Forget complicated arguments about the benefits of public banking.

Instead, look at this chart from Business Insider:

49 out of 50 U.S. states are still showing less economic activity than a year ago, based on February 2010 coincident economic indicators from the Federal Reserve of Philadelphia. The chart below is organized from top to bottom, from the most growth in economic activity to the largest declines in economic activity.

***

North Dakota (ND) is the only state to currently have a higher level of economic activity year over year. Its February 2010 economic activity was 1.1% higher than February 2009, as shown by the green dot in the chart below.

***Net-net what this tells us is that 49 out of 50 state economies are still underwater on a one year basis, and 28 out of 50 are even still falling vs. November.

North Dakota is the only state with its own public bank.

Any questions?

As more oil is poured into the Gulf of Mexico, US President Barack Obama has sent SWAT teams to check out all oil rigs. Alex Jones says that this is all very suspicious, particularly because he says the government is trying to create artificial scarcity of oil in the United States.

TRANSCRIPT AND REFERENCES:
http://www.corbettreport.com/articles…

Those who have studied history know that nothing invigorates and empowers an authoritarian regime more than a spectacular act of violence, some sudden and senseless loss of life that allows the autocrat to stand on the smoking rubble and identify himself as the hero. It is at moments like this that the public—still in shock from the horror of the tragedy that has just unfolded before them—can be led into the most ruthless despotism: despotism that now bears the mantle of “security.”

Acts of terror and violence never benefit the average man or woman. They only ever benefit those in positions of power.

To continue reading, please click here:
http://www.corbettreport.com/articles…

Our recent article, “20 Things You Will Need To Survive When The Economy Collapses And The Next Great Depression Begins“, has drawn some intense criticism from those who believe that the U.S. economy is so strong that it could never completely and totally collapse. In fact, this blog is being accused of officially going off the deep end. Why? It’s not because we are pointing out that the economy is bad. After all, according to a recent Pew Research national poll, 88 percent of Americans rate national economic conditions as only fair or poor. No, rather it is because we are projecting the eventual complete and total collapse of the U.S. economy. There still seems to be a belief among a large number of Americans “that things are never going to get THAT bad”. But they are going to get that bad. It’s just that most people do not realize it yet.

But while times are still good (and what we are experiencing now is rip-roaring prosperity compared to what is coming), large numbers of people are going to continue to live in denial. In fact, those who try to warn people about what is coming are going to be accused of “fear-mongering”. One recent commenter even accused us of totally going off the deep end like many of the Y2K alarmists did….

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“Ok – you’ve officially fallen off the deep end. This blog went from legitimate economic concerns to grand fear mongering. This is the same as Y2K all over again. I have friends who still have bunkers and thousands of dollars of expired canned food and you’re suggesting they go do it again…”

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First of all, it was completely and totally obvious that Y2K was going to be a non-event to anyone with a bit of common sense. There was simply no way that a “computer glitch” that was foreseeable years ahead of time was going to cause the collapse of society.

What is happening with the U.S. economy now is completely different. We have built an entire economic system on ever-increasing amounts of debt and paper money, and anyone with half a brain should be able to see that such a system is not sustainable in the long-term. The collapse of the economy is inevitable due to the way that it was constructed.

As for having “thousands of dollars of expired canned food”, that would not be a problem if you rotated the food that you have stored. You eat the old stuff first and you replace it with new food that you have purchased.

But the commenter above was not the only one to accuse us of trying to scare people….

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“How does the economic collapse lead to a complete halt to all economic activity? More people may be poorer, but they will still have some money to motivate others to produce for a market. The natural disaster scenario seems more plausible for this type of warning. More and more foreclosures don’t. This posting is a bit much for me, seems just some much scaremongering.”

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The commenter is right about one thing – a few bad economic statistics are not enough to run out and start preparing for the collapse of society. After all, the American economy has always recovered no matter what happened before. If we made it through the Great Depression, we can make it through this, right?

Well, the truth is that there are some fundamental differences between what is happening now and what happened during the Great Depression.

During the Great Depression, most Americans were not up to their eyeballs in credit card debt, car payments, student loans and mortgage debt.

During the Great Depression, most Americans either owned their land or had a great deal of equity in their land. As we wrote about recently, today that is not the case. Equity as a percentage of home value in the United States has been hitting all-time record lows.

During the Great Depression, most Americans were not dependent on giant corporations to feed and supply us. Back then, the majority of Americans knew how to live off the land and grew at least some of their own food. Today that is most definitely not the case.

During the Great Depression, America still had the greatest manufacturing base in the entire world. Today we have “offshored” our once great manufacturing base, and we have become a fat, spoiled society that consumes everything in sight but manufactures very little.

During the Great Depression, America did not have a colossal trade deficit. Today we have got the biggest trade deficit in the history of the world.

During the Great Depression, the wealth of Americans was not being sucked dry by dozens of different kinds of taxes. Today we are being taxed in so many various ways that many Americans actually end up spending over half their incomes just in taxes.

During the Great Depression, the U.S. government had debt, but it was not threatening to collapse the entire global economy. Today the U.S. government has piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world.

During the Great Depression, derivatives were not even an issue. Today, we have created a derivatives bubble that is now well beyond a quadrillion dollars.

Just think about that.

Over 1,000,000,000,000,000 dollars.

Counting at one dollar per second, it would take 32 million years to count to one quadrillion.

In fact, renowned investor Warren Buffett has warned that derivatives are “financial weapons of mass destruction” that could bring down the entire world economic system.

And he is right.

When derivatives collapse, there is not enough money in the world to fix the mess that will be created. All of the governments in the world working together would not be able to print money fast enough to even make a dent in the colossal wave of red ink that would be created.

The truth is that the U.S. economy (and the world economy for that matter) is teetering on top of a giant pyramid of debt and paper that is on the verge of coming down like a house of cards.

Full article HERE

The largest anti-Wall Street rally since the credit crunch has taken place in New York. Thousands of workers and trade union leaders marched in anger over lost jobs and ruined lives, demanding answers from the source of the trouble – the banks.

In response to recent revelations that the Pentagon is training our soldiers and is preparing its awesome military machine to attack patriots and the Tea Party movement, Alex Jones produced the video below today.

Jones offers evidence of the government’s plan to decapitate a growing patriot movement that demands an out of control and authoritarian federal government respect and follow the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Kurt Nimmo & Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, April 29, 2010

In a shocking development that outstrips even the infamous MIAC report, it has emerged via whistleblowers that the U.S. Military in Kentucky is training to confront Tea Party protesters and anti-government demonstrators, who in official intelligence advisories are described as bomb-making terrorists.

On April 17, the Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky, reported on a military exercise dubbed “Mangudai,” named after the special forces of Genghis Khan’s Mongol army who could fight for days without food or sleep. The Kentucky newspaper portrayed the exercise as an effort to train soldiers to battle the Taliban in Afghanistan.

“Designed to test the limits of officers’ physical, mental and emotional endurance, the emerging Army exercise offered a revealing window onto modern combat training in the era of Iraq and Afghanistan,” Chris Kenning wrote for the newspaper. “Over three days last week, participants had to crawl on their bellies under real machine-gun fire, shimmy commando-style over a single rope high in the air and march for more than 22 miles through forests.”

But according to information received by The Patriot Post blog, there is another aspect to the military exercises not reported by local media.

“This week, I was contacted by a number of military personnel, enlisted and officer ranks, who expressed concern about a military exercise underway at Ft. Knox, the U.S. Bullion Depository. As with most such exercises, the Ft. Knox alert occurred in stages, as if real time intelligence was being provided at various intervals,” writes Mark Alexander.

Alexander cites an intel advisory issued on Friday, April 23, 2010, that identifies terrorist threat adversaries as “Local Militia Groups / Anti-Government Protesters / TEA Party” (see image below).

In short, the military was training in Kentucky to take on mythical militias — no word if they were of the FBI-created variety — and remarkably the non-violent Tea Party movement.

“Anti-Government – Health Care Protesters have stated that they would join the TEA Party as a sign of solidarity” during a protest at Fort Knox. The Tea Party “groups are armed, have combative training and some are former Military Snipers. Some may have explosives training / experience,” according to the intel report.

An intel report update, dated Monday, 26 April 2010, noted that a “rally at the Militia compound occurred,” and “Viable threats … have been made… Many members were extremely agitated at what they referred to as Government intervention and over taxation in their lives. Alcohol use ‘fanned the flames.’ Many military grade firearms were openly carried. An ad hoc ’shoot the government agent’ event was held with prizes (alcohol) given for the best shot placement.”

In addition to being drunkards, the report describes the Tea Party as bomb-throwers. “Components of bomb making are reported to have been on the site. Some members have criminal records relating to explosive and weapons violations.”

In response to the this “immediate threat,” the military established concentration camps for “mass arrests.”

QRF, short for the Quick Reaction Force of the 16th Cavalry Regiment and the 194th Armored Brigade were placed on two hour recall. “The 26 April order gives specific instructions for the 5-15 CAV (a 16th Cavalry battalion) to have weapons, ammo, vehicles and communications at ready, and it places the other 2,200 members of the units on two-hour recall. In other words, these orders are to gear up for defending Ft. Knox against Tea Party folks and their co-conspirators who oppose nationalization of our health care sector,” writes Alexander.

Military officers and enlisted personnel told Alexander about their concerns:

As one put it, the exercise “misrepresents freedom loving Americans as drunken, violent racists — the opponents of Obama’s policies have been made the enemy of the U.S. Army.”

They were equally concerned that command staff at Ft. Knox had signed off on this exercise, noting, “it has been issued and owned by field grade officers who lead our battalions and brigades,” which is to say many Lieutenant Colonels saw this order before it was implemented.

In fact, we can assume this “exercise” was orchestrated at the highest levels in the Pentagon. Lieutenant Colonels merely carry out orders.

An Army document entitled “Army Continuity of Operations Program (COOP)” spells out the militarization of the U.S. “Homeland” under Northcom.

In July, 2009, Infowars reported on a Missouri National Guard unit out of Camp Crowder engaged in a training exercise designed to take on a fictitious militant group. An earlier exercise in the Black Hills of South Dakota trained soldiers to confront an “insurgent group” with “a reputation for harassing convoys with ambushes and improvised explosive devices.”

In September, 2008, the Pentagon announced the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team would be deployed in the United States under the control of Northcom. “They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack,” the Army Times reported. (Emphasis added.)

Since the end of the Civil War deployment of the U.S. military inside the U.S. has been prohibited under The Posse Comitatus Act.

In early 2006, the 109th Congress passed a bill containing controversial provisions granting the president the ability to use federal troops inside the United States in emergency situations. These changes (in Section 1076) were included in the John Warner Defense Appropriation Act for Fiscal Year 2007. In 2008, Congress restored many of the earlier limitations on the president’s ability to deploy troops within the United States, but Bush issued a signing statement indicating he was not bound by the changes. Obama has taken up with signing statements where Bush left off.

A report issued in 2008 by the U.S. Army War College discussed the use of American troops to quell civil unrest brought about by a worsening economic crisis. The report from the War College’s Strategic Studies Institute warned that the U.S. military must prepare for a “violent, strategic dislocation inside the United States” that could be provoked by “unforeseen economic collapse” or “loss of functioning political and legal order.”

For more than a decade the Pentagon has endeavored to acclimate Americans to the presence of troops on the streets. Instances of the Pentagon putting troops on the streets are numerous and have increased in frequency over the last few years.

In March of 2009, Infowars reported on U.S. Army soldiers dispatched in Samson, Alabama, supposedly in response to a rampaging gunman.

In December, 2008, the Marine Corps Air and Ground Combat Center and the local California Highway Patrol worked together “in a joint effort to reduce accidents and drinking and driving” in San Bernardino County, a blatant violation of Posse Comitatus.

The Iowa National Guard planned an exercise in the small town of Arcadia but rolled back the invasion after citizens complained about soldiers patrolling the streets of an American town.

Military police were positioned at the 2009 Kentucky Derby and in April of the same year 400 National Guard Combat Support Battalion troops were dispatched to “maintain public order” at the Boston Marathon.

In April of 2009, an Infowars reader sent a page taken from the Hardeman County, Tennessee, Bulletin Times announcing a seat belt checkpoint to be conducted on April 4 “in conjunction with a Homeland Security training exercise by the 251st Military Police in Bolivar who recently returned from Iraq.”

On April 15, 2009, we reported on how the Maryland National Guard was put on alert in anticipation of Tax Day nationwide Tea Party protests. A Force Protection Advisory issued on April 11 instructed the National Guard to be on alert during the Tea Party protests because Guardsmen and Guard facilities might become “targets of opportunity.” It was later learned that the Department of Homeland Security had put the protesters under surveillance.

Adding the Tea Party to the list of “insurgents” is a new and especially surreal development, but hardly an unexpected one considering the fear of the establishment to this growing political movement.

A poll conducted earlier this month found supporters of the Tea Party to be primarily white, male, married and older than 45.

“Of the 18 percent of Americans who identified themselves as supporters, 20 percent, or 4 percent of the general public, said they had given money or attended a Tea Party event, or both. These activists were more likely than supporters generally to describe themselves as very conservative and had more negative views about the economy and Mr. Obama. They were more angry with Washington and intense in their desires for a smaller federal government and deficit,” the New York Times reported.

They are not, as the DHS and the Southern Poverty Law Center would have it, disgruntled returning veterans, white supremacists, and violent militia members who hate Obama because of his skin color.

Over the last several months the government and corporate media have endeavored to portray this demographic as potentially violent and has fallaciously connected it to white supremacists and a mythical militia movement that is supposedly gearing up to attack the government.

If we are to believe the above report, the U.S. military is preparing to attack Tea Party supporters. All that will be required is an appropriate false flag event to set this act in motion.

American Free Press | April 9, 2010
By James P. Tucker, Jr.

The Bilderberg group will conduct its annual meeting June 3-6 in Sitges, Spain (a small, exclusive resort town about 20 miles from Barcelona) behind a wall of armed guards who will seal off the resort in a futile attempt to keep the event secret.

Bilderberg’s meeting will follow that of its brother group, the Trilateral Commission, which will gather at the Four Seasons Resort in Dublin, Ireland May 6-10. Leaders of Bilderberg also attend the Trilateralists’ meeting to map their common agenda. About 300 attend Trilateral Commission meetings, which are conducted behind sealed-off, guarded floors of their hotel. About 100 will attend Bilderberg, which seals off the entire resort behind platoons of uniformed police and private security.

Bilderberg hopes to keep the global recession going for at least a year, according to an international financial consultant who deals personally with many of them. This is because, among several reasons, Bilderberg still hopes to create a global “treasury department” under the United Nations. Bilderberg first undertook this mission at its meeting last spring in Greece, but the effort was blocked by nationalists in Europe and the United States. “Nationalists” (a dirty word in Bilderberg) objected to surrendering sovereignty to the UN.

AFP’s source pointed to the words of French President Nicolas Sarkozy in a March 29 speech at notoriously left-wing Columbia University, where he said, “We should invent a new global monetary order.”

He was clearly referring to the recently proposed world “treasury department.”

Bilderberg’s ultimate goal remains unchanged: Turn the UN into a world government with “nation-states” becoming merely geographic references. The European Union is to become a single political entity, followed by the “American Union” and, finally, the “Asian-Pacific Union.” The “American Union” is to include the entire Western Hemisphere, including Cuba and other offshore islands.

Like the EU, the “AU” will have a legislature, executive commission and head of state which can impose laws on member nations. There is to be an EU-like common currency, removing each member state’s symbol of sovereignty. The “Asian-Pacific Union,” or “APU,” is to follow a similar path.

But growing public awareness of the evil agenda of Bilderberg and the Trilateralists has emerged as a significant barrier. For decades, until 1975 when The Spotlight emerged, the blackout was 100 percent complete worldwide. (The Spotlight is AFP’s lineal ancestor.)

Today, in Europe, major metropolitan newspapers and broadcast outlets give both groups heavy, front-page attention. In the United States, independent newspapers and broadcast stations give Bilderberg extensive coverage.

But the major newspapers and network broadcasters maintain a complete blackout in the United States. That’s because their executives have attended these meetings on lifetime promises of secrecy. The hypocritical owners of The Washington Post have attended since 1954. The Post’s chairman, Donald Graham, and associate editor, Jimmy Lee Hoagland, have attended each meeting for years.

But as public awareness grows, so does patriotic resistance. There is strong resistance throughout Europe to increasing the powers of the EU at the cost of national sovereignty. In the United States, there is growing resistance to the proposed North American Free Trade Agreement, which would eliminate borders between the United States, Mexico and Canada. NAFTA is to expand, under Bilderberg-Trilateral plans, to include the entire hemisphere and evolve into the “American Union.”

In the 1990s, Bilderberg was confident that the “American Union” would be established by the year 2000. A decade later, they are still fighting—and losing— the battle.

April 07, 2010

A New Orleans police officer who fired his gun at civilians on the Danziger Bridge a week after Hurricane Katrina pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday, offering a chilling account of what transpired on the bridge that early September day in 2005.
Michael DeMocker / Times-Picayune archiveIn January 2007, Michael Hunter, one of the seven NOPD officers indicted in the Danziger Bridge shootings, enters Central Lockup. The seven officers were charged on an array of murder and attempted-murder charges.
Michael Hunter, 33, became the first officer who actually participated in the shooting to enter a guilty plea. Two investigators have already confessed to playing roles in a wide-ranging cover-up of the police shooting, which injured four unarmed civilians and left two men dead.

Hunter, who resigned last week after he was charged in federal court, contends that fellow officers shot at people they should have seen were unarmed. The account of events Hunter signed Thursday afternoon, called a factual basis, provides the most specific details to date about officers’ actions on the bridge, which spans the Industrial Canal at Chef Menteur Highway.

Hunter, 33, said a New Orleans police sergeant fired an assault rifle at wounded civilians at close range after other officers stopped shooting and after it was clear that the police were not taking fire. He also says he saw another officer in a car fire a shotgun at a fleeing man’s back, although the man did nothing suggesting he was a threat to police. That man, 40-year-old Ronald Madison, who was severely mentally disabled, died of his wounds.

As part of his plea, Hunter also acknowledged taking part in a conspiracy with colleagues to conceal the circumstances of what he considered an unjustified shooting. At one point, in a meeting with other officers, a supervisor said “something to the effect of, we don’t want this to look like a massacre,” the court document says.

“I don’t think you can listen to that account without being sickened by the raw brutality of the shooting and the craven lawlessness of the cover-up,” said U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance after the factual basis was read aloud in the still courtroom by prosecutor Bobbi Bernstein, deputy chief of the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.

Full story HERE

Ben Bernanke has funneled trillions of dollars worth of bailouts, guarantees and sweetheart deals to U.S. (and foreign – and see this) banks.

This money was pickpocketed from you and me, directly (through government spending) and indirectly (increasing debt costs, future inflation, etc).

Bernanke is now calling for tax increases and raising the possibility of reductions in entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security.

Tax increases means we keep less from each paycheck. Reduction in services means that money we’ve already paid to the government (through social security, etc.) will now instead be paid to the bankers to service the U.S. debt.

Isn’t that like a guy who stole our money now trying to steal our paycheck, too?

As JR writes: