Centralized banking is the enemy of a free society.

They seek to enslave by betting against the losers and doubling with the winners.

Moe Greene couldn't have devised a more win-win scenario!

You have to ask?
How about mayo with your pastrami sandwich?

So, what is "leverage"?

The money of grifters

Robert I wasn't asking.

I was joking about the two pieces of bread in Amerika's **** sammich.


BTW it better come with a kick ass pickle! I love a rueben.

Negotiations with your mother-in-law's kidnappers. BWAAAAHAHAHA!😟

Touche!

easy money

Ask ****** Fuld. Or Hank Paulson. Or anybody who was associated with Lehman Brothers, LTCM, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, AIG, Washington Mutual, or Barings Bank.

Or anybody in the U.S. Treasury Department.

So, leverage is a bad thing?

Bernanke figures that if Greenspan "The Great Inflator" could firk things up this badly so far by overprinting the USD, then dialing it up to TURBO should fix it!

🍺

The Keynesians...despite being dead wrong on everything they've done...are now in panic mode doubling down.

They won't be happy until they crash EVERYTHING.

EVERYWHERE.

They have to to preserve the notion that they're right, and that they always have been!

I've been paying attention to China...it's going to make Greece (faking all of their economic news and getting busted!

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-09-23/greece-caught-underreporting-its-budget-deficit-nearly-50 ) look responsible!

When France and Great Britain find out what Germany already knows regarding Greece...we could be looking at a possible WWIII. When China has to admit to their own ahem..."accounting irregularities"...well, let's just say they'll do EVERYTHING under the sun first before they admit they were..."wrong".

No, we had a real chance to take down the Federal Reserve chokehold on America but we weren't ready for that man or the pain it would inflict. No, it's all unicorn rides, lollipops and rainbows...mix in American Karaoke and Dancing with the NASCAR stars...throw in a little redmeat like the NFL and MMA cage fighting and VIOLA...the masses stay tuned to THAT...instead of what's really important!

Besides...there's that whole US vs THEM...unreal debacle that happens every 4 years to distract us.

The Fed Is Systematically Destroying Social Security And The Retirement Plans Of Millions



The Social Security trust fund needs to earn interest to achieve levels that will preserve it till 2033; with interest rates close to zero, the trust fun is projected to be depleted ten years earlier - by 2023. By law, the money deposited in the SS trust fund must be invested in U.S. government securities, so it cannot just be thrown into the stock market. In order for SS Ponzi to work, the trust fund, invested in government securities, needs to produce healthy returns. It won't; it can't. Thanks QE-genie Bernanke. ~ Ilene


Last week the mainstream media hailed QE3 as the "quick fix" that the U.S. economy desperately needs, but the truth is that the policies that the Federal Reserve is pursuing are going to be absolutely devastating for our senior citizens. By keeping interest rates at exceptionally low levels, the Federal Reserve is absolutely crushing savers and is systematically destroying Social Security.

Meanwhile, the inflation that QE3 will cause is going to be absolutely crippling for the millions upon millions of retired Americans that are on a fixed income. Sadly, most elderly Americans have no idea what the Federal Reserve is doing to their financial futures. Most Americans that are approaching retirement age have not adequately saved for retirement, and the Social Security system that they are depending on is going to completely and totally collapse in the coming years.

Right now, approximately 56 million Americans are collecting Social Security benefits. By 2035, that number is projected to grow to a whopping 91 million. By law, the Social Security trust fund must be invested in U.S. government securities. But thanks to the low interest rate policies of the Federal Reserve, the average interest rate on those securities just keeps dropping and dropping.

The trustees of the Social Security system had projected that the Social Security trust fund would be completely gone by 2033, but because of the Fed policy of keeping interest rates exceptionally low for the foreseeable future it is now being projected by some analysts that Social Security will be bankrupt by 2023. Overall, the Social Security system is facing a 134 trillion dollar shortfall over the next 75 years. Yes, you read that correctly. The collapse of Social Security is inevitable, and the foolish policies of the Federal Reserve are going to make that collapse happen much more rapidly.

The only way that the Social Security system is going to be able to stay solvent is for the Social Security trust fund to earn a healthy level of interest.

By law, all money deposited in the Social Security trust fund must be invested in U.S. government securities. The following is from the official website of the Social Security Administration....

By law, income to the trust funds must be invested, on a daily basis, in securities guaranteed as to both principal and interest by the Federal government. All securities held by the trust funds are "special issues" of the United States Treasury. Such securities are available only to the trust funds.

.

In the past, the trust funds have held marketable Treasury securities, which are available to the general public. Unlike marketable securities, special issues can be redeemed at any time at face value. Marketable securities are subject to the forces of the open market and may suffer a loss, or enjoy a gain, if sold before maturity. Investment in special issues gives the trust funds the same flexibility as holding cash.

So in order for the Social Security Ponzi scheme to work, those investments in government securities need to produce healthy returns.

Unfortunately, the ultra-low interest rate policy of the Federal Reserve is making this impossible.

The average rate of interest earned by the Social Security trust fund has declined from 6.1 percent in January 2003 to 3.9 percent today, and it is going to continue to go even lower as long as the Fed continues to keep interest rates super low.

A recent article by Bruce Krasting detailed how this works. Just check out the following example....

$135 billion of old bonds matured this year. This money was rolled over into new bonds with a yield of only 1.375%. The average yield on the maturing securities was 5.64%. The drop in yield on the new securities lowers SSA’s income by $5.7B annually. Over the fifteen year term of the investments, that comes to a lumpy $86 billion.

So what happens when the Social Security trust fund runs dry?

As Bruce Krasting also noted, all Social Security payments would immediately be cut by 25 percent.....

Anyone who is 55 or older should be worried about this. Based on current law, all SS benefit payments must be cut by (approximately) 25% when the TF is exhausted. This will affect 72 million people. The economic consequences will be severe.

In other words, it would be a complete and total nightmare.

Sadly, the truth is that the Social Security trust fund might not even make it into the next decade. Most Social Security trust fund projections assume that there will be no recessions and that there will be a very healthy rate of growth for the U.S. economy over the next decade.

So what happens if we have another major recession or worse?

And most Americans know that something is up with Social Security. According to a Gallup survey, 67 percent of all Americans believe that there will be a Social Security crisis within 10 years.

Part of the problem is that there are way too many people retiring and not nearly enough workers to support them.

Back in 1950, each retiree's Social Security benefit was paid for by 16 U.S. workers. But now things are much different. According to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are now only 1.75 full-time private sector workers for each person that is receiving Social Security benefits in the United States.

And remember, the number of Americans drawing on Social Security will increase by another 35 million by the year 2035.

Another factor that is rapidly becoming a major problem is the growth of the Social Security disability program.

Since 2008, 3.6 million more Americans have been added to the rolls of the Social Security disability insurance program.

Today, more than 8.7 million Americans are collecting Social Security disability payments.

So how does this compare to the past?

Back in August 1967, there were approximately 65 workers for each American that was collecting Social Security disability payments.

Today, there are only 16.2 workers for each American that is collecting Social Security disability payments.

The Social Security Ponzi scheme is rapidly approaching a crisis point.

Sadly, the Federal Reserve has made it incredibly difficult to save for your own retirement.

Millions upon millions of Baby Boomers that diligently saved money for retirement are finding that their savings accounts are paying out next to nothing thanks to the ultra-low interest rate policies of the Federal Reserve.

The following is one example of how the low interest rate policies of the Fed have completely devastated the retirement plans of many elderly Americans....

You can understand the impact of the invisible tax on the elderly by watching the decline of interest income from $50,000 invested in a five-year Treasury obligation. As recently as 2000, this would have yielded about 6.15 percent and an interest income of $3,075 a year. Now the same obligation is yielding 0.7 percent and an interest income of $350 a year. This is the lowest yield on this maturity of Treasury debt since the Federal Reserve started keeping an index of the yields in 1953.

But it's more than a low interest rate. It's an income decline of nearly 89 percent in just 12 years.

And after you account for inflation, those that put money into savings accounts today are actually losing money.

Of course most Americans have not saved up much money for retirement anyway. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 46 percent of all American workers have less than $10,000 saved for retirement, and 29 percent of all American workers have less than $1,000 saved for retirement.

Overall, a study conducted by Boston College's Center for Retirement Research discovered that American workers are $6.6 trillion short of what they need to retire comfortably.

So needless to say, we have a major problem.

Baby Boomers are just starting to retire and the Social Security system is still solvent at the moment, and yet the number of elderly Americans that are experiencing financial problems is already soaring.

For example, between 1991 and 2007 the number of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 that filed for bankruptcy rose by a staggering 178 percent.

Also, at this point one out of every six elderly Americans is already living below the federal poverty line.

So how bad are things going to be when Social Security collapses?

That is frightening to think about.

In the short-term, millions upon millions of retired Americans that are living on fixed incomes are going to be absolutely crushed by the inflation that QE3 is going to cause.

Just like we saw with QE1 and QE2, a lot of the money from QE3 is going to end up in agricultural commodities and oil. That means that retirees (and all the rest of us) are going to end up paying more for food at the supermarket and gasoline at the pump.

But those on fixed incomes are not going to see a corresponding increase in their incomes. That means that their standards of living will go down.

Things are tough for retirees right now, but they are going to get a lot tougher.

Right now, there are somewhere around 40 million senior citizens. By 2050 that number is projected to increase to 89 million.

So how will our society cope with more than twice as many senior citizens?

Sadly, we will likely never get to find out.

The truth is that our system is almost certainly going to totally collapse long before then.

We are rapidly approaching a financial crisis unlike anything we have ever seen before in U.S. history, and the foolish policies of the Federal Reserve just keep making things even worse.


http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-09-24/fed-systematically-destroying-social-security-and-retirement-plans-millions 



But...but..we've got a printing press!🐴

Would that we had a candidate with the cojones to say that in a campaign speech on national television.

We had one that said NAFTA was a giant sucking sound...the crazy old "grandma" in the basement was the National Debt and he was marginalized.


He didn't exactly help his cause by quitting and then re-entering the race...and picking a sack of dirty laundry for a running mate BUT he did dare the American populace to think of the issues that are killing her now.

Imagine for one second if we were free enough to actually have all of the candidates that are running for office speak on national tv for the debates...NO TIME LIMITS...simple rules...if Candidate A talks about an issue for 30 minutes to get his point across, each and every other candidate get the same time to do so too! See the debates for what they are...Corporate Networks that have already given the questions to the candidates. It's all scripted. It comes down to who has the better tan in the studio lights...who's hair looks better on camera...a GOTCHA moment where someone might misspeak a fact off the cuff...and who can forget those non-partisan YouTube questions asked my party chairman's with a different hairstyle to hide it all away from John Q. Sixpack and little Suzy Homemaker.

Makes anyone want to puke.

THIS is what we get? THIS? Not better nor different ideas...THIS?

http://www.internationalliving-magazine.com  [/b][/color] is soo damned appealing!

And remember back in 1992 when Pat Buchanan was running in the Republican primaries and scared the hell out of the liberals and moderates of both parties with his far out, crazy we-have-to-rein-in-the-big-banks and we-have-to-stop-getting-embroiled-in-Middle-East-politics campaign rhetoric?

Back in 1992 that was...9 years before 9/11 and 16 years before the economic collapse of 2008.

Yeah, we were told, what a whacko out of touch right-winger.