Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Gun control reality check...
A Brief and Bloody History of Gun Control
by Anthony Gucciardi
You or someone you know may see guns as deadly killing machines that are simply to blame for a large volume of homicides across the nation, but a brief look at the history of gun control actually offers a new perspective into the application of guns on an entirely new level. While normalcy bias (a thinking pattern that causes an individual to underestimate the potential of any event or situation due to currently enjoying a normal and cushy lifestyle) can oftentimes lead individuals away from the reality of history, countless citizens around the world have been highlighting the repetitive history that follows gun control.
In this breakdown, we will be examining a lot of numbers and extracting them to get some real answers. Then, we’ll see the source of these numbers and whether or not gun control regulations are reducing or increasing overall crime rates in heavily controlled areas.
The first thing to touch upon, and perhaps most relevant to our modern society, is how deadly firearms really are. First of all, let us examine the factors that are responsible for deaths within the United States. This will put death counts into perspective and allow us to go deeper into the firearm-related deaths themselves later. Examining data from the CDC for the leading causes of death and including death statistics from the FBI regarding homicides, we find the following numbers:
Leading US Killers
Annual deaths from heart disease based on CDC data: 597,689
Cancer deaths from CDC data: 574,743
Chronic lower respiratory diseases (CDC): 138,080
Stroke deaths (CDC): 129,476
Deaths from accidents, unintentional injuries (CDC): 120,859
Alzheimer’s disease deaths per year (CDC): 83,494
Diabetes (CDC): 69,071
Influenza deaths each year (CDC): 50,097
Suicide deaths (CDC): 38,364
Overall weapons deaths (2009 FBI): 13,636
Overall firearm deaths (2009 FBI): 9,146
So there we have the overall death data that comes compiled from the CDC website mixed with the FBI website table that goes as far as 2009. As you can see, the overall firearm deaths are 9,000 per year. If you’ve been following some of the mainstream media rhetoric surrounding guns, you might have thought the number would be at least over 100,000 — perhaps even higher than diabetes or suicide. The reality is that it is quite low overall, despite what you may have been told. But it’s still 9,146, so let’s now break down this figure to get the specific factors.
Of the 9,146 firearm deaths:
6,452 were from hanguns
348 from rifles
418 from shotguns
94 from other guns
1,834 from unknown guns
This is where the numbers cut through even more false information sent forth by the mainstream media. Rifles have been demonized as powerful tools of homicide that are to blame for a large number of yearly deaths, but as it turns out only 348 per year are actually killed using rifles. Now of that number we must ask “how many are using legal weapons and non-gang related?” And furthermore, how many of these murders occur in ‘gun free’ cities? We’ll get to what we know on that shortly.
First, I want to utilize some further statistics from the overall weapons deaths provided by the FBI for 2009. The number, which totals 13,636, also breaks down into several components that will likely be highly shocking when compared to the broken down gun data. Especially when considering that the apparent ‘epidemic’ levels of rifle deaths actually don’t even compare to stabbings, blunt objects like hammers, or even bare hands and feet.
Knives, Hammers, Hands Kill More than Rifles & Shotguns
These FBI statistics really deflate the argument that rifles are ultimate killing machines when you look at how human hands are actually much more dangerous in terms of the sheer numbers. In fact, the digits really deflate the entire movement to ban rifles by realizing that by the same logic bats, hammers, knives, and even hands should therefore be heavily regulated. Going by the numbers alone, all hands should be considered lethal weapons. Of course we know that all hands are not used to kill innocents, just as all guns are not used to kill innocents.
Let’s take a look at the FBI data for the homicides committed via non-firearm sources to get an idea of how it compares to the death toll of key firearms like rifles and shotguns:
Knives and cutting tools accounted for 1,825 deaths in 2009, 1,477 more than rifles
Clubs, hammers, and other blunt objects totaled 611 in 2009, 263 more than rifles
Hands, fists, and feet killed 801 in 2009, 453 more than rifles
At this point one must ask why banning clubs, hammers, and knives is any different than gun control. Beyond that, it would actually be statistically more reasonable when considering the death toll. Even hands and feet would be considered lethal weapons that would require regulation when examining the 801 death count each year. Instead of enacting extreme legislation to regulate these items, however, we generally discount them as irregular incidents that are more to be blamed on the wielder rather than the item itself.
A hammer is usually seen as a tool used in construction, home improvement, or other constructive tasks. A knife is seen mainly as a kitchen instrument. A gun, on the other hand, is oftentimes portrayed as a weapon of non-defense murder as a opposed to a weapon used in the defense of self, family, and innocents. Notice that both purposes are utilized with all of these ‘tools’, it is simply in the perception of what they are that changes. The perception that is created through hysterical mainstream media reports that highlight isolated cases of mass shootings and other events.
Many such shootings are also occurring in ‘gun-free’ areas or strict gun control regions, where access to a gun is supposed to be extremely challenging or impossible. Nevertheless, law abiding citizens are the ones affected while unscrupulous shooters and criminals can access illegal guns with ease.
The Reality Behind ‘Gun Free Zones’ and Gun Bans
Yet another example of rhetoric verses reality, gun free zones and city-wide gun bans actually do not deflate violent crime as you will see below. Notice that below we are examining the statistics, not the emotional ties or opinions relating to gun control. The media uses shooting sprees to prop up the concept that gun bans and gun free zones will somehow stop a deranged killer who has zero regard for the law, when in reality we know this is not a real solution.
Painted signs reading ‘gun free zone’ and gun control legislation that really only affects law-abiding citizens does not prevent mass shootings, as we have seen evidenced by more than one shooting incident. Both the Aurora shooting at the Colorado movie theater dubbed the ‘Batman shooting’ and the most recent Sandy Hook incident in Connecticut both occurred in areas with heavy gun regulation. Amazingly, the Batman shooter actually traveled to the one movie theater in the area that actually did not permit lawful citizens to carry a concealed weapon. According to Dr. John R. Lott in an interview with Newsmax,
”…the one he picked was the only one of those movie theaters that banned people taking permit-concealed handguns into that theater.”
In both of these incidents law-abiding citizens were not properly armed to protect themselves against a criminal with a gun, and law enforcement (which actually is being shorted on ammunition and weapons themselves due to heavy demand among looming gun bans) can only respond so quickly.
Perhaps one of the most saddening examples of a gun free zone turned bloody, however, is the Fort Hood massacre. Covered extensively years ago, Islamic extremist Major Nidal Malik Hasan murdered 12 United States soldiers, 1 Army civilian employee, and wounded around 30-38 others in a ‘gun free zone’. This was, of course, inside a United States military base — where guns are not allowed to be carried by soldiers. These soldiers, who could at any instant be shipped off to another nation to wage war against other troops with automatic weapons, tanks, and aircraft, were gunned down by a single lunatic amid a failed unarmed defense.
More soldiers would have died if it were not for an armed security guard.
But what about the overall national implications of gun free zones and heavily regulated areas? Also what about the international implications, as some countries have installed large scale gun bans that are similar to many US cities on a grand scale. Well, first it’s important for us to establish the general trend of US crime to begin with. This includes the overall number of violent crime offenses that we can observe using violent crime data supplied by the FBI statistics available on the FBI website.
Let us take a look at the graph below which shows the general trend of overall violent crime offense figures from 2007 to 2011 (the years in which such stats are available):
What these stats tell us is that violent crime has been in rapid decline over the past several years by a considerable amount. In other words, despite much of a fuss being made over the apparent necessity to ban guns due to violent crime, the statistics show that it has actually been on the massive decline.
Now in order to compare this to the resulting crime stats that follow the implementation of gun control laws, we need to examine a chart that demonstrates this relationship. For this, we turn to the Department of Justice (Justice.gov), which offers a graph containing figures that help us to understand the link between gun ownership and crime stat fluctuations. As you can see from the chart below, the increased amount of gun ownership throughout the years (which has been quite dramatic) ia known to lead to a sharp decline in violent crime (as can be seen between 1995 and 2003):
The DOJ chart, as you can see for yourself, spans 40 years and shows that violent crime has plummeted as the number of guns in the United States per 1,000 citizens has gone up exponentially. It would seem quite the opposite would be true if guns were truly dangerous in the hands of law-abiding citizens.
We can even narrow down this area further by examining areas in which gun bans have gone into effect and taking a look at the results. We have established that firearm homicides are much lower than many think, that more guns actually statistically suggests less crime, and now it is time to figure out where the concentration of many gun murders are and why. This is how we take a real approach to the issue and determining a solution.
Chicago is a perfect example of a city that has enacted a ban on all handguns with the minor exception of those who had previous gun registrations before that time. Going into law in 1982, we can see how Chicago’s murder rate spun out of control following the extreme regulations, while the rest of the United States (as we documented in the previous graph) saw a decline in murder rates as guns surged:
Following the handgun ban in Chicago, crime increased by 40%. This trend continued for decades, with police revealing that 96% of firearm murders in Chicago were actually committed by handguns. Handguns, of course, had been banned for decades. As it turns out, criminals were getting a hold of firearms with intent to commit crime while normal citizens were not able to carry a firearm to defend themselves. The criminal, in this scenario, has a distinct advantage as they know that their law-abiding targets cannot carry a weapon in self defense.
Below you can also see very similar statistics in Washington, D.C. following an extreme gun ban and a severe change following the 2008 ruling that the control measures were not Constitutional. During the ban, the murder rate in D.C. was 73% higher than it was at the outset of the law. Notice the comparison to overall United States statistics:
We also find that the allowance of legal citizens to carry concealed more freely reduces crime and coincides with the nationwide trends. In Texas we see a statistical change with the enactment of the right-to-carry law, which allows individuals who are 21 years of age (18 for active duty military), have a clean mental health record, and have completed the required training courses, to carry concealed. Since the beginning of this law, which is clearly marked on the graph below, crime fell 30% in Texas and the United States murder rate averaged 28% lower overall:
Another example of this can be found when looking in-depth at Britain’s crime stats. It’s important that we look into the violent crime rates with the understanding that it is nearly impossible for a legal citizen in Britain to obtain a gun. When comparing the violent crime rates in the United Kingdom, we find that it’s not only higher per capita than the United States (which again has declined amid growing gun numbers), but it in fact is actually the highest when it comes to first world wealthy nations — outside of Australia, where similar legislation was passed.
The famous Dunblane school massacre that triggered sweeping confiscation can also be factored into these statistics. Following the shooting at the school, not much unlike Sandy Hook, law-abiding citizens turned in their guns. The result, of course, was that crime virtually doubled throughout the following decade. Wall Street Journal even reported:
“Strict gun laws in Great Britain and Australia haven’t made their people noticeably safer, nor have they prevented massacres.”
Once again here we also see that since non-criminal citizens cannot carry a weapon to defend themselves, criminals are aware that they are defenseless. As a result, we see a startling number of knife deaths that have bumped the risk of stabbing up to being twice as likely in the UK verses the US.
The pattern we see here is that gun confiscations, city-wide gun bans, and ‘gun-free’ zones are actually magnets for violent crime — the very opposite of what many individuals are saying right now in the media. We’ve examined the statistics and the research, however, and the answer is quite clear.
But I will take it a step further. We know that cities with gun bans ultimately find an increase in crime and are to blame for a lot of the death figures, but let’s also take a look at the self defense numbers that surround firearms. After all, it’s important to know how many of the homicide numbers are as a result of self defense, which is a perfectly legal and moral action.
Firearms and Self Defense
When citizens are armed with firearms and criminals are aware of this fact, we see some amazing things happen with the statistics. First, let’s see how prevalent self defense using firearms is within the United States. To do this, we can cite a number of sources ranging from the United States Department of Defense to the Journal of Quantitative Criminology.
Taking a look back to a 1993 survey establishes a basic foundation to build upon. This was a survey involving 4,977 different households and gives us a general understanding of how frequently firearms are used in a defense situation severe enough to which individuals stated that if they had not used the firearm, they reported that they or someone else in the home would have certainly be killed. So in other words, the firearm saved the lives of one or more individuals from a hostile criminal. This excluded military, police, and security guards.
Applying the results of the 1993 survey to the United States population, we find that around 162,000 people are saved per year using a firearm. To put that into perspective, that’s 152,854 more people saved per year than killed — and that’s not discriminating against the 9,146 death toll that includes many self defense cases and so on.
But what about a potentially life threatening scenario diffused by a firearm? Based on a study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, United States citizens defend against these situations an astounding 989,883 times per year. As these situations are diffused before they become lethal, there’s no telling how many would have resulted in homicides on behalf of the criminal. Even if it were a fraction, it would still be hundreds of thousands more lives saved than lost each year.
But there’s more, so let’s break it down:
Criminals with ill intent and potential homicidal incentives are fended off by firearms around 498,000 times per year.
A major survey of felons imprisoned across the United States found that 34% of the inmates had been scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim at least once. An even greater 40% actually did not commit a crime due to the fear that the victim was carrying a gun, thus showing how an armed public actually stops crime.
The United States Centers for Disease Control has found that firearms prevent home break-ins over 490,000 times per year.
Hundreds of thousands of serious crimes are prevented each year through the use and possession of a firearm, far more than they create in yearly homicides — many of which are in defense or centered in ‘gun-free’ zones through illegal use.
It is for this reason that throughout history those who wish to do harm have feared guns and the ability of firearms to prevent crime, excess power, and even takeover. The reality is that a well-armed populace of law-abiding citizens has a very great defense against criminals, gangs, and those who wish to do harm to the citizen base. An unarmed public, on the other hand, can do virtually nothing to defend themselves.
Overall Effectiveness
The major push within the media to unleash extreme gun control legislation across the nation needs to be met with evidence from all sides of the spectrum. A large amount of information examined within this brief history of gun control statistics will be new to more than 90 percent of readers, which is concerning when considering the importance of sharing both sides of the argument in order for citizens to make their own informed opinions.
Ultimately, it comes down to securing the rights provided by the Second Amendment of the Constitution which allow for an armed populace in order for protection against all who wish to do harm. Currently, this right is being challenged on a daily basis through using emotional directive and opinion. We must focus the debate on not only data and reality, but also the fact that the Constitution is not to be altered and remains the law of the land.
You can view an infographic (information meets graphic) image I created which breaks down many of these facts to be shared below:
Click on chart for larger image...
Read more: http://www.storyleak.com/a-brief-and-bloody-history-of-gun-control/#ixzz2S03rtXQz
by Anthony Gucciardi
You or someone you know may see guns as deadly killing machines that are simply to blame for a large volume of homicides across the nation, but a brief look at the history of gun control actually offers a new perspective into the application of guns on an entirely new level. While normalcy bias (a thinking pattern that causes an individual to underestimate the potential of any event or situation due to currently enjoying a normal and cushy lifestyle) can oftentimes lead individuals away from the reality of history, countless citizens around the world have been highlighting the repetitive history that follows gun control.
In this breakdown, we will be examining a lot of numbers and extracting them to get some real answers. Then, we’ll see the source of these numbers and whether or not gun control regulations are reducing or increasing overall crime rates in heavily controlled areas.
The first thing to touch upon, and perhaps most relevant to our modern society, is how deadly firearms really are. First of all, let us examine the factors that are responsible for deaths within the United States. This will put death counts into perspective and allow us to go deeper into the firearm-related deaths themselves later. Examining data from the CDC for the leading causes of death and including death statistics from the FBI regarding homicides, we find the following numbers:
Leading US Killers
Annual deaths from heart disease based on CDC data: 597,689
Cancer deaths from CDC data: 574,743
Chronic lower respiratory diseases (CDC): 138,080
Stroke deaths (CDC): 129,476
Deaths from accidents, unintentional injuries (CDC): 120,859
Alzheimer’s disease deaths per year (CDC): 83,494
Diabetes (CDC): 69,071
Influenza deaths each year (CDC): 50,097
Suicide deaths (CDC): 38,364
Overall weapons deaths (2009 FBI): 13,636
Overall firearm deaths (2009 FBI): 9,146
So there we have the overall death data that comes compiled from the CDC website mixed with the FBI website table that goes as far as 2009. As you can see, the overall firearm deaths are 9,000 per year. If you’ve been following some of the mainstream media rhetoric surrounding guns, you might have thought the number would be at least over 100,000 — perhaps even higher than diabetes or suicide. The reality is that it is quite low overall, despite what you may have been told. But it’s still 9,146, so let’s now break down this figure to get the specific factors.
Of the 9,146 firearm deaths:
6,452 were from hanguns
348 from rifles
418 from shotguns
94 from other guns
1,834 from unknown guns
This is where the numbers cut through even more false information sent forth by the mainstream media. Rifles have been demonized as powerful tools of homicide that are to blame for a large number of yearly deaths, but as it turns out only 348 per year are actually killed using rifles. Now of that number we must ask “how many are using legal weapons and non-gang related?” And furthermore, how many of these murders occur in ‘gun free’ cities? We’ll get to what we know on that shortly.
First, I want to utilize some further statistics from the overall weapons deaths provided by the FBI for 2009. The number, which totals 13,636, also breaks down into several components that will likely be highly shocking when compared to the broken down gun data. Especially when considering that the apparent ‘epidemic’ levels of rifle deaths actually don’t even compare to stabbings, blunt objects like hammers, or even bare hands and feet.
Knives, Hammers, Hands Kill More than Rifles & Shotguns
These FBI statistics really deflate the argument that rifles are ultimate killing machines when you look at how human hands are actually much more dangerous in terms of the sheer numbers. In fact, the digits really deflate the entire movement to ban rifles by realizing that by the same logic bats, hammers, knives, and even hands should therefore be heavily regulated. Going by the numbers alone, all hands should be considered lethal weapons. Of course we know that all hands are not used to kill innocents, just as all guns are not used to kill innocents.
Let’s take a look at the FBI data for the homicides committed via non-firearm sources to get an idea of how it compares to the death toll of key firearms like rifles and shotguns:
Knives and cutting tools accounted for 1,825 deaths in 2009, 1,477 more than rifles
Clubs, hammers, and other blunt objects totaled 611 in 2009, 263 more than rifles
Hands, fists, and feet killed 801 in 2009, 453 more than rifles
At this point one must ask why banning clubs, hammers, and knives is any different than gun control. Beyond that, it would actually be statistically more reasonable when considering the death toll. Even hands and feet would be considered lethal weapons that would require regulation when examining the 801 death count each year. Instead of enacting extreme legislation to regulate these items, however, we generally discount them as irregular incidents that are more to be blamed on the wielder rather than the item itself.
A hammer is usually seen as a tool used in construction, home improvement, or other constructive tasks. A knife is seen mainly as a kitchen instrument. A gun, on the other hand, is oftentimes portrayed as a weapon of non-defense murder as a opposed to a weapon used in the defense of self, family, and innocents. Notice that both purposes are utilized with all of these ‘tools’, it is simply in the perception of what they are that changes. The perception that is created through hysterical mainstream media reports that highlight isolated cases of mass shootings and other events.
Many such shootings are also occurring in ‘gun-free’ areas or strict gun control regions, where access to a gun is supposed to be extremely challenging or impossible. Nevertheless, law abiding citizens are the ones affected while unscrupulous shooters and criminals can access illegal guns with ease.
The Reality Behind ‘Gun Free Zones’ and Gun Bans
Yet another example of rhetoric verses reality, gun free zones and city-wide gun bans actually do not deflate violent crime as you will see below. Notice that below we are examining the statistics, not the emotional ties or opinions relating to gun control. The media uses shooting sprees to prop up the concept that gun bans and gun free zones will somehow stop a deranged killer who has zero regard for the law, when in reality we know this is not a real solution.
Painted signs reading ‘gun free zone’ and gun control legislation that really only affects law-abiding citizens does not prevent mass shootings, as we have seen evidenced by more than one shooting incident. Both the Aurora shooting at the Colorado movie theater dubbed the ‘Batman shooting’ and the most recent Sandy Hook incident in Connecticut both occurred in areas with heavy gun regulation. Amazingly, the Batman shooter actually traveled to the one movie theater in the area that actually did not permit lawful citizens to carry a concealed weapon. According to Dr. John R. Lott in an interview with Newsmax,
”…the one he picked was the only one of those movie theaters that banned people taking permit-concealed handguns into that theater.”
In both of these incidents law-abiding citizens were not properly armed to protect themselves against a criminal with a gun, and law enforcement (which actually is being shorted on ammunition and weapons themselves due to heavy demand among looming gun bans) can only respond so quickly.
Perhaps one of the most saddening examples of a gun free zone turned bloody, however, is the Fort Hood massacre. Covered extensively years ago, Islamic extremist Major Nidal Malik Hasan murdered 12 United States soldiers, 1 Army civilian employee, and wounded around 30-38 others in a ‘gun free zone’. This was, of course, inside a United States military base — where guns are not allowed to be carried by soldiers. These soldiers, who could at any instant be shipped off to another nation to wage war against other troops with automatic weapons, tanks, and aircraft, were gunned down by a single lunatic amid a failed unarmed defense.
More soldiers would have died if it were not for an armed security guard.
But what about the overall national implications of gun free zones and heavily regulated areas? Also what about the international implications, as some countries have installed large scale gun bans that are similar to many US cities on a grand scale. Well, first it’s important for us to establish the general trend of US crime to begin with. This includes the overall number of violent crime offenses that we can observe using violent crime data supplied by the FBI statistics available on the FBI website.
Let us take a look at the graph below which shows the general trend of overall violent crime offense figures from 2007 to 2011 (the years in which such stats are available):
What these stats tell us is that violent crime has been in rapid decline over the past several years by a considerable amount. In other words, despite much of a fuss being made over the apparent necessity to ban guns due to violent crime, the statistics show that it has actually been on the massive decline.
Now in order to compare this to the resulting crime stats that follow the implementation of gun control laws, we need to examine a chart that demonstrates this relationship. For this, we turn to the Department of Justice (Justice.gov), which offers a graph containing figures that help us to understand the link between gun ownership and crime stat fluctuations. As you can see from the chart below, the increased amount of gun ownership throughout the years (which has been quite dramatic) ia known to lead to a sharp decline in violent crime (as can be seen between 1995 and 2003):
The DOJ chart, as you can see for yourself, spans 40 years and shows that violent crime has plummeted as the number of guns in the United States per 1,000 citizens has gone up exponentially. It would seem quite the opposite would be true if guns were truly dangerous in the hands of law-abiding citizens.
We can even narrow down this area further by examining areas in which gun bans have gone into effect and taking a look at the results. We have established that firearm homicides are much lower than many think, that more guns actually statistically suggests less crime, and now it is time to figure out where the concentration of many gun murders are and why. This is how we take a real approach to the issue and determining a solution.
Chicago is a perfect example of a city that has enacted a ban on all handguns with the minor exception of those who had previous gun registrations before that time. Going into law in 1982, we can see how Chicago’s murder rate spun out of control following the extreme regulations, while the rest of the United States (as we documented in the previous graph) saw a decline in murder rates as guns surged:
Following the handgun ban in Chicago, crime increased by 40%. This trend continued for decades, with police revealing that 96% of firearm murders in Chicago were actually committed by handguns. Handguns, of course, had been banned for decades. As it turns out, criminals were getting a hold of firearms with intent to commit crime while normal citizens were not able to carry a firearm to defend themselves. The criminal, in this scenario, has a distinct advantage as they know that their law-abiding targets cannot carry a weapon in self defense.
Below you can also see very similar statistics in Washington, D.C. following an extreme gun ban and a severe change following the 2008 ruling that the control measures were not Constitutional. During the ban, the murder rate in D.C. was 73% higher than it was at the outset of the law. Notice the comparison to overall United States statistics:
We also find that the allowance of legal citizens to carry concealed more freely reduces crime and coincides with the nationwide trends. In Texas we see a statistical change with the enactment of the right-to-carry law, which allows individuals who are 21 years of age (18 for active duty military), have a clean mental health record, and have completed the required training courses, to carry concealed. Since the beginning of this law, which is clearly marked on the graph below, crime fell 30% in Texas and the United States murder rate averaged 28% lower overall:
Another example of this can be found when looking in-depth at Britain’s crime stats. It’s important that we look into the violent crime rates with the understanding that it is nearly impossible for a legal citizen in Britain to obtain a gun. When comparing the violent crime rates in the United Kingdom, we find that it’s not only higher per capita than the United States (which again has declined amid growing gun numbers), but it in fact is actually the highest when it comes to first world wealthy nations — outside of Australia, where similar legislation was passed.
The famous Dunblane school massacre that triggered sweeping confiscation can also be factored into these statistics. Following the shooting at the school, not much unlike Sandy Hook, law-abiding citizens turned in their guns. The result, of course, was that crime virtually doubled throughout the following decade. Wall Street Journal even reported:
“Strict gun laws in Great Britain and Australia haven’t made their people noticeably safer, nor have they prevented massacres.”
Once again here we also see that since non-criminal citizens cannot carry a weapon to defend themselves, criminals are aware that they are defenseless. As a result, we see a startling number of knife deaths that have bumped the risk of stabbing up to being twice as likely in the UK verses the US.
The pattern we see here is that gun confiscations, city-wide gun bans, and ‘gun-free’ zones are actually magnets for violent crime — the very opposite of what many individuals are saying right now in the media. We’ve examined the statistics and the research, however, and the answer is quite clear.
But I will take it a step further. We know that cities with gun bans ultimately find an increase in crime and are to blame for a lot of the death figures, but let’s also take a look at the self defense numbers that surround firearms. After all, it’s important to know how many of the homicide numbers are as a result of self defense, which is a perfectly legal and moral action.
Firearms and Self Defense
When citizens are armed with firearms and criminals are aware of this fact, we see some amazing things happen with the statistics. First, let’s see how prevalent self defense using firearms is within the United States. To do this, we can cite a number of sources ranging from the United States Department of Defense to the Journal of Quantitative Criminology.
Taking a look back to a 1993 survey establishes a basic foundation to build upon. This was a survey involving 4,977 different households and gives us a general understanding of how frequently firearms are used in a defense situation severe enough to which individuals stated that if they had not used the firearm, they reported that they or someone else in the home would have certainly be killed. So in other words, the firearm saved the lives of one or more individuals from a hostile criminal. This excluded military, police, and security guards.
Applying the results of the 1993 survey to the United States population, we find that around 162,000 people are saved per year using a firearm. To put that into perspective, that’s 152,854 more people saved per year than killed — and that’s not discriminating against the 9,146 death toll that includes many self defense cases and so on.
But what about a potentially life threatening scenario diffused by a firearm? Based on a study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, United States citizens defend against these situations an astounding 989,883 times per year. As these situations are diffused before they become lethal, there’s no telling how many would have resulted in homicides on behalf of the criminal. Even if it were a fraction, it would still be hundreds of thousands more lives saved than lost each year.
But there’s more, so let’s break it down:
Criminals with ill intent and potential homicidal incentives are fended off by firearms around 498,000 times per year.
A major survey of felons imprisoned across the United States found that 34% of the inmates had been scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim at least once. An even greater 40% actually did not commit a crime due to the fear that the victim was carrying a gun, thus showing how an armed public actually stops crime.
The United States Centers for Disease Control has found that firearms prevent home break-ins over 490,000 times per year.
Hundreds of thousands of serious crimes are prevented each year through the use and possession of a firearm, far more than they create in yearly homicides — many of which are in defense or centered in ‘gun-free’ zones through illegal use.
It is for this reason that throughout history those who wish to do harm have feared guns and the ability of firearms to prevent crime, excess power, and even takeover. The reality is that a well-armed populace of law-abiding citizens has a very great defense against criminals, gangs, and those who wish to do harm to the citizen base. An unarmed public, on the other hand, can do virtually nothing to defend themselves.
Overall Effectiveness
The major push within the media to unleash extreme gun control legislation across the nation needs to be met with evidence from all sides of the spectrum. A large amount of information examined within this brief history of gun control statistics will be new to more than 90 percent of readers, which is concerning when considering the importance of sharing both sides of the argument in order for citizens to make their own informed opinions.
Ultimately, it comes down to securing the rights provided by the Second Amendment of the Constitution which allow for an armed populace in order for protection against all who wish to do harm. Currently, this right is being challenged on a daily basis through using emotional directive and opinion. We must focus the debate on not only data and reality, but also the fact that the Constitution is not to be altered and remains the law of the land.
You can view an infographic (information meets graphic) image I created which breaks down many of these facts to be shared below:
Click on chart for larger image...
Read more: http://www.storyleak.com/a-brief-and-bloody-history-of-gun-control/#ixzz2S03rtXQz
USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!
Boston Lockdown … and Calls for More Police-state Measures
Written by William F. Jasper
“Forced lockdown of a city. Militarized police riding tanks in the streets. Door-to-door armed searches without warrant. Families thrown out of their homes at gunpoint to be searched without probable cause. Businesses forced to close. Transport shut down. These were not the scenes from a military coup in a far off banana republic, but rather the scenes just over a week ago in Boston as the United States got a taste of martial law,” wrote Ron Paul, the former congressman from Texas and presidential candidate, in an April 29 column for LewRockwell.com.
“The ostensible reason for the military-style takeover of parts of Boston was that the accused perpetrator of a horrific crime was on the loose. The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city. This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself,” Paul said.
Ron Paul points out that “the suspect was not discovered by the paramilitary troops terrorizing the public. He was discovered by a private citizen, who then placed a call to the police. And he was identified not by government surveillance cameras, but by private citizens who willingly shared their photographs with the police.”
Others, however, see the Boston bombing as an excuse to ratchet up the police-state measures: fewer restrictions on domestic intelligence, more warrantless searches, more surveillance cameras, etc. Richard Falkenrath, Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), in an April 25 interview with Jonathan Masters on the CFR website, claimed the failure of the FBI to apprehend the Tsaraev brothers, the alleged perpetrators, before the attack, is evidence of “system” failure.
“The problem is inherent in our system of government, which does not have a domestic intelligence service,” said Falkenrath, adding that “so long as you want to have a system in which the activities of your domestic law enforcement agencies are tightly circumscribed by law and jurisprudence, you will have these sorts of mistakes and tensions.” He sees the so-called Patriot Act of 2001 as a good start, but would like to further “liberalize” our laws to allow more invasive monitoring of all citizens. He is also a big advocate of vastly expanding the deployment of surveillance cameras.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (CFR), meanwhile, said the country’s interpretation of the Constitution will “have to change” to allow for greater security to stave off future attacks.
Link:
http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/15261-boston-lockdown-and-calls-for-more-police-state-measures
Written by William F. Jasper
“Forced lockdown of a city. Militarized police riding tanks in the streets. Door-to-door armed searches without warrant. Families thrown out of their homes at gunpoint to be searched without probable cause. Businesses forced to close. Transport shut down. These were not the scenes from a military coup in a far off banana republic, but rather the scenes just over a week ago in Boston as the United States got a taste of martial law,” wrote Ron Paul, the former congressman from Texas and presidential candidate, in an April 29 column for LewRockwell.com.
“The ostensible reason for the military-style takeover of parts of Boston was that the accused perpetrator of a horrific crime was on the loose. The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city. This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself,” Paul said.
Ron Paul points out that “the suspect was not discovered by the paramilitary troops terrorizing the public. He was discovered by a private citizen, who then placed a call to the police. And he was identified not by government surveillance cameras, but by private citizens who willingly shared their photographs with the police.”
Others, however, see the Boston bombing as an excuse to ratchet up the police-state measures: fewer restrictions on domestic intelligence, more warrantless searches, more surveillance cameras, etc. Richard Falkenrath, Senior Fellow for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), in an April 25 interview with Jonathan Masters on the CFR website, claimed the failure of the FBI to apprehend the Tsaraev brothers, the alleged perpetrators, before the attack, is evidence of “system” failure.
“The problem is inherent in our system of government, which does not have a domestic intelligence service,” said Falkenrath, adding that “so long as you want to have a system in which the activities of your domestic law enforcement agencies are tightly circumscribed by law and jurisprudence, you will have these sorts of mistakes and tensions.” He sees the so-called Patriot Act of 2001 as a good start, but would like to further “liberalize” our laws to allow more invasive monitoring of all citizens. He is also a big advocate of vastly expanding the deployment of surveillance cameras.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (CFR), meanwhile, said the country’s interpretation of the Constitution will “have to change” to allow for greater security to stave off future attacks.
Link:
http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/15261-boston-lockdown-and-calls-for-more-police-state-measures
OOPS!!! It is getting colder because it is getting warmer...
Weather Blog: Get Ready For More Snow
DENVER (CBS4) - Many parks were filled with people reveling in the warm weather yesterday afternoon. I saw many happy people playing kickball and tons of dogs out and about. We’ll be back inside (for those who want to stay warm) again tomorrow as another round of wintery weather rolls in.
Highs today are cooler than yesterday, with highs in the upper 50s and low 60s. The first surge of cold air moved in this morning, and the second will arrive later this afternoon. The second one will pack the biggest temperature punch by knocking us down to the 30s tomorrow.
The chance for rain and even possible thunderstorms arrives this afternoon for the Front Range. We’ll see that change to snow most likely after midnight for the Front Range. A big factor that will play a large roll in this system is when that changeover will take place. If it happens early, we could see more snow accumulate. If it’s late to start, then we’ll see more slush and less accumulation.
Denver has the potential for 3 to 5 inches of snow by the time this all wraps up. You won’t see a lot of accumulation on the roads, it will mostly happen on raised and grassy areas.
Some mountain areas could see 8 to 16 inches of snow, while the foothills are looking at 6 to 10 inches. Winter Storm Warnings and Watches are in place for the mountains and foothills for this storm...
Link:
http://denver.cbslocal.com/guide/colorado-denver-weather-forecast-rain-snow-storm/
DENVER (CBS4) - Many parks were filled with people reveling in the warm weather yesterday afternoon. I saw many happy people playing kickball and tons of dogs out and about. We’ll be back inside (for those who want to stay warm) again tomorrow as another round of wintery weather rolls in.
Highs today are cooler than yesterday, with highs in the upper 50s and low 60s. The first surge of cold air moved in this morning, and the second will arrive later this afternoon. The second one will pack the biggest temperature punch by knocking us down to the 30s tomorrow.
The chance for rain and even possible thunderstorms arrives this afternoon for the Front Range. We’ll see that change to snow most likely after midnight for the Front Range. A big factor that will play a large roll in this system is when that changeover will take place. If it happens early, we could see more snow accumulate. If it’s late to start, then we’ll see more slush and less accumulation.
Denver has the potential for 3 to 5 inches of snow by the time this all wraps up. You won’t see a lot of accumulation on the roads, it will mostly happen on raised and grassy areas.
Some mountain areas could see 8 to 16 inches of snow, while the foothills are looking at 6 to 10 inches. Winter Storm Warnings and Watches are in place for the mountains and foothills for this storm...
Link:
http://denver.cbslocal.com/guide/colorado-denver-weather-forecast-rain-snow-storm/
More questions about Boston bomber shootout...
Boston Bombers During Shootout: “We Didn’t Do it!”
Audio feeds suspicions brothers may have been set up
Paul Joseph Watson
Video footage from the scene of the shootout with the alleged Boston bombers appears to contain audio of the suspects screaming out, “We didn’t do it!” as police fire on the two brothers.
Although by no means clear, the words below appear to be shouted by the suspects as they come under police gunfire.
- 24 seconds: “chill out”
- 26 seconds: “chill out”, “chill out”
- 31 seconds: “chill out”
- 37 seconds: “we didnt do it”
- 41 seconds: “we didnt do it”
- 45 seconds: “we didnt do it”
- 1 minute 9 seconds: “hey officer”
Despite being described as a “shootout,” the audio suggests that shots are only being fired in one direction by police and that the brothers are not returning fire at this point in the exchange.
The tape offers little proof as to the Tasrnaev brother’s guilt, but it follows a number of other intriguing caveats which some have offered as evidence that the suspects were framed and had no actual involvement in the bombings.
- A Facebook post attributed to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev although not authenticated reads, “This will be the last message before the police get me. I never done it. They set me up. Father please forgive me. I am sorry it has come to this.”
- The suspects’ mother Zubeidat Tsarnaeva continues to insist that her sons are innocent, telling the Associated Press, “It’s all lies and hypocrisy.”
- Tsarnaeva also claims that the FBI “were controlling his every step,” referring to Tamerlan Tasrnaev, and that both the FBI and the CIA were following the brothers since 2011.
- The aunt of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, claims that the footage which emerged of police arresting a naked uninjured man was her nephew, contradicting the official narrative that Tsarnaev was critically injured in a shootout and suggesting he may have been killed while in custody.
- Eyewitnesses to the shootout contradict claims by authorities that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ran over his own brother in a car, stating instead that he was run over by police.
- Despite numerous images of other suspects with large black backpacks at the scene of the bombings, the FBI insisted that these photos not be deemed credible and that the Tasrnaev brothers were the only possible culprits.
Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/boston-bombers-during-shootout-we-didnt-do-it.html
Audio feeds suspicions brothers may have been set up
Paul Joseph Watson
Video footage from the scene of the shootout with the alleged Boston bombers appears to contain audio of the suspects screaming out, “We didn’t do it!” as police fire on the two brothers.
Although by no means clear, the words below appear to be shouted by the suspects as they come under police gunfire.
- 24 seconds: “chill out”
- 26 seconds: “chill out”, “chill out”
- 31 seconds: “chill out”
- 37 seconds: “we didnt do it”
- 41 seconds: “we didnt do it”
- 45 seconds: “we didnt do it”
- 1 minute 9 seconds: “hey officer”
Despite being described as a “shootout,” the audio suggests that shots are only being fired in one direction by police and that the brothers are not returning fire at this point in the exchange.
The tape offers little proof as to the Tasrnaev brother’s guilt, but it follows a number of other intriguing caveats which some have offered as evidence that the suspects were framed and had no actual involvement in the bombings.
- A Facebook post attributed to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev although not authenticated reads, “This will be the last message before the police get me. I never done it. They set me up. Father please forgive me. I am sorry it has come to this.”
- The suspects’ mother Zubeidat Tsarnaeva continues to insist that her sons are innocent, telling the Associated Press, “It’s all lies and hypocrisy.”
- Tsarnaeva also claims that the FBI “were controlling his every step,” referring to Tamerlan Tasrnaev, and that both the FBI and the CIA were following the brothers since 2011.
- The aunt of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, claims that the footage which emerged of police arresting a naked uninjured man was her nephew, contradicting the official narrative that Tsarnaev was critically injured in a shootout and suggesting he may have been killed while in custody.
- Eyewitnesses to the shootout contradict claims by authorities that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ran over his own brother in a car, stating instead that he was run over by police.
- Despite numerous images of other suspects with large black backpacks at the scene of the bombings, the FBI insisted that these photos not be deemed credible and that the Tasrnaev brothers were the only possible culprits.
Link:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/boston-bombers-during-shootout-we-didnt-do-it.html
Costs of healthcare reform...
How Healthcare Reform Increases Expenses for Doctor
Published by Michael Galvis
While healthcare reform aims to lower expenses for patients and increase accessibility to medical care, doctors are taking the brunt end of the deal. Doctors are expected to tackle more paperwork, a surge of new patients, and lower compensation. Three out of four doctors in an Athenahealth and Semo survey say they are nervous about the future of medicine.
Yet, not all fields of medicine are nearly as impacted as family doctors. Many are turning to aesthetic training, like Botox courses, to supplement income due to lower taxation on some medical devices. Others are turning to similar nonsurgical cosmetic procedures. This infographic outlines the impact healthcare reform is having on doctors and how some are combatting the changes.
Link:
http://www.1800politics.com/how-health-care-reform-increase-expenses-for-doctor/
Click on chart for larger image:
Published by Michael Galvis
While healthcare reform aims to lower expenses for patients and increase accessibility to medical care, doctors are taking the brunt end of the deal. Doctors are expected to tackle more paperwork, a surge of new patients, and lower compensation. Three out of four doctors in an Athenahealth and Semo survey say they are nervous about the future of medicine.
Yet, not all fields of medicine are nearly as impacted as family doctors. Many are turning to aesthetic training, like Botox courses, to supplement income due to lower taxation on some medical devices. Others are turning to similar nonsurgical cosmetic procedures. This infographic outlines the impact healthcare reform is having on doctors and how some are combatting the changes.
Link:
http://www.1800politics.com/how-health-care-reform-increase-expenses-for-doctor/
Click on chart for larger image:
OOPS!!! It is getting colder because it is getting warmer...
Snow on the Coquihalla, hail in Kelowna
Budget lies...
Obama's new budget a complete lie: Massive spending increases, virtually no cuts
by: J. D. Heyes
Most Americans know that politicians use a lot of fiction when it comes to things like budget calculations. That is especially true in the nation's capital, where simply not increasing spending as much from one year to the next qualifies as a real budget cut.
So it is no surprise that President Obama, who is on pace to add more to the U.S. debt than all previous presidents combined [http://cnsnews.com], has proposed a budget for fiscal year 2013 that he says cuts spending in a major way, but really increases spending in a major way (as well as taxes).
In fact, according to an assessment of his budget by Investors Business Daily, it is far from the "balanced" approach to "revenue increases" and cuts, and is rather more like "a monument to fiscal irresponsibility."
Lies, damned lies and statistics
Here are some particulars:
-- Spending and deficits will actually rise over the next two years. The president's own budget numbers "show that he wants to hike spending over the next two years by $247 billion," says IBD, compared to the "baseline" budget which, even after all of the taxes he wants to raise, "would mean $157 billion in additional red ink."
As is customary for this president (and Congress in general) the tough spending cuts will come at some point in the future (if ever). Besides, most seasoned federal budget observers know that increasing spending now will only make it harder to truly cut later.
-- Budget claims far more spending cuts than it delivers. Much of the Obama echo chamber that passes for the mainstream media has reported far and wide that his budget would cut federal expenditures about $1.2 trillion over the next decade. "But Obama's own budget shows that he actually cuts spending a mere $186 billion," IBD says, noting that "the relevant tables can be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov on pages 187-190."
Obama exaggerates his reputed "savings" first by canceling the automatic sequester spending cuts he signed into law (before later blaming them on opposition Republicans), "then reclaiming them as new savings, and by adding in cuts in interest payments on the debt," IBD says. Cute trick.
-- To flatten out spending, the president focuses nearly exclusively on new taxes. Based on historical accounts, our founding fathers would have never put up with the level of taxation currently burdening Americans and American businesses (and that includes the "47 percent" who don't pay income taxes but do pay payroll, sales, usage and property taxes, to name a few). But Obama's budget would push them even further to rebel; his "budget shows his plan would increase revenues by $1.14 trillion over the next decade," says IBD. "That means his budget proposes $6 in new taxes for every $1 in spending cuts." Obama should be nicknamed "Robin Hood" because he loves stealing wealth from "the rich" then redistributing it to "the poor" (who, by the way, still live with incomes far above the world's truly poor.
-- The deficit gets a "haircut," but that's about it. Earlier in April, Obama said of his plan, "My budget will reduce our deficits by nearly another $2 trillion." In a word, BS. According to his plan, deficit reduction might - might - reach $1.4 trillion, but then the deficit starts rising again after 2018.
-- His love for the Nanny State shines through. Obama's budget also creates a new entitlement "without reliable means to pay for it," IBD says. "Obama claims he can finance a new $76 billion 'preschool for all' program by raising tobacco taxes again. But after an initial spike, tobacco tax revenues will start trending downward year after year as more people quit smoking, while the costs of this new program will keep climbing."
When Obama hiked tobacco taxes (which disproportionately affect the poor, who smoke more, as a percentage of the population, by the way) to pay for a Medicaid expansion, revenues fell some $2.2 billion short of what was expected.
-- No friend of the Middle Class. Obama talks a lot about wanting to "help the Middle Class," but this budget doesn't do that. In fact, it boosts taxes on the Middle Class yet again via a proposal to change the government's "consumer price index," or CPI, "in a way that will lower the official inflation rate," IBD says. "He's selling it as a way to cut Social Security annual 'cost of living' adjustments, which are based on the CPI."
But because this "chained CPI" would also apply to annual adjustments of the tax bracket, taxes will actually climb by about $124 billion - on top of new taxes already imposed, such as those associated with Obamacare and the expiration of the 2 percent payroll tax holiday.
Again, another accounting gimmick that harms, rather than helps, the bulk of the population.
In remarks after releasing his 65-day-overdue budget, Obama claimed, "The numbers work. There's not a lot of smoke and mirrors in here."
Fact is, his budget proves that Obama has a great career as a fiction writer, once he leaves the Oval Office.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/040129_Obama_budget_taxes_deficits.html#ixzz2RweCQFfZ
by: J. D. Heyes
Most Americans know that politicians use a lot of fiction when it comes to things like budget calculations. That is especially true in the nation's capital, where simply not increasing spending as much from one year to the next qualifies as a real budget cut.
So it is no surprise that President Obama, who is on pace to add more to the U.S. debt than all previous presidents combined [http://cnsnews.com], has proposed a budget for fiscal year 2013 that he says cuts spending in a major way, but really increases spending in a major way (as well as taxes).
In fact, according to an assessment of his budget by Investors Business Daily, it is far from the "balanced" approach to "revenue increases" and cuts, and is rather more like "a monument to fiscal irresponsibility."
Lies, damned lies and statistics
Here are some particulars:
-- Spending and deficits will actually rise over the next two years. The president's own budget numbers "show that he wants to hike spending over the next two years by $247 billion," says IBD, compared to the "baseline" budget which, even after all of the taxes he wants to raise, "would mean $157 billion in additional red ink."
As is customary for this president (and Congress in general) the tough spending cuts will come at some point in the future (if ever). Besides, most seasoned federal budget observers know that increasing spending now will only make it harder to truly cut later.
-- Budget claims far more spending cuts than it delivers. Much of the Obama echo chamber that passes for the mainstream media has reported far and wide that his budget would cut federal expenditures about $1.2 trillion over the next decade. "But Obama's own budget shows that he actually cuts spending a mere $186 billion," IBD says, noting that "the relevant tables can be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov on pages 187-190."
Obama exaggerates his reputed "savings" first by canceling the automatic sequester spending cuts he signed into law (before later blaming them on opposition Republicans), "then reclaiming them as new savings, and by adding in cuts in interest payments on the debt," IBD says. Cute trick.
-- To flatten out spending, the president focuses nearly exclusively on new taxes. Based on historical accounts, our founding fathers would have never put up with the level of taxation currently burdening Americans and American businesses (and that includes the "47 percent" who don't pay income taxes but do pay payroll, sales, usage and property taxes, to name a few). But Obama's budget would push them even further to rebel; his "budget shows his plan would increase revenues by $1.14 trillion over the next decade," says IBD. "That means his budget proposes $6 in new taxes for every $1 in spending cuts." Obama should be nicknamed "Robin Hood" because he loves stealing wealth from "the rich" then redistributing it to "the poor" (who, by the way, still live with incomes far above the world's truly poor.
-- The deficit gets a "haircut," but that's about it. Earlier in April, Obama said of his plan, "My budget will reduce our deficits by nearly another $2 trillion." In a word, BS. According to his plan, deficit reduction might - might - reach $1.4 trillion, but then the deficit starts rising again after 2018.
-- His love for the Nanny State shines through. Obama's budget also creates a new entitlement "without reliable means to pay for it," IBD says. "Obama claims he can finance a new $76 billion 'preschool for all' program by raising tobacco taxes again. But after an initial spike, tobacco tax revenues will start trending downward year after year as more people quit smoking, while the costs of this new program will keep climbing."
When Obama hiked tobacco taxes (which disproportionately affect the poor, who smoke more, as a percentage of the population, by the way) to pay for a Medicaid expansion, revenues fell some $2.2 billion short of what was expected.
-- No friend of the Middle Class. Obama talks a lot about wanting to "help the Middle Class," but this budget doesn't do that. In fact, it boosts taxes on the Middle Class yet again via a proposal to change the government's "consumer price index," or CPI, "in a way that will lower the official inflation rate," IBD says. "He's selling it as a way to cut Social Security annual 'cost of living' adjustments, which are based on the CPI."
But because this "chained CPI" would also apply to annual adjustments of the tax bracket, taxes will actually climb by about $124 billion - on top of new taxes already imposed, such as those associated with Obamacare and the expiration of the 2 percent payroll tax holiday.
Again, another accounting gimmick that harms, rather than helps, the bulk of the population.
In remarks after releasing his 65-day-overdue budget, Obama claimed, "The numbers work. There's not a lot of smoke and mirrors in here."
Fact is, his budget proves that Obama has a great career as a fiction writer, once he leaves the Oval Office.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/040129_Obama_budget_taxes_deficits.html#ixzz2RweCQFfZ
The evening news, are you a believer???
The worldwide Church of the Evening News
Jon Rappoport
The march of idiots is an interesting subject for investigation.
The collectivized mind is wired to other minds, and they exchange gibberish to feel whole.
People are addicted to crap. They like it.
That’s why they watch the news.
That’s why they believe the news.
It’s time for a worldwide Church of the News, with its own priests, its own symbols, and its own prophets. In other words, go to the extreme. Why fiddle around? Bring things out in the open.
Brian Williams would be a saint some day. The great ancestors, like Ed Murrow, Cronkite, and Chet Huntley would be celebrated figures in testaments.
Sunday services would feature many screens with simultaneous broadcasts. This would be the first Church that has such an extensive record of its own history. On television.
Think of it. Straight-out worship of the news.
“I had my conversion-experience one night while Diane Sawyer was in her cups, explaining the loss of life in a storm in Kansas. I suddenly realized I was receiving revelation…”
We already have the Church of Biological Mysticism, in which all human suffering is explained by the germ theoryor genes. So we need the Church of the News.
If there’s a 36-car pile-up outside Chicago, in the fog, hundreds of millions of people see pictures of it within minutes. It’s automatically a Church document. No need to explain it. Let the anchors who are on-air explain it. Then everyone can suck it in, in the same way.
CBS, NBC, and ABC are wings of the great cathedral. Their anchors are angels right here, right now.
The Church leadership will be composed of the Great Ones, the men who run the corporations that own the networks. The power behind the throne.
Heretics, of course, are necessary. They’re the “conspiracy theorists,” those evil and demented people who challenge official scenarios touted by the news.
The Church is a herald of the New World Order: Globalism. Establishing one body to rule the planet is its mission. Therefore, worshipers are dedicated as well. Eliminate nations. Erase borders. Allow mega-corporations to roam free and wild and buy up land, resources, and labor anywhere and everywhere.
Bring it all out into the open.
But whether it’s a new UN treaty, a car crash, a murder in a motel, a breakthrough in lip gloss, it’s news, so its sacred.
The Church has a basic flat-earth policy. Every substantial story is presented with drastically shortened perspective, eliminating, for example, the people who are running a specific op from behind the scenes. “Behind the scenes” is a phrase rarely mentioned by the Church.
If we throw in CNN, FOX, and MSNBC, the Church has 24/7 services. That’s quite a reach. Disparate loons like Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch are united in Church annals, as they should be. They’re both significant promulgators of the faith.
And who plays Satan? The Internet, of course. Tax it, control it, censor it, curse it. Cast it out.
Why let people merely bow and kneel down to the news in the privacy of their own minds? Build churches and monuments to externalize and celebrate the broadcasts that shape their reality. There’s no need to hide.
“This is what we know. This is what we see. This is all there is. The news.”
The narration of what exists.
New holidays. The Day of Celebrity Gossip, commemorating a year’s worth of salacious invasions into the lives of meaningless stars. Parishioners on bended knee are fed sugary confections at the altar.
The Day of Commercials, honoring those stalwart companies who support the Church with their ad buys and product placements.
Segue Tuesday, marking the great anchors who excel in blending one fatuous news item into another with seamless skill.
Government Source Saturday, extolling the anonymous persons who feed (dis)information to the press on a regular basis, never to be named “because the investigation is ongoing.”
And of course, a new Bible. “In the Beginning was the anchor’s Voice, and the Voice was inside the mind of the viewer,” fleshing out reality, collectivizing mass programming for All.
From The Children, one will rise to be the premier elite anchor of his generation. To him is given the nod of the Great Corporate Owners, to safeguard the ad buys, the ratings, and the dispensing of the story lines.
To him is awarded the mission of protecting the men behind the curtain. For there is certain knowledge that cannot be told, lest it endanger the constructed consensus and throw the world into chaos.
Centralize the mind. That is the mandate.
There is no history. The past is an illusion. There is only tonight’s broadcast. And then tomorrow’s.
In Church dispensations (broadcasts), there are no contradictions. When a paradox appears on the horizon, it is mitigated and resolved by the instant emergence of a new story that wipes away memory. Yesterday’s tyrant becomes today’s rescuer, according to secret formulas propagated by the Great Owners.
The Church capsulizes and distorts the people it covers on the news, plugging them into an overall cartoon-front. Individuals mustn’t stand out from the televised background. Too provocative, too dangerous. Too disruptive. By contrast, they might expose the whole charade.
From time to time, the news runs up against rebels who challenge the whole broadcast reality.
And once in a while, the rebel holds a few trump cards. This was the case with one of the earliest mass-media duelists, Salvador Dali.
THE STRANGE CASE OF DALI AND THE COSMIC PRISON BREAK
The critics would have declared Dali a hopeless lunatic if he hadn’t possessed such formidable classical painting skills.
He placed his repeating images (the notorious melting watch, the face and body of his wife,Gala, the ornate and fierce skeletal structures of unknown creatures) on the canvas as if they had as much right to be there as any familiar object.
This was quite troubling. If an immense jawbone that was also a rib or a forked femur could rival a perfectly rendered lamp or couch or book (on the same canvas), where were all the accoutrements and assurances of modern comfortable living?
Where was the pleasantly mesmerizing effect of a predictable existence?
Where was a protective class structure that depended on nothing more than money and cultural slogans?
To make it worse, Dali invented vast comedies on canvas. But the overall joke turned, as the viewer’s eye moved, into a nightmare, into an entrancing interlude of music, a memory of something that had never happened, a gang of genies coming out of corked bottles.
What was the man doing? Was he thumbing his nose at the audience? Was he simply showing off? Was he inventing waking dreams? Was he, God forbid, actually imagining something entirely new that resisted classification?
Words failed viewers and critics and colleagues and enemies.
But they didn’t fail Dali. He took every occasion to explain his work in press interviews. However, his explications were dealt out in a way that made it plain he was telling tall tales—interesting, hilarious, and preposterous tall tales.
Every interview and press conference he gave, gave birth to more attacks on him. Was he inviting scorn? Was he really above it all? Was he toying with the press like some perverse Olympian?
Media analysts flocked to make him persona non grata, but what was the persona they were exiling? They had no idea then, and they have no idea now.
It’s possible that every statement ever uttered in public by Dali was a lie. A fabrication. An invention dedicated to constructing a massive (and contradictory) persona.
Commentators who try to take on Dali’s life usually center on the early death of his young brother as the core explanation for Dali’s “basic confusion”—which resulted in his bizarre approach to his own fame.
However, these days, we might more correctly say that Dali was playing the media game on his own terms, after realizing that no reporter wanted the real Dali (whatever that might mean)—some fiction was being asked for, and the artist was merely being accommodating.
He was creating a self that matched his paintings.
It is generally acknowledged that no artist of the 20th century was superior to Dali in the ability to render realistic detail.
But of course Dali’s work was not about realism.
The most complex paintings—for example, Christopher Columbus, Discovering America and The Hallucinogenic Toreador—brilliantly orchestrated interpenetrating worlds.
At some point in his career, Dali saw (decided) there was no limit to what he could assemble on one canvas. A painting could become a science-fiction novel reaching into several pasts and futures. The protagonist (the viewer) could find himself in such a simultaneity.
Critics have attacked the paintings relentlessly. They are offended at Dali’s skill, which matches the best work of the meticulous Dutch Renaissance masters.
They hate the dissonance. They resent Dali’s wit and rankle at the idea that Dali could carry out monstrous jokes—in such fierce extended detail—on a given canvas.
But above all, the sheer imagination harpoons the critics. How dare a painter turn reality upside down so blatantly, while rubbing their faces in the exquisite detail.
The cherry on the cake was: for every attack the critics launched at Dali the man (they really had no idea who he was), Dali would come back at them with yet another elaborate piece of fiction about himself. It was unfair. The critics were “devoted to the truth.” The painter was free to invent himself over and over as many times as he fancied.
Dali was holding up a mirror. He was saying, “You people are like me. We’re all doing fiction. I’m much better at it. In the process, I get at a much deeper truth.”
The principles of organized society dictate that a person must be who he is, even if that is a cartoon of a cartoon. A person must be one recognizable caricature forever, must be IDed, must have one basic function. Must, as a civilization goes down the trail of decline, submit to being watched and taped and profiled.
When a person shows up who is many different things, who can invent himself at the drop of hat, who seems to stand in 14 different places at the same time, the Order trembles.
This is not acceptable.
(Fake) reality declares: what you said yesterday must synchronize absolutely with what you say today.
This rule (“being the only thing you are”) guarantees that human beings will resonate with the premise that we all live and think and work in one collective continuum of space and time. One. Only one. Forever.
The big lie.
Whatever he was, however despicable he may have been in certain respects, Dali broke that egg. Broke the cardinal rule.
He reveled in doing it. He made people wait for an answer about himself, and the answer never came. Instead, he gave them a hundred answers, improvised in the moment.
He threw people back on their own resources, and those resources proved to be severely limited.
That was too much.
And the pressure has been building. The growing failure of major institutions (centralized hierarchical religion, psychology, education, government) to keep the cork in the bottle signals a prison break in progress.
More people understand that the veil is not really a veil of tears. It’s a curtain madly drawn across the creative force.
The pot is boiling. People want out. It remains to be seen whether people will admit that the veil was and is ultimately of their own making.
Somewhere along the line we have to give the green light to our own creative power. That is the first great day, the dawn of no coerced boundaries. Everything we’ve been taught tells us that a life lived entirely from creative force is impossible. We don’t have it within us. We should maintain silence and propriety in the face of greater official power and wisdom. We must abide by the rules. We must, at best, “surrender to the universe.”
But what if, when we come around the far turn, we see that the universe is us? Is simply one part of imagination? Is a twinkling rendition we installed to keep us titillated with dreams that would forever drift out of reach?
What if we are popping out of the fences of this culture and this continuum and this tired movie? What then?
Jon Rappoport
Link:
http://www.fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/the-worldwide-church-of-the-evening-news/42663
Jon Rappoport
The march of idiots is an interesting subject for investigation.
The collectivized mind is wired to other minds, and they exchange gibberish to feel whole.
People are addicted to crap. They like it.
That’s why they watch the news.
That’s why they believe the news.
It’s time for a worldwide Church of the News, with its own priests, its own symbols, and its own prophets. In other words, go to the extreme. Why fiddle around? Bring things out in the open.
Brian Williams would be a saint some day. The great ancestors, like Ed Murrow, Cronkite, and Chet Huntley would be celebrated figures in testaments.
Sunday services would feature many screens with simultaneous broadcasts. This would be the first Church that has such an extensive record of its own history. On television.
Think of it. Straight-out worship of the news.
“I had my conversion-experience one night while Diane Sawyer was in her cups, explaining the loss of life in a storm in Kansas. I suddenly realized I was receiving revelation…”
We already have the Church of Biological Mysticism, in which all human suffering is explained by the germ theoryor genes. So we need the Church of the News.
If there’s a 36-car pile-up outside Chicago, in the fog, hundreds of millions of people see pictures of it within minutes. It’s automatically a Church document. No need to explain it. Let the anchors who are on-air explain it. Then everyone can suck it in, in the same way.
CBS, NBC, and ABC are wings of the great cathedral. Their anchors are angels right here, right now.
The Church leadership will be composed of the Great Ones, the men who run the corporations that own the networks. The power behind the throne.
Heretics, of course, are necessary. They’re the “conspiracy theorists,” those evil and demented people who challenge official scenarios touted by the news.
The Church is a herald of the New World Order: Globalism. Establishing one body to rule the planet is its mission. Therefore, worshipers are dedicated as well. Eliminate nations. Erase borders. Allow mega-corporations to roam free and wild and buy up land, resources, and labor anywhere and everywhere.
Bring it all out into the open.
But whether it’s a new UN treaty, a car crash, a murder in a motel, a breakthrough in lip gloss, it’s news, so its sacred.
The Church has a basic flat-earth policy. Every substantial story is presented with drastically shortened perspective, eliminating, for example, the people who are running a specific op from behind the scenes. “Behind the scenes” is a phrase rarely mentioned by the Church.
If we throw in CNN, FOX, and MSNBC, the Church has 24/7 services. That’s quite a reach. Disparate loons like Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch are united in Church annals, as they should be. They’re both significant promulgators of the faith.
And who plays Satan? The Internet, of course. Tax it, control it, censor it, curse it. Cast it out.
Why let people merely bow and kneel down to the news in the privacy of their own minds? Build churches and monuments to externalize and celebrate the broadcasts that shape their reality. There’s no need to hide.
“This is what we know. This is what we see. This is all there is. The news.”
The narration of what exists.
New holidays. The Day of Celebrity Gossip, commemorating a year’s worth of salacious invasions into the lives of meaningless stars. Parishioners on bended knee are fed sugary confections at the altar.
The Day of Commercials, honoring those stalwart companies who support the Church with their ad buys and product placements.
Segue Tuesday, marking the great anchors who excel in blending one fatuous news item into another with seamless skill.
Government Source Saturday, extolling the anonymous persons who feed (dis)information to the press on a regular basis, never to be named “because the investigation is ongoing.”
And of course, a new Bible. “In the Beginning was the anchor’s Voice, and the Voice was inside the mind of the viewer,” fleshing out reality, collectivizing mass programming for All.
From The Children, one will rise to be the premier elite anchor of his generation. To him is given the nod of the Great Corporate Owners, to safeguard the ad buys, the ratings, and the dispensing of the story lines.
To him is awarded the mission of protecting the men behind the curtain. For there is certain knowledge that cannot be told, lest it endanger the constructed consensus and throw the world into chaos.
Centralize the mind. That is the mandate.
There is no history. The past is an illusion. There is only tonight’s broadcast. And then tomorrow’s.
In Church dispensations (broadcasts), there are no contradictions. When a paradox appears on the horizon, it is mitigated and resolved by the instant emergence of a new story that wipes away memory. Yesterday’s tyrant becomes today’s rescuer, according to secret formulas propagated by the Great Owners.
The Church capsulizes and distorts the people it covers on the news, plugging them into an overall cartoon-front. Individuals mustn’t stand out from the televised background. Too provocative, too dangerous. Too disruptive. By contrast, they might expose the whole charade.
From time to time, the news runs up against rebels who challenge the whole broadcast reality.
And once in a while, the rebel holds a few trump cards. This was the case with one of the earliest mass-media duelists, Salvador Dali.
THE STRANGE CASE OF DALI AND THE COSMIC PRISON BREAK
The critics would have declared Dali a hopeless lunatic if he hadn’t possessed such formidable classical painting skills.
He placed his repeating images (the notorious melting watch, the face and body of his wife,Gala, the ornate and fierce skeletal structures of unknown creatures) on the canvas as if they had as much right to be there as any familiar object.
This was quite troubling. If an immense jawbone that was also a rib or a forked femur could rival a perfectly rendered lamp or couch or book (on the same canvas), where were all the accoutrements and assurances of modern comfortable living?
Where was the pleasantly mesmerizing effect of a predictable existence?
Where was a protective class structure that depended on nothing more than money and cultural slogans?
To make it worse, Dali invented vast comedies on canvas. But the overall joke turned, as the viewer’s eye moved, into a nightmare, into an entrancing interlude of music, a memory of something that had never happened, a gang of genies coming out of corked bottles.
What was the man doing? Was he thumbing his nose at the audience? Was he simply showing off? Was he inventing waking dreams? Was he, God forbid, actually imagining something entirely new that resisted classification?
Words failed viewers and critics and colleagues and enemies.
But they didn’t fail Dali. He took every occasion to explain his work in press interviews. However, his explications were dealt out in a way that made it plain he was telling tall tales—interesting, hilarious, and preposterous tall tales.
Every interview and press conference he gave, gave birth to more attacks on him. Was he inviting scorn? Was he really above it all? Was he toying with the press like some perverse Olympian?
Media analysts flocked to make him persona non grata, but what was the persona they were exiling? They had no idea then, and they have no idea now.
It’s possible that every statement ever uttered in public by Dali was a lie. A fabrication. An invention dedicated to constructing a massive (and contradictory) persona.
Commentators who try to take on Dali’s life usually center on the early death of his young brother as the core explanation for Dali’s “basic confusion”—which resulted in his bizarre approach to his own fame.
However, these days, we might more correctly say that Dali was playing the media game on his own terms, after realizing that no reporter wanted the real Dali (whatever that might mean)—some fiction was being asked for, and the artist was merely being accommodating.
He was creating a self that matched his paintings.
It is generally acknowledged that no artist of the 20th century was superior to Dali in the ability to render realistic detail.
But of course Dali’s work was not about realism.
The most complex paintings—for example, Christopher Columbus, Discovering America and The Hallucinogenic Toreador—brilliantly orchestrated interpenetrating worlds.
At some point in his career, Dali saw (decided) there was no limit to what he could assemble on one canvas. A painting could become a science-fiction novel reaching into several pasts and futures. The protagonist (the viewer) could find himself in such a simultaneity.
Critics have attacked the paintings relentlessly. They are offended at Dali’s skill, which matches the best work of the meticulous Dutch Renaissance masters.
They hate the dissonance. They resent Dali’s wit and rankle at the idea that Dali could carry out monstrous jokes—in such fierce extended detail—on a given canvas.
But above all, the sheer imagination harpoons the critics. How dare a painter turn reality upside down so blatantly, while rubbing their faces in the exquisite detail.
The cherry on the cake was: for every attack the critics launched at Dali the man (they really had no idea who he was), Dali would come back at them with yet another elaborate piece of fiction about himself. It was unfair. The critics were “devoted to the truth.” The painter was free to invent himself over and over as many times as he fancied.
Dali was holding up a mirror. He was saying, “You people are like me. We’re all doing fiction. I’m much better at it. In the process, I get at a much deeper truth.”
The principles of organized society dictate that a person must be who he is, even if that is a cartoon of a cartoon. A person must be one recognizable caricature forever, must be IDed, must have one basic function. Must, as a civilization goes down the trail of decline, submit to being watched and taped and profiled.
When a person shows up who is many different things, who can invent himself at the drop of hat, who seems to stand in 14 different places at the same time, the Order trembles.
This is not acceptable.
(Fake) reality declares: what you said yesterday must synchronize absolutely with what you say today.
This rule (“being the only thing you are”) guarantees that human beings will resonate with the premise that we all live and think and work in one collective continuum of space and time. One. Only one. Forever.
The big lie.
Whatever he was, however despicable he may have been in certain respects, Dali broke that egg. Broke the cardinal rule.
He reveled in doing it. He made people wait for an answer about himself, and the answer never came. Instead, he gave them a hundred answers, improvised in the moment.
He threw people back on their own resources, and those resources proved to be severely limited.
That was too much.
And the pressure has been building. The growing failure of major institutions (centralized hierarchical religion, psychology, education, government) to keep the cork in the bottle signals a prison break in progress.
More people understand that the veil is not really a veil of tears. It’s a curtain madly drawn across the creative force.
The pot is boiling. People want out. It remains to be seen whether people will admit that the veil was and is ultimately of their own making.
Somewhere along the line we have to give the green light to our own creative power. That is the first great day, the dawn of no coerced boundaries. Everything we’ve been taught tells us that a life lived entirely from creative force is impossible. We don’t have it within us. We should maintain silence and propriety in the face of greater official power and wisdom. We must abide by the rules. We must, at best, “surrender to the universe.”
But what if, when we come around the far turn, we see that the universe is us? Is simply one part of imagination? Is a twinkling rendition we installed to keep us titillated with dreams that would forever drift out of reach?
What if we are popping out of the fences of this culture and this continuum and this tired movie? What then?
Jon Rappoport
Link:
http://www.fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/the-worldwide-church-of-the-evening-news/42663
Silver...
5 Factors That Will Push Silver to $250 an Ounce
by Peter Krauth
All bull markets go through periods of consolidations and corrections. And precious metals are no exception.
There has been plenty about gold's swan dive, but less talk about silver. And at this point there's more potential for silver than gold...significantly more.
Because the global silver market is relatively small, silver prices tend to be more volatile; the pounding selloff we witnessed in silver this past month is a testament to that fact. But volatility works both ways, so when silver rises, its price can explode higher.
That's exactly what happened in April 2011, when silver prices rose by 170% in the space of just 7 months. That's why silver investors say investing in silver is like buying "gold on steroids."
And right now, it looks like the silver market is on the cusp of doing the same thing all over again. According to our research, the next stop could be $40 by year's end, and $60 by the end of 2014. And much higher after that.
Here are five key factors that will drive silver higher – significantly higher – in coming years.
Silver Driver No. 1: Relentless Buying of Physical Silver
Despite the drubbing that silver took in mid-April, there's one fact that most observers are ignoring: the physical silver market.
While gold and silver prices took a pounding, silver investors were not running to unload their silver – quite the opposite. In fact, savvy investors were flocking to buy physical silver.
Even as silver prices dropped, buyers stepped up, and supply became so scarce, premiums nearly quintupled from 8% to 37% above spot prices. And that's if you could even get your hands on it. Essentially, no one was selling, yet a lot of buyers recognized that silver was "on sale" and decided to stock up.
In the first three months of 2013, the U.S. Mint sold more than 15 million American Silver Eagle bullion coins. That's the first time ever the Mint has sold this many coins so early in the year, setting a record in the 27-year history of the series.
Coin dealers across the U.S. have been regularly selling out of their inventories, desperate to get new allocations.
With investors buying 56 times more physical silver than physical gold, Main Street is setting the pace, while Wall Street is oblivious to the trend.
Silver Driver No. 2: Silver ETFs Are Bulking Up
As savvy retail investors have been soaking up physical silver, so have the silver exchange traded funds (ETFs).
In the first quarter of 2013, over 140 tons of gold was sold by physically backed gold ETFs. But remarkably, silver ETFs bucked that trend.
In that same slice of time, the world's silver ETFs actually added 20 million ounces to their vaults. That's nearly $600 million worth of silver being bought within just three months, all while silver prices were steadily declining.
Now, silver ETF shareholders are a combination of both retail and institutional investors. But 20 million ounces flowing in is a clear sign of recognizing value and steady hands.
This kind of action is especially revealing. It signals that once an ounce of physical silver is bought, its owners have "sticky" hands, and they are very reluctant to sell.
Silver Driver No. 3: Sentiment is So Bearish, It's Time To Buy
Investor sentiment is often a great indicator – a great contrarian indicator, that is.
That's because the herd usually does the right thing at exactly the wrong time. It's what we call the Dumb Money.
Silver contracts are traded on futures exchanges. And one of the most useful gauges of investor sentiment is something called the Commitment of Traders Report (COT), produced weekly by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
When the speculators' (dumb money) net short silver positions reach a major high, it's nearly always a perfect contrarian signal. That's typically when the silver price is either at or very near a major low.
And it's exactly how things played out in 1997, 2000, 2001, and 2005. Each and every one of those instances marked exact or near-term lows from which silver prices either quickly shot higher, or began an extended rally.
In the weeks surrounding the April silver price selloff, silver short positions reached their highest levels in nearly 20 years. That's an extremely bullish indicator for higher silver prices ahead.
Silver Driver No. 4: Obama's Back, And He's Good for Silver
The president has been very good for silver prices. In fact, he was so good, he helped make silver the best-performing major financial asset during his first term.
Now that Obama has sealed another four years, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's still in place and relying heavily on the printing press, I'm fully expecting a repeat performance. Thanks, guys, for more of the same.
Silver Driver No. 5: Insurance Against Government Theft
Back in 1933, President Roosevelt seized privately held gold by signing into law Executive Order 6102.
FDR's official motive was to "provide relief in the existing national emergency in banking, and for other purposes..."
That single act criminalized the "hoarding" of gold by the public, giving people less than a month to turn in their gold.
Fast forward to 2013, and 80 years have gone by. Today, the 1933 gold confiscation is no longer common knowledge. But students of history realize the risk of a similar threat surfacing again.
Interestingly, silver was not targeted by Executive Order 6102. Now, we can't know if there will ever again be anything akin to this Oval Office edict – much less what it might cover and might say.
But going on the past, and considering the size of the silver market relative to gold, silver could be a way to own a precious metal that just might sidestep any risk of future confiscation.
Silver is much less widely owned than gold, and that could help keep it off the official radar.
Where will silver ultimately peak?
The bull market in silver is far from over. Given how silver has reacted after a strong selloff in the past, we could easily see the precious metal regain the $40 level by year's end. And in 2014, $60 silver is looking very attainable.
If the 1970s bull market in silver is any indication, we could see silver reach $125 by the time this bull market finally peaks.
But this time around, if the fundamental drivers are so entrenched, and global demand is so powerful, we could actually see silver at double that level, finally reaching $250 per ounce.
Needless to say, I've been following this story for a while and in Real Asset Returns I keep my readers ahead of all the risks and opportunities in precious metals, the miners and the various instruments that you can use to make the most out of your strategic metals positions. And they've profited mightily from it.
But there's a lot more upside to come.
And we're not the only ones thinking silver has much, much higher to go.
Eric Sprott, the billionaire Canadian resource guru, recently said:
"I think silver will be the investment of this decade whereas gold was the investment of the last decade. Silver will outperform gold. I believe silver will trade down 16:1 ratio to gold...Your return will be 300% more. If you have the patience and can stomach the volatility, I think silver will by far be the better investment going forward."
Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/orig14/krauth-p2.1.1.html
by Peter Krauth
All bull markets go through periods of consolidations and corrections. And precious metals are no exception.
There has been plenty about gold's swan dive, but less talk about silver. And at this point there's more potential for silver than gold...significantly more.
Because the global silver market is relatively small, silver prices tend to be more volatile; the pounding selloff we witnessed in silver this past month is a testament to that fact. But volatility works both ways, so when silver rises, its price can explode higher.
That's exactly what happened in April 2011, when silver prices rose by 170% in the space of just 7 months. That's why silver investors say investing in silver is like buying "gold on steroids."
And right now, it looks like the silver market is on the cusp of doing the same thing all over again. According to our research, the next stop could be $40 by year's end, and $60 by the end of 2014. And much higher after that.
Here are five key factors that will drive silver higher – significantly higher – in coming years.
Silver Driver No. 1: Relentless Buying of Physical Silver
Despite the drubbing that silver took in mid-April, there's one fact that most observers are ignoring: the physical silver market.
While gold and silver prices took a pounding, silver investors were not running to unload their silver – quite the opposite. In fact, savvy investors were flocking to buy physical silver.
Even as silver prices dropped, buyers stepped up, and supply became so scarce, premiums nearly quintupled from 8% to 37% above spot prices. And that's if you could even get your hands on it. Essentially, no one was selling, yet a lot of buyers recognized that silver was "on sale" and decided to stock up.
In the first three months of 2013, the U.S. Mint sold more than 15 million American Silver Eagle bullion coins. That's the first time ever the Mint has sold this many coins so early in the year, setting a record in the 27-year history of the series.
Coin dealers across the U.S. have been regularly selling out of their inventories, desperate to get new allocations.
With investors buying 56 times more physical silver than physical gold, Main Street is setting the pace, while Wall Street is oblivious to the trend.
Silver Driver No. 2: Silver ETFs Are Bulking Up
As savvy retail investors have been soaking up physical silver, so have the silver exchange traded funds (ETFs).
In the first quarter of 2013, over 140 tons of gold was sold by physically backed gold ETFs. But remarkably, silver ETFs bucked that trend.
In that same slice of time, the world's silver ETFs actually added 20 million ounces to their vaults. That's nearly $600 million worth of silver being bought within just three months, all while silver prices were steadily declining.
Now, silver ETF shareholders are a combination of both retail and institutional investors. But 20 million ounces flowing in is a clear sign of recognizing value and steady hands.
This kind of action is especially revealing. It signals that once an ounce of physical silver is bought, its owners have "sticky" hands, and they are very reluctant to sell.
Silver Driver No. 3: Sentiment is So Bearish, It's Time To Buy
Investor sentiment is often a great indicator – a great contrarian indicator, that is.
That's because the herd usually does the right thing at exactly the wrong time. It's what we call the Dumb Money.
Silver contracts are traded on futures exchanges. And one of the most useful gauges of investor sentiment is something called the Commitment of Traders Report (COT), produced weekly by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
When the speculators' (dumb money) net short silver positions reach a major high, it's nearly always a perfect contrarian signal. That's typically when the silver price is either at or very near a major low.
And it's exactly how things played out in 1997, 2000, 2001, and 2005. Each and every one of those instances marked exact or near-term lows from which silver prices either quickly shot higher, or began an extended rally.
In the weeks surrounding the April silver price selloff, silver short positions reached their highest levels in nearly 20 years. That's an extremely bullish indicator for higher silver prices ahead.
Silver Driver No. 4: Obama's Back, And He's Good for Silver
The president has been very good for silver prices. In fact, he was so good, he helped make silver the best-performing major financial asset during his first term.
Now that Obama has sealed another four years, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's still in place and relying heavily on the printing press, I'm fully expecting a repeat performance. Thanks, guys, for more of the same.
Silver Driver No. 5: Insurance Against Government Theft
Back in 1933, President Roosevelt seized privately held gold by signing into law Executive Order 6102.
FDR's official motive was to "provide relief in the existing national emergency in banking, and for other purposes..."
That single act criminalized the "hoarding" of gold by the public, giving people less than a month to turn in their gold.
Fast forward to 2013, and 80 years have gone by. Today, the 1933 gold confiscation is no longer common knowledge. But students of history realize the risk of a similar threat surfacing again.
Interestingly, silver was not targeted by Executive Order 6102. Now, we can't know if there will ever again be anything akin to this Oval Office edict – much less what it might cover and might say.
But going on the past, and considering the size of the silver market relative to gold, silver could be a way to own a precious metal that just might sidestep any risk of future confiscation.
Silver is much less widely owned than gold, and that could help keep it off the official radar.
Where will silver ultimately peak?
The bull market in silver is far from over. Given how silver has reacted after a strong selloff in the past, we could easily see the precious metal regain the $40 level by year's end. And in 2014, $60 silver is looking very attainable.
If the 1970s bull market in silver is any indication, we could see silver reach $125 by the time this bull market finally peaks.
But this time around, if the fundamental drivers are so entrenched, and global demand is so powerful, we could actually see silver at double that level, finally reaching $250 per ounce.
Needless to say, I've been following this story for a while and in Real Asset Returns I keep my readers ahead of all the risks and opportunities in precious metals, the miners and the various instruments that you can use to make the most out of your strategic metals positions. And they've profited mightily from it.
But there's a lot more upside to come.
And we're not the only ones thinking silver has much, much higher to go.
Eric Sprott, the billionaire Canadian resource guru, recently said:
"I think silver will be the investment of this decade whereas gold was the investment of the last decade. Silver will outperform gold. I believe silver will trade down 16:1 ratio to gold...Your return will be 300% more. If you have the patience and can stomach the volatility, I think silver will by far be the better investment going forward."
Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/orig14/krauth-p2.1.1.html
Music and your health...
Why Your Brain Craves Music
by Joseph Mercola
If you’re a music lover, you already know that turning on the tunes can help calm your nerves, make stress disappear, pump up your energy level during a workout, bring back old memories, as well as prompt countless other emotions too varied to list.
Even if you’re not a music aficionado, per se, there are compelling reasons why you may want to become one, which were recently revealed by a series of new research.
Music Prompts Numerous Brain Changes Linked to Emotions and Abstract Decision Making
When you listen to music, much more is happening in your body than simple auditory processing. Music triggers activity in the nucleus accumbens, a part of your brain that releases the feel-good chemical dopamine and is involved in forming expectations.
At the same time, the amygdala, which is involved in processing emotion, and the prefrontal cortex, which makes possible abstract decision-making, are also activated, according to new research published in the journal Science.1
Based on the brain activity in certain regions, especially the nucleus accumbens, captured by an fMRI imager while participants listened to music, the researchers could predict how much money the listeners were willing to spend on previously unheard music. As you might suspect, songs that triggered activity in the emotional and intellectual areas of the brain demanded a higher price.
Interestingly, the study’s lead author noted that your brain learns how to predict how different pieces of music will unfold using pattern recognition and prediction, skills that may have been key to our evolutionary progress. Time reported:2
“These predictions are culture-dependent and based on experience: someone raised on rock or Western classical music won’t be able to predict the course of an Indian raga, for example, and vice versa.
But if a piece develops in a way that’s both slightly novel and still in line with our brain’s prediction, we tend to like it a lot. And that, says [lead researcher] Salimpoor, ‘is because we’ve made a kind of intellectual conquest.’
Music may, in other words, tap into a brain mechanism that was key to our evolutionary progress. The ability to recognize patterns and generalize from experience, to predict what’s likely to happen in the future – in short, the ability to imagine – is something humans do far better than any other animals. It’s what allowed us (aided by the far less glamorous opposable thumb) to take over the world.”
Why Music Makes Us Feel United
So far we’ve covered that music is involved in both emotional and intellectual centers of your brain, but music also has an, almost uncanny, ability to connect us to one another.
Separate research published this month showed one reason for why this might be. When listening to four pieces of classical music they had never heard before, study participants’ brains reacted in much the same way. Areas of the brain involved in movement planning, memory and attention all had similar activation patterns when the participants listened to the same music, which suggests we may each experience music in similar ways.
The study’s lead author noted:3
"We spend a lot of time listening to music – often in groups, and often in conjunction with synchronized movement and dance … Here, we've shown for the first time that despite our individual differences in musical experiences and preferences, classical music elicits a highly consistent pattern of activity across individuals in several brain structures including those involved in movement planning, memory and attention."
Co-author Daniel Levitin, PhD, expanded:4
"It's not our natural tendency to thrust ourselves into a crowd of 20,000 people, but for a Muse concert or a Radiohead concert we'll do it … There's this unifying force that comes from the music, and we don't get that from other things."
Music Relieves Anxiety Better Than Drugs and Benefits Premature Babies
If you want a more concrete example of music’s powers, a meta-analysis by Levitin and colleagues found some striking benefits of music after reviewing 400 studies.5 Among the data was one study that revealed listening to music resulted in less anxiety and lower cortisol levels among patients about to undergo surgery than taking anti-anxiety drugs. Other evidence showed music has an impact on antibodies linked to immunity and may lead to higher levels of bacteria-fighting immune cells.
Still more research revealed that playing music in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) improved the health of premature babies with respiratory distress or sepsis.6 When parents sang to their babies, or sounds mimicking those in the womb were played, numerous benefits occurred, including changes in heart rates, sucking behavior and parents’ stress levels. The researchers noted:
“Entrained with a premature infant’s observed vital signs, sound and lullaby may improve feeding behaviors and sucking patterns and may increase prolonged periods of quiet–alert states. Parent-preferred lullabies, sung live, can enhance bonding, thus decreasing the stress parents associate with premature infant care.”
Taken together, the latest research makes a strong case for using music as a therapeutic tool for babies and adults alike.
Why Music Should be a Part of Your Workouts, Too
Many people instinctively don a headset linked to their favorite music when hitting the gym, which makes sense since certain types of music can motivate you to run faster, or keep going even though you're fatigued, giving you a better workout. Additionally, research has shown that listening to music while exercising boosted cognitive levels and verbal fluency skills in people diagnosed with coronary artery disease (coronary artery disease has been linked to a decline in cognitive abilities). Signs of improvement in verbal fluency areas more than doubled after listening to music compared to that of the non-music session.7
Listening to music while exercising can also improve your performance, increasing your endurance by 15 percent,8 and your movement will likely follow the tempo of the song. For instance, in one study when the music's tempo slowed, the subjects' exertion level reduced as well.9 And when the tempo was increased, their performance followed suit.
Your body may be simply responding to the beat on a more or less subconscious level, but the type and tempo of the music you choose while working out may also influence your conscious motivation.
What Music Is Best?
When a song gets you energized and rearing to go, you'll know it, and these are the types of songs you probably naturally add to your workout playlist. For that matter, when a song makes you feel relaxed, eases your anxiety or pain levels, or boosts your mood, you’ll know it too, as selecting music is a highly personal – and highly intuitive – process. In other words, only you know the “best” music for you, and that will inevitably change – not only day to day with your mood but also over time with the different chapters of your life.
For now, technology has given us a simple way to harness the power of music by allowing you to create different playlists for exercising, relaxing, working and other important aspects of your day so you can instantly access the right music for your mood or activity. You can also listen to music over Internet radio using free services like Pandora, which will actually create stations for you based on your musical tastes.
However, my favorite music source is Spotify, which I believe is the new model for listening to music. Rather than purchase music in iTunes or CDs prior to that, you simply rent it. Spotify has access to over 16 million songs and most likely has well over 95% of the music you would ever listen to. For $10 a month you can play all of your favorite music on your phone, tablet, computer or home stereo system. They even have high-quality bitrates at no extra charge. I have been using them for about a year and am very pleased.
Whatever method you choose, making music part of your lifestyle is a simple yet powerful way to enhance your health and your life.
Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/mercola/mercola280.html
by Joseph Mercola
If you’re a music lover, you already know that turning on the tunes can help calm your nerves, make stress disappear, pump up your energy level during a workout, bring back old memories, as well as prompt countless other emotions too varied to list.
Even if you’re not a music aficionado, per se, there are compelling reasons why you may want to become one, which were recently revealed by a series of new research.
Music Prompts Numerous Brain Changes Linked to Emotions and Abstract Decision Making
When you listen to music, much more is happening in your body than simple auditory processing. Music triggers activity in the nucleus accumbens, a part of your brain that releases the feel-good chemical dopamine and is involved in forming expectations.
At the same time, the amygdala, which is involved in processing emotion, and the prefrontal cortex, which makes possible abstract decision-making, are also activated, according to new research published in the journal Science.1
Based on the brain activity in certain regions, especially the nucleus accumbens, captured by an fMRI imager while participants listened to music, the researchers could predict how much money the listeners were willing to spend on previously unheard music. As you might suspect, songs that triggered activity in the emotional and intellectual areas of the brain demanded a higher price.
Interestingly, the study’s lead author noted that your brain learns how to predict how different pieces of music will unfold using pattern recognition and prediction, skills that may have been key to our evolutionary progress. Time reported:2
“These predictions are culture-dependent and based on experience: someone raised on rock or Western classical music won’t be able to predict the course of an Indian raga, for example, and vice versa.
But if a piece develops in a way that’s both slightly novel and still in line with our brain’s prediction, we tend to like it a lot. And that, says [lead researcher] Salimpoor, ‘is because we’ve made a kind of intellectual conquest.’
Music may, in other words, tap into a brain mechanism that was key to our evolutionary progress. The ability to recognize patterns and generalize from experience, to predict what’s likely to happen in the future – in short, the ability to imagine – is something humans do far better than any other animals. It’s what allowed us (aided by the far less glamorous opposable thumb) to take over the world.”
Why Music Makes Us Feel United
So far we’ve covered that music is involved in both emotional and intellectual centers of your brain, but music also has an, almost uncanny, ability to connect us to one another.
Separate research published this month showed one reason for why this might be. When listening to four pieces of classical music they had never heard before, study participants’ brains reacted in much the same way. Areas of the brain involved in movement planning, memory and attention all had similar activation patterns when the participants listened to the same music, which suggests we may each experience music in similar ways.
The study’s lead author noted:3
"We spend a lot of time listening to music – often in groups, and often in conjunction with synchronized movement and dance … Here, we've shown for the first time that despite our individual differences in musical experiences and preferences, classical music elicits a highly consistent pattern of activity across individuals in several brain structures including those involved in movement planning, memory and attention."
Co-author Daniel Levitin, PhD, expanded:4
"It's not our natural tendency to thrust ourselves into a crowd of 20,000 people, but for a Muse concert or a Radiohead concert we'll do it … There's this unifying force that comes from the music, and we don't get that from other things."
Music Relieves Anxiety Better Than Drugs and Benefits Premature Babies
If you want a more concrete example of music’s powers, a meta-analysis by Levitin and colleagues found some striking benefits of music after reviewing 400 studies.5 Among the data was one study that revealed listening to music resulted in less anxiety and lower cortisol levels among patients about to undergo surgery than taking anti-anxiety drugs. Other evidence showed music has an impact on antibodies linked to immunity and may lead to higher levels of bacteria-fighting immune cells.
Still more research revealed that playing music in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) improved the health of premature babies with respiratory distress or sepsis.6 When parents sang to their babies, or sounds mimicking those in the womb were played, numerous benefits occurred, including changes in heart rates, sucking behavior and parents’ stress levels. The researchers noted:
“Entrained with a premature infant’s observed vital signs, sound and lullaby may improve feeding behaviors and sucking patterns and may increase prolonged periods of quiet–alert states. Parent-preferred lullabies, sung live, can enhance bonding, thus decreasing the stress parents associate with premature infant care.”
Taken together, the latest research makes a strong case for using music as a therapeutic tool for babies and adults alike.
Why Music Should be a Part of Your Workouts, Too
Many people instinctively don a headset linked to their favorite music when hitting the gym, which makes sense since certain types of music can motivate you to run faster, or keep going even though you're fatigued, giving you a better workout. Additionally, research has shown that listening to music while exercising boosted cognitive levels and verbal fluency skills in people diagnosed with coronary artery disease (coronary artery disease has been linked to a decline in cognitive abilities). Signs of improvement in verbal fluency areas more than doubled after listening to music compared to that of the non-music session.7
Listening to music while exercising can also improve your performance, increasing your endurance by 15 percent,8 and your movement will likely follow the tempo of the song. For instance, in one study when the music's tempo slowed, the subjects' exertion level reduced as well.9 And when the tempo was increased, their performance followed suit.
Your body may be simply responding to the beat on a more or less subconscious level, but the type and tempo of the music you choose while working out may also influence your conscious motivation.
What Music Is Best?
When a song gets you energized and rearing to go, you'll know it, and these are the types of songs you probably naturally add to your workout playlist. For that matter, when a song makes you feel relaxed, eases your anxiety or pain levels, or boosts your mood, you’ll know it too, as selecting music is a highly personal – and highly intuitive – process. In other words, only you know the “best” music for you, and that will inevitably change – not only day to day with your mood but also over time with the different chapters of your life.
For now, technology has given us a simple way to harness the power of music by allowing you to create different playlists for exercising, relaxing, working and other important aspects of your day so you can instantly access the right music for your mood or activity. You can also listen to music over Internet radio using free services like Pandora, which will actually create stations for you based on your musical tastes.
However, my favorite music source is Spotify, which I believe is the new model for listening to music. Rather than purchase music in iTunes or CDs prior to that, you simply rent it. Spotify has access to over 16 million songs and most likely has well over 95% of the music you would ever listen to. For $10 a month you can play all of your favorite music on your phone, tablet, computer or home stereo system. They even have high-quality bitrates at no extra charge. I have been using them for about a year and am very pleased.
Whatever method you choose, making music part of your lifestyle is a simple yet powerful way to enhance your health and your life.
Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/mercola/mercola280.html
Do you fear the growing power of the government???
Americans Troubled More by Governmental Abuse Than Terrorism
Russia Today
New polling numbers suggest that United States citizens are on average more afraid of their own government then the threat of another terrorist attack.
Even after a pair of bombings in Boston two weeks ago injured hundreds, more Americans say they are unwilling to sacrifice constitutional liberties for security than those who are.
A handful of polls conducted in the days after the Boston Marathon bombings show that US citizens are responding much differently than in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that killed roughly 3,000 people. Not only are Americans more opposed now to giving up personal freedoms for the sake of security than they were after 9/11, but other statistics show that distrust against the federal government continues to climb.
Just one day after the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing, pollsters with Fox News asked a sample of Americans, “Would you be willing to give up some of your personal freedom in order to reduce the threat of terrorism?” Forty-three percent of the respondents said they would, while 45 percent said no. Comparatively, 71 percent of Americans asked a similar question in October 2001 said they’d be willing to give up personal freedoms, while only 20 percent opposed at the time.
In the dozen years since 9/11, frequent polling conducted by Fox has suggests that the majority of Americans have all the while said they’d give up their freedoms for the sake of security. Only with the latest inquiry though are those answers reversed: the last time a majority of Americans opposed giving up privacy for security was May 2001.
“Whether or not the government overreacted in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 (and, given the information available at the time, reasonable people can disagree), Americans then broadly supported a vigorous domestic counterterrorism policy,” Alan Rozenshtein writes for Lawfare Blog. “This time around, a rights-restrictive approach might not garner the same public support – if indeed that’s the road the government intends to go down.”
Indeed, a number of cities across the country have already asked for more surveillance cameras and other tactics that could be used to allegedly prevent acts of terror in the wake of the Boston bombing, but lawmakers in Washington have yet to impose the sort of restrictions on constitutional liberties that came in the aftermath of 9/11 – named the PATROIT Act and the establishment of the US Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, including the Transportation Security Administration.
A separate poll conducted by the Washington Post just three days after the Boston Marathon bombing reveals that nearly half of those surveyed say that the government will go too far in trying to prevent future acts of terrorism. The Post asked a random national sample of 588 adults, “Which worries you more: that the government (will not go far enough to investigate terrorism because of concerns about constitutional rights), or that it (will go too far in compromising constitutional rights in order to investigate terrorism)?” Days after the Boston bombing, 41 percent of respondents said the government will not go far enough, compared to 48 percent saying they’ll go too far. When similar questions were asked in 2006 and 2010, 44 percent and 27 percent said the government will go too far, respectively, signaling that for the first time in years Americans are overly concerned about a misuse of power on the part of Washington.
That isn’t to say that the Boston attack is necessarily inspiring Americans to question authority, though. Two months before Tsarnaev brothers allegedly detonated a pair of explosives near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, 53 percent of Americans polled by the Pew Research Center said the federal government is threatening their personal rights and freedoms. In November 2011, that statistic was only 30 percent.
Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/rep4/govt-abuse-worse-than-terrorism.html
Russia Today
New polling numbers suggest that United States citizens are on average more afraid of their own government then the threat of another terrorist attack.
Even after a pair of bombings in Boston two weeks ago injured hundreds, more Americans say they are unwilling to sacrifice constitutional liberties for security than those who are.
A handful of polls conducted in the days after the Boston Marathon bombings show that US citizens are responding much differently than in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that killed roughly 3,000 people. Not only are Americans more opposed now to giving up personal freedoms for the sake of security than they were after 9/11, but other statistics show that distrust against the federal government continues to climb.
Just one day after the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing, pollsters with Fox News asked a sample of Americans, “Would you be willing to give up some of your personal freedom in order to reduce the threat of terrorism?” Forty-three percent of the respondents said they would, while 45 percent said no. Comparatively, 71 percent of Americans asked a similar question in October 2001 said they’d be willing to give up personal freedoms, while only 20 percent opposed at the time.
In the dozen years since 9/11, frequent polling conducted by Fox has suggests that the majority of Americans have all the while said they’d give up their freedoms for the sake of security. Only with the latest inquiry though are those answers reversed: the last time a majority of Americans opposed giving up privacy for security was May 2001.
“Whether or not the government overreacted in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 (and, given the information available at the time, reasonable people can disagree), Americans then broadly supported a vigorous domestic counterterrorism policy,” Alan Rozenshtein writes for Lawfare Blog. “This time around, a rights-restrictive approach might not garner the same public support – if indeed that’s the road the government intends to go down.”
Indeed, a number of cities across the country have already asked for more surveillance cameras and other tactics that could be used to allegedly prevent acts of terror in the wake of the Boston bombing, but lawmakers in Washington have yet to impose the sort of restrictions on constitutional liberties that came in the aftermath of 9/11 – named the PATROIT Act and the establishment of the US Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, including the Transportation Security Administration.
A separate poll conducted by the Washington Post just three days after the Boston Marathon bombing reveals that nearly half of those surveyed say that the government will go too far in trying to prevent future acts of terrorism. The Post asked a random national sample of 588 adults, “Which worries you more: that the government (will not go far enough to investigate terrorism because of concerns about constitutional rights), or that it (will go too far in compromising constitutional rights in order to investigate terrorism)?” Days after the Boston bombing, 41 percent of respondents said the government will not go far enough, compared to 48 percent saying they’ll go too far. When similar questions were asked in 2006 and 2010, 44 percent and 27 percent said the government will go too far, respectively, signaling that for the first time in years Americans are overly concerned about a misuse of power on the part of Washington.
That isn’t to say that the Boston attack is necessarily inspiring Americans to question authority, though. Two months before Tsarnaev brothers allegedly detonated a pair of explosives near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, 53 percent of Americans polled by the Pew Research Center said the federal government is threatening their personal rights and freedoms. In November 2011, that statistic was only 30 percent.
Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/rep4/govt-abuse-worse-than-terrorism.html
"In terms of ethics, “controlism” is inherently destructive because it denies an individual his or her humanity. “Empowerment” is inherently good (or even blessed) because it invests in the individual the power of determining her or her own life outcomes."
How to instantly tell who’s evil vs. good: the philosophy of ‘control’ vs. ‘empowerment’
Mike Adams
I get this question all the time from readers: How can we know whom to believe? Who’s really telling the truth? Which person should I support for political office at the next election?
What if I told you there is an incredibly simple way to tell not only who’s good and who’s bad, but also how to tell who is pushing absolute evil onto our world?
This method is remarkably accurate, and you can use it right now to assess almost anyone.
It all starts with understanding the spectrum of control vs. empowerment.
Imagine a 10-foot string stretched out on the ground. On the far left side of the string, there is a point we’ll call “Control.” On the far right side of the string, another point is called “Empowerment.”
Let’s start with the “Empowerment” side first. This point represents people who primarily seek to empower you with knowledge, skills, wisdom and tools. “Empowerment” represents GOOD because it allows wisdom, skills and abundance to multiply from one person to the next. It recognizes the value of the individual and honors consciousness and free will.
On the far left side of the string — which also represents the political left in America today — we have “Control.” This point represents people who primarily seek to control you: to extract money from you (rob you), to limit your freedoms, to demand your obedience and to use the threat of force to command your compliance. This philosophy dishonors the individual and downplays free will and individual liberty. “Control” is inherently evil because it seeks to diminish the power of a large number of people in order to accumulate power into the hands of a few people.
(The context of this discussion is, of course, entirely in the realm of dealing with adults. Obviously children should be subjected to certain controls for their own development and safety. That’s called good parenting. But to treat adults like children and attempt to control them like a parent controlling a child is unjustified and inherently destructive.)
Examples of “control” vs “empowerment”
A person who seeks to teach others how to garden and thereby grow their own food is practicing empowerment and is therefore GOOD. But a person who seeks to place other people on government food stamps and thereby make them dependent on government for their food is practicing control and is inherently EVIL.
A school that teaches students to think for themselves and engage in critical, skeptical thinking about the world around them is practicing empowerment and is therefore GOOD. But a school that teaches students blind obedience to institutional authority while denying them the liberty to think for themselves is practicing control and is therefore EVIL.
A person who seeks to help others create their own successful businesses and generate abundant profits for themselves and their employees is practicing empowerment and is therefore GOOD. But a person who seeks to destroy entrepreneurship, suppress innovation, punish small businesses and burden private sector job creation with onerous taxes and regulation is practicing control and is therefore EVIL.
A person who seeks to teach others how to protect themselves against violent crime through the intelligent, ethical use of weapons for self defense is practicing empowerment and is therefore GOOD. But a person who seeks to strip away from everyone else their right to self defense, placing them in the position of defenseless victimization, is practicing control and is therefore EVIL.
A city mayor who seeks to teach his constituents the principles of nutrition and food choice so that they might make better decisions about their diet and health is practicing empowerment and is therefore GOOD. But a city mayor who demands blind obedience to his selective agenda of banning large sodas or other junk food items is practicing control and is therefore EVIL. (Bloomberg, anyone?)
So, getting back to the title of this article, the way to instantly tell whether a person is “good” or “evil” is to examine their actions on the control vs. empowerment spectrum. If they predominantly seek to control others, they are mostly evil. If they predominantly seek to empower others, they are mostly good.
Be careful to examine peoples’ actions, not merely their words. Anyone can talk a good game of “empowerment,” but very few actually seek to educate and uplift others around them.
The politics of control vs. empowerment
The political left is deeply invested in a philosophy of control. The left believes in centralized control over the economy, societal control of parenting and children, government control over education, centralized bankster control over money, and government control over health care.
The political right is invested in a philosophy of non-interventionism. They classically believe the government should keeps its hands off education, the economy, businesses operations and private lives. (Of course, today’s political right is actually just as much pro-big government as the political left.)
Libertarianism, by the way, is a philosophy of allowing — allowing people to make their own fortunes, or mistakes, or personal decisions as long as their behaviors do not harm others. Classic libertarianism means people are free to do what they wish, including marrying someone of the same sex if that’s their choice, as long as their actions do not cause direct harm to others around them. Many people mistakenly think they are libertarians but they are actually closet control freaks because they want everyone else to conform to their own ideas of marriage, religion, recreational drug use, prostitution and so on. A true libertarian must tolerate the free will actions of others even if those actions are obviously self-destructive to the individual.
In terms of ethics, “controlism” is inherently destructive because it denies an individual his or her humanity. “Empowerment” is inherently good (or even blessed) because it invests in the individual the power of determining her or her own life outcomes.
The universe is written in the code of conscious empowerment
From a spiritual perspective, the Creator granted humans free will precisely because free will puts control into the hands of the individual, not a centralized power figure. If we were not meant to be free, we would never have been created with free will.
In this way, “controlism” stands in contradiction to the laws of the universe and the existence of free will and consciousness. Thus, the underlying philosophy of the political left is anti-consciousness, anti-free will and a contradiction of the fundamental laws of the universe.
This is why collectivist mandates feel so alien to a free-thinking human being… because control freakism is a violation of self-evident, universal truth. This is also why the leftist / collectivist political philosophy is doomed to fail: It exists in gross violation of the laws of the universe. No human being inherently wants to live without freedom, functioning merely as an obedient peon under a system of centralized control. It feels wrong because it is universally and spiritually wrong.
That is why it will fail. And that is why all those who defend individual liberty, free will and individual empowerment quite literally have God and the universe on their side.
In summary, then, if you want to determine whether a person is “good” or “evil” — in effect, whether they are living in congruency with the laws of the universe — simply place them on the spectrum of “control” versus “empowerment” and your question all but answers itself.
Link:
http://www.naturalnews.com/040122_control_empowerment_philosophy.html#ixzz2RwE7CudT
Mike Adams
I get this question all the time from readers: How can we know whom to believe? Who’s really telling the truth? Which person should I support for political office at the next election?
What if I told you there is an incredibly simple way to tell not only who’s good and who’s bad, but also how to tell who is pushing absolute evil onto our world?
This method is remarkably accurate, and you can use it right now to assess almost anyone.
It all starts with understanding the spectrum of control vs. empowerment.
Imagine a 10-foot string stretched out on the ground. On the far left side of the string, there is a point we’ll call “Control.” On the far right side of the string, another point is called “Empowerment.”
Let’s start with the “Empowerment” side first. This point represents people who primarily seek to empower you with knowledge, skills, wisdom and tools. “Empowerment” represents GOOD because it allows wisdom, skills and abundance to multiply from one person to the next. It recognizes the value of the individual and honors consciousness and free will.
On the far left side of the string — which also represents the political left in America today — we have “Control.” This point represents people who primarily seek to control you: to extract money from you (rob you), to limit your freedoms, to demand your obedience and to use the threat of force to command your compliance. This philosophy dishonors the individual and downplays free will and individual liberty. “Control” is inherently evil because it seeks to diminish the power of a large number of people in order to accumulate power into the hands of a few people.
(The context of this discussion is, of course, entirely in the realm of dealing with adults. Obviously children should be subjected to certain controls for their own development and safety. That’s called good parenting. But to treat adults like children and attempt to control them like a parent controlling a child is unjustified and inherently destructive.)
Examples of “control” vs “empowerment”
A person who seeks to teach others how to garden and thereby grow their own food is practicing empowerment and is therefore GOOD. But a person who seeks to place other people on government food stamps and thereby make them dependent on government for their food is practicing control and is inherently EVIL.
A school that teaches students to think for themselves and engage in critical, skeptical thinking about the world around them is practicing empowerment and is therefore GOOD. But a school that teaches students blind obedience to institutional authority while denying them the liberty to think for themselves is practicing control and is therefore EVIL.
A person who seeks to help others create their own successful businesses and generate abundant profits for themselves and their employees is practicing empowerment and is therefore GOOD. But a person who seeks to destroy entrepreneurship, suppress innovation, punish small businesses and burden private sector job creation with onerous taxes and regulation is practicing control and is therefore EVIL.
A person who seeks to teach others how to protect themselves against violent crime through the intelligent, ethical use of weapons for self defense is practicing empowerment and is therefore GOOD. But a person who seeks to strip away from everyone else their right to self defense, placing them in the position of defenseless victimization, is practicing control and is therefore EVIL.
A city mayor who seeks to teach his constituents the principles of nutrition and food choice so that they might make better decisions about their diet and health is practicing empowerment and is therefore GOOD. But a city mayor who demands blind obedience to his selective agenda of banning large sodas or other junk food items is practicing control and is therefore EVIL. (Bloomberg, anyone?)
So, getting back to the title of this article, the way to instantly tell whether a person is “good” or “evil” is to examine their actions on the control vs. empowerment spectrum. If they predominantly seek to control others, they are mostly evil. If they predominantly seek to empower others, they are mostly good.
Be careful to examine peoples’ actions, not merely their words. Anyone can talk a good game of “empowerment,” but very few actually seek to educate and uplift others around them.
The politics of control vs. empowerment
The political left is deeply invested in a philosophy of control. The left believes in centralized control over the economy, societal control of parenting and children, government control over education, centralized bankster control over money, and government control over health care.
The political right is invested in a philosophy of non-interventionism. They classically believe the government should keeps its hands off education, the economy, businesses operations and private lives. (Of course, today’s political right is actually just as much pro-big government as the political left.)
Libertarianism, by the way, is a philosophy of allowing — allowing people to make their own fortunes, or mistakes, or personal decisions as long as their behaviors do not harm others. Classic libertarianism means people are free to do what they wish, including marrying someone of the same sex if that’s their choice, as long as their actions do not cause direct harm to others around them. Many people mistakenly think they are libertarians but they are actually closet control freaks because they want everyone else to conform to their own ideas of marriage, religion, recreational drug use, prostitution and so on. A true libertarian must tolerate the free will actions of others even if those actions are obviously self-destructive to the individual.
In terms of ethics, “controlism” is inherently destructive because it denies an individual his or her humanity. “Empowerment” is inherently good (or even blessed) because it invests in the individual the power of determining her or her own life outcomes.
The universe is written in the code of conscious empowerment
From a spiritual perspective, the Creator granted humans free will precisely because free will puts control into the hands of the individual, not a centralized power figure. If we were not meant to be free, we would never have been created with free will.
In this way, “controlism” stands in contradiction to the laws of the universe and the existence of free will and consciousness. Thus, the underlying philosophy of the political left is anti-consciousness, anti-free will and a contradiction of the fundamental laws of the universe.
This is why collectivist mandates feel so alien to a free-thinking human being… because control freakism is a violation of self-evident, universal truth. This is also why the leftist / collectivist political philosophy is doomed to fail: It exists in gross violation of the laws of the universe. No human being inherently wants to live without freedom, functioning merely as an obedient peon under a system of centralized control. It feels wrong because it is universally and spiritually wrong.
That is why it will fail. And that is why all those who defend individual liberty, free will and individual empowerment quite literally have God and the universe on their side.
In summary, then, if you want to determine whether a person is “good” or “evil” — in effect, whether they are living in congruency with the laws of the universe — simply place them on the spectrum of “control” versus “empowerment” and your question all but answers itself.
Link:
http://www.naturalnews.com/040122_control_empowerment_philosophy.html#ixzz2RwE7CudT
Banks and drug money...
Flashback: NBC Report Confirms Bankers Really Do Fund Drug Cartels, Terror Groups
by Anthony Gucciardi
Still think it’s a ‘conspiracy theory’ that the largest mega banks are profiting off of the drug trade, or even the activity of terror groups? A little-known NBC report from 2012 actually confirms it.
In fact, one 2012 NBC report details how HSBC bank helped to finance everything from Mexican drug cartels to Syrian terror cells. Thanks to a United States Senate report, which centers around the role of Mexican drug cartel funds travelling through HSBC, NBC and a few other outlets actually covered the breaking news — albeit to a small degree.
And it’s this report that reveals how the United States branch of HSBC directly aided backers of Al-Qaeda and Mexican drug cartels through both finances and overall banking services. From terror-linked groups out of Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh, HSBC was tied up with numerous terror groups and financially empowering them for quite some time.
For around a decade or more, in fact.
Yet HSBC has managed to get away without much of a hitch. Even the 2012 Senate Report we’re discussing was simply a ‘probe’ that documents the events themselves. Even the major United States bank regulatory group the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency was deemed to have improperly looked into the situation — instead turning a blind eye to the entire operation. The investigative group at the Senate even reports on how the very culture of HSBC has been ‘polluted’ during the lengthy time period of terror and drug funding...
Read more: http://www.storyleak.com/nbc-report-bankers-fund-drug-cartels-terror-groups/#ixzz2RwaThg8l
by Anthony Gucciardi
Still think it’s a ‘conspiracy theory’ that the largest mega banks are profiting off of the drug trade, or even the activity of terror groups? A little-known NBC report from 2012 actually confirms it.
In fact, one 2012 NBC report details how HSBC bank helped to finance everything from Mexican drug cartels to Syrian terror cells. Thanks to a United States Senate report, which centers around the role of Mexican drug cartel funds travelling through HSBC, NBC and a few other outlets actually covered the breaking news — albeit to a small degree.
And it’s this report that reveals how the United States branch of HSBC directly aided backers of Al-Qaeda and Mexican drug cartels through both finances and overall banking services. From terror-linked groups out of Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh, HSBC was tied up with numerous terror groups and financially empowering them for quite some time.
For around a decade or more, in fact.
Yet HSBC has managed to get away without much of a hitch. Even the 2012 Senate Report we’re discussing was simply a ‘probe’ that documents the events themselves. Even the major United States bank regulatory group the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency was deemed to have improperly looked into the situation — instead turning a blind eye to the entire operation. The investigative group at the Senate even reports on how the very culture of HSBC has been ‘polluted’ during the lengthy time period of terror and drug funding...
Read more: http://www.storyleak.com/nbc-report-bankers-fund-drug-cartels-terror-groups/#ixzz2RwaThg8l
"The U.S. economy has become a miserable junkie that is completely and totally addicted to reckless money printing and gigantic mountains of debt."
20 Signs That The Next Great Economic Depression Has Already Started In Europe
Mike Snyder
The next Great Depression is already happening - it just hasn't reached the United States yet. Things in Europe just continue to get worse and worse, and yet most people in the United States still don't get it. All the time I have people ask me when the "economic collapse" is going to happen. Well, for ages I have been warning that the next major wave of the ongoing economic collapse would begin in Europe, and that is exactly what is happening. In fact, both Greece and Spain already have levels of unemployment that are greater than anything the U.S. experienced during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Pay close attention to what is happening over there, because it is coming here too. You see, the truth is that Europe is a lot like the United States. We are both drowning in unprecedented levels of debt, and we both have overleveraged banking systems that resemble a house of cards. The reason why the U.S. does not look like Europe yet is because we have thrown all caution to the wind. The Federal Reserve is printing money as if there is no tomorrow and the U.S. government is savagely destroying the future that our children and our grandchildren were supposed to have by stealing more than 100 million dollars from them every single hour of every single day. We have gone "all in" on kicking the can down the road even though it means destroying the future of America. But the alternative scares the living daylights out of our politicians. When nations such as Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy tried to slow down the rate at which their debts were rising, the results were absolutely devastating. A full-blown economic depression is raging across southern Europe and it is rapidly spreading into northern Europe. Eventually it will spread to the rest of the globe as well.
The following are 20 signs that the next Great Depression has already started in Europe...
#1 The unemployment rate in France has surged to 10.6 percent, and the number of jobless claims in that country recently set a new all-time record.
#2 Unemployment in the eurozone as a whole is sitting at an all-time record of 12 percent.
#3 Two years ago, Portugal's unemployment rate was about 12 percent. Today, it is about 17 percent.
#4 The unemployment rate in Spain has set a new all-time record of 27 percent. Even during the Great Depression of the 1930s the United States never had unemployment that high.
#5 The unemployment rate among those under the age of 25 in Spain is an astounding 57.2 percent.
#6 The unemployment rate in Greece has set a new all-time record of 27.2 percent. Even during the Great Depression of the 1930s the United States never had unemployment that high.
#7 The unemployment rate among those under the age of 25 in Greece is a whopping 59.3 percent.
#8 French car sales in March were 16 percent lower than they were one year earlier.
#9 German car sales in March were 17 percent lower than they were one year earlier.
#10 In the Netherlands, consumer debt is now up to about 250 percent of available income.
#11 Industrial production in Italy has fallen by an astounding 25 percent over the past five years.
#12 The number of Spanish firms filing for bankruptcy is 45 percent higher than it was a year ago.
#13 Since 2007, the value of non-performing loans in Europe has increased by 150 percent.
#14 Bank withdrawals in Cyprus during the month of March were double what they were in February even though the banks were closed for half the month.
#15 Due to an absolutely crippling housing crash, there are approximately 3 million vacant homes in Spain today.
#16 Things have gotten so bad in Spain that entire apartment buildings are being overwhelmed by squatters...
A 285-unit apartment complex in Parla, less than half an hour’s drive from Madrid, should be an ideal target for investors seeking cheap property in Spain. Unfortunately, two thirds of the building generates zero revenue because it’s overrun by squatters.
“This is happening all over the country,” said Jose Maria Fraile, the town’s mayor, who estimates only 100 apartments in the block built for the council have rental contracts, and not all of those tenants are paying either. “People lost their jobs, they can’t pay mortgages or rent so they lost their homes and this has produced a tide of squatters.”
#17 As I wrote about the other day, child hunger has become so rampant in Greece that teachers are reporting that hungry children are begging their classmates for food.
#18 The debt to GDP ratio in Italy is now up to 136 percent.
#19 25 percent of all banking assets in the UK are in banks that are leveraged at least 40 to 1.
#20 German banking giant Deutsche Bank has more than 55 trillion euros (which is more than 72 trillion dollars) of exposure to derivatives. But the GDP of Germany for an entire year is only about 2.7 trillion euros.
Yes, U.S. stocks have been doing great so far this year, but the truth is that the stock market has become completely and totally divorced from economic reality. When it does catch up with the economic fundamentals, it will probably happen very rapidly like we saw back in 2008.
Our politicians can try to kick the can down the road for as long as they can, but at some point the consequences of our foolish decisions will hunt us down and overtake us. The following is what Peter Schiff had to say about this coming crisis the other day...
"The crisis is imminent," Schiff said. "I don't think Obama is going to finish his second term without the bottom dropping out. And stock market investors are oblivious to the problems."
"We're broke, Schiff added. "We owe trillions. Look at our budget deficit; look at the debt to GDP ratio, the unfunded liabilities. If we were in the Eurozone, they would kick us out."
Schiff points out that the market gains experienced recently, with the Dow first topping 14,000 on its way to setting record highs, are giving investors a false sense of security.
"It's not that the stock market is gaining value... it's that our money is losing value. And so if you have a debased currency... a devalued currency, the price of everything goes up. Stocks are no exception," he said.
"The Fed knows that the U.S. economy is not recovering," he noted. "It simply is being kept from collapse by artificially low interest rates and quantitative easing. As that support goes, the economy will implode."
So please don't think that we are any different from Europe.
If the United States government started only spending the money that it brings in, we would descend into an economic depression tomorrow.
The only way that we can continue to live out the economic fantasy that we see all around us is by financially abusing our children and our grandchildren.
The U.S. economy has become a miserable junkie that is completely and totally addicted to reckless money printing and gigantic mountains of debt.
If we stop printing money and going into unprecedented amounts of debt we are finished.
If we continue printing money and going into unprecedented amounts of debt we are finished.
Either way, this is all going to end very, very badly.
Link:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/20-signs-that-the-next-great-economic-depression-has-already-started-in-europe
Mike Snyder
The next Great Depression is already happening - it just hasn't reached the United States yet. Things in Europe just continue to get worse and worse, and yet most people in the United States still don't get it. All the time I have people ask me when the "economic collapse" is going to happen. Well, for ages I have been warning that the next major wave of the ongoing economic collapse would begin in Europe, and that is exactly what is happening. In fact, both Greece and Spain already have levels of unemployment that are greater than anything the U.S. experienced during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Pay close attention to what is happening over there, because it is coming here too. You see, the truth is that Europe is a lot like the United States. We are both drowning in unprecedented levels of debt, and we both have overleveraged banking systems that resemble a house of cards. The reason why the U.S. does not look like Europe yet is because we have thrown all caution to the wind. The Federal Reserve is printing money as if there is no tomorrow and the U.S. government is savagely destroying the future that our children and our grandchildren were supposed to have by stealing more than 100 million dollars from them every single hour of every single day. We have gone "all in" on kicking the can down the road even though it means destroying the future of America. But the alternative scares the living daylights out of our politicians. When nations such as Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy tried to slow down the rate at which their debts were rising, the results were absolutely devastating. A full-blown economic depression is raging across southern Europe and it is rapidly spreading into northern Europe. Eventually it will spread to the rest of the globe as well.
The following are 20 signs that the next Great Depression has already started in Europe...
#1 The unemployment rate in France has surged to 10.6 percent, and the number of jobless claims in that country recently set a new all-time record.
#2 Unemployment in the eurozone as a whole is sitting at an all-time record of 12 percent.
#3 Two years ago, Portugal's unemployment rate was about 12 percent. Today, it is about 17 percent.
#4 The unemployment rate in Spain has set a new all-time record of 27 percent. Even during the Great Depression of the 1930s the United States never had unemployment that high.
#5 The unemployment rate among those under the age of 25 in Spain is an astounding 57.2 percent.
#6 The unemployment rate in Greece has set a new all-time record of 27.2 percent. Even during the Great Depression of the 1930s the United States never had unemployment that high.
#7 The unemployment rate among those under the age of 25 in Greece is a whopping 59.3 percent.
#8 French car sales in March were 16 percent lower than they were one year earlier.
#9 German car sales in March were 17 percent lower than they were one year earlier.
#10 In the Netherlands, consumer debt is now up to about 250 percent of available income.
#11 Industrial production in Italy has fallen by an astounding 25 percent over the past five years.
#12 The number of Spanish firms filing for bankruptcy is 45 percent higher than it was a year ago.
#13 Since 2007, the value of non-performing loans in Europe has increased by 150 percent.
#14 Bank withdrawals in Cyprus during the month of March were double what they were in February even though the banks were closed for half the month.
#15 Due to an absolutely crippling housing crash, there are approximately 3 million vacant homes in Spain today.
#16 Things have gotten so bad in Spain that entire apartment buildings are being overwhelmed by squatters...
A 285-unit apartment complex in Parla, less than half an hour’s drive from Madrid, should be an ideal target for investors seeking cheap property in Spain. Unfortunately, two thirds of the building generates zero revenue because it’s overrun by squatters.
“This is happening all over the country,” said Jose Maria Fraile, the town’s mayor, who estimates only 100 apartments in the block built for the council have rental contracts, and not all of those tenants are paying either. “People lost their jobs, they can’t pay mortgages or rent so they lost their homes and this has produced a tide of squatters.”
#17 As I wrote about the other day, child hunger has become so rampant in Greece that teachers are reporting that hungry children are begging their classmates for food.
#18 The debt to GDP ratio in Italy is now up to 136 percent.
#19 25 percent of all banking assets in the UK are in banks that are leveraged at least 40 to 1.
#20 German banking giant Deutsche Bank has more than 55 trillion euros (which is more than 72 trillion dollars) of exposure to derivatives. But the GDP of Germany for an entire year is only about 2.7 trillion euros.
Yes, U.S. stocks have been doing great so far this year, but the truth is that the stock market has become completely and totally divorced from economic reality. When it does catch up with the economic fundamentals, it will probably happen very rapidly like we saw back in 2008.
Our politicians can try to kick the can down the road for as long as they can, but at some point the consequences of our foolish decisions will hunt us down and overtake us. The following is what Peter Schiff had to say about this coming crisis the other day...
"The crisis is imminent," Schiff said. "I don't think Obama is going to finish his second term without the bottom dropping out. And stock market investors are oblivious to the problems."
"We're broke, Schiff added. "We owe trillions. Look at our budget deficit; look at the debt to GDP ratio, the unfunded liabilities. If we were in the Eurozone, they would kick us out."
Schiff points out that the market gains experienced recently, with the Dow first topping 14,000 on its way to setting record highs, are giving investors a false sense of security.
"It's not that the stock market is gaining value... it's that our money is losing value. And so if you have a debased currency... a devalued currency, the price of everything goes up. Stocks are no exception," he said.
"The Fed knows that the U.S. economy is not recovering," he noted. "It simply is being kept from collapse by artificially low interest rates and quantitative easing. As that support goes, the economy will implode."
So please don't think that we are any different from Europe.
If the United States government started only spending the money that it brings in, we would descend into an economic depression tomorrow.
The only way that we can continue to live out the economic fantasy that we see all around us is by financially abusing our children and our grandchildren.
The U.S. economy has become a miserable junkie that is completely and totally addicted to reckless money printing and gigantic mountains of debt.
If we stop printing money and going into unprecedented amounts of debt we are finished.
If we continue printing money and going into unprecedented amounts of debt we are finished.
Either way, this is all going to end very, very badly.
Link:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/20-signs-that-the-next-great-economic-depression-has-already-started-in-europe
Depression??? What depression???
The Crisis Is Imminent: “When The Real Crash Comes It Will Be Worse Than the Great Depression”
Mac Slavo
“The United States is like the Titanic, and I’m here with the lifeboat trying to get people to leave the ship… I see a real financial crisis coming for the United States.”
Peter Schiff
August 2006
In 2006, when he faced off with many well known Titans of investing and warned of an impending financial disaster and economic collapse, Peter Schiff was laughed at by his colleagues. He urged Americans to exit financial markets and take steps to protect themselves before the wealth held in their savings accounts, retirement investments and real estate was wiped out.
Few listened.
We know what happened next.
Now, those same financial experts who publicly vilified Schiff for his predictions six years ago are at it again. Many, including our politicians, central bankers and leading economists, have unequivocally stated that the worst is behind us, and that a global recovery is on the horizon.
Once again, Peter Schiff disagrees:
“I think we are heading for a worse economic crisis than we had in 2007,” Schiff said. “You’re going to have a collapse in the dollar…a huge spike in interest rates… and our whole economy, which is built on the foundation of cheap money, is going to topple when you pull the rug out from under it.”
Schiff says that, despite “phony” signs of an economic recovery, the cancer destroying America stems from a lethal concoction of our $16 trillion federal debt and the Fed’s never ending money printing.
According to Schiff, these numbers are unsustainable. And the Fed has no credible “exit strategy.”
Eventually interest rates will rise… and when they do, Schiff says, stocks will tank and bonds dip to nothing. Massive new tax hikes will be imposed and programs and entitlements will be cut to the bone.
“The crisis is imminent,” Schiff said. ”I don’t think Obama is going to finish his second term without the bottom dropping out. And stock market investors are oblivious to the problems.”
“We’re broke, Schiff added. ”We owe trillions. Look at our budget deficit; look at the debt to GDP ratio, the unfunded liabilities. If we were in the Eurozone, they would kick us out.”
“The Fed knows that the U.S. economy is not recovering,” he noted. “It simply is being kept from collapse by artificially low interest rates and quantitative easing. As that support goes, the economy will implode.”
A noted economist, Schiff has been a fierce critic of the Fed and its policies for years. And his warnings have proven to be prophetic.
His recent warnings, however, have been even more alarming. Will they also prove to be true?
In his most recent book, “The Real Crash” How to Save Yourself and Your Country“, Schiff writes that
when the “real crash” comes,” it will be worse than the Great Depression.
Unemployment will skyrocket, credit will dry up, and worse, the dollar will collapse completely, “wiping out all savings and sending consumer prices into the stratosphere.”
“All we can do now is prepare for the crash,” Schiff said. “If we brace ourselves properly and control the impact, we will survive it.”
Indeed.
We must understand that none of the fundamental problems leading up to the 2007/2008 financial crisis have been resolved.
If anything, it’s gotten worse.
Our politicians will not change, and therefore, will change nothing in Washington. Wall Street is as corrupt as ever. Our central bank continues to devalue our currency. There is no end in sight for these people. They will continue on this unsustainable path until we as a country finally hit the proverbial brick wall.
As Peter Schiff notes, the destruction to life as we know it in America and the world is imminent. It’s going to be severe.
So much so that the government has been simulating the collapse of our financial system, the collapse of our society and the potential for widespread violence.
A collapse happened in 2008, but THE collapse is still ahead.
Watch: Peter Schiff Saw It Coming:
Link:
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/the-crisis-is-imminent-when-the-real-crash-comes-it-will-be-worse-than-the-great-depression_04302013
Mac Slavo
“The United States is like the Titanic, and I’m here with the lifeboat trying to get people to leave the ship… I see a real financial crisis coming for the United States.”
Peter Schiff
August 2006
In 2006, when he faced off with many well known Titans of investing and warned of an impending financial disaster and economic collapse, Peter Schiff was laughed at by his colleagues. He urged Americans to exit financial markets and take steps to protect themselves before the wealth held in their savings accounts, retirement investments and real estate was wiped out.
Few listened.
We know what happened next.
Now, those same financial experts who publicly vilified Schiff for his predictions six years ago are at it again. Many, including our politicians, central bankers and leading economists, have unequivocally stated that the worst is behind us, and that a global recovery is on the horizon.
Once again, Peter Schiff disagrees:
“I think we are heading for a worse economic crisis than we had in 2007,” Schiff said. “You’re going to have a collapse in the dollar…a huge spike in interest rates… and our whole economy, which is built on the foundation of cheap money, is going to topple when you pull the rug out from under it.”
Schiff says that, despite “phony” signs of an economic recovery, the cancer destroying America stems from a lethal concoction of our $16 trillion federal debt and the Fed’s never ending money printing.
According to Schiff, these numbers are unsustainable. And the Fed has no credible “exit strategy.”
Eventually interest rates will rise… and when they do, Schiff says, stocks will tank and bonds dip to nothing. Massive new tax hikes will be imposed and programs and entitlements will be cut to the bone.
“The crisis is imminent,” Schiff said. ”I don’t think Obama is going to finish his second term without the bottom dropping out. And stock market investors are oblivious to the problems.”
“We’re broke, Schiff added. ”We owe trillions. Look at our budget deficit; look at the debt to GDP ratio, the unfunded liabilities. If we were in the Eurozone, they would kick us out.”
“The Fed knows that the U.S. economy is not recovering,” he noted. “It simply is being kept from collapse by artificially low interest rates and quantitative easing. As that support goes, the economy will implode.”
A noted economist, Schiff has been a fierce critic of the Fed and its policies for years. And his warnings have proven to be prophetic.
His recent warnings, however, have been even more alarming. Will they also prove to be true?
In his most recent book, “The Real Crash” How to Save Yourself and Your Country“, Schiff writes that
when the “real crash” comes,” it will be worse than the Great Depression.
Unemployment will skyrocket, credit will dry up, and worse, the dollar will collapse completely, “wiping out all savings and sending consumer prices into the stratosphere.”
“All we can do now is prepare for the crash,” Schiff said. “If we brace ourselves properly and control the impact, we will survive it.”
Indeed.
We must understand that none of the fundamental problems leading up to the 2007/2008 financial crisis have been resolved.
If anything, it’s gotten worse.
Our politicians will not change, and therefore, will change nothing in Washington. Wall Street is as corrupt as ever. Our central bank continues to devalue our currency. There is no end in sight for these people. They will continue on this unsustainable path until we as a country finally hit the proverbial brick wall.
As Peter Schiff notes, the destruction to life as we know it in America and the world is imminent. It’s going to be severe.
So much so that the government has been simulating the collapse of our financial system, the collapse of our society and the potential for widespread violence.
A collapse happened in 2008, but THE collapse is still ahead.
Watch: Peter Schiff Saw It Coming:
Link:
http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/the-crisis-is-imminent-when-the-real-crash-comes-it-will-be-worse-than-the-great-depression_04302013
Monday, April 29, 2013
Nothing fishy going on here...
SEAL Team 4 Commanding Officer Best Known For Finding & Then Killing Osama Bin Laden Commits Suicide
by voiceofreason
25 members of the team who allegedly killed Bin Laden are dead. No conspiracy theory there. Just the facts. You decide.
Authorities say one of two Navy SEALs injured during parachute training in southern Arizona has died while the other man remains hospitalized.
A U.S. Special Operations Command official said Friday that the SEAL died in a Tucson hospital Thursday but didn’t have a condition update on the other man.
SEAL Team 4 Commanding Officer Job W. Price commit suicide. He was best known for finding and then killing Osama bin Laden.
Cmdr. Job W. Price, 42, died Saturday, Dec. 22, of a non-combat-related injury while supporting stability operations in Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan.
Suicide of the Officer of this grade raises many questions among the media, as the team was best known for killing Osama Bin Laden that assaulted his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 1, 2011.
Read More Here
…and here
Over 20 navy seals are now dead who killed bin laden, coincedence? Yeah.. right. There STILL isnt any evidence at all that we even killed him. My guess is that he was already dead and has been dead for years. The Osama Bin Lden shown in the videos at the abbotabad compound is a double. A fake used by whomever for propaganda purposes. It’s a omplete lie and shame like 9-11 or the jfk assassination investigation. sad…. -Mort
Link to article and hyperlinks:
http://thelastgreatstand.com/lgs/2013/04/25/seal-team-4-commanding-officer-best-known-for-finding-then-killing-osama-bin-laden-commits-suicide/
by voiceofreason
25 members of the team who allegedly killed Bin Laden are dead. No conspiracy theory there. Just the facts. You decide.
Authorities say one of two Navy SEALs injured during parachute training in southern Arizona has died while the other man remains hospitalized.
A U.S. Special Operations Command official said Friday that the SEAL died in a Tucson hospital Thursday but didn’t have a condition update on the other man.
SEAL Team 4 Commanding Officer Job W. Price commit suicide. He was best known for finding and then killing Osama bin Laden.
Cmdr. Job W. Price, 42, died Saturday, Dec. 22, of a non-combat-related injury while supporting stability operations in Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan.
Suicide of the Officer of this grade raises many questions among the media, as the team was best known for killing Osama Bin Laden that assaulted his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 1, 2011.
Read More Here
…and here
Over 20 navy seals are now dead who killed bin laden, coincedence? Yeah.. right. There STILL isnt any evidence at all that we even killed him. My guess is that he was already dead and has been dead for years. The Osama Bin Lden shown in the videos at the abbotabad compound is a double. A fake used by whomever for propaganda purposes. It’s a omplete lie and shame like 9-11 or the jfk assassination investigation. sad…. -Mort
Link to article and hyperlinks:
http://thelastgreatstand.com/lgs/2013/04/25/seal-team-4-commanding-officer-best-known-for-finding-then-killing-osama-bin-laden-commits-suicide/
We're number 2!!! We're number 2!!!...
Which States Collect the Most Income Tax?
The Tax Foundation has released a map of state income tax collections per capita for 2011—the most recent data available.toThe Tax Foundation has released a map of state income tax collections per capita for 2011—the most recent data available.
The of the list includes:
1. New York, with $1,864 per capita
2. Connecticut ($1,808)
3. Massachusetts ($1,765)
4. Oregon ($1,424)
5. Minnesota ($1,404)
6. California ($1,346)
At the bottom of the list are the states that don’t levy an income tax: Washington, Nevada, Wyoming, South Dakota, Texas and Florida.
Of states that levy an income tax on wages, Arizona ($444) collects the least per capita.
Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/04/which-states-collect-most-income-tax.html
The Tax Foundation has released a map of state income tax collections per capita for 2011—the most recent data available.toThe Tax Foundation has released a map of state income tax collections per capita for 2011—the most recent data available.
The of the list includes:
1. New York, with $1,864 per capita
2. Connecticut ($1,808)
3. Massachusetts ($1,765)
4. Oregon ($1,424)
5. Minnesota ($1,404)
6. California ($1,346)
At the bottom of the list are the states that don’t levy an income tax: Washington, Nevada, Wyoming, South Dakota, Texas and Florida.
Of states that levy an income tax on wages, Arizona ($444) collects the least per capita.
Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/04/which-states-collect-most-income-tax.html
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