The time is now 9:01 am
You last visited
July 24, 2026, 10:22 am
All times shown are
Eastern Time (GMT-5:00)
Would be nice to have stock in companies which make printing presses for the Fed.
_____________
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=alet_UTqF04M
A friend sent this. Mind boggling if it proves true.
_________________
"Dropping the H-BombHow dangerous is a "herpes bomb"?
Amy Bishop
"News reports suggest that Amy Bishop, the biology professor who shot six of her colleagues at the University of Alabama-Huntsville on Feb. 12, may also have planted a "herpes bomb"
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/us/21bishop.html?ref=us
in the building where she worked. Bishop conducted research on the virus as a post-doctoral fellow. Would a herpes bomb be dangerous?
Probably not. The herpes virus is fragile, minimally transmissible, and rarely deadly, which is why no government or terrorist group has ever made a herpes-based device, as far as we know. Herpes virions can't survive the heat of an explosion, and they don't spread well through the air. (Varicella, or chicken pox, is the only common member of the herpes family that can go airborne, but most adults are immune to the disease, so it wouldn't make a good weapon.) In order for a herpes bomb to make anyone sick, the virus particles would first have to survive the explosion and then be thrown into direct contact with a victim's mucosal surface, like the insides of his mouth or genitals, or into his eyes. They could also land on a wound or open sore, and thus enter his bloodstream directly. Plus, if Bishop's bomb hasn't gone off yet, it probably expired several days ago. Herpes can't last more than a couple of days outside the body at room temperature, even in a pH-balanced saline solution.
It's not easy to build a biological weapon, even if you do have a big enough supply of virus particles. Soviet and American experts spent years developing a form of Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis virus that could be deployed in a military context. They first had to derive a particularly tough strain. Then they formulated a chemical shell to protect it from the hot and dry explosion required to disperse the virus, and also to give it some added bulk so the victim's breath wouldn't blow it right back out after it landed inside the mouth, throat, or lungs. (The ideal diameter is between one and three microns. Herpes, like many viruses, is around one-tenth that size.) It is unlikely that an assistant professor with no professional experience in biological weapons development would have the expertise to accomplish these steps.
The anthrax letters of 2001—which seem to have been the work of a sophisticated scientist—were among a very small number of terror attacks in which aerosolized pathogens were used to infect the intended victims. Those with less expertise are better off using food- or waterborne pathogens. The Rajneeshees, a religious cult in Oregon, managed to infect 751 people in 1984 with Salmonella by contaminating restaurant salad bars. In any event, Bishop seems to have had enough experience to know that a bomb would be an impractical method of infecting her colleagues. Instead, she might have tried contaminating their laboratory equipment or pouring a saline solution containing the virus into their water bottles."
Explainer thanks Bryan R. Cullen of Duke University, Nishal Mohan of the Federation of American Scientists, Patricia Spear of Northwestern University, and Raymond Zilinskas of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies."
"Annals of Government Medicine
February 24, 2010 Posted by John at 9:55 PM
Patients were routinely neglected or left "sobbing and humiliated" by staff at an NHS trust where at least 400 deaths have been linked to appalling care.
An independent inquiry found that managers at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust stopped providing safe care because they were preoccupied with government targets and cutting costs. ...
Staff shortages at Stafford Hospital meant that patients went unwashed for weeks, were left without food or drink and were even unable to get to the lavatory. Some lay in soiled sheets that relatives had to take home to wash, others developed infections or had falls, occasionally fatal. Many staff did their best but the attitude of some nurses "left a lot to be desired".
Attitudes under socialism generally leave a lot to be desired.
The report, which follows reviews by the Care Quality Commission and the Department of Health, said that "unimaginable" suffering had been caused.
Unimaginable suffering--that pretty much sums up government-controlled medicine. That's our future, though, if the Democrats get their way. They care only about their own power, not about the quality of your medical care."
Is McCain the pharmaceutical conglomerate's latest sock puppet?
________________
The Codex Alimentarius Commission, organized by the United Nations in the 1960s, is charged with “harmonizing” food and supplement rules between all nations of the world. Under Codex rules, even basic vitamins and minerals require a doctor’s prescription. The European Union already has adopted Codex-type regulations, regulations that will be in effect across Europe later this year. This raises concerns that the Europeans will challenge our relatively open market for health supplements in a WTO forum. This is hardly far-fetched, as Congress already has cravenly changed our tax laws to comply with a WTO order.
Like WTO, CAFTA increases the possibility that Codex regulations will be imposed on the American public. Section 6 of CAFTA discusses Codex as a regulatory standard for nations that join the agreement. If CAFTA has nothing to do with dietary supplements, as CAFTA supporters claim, why in the world does it specifically mention Codex?
Unquestionably there has been a slow but sustained effort to regulate dietary supplements on an international level. WTO and CAFTA are part of this effort. Passage of CAFTA does not mean your supplements will be outlawed immediately, but it will mean that another international trade body will have a say over whether American supplement regulations meet international standards. And make no mistake about it, those international standards are moving steadily toward the Codex regime and its draconian restrictions on health freedom. So the question is this: Does CAFTA, with its link to Codex, make it more likely or less likely that someday you will need a doctor’s prescription to buy even simple supplements like Vitamin C? The answer is clear. CAFTA means less freedom for you, and more control for bureaucrats who do not answer to American voters.
Pharmaceutical companies have spent billions of dollars trying to get Washington to regulate your dietary supplements like European governments do. So far, that effort has failed in America, in part because of a 1994 law called the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act. Big Pharma and the medical establishment hate this Act, because it allows consumers some measure of freedom to buy the supplements they want. Americans like this freedom, however – especially the health conscious Baby Boomers.
This is why the drug companies support WTO and CAFTA. They see international trade agreements as a way to do an end run around American law and restrict supplements through international regulations.
The largely government-run health care establishment, including the nominally private pharmaceutical companies, want government to control the dietary supplement industry – so that only they can manufacture and distribute supplements. If that happens, as it already is happening in Europe, the supplements you now take will be available only by prescription and at a much higher cost – if they are available at all. This alone is sufficient reason for Congress to oppose the unconstitutional, sovereignty-destroying CAFTA bill."
July 19, 2005
Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul261.html
_____________
"Most are familiar with those commercials on television promoting prescription drugs that supposedly offer relief from a variety of ailments, if one would only pressure one’s doctor to obtain them. They have become a source of great entertainment and amusement to some, the kicker coming at the end of each commercial when the FDA-approved medication’s obligatory litany of warnings and dangerous side effects is recited: “Tell your doctor if....” and “Side effects may include.....” Some of the warnings are mild like diarrhea and constipation, some list serious effects like cancer or tuberculosis, and others admit that sometimes even death can result.
The point here is that these are all FDA-approved drugs being advertised and used extensively. Drugs that can cause serious diseases like lymphoma. Drugs that can kill. The FDA’s dismal safety record is well documented; even PBS ran a Frontline special that investigated and exposed the FDA’s unsafe drug record, the influence of Big Pharma inside the FDA, and lack of long-term testing and medical review of many, many dangerous drugs. The FDA seldom removes a drug from the market even after it proves to be harmful or deadly, however they do post quarterly reports with details of the latest potentially dangerous side effects of drugs currently under investigation.
Nonetheless, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) wants this same FDA, with its dismal safety record, to regulate dietary supplements. The Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA), S. 3002 (text of this bill posted on Senator McCain's website), that McCain has introduced with one cosponsor, would repeal key provisions of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) to “more effectively regulate dietary supplements that may pose safety risks unknown to consumers.”
Under attack by the DSSA is the once-protected field of supplements, as they have always been considered food. Potencies would have to be reduced to comply with what appears to be a plan modeled after the European Food Safety Authority. A new list of “Accepted Dietary Ingredients” would be “prepared, published, and maintained by the Secretary,” in the future. That’s a bit like being handed a blank check and told to fill it out later as one wishes. It could certainly be used to severely limit access to, and even production of, hundreds of life-sustaining and essential mineral, herb, and vitamin products.
All ingredients contained in each supplement would have to be disclosed at the time the company registers all of its “manufactured, packaged, held, distributed, labeled or licensed,” products with the FDA. An onerous burden would be placed on the shoulders of suppliers and retailers of dietary supplements, as they would have to “obtain written evidence” from the seller that the product is registered as required by law, and keep that documentation on file. Monetary penalties for non-compliance “may, in addition to other penalties imposed in this section, be fined not more than twice the gross profits or other proceeds derived from the manufacture, packaging, holding, distribution, labeling, or license of such dietary supplement.” Those are very broad dictates and most likely subject to even broader interpretation.
The McCain bill would change existing mandatory serious adverse reporting regulations, requiring minor adverse effects to be reported as well so that the FDA could arbitrarily pull supplements off the shelves or reclassify them as drugs. This immediate recall authority would be granted to the “Secretary upon determination,” that there is a “reasonable probability” that the product is “adulterated” or “misbranded.” Adulterated in this bill takes on a whole new expanded definition: “A dietary supplement which contains a new dietary ingredient shall be deemed adulterated under section 402(f) unless there is a history of use or other evidence of safety.” The development of new products that contain newly discovered nutritional components may be entirely quashed.
The hypocritical contrast between the regulation of drugs that can kill and the proposed hyper-regulation for food products -- vitamins, minerals, herbs -- is as plain as the nose on everyone's face.
A Pandora’s box of intended and unintended legal complications and government harassment of nutritional supplement manufacturers and sellers could very well be unleashed if this bill is passed. There are already existing laws on the books that protect consumers from misbranded, fraudulent, or contaminated products. Granting the FDA additional regulatory authority over nutritional supplements seems a bit suspicious, especially considering the influence the enormous pharmaceutical industry has wielded over the research, development, and approval process inside the FDA. Let’s face it, the FDA has been no friend and often has been positively antagonistic toward the nutritional supplement industry. Therefore one wouldn’t set the wolf to guarding the sheep without dire consequences.
In this perverted overly-regulated country, food is now toxic, and drugs and chemicals are safe for ingestion, no matter the harm that results. This inversion should remind us that those who best have the consumers health and safety interests at heart are the consumers themselves. It is big government that has a proven track record of not protecting the public. And it is big government that is seeking to take away yet another individual freedom, the right to choose one’s own treatment. (Where is the pro-choice crowd on this one; the ones that claim, “my body, my choice?”)
Contact your federal legislators and urge them not to cosponsor, support, or vote for such a power-grabbing, bill. Let them know Americans want unrestricted access to nutritional supplements, and the government out of their health choices.
Sen. McCain described his bill as a “no brainer.” For constitutionalists it’s a “no brainer” that it should be rejected for the dictatorial, power-grabbing, choice-limiting attack on the nutritional marketplace and individual freedoms that it is."
http://www.jbs.org/health-care-freedom-blog/5957-proposed-dietary-supplement-regulatory-bill
Heads up, pay close attention as to what we may be on the hook to bail out. Yesterday I posted that AIG seems to be holding its hand out for another bail out due to guarantees written in Greece. Now this.
2010 elections are going to be very interesting indeed.
_________________
Source The Market Ticker
Wednesday, February 24. 2010
Posted by Karl Denninger in Federal Reserve at 21:03
"Repeal Of Law Needed NOW
Watch this clip, right near the end. 4:30 into the clip onward.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urkJ2WCQ5R0
Yes, Ron Paul went off on quite the rant.
But that last minute......
The Federal Reserve has the authority to buy the debt of any foreign government, essentially obligating The US Taxpayer to bail them out!
Bernanke says he has no plans, but notice that he did not say they have never done such a thing.
Hmmm.... two-line bill to revoke that BS anyone?
Anyone?"
http://market-ticker.org/archives/2003-Repeal-Of-Law-Needed-NOW.html
Another opinion about the econonomy with charts. You decide.
_________
"The Ultimate Ponzi Scheme – FDIC is Backing $5.3 Trillion through the Deposit Insurance Fund that now has a Balance of -$20.8 Billion. FDIC has Cash and Marketable Securities of $66 Billion. Is that Really Enough to Back Every Account for $250,000?
Posted by mybudget360Greece is in severe financial trouble and if this information is correct our government has placed us on the hook to bail them out, along with other EU countries.
The entire article from Market Ticker deals with some metaphors which should not be taken out of context ..... therefore if you're a skim scanner with limited attention span don't bother. Otherwise it's a very good read for fiscal conservatives worried about the economic future of this nation.
Hmmmm .... while we're worried about Obamacare being shoved down our throats we won't notice another AIG bailout to bail out Greece and other EU countries now will we??????????????? Interesting timing indeed.
__________
Excerpted from The Market Ticker
".........You haven't seen the half of what happened though - not yet. It appears that AIG - the company we have bailed out (thus far) to the tune of some $100 billion plus, in fact isn't done. It appears they may have written credit protection on Greece. If this allegation by the German equivalent to The New York Times is true Americans are going to be asked to pay billions of dollars - or more likely, hundreds of billions (since Greece is almost certainly not the only place - try Spain, Portugal, Ireland, etc) to bail out a bunch of FOREIGN NATIONS.
Do you both think Americans can and will pay that bill? A bill that has been forced on us, and yet benefits not The United States economy, but foreigners?
Wars - big wars - start over much less, my friends.
Oh, and let's not forget - some 30% of Greece's workers went out on strike to protest their "austerity measures." That's right - one in three.
The Fed and our fabulous Treasury Secretary already gave tens of billions of our hard-earned money to foreign banks to prop them up via AIG. That was just a down payment; now we all get to - quite literally - buy all their houses over in Europe. They get to keep living in them. ........"
http://market-ticker.org/archives/1993-How-Long-Before-You-Wake-Up,-Politicos.html
____________
Sunday, February 21, 2010
"German Paper Says AIG May Have Sold CDS on Greece
Source NakedCapitalism.comFrom FAZ,. Note the text below, translated by EuroSavant, replaces an earlier GoogleTranslate version. You can read an English version of the entire article here.
http://www.eurosavant.com/2010/02/21/cds-just-another-evanescent-bubble/
In the larger scheme of things, this example shows how AIG could have, and probably did, serve to channel funds from the public at large to speculators.
London investment bankers name AIG as a further CDS-seller. That company had to be nationalized during the financial crisis due to its having written insolvency insurance on American mortgages. This debt-load would have led to the collapse of the world’s biggest insurer. Prior to the financial crisis AIG is said to have widely held State credit-risk. If yet-larger insurance positions on Greece exist, then the American government would have a strong interest in preventing that country’s insolvency.
Even if these are mere rumors about the Greek banks and AIG, this example makes clear the weakness of CDS markets. This protection is sold by banks or insurers who themselves have access only to limited capital resources. They have as a rule clearly lesser credit-worthiness than the states for which they are selling insolvency protection. Insurance by CDS could turn out to be just a bubble."
"Fritz Henderson is back at GM, for $3,000 an hour
By Alex Taylor III, senior editor February 23, 2010: 11:58 AM ET"NEW YORK (Fortune) -- After resigning as president and CEO of General Motors in December, Fritz Henderson might have gone into hiding or decided to sit out the harsh Michigan winter on a Florida beach.
Instead, here he is popping up again, this time as a consultant to GM on international operations at the very fancy fee of $59,090 a month for 20 hours of work a month. That works out to almost $3,000 an hour for a CEO who was ousted after just eight months on the job.
Is this one of those phony retired CEO arrangements, where the outgoing guy gets a fancy advisory deal to pass on his accumulated knowledge and wisdom to his successor? The phone may never ring, but the retiree gets to pocket a nice piece of change and an opportunity to pretend that he's still in the game.
According to GM insiders, the Henderson deal is on the up-and-up. Nobody can quarrel with his knowledge of GM's global business. While he was still on the regular payroll, he ran Latin America and the Middle East, Asia Pacific, and Europe........"
http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/22/autos/gm_fritz_henderson.fortune/?section=magazines_fortune
A short trip on the not so far back wayback-machine. All of them in the video whined like babies until they gained a super majority now they're behaving like two year olds who each ate a 5 lb bag of sugar, washing it down with an energy drink. Tme for elections to send them all home to the 'no fun chair' where they can figure out what the heck happened.
________
"Speaking of reconciliation...
Source Powerlineblog.com
"Watching this video assembling the vehement pronouncements of prominent Democrats inveighing against circumvention of the filibuster, It would be easy for a citizen to become cynical about politics. It would be easy, but it would be right.
Naked Emperor News has compiled the wise words of Democratic worthies including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Joe Biden, Dianne Feinstein, Christopher Dodd (who is in especially good form) and Max Baucus denouncing the threat that Senate Republicans might abolish the use of the filibuster to obstruct judicial nominations.
The video leads off with Barack Obama worrying about "majoritarian absolute power" -- you know, the kind the Founders warned against. And it continues with timely thoughts from relevant actors, most of whom have continued in the Senate and will have the opportunity to adapt their past wisdom to current needs. It's a living Constitution, after all!
This is an impressive and educational highlight reel."
Click link to watch video
Fact USSR (Russia) was bankrupted in Afghanistan. It's recognized by financially savvy people our economy is being decimated by the current administration's financial irresponsibility ....... so are they willfully emulating what destroyed another super power to finish us off????
The toll in human life can is incalculable. Sincerest condolences to their families. May the rest of the troops be brought home safely and sound in every respect very soon.
____________
Source CNSNews.com
"A Third of All U.S. Casualties in Eight-Year Afghan War Have Occurred Since Obama Ordered Escalation
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
By Edwin Mora
"A U.S. soldier returns fire as others run for cover during a firefight with insurgents in the Badula Qulp area, West of Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, on Sunday, Feb. 14, 2010. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)
(CNSNews.com) -- More than 300 U.S. soldiers have died in the war in Afghanistan since May 15, 2009, the day when the first major wave of new troops ordered by President Barack Obama arrived in the country.
The 308 U.S. casualties in Afghanistan since then account for about a third of the total of 920 U.S. casualties in the eight-year war.
Of the 308 soldiers who have died since mid-May 2009, 287 were killed by enemy action, according to a CNSNews.com database of all casualties in the Afghanistan theatre of war.
The southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar located along the Afghan border with Pakistan have been the deadliest regions for U.S. soldiers since President Obama's escalation in U.S. forces in the region began.
Approximately 81 U.S. soldiers have died in combat in Helmand and 58 in Kandahar, for a total of 139 in those two provinces. That is about 45 percent of the U.S. casualties in Afghanistan since May 15 of last year.
On Feb. 17, 2009, President Obama ordered the deployment of 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. The main body of those troops arrived in Kandahar on May 15, 2009.
In December 2009, Obama stepped up his surge with 30,000 more troops, bringing the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan to more than 100,000.
Last year was the deadliest for American soldiers since the U.S.-led military effort in Afghanistan began in October 2001.
President Obama and Vice President Biden at the White House on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2010. (AP Photo)
CNSNews.com’s database of Afghanistan war casualties is derived primarily from official U.S. Defense Department casualty reports, but also includes information gleaned from reports in the news media.
The database includes all U.S. military personnel who died or received a fatal wound in Afghanistan or Pakistan. It does not include U.S. miltary personnel who died outside of Afghanistan while supporting military efforts against terrorism under Operation Enduring Freedom.
On Feb.13, the United States started a major operation in central Helmand, a Taliban stronghold. It is focused on the city of Marjah, which has about 80,000 inhabitants.
The operation, known as Mushtarak, which means "together" in Dari, involves 15,000 U.S.-led NATO and Afghan soldiers, with Afghan soldiers making up at least half of the offensive force.
In a Feb. 21 speech at Princeton University, Army Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander overseeing troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, predicted a “tough” casualty level resulting from the initiative.
"We've gotten the inputs right, now we are embarking on what's going to be the output," he said. "The reality is, it's going to be hard, it's going to be hard all the time. We're going to have tough losses."
So far, there have been 14 reported casualties from battles in Helmand since Operation Mushtarak started.
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Gen. Petraeus indicated that the Marjah operation is the “initial salvo” of a bigger 12-to-18-month campaign.
Using the Marjah operation as an example, the general pointed out that the flow of the 30,000 troops that Obama ordered last December is beginning to produce “output.”
When announcing his troop surge last December, President Obama mentioned that troops will begin to draw down in July 2011. However, military officials have indicated that this will depend on conditions on the ground."
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/61811
While US citizens are losing jobs, becoming homeless from foreclosure ...... they want to build this. Have they totally lost their minds????
________
February 24, 2010
"US diplomats add a moat to their expenses at $1bn London embassy
"The United States has unveiled plans for its new $1 billion high-security embassy in London — the most expensive it has ever built.
The proposals were met with relief from both the present embassy’s Mayfair neighbours and the residents and developers of the Battersea wasteland where the vast crystalline cube, surrounded by a moat, will be built.
The decision to abandon the former site in Grosvenor Square by 2016 came after a prolonged battle with residents angered by the security measures demanded after the September 11 attacks. More than a hundred residents took out a full-page advertisement in The Times to oppose tighter measures that they said would leave the area more vulnerable to attack.
The new embassy, on a former industrial site behind Battersea power station known for its gay clubs, will be designed by Kieran Timberlake, the Philadelphia architect.
A moat 30 metres (100ft) wide and rolling parkland will separate the building from the main road, protecting it from would-be bombers and removing the need for the blast barriers that so dismayed the people of Mayfair.
The State Department sought to play down the cost of security measures, noting the expense of London building work. But the price puts the London embassy above the US’s most fortified missions, including the Baghdad embassy, which cost $600 million (£390 million) but required a further $100 million of work on air conditioning, and the Islamabad embassy, still under construction, which has cost more than $850 million.
It also does not include the 17.5 per cent VAT demanded by the Treasury on all buildings in Britain and which the US has refused to pay.
Louis Susman, the US Ambassador, said: “We intend to do what’s appropriate and we are working with the Treasury on that.” He acknowleged past difficulties, pledging to be “a good neighbour in our new home” and said that the ecofriendly building would generate enough power to contribute to the national grid.
The new location will take the embassy out of the Central London congestion zone. US diplomats owe an estimated £32 million in congestion charges and fines, which they refuse to pay on the ground that they are exempt from taxes in Britain.
The unpaid dues led Ken Livingstone, as the Mayor of London, to call Robert Tuttle, the ambassador at the time, a “chiselling little crook”.
This discontent was almost equalled when the embassy learnt in November that its Grosvenor Square premises were to be given a Grade II listing. Despite the development limits imposed by the decision, the embassy was still sold for more than $1 billion to a Qatari company that plans to turn it into a luxury hotel.
The embassy said that a statue of Ronald Reagan soon to be put up in Grosvenor Square will not be part of the Battersea site. “It will absolutely not be moved,” an official said. “Nor will the Eisenhower.”
Excellent discussion from Powerlineblog.com.
_______
"Are the Democrats Coming After Your Savings?
Source Powerlineblog.com
February 20, 2010 Posted by John at 7:45 PM
"Beginning around 40 years ago, the federal government implemented one of the wisest domestic policy initiatives of modern times. In an effort to equalize the tax treatment of employees and self-employed individuals, a series of statutes permitted self-employed persons to save pre-tax money for retirement and to accumulate funds in retirement accounts that are not taxed until money is withdrawn post-retirement. Those programs have been broadened over the years to include employees, as well as the self-employed, in 401K accounts. Over the last four decades, Americans have saved hundreds of billions of dollars in such retirement accounts. I haven't seen figures lately, but the total of such savings is most likely in the trillions.
Now we have an improvident federal government that has spent itself into a state of near-bankruptcy. It can survive only by selling Treasury bills to Americans and foreigners, but as the government's debts accumulate, international demand for T-bills slackens. So the Democrats are looking for money. They can't help noticing that Americans have saved many billions of dollars--private property, theoretically, but under contemporary constitutional jurisprudence, subject to pretty much any whim that may come out of Washington.
Argentina showed the way in 2008, as we noted here, by nationalizing private retirement funds on the ground that "the private system never achieved what was needed."
Now, the Democrats may be poised to imitate Argentina's theft. Investor's Business Daily reports:
You did the responsible thing. You saved in your IRA or 401(k) to support your retirement, when you could have spent that money on another vacation, or an upscale car, or fancier clothes and jewelry. But now Washington is developing plans for your retirement savings.
BusinessWeek reports that the Treasury and Labor departments are asking for public comment on "the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams."
In plain English, the idea is for the government to take your retirement savings in return for a promise to pay you some monthly benefit in your retirement years.
They will tell you that you are "investing" your money in U.S. Treasury bonds. But they will use your money immediately to pay for their unprecedented trillion-dollar budget deficits, leaving nothing to back up their political promises, just as they have raided the Social Security trust funds.
In other words, the government will allow you the "opportunity" to give Washington your savings, in return for which the government will give you unmarketable T-bills or other unreliable promises to pay some minimal rate of return. The program likely will be "voluntary" to begin with, but that makes no sense--you can buy T-bills in your retirement account any time you want. So the only possible point is to make the exchange mandatory. The government steals your savings in exchange for an IOU.
Will it happen? Clearly the Obama administration, inspired by Argentina, is exploring the option. Today, we have the first administration in American history that aspires to be a banana republic. But can they get away with confiscating millions of Americans' savings? I doubt it. Because first on the list of those who have accumulated wealth in reliance on the laws governing private savings accounts are lawyers. Most people don't realize it, but even lawyers of modest ability typically have, after three or four decades of diligent savings, seven-figure retirement accounts. (This is one reason why influential Democrats don't care whether Social Security goes bust. They wouldn't dream of depending on it.) Lawyers are the heart and soul of the Democratic Party; public employee unions are more important in some ways, but they are junior partners in the Dems' coalition.
If the Obama administration were to announce an intent to confiscate Americans' retirement savings, the howls that would arise from lawyers (and others, too, of course) would be deafening. I don't think the administration could get away with it. Which doesn't mean they won't try, as the current efforts by the Departments of the Treasury and Labor indicate.
Still, others disagree. Earlier today I learned that a relative on Wall Street has stopped accumulating funds in his retirement accounts precisely because he thinks they may be confiscated by the Obama administration. Instead, he is acquiring untraceable, tangible assets--gold and silver--that the government won't be able to steal without a physical search of his property.
That's not good for the economy, of course. When citizens who have the ability to invest in our economy don't dare do so, for fear that their savings will be stolen by the government, we are reverting to an earlier and far poorer economic era. But that, apparently, is what the Obama administration wants. Here, as in so many other ways, we are sailing in uncharted waters.
SCOTT adds: Among many other items available on the Web, this Fox Business story by Robert Powell provides additional information regarding the Treasury/Labor request for comments."
.... And liberals were worried how the world viewed us with Bush as President. 
______
February 21, 2010
"Obama’s ‘Chicago mafia’ blamed for paralysis at the top
"WHEN President Barack Obama’s secret service codename was revealed as Renegade and his wife Michelle’s as Renaissance, the names seemed perfect for a first couple who had come to Washington to shake things up.
More than a year into the Obama administration, with healthcare yet to be reformed, Wall Street banks continuing to pay huge bonuses and Guantanamo Bay prison still open, that mood of hope has turned to disillusion. Obama’s policy of engagement has yielded no progress in the Middle East or Iran; the war in Afghanistan continues to exact a big toll in lives and dollars; while the heaviest snow in Washington for 90 years seems to have stymied any hope of climate change legislation.
The president and his team now find themselves under fire for mishandling Congress from everyone from senior Democrats to social columnists. Critics say that by failing to move on from the “us versus them” feeling of the Obama election campaign, they have united an opposition that was in disarray. The result is legislative paralysis despite the biggest Democratic majority in 30 years.
Last week a prominent Democratic senator resigned after criticising both government and Congress. Evan Bayh from Indiana, who had never lost a race and was expected to be re-elected in November, complained that the party’s recent loss of the Senate seat of the late Ted Kennedy should have been seen as a wake-up call.
“Moderates and independents even in a state as Democratic as Massachusetts just aren’t buying our message,” he said.
“They don’t believe the answers we are currently proposing are solving their problems.”
Even society writers are disenchanted. “The Obama White House has closed ranks. They were completely overwhelmed by the new office,” said Karen Sommer Shalett, editor-in-chief of DC magazine. “I haven’t heard of them going to any house parties or Georgetown row houses to be entertained.
“That’s important because if you’re social with someone over canapés and you know their wife and you know their children, you talk business in a friendlier way.”
When the Obamas do go to someone’s house for dinner, almost invariably it is to the home of Valerie Jarrett, their old friend from Chicago who serves as a political adviser.
The Wednesday evening White House <snip>tail parties which were launched with great fanfare as a way to reach out to Republicans, fizzled out last spring. The two parties seem more hostile than ever.
“This administration has managed to divide its friends and unite its enemies,” said Steve Clemons, director of the American Strategy Programme at the New America Foundation.
He and others lay the blame on the Chicago team, advisers from Obama’s adopted city. “Obama’s West Wing is filled with people who are in their jobs because of their Chicago connections or because they signed on early during his presidential campaign,” complained Doug Wilder, who in 1990s Virginia was America’s first elected black governor and was an early backer of Obama. “One problem is they do not have sufficient experience at governing at the executive branch level. The deeper problem is that they are not listening to the people.”
Obama relies on five people, four of whom are Chicagoans. They are Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, David Axelrod and Jarrett, his political advisers, and Michelle, while the fifth kitchen cabinet member is Robert Gibbs, his chief spokesman, who comes from Alabama.
The president consults them on everything. Military commanders were astounded when they participated in Afghanistan war councils and referred to them as the “Chicago mafia”. It was this group that inserted into Obama’s Afghan surge speech the deadline of July 2011 as a date to start withdrawing.
With Democrats fearing big losses in the mid-term elections in November, the knives are out for Emanuel, whose abrasive manner and use of profanities have won him few friends. Although his job is to deflect criticism from his boss, Rahmbo, as he is known, seems to have gone over the top.
The Wall Street Journal reported him losing his temper at a strategy session in August and referring to liberals as “f***ing retarded”. He is said to have sent dead fish to a pollster whose numbers he did not like.
Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, called on Obama to remove Emanuel, arguing that he needs someone who knows how to navigate Washington or will end up being no more than a speechmaker.
“No one I’ve talked to believes he [Emanuel] has the management skills and discipline to run the White House,” he wrote in The Daily Beast.
Among those touted as possible replacements are David Gergen, a political consultant brought in by President Bill Clinton, or John Podesta, a former Clinton chief of staff who now heads the Center for American Progress, a left-wing pressure group.
Emanuel would be unlikely to go without a fight. “Obama needs Emanuel at the top,” argued Dana Milbank in yesterday’s Washington Post, writing that the chief of staff was being unfairly blamed for the healthcare debacle.
“Where the president is airy and idealistic, Rahm is earthy and calculating. One thinks big; the other, a former House Democratic caucus chair, understands the congressional mind, in which small stuff counts for more than broad strokes.”
In Milbank’s view, Obama’s real problem is his other confidants, Jarrett, Gibbs and Axelrod, whom he describes as “part of the cult of Obama”, believing he is “a transformational figure who needn’t dirty his hands in politics”.
While Obama may have campaigned on a slogan of change, he has shown himself reluctant to sack people.
The problem may go deeper. Douglas Schoen, former pollster for Bill Clinton, believes the Obama team misinterpreted victory as an endorsement of his liberal agenda when it was really a reaction against George W Bush and the credit crisis. “They need to recognise there is only one fundamental issue in America: jobs,” he said.
What no one disputes is that Obama is extremely clever. Were it not for losing the Kennedy seat and with it the Democrats’ 60-seat super-majority in the Senate, Obama would probably have signed healthcare into law by now.
The president has not given up on the reform. He is expected to publish a revised bill today or Monday, just before a televised White House summit on Thursday with congressional Republicans. But they are calling on Democrats to start all over again with a far less sweeping proposal.
The biggest hurdle may be Obama’s own ambition combined with lack of experience. A leading Democratic supporter described his administration as “unfocused”, adding that he had counted 137 items on Obama’s agenda.
“He needs to realise that he’s running a huge operation and has to sequence priorities,” said Clemons. “He’s not thinking like the chief executive of a complex organisation.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7034910.ece
"Napolitano Secretly Hosts Terrorist Groups In D.C.
Source Corruption Chronicles, a Judicial Watch Blog
"In the Obama Administration’s latest effort to befriend radical Muslims, the cabinet official in charge of protecting the country’s safety covertly met with a group of extremist Arab, Muslim and Sikh organizations to discuss national security matters.
Briefing radical Islamists who want to murder Americans about homeland security measures may seem like a bizarre tactic to counter terrorism, but it’s the center of Obama’s famous change rhetoric. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, most concerned about a wave of anti-Muslim backlash after the Ft. Hood massacre, and her senior staff privately met in Washington D.C. with the groups. Among them was the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood, which is a sort of parent organization of Hamas and Al Qaeda.
Not surprisingly, the mainstream media ignored the two-day event which was exclusively reported this week by an alternative internet news company that regularly breaks big stories. Napolitano actually spent and hour and a half briefing the Middle Easterners about the U.S. government’s new “counter-radicalization” and “anti-terrorist” programs largely aimed at their followers.
The top-secret event was part of President Obama’s innovative program aimed at creating an information-sharing framework with Muslim organizations, even those with known extremist ties and terrorist connections. The idea, laughable as it may seem, is to win over Muslims and get them to collaborate with the U.S. government.
Officially, the Department of Homeland Security billed the event as a low-key meeting with faith and community-based groups to brainstorm about ways to increase engagement, dialogue and information sharing. After all, the groups are key homeland security partners that contribute to American life and exemplify the diversity that is a hallmark of our country, the agency claimed in a press release.
Strengthening partnerships with these groups will help the U.S. better prepare, assess and respond to threats, Napolitano assures. This is the same official whose biggest concern was preventing a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States after an Al Qaeda wannabe Army major went on a murderous rampage at the nation’s largest military base.
These are just some examples of the administration’s push to befriend the enemy. Last month Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed a special order—intended as a sign of respect to Muslims around the world—to allow the reentry of two radical Islamic academics whose terrorist ties have for years banned them from the U.S. Just this week Obama ordered the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to focus on Muslim outreach and diplomacy, a rather unusual mission for the space agency."
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2010/feb/napolitano-hosts-terrorist-groups-d-c
Suggest reading the top link first, as Denninger located a copy of Citi's disclosure statement and finds no wording where this is limited to Texas accounts only.
___________
"Citibank: No More DDA Accounts - The Market Ticker
http://market-ticker.org/archives/1985-Citibank-No-More-DDA-Accounts.html
______
"Citi Warns of Withdrawal Gate
Whoa. Is this an April Fool's joke? A contingency plan to defend against the idea of what "would happen if thousands of [bank] customers pledge to withdraw their money from the bank on a certain day, unless the bonuses are capped?" A strategem cooked up by Citi's new shareholders from the hedge fund industry, an industry in which such withdrawal gates are common? An idea backed by Citi's big shareholder, Uncle Sam, or one of its regulators, Sheila Bair?
I called Citi about it and they said the warning applies only to customers in Texas and that the notification had been mistakenly included on statements nationwide. Whatever the explanation, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence in Citi. I've got nothing against Citi as a general matter -- I have friends who work there, and know some account holders who are generally satisfied customers. But it's hard to believe a bank would be sending out a notice like that on its statements.
http://stockwidget.seekingalpha.com/article/189605-citi-warns-of-withdrawal-gate