Creditors are starting to ruthlessly go after the weekly paychecks of debtors.
The following is an excerpt from a recent New York Times article that discussed the rise of wage garnishment as a weapon against debtors....
After winning, creditors can secure a court order to seize part of the debtor’s paycheck or the funds in a bank account, a procedure called garnishment. No national statistics are kept, but the pay seizures are rising fast in some areas — up 121 percent in the Phoenix area since 2005, and 55 percent in the Atlanta area since 2004. In Cleveland, garnishments jumped 30 percent between 2008 and 2009 alone.
So if you are getting behind on your debt, you better watch out - your creditors may soon decide to garnish your wages.
#7 Americans now owe more on student loans than they do on credit cards. As hard as that is to believe, that is actually true. Americans now owe more than $849 billion on student loans, which is a new all-time record.
Student loan payments can be absolutely crippling to a household budget. This is especially true for young Americans that have just gotten out of school. Sadly, student loan debt is nearly impossible to get rid of. Once you are committed, it will follow you around for the rest of your life.
#8 Even as expenses rise, incomes are down from coast to coast. Median household income in the U.S. declined from $51,726 in 2008 to $50,221 in 2009. There are very few areas that have not been affected. In fact, of the 52 largest metro areas in the United States, only the city of San Antonio did not see a decline in median household income during 2009.
#9 If all of this was not bad enough, now there are rumblings that the U.S. Federal Reserve is actually thinking that we need more inflation. A number of top Federal Reserve officials have come out recently and have publicly supported the notion that the Fed needs to purposely create more inflation in order to stimulate the economy. Of course what they don't tell the American people is that inflation is a hidden tax on every single dollar in our wallets and in our bank accounts. More inflation would be really bad news for ordinary Americans, because they are already having a tough time getting their dollars to stretch far enough.
#10 Apparently the U.S. government (and many state and local governments) think that this is a great time to stick it to the American people by hitting them with a slew of new taxes. There are so many tax increases scheduled to go into effect in 2011 that it is hard to keep track of them all. In fact, there are many (myself included) that are calling 2011 "the year of the tax increase". But the Americans that are going to get it the worst of all are those that are going to get hit with the Alternative Minimum Tax. One out of every six American households is going to be hit with a tax increase averaging $3,900 (thanks to the AMT) and most of them don't even know that it is coming.
So did you think that 2010 was bad?
Well, you haven't seen anything yet.
2010 was a Sunday picnic compared to what is coming.
Get ready to get squeezed.
Get ready for higher food prices, higher gas prices, higher health insurance premiums and higher taxes.
Get ready to try to do a lot more with a lot less.
Inflation is already here, but it is going to get a whole lot worse. Meanwhile, the U.S. government (along with state and local governments) is going to continue to have a voracious appetite for more revenue.
Average Americans are going to be squeezed until they have nothing left to give. Then they are going to be squeezed just a little bit more.
Are you ready?
View Article With Links HERE
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