XIAM007

Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Tuesday, 2 August 2011

Seven startling things most people still don’t know about the national debt, banking and the money supply -

Seven startling things most people still don’t know about the national debt, banking and the money supply - 





Most people, even smart people, know surprisingly little about the way money really works in Big Government. With the debt ceiling fiasco suddenly raising awareness of the possibility of a total global financial blowout, now seems like a good time to remind people of seven disturbing facts about money that are almost never acknowledge in the old media.
Fact #1 – There is no FDIC insurance fund.
The money at your bank is insured against loss by the FDIC’s insurance fund, right? Nope. That’s total fiction. There is no actual money in the fund. The FDIC insurance money has already been looted by the U.S. Treasury which has simply replaced the money with a bunch of IOUs.
Why does this matter? Because it means that if the U.S. government goes into default, so will the FDIC! And that means all your bank funds have zero insurance. That’s gonna be a big shock for tens of millions of people when they finally figure this out one day…
Fact #2 – There are no social security funds, either.
When you pay social security taxes, all that money goes into a trust fund that’s held for safekeeping until the day it pays you back, right?
Ha! That’s the “sucker’s view” of social security that only ignorant people believe. In reality, there is no money in the social security trust fund because it too has all been looted by the U.S. Treasury and spent. In truth, social security is already broke. Can’t wait for people to wake up and figure this one out, either…


Fact #3 – The U.S. Treasury is stealing money from you every day, even if you pay no taxes!
Here’s a mind-boggling truth that most people just can’t seem to get their heads around: The U.S. Treasury is stealing money from you every single day by the simple fact that they keep creating new money and handing it out to wealthy banksters. Well, technically this is being done by the Federal Reserve, which isn’t even part of the federal government. But it’s all done in cahoots with the Treasury, which is eroding the value of your money through these money creation and distribution actions.
That’s why prices keep going up all around you, folks: Food isn’t suddenly worth more money; the truth is that your money is worth less! That’s how the Treasury and the Federal Reserve steal from you without even breaking into your home.
Probably 99.9% of the population has no understanding of this phenomenon — the erosion of currency valuation through the centralized government printing of more currency. And yet it is a government scam that has been carried out against citizens of the world time and time again, spanning millennia! As history has clearly shown, every nation that goes down the path of printing more currency to pay its bills eventually ends up in a runaway hyperinflation scenario followed by economic collapse. The USA will be no different.
Fact #4 – The “balanced solution” isn’t balanced.
Don’t you love the quirky White House Press Secretary who keeps spewing out the phrase “balanced solution” even while the debt deal leaves the U.S. budget entirelyunbalanced?
When you’re spending more money than you’re earning, that’s not financial balance. When the White House says “balanced” what it really means is “compromised” — as in, half way between the Republican position (spend us into purgatory) and the Democratic position (spend us into oblivion). Neither party has any real solution to the cancerous growth of Big Government. That’s because they are creatures of Big Government!
 

Politicians can no more solve the problems of Big Government than arsonists can solve the problem of office fires. Because they are, themselves, creatures of runaway debt spending (how else do you get elected these days?), they simply do not possess the cognitive framework from which real financial solutions must stem.
Fact #5 – The government is going to steal everything from you before it collapses
Oh my, this is a tough one for people to get their heads around… especially those who naively trust governments to act in the interests of the People. The simple truth of the matter — and I’ve publicly made this prediction before — is that the government is going to STEAL almost everything you own as it heads toward a total financial implosion. This will include:
• The government theft of private retirement accounts. The feds will claim they’re taking them over “for your protection.” Yeah, right. And then one day they will simply all vanish. Kiss your IRA goodbye…
• The government theft of precious metals. Within the next 3 years, watch for a national emergency to be declared, followed by government confiscation of gold and silver. The feds will take your gold and hand you paper money in exchange. The paper money, of course, will be all but worthless shortly thereafter. Only the suckers, of course, will actually turn in their metals…
• Government takeover of your bank accounts. As banks begin to fail in the big collapse, the government will step in and take ownership of the failed institutions, just as it did with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (which used to be publicly-owned companies but are now largely just government finance operations). This will put your bank accounts under the direct control of the White House, which can useexecutive orders to do things like banning all wire transfers out of the country or limiting daily withdrawals and transfers. Sure, you’ll still “own” your money in the bank, you just won’t be able to freely access it!
Fact #6 – Most people have no idea about fractional reserve banking, derivatives, the money supply or the Federal Reserve
It’s not just that most people don’t understand banking and finance; it’s that evenmembers of Congress have no idea how all this works. With few exceptions (like Ron Paul), they’re just clueless!
Get this: Even most bankers don’t even know how fractional reserve banking really works. They don’t understand derivatives, either, which is why they screwed them up so badly in the housing boom that crashed in 2007. And because bankers, investors and bureaucrats have no idea how it all works, they unwittingly turn it all into a runaway catastrophe.
Allowing ignorant adults to play with debt and derivatives is like letting infants play with nuclear weapons. It can only lead to something messy.
Fact #7 – Most people are betting their lives on the dollar
People buy insurance for their cars, their homes and even their health. But when it comes to money, 99 out of 100 people in America are betting their entire financial existence on the U.S. dollar! They get their paychecks in dollars, their savings accounts are in dollars, and all their assets are denominated in dollars. As a result, they have no diversity to protect them against dollar devaluation.
That’s kinda crazy, considering just how quickly the dollar could collapse in the near future and become totally worthless. That’s why smart people are diversifying their assets and converting dollars into land, gold, silver or even storable food. Here in central Texas, even ammunition has a long-term barter value that far exceeds dollars.
Looking around at the financial behaviors of others, I’m just stunned at how many people are betting everything on the dollar because they never realized they had any other option (that’s the way the government likes to keep it, of course!).
Coming soon: A huge national finance education of the masses
Mark my words, folks: The great financial collapse of America is now closer than ever. While I can’t put an exact prediction date on it, there’s absolutely no doubt that it’s coming. The morons in Washington aren’t doing anything to avoid it, either — they’re all just cashing in as much as they can before the big collapse rolls in.

Bunch of cowards and crooks running this country. They don’t understanding banking and finance, and they’re determined to make sure you don’t either. Because the less you know about what’s really going on, the longer they can continue to loot the U.S. economy while people stand around and do nothing.
How bad is the situation, really? Just yesterday, Vice President Joe Biden called Congressional Tea Party members “terrorists” for their insistence that the U.S. budget be balanced. So now, the mere idea of calling for a balanced budget turns you into a “terrorist” to be prosecuted under the Patriot Act.
And why not? Demanding financial sanity MUST be labeled an act of terrorism for our criminal government to continue its own criminal looting operation. Next we’ll probably see the President ordering the arrest and prosecution of any members of Congress — i.e. “terrorists” — who do not go along with unlimited increased in the debt ceiling.
Now you see what the terrorism laws are really all about: They are legislative weapons to be used against political enemies, not actual terrorists. Meanwhile, Big Government is technically engaged in the use of financial weapons of mass destruction against the People, yet no one notices.
A bizarre world we live in, folks. It is dominated by the mindless masses and run by criminal sociopaths. Those who demand real solutions are labeled terrorists, and those who try to explain all this to everybody else are labeled “alarmists.”
Just wait until this house of cards collapses, though. There will be a day of reckoning in which a whole bunch of apologies will be owed to all those people who tried to warn the nation what was really happening (and where it would lead us).


Read more- 
http://www.naturalnews.com/033207_national_debt_inflation.html

Apple factory finds answer to worker suicides... replace staff with one million robots -

Apple factory finds answer to worker suicides... replace staff with one million robots - 


Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group, known for assembling Apple's iPhones and iPads in China, plans to use more robots, with one report saying the company will use one million of them in the next three years, to cope with rising labour costs.
Foxconn's move highlights an increasing trend toward automation among Chinese companies as labour issues such as high-profile strikes and workers' suicides plague firms in sectors from vehicles to technology.
Contract manufacturers such as Foxconn, which also counts Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Nokia among its clients, are moving parts of their manufacturing to inland Chinese cities or other emerging markets.

They are also boosting research and development investments to lift their thin margins.
‘Workers' wages are increasing so quickly that some companies can't take it longer,’ said Dan Bin, a fund manager at Shenzhen-based Eastern Bay Investment Management, which invests in technology and consumer-related shares in China and Hong Kong.

‘Automation is a general trend in many sectors in China, such as electronics.
‘Of course some companies will consider moving their manufacturing overseas, but it's easier said than done when the supply chain is here.’
The China Business News today quoted Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou as saying the company planned to use 1 million robots within three years, up from about 10,000 robots in use now and an expected 300,000 next year.
Foxconn, whose listed units include Hon Hai Precision and Foxconn International Holdings Ltd, issued a statement later saying Gou told staff at its campus in Longhua, China, that he planned to move its more than 1 million employees up the value chain beyond basic manufacturing work.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2021251/Foxconn-Apple-factorys-answer-worker-suicides-replace-staff-1m-robots.html#ixzz1TsqQQft5

Girl, 11, saves baby woodpecker; faces $500 fine from feds... -

Girl, 11, saves baby woodpecker; faces $500 fine from feds... - 






Eleven-year-old aspiring veterinarian, Skylar Capo, sprang into action the second she learned that a baby woodpecker in her Dad's backyard was about to be eaten by the family cat.


"I've just always loved animals," said Skylar Capo. "I couldn't stand to watch it be eaten."


Skylar couldn't find the woodpecker's mother, so she brought it to her own mother, Alison Capo, who agreed to take it home.


"She was just going to take care of it for a day or two, make sure it was safe and uninjured, and then she was going to let it go," said Capo.


But on the drive home, the Capo family stopped at this Lowes and they brought the bird inside because of the heat. That's when they were confronted by a woman from the Department of Fish and Wildlife.


"She was really nervous. She was shaking. Then she pulled out a badge," said Capo.


The problem was that the woodpecker is a protected species under the Federal Migratory Bird Act. Therefore, it's illegal to take or transport a baby woodpecker. The Capo's say they had no idea.


"I was a little bit upset because I didn't want my mom to get in trouble," said Skylar.


So as soon as the Capo's got home, they opened the cage, the bird flew away, and they reported it to the Department of Fish and Wildlife.


"They said that's great, that's exactly what we want to see," said Capo. "We thought that we had done everything that we could possibly do."


But two weeks later, that same woman from the Department of Fish and Wildlife showed up at the Capo's front door. This time, Capo says she was accompanied by a state trooper. Alison Capo was cited for unlawfully taking a migratory bird and now she's been slapped with a $535 fine.


"I feel harassed and I feel angry," said Capo.


"Kids should be able to save a baby bird and not end up going home crying because their mom has to pay $535. I just think that's crazy," said Skylar.


9NEWS NOW has tried repeatedly to contact the Department of Fish and Wildlife. So far, they have not returned any of our calls. If convicted, Capo could face up to a year behind bars.


Read more - 
http://wusa9.com/news/article/161065/158/Woodpecker-Saving-Daughter-Costs-Mom-500



Android conquers almost 50 percent of smartphone market -

Android conquers almost 50 percent of smartphone market - 




Google's Android platform has taken almost 50 percent of the global smartphone market, dominating in the Asia-Pacific region, research firm Canalys said on Monday
Android, which Google acquired in 2005 and launched on phones in 2008, is used by almost all the major phone makers including HTC, LG, Motorola and Samsung.
It was the number one platform in 35 of the 56 countries Canalys tracks, resulting in a market share of 48 percent, the research firm said.
By comparison, Apple, which shipped 20.3 million iPhones, is a distant second with a market share of 19 percent but it overtook ailing Finnish handset maker Nokia as the world's largest individual smartphone vendor.
Samsung also overtook Nokia but Canalys said the South Korean handset maker could have done better.
"Samsung has failed to fully capitalize on Nokia's weakened state around the world, as the Finnish company rides out a challenging transitional period," Canalys analyst Chris Jones said.
"It's the best placed vendor to grow at Nokia's expense, taking advantage of its global scale and channel reach, but it hasn't yet done enough to capitalize on this, particularly in emerging markets."
Read more - 

Monday, 1 August 2011

Tepco Says Highest Radiation Yet Is Detected at Fukushima Dai-Ichi - registered more than 10 sieverts an hour -

Tepco Says Highest Radiation Yet Is Detected at Fukushima Dai-Ichi - registered more than 10 sieverts an hour - 


Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant, said it detected the highest radiation to date at the site.
Geiger counters, used to detect radioactivity, registered more than 10 sieverts an hour, the highest reading the devices are able to record, Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at the utility, said today. The measurements were taken at the base of the main ventilation stack for reactors No. 1 and No. 2.
The Fukushima plant, about 220 kilometers (137 miles) north of Tokyo, had three reactor meltdowns after the March 11 magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami knocked out power and backup generators. Radiation leaks displaced 160,000 people and contaminated marine life and agricultural products.
The utility, known as Tepco, tried to vent steam and gas the day after the earthquake as pressure in reactor No. 1 exceeded designed limits. A buildup of hydrogen gas subsequently caused an explosion that blew out part of the reactor building. 


Read more -
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-01/tepco-says-highest-radiation-yet-is-detected-at-fukushima-dai-ichi.html



NASA Invites 150 Lucky Twitter Followers To Launch Of Jupiter-Bound Spacecraft -

NASA Invites 150 Lucky Twitter Followers To Launch Of Jupiter-Bound Spacecraft - 

NASA has invited 150 followers of the agency's Twitter account to a two-day launch Tweetup Aug. 4-5. The event is expected to culminate in the lift off of the Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft aboard an Atlas V rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. 

The launch window opens at 11:34 a.m. EDT on Friday, Aug. 5. The spacecraft is expected to arrive at Jupiter in 2016 to investigate the gas giant's interior, atmosphere and aurora. Juno's color camera will provide close-up images of Jupiter, including the first detailed glimpse of the planet's poles. 

Attendees represent 28 states, the District of Columbia and five other countries: Canada, Finland, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom. NASA randomly selected the participants from more than 1,200 online applicants. 

Tweetup participants are coming from Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. They will share their Tweetup experiences with their followers through the social networking site Twitter. 

Beginning at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, Aug. 4, NASA will broadcast a portion of the Tweetup when participants get to talk with Waleed Abdalati, chief scientist at NASA Headquarters; Jim Adams, deputy director, Planetary Science, NASA Headquarters; Scott Bolton, Juno's principal investigator; Steve Levin, Juno project scientist; Juno Science Team members Toby Owen, Fran Bagenal, and Dave Stevenson; Steve Matousek, Juno proposal manager; Jan Chodas, Juno project manager; and Chris Brosious, chief systems engineer for Juno at Lockheed Martin. To watch the broadcast, visit: 



Participants also will tour NASA's Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral, including a close-up visit to the launch pad. 

Reporters credentialed to cover the launch also may cover the NASA Tweetup at Kennedy's press site. Reporters interested in interviewing Tweetup attendees in advance should contact Stephanie Schierholz at 202-358-1100 orstephanie.schierholz@nasa.gov. 

This is the first time NASA has invited Twitter followers to experience the launch of a planetary spacecraft. Previously, NASA invited groups to attend five space shuttle launches: Atlantis' STS-129, STS-132 and STS-135 missions, Discovery's STS-133 mission, and Endeavour's STS-134 mission. 

To follow the Tweetup participants on Twitter as they experience the prelaunch events and Juno's liftoff, follow the #NASATweetup hashtag and the list of attendees at: 


You can follow the Juno mission on Twitter at: 


NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the mission. For more information about Juno, visit: 

Vice President Joe Biden likened Tea Party Republicans to “terrorists.” -

Vice President Joe Biden likened Tea Party Republicans to “terrorists.” - 


Sources inside a closed-door meeting of Senate Democrats today said Vice President Joe Biden participated in a bit of name-calling. But not just any name-calling. No, those sources tell Politicothat Biden likened Tea Party Republicans to “terrorists.”
“We have negotiated with terrorists,” angry Rep. Mike Doyle, a Democrat from PA, said, according to sources who were in the room. “This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money.”
Biden agreed:
Biden, driven by his Democratic allies’ misgivings about the debt-limit deal, responded: “They have acted like terrorists,” according to several sources in the room.
Biden’s office refused to comment to Politico about what was said, citing that the meeting took place in a closed-door session.
The rhetoric wouldn’t be odd for the fiery former Senator from Delaware. As Politico notes, earlier in the day he told Senate Democrats that Republican leaders have “guns to their heads” in trying to negotiate deals.
Read more -

Principal of a Brooklyn high school had five students moving furniture for her instead of doing schoolwork -

Principal of a Brooklyn high school had five students moving furniture for her instead of doing schoolwork -



The principal of a Brooklyn high school for new immigrants had five students do hard labor moving furniture for her instead of doing schoolwork -- a daylong field trip from hell that included kids being tossed around in the back of a U-Haul truck, The Post has learned.
It's at least the second time that Altagracia Liciaga, principal of Multicultural HS in Cypress Hills, has been investigated for allegedly outrageous behavior toward her students.
Liciaga had sent the students on the dangerous excursion to a Midtown warehouse to pick up school furniture, with three of the teens sitting in the box truck's dark cargo hold for both legs of the round trip, which each lasted 1½ hours.



While two students sat up front in the cab of the truck with a student aide driving, the other three were forced to ride in back -- including one teen who tied himself down with a scarf to keep from bouncing around like a pinball.
"I thought the trip was very dangerous," said one of the teens, who like most kids at Multicultural HS is a recently arrived Spanish speaker. "In the back, there [were no seat belts] for us. If I had known that ahead of time, I wouldn't have gone."
No permission slips were filled out by parents for the unscheduled trip, teachers said.
The student, who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution, said he stepped up when Liciaga was seeking volunteers because he likes to help out and because he assumed the errand wouldn't take long.
Instead, he and the four other students left the school before 10 a.m. on Dec. 14, hauled more than a dozen heavy cabinets into the truck and returned to the school after 3 p.m.
After they had unloaded all the cargo on the third floor of the school, Liciaga thanked them by giving them tacos.
A city Department of Education spokeswoman told The Post that Liciaga had been reprimanded.


Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/brooklyn/principal_sticks_kids_in_the_haul_FzloYsdwVGNYTIPHwhyOCJ#ixzz1TomJnr1D

Sea Turtle GPS Shows Ocean-Spanning Leatherback Buffet -

Sea Turtle GPS Shows Ocean-Spanning Leatherback Buffet -



The fact that leatherback turtles swim thousands of miles is driven home beautifully in this new map of their sophisticated, ocean-spanning movements.
Between 2000 and 2007, biologists attached GPS transmitters to 126 leatherbacks nesting in Indonesia, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea. These individuals represent one of three remaining subpopulations of the endangered turtle, which can reach lengths of 6 feet and weigh more than 2,000 pounds.
The map resulting resulting from the transmissions, published in the July Ecosphere, shows creatures that don’t just drift in instinctive obedience to migratory impulse. The leatherbacks navigated in time with season and temperature and current, visiting eddies and boundaries and blooms. They demonstrated the sophistication and pickiness of a savvy grocery-store shopper, except their store covers a tenth of Earth’s surface.
For scientists, the findings will inform conservation programs and emphasize the need for international-level cooperation. For everyone else, they reinforce just how amazing these creatures are.
Read more -

US a ‘parasite’ on world economy, says Putin - by accumulating massive debts that threaten the global financial system -

US a ‘parasite’ on world economy, says Putin - by accumulating massive debts that threaten the global financial system - 


Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Monday accused the United States of acting as a “parasite” on the world economy by accumulating massive debts that threaten the global financial system.
“The country is living in debt. It is not living within its means, shifting the weight of responsibility on other countries and in a way acting as a parasite,” Putin told a group of pro-Kremlin youth in central Russia.
He also suggested that Washington may have been flirting with the idea of a default in order to weaken the dollar “and create better conditions for exporting their goods.
“But they had enough common sense and responsibility” to avoid a default, Russia’s former president added.
US President Barack Obama on Sunday announced an 11th hour debt deal that will allow the country to avoid its first default in history while pushing ahead with a painful austerity plan designed to slash Washington’s swelling debt.
The deal was met initially with relief on global financial markets and saw Moscow’s two stock exchanges open the day up about two percent but investors then began to have doubts about the plan and gains were reversed sharply.
Putin has repeatedly criticised the United States’ recent foreign exchange policy and its propensity to cover budget deficits with treasury bills and bonds held by sovereign clients such as China and Russia.
The value of that paper will shrink if US debt is downgraded by a major Western ratings agency and Putin was insistent Monday that the world should be seeking new reserve currencies for trade and savings.
“If the US encounters a systemic malfunction, this affects everyone,” Putin told the Seliger camp gathering. “There should be other reserve currencies.”
Putin added that the debt agreement announced by Obama “was not that great overall because it simply delayed the adoption of a more systemic solution.”
Read more -