USA, Inc. - Part 2: If America Were A Corporation, It Would Be Broke-er Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/01/2012 21:12 -0400 Fail Ira Sohn When Mary Meeker, formerly of pre-IPO bubble analyst fame, released her "USA, Inc." presentation last year, which assayed the US government as if it were a corporation, her conclusion was simple: the country is broke , and can not continue along the path it is on now. Fast forward to today, when the US debt balance is over $1 trillion higher, and the next edition of Mary Meeker's presentation which she released at last week's Ira Sohn conference. Her conclusion: the US is now broke-er than ever. The summary bullets of the must read cover to cover 50 page presentation. America is losing its edge - some of this is inevitable as other countries improve their competitiveness, some of this is self inflicted. Financial strength is vital to competitiveness – it’s core to a healthy economy, job creation, vibrant education / culture and military leadership. Positive cash flow and a strong balance sheet are key to financial strength – bottom line, it’s bad to spend more than one brings in, as America is doing. In effect, as each day passes – with our rising losses and debt load – we rob just a little bit more from the future. America does not need to lose its edge, it needs conviction and leadership to move its ‘business model’ in the right direction – we are all in this together, we need to understand and acknowledge our problems and agree to move forward with collective inspiration and sacrifice. American tax dollars fund our government – we all need to understand where our taxes go and decide if we believe our hard-earned dollars are put to their highest-and-best use. The politicians we elect decide where our money goes. As everyone who has worked in finance knows, the first page of every presentation is the Sources and Uses table. USA, Inc., has one two. We fail to see, however, who in their right mind would consider this a sane investment. To be sure, the full name of the corporation should be Welfare USA, Inc. as can be seen below from the consolidated Healthcare spending for the US in context... And the percent of households paying taxes vs those receiving government benefits. Houston: we have inversion! Full hair-raising presentation below: Average: 3.625 Your rating: None Average: 3.6 ( 8 votes) Tweet Login or register to post comments 7464 reads Printer-friendly version Send to friend Similar Articles You Might Enjoy: Pick Your Debt Poison Guest Post: Are Corporations People? Chart Of The Day: Americans At Or Below 125% Of The Poverty Level ABRaHaM LiNCoLN... Guest Post: What Democracy?
Can The Fed Ever Exit? Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/06/2012 17:38 -0400 We have extensively discussed the size ( here - must read! ) and growth ( here ) of the Fed's largesse in soaking up massive amounts of the primary and second Treasury (and now MBS) markets with the ongoing theme of 'what about the exit strategy?' among other things. The onset of QEternity likely means the Fed's balance sheet will grow to over $4 trillion within the next year and, as UBS notes, although the Fed has suggested that it will not begin an exit strategy until 2015, the magnitude of the excess balance sheet argues for considering whether the Fed has the ability to unwind their balance sheet . We, like UBS, believe that the Fed will find it far more difficult to exit than they have found it to enter given the limitations of the exit tools frequently cited . There are three main tools for reducing the Fed’s balance sheet: asset sales/maturation (bad signaling), reverse repurchase agreements (size constraints), and interest on reserves (inflationary). Via UBS: Asset sales/maturation. The portfolio shift to a longer average maturity means that the Fed is unable to reduce its balance sheet only by letting securities mature . There would be no material reduction until at least 2016 and even then the reduction would likely be under $250bn. Outright sales face a different problem – expectations. Unlike purchases where announcing a certain amount of purchases reinforces the Fed’s goal of lowering rates via expectations, any sales would likely result in the market pricing in a fully normalized balance sheet . As such, an initial sale program of just $200bn would not be credible as the expectation would be that the sale announcement signals a desire to return to normality requiring an addition $2.5tn in sales at some point. Reverse repurchase agreements. This tool is swamped by the magnitude of the drain required . At present money fund assets are roughly $2.5 trillion, $200 billion less than the excess balance sheet we anticipate by the end of 2013. However, this statistic does not tell the full story as reverse repurchase agreements only make up just over 20% of money fund assets, or just $500 billion . The other primary counterparty the Fed would rely on, the Primary Dealer community, are unlikely to be able to participate in anything close to that size. While these figures do not prevent the Fed from using this tool, they do suggest it can only be a part of the overall solution. Interest on reserves. Although interest on reserves theoretically creates a floor on rates in the interbank market, it does not prevent banks from using funds to make loans. Loans eventually end up as deposits somewhere and, as such, the overall level of deposits at the Fed provide little guidance as to whether the funds are circulating in the economy. The only way to prevent lending would be for the Fed to raise this rate sufficiently to make banks prefer depositing the money at the Fed to lending to their client base . QE3 and QE4, if enacted and continued until the end of 2013, will leave the Fed with excess balance sheet of roughly $2.7 trillion. Fed Treasury holdings by coupon maturity date (2013-2042) expected at the end of Operation Twist at the end of 2012. Money fund assets have been falling and the total amount of repos done by money funds does not appear sufficient to allow the Fed to rely solely on reverse repos from this financial segment to drain liquidity. Average: 4.5 Your rating: None Average: 4.5 ( 6 votes) Tweet Login or register to post comments 6281 reads Printer-friendly version Send to friend Similar Articles You Might Enjoy: Guest Post: The War Between Credit And Resources Fed Balance Sheet Composition Update For Italy, It Is Game Theory Over Evidence QE3 is Working, and Other Lies Guest Post: The Economics Of Breaking Bad
Friday Humor: "I Am Pledging To Cut The Deficit We Inherited By Half By The End Of My First Term In Office" Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/03/2012 17:48 -0400 President Obama President Obama, February 2009 " We can not and will not sustain deficits like these without end . Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in Washington these past few years, we can not simply spend as we please and defer the consequences to the next budget, the next administration or the next generation. We are paying the price for these deficits right now. In 2008 alone we paid $250 billion in interest on our debt, that is more than three times what we spent on education that year, more than seven times what we spent on VA healthcare . So if we confront this crisis without also confronting the deficits that helped cause it, we risk sinking into another crisis down the road as our interest payments rise, our obligations come due, confidence in our economy erodes and our children and grandchildren are unable to pursue their dreams because they are saddled with our debts. That's why today I am pledging to cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office . This will not be easy - it will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we have long neglected but i refuse to leave our children with a debt they can not repay. And that means taking responsibility right now in this administration, for getting our spending under control ." Less than archive footage: US deficit: US debt: Average: 4.857145 Your rating: None Average: 4.9 ( 77 votes)
Guest Post: When Quantitative Easing Finally Fails Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/01/2012 16:49 -0400 Bond Census Bureau Central Banks Double Dip European Central Bank Great Depression Gross Domestic Product Guest Post Las Vegas New York Times Purchasing Power Quantitative Easing Real estate Recession recovery Sovereign Debt State Tax Revenues Unemployment United Kingdom Submitted by Gregor MacDonald of Peak Prosperity , While markets await details on the next round of quantitative easing (QE) -- whether refreshed bond buying from the Fed or sovereign debt buying from the European Central Bank (ECB) -- it's important to ask, What can we expect from further heroic attempts to reflate the OECD economies? The 2009 and 2010 QE programs from the Fed, and the 2011 operations from the ECB, were intended as shock treatment to hopefully set economies on a more typical, post-recession, recovery pathway. Here in 2012, QE was supposed to be well behind us. Instead, parts of Southern Europe are in outright depression, the United Kingdom is in double-dip recession, and the US is sweltering through its weakest “recovery” since the Great Depression. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Recently-released data from all these regions now confirm that previous QE, at best, merely bought time against even more grueling outcomes. Spain's unemployment, for example, has just hit a new post-Franco high of 24.6% , and the forecast for this crucially important EU economy remains negative. Recently revised US figures on GDP show that the post-2009 recovery was even weaker than previously estimated, with the first year post-crisis crisis clocking in at 2.5% vs. the expected 3.3%. Plodding, slow growth in the aftermath of a global financial crisis is a recipe for stagnation. The inability of the US economy to work off its surplus of labor appears to have finally stirred OECD policymakers into action. This is, of course, a great and humbling disappointment to the recoverists , who keep mistaking various economic oscillations around a bottom for the start of a typical post-war, V-shaped recovery. Housing, autos, jobs, Internet IPOs, state tax revenues, and train traffic have all been called upon by optimists to sound the clarion call for a broad economic recovery. Yet the US economy still is only able to produce sector-specific or selected regional strength that never adds up to quite enough to restore national growth. When we look at national GDP, at 1.5% in the most recent quarter, it is not clear the US economy has enough forward speed to statistically distinguish between slow growth and no growth. Large states like California, for example, are already seeing the return of declining state revenues. Meanwhile, national poverty -- one of the best measures of aggregate economic health -- continues to soar. There is no doubt that any new round of QE -- especially a double shot from both the Fed and the ECB -- will have psychological impact. For Europe, QE would once again allay systemic risk. And for the US, QE will surely find its way to the stock market; which is not an insignificant outcome as America increasingly relies on the stock market to produce retirement income. However, the question arises, What series of radical measures policy makers will turn to after the next round of QE wears off? Before we answer that question, let’s review the poor economic conditions leading to the next (and final) round of QE. Housing House prices in the US have done an excellent job of adjusting downward over the past 5 years to reflect the stagnation in US wages, the overhang of private debt, structural unemployment, and the rising cost of energy. But there has been a recent media celebration of sorts over this story, as it now appears that housing is bottoming. To be sure, certain housing markets like Miami and Las Vegas continue to recover from completely bombed-out levels. Additionally, construction of new homes, especially multi-family homes, is off the bottom. For now. The problem is that housing is a result, not a cause, of economic expansion. And unless housing is to work in tandem with wage and job growth, housing alone cannot power the US economy. Did the US not already learn that lesson already over the past decade? Let’s take a look at fifteen years of home prices, from the US Census Bureau : The unsustainable peak in 2006, when single-family homes reached a median sales price of $222,000, marked a near-doubling of price over the ten-year period from 1995. But as we now understand, not only were wages (in real terms) not rising during this period, but a new bull market in commodities was getting underway, robbing Americans of discretionary income. The result is that house prices were able to keep up with the loss of purchasing power until slightly past mid-decade. Then they collapsed. Worse, the phase transition in rising energy prices kept going (and continues through today), which had an outsized impact because the topography of US housing, largely dependent on roads and highways, is quite exposed to transportation costs. We can think of housing as facing several key constraints that will be sustained for at least another five years: First, there is the tremendous overhang of personal debt in the US. Much of this is still carried within the mortgage market itself. (Additionally, student loan debt has also emerged as an enormous barrier to home buying.) Second, there is the lack of wage growth and the problem of structural unemployment. The surplus of labor prevents the broad, marginal pressure needed to force national house prices upward. Third, the constraint of oil prices will not ease. This means that urban real estate may do well on a relative basis, but the majority of US homes will continue to adjust downward to reflect the permanent repricing of oil (and hence gasoline). Finally, the notion that real estate prices have bottomed with mortgage rates near all-time lows seems a very risky call. Is it more prudent to presume that a new advance in national real estate prices will be carried on the back of rates going even lower -- or higher? Which is it? The view that real estate has bottomed appears to assert that no matter where interest rates go from here, real estate is going higher. That is the mark of hope and belief; not analysis. It seems very unlikely only five years into such enormous, structural shifts in the US economy that the repricing process is over in housing. At minimum, I expect the median price of single-family existing homes to revert to the 2000 level of $147,000, with the strong possibility of an overshoot to the $125,000 level. This process will take several more years. Jobs As early as 2009, many of us understood that this was not a normal economic decline and therefore would not be followed by a normal economic recovery. Here's the lead paragraph to a New York Times piece, covering the latest GDP data: U.S. Growth Falls to 1.5%; a Recovery Seems Mired The United States economy has lost the momentum it appeared to be building earlier this year, as the latest government statistics showed that it expanded by a mere 1.5 percent annual rate in the second quarter. This is precisely the kind of news flow that the business press can expect to report for years to come. Sure, the stock market may advance from points of low valuation. Certain regions of the country, especially those tied to exports, may thrive for a while. But nationally, a long secular contraction is now in place that will combine stagnant wages, contraction in government payrolls, flat tax revenues, and the shift to a cultural preference for much lower consumption . In addition to the fact that young people will not buy cars, will not buy houses, and in general will not secure high-paying jobs (if they can secure jobs at all), the nature of work in the US has entered a degrading period. Low wages, part-time work, poor benefits, and higher health-care costs all serve to further squeeze consumption. Let’s take a look at the structural shift from full-time to part-time work in the US. At an inflection point in a normal recovery, US workers would quickly be hired back to full-time jobs. But a full-time job with benefits is a cost that US corporations no longer wish to bear. This is partly why US corporate earnings and their accumulation of cash has been so robust. Sited in the US but acquiring labor abroad, US corporations are having their finest hour as they sell products to non-OECD markets that benefit from wave after wave of stimulus from the OECD, while the economy and labor force in their home countries languish. Here in the US, we have effectively stripped out an entire tranche of the full-time US workforce, with no plausible scenario currently in place for adding it back. America used to have nearly five full-time jobs for every part-time job. Now we have four. Meanwhile, Washington, characterized by professional normalcy bias, has finally started figure this out. More importantly, this is why the economy will veer continually towards recession absent some form of stimulus in the years to come. While the jobs market is surely the primary reason why QE 3 will be attempted, it’s also the reason why more radical measures are likely thereafter, as opposed to QE 4. Many of the prognostications for QE’s impact on the labor market, especially from the Fed and Fed-connected economists, simply never came true. That will become even clearer after QE 3 fails. Poverty After leveling off in late 2011 and early 2012, the number of persons taking Food Stamps (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) in the US is starting to push higher again . Given that food prices are set to make their next move higher as well, it’s reasonable to expect SNAP participation to reflect that pressure on household budgets. The annual cost of the program, which rose in the three years 2009-2011 from $50 billion to $64 billion and then to $71 billion, is quickly becoming a significant budget item. For comparison, should SNAP program costs reach $75 billion this current fiscal year, this amount is almost exactly equal to the most recent Department of Transportation Budget , at $74 billion. While SNAP tracks the growth of poverty well, it's not the only measure. And the breadth and scale of US poverty continues to grow. This autumn, the Census Bureau is expected to release its latest figures on the growth in US poverty: Poverty rate nears worst mark since 1965 The ranks of America's poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and a fraying government safety net. Census figures for 2011 will be released this fall in the critical weeks ahead of the November elections. The Associated Press surveyed more than a dozen economists, think tanks and academics, both nonpartisan and those with known liberal or conservative leanings, and found a broad consensus: The official poverty rate will rise from 15.1 percent in 2010, climbing as high as 15.7 percent. Several predicted a more modest gain, but even a 0.1 percentage point increase would put poverty at the highest level since 1965. Poverty is spreading at record levels across many groups, from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor. More discouraged workers are giving up on the job market, leaving them vulnerable as unemployment aid begins to run out. The Diminishing Marginal Utility of Quantitative Easing QE is a poor transmission mechanism for creating jobs. While there has certainly been a recovery of sorts in US jobs since the deep lows of 2009, in which total employment has risen from 139 million to 142 million jobs, this has been insufficient to keep up with population growth. Accordingly, if the US job market cannot aggregate the number of new workers into its system, then it cannot work off the structural labor surplus. Indeed, the rather narrow targets that QE aims for are exactly the reason why the US and the OECD are fated to try more unconventional solutions once the next round of QE fails. In Part II: WhatRadical Measures to Expect in the Post-QE Era , we forecast that policies to revive stagnant Western economies (and the US, in particular) will swing sharply away from central banks towards elective bodies. Such programs will involve various forms of debt jubilee and massive infrastructure programs. More unconventional is that some of these programs may be initiated using new forms of government scrip, equity participation, or other methods that allow the government to “spend” without incurring new debt. Contrary to the deflationist view, which holds that governments will eventually turn to austerity, the examples of such failed efforts in the United Kingdom (which has entered a double dip recession) suggest that austerity will be nothing more than a brief, economic dalliance of Western policy makers -- recall that the Works Progress Administration (WPA) of the 1930’s was considered radical in its time. We should expect no less this time around, as governments decide to pursue WPA 2.0. Click here to access Part II of this report (free executive summary; paid enrollment required for full access) . Average: 4.411765 Your rating: None Average: 4.4 ( 17 votes) Tweet Login or register to post comments 9887 reads Printer-friendly version Send to friend Similar Articles You Might Enjoy: The Weaponization of Economic Theory No Jobs: The Result of Wizard of Oz Economics Poverty In America: A Special Report Guest Post: Middle Class? Here's What's Destroying Your Future You've Seen It Before, And Here It Is Again: "The Chart That Tears Apart The Stimulus Package"
Americans Are Being Prepared For Full Spectrum Tyranny Totalitarian governments, like persistent forms of cancer, have latched onto the long history of man, falling and then reemerging from the deep recesses of our cultural biology to wreak havoc upon one unlucky generation to the next. The assumption by most is that these unfortunate empires are the product of bureaucracies gone awry; overtaken by the chaotic maddening hunger for wealth and power, and usually manipulated by the singular ambitions of a mesmerizing dictator. For those of us in the Liberty Movement who are actually educated on the less acknowledged details of history, oligarchy and globalized centralism is much less random than this, and a far more deliberate and devious process than the general unaware public is willing consider. Unfortunately, the final truth is very complex, even for us… One cannot place the blame of despotism entirely on the shoulders of globalists. Sadly, the crimes of elites are only possible with a certain amount of complicity from subsections of the populace. Without our penchant for apathy and fear, there can be no control. That is to say, there is no power over us but that which we give away. We pave the road to our own catastrophes. In the end, a tyrant’s primary job is not to crush the masses and rule out of malevolence, but to obtain the voluntary consent of the citizenry, usually through trickery and deceit. Without the permission of the people, subconscious or otherwise, no tyranny can survive. As with the oppressive regimes of the past, America has undergone a dramatic transformation, heavy with fear and ignorance. Our tradition of elections has been corrupted and negated by the false left/right paradigm, and the leaderships of both defunct parties now seek only to elevate a select minority of men bent on globalization. Our Constitutional liberties have been dismantled by legal chicanery. Our principles have been diluted by intellectual games of rationalism and moral relativism. Our country is ripe for conquest. Americans battle over whose side is most to blame; Democrat or Republican, while ironically being disenchanted with both entities. For some people, the thought of holding each party equally accountable, or accepting that they are essentially the same animal, never crosses their minds. While this irrelevant farce of a debate rages on, the true culprits plotting the demise of our Republic gain momentum, and implement policy initiatives that the public should and must take note of. In the past year alone, many blatant steps towards the Orwellian gulag have been openly administered. A carnival of peddlers and freaks and greasy popcorn overwhelms our senses, but the stench of this cheap circus still tickles our noses, and if we use our eyes for even a moment, certain dangerous trends reveal themselves. Here are just a few recent events that bear a dire warning; the ultimate assault on freedom in this nation grows near… Acclimation To Subservience Every totalitarian state worth its salt has its own goon squad. The Nazi’s had the “Brownshirts”, the Soviets had the “Militsiya” and the “Voluntary People’s Brigade”, the Communist Chinese have the “Chengguan”, etc. In America, however, all tyrannical measures are given innocuous bureaucratic labels to mislead and distract the masses. In this country, we have the Transportation Security Administration… The TSA has become the most hated alphabet agency in the U.S. in perhaps the fastest time on record. It has violated the personal rights of more people on a daily basis in my view than the IRS, DEA, and the ATF combined. Clearly, this slobbering demon child of the Department of Homeland Security is being molded for something quite terrible and grand. When confronted by the public on the use of irradiating and intrusive naked body scanner technology, the agency responded by allowing their blue handed ghoul army with to molest our nether-regions. When confronted by state and local governments on their absurd tactics, the TSA threatened economic blockades and airport shutdowns. The organization then began expanding its jurisdiction to bus and train stations and even our highways when it introduced the VIPR program and implemented random roadside checkpoints in Tennessee last year. But, this behavior is nothing compared to what is next on the horizon: a compromise… Beware of government agencies bearing gifts. The TSA along with the International Air Transport Association has announced a new methodology of “less intrusive” passenger screening measures, in order to address the concerns of the public over pat downs and irradiating naked body scanners. This SOUNDS like a step in the right direction, and a proper response to the grievances of the citizenry. Instead, it turns out to be a refined example of totalitarianism in motion, and a perfect lesson in how the masses can be duped into handing over their inherent freedoms. Revamped security protocols call for biometric data collection, including fingerprint and retina scans, and a tunnel which combines multiple detection systems into one area (who knows how radioactive this will end up being): http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/story/2012-06-19/Faster-better-airport-security-checkpoints-not-that-far-off/55693916/1 The mainstream article above makes this development sound like a win/win scenario for everyone, painting biometric data collection as a matter of convenience, but it also reveals the true design of the system; to illicit voluntary subservience: “The key to speeding up checkpoints and making security less intrusive will be to identify and assess travelers according to the risks they pose to safety in the skies. The so-called riskiest or unknown passengers would face the toughest scrutiny, including questioning and more sensitive electronic screening. Those who voluntarily provide more information about themselves to the government would be rewarded with faster passage…” They enforce destructive anti-personal rights policies then pretend to acquiesce by replacing them with a technocratic nightmare grid which requires the cataloging of our very genetic essence in order to function. The only remaining injustice left would be to apply this grid to the rest of the country outside of the airports and train stations, which I assure you, they plan to do. Militarization Last week, I covered the disturbing use of armored vehicles (APC’s or urban tanks) in open training regiments on the streets of St. Louis by the U.S Army, despite the fact that all of their exercises could have easily been accomplished on any number of military bases across the country. The action is an obvious attempt to condition the American populace to the sight of military units operating in a policing capacity: http://www.alt-market.com/articles/866-military-tanks-on-st-louis-streetsbut-why I received multiple letters from current serving military who stated that in all their years in the armed forces they had never seen such a brash mishandling of public relations or an overstepping of bounds when it came to the restrictions of Posse Comitatus. It was encouraging to hear from military men and women who did not agree with or condone this kind of psyop activity on the part of our government. Though the St. Louis event is not isolated, I believe it does represent an escalation. Remember the controversy over the Mayor of Toledo and his refusal to allow 200 Marines to conduct urban combat drills on the public streets of his city in 2008? The media clamored to crucify this public official; one of the few who had any sense whatsoever in his head: http://voices.yahoo.com/toledo-mayor-faces-backlash-ousting-marines-896105.html Or the tactical exercises using helicopters and combat troops over LA and Chicago early this year? http://www.lapdonline.org/newsroom/news_view/50045 http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/04/17/city-black-hawk-helicopter-flights-were-just-a-training-exercise/ During each one of these events, city officials and local media attempted to inoculate the public with claims that they were “simply exercises”. This argument misses the point entirely. Whether or not these are “exercises” is not the issue. The issue is that this training could be done ON BASE. Using public streets and running drills within cities is absolutely unnecessary given the vast resources already available to the military, unless, of course, the goal is to BE SEEN by the public and to influence them to view the sight of armed troops around them as “normal”. Add to this the fact that many of these military training exercises are being conducted in tandem with local police department, and you have a recipe for the utter militarization of our society, turning peace officers into combat soldiers, and combat soldiers into law enforcement mechanisms; a juxtaposition that will soon lead to unmitigated disaster. Arms Race Against the People? When a country is quietly preparing for war, the first signs are usually revealed by a disclosure of armaments. If stockpiling is taking place without a warranted threat present from a legitimate enemy, there is a considerable likelihood of aggression on the part of that nation. America has gone well beyond the psychological process of militarization and has begun the extensive arming of particular agencies whose primary purpose revolves around the domestic. The DHS, for instance, placed an order for over 450 million rounds of hollowpoint .40 cal ammunition in April of this year: http://rt.com/usa/news/dhs-million-point-government-179/ And it placed an order for over 7000 new semi-automatic combat rifles chambered in .223 (5.56 by 45mm NATO) immediately after: https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunitymode=formid=d791b6aa0fd9d3d8833b2efa08300033tab=coretabmode=list= While local police through federal programs (like the 1033 Program) are being given millions of dollars in free military equipment, including body armor, night vision equipment, APC's, aircraft, first aid supplies, weapons, surveillance equipment, Kevlar helmets, gas masks and filters, vehicles, etc.: http://www.ogs.state.sc.us/surplus/SP-1033-index.phtm http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/cops-military-gear/all/ All of this equipment, though issued to state agencies, is still heavily tracked and regulated by the federal government, making it clear that these “gifts” come with strings attached: http://www.newsherald.com/articles/program-103291-state-law.html And finally, new FAA regulations will soon allow the dispersion of tens of thousands of predator drones with armament capability in the skies of the U.S. over the course of the next few years: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/7/coming-to-a-sky-near-you/ http://articles.latimes.com/2011/dec/10/nation/la-na-drone-arrest-20111211 Now, anyone with any logic would ask who it is that the government is arming itself and local police to fight against? Al Qaeda? Let’s not be nave… The passage of the NDAA and its provisions for the indefinite detainment of ANY person, even an American citizen, under the laws of war has ended the debate over government intent in terms of domestic action. FBI Director Robert Mueller’s admission that he “did not know” if assassination programs would be used against American citizens also heaped evidence on the matter. The bottom line? Our government wishes to label and treat citizens as enemy combatants. Of course they would then organize armaments to follow through on their policy. Pulling The Trigger All despotic systems have another distinct similarity; they each began with a series of trigger events which opened the door to tighter controls over the population. The most immediate trigger event for the U.S. is the looming peril of a collapsing economy followed by inevitable civil unrest. With the EU currently in debt shambles, global markets are on the verge of a considerable breakdown. The Federal Reserve response will be predictable; QE3 and massive stimulus all around to mitigate the crisis. This time, though, the go-to Keynesian quick fix will not work in the slightest. In fact, it will make matters more untenable by placing the world reserve status of the dollar at risk. Everything that has happened so far in the markets this year has been easy to foresee. Alt-Market predicted the economic slowdown around the world and the collapse of overall demand using the Baltic Dry Index as a gauge back in January: http://www.alt-market.com/articles/540-baltic-dry-index-signals-renewed-market-collapse We also predicted the accelerated turmoil in the EU in light of the recent election results in France and Greece: http://www.alt-market.com/articles/765-economic-alert-if-youre-not-worried-yetyou-should-be If alternative economic analysts can predict these developments despite the manipulated statistics spewed out by the government every month, then I think the government and our central bank has a tremendously transparent view of what is coming down the road in terms of financial distress. I believe the establishment is very well aware of a potential crisis event, economic or otherwise, that is barreling down upon the U.S. I believe the evidence shows that they are preparing for this eventuality in a command and control fashion, without alerting the public to the coming implosion. I believe they will use the despair that flows forth from the fiscal wreckage as an excuse to institute martial law. Call it "crazy". Call it “conspiracy theory”. Call it “coincidence”. Call it "fear mongering". Whatever you like. I find it far more insane to shrug off the strange and twisted behavior of our power structure, and simply hope that it’s all irrelevant to the future. Whenever I run into starry eyed historical romanticists who look back in astonishment at the tyrannies of the past and wonder out loud, “How could those people have not known where their country was headed?!!”, I think of where we are today… Average: 4.866665 Your rating: None Average: 4.9 ( 60 votes) Tweet Login or register to post comments 19809 reads Printer-friendly version Send to friend Similar Articles You Might Enjoy: Is It That Time Again? Military Conducting Training Exercises In And Around Boston Congress to Vote Next Week on EXPLICITLY Creating a Police State Live Feed From Occupy Wall Street Libyan Oil Fully Liberated On News Gaddafi Dead Guest Post: NDAA Protests End In Ironic Swarm Of Arrests
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