DHS Prepares for Civil Unrest as Obama Poised to Destroy 2nd Amendment

Susanne Posel
Infowars.com
July 28, 2012

Surveillance drones have a new mission. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) they will be used for “public safety”. Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the DHS, told a House Committee meeting on Homeland Security that the more than 30,000 drones that will be deployed into American skies are just arbitrarily watching out for US citizens.

Napolitano stated : “With respect to Science and Technology, that directorate, we do have a funded project, I think it’s in California, looking at drones that could be utilized to give us situational awareness in a large public safety [matter] or disaster, such as a forest fire, and how they could give us better information.”

Secretly, DHS have been taking bid for contractors who can install “aerial remote sensing” which uses light detection and ranging (LIDAR) that would be part of the unmanned drone missions within domestic US territory.

“DHS believes these airborne images are essential for homeland defense missions, such as planning for National Special Security Events (Super Bowls or a national political conventions come to mind); enhancing border, port and airport security; as well as performing critical infrastructure inventories and assessments” and has spent over $50 million to employ contractors, as well as processors for images and dissemination throughout the DHS.

Coincidentally, the Federal Protective Service (FPS) has been given the responsibility to protecting federally owned property while preparing for civilian led riots expected in the near future.

Part of the preparatory measures was an order of 150 sets of riot gear that was requested to be filled exponentially – within 15 days.

The items requested were:

–   147 “Upper Body and Shoulder Protection” which are brand name or equal to “Centurion Soft Shell Riot Control System (CPX2500)”
–   152 “Thigh-Groin Protector” brand name or equivalent to “Centurion TPX200”
–   156 “Forearm Protectors” brand name or equivalent to “Centurion (FP100)”
–   147 units of “Hard Shell Shin Guards” brand name or equivalent to “Centurion (TS70)”
–   147 carry bags brand name or equivalent to Exotech (E4), 147 tactical gloves brand name or equivalent to “Damascus (DMZ333)”
–   147 riot helmets brand name or equivalent to “MaxPro (TR1000)”

The FPS is anticipating that police or military wearing the gear would encounter “blunt force trauma” to the upper torso, as well as potential beatings with “blunt objects”. To compliment these outfits, are required riot helmets with “tactical face shield” equipped with “liquid seals”.

In addition, the US military are ready to assist with local law enforcement “if called upon”.

Five hundred military police and dogs will be allocated on civilian matters, as reported by mainstream media (MSM) have included the reallocation of hundreds of military police officers being trained to “assist local authorities” in investigation, crime scene and case building. These same soliders were just stationed in combat areas like Afghantistan.

Meanwhile, the TSA have been patrolling trains stations and bus terminals in California.

According to one whistleblower : “We’re doing patrols in the parking lot with dogs, we’re even going as far out to the train station because the train station is connected to the airport here and we have guys walking around the train station, walking around the rental cars, we’re inspecting cars coming into the parking garage, I mean we’ve fully expanded – we’re no longer just at the gate and just at the security checkpoint.”

The preparations that DHS and FPS are making for civil unrest may be tied to Article 15 of theUN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). This part allows foreign troops (preferably NATO forces) to offer assistance in implementing the ATT. As the ATT does not specify an adherence to the 2nd Amendment, but rather make vague definitions of who can own a gun, what type of gun and for what purpose, the Constitutional rights we take for granted now will be stripped from us once the ATT is signed.

To downplay the severity of our American right to bear arms against tyrannical dictators foreign and domestic, President Obama stated at a National Urban League meeting that: “We recognize the traditions of gun ownership that passed on from generation to generation, that hunting and shooting are part of a cherished national heritage. I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers, not in the hands of criminals. That they belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities.”

Richard Schrade, attorney and member of the Libertarian National Committee commented on the 2nd Amendment: “The Second Amendment was to protect the ability of the people to violently overthrow the government. Let’s remember that this country was formed in a violent revolution. Let’s remember that at Lexington and Concord citizen fired on and killed government soldiers sent by the central government to confiscate their weapons and arms…. When viewed in this light, it is apparent that a limitation on automatic weapons would be an infringement on the purposes of the Second Amendment.”

Wayne LaPierre, vice president of the NRA, has called out Obama as being part of “conspiracy to ensure re-election by lulling gun owners to sleep. All that first term, lip service to gun owners is just part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment during his second term.”

LaPierre states that upon re-election, Obama will be “busy dismantling and destroying our firearms freedom, erase the 2nd Amendment from the Bill of Rights and excise it from the US Constitution.”

Susanne Posel’s post first appeared on the Occupy Corporatism website.

The US-NATO War on Syria: Western Naval Forces Confront Russia Off the Syrian Coastline?

Global Research
July 26, 2012

"As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan." 

Former Nato Commander General Wesley Clark

"Let me say to the soldiers and officials still supporting the Syrian regime -- the Syrian people will remember the choices you make in the coming days...."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Friends of Syria conference in Paris' July 7, 2012 

While confrontation between Russia and the West was, until recently, confined to the polite ambit of international diplomacy, within the confines of the UN Nations Security Council, an uncertain and perilous situation is now unfolding in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Allied forces including intelligence operatives and special forces have reinforced their presence on the ground in Syria following the UN stalemate. Meanwhile, coinciding with the UN Security Council deadlock, Moscow has dispatched to the Mediterranean a flotilla of ten Russian warships and escort vessels led by the Admiral Chabanenko anti-submarine destroyer. Russia's flotilla is currently stationed off the Southern Syrian coastline. 

"Polite Diplomacy" (without smiles). Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (L)  and Russia's Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov meet in St. Petersbourg, June 29, 2012

Back in August of last year, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin warned that "NATO is planning a military campaign against Syria to help overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad with a long-reaching goal of preparing a beachhead for an attack on Iran,..."  In relation to the current naval deployment, Russia’s navy chief, Vice Admiral Viktor Chirkov, confirmed, however, that while the [Russian] flotilla was carrying marines, the warships would "not be engaged in Syria Tasks". "The ships will perform "planned military manoeuvres", said the [Russian Defense] ministry" 

The US-NATO alliance has retorted to Russia's naval initiative, with a much larger naval deployment, a formidable Western armada, consisting of British, French and American warships, slated to be deployed later this Summer in the Eastern Mediterranean, leading to a potential "Cold War style confrontation" between Russian and Western naval forces.

Meanwhile, US-NATO military planners have announced that various "military options" and "intervention scenarios" are being contemplated in the wake of the Russian-Chinese veto in the UN Security Council.

The planned naval deployment is coordinated with allied ground operations in support of the US-NATO sponsored "Free Syrian Army"(FSA). In this regard, US-NATO has speeded up the recruitment of foreign fighters trained in Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

( Russian warships enter the Med, bound for Syria - timesofmalta.com, July 24, 2012)

Franco-British War Games: "Warship Diplomacy"
France and Britain will be participating later this Summer in war games codenamed Exercise Cougar 12 [2012]. The games will be conducted in the Eastern Mediterranean as part of a Franco-British  "Response Force Task Group" involving  Britain's HMS Bulwark and France's Charles De Gaulle carrier battle group. The focus of these naval exercises will be on amphibious operations involving the (planned simulated) landing ashore of troops on "enemy territory". 

Britain's HMS Bulwark

France's Charles De Gaulle aircraft carrier

Smokescreen: The Proposed Evacuation of Western Nationals "Using a Humanitarian Naval Fleet of WMDs"

Barely mentioned by the mainstream media, the warships involved in the Cougar 12 naval exercise will also participate in the planned evacuation of  "British nationals from the Middle East, should the ongoing conflict in Syria further spill across borders into neighboring Lebanon and Jordan.":

The British would likely send the HMS Illustrious, a helicopter carrier, along with the HMS Bulwark, an amphibious ship, as well as an advanced destroyer to provide defenses for the task force. On board will be several hundred Royal Marine commandos, as well as a complement of AH-64 attack helicopters (the same ones used in Libya last year). A fleet of French ships, including the Charles De Gaulle aircraft carrier, carrying a complement of Rafale fighter aircraft, are expected to join them.

Those forces are expected stay offshore and could escort specially chartered civilian ships meant to pick up foreign nationals fleeing Syria and surrounding countries.  (ibtimes.com, 24 July 2012). 

Sources in the British Ministry of Defense, while confirming the Royal Navy's "humanitarian mandate" in the planned evacuation program, have categorically denied "any intention of a combat role for British forces [against Syria]". 

Read the entire article

Colorado Shooter Was Under Psychiatric Care Of Ex-US Air Force Doctor

Chris Francescani & Keith Coffman
London Independent
July 28, 2012

The former University of Colorado graduate student accused of killing 12 people and wounding 58 others in a shooting rampage at a cinema last week had been under the care of a psychiatrist who was part of a campus threat-assessment team.

The disclosure came in court documents filed yesterday by lawyers for James Holmes, 24, who is accused of opening fire last Friday on a packed showing of the latest Batman movie, “The Dark Knight Rises,” in the Denver suburb of Aurora.

The defence attorneys, in their request to an Arapahoe County district judge, are seeking a court order requiring prosecutors to turn over the contents of a package that Holmes sent to Dr. Lynne Fenton and was later seized by investigators.

“Mr. Holmes was a psychiatric patient of Dr. Fenton, and his communications with her are protected,” the filing said.

CNN: Fenton has held many jobs over the years. She worked as a physician in private practice in Denver from 1994 to 2005, and was chief of physical medicine with the U.S. Air Force in San Antonio, Texas, in the early 1990s, according to the resume. Since 2008, she’s won various grants and contracts to study schizophrenia.

ECONOMIC GROWTH SLOWS TO 1.5 PERCENT: RECESSION FEARS RISE

Breitbart
July 28, 2012

The U.S. economy grew at a sluggish rate of 1.5 percent in the second quarter of 2012--the slowest rate in a year--according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis:

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 1.5 percent in the second quarter of 2012, (that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to the "advance" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.  In the first quarter, real GDP increased 2.0 percent.

The Bureau emphasized that the second-quarter advance estimate released today is based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency (see the box on page 3). The "second" estimate for the second quarter, based on more complete data, will be released on August 29, 2012.

The slow growth, which could indicate a slide back towards recession, was expected by economists, but is bad news for President Barack Obama's re-election effort. It sets up a fall campaign in which he will be challenged by Republican Mitt Romney on his economic record.

Democratic senators offer gun control amendment for cybersecurity bill

The Hill
July 28, 2012

Democratic senators have offered an amendment to the cybersecurity bill that would limit the purchase of high capacity gun magazines for some consumers.

Shortly after the Cybersecurity Act gained Senate approval to proceed to filing proposed amendments and a vote next week, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a sponsor of the gun control amendment, came to the floor to defend the idea of implementing some “reasonable” gun control measures.

The amendment was sponsored by Democratic Sens. Frank Lautenberg (N.J.), Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Jack Reed (R.I.), Bob Menendez (N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Schumer and Dianne Feinstein (Calif.). S.A. 2575 would make it illegal to transfer or possess large capacity feeding devices such as gun magazines, belts, feed stripes and drums of more than 10 rounds of ammunition with the exception of .22 caliber rim fire ammunition.

The amendment is identical to a separate bill sponsored by Lautenberg. Feinstein was the sponsor of the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004.  


See Video here

Bipartisan group of senators threatens to oppose UN arms treaty as deadline looms

Fox News
July 27, 2012

• 

WASHINGTON –  A bipartisan group of 51 senators is threatening to oppose a global treaty regulating international weapons trade if it falls short in protecting the constitutional right to bear arms, as the United Nations bumps up against a Friday deadline for action. 

In a letter to President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the senators expressed serious concerns with the draft treaty that has circulated at the United Nations, saying that it signals an expansion of gun control that would be unacceptable.

"Our country's sovereignty and the constitutional protection of these individual freedoms must not be infringed," they wrote. 

A revised draft that circulated late Thursday of the treaty, though, raised hopes from supporters and the British government, which has been the leading proponent, that an historic agreement could be reached by Friday's deadline.

The draft closed several loopholes in the original text, though the Washington-based Arms Control Association said further improvements are still needed to strengthen measures against illicit arms transfers.

A spokesman for Britain's U.N. Mission, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the new text is "a substantial improvement" and "an historic agreement that effectively regulates the international trade in conventional arms is now very close."

Read the entire article

Parents could be asked to administer flu vaccine to their children

The Guardian
July 25, 2012

The UK will become the first country to offer the flu vaccine free to healthy children. Photograph: Asia Images Group Pte Ltd / Alam/Alamy

The NHS must find more than 1,000 extra school nurses to give the fluvaccine to healthy children under plans announced on Wednesday to expand the vaccination programme to all children aged two to 17.

Millions more people will be offered the vaccine, a nasal spray called Fluenz, under the scheme that is expected to run from 2014, the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, said. Options being considered to administer it include allowing parents to vaccinate their own children.

The decision follows a report from the government's advisers on vaccination policy, which drew on computer models to estimate that a 30% uptake of the vaccine could reduce deaths from seasonal influenza by 2,000 and lead to 11,000 fewer hospital admissions.

To meet the demand, advisers on the joint committee on vaccination and immunisation (JCVI) said the NHS needed several times as many school nurses, or others who could safely administer the spray, at least for the intense two-month period each autumn before the flu season begins. Schools in the UK currently have the equivalent of 1,168 full-time nurses.

Read the entire article

James Holmes Is Behaving Like Sirhan Sirhan

Drugged up massacre suspect can’t remember ‘Batman’ shooting

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Friday, July 27, 2012

The parallels between alleged Colorado shooter James Holmes and Sirhan Sirhan are staggering. Both appear to have been drugged, both cannot remember the shootings they were accused of carrying out, and in both cases other shooters were reported by eyewitnesses.

Over 40 years after being convicted of the murder of Robert F. Kennedy, the weight of evidence clearly indicates that SIrhan Sirhan was a drugged-up patsy, a fall guy for the real murderer who has never been identified.

The fact that details surrounding the Aurora massacre and shooting suspect James Holmes mirror almost exactly those of Sirhan Sirhan, within just a week of the tragedy taking place, strongly suggest that Holmes is also a patsy or at the very least that there was a wider plot behind the tragedy that led to the deaths of 12 people.

As the London Independent reported in 2005, evidence strongly indicates that Sirhan was a Manchurian candidate, a victim of mind control who was set up to be the fall guy for the murder. Sirhan was described by eyewitnesses as being in a trance-like state as he pulled the trigger.

“There was no way Sirhan Sirhan killed Kennedy,” said (Sirhan’s lawyer Larry) Teeter, who has filed the lawsuit to preserve the pantry for further forensic examination. “He was the fall guy. His job was to get busted while the trigger man walked out. He wasn’t consciously involved in any plot. He was a patsy. He was unconscious and unaware of what was happening – he was the true Manchurian Candidate.”

The parallels between Sirhan Sirhan and James Holmes are alarming.

- Both were described as behaving as if in a trance or under the influence of drugs. “I felt drugged. I think somebody slipped something into my drinks,” said Sirhan, describing the moments before the shooting of RFK. Similarly, during his court appearance earlier this week, Holmes’ behavior clearly suggested he was also under the influence of strong medication. “The 24-year-old looked confused, blinked slowly, and struggled to keep his head up, leading the press to wonder if he’d been drugged,” reported NYMag.com.

- Both Sirhan Sirhan and James Holmes cannot remember any details of the alleged shootings they are accused of carrying out. “I didn’t know where I was and I don’t know how I got there. I was in a state of blackout,” stated Sirhan. Similarly, Holmes has told prison guards that he has no idea why he is in jail and is suffering from amnesia. “He claims he doesn’t know why he’s in jail,” a jailhouse worker told NY Daily News . “He asked, ‘Why am I here?’”

- In both the RFK and ‘Batman’ shootings eyewitnesses described other shooters, dismantling the “lone wolf” narrative. According to Nina Rhodes-Hughes, another man was shooting at RFK and the authorities tried to alter her account of what happened. “What has to come out is that there was another shooter to my right,” Rhodes-Hughes said in an interview with CNN. “The truth has got to be told. No more cover-ups.” Sirhan’s lawyers also presented evidence that “two guns were fired in the assassination and that Sirhan’s revolver was not the gun that shot Kennedy.” Similarly in the case of Holmes, eyewitnesses described two shooters, noting that one of the gas canisters was thrown from the opposite side of the theater to where the killer was standing. . It was also clear that Holmes, or whoever the killer in the gas mask was, had an accomplice. Eyewitnesses described the killer talking on a cellphone before the shooting and then standing in the emergency exit and beckoning someone else over.

The CIA’s use of mind control to create killers is a matter of historical record. MK-ULTRA was the code name for a covert, illegal CIA human research program, run by the Office of Scientific Intelligence that came to light in 1975 through investigations by the Church Committee, and by a presidential commission known as the Rockefeller Commission. 14-year CIA veteran Victor Marchetti insists that the program is ongoing and has not been abandoned.

Holmes, a neuroscience student, was also fascinated with mind control. During his time at Salk Institute of Biological Studies, Holmes designed a computer program to alter mental states using flicker rates. Arizona shooter Jared Lee Loughner was also obsessed with mind control.

There are also a myriad of other questions surrounding the ‘Batman’ shootings that conflict with the official narrative, such as how Holmes could have developed bomb-making skills that exhibit the proficiency of an explosives expert, or why he carefully booby-trapped his apartment to kill anyone who tried to enter but then told police about the bombs as soon as he was arrested.

According to his lawyers, Sirhan Sirhan “was an involuntary participant in the crimes being committed because he was subjected to sophisticated hypno programming and memory implantation techniques which rendered him unable to consciously control his thoughts and actions at the time the crimes were being committed,” and served only as a diversion for the real assassin

Was James Holmes also just a diversion to hide the identify of the real assassin?

With the political machine now rushing headlong to exploit last week’s massacre to eviscerate the second amendment, each piece of new evidence points to the fact that Holmes was just one part of the puzzle or even worse, an unwitting patsy who took the fall for the real killer.

*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.

Dem proposes bill allowing some products to be labeled 'cancer-free'

The Hill

July 26, 2012

Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.) on Wednesday proposed legislation that would allow companies to apply to the government to allow their products to bear a "cancer-free" label.

"It's time to help consumers choose safer products for themselves and for their loved ones," Deutch said on the House floor Wednesday. "That's why today I'm introducing the Cancer Free Label Act. My bill will give companies the chance to market to consumers the fact that the products that they make are free of carcinogens."

Under his bill, H.R. 6191, the Food and Drug Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Agriculture and Consumer Product Safety Commission would set up rules for approving the use of "cancer-free" labels. It says approved labels would state, "This product does not contain known or likely carcinogens that increase your risk of cancer."

Read the entire article

Left-Right Paradigm and the Coming Election

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!!
Mark Matheny
July 26, 2012






Mark Matheny and Ron Stone discuss the coming elections, and other topics


Note:: There are some brief audio problems in the film. Please be patient and watch the entire news broadcast. I have attempted to clean up the problems but they are still noticeable. The message is important however. Thanks.

Humor: You Didn’t Build That!

Infowars.com
July 25, 2012

President Obama has corrected the record regarding the means of production…

• 
  
• 

And some of course are true…

Spain Clashes: Violence Erupts as Million-Plus Protest in 80 Cities

RT

Published on Jul 19, 2012 by RussiaToday

Spanish police have clashed with protesters who marched against the latest batch of austerity measures. Over a million public employees, trade union members and fed-up citizens have taken to the streets in over 80 Spanish cities. Violence erupted in Madrid around midnight. Police used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse the crowd as it tried to reach the congress building. In some more urban areas, activists set garbage containers on fire and tried to block police vehicle access. No injuries or arrests have been reported.

MORE INFORMATION & PHOTOS: http://on.rt.com/dwgqk1

RT LIVE http://rt.com/on-air

LONDON OLYMPICS: Massive occultist ritual being prepared to occur in the opening ceremony.

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!!
Mark Matheny
July 26, 2012


Strange occultic  rituals seem to be in the works for the Olympics coming in 2012.



Editor's Note: This is NOT a Zionist movement, but a Catholic movement, in order to destroy true "Zionism". - the Zion which Yahweh will create when Yahshua (Jesus) returns to establish His Kingdom on earth.


"Labor Zionism" is a creation of Catholicism in order to destroy both Christianity and the Jewish faith, (from which Christianity arose). The Labor Zionists are followers of the false Messiah Shabbatai Ztvi, who lead many astray in the 1600's, and his philosophy has been used by the elites in order to create a New World Order.


1 Kings 8:1
Then Solomon assembled the elders of Israel, and all the heads of the tribes, the chief of the fathers of the children of Israel, unto king Solomon in Jerusalem, that they might bring up the ark of the covenant of the LORD out of the city of David, which is Zion. ( Zion is Jerusalem)


Psalm 14:7
Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! when the LORD bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.


Psalm 51:18
Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.

Weather Extremes Leave Parts of U.S. Grid Buckling

New York Times

July 25, 2012


WASHINGTON — From highways in Texas to nuclear power plants in Illinois, the concrete, steel and sophisticated engineering that undergird the nation’s infrastructure are being taxed to worrisome degrees by heat, drought and vicious storms.

On a single day this month here, a US Airways regional jet became stuck in asphalt that had softened in 100-degree temperatures, and a subway train derailed after the heat stretched the track so far that it kinked — inserting a sharp angle into a stretch that was supposed to be straight. In East Texas, heat and drought have had a startling effect on the clay-rich soils under highways, which “just shrink like crazy,” leading to “horrendous cracking,” said Tom Scullion, senior research engineer with the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University. In Northeastern and Midwestern states, he said, unusually high heat is causing highway sections to expand beyond their design limits, press against each other and “pop up,” creating jarring and even hazardous speed bumps.

Excessive warmth and dryness are threatening other parts of the grid as well. In the Chicago area, a twin-unit nuclear plant had to get special permission to keep operating this month because the pond it uses for cooling water rose to 102 degrees; its license to operate allows it to go only to 100. According to the Midwest Independent System Operator, the grid operator for the region, a different power plant had had to shut because the body of water from which it draws its cooling water had dropped so low that the intake pipe became high and dry; another had to cut back generation because cooling water was too warm.

The frequency of extreme weather is up over the past few years, and people who deal with infrastructure expect that to continue. Leading climate models suggest that weather-sensitive parts of the infrastructure will be seeing many more extreme episodes, along with shifts in weather patterns and rising maximum (and minimum) 

Read the entire article

The sinister nature of inflation – historic droughts push food costs up impacting 46 million Americans on food stamps. What happens when everything gets more expensive and incomes fall?

MyBudget360
July 25, 2012

Inflation is an odd sort of economic beast.  People take it for granted that inflation will always be a part of our life sort of like a quite humming background noise.  TheFederal Reserve is doing all it can to increase inflation so banks can essentially inflate their debts away.  Yet the impact for most Americans is negative.  The debt based system built on access to easy debt has seen a perpetual system of bubbles.  We had the housing bubble now followed by the higher education bubble.  While prices in the two most expensive pursuits for Americans went into bubbles, theaverage American has seen their net worth and incomes go negative.  Inflation erodes the purchasing power of every dollar you have in your pocket.  At the moment, the process of deleveraging is so large that inflation is muted in some categories.  Yet items like college that are decoupled from income are soaring to stratospheric levels.

The process of inflation

The CPI index is up 36 percent since 2000.  Yet this index is a mixed bag of goods and a 36 percent rise with no household income increases is extremely painful.  If you break the components down even further you realize where bubbles are hitting:

Tuition, energy, and medical care costs have soared since 2000 far outpacing every other category.  The CPI measure actually missed the housing bubble because it tracked the owner’s equivalent of rent.  Yet for the moment, there are few alternatives to oil and college costs are definitely in a bubble.  The only reason costs remain where they are is the fact that $1 trillion in student debt is out floating in the market.

But back to the above chart you realize that Americans are seeing their quality of life decline.  To be more specific, it is becoming more expensive to stay in the middle class with stagnant incomes when many items are going up in price.  Home prices are cheaper because of the housing bubble bursting but also the Federal Reserve has pushed mortgage rates to historically low levels.  Yet Americans are really not able to support current underlying prices without subsidizing the daylights out of the mortgage market.  You also have global demand entering the market because of the crisis unfolding in Europe.  Low rates are here not because of good times, but because of global fear in the massively over leverage debt based system.

Food

We have over 46,000,000 Americans on food stamps.  Current drought conditions are pushing the cost of food items up:

For those on food stamps, food represents a larger portion of their monthly outflows.  So a modest increase in food prices is really going to hit the 46,000,000 Americans directly in their pocketbooks.  It is a troubling state of affairs but higher costs without higher incomes are simply a slow way of making the country poorer.  Because of historic drought conditions corn futures are soaring:

So with items getting more expensive the hit to household income becomes more prominent:

During the housing bubble, Americans to keep the aspirations of the dream alive simply went into massive debt.  Many dove into massive auto loan debt as well.  As that bubble burst, a process of deleveraging hit.  Now, Americans are jumping into massive college debt simply believing that any college degree is worth massive levels of debt.  This assumption is now being seriously questioned and with default rates soaring, we are simply looking at another crisis gearing up to unfold.

100 Million Poor People In America And 39 Other Facts About Poverty That Will Blow Your Mind

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
July 25, 2012

Every single day more Americans fall into poverty.  This should deeply alarm you no matter what political party you belong to and no matter what your personal economic philosophy is.  Right now, approximately 100 million Americans are either “poor” or “near poor”. 

For a lot of people “poverty” can be a nebulous concept, so let’s define it.  The poverty level as defined by the federal government in 2010 was $11,139 for an individual and $22,314 for a family of four.  Could you take care of a family of four on less than $2000 a month?  Millions upon millions of families are experiencing a tremendous amount of pain in this economy, and no matter what “solutions” we think are correct, the reality is that we all should have compassion on them.  Sadly, things are about to get even worse.  The next major economic downturn is rapidly approaching, and when it hits the statistics posted below are going to look even more horrendous.

When it comes to poverty, most Americans immediately want to get into debates about tax rates and wealth redistribution and things like that.

But the truth is that they are missing the main point.

The way we slice up the pie is not going to solve our problems, because the pie is constantly getting smaller.

Our economic infrastructure is being absolutely gutted, the U.S. dollar is slowly losing its status as the reserve currency of the world and we are steadily getting poorer as a nation.

Don’t be fooled by the government statistics that show a very small amount of “economic growth”.  Those figures do not account for inflation.

Read the entire article

WORLD VIEW: IMF WILL END BAILOUT FOR GREECE

Breitbart
July 23, 2012

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com 

• Food price surge expected after worst U.S. drought in 50 years
• Food price surge may lead to global riots, as in 2008
• IMF will end bailout for Greece, possibly forcing exit from euro currency
• Analysis: Euro crisis is saving Germany tens of billions
• Iran announces multiple currency exchange rates
• Catholic Priests protest Church attacks in Vietnam

Food price surge expected after worst U.S. drought in 50 years

FAO Food Price Index through June, 2012

The FAO Food Price Index has been declining since a major spike up in 2010, but that's about to change. This summer's drought, now covering more than half of the United States, is the most widespread since 1956, and is likely to get worse. Record-setting triple-digit temperatures have already occurred across the country. The National Weather Service counted 86 records last month, including 118 degrees in Norton, Kan., on June 28. Other record highs included 111 degrees in Yuma, Colo., 106 degrees in St. Louis, and 105 in Logan, W. Va. Between the extreme heat and the lack of rain, corn yield projections have been slashed, and will be slashed again in August. Corn prices have risen to historic highs, and beef prices have been surging as well, as corn makes up about 95% of cattle feed grains. Toledo (OH) Blade 

Food price surge may lead to global riots, as in 2008

Damaged corn crop in Woodville, Ohio

The world price of food has been growing steadily since 2002, as the effects of the 1960s "Green Revolution" have petered out, and population growth has been exceeding growth in food production. Food price shocks in 2008 sparked a wave of riots in 30 countries around the world, from Haiti to Bangladesh, and rising food prices helped trigger the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011. The American drought is now expected to trigger a new world food price shock. According to one analyst: 

"Food riots are a real risk at this point. Wheat prices aren't up at the level they got to in 2008 but they are still very high and that will have an effect on those who are least able to pay higher prices for food."

Global corn prices have already shot up 40% since June to hit all-time highs, soy bean prices have jumped 30% to record levels, and wheat has surged 50%. Guardian and UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) 

IMF will end bailout for Greece, possibly forcing exit from euro currency

According to reports from Germany's Der Spiegel, officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are signaling that they will stop paying bailout money to Greece, because Greece has failed to meet its austerity commitments. Readers may recall that one of the conditions of the 130 billion euro bailout is that Greece must reduce its annual budget deficit from its current 160% of GDP to 120% of GDP by 2020. As I wrote in a lengthy analysis at the time ( "28-Oct-11 News -- Markets explode on crazy Rube Goldberg eurozone deal"), this demand was based on ridiculously impossible future economic assumptions that overlook the generational changes that are taking place. And now it's "already clear" that the "Troika" -- consisting of the European Commission (EC), European Central Bank (ECB), and the IMF -- will reach the conclusion, when it meets this week, that Greece's 120% commitment will not be met. It's already clear, for example, that the 3 billion euros that Greece was supposed to earn from asset sales this year will turn out to be only 300 million euros. 

Greece has been begging EU officials to get it more time to implement its austerity commitments, and this was a big discussion in Greece's recent election that brought Antonis Samaras to office. But the Troika has decided that giving Greece more time would mean that it would be necessary to increase Greece's bailout package by an additional 10-50 billion euros. German officials this weekend torpedoed any possibility of renegotiating Greece's austerity agreement. "That won’t work -- that’s a Rubicon we can’t cross," said German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle. 

The result is that Greece will go bankrupt next month, when it's due to make a 3.8 billion euro bond payment, and will be forced to leave the euro currency. 

This discussion comes at a time when the euro crisis is rapidly building in Spain and Italy, with 10-year bond yields (interest rates) well above 7% and 6%, respectively, after officials in those countries announced that they won't be able to meet their own deficit commitments. 

Last year I proposed the "Kick the Can Theory" for the European financial crisis. It says that if you want to know what's going to happen, just assume that European leaders will look for a way to "kick the can down the road," meaning that they'll do the minimum possible to postpone the crisis a little longer, to prevent a current disaster without fixing the problem, so that the crisis will recur in worse form weeks or months later. 

There's already a can-kicking solution being proposed for Greece next month. The Greek government will sell 3.8 billion euros in short-term government bonds known as T-bills, and sell them to Greek banks. The Greek banks would then deposit them with the ECB to be used as collateral for 3.8 billion euros of new ECB bailout money. Voilà! 3.8 billion euros created out of thin air! Problem solved! Der Spiegel -- Translation and Bloomberg 

Analysis: Euro crisis is saving Germany tens of billions

We've been reporting how yields (interest rates) for some bonds issued by Denmark and Germany have been falling and have actually gone negative, meaning that investors have to pay these countries to keep their money safe. This is a result of the euro crisis, and an analysis indicates that the euro crisis has thus earned Germany a windfall of about 100 billion euros, in all, with 10 billion euros saved in 2012 alone in reduced interest payments.Kathimerini 

Iran announces multiple currency exchange rates

With Western sanctions on Iran causing rapid domestic inflation, Iran's parliamentary economic commission announced on Saturday that there will now be three official exchange rates of exchange for the U.S. dollar: 12,260 rials per dollar for "the import of basic goods," 15,000 rials per dollar for import of "capital and brokered goods," and the open market rate, currently 19,100 rials per dollar, for luxury goods, like toys and foreign cars. The new plan is drawing severe criticism from the Ahmadinejad administration. Radio Zamaneh 

Catholic Priests protest Church attacks in Vietnam

Vietnamese Catholic priests have sent a letter to President Nguyen Tan Dung protesting against what they said were violent local government backed attacks on a church in a northern Vietnam province which have angered Christians in the communist state. A non-Catholic mob, paid by government officials to participate, occupied the church on July 1 and smashed property, before church members called for help from fellow Catholics in nearby parishes, who came in groups and overwhelmed the attackers. Radio Free Asia 

The Catholic Church has played a major role in Vietnam society for over two centuries, since the the Tay-Son rebellion, the most celebrated military event in Vietnamese history, united the north and south in 1789. The generational Awakening era that followed the Tay-Son rebellion changed Vietnam enormously, and became the high point of Vietnam's literary culture, thanks to the French, who also introduced the Catholic religion, converting hundreds of thousands from Confucianism and Buddhism. The Catholic religion was an important symbol in the 1950s, when Ho Chi Minh's violence forced over half a million Catholics to migrate from North to South. Vietnam's crisis civil war in the 1970s united the North and South again, but now the new attacks on the Catholic Church indicate that new, younger post-war generations are renewing the hostilities that occurred in the under Ho Chi Minh.