Free Republic

Here's your chance to find out who has been visiting the White HouseHere's your chance to help figure out who has been visiting the people's house during the early months of the Obama administration. Although President Barack Obama has announced that he will make public the names of visitors to the White House, there's a catch. Under the new White House policy, names of visitors during the first eight months of the administration will be released only if the requests include specific names to be checked against the visitor logs. In other words, if you don't know who visited, or...

Russian Professor Igor Panarin postulates the collapse of the US by early November. He is “Doctor of Political Sciences, and Professor of the Russian Diplomatic Academy Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” Panarin states: “Of note is the recent election of the Democratic Party in Japan whose leader ( Yokio Hatoyama ) has vowed to transfer Japan’s monetary reserves…. into a different currency. China will also begin to dump the Dollar, and Russia will demand payment for its gas and oil in Rubles.” Obama is Monetizing the US Debt Obama is Monetizing the US Debt (printing money and devalueing the dollar). The...

Silver is going bonkers!

Barack Obama said the Waxman-Markey carbon tax would help create "green energy" jobs in the U.S. He is now using taxpayer dollars to fund jobs in Spain.Barack Obama sold the Waxman-Markey "American Clean Energy and Security Act" to Congress and the American people by saying that investment in so-called "green energy" would create millions of high-wage American manufacturing jobs. We received an E-mail from the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (nonpartisan professional organization) that exposed Barack Obama as a blatant prevaricator who is shamelessly using our tax dollars to create jobs not in the United States but in foreign countries. We...

Wendell CoxEscape from New York Dysfunctional policies are driving away millions of residents and billions of dollars. 1 September 2009 New York State faces a host of economic and budgetary problems, as many of the stories in this issue make clear. One way of expressing the depth of these problems is through the state’s startling domestic-migration numbers. “Domestic migration” refers to people who move from one location to another within the United States. It takes into account migrants both into a state and out of it, subtracting immigrants from emigrants to yield the net number of people leaving a...

In other words, the value of the dollar remained extremely stable for 150 years, the Fed was created in order to "stabilize the value of the dollar," and the result has been a 95% devaluation of the dollar in less than 100 years following its creation.

While in prayer over the last three weeks I have kept getting that the west coast of America was going to begin to see extreme weather changes including hurricanes , then this morning I received this word in prayer for your discernment and intercession . . . Hurricanes and weather not seen before now , How long shall you hang onto your sacred cow , The thing that blinds you this very day , Shall soon cause you immense dismay , A shaking is coming behold ! I reveal it even now , So what shall be your answer? Me...

The Silver Bullet - ‘Can’t Vote Can’t Contribute’ Money has corrupted our political system to the extent that it no linger represents the people but represents the special interests that fund politicians. One solution to the problem is ‘Can’t Vote Can’t Contribute’. Simply stated ‘Can’t Vote Can’t Contribute’ means no one can contribute one dime to any politician, political entity or activity who they cannot vote for. There would be no limit on contributions and they must be placed in the public record as soon as they are accepted. Violations of ‘Can’t Vote Can’t Contribute’ would be treated as a...

Ben Bernanke won the nickname “Helicopter Ben” for describing quantitative easing as akin to dropping money from helicopters in 2002. He was quoting the US economist Milton Friedman, who had said it would be theoretically possible for governments to drop large amounts of cash out of helicopters for the public to pick up and spend... Born in Augusta, Georgia, Bernanke was raised in a ranch house on East Jefferson Street in Dillon, SC, and was educated at East Elementary, J. V. Martin Junior High, and Dillon High School, where he was class valedictorian. At age 11, Bernanke won the state...

The US banking system will lose some 1,000 institutions over the next two years, said John Kanas, whose private equity firm bought BankUnited of Florida in May. “We’ve already lost 81 this year,” he told CNBC. “The numbers are climbing every day. Many of these institutions nobody’s ever heard of. They're smaller companies.” Failed banks tend to be smaller and private, which exacerbates the problem for small business borrowers, said Kanas, who became CEO of BankUnited when his firm bought the bank and is the former chairman and CEO of North Fork bank. “Government money has propped up the very...

While Iran has been unable to get modern Russian S300 surface-to-air missiles (yet), they have gone ahead and built a nationwide air defense network using Chinese HQ2 missiles. These were first purchased in the 1980s, but since then, Iran progressed to the point where they are now building HQ2 missiles and radar stations under license. It's believed that China has quietly allowed Iran to build the latest versions of the HQ2 as well. These are not quite as effective as the S300, but are pretty formidable.

Joseph Kennedy and the Jews By Edward Renehan, Jr. (Mr. Renehan's most recent book is The Kennedys at War, 1937-1945, published in April 2002 by Doubleday.) Arriving at London in early 1938, newly-appointed U.S. Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy took up quickly with another transplanted American. Viscountess Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor assured Kennedy early in their friendship that he should not be put off by her pronounced and proud anti-Catholicism. "I'm glad you are smart enough not to take my [views] personally," she wrote. Astor pointed out that she had a number of Roman Catholic friends - G.K. Chesterton among them...

I’m not materialistic… Think back to your trip to the mall to return a sweater that was the wrong size. Was it really too small or did you realize you don‘t need it? I no longer have control of my gut feeling when shopping. I feel guilty after almost all my purchases. When I see good deals, I don't take advantage of them instead they engulf me. I buy multiples of things I don't need, mostly due to coupons.Coupons are not to help you, sure they can get you a good deal when you have money to spend and things...

It is becoming quite humorous watching the continual efforts of Western commentators (mostly American) to bash the Chinese economy. The accusations these pundits make are as numerous as they are ludicrous. Perhaps the most-frequent criticism is that because it is the U.S.'s largest foreign “creditor” (i.e. lender), that China has a serious “problem” due to the fact that the U.S. is totally unable to repay what it has borrowed from China. Frankly, it is hard to imagine any adult without a severe mental disability reaching such an idiotic conclusion. For anyone who places any credence in this assertion, I suggest...

Athens, Ga. - Since it was introduced in February, Representative Ron Paul's "Audit the Fed" bill (H.R. 1207) has gained 282 congressional cosponsors. If adopted, the bill would allow the Government Accountability Office to review, not only the Federal Reserve's balance sheet, but its recent monetary policy deliberations and transactions. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke opposes the plan, saying it would undermine the Fed's hallowed independence. But Mr. Paul, a noted libertarian who ran for president last year, also wants to keep the Fed out of Congress's clutches – by scrapping it altogether. That's the goal of his follow-up Federal Reserve...

Great video of a young Ron Paul speaking about the value of money and the issue of central banking.

<p>The clunker money's there - allocated, but not much is going anywhere - it's being deliberately held back.  Dealers are on thin ice, unable to pay their debts - many verge on bankruptcy.  But, think about it... the many dealerships that aren't getting their clunker money are competitors of...  Government Motors.</p>

Economics blogger Michael Shedlock, aka “Mish,” is asking whether the FDIC has any money left in its fund after the $2.8 billion rescue of Colonial BancGroup in Alabama. It was the biggest failure since Washington Mutual last year and the sixth biggest ever. Competitor BB&T is now feasting on the Colonial carcass. The FDIC says it has $13 billion in its fund and has set aside another $25 billion to cover individual depositors up to $250,000 per account. But Mish, a registered investment advisor at Sitka Pacific Management, isn’t buying it: Tonight, inquiring minds are asking “Is There Any Money...

As I have reported here the last few days, 5 banks failed this past Friday and 2 of them were huge. Colonial Bank's failure was the sixth largest in US history, depleting the FDIC's Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF) by $2.8 billion. Community Bank of Nevada was also seized on Friday with the DIF taking a $782 million hit. Total losses for FDIC on Friday is estimated to be $3.7 billion. So how much is left in the DIF? Well according to this report Saxo Bank Research LINK prior to Friday's bank failures the FDIC DIF had been depleted to only...

I apologize as I normally don't like posting vanity threads. However, tonight my brother and I were discussing something that we though was interesting. The TARP was funded at $700 billion dollars but only half of that was ever invested and then most of the banks have paid this back. The Stimulus was funded at $787 billion but we know that only 16% of that has been spent. The Cash for Clunkers was funder at 1 billion with 2 more added in. Yet out of that $1 billion the government has spent only 2% and it appears the government is...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- JetBlue Airways will offer an "all-you-can-jet" pass for $599 in which passengers can book an unlimited number of flights within a one-month span

[Quix color emphasis added; with standing permission to post ATS docs here with URL refs.] A severe storm came through my town last night and it knocked out power in my local grocery store for a bit. This was no big deal, as it has happened before. There was, however, a bigger problem we discovered very quickly: The credit and debit no longer worked, and checks couldn't be used. Foodstamps and WIC did not work either. Coincidentally, there was a rush of people in the store at this same time, and the lines began to clog very fast. People...

The economic position that the United States is now in is the result of a series of economic bubbles. To explain the nature of bubbles, I'm going to start by talking about their history; I'm not going to go all the way back to Tulip Mania and John Law, but I do want to mention some things from the Roaring Twenties that might sound familiar to us today. Over the eight-year period of that boom, the money supply increased by 62 percent. All kinds of new appliances and gadgets were sold: refrigerators, phonographs, electric irons, toasters, and vacuum cleaners. Many...

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner chewed out fellow top federal regulatory authorities Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke, Securities and Exchange Commission chairwoman Mary Schapiro and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairwoman Sheila Bair last week. The tirade laced with profanities erupted over Geithner’s demand that President Obama’s picture and/or signature appear on newly issued currency. “The President is torqued because my signature is on the money,” Geithner screamed. “He says I’m advertising myself when I should be advertising him. After all, he’s the f***ing President. He’s the one that will have to stand for reelection, not me. I shouldn’t have to...

Obama’s questionnaire responses at odds with health care claim By James D. Agresti August 5, 2009 Click for more detailed footnoted version In a speech before the American Medical Association on June 15, 2009, President Obama lashed out at those claiming he is pursuing a stealth agenda to socialize the U.S. healthcare system. Declaring that his health care plan is not “a Trojan horse for a single-payer system,” Obama vowed, “So, when you hear the naysayers claim that I’m trying to bring about government-run health care, know this – they are not telling the truth.” However, Obama’s responses to a...

The WSJ article is more propaganda from the MSM. The S&P web site shows earnings estimated at $29 for 2009 and $37 for 2010. That would be a PE of 34 for 2009 and 27 based upon 2010 earnings. Using a PE of 15, the S&P 500 should be at 435 and at 555 using 2010 earnings versus the current 1000 level. The difference is the WSJ artcile and the CNBC shrills use "core" earnings and exclude "special" losses. Funny, they don't exclude special gains during the boom times. What the companies report to the SEC is all there earnings...

Not surprisingly Americans are eagerly accepting fellow taxpayer's handouts to buy cars. At this rate, the money in this program will be emptied within weeks and then we'll have a new bigger program after that to get more people to spend. It is a beautiful country - let's review just the past 15 months.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Regulators on Friday shut down banks in Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma and Illinois, boosting to 69 the number of federally insured banks to fail this year amid the pressures of the weak economy and mounting loan defaults. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was appointed receiver of the five banks. The agency shut down Integrity Bank of Jupiter, Fla., with $119 million in assets and $102 million in deposits, and First BankAmericano, based in Elizabeth, N.J., with $166 million in assets and $157 million in deposits. Also closed were Peoples Community Bank, West Chester, Ohio, with $705.8...

Outside Goodwill's As-Is Store in San Francisco, a family of Salvadoran immigrants leaves with a bag of clothes they will sell to supplement the money they make sweeping floors and washing cars. Inside, shoppers sift through tall blue bins. A man in a pin-striped suit drapes the blazers he's found over his arm. Business is up at the Goodwill As-Is warehouse on the corner of 11th and Mission streets, where struggling vendors and frugal shoppers buy goods, including in bulk at auction, at discounted prices. "Because of the economy I can't afford a lot," said Chelsea Cooley, 23, who can't...

PROVIDENCE — State tax officials have put more than 1,200 businesses across the state on notice this week that they are out of business unless they pay their overdue sales taxes immediately. For most, that action came in the form of a personal visit from the state Division of Taxation, ordering business owners to lock their doors at once. By Wednesday, a line of people had queued up inside the Department of Administration building on Smith Hill, waiting their turn to plead their case to a state revenue agent. Some were angry. Others frustrated. “I understand the state needs money,...

THERE was a moment in each of the Apollo missions - post Apollo 8 - when the spacecraft passed into lunar orbit and swung round the dark side of the moon. For a nail-biting few hours, the spacecraft would lose all radio contact with mission control in Houston. They knew when it was supposed to emerge from orbit, but likewise that if they had made any mistakes in their pre-launch calculations, the craft and its occupants might never have been heard from again. The sensation in the Bank of England at the moment is rather similar. Billions of pounds (almost...

As for the dollar, our president and his accomplice congress are well along the way of destroying the dollar. I expect a collapse within the year. Our government has accelerated deficit spending to the extent that the debt cannot ever be repaid. When including all spending already committed to by the government, we have already reached the crossover point where people will never earn enough to pay the taxes to even pay the interest on the national debt. Whenever that point has been reached in history the currency collapses as the government just simply prints more fiat currency just to...

Wriston’s Law is named after the late Walter Wriston, a giant of banking and finance. In his 1992 book, The Twilight of Sovereignty, he predicted the rise of electronic networks and their chief economic effects. Wriston said capital (meaning both money and ideas), when freed to travel at the speed of light, “will go where it is wanted, stay where it is well-treated.” By applying Wriston’s Law of capital and talent flow, you can predict the fortunes of companies (and countries). All predictions about future performance must start with this most basic question: Do companies (and countries) attract money and...

NEWARK, N.J. - The mayors of two New Jersey cities, a state legislator and several rabbis were arrested Thursday in connection with a major corruption and international money-laundering conspiracy probe. Some of the suspects were also allegedly involved in an illegal human organ-selling ring. Among about 30 people arrested Thursday were Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano III, Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini, former Jersey City Council President L. Harvey Smith and state Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt. Van Pelt is accused of accepting $10,000 from a government witness posing as a developer seeking permit help. Story continues...

Eric Sprott remains among my favorite bears, and in his latest note he comes down compellingly on the side that we are currently in a depression -- even if people/media/etc. choose not to notice. From the paper: We are now in the early stages of a depression. The economic indicators we follow to track real economic activity are all signaling a slowdown of massive proportions. You wouldn’t know it reading the mainstream papers of course – they all focus on the relative decline in the slowdown’s intensity. Reading about the slowdown ‘slowing down’ is not the same as growth however,...

Mark Davis subs. Last time Rush is out until end of August, though.

Obama All Star Game Announcement: “We’re out of money”By Chris Barrett July 14, 2009 President Barack Obaam was asked in broadcast booth of the Major League Baseball All Star Game if there would be a bailout for the National League after 12 straight losses, and President Obama jokes “no, we’re out of money.”

A friend of mine suggested this company about making money, I am unable to find anything on them, I was wondering if any of you have any intel on this company/college.

It’s a good idea to keep a little cash in your home for emergencies. How much you decide to keep is up to you, but I would suggest keeping enough cash on hand to pay...

Raising Money To Unseat DoddThree GOP Hopefuls Filling War Chests In Preparation For 2010 Election By CHRISTOPHER KEATING The Hartford Courant July 8, 2009 Greenwich millionaire Tom Foley has raised more than $530,000 in the first 26 days of his U.S. Senate bid to unseat Democrat Chris Dodd. Another Republican hopeful, former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, says he has raised more money than Foley, but the exact total is not due until the official filings July 15. A third, state Sen. Sam Caligiuri, has raised about $125,000, but he says that his total is artificially low because he was distracted...

The fed, Under Obama's personal direction, has begun printing mo money. No word yet as the China's reaction. Click here for more to this story

DUBLIN — The United Nations is struggling to keep its peacekeeping missions staffed and supplied as the world endures an unprecedented combination of crises, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Tuesday as he opened a two-day visit to Ireland. "We are living through an era like no other. There are multiple crises: a food crisis, fuel crisis, flu crisis and financial crisis," Ban told an invited audience at the Dublin Castle conference center in between meetings with the president and prime minister of Ireland. "Each is a crisis we have not seen for many years, even generations. But this time they...

THE HOOVER FED: HARRISON AND YOUNG While secretary of commerce, Herbert Hoover had been a severe critic of Strong’s inflationary policies. Unfortunately, however, Hoover was in favor of a different form of easy money and cheap credit. When he became president, he tried, like King Canute, to hold back the tides by continuing to generate cheap bank credit, and then using “moral suasion” to exhort banks and other lenders not to lend money for the purchase of stock. Hoover suffered from the fallacious view that industrial credit was productive and “legitimate” while financial, stock market credit was “unproductive.” Moreover, he...

- Military Finance Network - http://militaryfinancenetwork.com - Disabled Veterans to Receive $250 Stimulus ChecksPosted By Patrick On June 17, 2009 @ 9:58 am In VA | 66 Comments UPDATE: The first stimulus payments were sent Monday, June 22. All payments will be distributed by June 30.Disabled military veterans currently receiving VA Disability Benefits are eligible to receive a one-time $250 Economic-Recovery Check [1] from the US government. This is part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act [2] that President Obama signed into law this past February.Who is eligible for the $250 Stimulus Payment? The $250 government stimulus check...

General Electric is getting yet more taxpayer money, possibly laundered federal money, to subsidize its business. A GE press release announced that the state of Michigan will provide GE with $60 million to build a $100 million “technology & software center” — what used to be known as an “office building.”

Michael Jackson Breaks Billboard Charts Records June 30, 2009 10:58 PM ET Keith Caulfield, L.A. As predicted, Michael Jackson is once again the King of the Pop charts. Based on preliminary sales numbers from Nielsen SoundScan, the entire top nine positions on Billboard's Top Pop Catalog Albums chart will house Jackson-related titles when the tally is released in the early morning on Wednesday (July 1). Nielsen SoundScan's sales tracking week ended at the close of business on Sunday (June 28) night. Michael Jackson 1958-2009 Jackson himself has a record eight out of the top 10, while a Jackson 5 compilation...

Prologue WHEN a nation's money is no longer a source of security, and when inflation has become the concern of an entire people, it is natural to turn for information and guidance to the history of other societies who have already undergone this most tragic and upsetting of human experiences. Yet to survey the great array of literature of all kinds — economic, military, social, historic, political, and biographical — which deals with the fortunes of the defeated Central Powers after the First World War is to discover one particular shortage. Either the economic analyses of the times (for reasons...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The top-performing letter that predicted the Crash of 2008 now predicts a confiscatory Franklin D. Roosevelt-style "bank holiday." But it's surprisingly sanguine about stocks -- in the (very) short term. The Harry Schultz Letter (HSL) was my pick for Letter of the Year in 2008 because it really did predict what it rightly called a coming "financial tsunami." But its performance in 2008 was still terrible, albeit arguably for technical reasons. ( See Dec. 28, 2008, column.) Now HSL has bounced back big-time. ( See April 13 column.) Over the year to date through May, it's...

An interesting chart that I created off the most recent Federal M1 currency graph...see link for graph...Now after reviewing the graph, take a moment to carefully evaluate the time periods in this chart. Observe the periods when currency has grown and where it has decreased. Then think about the policies and events that occurred during each of these periods. What Happened Around 1987? The following is a partial listing of what's happened in the US and the World since the chart began to become materially different around 1987. The author lays out the major events which occurred since Alan Greenspan...