Congress' mishandling of debt ceiling and deficit is surreal...

By Suze Orman, Special to CNN

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Suze Orman: The debt ceiling is simply a mechanism to pay bills already incurred
• It has nothing to do with future spending, she says, and the two issues shouldn't be linked
• U.S. "credit score" has already been hurt, even without a default, Orman says
• The issue is jobs, she says. If employment rises, the deficit crisis is eased

Watching Washington hold our economy hostage the past few weeks as it refuses to reach a compromise deal on deficit reduction so we can raise the debt ceiling has been beyond frustrating. Surreal is more like it.Editor's note: Suze Orman is a financial adviser and hosts "The Suze Orman Show" on CNBC. She has written several books on managing personal finances, including her latest, "The Money Class."

Here is what Congress has gotten so horribly wrong:

First, if you spend it, you have to pay it back.

As we all know, if you run up a balance on your credit card and then decide not to pay the bill, there's a huge price to pay. Your interest rate goes up, your credit score goes down and that triggers all sorts of costly dominoes to start falling. To not raise the debt ceiling is akin to refusing to pay your credit card bill.

The debt ceiling has nothing to do with future spending. It's simply a mechanism that allows the U.S. government to keep paying off the bills it has already run up. This is a completely separate issue from what we decide is the right pace of future spending for our country. The deficit reduction debate is about that future path. That anyone insists on linking the two is absurd. We must make good on paying off our bills.

Second, we've already hurt our credit score.

The fact that America has a pristine AAA-credit rating is like saying it has a really strong FICO credit score. It enables our country to qualify for great borrowing terms. But the rating agencies are now warning that our credit rating may be reduced even if we raise the debt ceiling.

Why? Because we've yet to make any serious attempt to reduce our long-term deficit. That is, even without a default, the fact is our national finances are such a mess that investors here and abroad may likely start demanding we pay more interest when we borrow. It's like our FICO score drops from great to just solid.

An estimate from the Congressional Budget Office is that even if our borrowing costs rose just one-tenth of a percentage point, it could translate into $130 billion more in what we owe over the next 10 years. We will have Washington dithering to thank for that.

All of this would be frustrating enough if it were happening at a time when our economy was on solid footing. Yet we just heard that the rate of economic growth the past two quarters has been incredibly low, and we have nearly 25 million Americans either unemployed or stuck working part-time.

Here's what is so truly absurd: We wouldn't have a deficit crisis if we had more people working. The revenue that would come from halving our unemployment rate would reduce our long-term debt to manageable levels.

Seems to me that's the sort of policy debate Congress should be having right about now: What's the best way to get more Americans working? When was the last time you heard a peep out of Washington about that?

Super Congress’: Debt Ceiling Negotiators Aim To Create New Legislative Body...

Courtesy of Huffington Post

WASHINGTON — Debt ceiling negotiators think they’ve hit on a solution to address the debt ceiling impasse and the public’s unwillingness to let go of benefits such as Medicare and Social Security that have been earned over a lifetime of work: Create a new Congress.
This “Super Congress,” composed of members of both chambers and both parties, isn’t mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, but would be granted extraordinary new powers. Under a plan put forth by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his counterpart Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), legislation to lift the debt ceiling would be accompanied by the creation of a 12-member panel made up of 12 lawmakers — six from each chamber and six from each party.
Legislation approved by the Super Congress — which some on Capitol Hill are calling the “super committee” — would then be fast-tracked through both chambers, where it couldn’t be amended by simple, regular lawmakers, who’d have the ability only to cast an up or down vote. With the weight of both leaderships behind it, a product originated by the Super Congress would have a strong chance of moving through the little Congress and quickly becoming law. A Super Congress would be less accountable than the system that exists today, and would find it easier to strip the public of popular benefits. Negotiators are currently considering cutting the mortgage deduction and tax credits for retirement savings, for instance, extremely popular policies that would be difficult to slice up using the traditional legislative process.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has made a Super Congress a central part of his last-minute proposal, multiple news reports and people familiar with his plan say. A picture of Boehner’s proposal began to come into focus Saturday evening: The debt ceiling would be raised for a short-term period and coupled with an equal dollar figure of cuts, somewhere in the vicinity of a trillion dollars over ten years. A second increase in the debt ceiling would be tied to the creation of a Super Congress that would be required to find a minimum amount of spending cuts. Because the elevated panel would need at least one Democratic vote, its plan would presumably include at least some revenue, though if it’s anything like the deals on the table today, it would likely be heavily slanted toward spending cuts. Or, as Obama said of the deal he was offering Republicans before Boehner walked out, “If it was unbalanced, it was unbalanced in the direction of not enough revenue.”
Read full article

Genetic Genocide: Humanity’s Greatest Threat...

Pandora’s Box has surely been opened. A dangerous genetic experiment has come out of the shadows, and the human-animal hybrids, chimeras and other transgenic clones it has yielded now threaten to endanger and irrevocably alter life as we know it.
The controllers of elite-funded science and R&D have wantonly tampered with the genetic code of the planet, ignoring the rather obvious dangers posed by cross-species experimentation and flagrantly jeopardizing the earth’s delicately-balanced biodiversity.
In a special video, Alex Jones addresses the profound risks posed by genetically-modified hybrids now featuring prominently in the field of biotechnology.

Fresh revelations about a “secret lab” program in the UK admittedly ongoing ‘for the last three years’ that developed such bestial-hybrids only serves to reinforce our available data concerning the fact that genetically-modified laboratory creations are fast spinning out of control. Now the biotech industry has unleashed these Franken-breeds into the world under the auspices of monopolizing some of the most important and dangerous developments in Agra, Pharma and Medical research for the 21st Century. Their GM “solutions” to life’s challenges promise lucrative returns, as we reported earlier today, due royalties on their patented gene-expressions.
Transgenic clones, created by deleting-and-replacing DNA sequences to create a cross-species hybrid (xenotransplantation) that is then grown in a host egg, are fast becoming a pet-project of corporate science that offers to fulfill “Pharming’s” promise of replacement organs for ailing humans, industrial and pharmaceutical applications of artificial-protein production, and the hope of successful outlets for artificial fertilization & human cloning in an age of increasing sterility and infertility. However, it is these man-made creations that pose the greatest risks– including contamination, proven links to sterility in offspring and risks of cancer. Many clones, including the world’s famous first-cloned sheep, Dolly, have had conspicuously short lives and bad health. Arthritis, breathing problems and more have plagued their existence, while hundreds of embryos fail in cultivation for each successful clone. Still others die in the womb after only days, yet these entities are trusted to fulfill humanity’s betterment.
In particular, mixing the human genome with that of various ‘useful’ animals crosses the extremely risky bridge formerly separating many beast-borne diseases from those that typically affect humans, or plant species for that matter. The contagion of mixing unrelated species like mammals and jellyfish genes gives the opportunity for unforeseen consequences and uncontrollable mutations. Further, many genes which scientists have previously believed to be equivalent have proven to behave differently when transplanted into foreign DNA sequences. Additionally, lack of recognition or compensation for pleiotropic genes (where a single gene gives expression for multiple traits) makes some of the consequences unforeseeable, yet predictably dangerous.
Grotesque experimentation, iconically portrayed for more than a century in globalist H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau, has now come to life– growing human ears on the backs of mice, harvesting human-marked organs from cows, pigs and other host-species, synthesizing strategic proteins in host-milk production and other seemingly-sci-fi applications– paving the way to future biotechnology. Creations like spider-goats are raised in contradiction to nature’s laws, all in the name of reaching industrial production of a stronger-than-steel protein from spider-silk that can create fibers for items like bullet-proof vests, sold directly to the military-prison-industrial complex, further feeding the total domination of mankind.
GMO species have become absolutely invasive, and their Doctors Frankenstein have unleashed them intentionally to wreck and destroy the native competing species. Crop contamination of non-GMO plants, combined with the genocidal effects of Terminator seeds is devastating to ordinary farmers. Consumption of GMO crops have proven ties in mice studies to sterility (shown to be delayed until the second or third generation) as well as cancer and other issues.
Powerful globalists have declared themselves God, and seek to limit the complex expression of life with cheap carbon-copy clones that threaten to displace the genuine flora, fauna and other life on this planet. Not long ago, the world’s most prestigious scientists considered some 96% of DNA to be throwaway ‘junk’ with no genetic value. Now, in greater arrogance, they will make far greater mistakes as they pretend to understand the path to ‘transhumanism‘ where man supposedly ascends to godhood through life extension. Humanity must stand up and say no before it is too late.

Jim Rogers: "Prepare for a Lost Decade or More"...

Jim Rogers: "Prepare for a Lost Decade or More"...

Courtesy of rt.com

With five days left until the debt ceiling is reached, are Americans witnessing first hand a crisis or political showdown? According to investor and author Jim Rogers, it just doesn’t matter anymore.
“It’s a charade. It’s a scam. They’re not going to do anything serious,” Rogers told RT. “They’re going to announce something either the day before, the day of or the day after and they’re going to say everything is okay.” Rogers added, however, that “America is going to be in worse shape than it is now.”
“They are going to continue to spend and drive us deeper into debt,” said Rogers.
“I don’t see any chance of turning it around.”
Rogers says that the deadlock in Washington is just posturing. “They’re trying to get publicity for themselves,” he said. Rogers thinks lawmakers are just playing with taxpayer money and it’s not getting better anytime soon.
“We are all going to continue to get deeper and deeper into debt,” predicts Rogers, who believes the overall situation for America is only getting more and more serious. He harped on the fact that America is the largest debtor nation in the world, and said, “You think that problems are bad now, you wait until we don’t have any more credit.” There will be social unrest, said Rogers, as interest rates and inflation will go through the roof.
“Prepare for another lost decade or more,” he said.
In the meantime, Roger said to ignore the debt talks. “Even if they default on August 2, 3, 4 — they’ll be back playing the same old games.”
“It has no effect on my investment decision,” said Rogers.
Rogers has relocated to Singapore, noting that the twenty-first century will mark a golden age for Asia as America declines.

Memphis School Start Delayed Over Funding Issue...

(Reuters) - Memphis could see a late start to its school year after the school board, in a move that sent officials scrambling for a solution on Wednesday, voted to delay classes until it gets $55 million in city funds.
The 103,000 students in the public school system are scheduled to begin classes on August 8th. The board voted for the delay on Tuesday.
"We have to take this seriously," Memphis city councilman Shea Flinn said. "But we are not going to shortchange them. The saber-rattling is unnecessary."
He said he hoped a resolution would be reached on Thursday when city council and board members are scheduled to meet.
The city school system has a budget of about $1.2 billion from federal, state, local and private sources. The city of Memphis contributes less than 10 percent of the school system's budget.
Memphis residents also pay taxes for the Shelby County school system outside the city limits, which is wealthier and higher performing than the city system.
The funding issue is complicated by the fact that the Memphis board voted eight months ago to surrender its charter and be taken over by the Shelby County school system.
Court challenges and countersuits were filed, and the matter is now in the hands of a federal judge in Memphis who is expected to rule as early as the end of July.
If the judge rules that the city system is dissolved, he might also rule that Memphis does not have to make its annual schools contribution.
The city council earlier this year passed a property tax increase to cover its contribution in case the judge rules the funding must continue for some period.
Memphis Mayor A C Wharton said if the schools didn't open on time next month, it wouldn't be the fault of City Hall. He expressed optimism that a funding solution would be worked out.
Asked if he was surprised by school board action Tuesday night, the mayor paused several seconds before answering, "No. No, I was not," he said. "Did I like it? No."

Courtesy of reuters.com

20 Signs That The Fabric Of American Society Is Coming Apart At The Seams...

There is wild disagreement about what is causing it, but what most people can agree on is that there is something fundamentally wrong with America.  The fabric of American society just does not seem to be as strong as it used to.  In fact, many would argue that society is coming apart at the seams. Corruption and decay seem to be everywhere.  I spend a lot of time in my other articles blaming a lot of this corruption and decay on politicians, bureaucrats and business leaders, but the reality is that they are only part of the story.  The truth is that those who are leading us are a reflection of what we have become as a nation.  If you got rid of all of our corrupt leaders that would not suddenly “fix” this country.  Millions of ordinary Americans have become deeply corrupt as well.  The kinds of things that you are about to read about below were very rare in past generations.  Society is falling apart all around us and we haven’t even seen the complete collapse of the U.S. economy yet.
A lot of people like to blame the increasingly bizarre behavior of the American people on the economy, but the reality is that things are not nearly as bad as they are eventually going to be.  Yes, the U.S. “Misery Index” recently hit a 28 year high.  Tens of millions of American families are deeply suffering. Unemployment is rampant and unprecedented numbers of Americans have been getting kicked out of their homes.
But that is nothing compared to what is coming.
So what is America going to look like when true economic suffering comes along?
That is something to think about.
A lot of the items in the list below may seem easy to dismiss as “isolated incidents”.  But when you start examining patterns of behavior over an extended period of time, certain trends begin to emerge.  America is become a very cruel place.  The love of most people seems to be growing cold.  What some people are willing to do for a little bit of money or just because someone has “pissed them off” is absolutely stunning.  The America of today is fundamentally different from the America of past generations.
We have changed, and not for the better.
The following are 20 signs that the fabric of American society is coming apart at the seams…..
#1 A 17-year-old Florida teen is being accused of killing his parents with a hammer, hiding their bodies in the master bedroom, and then inviting dozens of people over for a massive house party.
#2 What is it with 17-year-olds?  Another 17-year-old has been charged with putting a plastic bag over the head of his mother and choking her to death with a belt.  His two brothers just stood by and watched while this happened.  Apparently the 17-year-old was infuriated because his mother wanted them to play a game of Yahtzee with her.
#3 The largest school cheating scandal in the history of the United States was recently uncovered in the Atlanta area.  Dozens of teachers and principles were involved according to a recently released 413 page report….

More than three quarters of the 56 schools investigated cheated on a 2009 standardized state test, with 178 educators implicated, including 38 principals. Eighty-two teachers confessed to erasing students’ answers and correcting tests. The report says widespread cheating has occurred since at least 2001 and that orders to cheat came from the top.

#4 A Vancouver, Washington woman has been charged with trying to sell her newborn baby in front of a Taco Bell.  Apparently she was hoping to get somewhere between $500 and $5000 for the baby.
#5 In the United States today, if you don’t show cops “proper respect” there is a good chance that you are going to get tazed.  Just check out this disturbing video of an incident that recently happened in Alabama.
#6 A 48-year-old woman in California was recently arrested after she drugged her husband, chopped off his manhood and threw it into the garbage disposal.
#7 In the Dallas area, five people (including a pregnant woman) were trampled while lying on the ground as thousands of desperate people madly dashed to get into line to get on a waiting list for rental assistance vouchers.
#8 A 35-year-old New York man that has been charged with “kidnapping, killing and dismembering an 8-year-old boy” says that he “hears voices” and he has been ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation.
#9 There has been a rash of car robberies in the Atlanta area recently.  Just a couple of nights ago, more than 30 cars were broken into in a single night in south Buckhead.
#10 All over the United States this summer, thieves are stealing just about anything they can get their hands on.  People are stealing air conditioners, copper wiring, restaurant furniture, metal drain covers and even hair extensions.
#11 In Woodstock, Georgia a 61-year-old man reportedly promised to give a 17-year-old boy money if he would do certain “things” for the man.  Well, it turns out that the 61-year-old man ended up setting the teen on fire….

A 61-year-old man has been arrested on charges of aggravated battery, cruelty to children, false imprisonment, and solicitation of sodomy after he set a 17-year-old boy on fire in Woodstock.

#12 In Washington state, a 23-year-old woman is accused of dumping her newborn baby into a trashcan at the hospital.  When a nurse finally found the plastic bag with the baby boy inside of it, the child was blue in the face from a lack of oxygen.  Fortunately, the baby survived the ordeal.
#13 In another story from Washington state, a man that is being charged with producing child porn is being allowed to watch that porn all he wants while he is in prison because he is acting as his own lawyer and needs to have “access to the evidence“….

So because he’s acting as his own lawyer, he gets full access to the evidence against him. Which means that as he prepares for trial, a private room has been set up in the jail where Gilbert can watch the full 30-hour archives of his own child porn collection.

#14 The National Retail Federation says that “inventory loss” for retail storeswas up 11% last year.  Most of the “inventory loss” is attributed to such things as shoplifting and employee theft.
#15 In Minnesota recently, a mob of teen girls brutally pummeled a mother and her two daughters until they were black and blue.  Apparently the mob of teen girls was enraged over a pair of missing sunglasses.
#16 One of the hot new trends for young males is to play the “knockout game“.  In this “game”, a group of young men picks out an innocent bystander and the first one to knock that person out is the “winner”.
#17 Prior to 2011, most Americans had never even heard of “mob robberies“.  Today, they have made headline news all over the nation.
#18 In the San Francisco area recently, fire crews and police just stood on the shore and watched as a suicidal 50-year-old man slowly drowned to death in the San Francisco Bay.
#19 Meanwhile, the federal government continues to waste money on some of the most bizarre things imaginable.  For example, the federal government actually gave money to the National Institutes of Health to study the effect that the size of “a certain part of the body” has on the sex lives of gay men.  Can anyone think of a reason why the federal government would want to throw money away on such frivolous studies when millions of Americans can’t even find jobs right now?
#20 Many believe that a big reason for all of this chaos in America today is the decline of the American family.  In 1960, married couples accounted for 75 percent of all households in America.  Today, they account for just 48 percentof all households.
Whatever your political or religious philosophy is, hopefully you can agree that America is in trouble.  Every single day, there are more shocking revelations about the corruption and the decay that are spreading throughout this nation.
Sadly, instead of coming together to work on some solutions to our growing problems, Americans are becoming more divided than ever.
The mainstream media teaches us that our “opponents” are those that belong to political, social or religious groups that are different from our own.  They love to divide us and play us off against each other.  Everywhere you look in America, hate is growing.
But hatred is never the answer.  Yes, we should always stand up for what we believe is right, but we can do that and still love one another at the same time.
Unfortunately, as America continues to come apart at the seams we are probably going to see this country become even more divided.
United we stand, divided we fall – you make the call America.

Courtesy of infowars.com

State Prosecutes Sports Fan For Saying Mean Things On Facebook...

The BBC is lending a hand in the propaganda blitz now in full swing to demonize the internet ahead of the government regulating speech and controlling who is allowed to use the electronic medium.

In Scotland, the police apparently have nothing better to do than monitor Facebook and other social networks in an effort to ferret out mean people making nasty and snide comments.
Michael Baily, an intemperate 20 year old Celtic fan, posted a racist comment about El Hadji Diouf, a Senegalese footballer, on Facebook.
“He was caught after a police task force began reviewing internet sites after March’s so-called Old Firm shame game,” reports the BBC. “At Glasgow Sheriff Court, sentence on Bailey was deferred for reports.”
Sentence? That’s right. The Scottish kid will be punished by the state for making admittedly insensitive and stupid comments. It is now a crime in Scotland to say mean things. Scots can go to prison or be sentenced to do “community service” – slave labor for the state – for making comments that are uttered every single hour of every single day in pubs and on the streets of Scotland and everywhere else.
In addition to scouring the internet for bigots, the Scottish police are jailing football fans for singing God Save The Queen or crossing themselves. The worst “offenders” could face five years in prison, according to the Daily Record. A community safety minister told the newspaper it is criminal to sing God Save The Queen or Rule Britannia in or near sports grounds or in pubs.
The effort specifically targets “keyboard warriors” who use the internet to “spread hate,” in other words post racist or insensitive comments.
As early as 2001, the EU moved to ban racist speech on the internet. In 2009, the Canadian Human Rights Council declared a law banning so-called hate speech on the internet unconstitutional. China is notorious for its internet censorship and India recently passed regulations banning speech the government considers “disparaging,” “harassing,” “blasphemous” or “hateful.” In 2009, Australia proposed establishing an internet filter to censor political speech.



In May, former president Clinton proposed censoring internet speech. “It would be a legitimate thing to do,” Clinton said in an interview that aired on CNBC. Clinton suggested the government should set-up an agency that monitors all media speech for supposed factual errors.

“That is, it would be like, I don’t know, National Public Radio or BBC or something like that, except it would have to be really independent and they would not express opinions, and their mandate would be narrowly confined to identifying relevant factual errors” he said. “And also, they would also have to have citations so that they could be checked in case they made a mistake. Somebody needs to be doing it, and maybe it’s a worthy expenditure of taxpayer money.”
In 2010, we exposed a plan by Cass Sunstein, head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, to ban speech on the internet the government disagrees with. Sunstein proposed the creation of an internet “Fairness Doctrine” similar to the one that was used for years to limit and eliminate free speech on the radio.

Courtesy of infowars.com

Cash Crunch for Cities, School Districts may Worsen...

 (Reuters) - Local governments across America are getting spotty relief at best from fiscal pains even as state governments put 2011's budget battles behind them and worrying headlines about state fiscal difficulties dwindle.
"There's a credit risk rotation away from the states and down to local governments," said Gary Pollack, a managing director at Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management in New York. "And it's just beginning."
America's nearly 90,000 counties, cities, public school districts and other local governments rely heavily on property taxes and aid from state governments to provide essential services, such as fire protection and education.
But the five-year-old U.S. housing downturn is savaging property tax revenues, and state legislators looking to balance their own budgets in a slow national economic recovery are often cutting aid to cities and towns.
Counties typically get just shy of 31 percent of revenues from state governments, cities and towns about 19 percent, and school districts over half, according to U.S. Census data cited in a report by Wells Fargo Securities analyst Natalie Cohen.
And just a few weeks ago, temporary federal aid authorized under the 2009 economic stimulus program came to an end. Those funds had helped local and state governments through the worst of America's Great Recession.
"They'll be running a bit naked for a while," Pollack said.
For investors such as Pollack, who oversees about $6 billion in municipal debt assets, the pressures on local government finances will require more rigorous bond research before buying bonds.
"I don't want a downgrade, or worse," Pollack said, adding that he favors buying mainly general obligation and 'essential services' municipal bonds, as well as debt issued by top universities and some big hospital systems.

Courtesy of reuters.com

Fed Planning for Potential Default...

(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve is actively preparing for the possibility that the United States could default as a deadline for raising the government's $14.3 trillion borrowing limit looms, a top Fed policymaker said on Wednesday.
Charles Plosser, president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, said the U.S. central bank has for the past few months been working closely with Treasury, ironing out what to do if the world's biggest economy runs out of cash on August 2.
"We are in contingency planning mode," Plosser told Reuters in an interview at the regional central bank's headquarters in Philadelphia. "We are all engaged. ... It's a very active process."
Plosser said his "gut feeling" was that President Barack Obama and Congress will come to an agreement to increase the Treasury's borrowing authority in time to avert a default on government obligations.
Obama was due to meet with top Republicans in Congress on Wednesday to discuss the latest attempts to end the dispute over raising the country's debt ceiling, a row which has raised the prospect of the Treasury Department running out of money to pay its bills next month.
The Treasury has repeatedly said default was unthinkable and that there was no alternative to raising the debt ceiling. Plosser's remarks marked the most extensive public comments yet on preparations for a default from a U.S. official.
A Treasury spokesperson could not be immediately reached for comment.
One aspect of the Fed's contingency planning is purely operational: the Fed is developing procedures about how the Treasury would notify it on which checks would get cleared and which wouldn't, Plosser said.
The Fed effectively acts as the Treasury's bank -- it clears the government's checks to everyone from social security recipients to government workers.
"We are developing processes and procedures by which the Treasury communicates to us what we are going to do," Plosser said, adding that the task was manageable. "How the Fed is going to go about clearing government checks. Which ones are going to be good? Which ones are not going to be good?"
"There are a lot of people working on what we would do and how we would do it," he said.
Plosser added that there are difficult questions that the Fed itself had to grapple with.
The Fed lends to banks at the discount window against good collateral. But what happens if U.S. Treasuries no longer fit that bill?
"Do we treat them as if they didn't default, in which case we would be saying we are pretending it never happened? Or do we treat them as if they defaulted and don't lend against them?" Plosser said. "Those are more policy questions."
Plosser, who was a vocal critic of some of the Fed's extraordinary lending during the financial crisis -- which he said veered into fiscal policy and risked the central bank's independence -- warned it would be crucial for the Fed not to do the Treasury's work for it.
"We have to be very careful that we don't become, that we don't conduct fiscal policy in this context," he said. "That we don't substitute for the inability of the Treasury to borrow in some circumstances."
INCLINED TO TIGHTEN
Plosser, a noted policy hawk on inflation, argued the Fed might need to raise interest rates before the end of the year, despite recent evidence of renewed economic weakness.
He said he expects the economy to grow at a 3-3.5 percent annual rate over the second half of 2011 with the jobless rate declining to around 8.5 percent by year's end.
"The more my forecast comes to fruition the more I'm going to feel like we may have to act," said Plosser, who is a voting member of the Fed's monetary policy-setting committee this year. "I'd like to have a little more confidence in that forecast."
Plosser pinned the slowdown in economic growth over the first half of the year to "easily identifiable" factors, such as weather, a spike in oil prices and supply disruptions from Japan's earthquake. He also cited uncertainty stemming from Europe's fiscal morass and the wrangling over U.S. debt in Washington.
"I don't see the fundamentals of the economy as changed that much," he said. "Yeah, there's been some shocks and disruptions, but the underlying forces that are going to cause us to continue a slow, moderate recovery are still in place."
That said, the Fed, which is charged with ensuring financial stability, would clearly feel the responsibility to step in as a lender of last resort if markets seized up after a U.S. default, he added.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last week warned that a default could have "catastrophic" effects on financial markets.
Plosser, a former dean of the Simon School of Business at Rochester University, was more circumspect.
"It could be very bad. At some level we don't really know what the consequences could be. It could be very serious. It could be less serious. Do we really want to run that experiment?"

Courtesy of reuters.com

Police to Begin iPhone Iris Scans Amid Privacy Concerns...

(Reuters) - Dozens of police departments nationwide are gearing up to use a tech company's already controversial iris- and facial-scanning device that slides over an iPhone and helps identify a person or track criminal suspects.
The so-called "biometric" technology, which seems to take a page from TV shows like "MI-5" or "CSI," could improve speed and accuracy in some routine police work in the field. However, its use has set off alarms with some who are concerned about possible civil liberties and privacy issues.
The smartphone-based scanner, named Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System, or MORIS, is made by BI2 Technologies in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and can be deployed by officers out on the beat or back at the station.
An iris scan, which detects unique patterns in a person's eyes, can reduce to seconds the time it takes to identify a suspect in custody. This technique also is significantly more accurate than results from other fingerprinting technology long in use by police, BI2 says.
When attached to an iPhone, MORIS can photograph a person's face and run the image through software that hunts for a match in a BI2-managed database of U.S. criminal records. Each unit costs about $3,000.
Some experts fret police may be randomly scanning the population, using potentially intrusive techniques to search for criminals, sex offenders, and illegal aliens, but the manufacturer says that would be a difficult task for officers to carry out.
Sean Mullin, BI2's CEO, says it is difficult, if not impossible, to covertly photograph someone and obtain a clear, usable image without that person knowing about it, because the MORIS should be used close up.
"It requires a level of cooperation that makes it very overt -- a person knows that you're taking a picture for this purpose," Mullin said.
CONCERNS
But constitutional rights advocates are concerned, in part because the device can accurately scan an individual's face from up to four feet away, potentially without a person's being aware of it.
Experts also say that before police administer an iris scan, they should have probable cause a crime has been committed.
"What we don't want is for them to become a general surveillance tool, where the police start using them routinely on the general public, collecting biometric information on innocent people," said Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst with the national ACLU in Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, advocates see the MORIS as a way to make tools already in use on police cruiser terminals more mobile for cops on the job.
"This is (the technology) stepping out of the cruiser and riding on the officer's belt, along with his flashlight, his handcuffs, his sidearm or the other myriad tools," said John Birtwell, spokesman for the Plymouth County Sheriff's Department in southeastern Massachusetts, one of the first departments to use the devices.
The technology is also employed to maintain security at Plymouth's 1,650 inmate jail, where it is used to prevent the wrong prisoner from being released.
"There, we have everybody in orange jumpsuits, so everyone looks the same. So, quite literally, the last thing we do before you leave our facility is we compare your iris to our database," said Birtwell.
One of the technology's earliest uses at BI2, starting in 2005, was to help various agencies identify missing children or at-risk adults, like Alzheimer's patients.
Since then, it has been used to combat identity fraud, and could potentially be used in traffic stops when a driver is without a license, or when people are stopped for questioning at U.S. borders.
Facial recognition technology is not without its problems, however. For example, some U.S. individuals mistakenly have had their driver's license revoked as a potential fraud. The problem, it turns out, is that they look like another driver and so the technology mistakenly flags them as having fake identification.
Roughly 40 law enforcement units nationwide will soon be using the MORIS, including Arizona's Pinal County Sheriff's Office, as well as officers in Hampton City in Virginia and Calhoun County in Alabama.

Courtesy of reuters.com

Iran Shoots Down US Spy Drone...

Iran Shoots Down US Spy Drone...

How would the US react to a robotic Iranian spy plane flying over American nuclear plants, unannounced, to see how things were shaping up at the country’s uranium facilities? I know, I know. Easy answer.
It’s no surprise then that officials out of Iran today are saying that they shot down an US drone aircraft after a robotic, unmanned spy plane was seen flying over the city of Qom.
Iranian lawmaker Ali Aqazadeh Dafsari tells Press TV that a drone was flying over the holy city on a mission to identify the location and other information relating to a nuclear facility in order to gather intel for the CIA. The announcement comes only a day after Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast announced that the country was installing new centrifuges at its uranium facilities in order to expedite refinement procedures of the material for peaceful purposes.
The US, however, believes that the uranium research is being used to help create nuclear weapons. The United Nations has been investigating the intent of Iran’s nuclear program but has been unable to verify if they intend on using the uranium for good or for bad. CNN reports that the French Foreign Ministry has called the research "a new wave of provocation" that disregards UN resolutions.
Following the announcement out of Iran, the United States has denied the allegations, claiming that the US did not lose any drones. Though it is unclear when the supposed shot-down occurred or what kind of drone was involved, the US price for each aircraft can run from nearly 5 to 10 million dollars.

Courtesy of rt.com

80 Percent of Americans are Angry at the Government...

80 Percent of Americans are Angry at the Government...

Here’s some breaking news: Americans are angry at the government! A new poll conducted by ABC News and the Washington Post reveal that dissatisfaction with the US political system is at its highest in nearly 20 years.
The results of the poll reflect that the last time frustrations amounted to this level was in 1992 during an economic downturn that plagued the end of President George H.W. Bush’s first and only presidency. Now 19 years later, American opposition to Washington is at a nearly two decade high.
When polled on their thoughts regarding the federal government, 80 percent of those surveyed told researchers that they were either dissatisfied or even angry with the current state of government. This statistic marks an increase in 11 points from a month earlier, suggesting that the debt ceiling drama dominating both Capitol Hill and the White House is to blame for the sentiment. Despite weeks of attempted negations, Congress has yet to settle a way to deal with the debt limit crisis as the country gets closer and closer to the August 2 deadline imposed by the Treasury.
This week’s poll also reveals that, though President Obama’s approval rating in regards to handling the economy is at its lowest ever, congressional Republicans are only seeing an endorsement of 28 percent of the country. Both Obama and the GOP are also scorned particularly for their inability to handle the deficit and US taxes.
American angst is nearly double what it was in the year 2000. Since frustrations were last this high back in 1992, the US has witnessed the September 11 terrorist attacks, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Patriot Act, Bill Clinton’s sex scandals, the FBI firebombing of the Branch Davidian compound and eight glorious years of the George W Bush administration.
Good going, federal government!

Courtesy of rt.com

China Begs the US to Save the Dollar...

China Begs the US to Save the Dollar...

China has a pretty big question for US lawmakers: What the hell are you doing?

With concerns amounting regarding the decline of the American dollar, China is pressuring Congress to take action before the US economy is driven to default. As the biggest holder of US Treasury debt, China stands to be massively impacted if the debt ceiling isn’t raised which could lead to grave global consequences.

In a statement published on their website, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange writes, "We hope the US government will take responsible policies and measures to boost global financial market confidence and respect and protect the interests of investors.”

As of April of this year, China held around $1.15 trillion in Treasury debt, making it the largest creditor of the States. Japan holds onto the second largest sum of American debt at around $912 billion, with the UK coming in third at $346 billion.

Should America be driven to default, the US would postpone payment to China and the American credit rating would drop. From there, the trillions of US dollars belonging to China would decline in value, which not only angers the Chinese for obvious reasons, but also means that goods produced overseas could cost more in America, impacting export initiatives out of the Far East.

Even if a default doesn’t occur, the US credit rating is already in jeopardy. Standard & Poor’s announced last week that there is a 50 percent likelihood that they will downgrade the US credit rating over the next few months, even if Congress can vote to raise the debt ceiling before the August 2 deadline imposed by the Treasury. “The positions of the administration and the Republican leadership are still very far apart,” S&P Managing Director John Chambers says to the Washington Post. “The tone of the debate has made us wonder whether a compromise can be achieved.”

Both Moody’s and Fitch have also threatened to cancel the current triple-A credit rating as attempts at negotiating on Capitol Hill and in Obama’s White House have gone unresolved.

President Obama said on Friday that Congress would need to come up with a plan before the weekend was over, yet the doomed deadline is still looming with debt discussions at a deadlock still.

Courtesy of rt.com

Stranger moves into foreclosed home, citing little-knownTexas law...

Stranger moves into foreclosed home, citing little-knownTexas law...



Courtesy of infowars.com

FLOWER MOUND, Texas - A little-known Texas law and a foreclosure could have a man in Flower Mound living on easy street.
Flower Mound's Waterford Drive is lined with well-manicured $300,000 homes. So, when a new neighbor moved in without the usual sale, mortgage-paying homeowners had a few questions.
"What paperwork is it and how is it legally binding if he doesn't legally own the house?" said Leigh Lowrie, a neighboring resident. "He just squats there."
Lowrie and her husband said the house down the street was in foreclosure for more than a year and the owner walked away. Then, the mortgage company went out of business.
Apparently, that opened the door for someone to take advantage of the situation. But, Kenneth Robinson said he's no squatter. He said he moved in on June 17 after months of research about a Texas law called "adverse possession."
"This is not a normal process, but it is not a process that is not known," he said. "It's just not known to everybody."
He says an online form he printed out and filed at the Denton County courthouse for $16 gave him rights to the house. The paper says the house was abandoned and he's claiming ownership.
"I added some things here for my own protection," Robinson said.
The house is virtually empty, with just a few pieces of furniture. There is no running water or electricity.
But, Robinson said just by setting up camp in the living room, Texas law gives him exclusive negotiating rights with the original owner. If the owner wants him out, he would have to pay off his massive mortgage debt and the bank would have to file a complicated lawsuit.
Robinson believes because of the cost, neither is likely. The law says if he stays in the house, after three years he can ask the court for the title.
He told News 8 his goal is to eventually have the title of the home and be named the legal owner of the home.
"Absolutely," he said. "I want to be owner of record. At this point, because I possess it, I am the owner."
Robinson posted "no trespassing" signs after neighbors asked police to arrest him for breaking in.
Flower mound officers say they can't remove him from the property because home ownership is a civil matter, not criminal.
Lowrie and her neighbors continue to look for legal ways to get him out. They are talking to the mortgage company, real estate agents and attorneys. They're convinced he broke into the house to take possession, but Robinson told News 8 he found a key and he gained access legally.
"If he wants the house, buy the house like everyone else had to," Lowrie said. "Get the money, buy the house."
Robinson said he's not buying anything. As far as he''s concerned, the $330,000 house is already his and he has the paperwork to prove it.

131 Children Vaccinated at Gunpoint in Malawi...

Courtesy of infowars.com

JULY 8- About 131 children from Nsanje who fled into neighboring Mozambique during the anti measles vaccine a few months ago were vaccinated this week at gunpoint.
The children, belonging to Zion and Atumwi Churches were taken into Mozambique by their parents to hide them from officials fearing they might get vaccinated.
According to Dr Medison Matchaya District Health Officer for Nsanje, medics went to vaccine the children in Nsanje under police escort.
“We were alerted that some children who were hiding in Mozambique were back in the country and we asked police to escort the health officials in order to vaccinate them and we have managed to vaccinate about 131 children,” said Matchaya.
In a related development Mchinji Third Grade Magistrate Court has sentenced Appolo Chitsonga of the Seventh Day Apostolic faith to two years imprisonment for refusing his three children to access measles vaccine.
Magistrate Robert Mbewa, found Chitsonga guilty of an offence of endangering life by failing to supply necessities of life to a person under ones care without lawful excuse according to section 242 of the penal code.
Read full article

Leuren Moret: Nuclear Genocide of Babies and Children in Japan, US, Canada Grows...

Pharmageddon: Prescription Drugs are Killing America’s Youth...

No parent wants to lose a child, but when one dies from something that should be very preventable, the heartbreak and tragedy is compounded. Such is increasingly the case with prescription drugs – they’re killing our youth.
Sarah Shay and Savannah Kissick, of Morehead, Ky., best friends since high school, were both victims of what experts and the White House are describing as an epidemic of prescription drug deaths. Sarah died in 2006 at the tender age of 19; Savannah just three years later, at 22.
Since the medications they were using were prescribed by physicians, some experts believe they carry some sort of legitimacy. But the fact is they are being abused by young people just the same as drugs that are illegal – more so even, in some cases.
“I don’t think the kids have any idea how addicting the substance is,” Karen Shays told the BBC in an interview. “Before they know it, bam! They’re addicted.”
Drugs like Xanax, Oxycodone, Klonopin and Hydrocodone are routinely being abused more and more in Kentucky in particular, but in other parts of the nation too, by teenagers and young adults. So bad is the problem that the state has set up rehabilitation centers, where a huge number of addicts – more all the time – are being treated.
So bad is the addition that some kids have even turned to crime to feed it.
Some of the kids say they could have likely found other drugs to feed their habit, but prescription drugs were not only legal but much easier to get.
All in all, it’s sort of like Armageddon, but with prescription drugs – a sort of “Pharmageddon,” if you will, as evidenced by Kentucky’s overflowing jails, say state officials.
“I believe I can safely say that over 80 percent of the inmates in the Pike County regional detention center are in there for something dealing with their addiction to prescription drugs,” Dan Smoot, director of law enforcement with an organization called Unite – a new and innovative counterdrug that combines police investigations, treatment and education.
According to the federal Office of National Drug Control Policy, in a recent report, the problem stretches beyond the borders of Kentucky – and it’s getting worse.
“A number of national studies and published reports indicate that the intentional abuse of prescription drugs, such as pain relievers, tranquilizers, stimulants and sedatives, to get high is a growing concern — particularly among teens — in the United States. In fact, among young people ages 12-17, prescription drugs have become the second most abused illegal drug, behind marijuana,” said the study, called, “Teens and Prescription Drugs.”
“Though overall teen drug use is down nationwide and the percentage of teens abusing prescription drugs is still relatively low compared to marijuana use, there are troubling signs that teens view abusing prescription drugs as safer than illegal drugs and parents are unaware of the problem,” it said.
In particular, the study found:
- Teens are turning more and more away from illegal street drugs and instead are taking (and abusing) more prescription medications – so much so that new users of prescription drugs have caught up with new users of marijuana;
- Next to marijuana, the next most common thing kids use to get high are prescription drugs;
- Teens abuse prescription medications because they mistakenly believe that, since they are prescribed, they provide safe highs;
- Most teens get prescription drugs easily and free, usually from friends or relatives;
- The most commonly abused drugs by kids are OxyContin and Vicodin; and
- Adolescents are more likely to get hooked on prescription medication than are young adults.
The study found that teens most likely to abuse prescription medications live in the west and southeast. The most common abuse occurs in the following states: Arkansas (10.3 percent); Kentucky (9.8 percent); Montana (9.6 percent); Oregon (9.3 percent); Oklahoma (9.1 percent); Tennessee (8.9 percent); and West Virginia (8.9 percent).
“There’s a reason that prescription drugs are intended to be taken under the direction of a doctor: if used improperly they can be dangerous,” said a recent National Institute of Drug Abuse summary.
Abuse of prescription painkillers in general is not new. In fact, such abuse has risen 400 percent between 1998 and 2008.
But now it seems, our kids have made a startling discovery – that using prescription meds to get high – is too easy and too accessible. And it’s costing more of them their lives.

Courtesy of infowars.com

Woman Boards Plane With 3-Inch Knife TWICE but TSA Plays It Down Because Explosives are ‘Biggest Threat’...

An Indianapolis woman was shocked to discover she had been able to board a plane with a three-inch knife in her carry-on bag not once, but twice.
Sara Gallienne had not realised the blade was in her luggage until she got home.
But that hadn't stopped her successfully carrying it through TSA checkpoints at both Richmond and Providence, Rhode Island.
'I was going through it (bag), pulled out my headphones and I realised, "Oh crud. I have a knife in here,"' Ms Gallienne told WTVR News.
'I was blown away I could not believe that I had just made it through with this knife. Not one, but two TSA checkpoints,' she added
The TSA has seemingly played down the incident saying its greatest focus needs to be on explosives rather than blades.
This despite evidence to suggest that some of the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks may have been carrying Leatherman-style utility knives.
'We continue to take the discovery of knives and other prohibited items seriously, however, in today's post-9/11 security environment, intelligence tells us our officers' greatest focus needs to be on the biggest threat to aviation security today - explosives and explosive components,' TSA said in the statement.
The news comes just days after a Department of Homeland Security report revealed there have been more than 25,000 security breaches at U.S. airports since 9/11.
Fourteen thousand of those people have made their way into sensitive areas and more than 6,000 people have made it past screeners without proper scrutiny, according to the report.
That is an average of slightly more than five security breaches a year at each of the 457 commercial airports, and 'these are just the ones we know about,' said Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who is overseeing a congressional hearing on security shortcomings.
'I think it's a stunningly high number.'
The TSA has been dogged by controversy over the past year mainly for its full-body scanners and aggressive pat downs, especially on young children.
The most recent breach of security occurred earlier this month when a cleaner discovered a stun gun on a JetBlue plane that had landed in Newark from Boston.
Before that a Nigerian national was able to fly cross-country on an expired boarding pass in someone else's name.
Courtesy of infowars.com