World War III The Global Class War

[joshuahazen]

Hi Coop,

Thanks for dropping by...

You know, if you could get even 10% of the story right I would be impressed.

First of all, my point was not so much that the bailout was a horrible thing, but more that in light of the bailout, cutting welfare for starving Americans, is not only ludicrous, it is hypocritical.

Secondly you seem to be implying with your article that you think somehow, that all the bailout money is supposed to be paid back and is currently in the process of being paid back in full.

This simply is not true.

While you are correct that a fraction of that money may be paid back, and a significant amount of the loaned money has already been paid back, the vast majority of the funds doled out have not and will not be paid back, and furthermore were never loans in the first place.

It is true that the Feds did loan out a significant amount of money, and much of this money will be paid back, with interest, however much of the Bailout money was gifted.


Take the GM bailout for example, out of the around 52 billion dollars that the feds spent to bailout GM motors around 8 billion of that was considered to be a loan, the rest was gifted. The loan has already been paid back. Everyone is applauding GM.

I wish I could get even one ten thousandth of that money in the form of a $520,000 loan, and I only had to pay back $80,000 of it. Why can't the government hook me up with a loan like that? It would be perfect. I give them back 80k off the top, put 440k in my pocket, and everyone could give me a pat on the back, and tell me how responsible I was.


"

Sep. 1 2009 - 9:42 am
Bailout Propaganda Begins
By MATT TAIBBI

Nearly a year after the federal rescue of the nation’s biggest banks, taxpayers have begun seeing profits from the hundreds of billions of dollars in aid that many critics thought might never be seen again.

' As Biggest Banks Repay Bailout Money, the U.S. Sees a Profit –' NYTimes.com.

It was inevitable that the same people who pushed through the multi-trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street would come out later on and tell us what a great idea theirs turned out to be, in retrospect and under the light of evidentiary examination. And we’re getting that now, with a pair of reports, the above one in the New York Times and another in the Financial Times, telling us the bailout is working because the government has made some money on TARP. They came to this conclusion by quoting Fed officials, who apparently calculated how much interest the Fed earned on TARP investments above what it would have earned on T-bills. The amount so far, according to these worthy gentlemen: $14 billion.

This is sort of like calculating the returns on a mutual fund by only counting the stocks in the fund that have gone up. Forgetting for a moment that TARP is only slightly relevant in the entire bailout scheme — more on that in a moment — the TARP calculations are a joke, apparently leaving out huge future losses from AIG and Citigroup and others in the red. Since only a small portion of the debt has been put down by the best borrowers, and since the borrowers in the worst shape haven’t retired their obligations yet, it’s crazy to make any conclusions about TARP, pure sophistry. Moreover, a think tank set up to analyze TARP, Ethisphere, calculated in June that TARP was still $148 billion down overall, a debt of over $1200 per American. To start talking about what a success TARP is now is beyond meaningless.

The other reason for that is that it’s only a tiny sliver of the whole bailout picture. The real burden carried by the government and the Fed comes from the various anonymous bailout facilities — the TALF, the PPIP, the Maiden Lanes, and so on. The losses from the Fed’s purchase of distressed/crap Bear Stearns assets (Maiden Lane I) and AIG assets (MaidenLanes II and III) alone were as recently as late July calculated in the $8.6 billion range, and even that number is very conservative. Then there’s the trillion or so dollars that the Fed used on buying up mortgage-backed securities and Treasuries; we don’t know what their market value is now. And there are untold trillions more the Fed has loaned out in the last 18 months and which we are not likely to find out much about, unless the recent court ruling green-lighting Bloomberg’s FOIA request for those records actually goes through.

In light of all this, the Fed’s decision to brag publicly about a few loans that are actually performing is sort of scary — it speaks to a level of intellectual desperation and magical-thinking unusual even for a banker in the subprime/MBS era. Don’t be surprised if you hear more of this sort of thing in the coming years.

Source: Bailout Propaganda Begins - Matt Taibbi - Taibblog - True/Slant


"


I don't think I have heard anyone imply that the majority of the bailout money will be repaid. This is just plain wrong, even though a significant amount of it is in the form of loans.



Anyway Coop, you seem to be missing my point. My point is not so much that the bailout was a terrible idea, it is that cutting comparatively tiny amount we spend on food stamps in a time when we are spending trillions bailing out the richest banks and Corporations in the world strikes me not only as ludicrous, it also strikes me as vastly hypocritical.

Josh
Your posting articles from 2 years ago and i guess calling that your point. I add more recent articles giving the real situation. You respond with another 2 year old article.

I dont need to talk about the current depression we are in. I saw it break first hand so dont tell me i only get 10%.

Your the eternal pessimist.

[joshuahazen]

I posted that article because it was a short and concise summary of the situation at hand. What he said is as relevant now as it was two years ago, although more has been paid back of course, because it is two years later.

If you want to know the current state of the bailout repayment here is the best site on the net for that, they are keeping a running score:

Bailout Scorecard | Eye on the Bailout | ProPublica



Coop, when I said 10% I wasn't referring to your knowledge of the bailout. I was referring to your rebuttal against my statement. You may have in part got the 10% of it on the bailout, but you missed the 90% which was the bulk of what I was trying to say, and that is, that they are cutting the little spent on foodstamps to the very poor even as they are spending the majority on bailing out the bankers and corporations.

You almost missed it entirely Coop.

If I suggest to someone that it might not be a good idea to walk out into oncoming traffic, in the middle of a freeway, I guess you would call me a pessimist.

You think I am a pessimist but this isn't true either, I am an optimist Coop.

If this Democracy is destroyed in the manner in which Plato predicted it might, it will be because of mass ignorance on the part of the American people, it will be because the majority feel the way you do, Coop.

Wear the crutch like a crown.

You see its folks like you that are going to insure that the job that these folks have in the Banks and Corporations, which they are presently engaged in, of dismantling our republic, with lobbies and corruption, will be like taking candy from a baby.

You see Coop I am an optimist, because I will not, no, I cannot believe that the majority of Americans are so blindly ignorant.

[joshuahazen]

Originally Posted by joshuahazen

...If you want to know the current state of the bailout repayment here is the best site on the net for that, they are keeping a running score:

Bailout Scorecard | Eye on the Bailout | ProPublica ...

So the total that the US Government is claiming to be owed by various bailout interests, is somewhere in the vicinity of 600 billion

Yet according to CNBC news, in 2008 the bailout had already hit a tab of over 7 trillion,(source: News Headlines)

now some more recent estimates like one covered by Bloomberg put the tab for the US bailout as high as 23 trillion. (Source: U.S. Rescue May Reach $23.7 Trillion, Barofsky Says (Update3) - Bloomberg)

So lets say for a second that the bailout is only 7 trillion, that means that even the US is paid back all the capital it claims it is owed(which most experts think is highly unlikely) this means that the US still gifted out 6.4 trillion dollars too banks and corporations.


6.4 TRILLION DOLLARS


That is over six thousand billion,

and yet they are going to cut foodstamps,the whole program which costs roughly one one hundredth of even the most conservative estimates of what the bailout is going to cost, even after all loans are paid back in full.

Can you say

Hypocrisy

?

I will say it one more time:

"A hungry mob is an angry mob..."--Bob Marley

This would be like if mom cut $100 from the family grocery list for her children saying she just could not afford food, yet she goes out and buys a $10,000 handbag from Neiman Marcus. Let them starve...




If the politicians can't keep the foodstamps coming to the masses out of a simple sense of duty, and an understanding that even poor people vote, can't they at least do it for self preservation?

Apparently their arrogance, irresponsibility and lack of compassion for their constituents knows no bounds.

"Have they no bread? Well then, let them eat cake." -- Marie Antoinette

[joshuahazen]

Originally Posted by coop

Josh
Your posting articles from 2 years ago and i guess calling that your point....

OK Coop, here is an excerpt from an article written in july of 2011:

I hope this is current enough for you:

The majority of the article is on Senator Bernie Sanders as an overseer of the most recent Fed Audit, here is the intro:



"

The first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve uncovered eye-popping new details about how the U.S. provided a whopping $16 trillion in secret loans to bail out American and foreign banks and businesses during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. An amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders to the Wall Street reform law passed one year ago this week directed the Government Accountability Office to conduct the study. “As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world,” said Sanders. “This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else.”

Among the investigation’s key findings is that the Fed unilaterally provided trillions of dollars in financial assistance to foreign banks and corporations from South Korea to Scotland, according to the GAO report. “No agency of the United States government should be allowed to bailout a foreign bank or corporation without the direct approval of Congress and the president,” Sanders said.

The non-partisan, investigative arm of Congress also determined that the Fed lacks a comprehensive system to deal with conflicts of interest, despite the serious potential for abuse. In fact, according to the report, the Fed provided conflict of interest waivers to employees and private contractors so they could keep investments in the same financial institutions and corporations that were given emergency loans.

For example, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase served on the New York Fed’s board of directors at the same time that his bank received more than $390 billion in financial assistance from the Fed. Moreover, JP Morgan Chase served as one of the clearing banks for the Fed’s emergency lending programs....

"

Source: Fed Audit Reveals Eye-Popping $16 Trillion In Secret Loans To Bailout Bankers

OK Coop here is a good one, a quote of a Bar graph from the most recent federal audit, which has been displayed publically on a Government website referenced at the bottom of the above article. The Following table can be found on Page 114 of the said PDF:

Table 8: Institutions with Largest Total Transaction Amounts (Not Term-Adjusted) across Broad-Based Emergency Programs
(Borrowing Aggregated by Parent Company and Includes Sponsored ABCP Conduits), December 1, 2007 through July 21,
2010
Dollar in billions
Borrowing Parent Company TAF PDCF TSLF CPFF Subtotal AMLF TALF Total loans(Billions)
Citigroup Inc. $110 $2,020 $348 $33 $2,511 $1 - $ 2,513
Morgan Stanley - 1,913 115 4 2,032 - 9 2,041
Merrill Lynch & Co. 0 1,775 166 8 1,949 - - 1,949
Bank of America Corporation 280 947 101 15 1,342 2 - 1,344
Barclays PLC (United Kingdom) 232 410 187 39 868 - - 868
Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. - 851 2 - 853 - - 853
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. - 589 225 0 814 - - 814
Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (United
Kingdom) 212 - 291 39 541 - - 541
Deutsche Bank AG (Germany) 77 1 277 - 354 - - 354
UBS AG (Switzerland) 56 35 122 75 287 - - 287
JP Morgan Chase & Co. 99 112 68 - 279 111 - 391
Credit Suisse Group AG (Switzerland) 0 2 261 - 262 0 - 262
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. - 83 99 - 183 - - 183
Bank of Scotland PLC (United Kingdom) 181 - - - 181 - - 181
BNP Paribas SA (France) 64 66 41 3 175 - - 175
Wells Fargo & Co. 159 - - - 159 - - 159
Dexia SA (Belgium) 105 - - 53 159 - - 159
Wachovia Corporation 142 - - - 142 - - 142
Dresdner Bank AG (Germany) 123 0 1 10 135 - - 135
Societe Generale SA (France) 124 - - - 124 - - 124
All other borrowers 1,854 146 14 460 2,475 103 62 2,639
Total $3,818 $8,951 $2,319 $738 $15,826 $217 $71 $16,115
"--United States Government Accountability Office-GAO Report to Congressional Addressees,

This graph from the Audit Report shows a breakdown the total Loan Given by the FED to world banking interests.

The most important number is the number that at I have emboldened enlarged and highlighted with a red font: $16,115 [/B][billions]

an easier way to write that Coop:

16.1 TRILLION US DOLLARS


Thats right Coop, 16 trillion dollars, and that is just money that is unapproved by Congress and the President.


Most people can't grasp how much money that is.


Lets put it into perspective Coop, since it was you, Me and every American in the Country, who actually loaned the money to the wealthiest banks and bankers on the planet.

16.1 trillion dollars divided by 300 million people equals 53.6 thousand dollars for every man woman and child in the United States of America

That is on average between $160,000 to $265,000 dollars that every family in the United States has Borrowed at high interest, so that we might pay the banks at low interest.




I don't know about you Coop, But I am really not OK with this.

Why don't you tell me why you think it is just fine?


Why should my family, your family, and every family in the United states in all practicality be enslaved by debt, so that select international bankers CEOs can become the richest group to ever walk the face earth?


Our governments are already selling many of their municipalities and roads to the very institutions we have loaned all the money too, because it can no longer afford to keep them.



So now we the people no longer own these municipalities, because the bankers bought them with the money we loaned them.



And now we the people will be forced to pay these multinational private parties for services that were once public, while our taxes go to pay interest on the money we borrowed at high interest to pay to the bankers at low interest.


You think its American Coop? Is that what you think?

Not sure about WWIII but debt destruction is coming.
Everyone was partying (40 years of leveraging up) not just bankers, now it is the hangover time

[joshuahazen]

Yeah, that true, MZ,
They Hired the Foxes to guard the Hen House.

but what I am talking about is different, its really happenned in the last few years...


You would think this would be big news.

You know the Fed loaned out 16 trillion, in secret, without permission from the congress or president


and the CEO of JP Morgan, serves on the FED RES board, and His Bank got one of the biggest loans of all banks?"

Heh, heh...

like a little blurb that the audit even came out on page 18 of the wall street journal.

CNN and every other National News Network? Not a peep about it,

Kind of strange I think.

[joshuahazen]

"



Financial Terrorism in America: Over 1 Million Deaths Annually, 62 Million People With Zero Net Worth, As the Economic Elite Make Off With $46 Trillion
Posted by Alexander Higgins - August 12, 2011 at 9:46 pm -


Shocking statistics proving the economic elite have launched a deliberate systemic financial terrorist attack against 99.9% of the population.

An all out campaign of corporate and government propaganda has obscured the truth of the blatant reality that economic elite have raped and pillaged a generation of Americans.

The veil of secrecy that keeps us blinded to our oppressors is disguised beneath obfuscated financial data and blatantly manipulated government statistics.

The truth of the matter is every single American feels the stress and pain of increasingly burdensome economic hardships on a daily basis.

While we have been fooled to believe our troubles are isolated the light of truth is revealed from the great dark beyond and the fog that clouds our thoughts begin to clear.

What was once distorted now becomes obvious, thanks to a very lengthy compilation full of some of the most shocking economic statistics every American should be made aware of.

Due to the length of the article, I fear many will shy away from it.

To remedy the problem, I present here an abbreviated version containing the just the meat of the original along with a bit of my own spice here and there.

However, I fully encourage you to read the full meat and potatoes version because while meat helps us build strong lean muscle it is the potatoes that give us the much needed energy to move those muscles.

The article is based on excerpts from the book “The Road Through 2012: Revolution or World War III” written by David DeGraw’s book, the editor and founder of AmpedStatus which will be Released September 28th.

I begin here with the abstract of the book followed by the stripped down version of the shocking statistics used to prove his case that the middle class is the victim of a deliberate systemic financial terrorist attack by the super elite who have raped and pillage a generation of Americans.

Abstract :: Welcome to World War III

Despite increasing personal financial hardship, most Americans remain unaware of the economic world war currently unfolding. An all-pervasive corporate and government propaganda campaign has effectively obscured this blatant reality. After extensive analysis, it is evident that World War III is a war between the richest one-tenth of one percent of the global population and 99.9 percent of humanity. Or, as I have called it, The Economic Elite Vs. The People. This war has been a one-sided attack thus far. However, as we have seen throughout the world in recent months, the people are beginning to fight back. The following report is a statistical analysis of the systemic economic attacks against the American people.

Introduction

The American public has sustained intensive economic attacks across broad segments of the population. While the attacks have been increasingly severe in scale over the past four years, they have been implemented with technocratic precision. They have been incrementally applied thus far, successfully keeping the population passive and avoiding any large-scale civilian unrest, while effectively reducing living standards for the majority of the population. As you will see in this report, the 55 million Americans that have been hit the hardest have thus far acquiesced due to temporary financial assistance, such as food stamps and extended unemployment benefits.

The global Economic Elite have been much more strategic in handling the American public, as they are potentially the greatest threat to their continued consolidation of wealth, resources and power. National populations that are not as powerful, and on the periphery of the Economic Elite’s global empire, have been dealt with in much harsher fashion. In many smaller and less powerful countries the dramatic rise in food prices and costs of living have led to all-out revolt — Tunisia, Algeria, Albania and Egypt were among the first to rebel. While the contagion of rebellion has rapidly spread throughout Northern Africa and the Middle East, it is also spreading in a decentralized manner throughout most of the world, now threatening popular rebellion throughout Europe. Like the US population, the geographically clustered European nations represent a potentially powerful countervailing force to the Economic Elite’s continued domination.

Within the United States, the technocratic suppression of the population has been extensive. Increasingly severe economic and governmental policies have systematically eroded civilian wealth, power and rights. Intensive propaganda has effectively distracted, confused, isolated, marginalized and divided the US population. Despite the success of these efforts thus far, given the severe, prolonged, unsustainable and escalating level of economic suffering, outbreaks of civil unrest are inevitable. The US population, if a critical mass is reached, represents the greatest threat to the Economic Elite. In this regard, the American people are their primary adversary.

In writing this report, I will clearly demonstrate the severity and scale of the deliberate systemic economic attacks against the US population, in hope that we can urgently build a critical mass of aware and engaged citizens.

The Economic Devastation

Census Bureau data, from 2005 – 2009, average US household wealth declined by 28%. This represents a loss of $27,000 per household.

Currently, at least 62 million Americans, 20% of US households, have zero or negative net worth.

Based on government manipulated census data 43.6 million Americans, 14.3% of the population, lived in poverty in 2009.

Here is how the government manipulates the census data to mask our true economic nightmare.

The Census Bureau poverty rate is a horribly flawed measurement that uses outdated methodology. The Census measures poverty based on costs of living metrics established in 1955 – 56 years ago. They ignore many key factors, such as the increased costs of medical care, child care, education, transportation, and many other basic costs. They also don’t factor geographically-based costs of living. The National Academy of Science measure, which gets little if any corporate media coverage, gives a much more accurate account of poverty, as they factor in these vital cost of living variables.

The most current Census data revealed that 43.6 million Americans, 14.3% of the population, lived in poverty in 2009. While that is a staggering number that represents the highest number of American people to ever live in poverty, and a dramatic increase of four million people since 2008, it significantly under-counted the total.

A more accurate assessment of poverty data by National Academy of Science data shows that 52,765,000 Americans, 17.3% of the population, lived in poverty in 2009.

Last year, in my analysis, extrapolating data from 2008 National Academy of Science findings, I estimated that the number of Americans living in poverty in 2009 was at least 52 million. Recently, the National Academy of Science released their latest findings, backing up my claim by revealing that 52,765,000 Americans, 17.3% of the population, lived in poverty in 2009.

According to the manipulated government census figures, 20% or 15.5 million American children lived in poverty in 2009, which is 20% of all children in the U.S. The number of children in poverty increased 28% since 2000, and jumped 10% from 2008 to 2009.

The more accurate National Academy of Science data showed 18.8 million American children living in poverty in 2009, which is 24%, or nearly one in four.

“Every day in America 2,573 babies are born into poverty.”

Even with the lower Census numbers, Nine major American cities have a poverty rate over 25%.

Based on many key indicators poverty totals have continued to increase since 2009.

Current deficit reduction plans will cut “anti-poverty” programs that currently assist tens of millions of Americans.

Based on Census data estimates is predicted that the new deficit deal will cut the funding for these programs in half

The “the poverty rate will double without these programs.”

The total number of Americans living in poverty will increase to 80 million using census data estimates.

The total number of Americans living in poverty will increase to 105 million using the National Academy of Science data.
Record Breaking Food Insecurity

In 2005, 25.7 million Americans needed food stamps.

Today nearly 46 million Americans rely on food stamps.

Tent city homeless camps are popping up all over the United States.

Congress has responded the additional need for food stamps by saying fuck you to the public and cutting the funding for the food stamp program.

The cuts come as 22.5 million additional Americans need food stamps

The brings the total number of Americans in need of food assistance to a stunning 68.3 million people.

Our politicians have more important priorities $16 trillion for secret banker bailouts and trillions more to fund the illegal perpetual wars.
Record Breaking Unemployment

“Official” unemployment is at 9%, but only because the government refused to count millions of unemployed as being unemployed. Go figure.

While the “official” unemployment rate hovers around 9%, 14 million people, the government’s numbers are deceptively low once again. The only reason unemployment has stayed below 10% for the past few months is because millions of long-term unemployed, and part-time workers who are looking for full-time work, are not included in the baseline government unemployment rate.

The real number of unemployed is at an all-time record total of 34 million people which puts the unemployment rate is 22.5%.

The labor force participation rate, which measures the percentage of the total population currently working, has fallen to a 27-year low of 63.9%.

Currently, an all-time record 6.3 million people have been unemployed for over six months.

The average time it takes for a person to find a job has also just hit an all-time high of 40.4 weeks.

Private-sector job cuts in July surged 60% to a 16-month high.

From December 2007 to present, we have lost 10.6 million jobs.

Since August 2008, state and local governments have cut 577,000 jobs.

The new deficit deal will lead to an additional 1.8 million job losses.

60% of the jobs created by the $2 trillion stimulus are in low-wage fields.

Since December 2007 2.8 million of the news jobs created have been part-time jobs.

Over 12 months, the National Employment Law Project found that well-paying jobs are rapidly decreasing, while low-paying jobs are helping to mask an increasingly dire employment crisis:

* Lower-wage industries constituted 23% of job loss, but fully 49% of recent growth
* Mid-wage industries constituted 36% of job loss, and 37% of recent growth
* Higher-wage industries constituted 40% of job loss, but only 14% of recent growth

Declining Income

While the cost of living from 1990 – 2010 increased by 67%, worker income has declined.

IRS data showed in 2009 average income fell 6.1%, a loss of $3,516 per worker, that year alone.

Average income has declined 13.7% from 2007 – 2009, representing a $8,588 loss per worker.

Worker income decline is due to the dramatic increase in CEO pay that has consistently increased year-over-year since the mid-1970s.

From 1975 – 2010, worker productivity increased 80%. Over this time frame, CEO pay and the income of the economic top 0.1% (one-tenth of one percent) of the population quadrupled.

The income of the top 0.01% (one-hundredth of one percent) quintupled.

After analyzing 2008 tax data, leading tax reporter David Cay Johnston summed up the situation pointing out that middle class wages should have been 68% higher which equates to a robbery of $406 each week.

As shocking as that is, over the last two years, workers have lost an even higher share of income to CEOs. In the last year alone, CEO pay skyrocketed by 28%. Looking at 2009, according to a recent Dollars & Sense report, workers lost nearly $2 trillion in wages that year alone:

“In 2009, stock owners, bankers, brokers, hedge-fund wizards, highly paid corporate executives, corporations, and mid-ranking managers pocketed—as either income, benefits, or perks such as corporate jets—an estimated $1.91 trillion that 40 years ago would have collectively gone to non-supervisory and production workers in the form of higher wages and benefits.”

As bad as these numbers are, consider that the attack on American workers has increased significantly since 2009. From 2009 to the fourth-quarter of 2010, 88% of income growth went to corporate profits (i.e. CEOs), while just 1% went to workers.

As the NY Times reported in an article entitled, “Our Banana Republic,” from 1980 – 2005, “more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.”

It has gotten even worse, as Zero Hedge recently reported, labor’s current “share of national income has fallen to its lowest level in modern history.”

This chart shows how workers’ percentage of income has been rapidly declining:



The bottom line, as statistics clearly demonstrate, these trends are getting worse and the attacks against us, as severe as they have been over the past four years, are dramatically escalating.
Part Two :: The Economic Elite

“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class,the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” – Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

How Much Wealth Do The Economic Elite Have?

While 68.3 million Americans struggle to get enough food to eat and wages are declining for 90% of the population, US millionaire household wealth has reached an unprecedented level.

US millionaire households now have $38.6 trillion in wealth.

They also have an additional $6.3 trillion hidden in offshore accounts.

In total, US millionaire households have at least $45.9 trillion in wealth

The majority of this wealth is held within the upper one-tenth of one percent of the population.

US millionaire households will see a 225% increase in wealth to $87.1 trillion by 2020.

Accounting for wealth hidden in offshore accounts, they are projected to have over $100 trillion in total within the next decade.

Most people cannot even comprehend how much $1 trillion is, let alone $46 trillion. One trillion is equal to 1000 billion, or $1,000,000,000,000.

To put it in perspective, last year the entire cost of feeding all 40 million Americans on food stamps was $65 billion.

Now consider, according to the latest IRS data, only 0.076% of the population, less than one-tenth of one percent, earned over $1 million in 2009.

The graph below, based on data from the Tax Policy Center, shows how much income is earned by a household at any given percentile in income distribution:



Only 74 Americans are in this elite group are in the highest bracket for annual income is $50 million or more.

The average income within this category was $91.2 million in 2008.

As astonishing as that is, in 2009 they averaged $518.8 million each, or about $10 million per week.

This means, in the depths of the recession, the richest 74 Americans increased their income by more than 5 times within this one year.

These 74 people made more money than 19 million workers combined.

In context, overall, the richest 400 people in the US have as much wealth as 154 million Americans combined, that’s 50% of the entire country.

The top economic 1% of the US population now has a record 40% of all wealth, and have more wealth than 90% of the population combined.
Who Rules America? Revealing The Economic Top 0.1%

Here is an analysis from an investment manager with mega-wealthy clients breaking down the economic top 0.5% of the population, recently published by William Domhoff, sociology professor and author of Who Rules America?:

“Unlike those in the lower half of the top 1%, those in the top half and, particularly, top 0.1%, can often borrow for almost nothing, keep profits and production overseas, hold personal assets in tax havens, ride out down markets and economies, and influence legislation in the US. They have access to the very best in accounting firms, tax and other attorneys, numerous consultants, private wealth managers, a network of other wealthy and powerful friends, lucrative business opportunities, and many other benefits.

Folks in the top 0.1% come from many backgrounds but it’s infrequent to meet one whose wealth wasn’t acquired through direct or indirect participation in the financial and banking industries…. Most of the serious economic damage the US is struggling with today was done by the top 0.1% and they benefited greatly from it…. For example, in Q1 of 2011, America’s top corporations reported 31% profit growth and a 31% reduction in taxes, the latter due to profit outsourcing to low tax rate countries…. The year 2010 was a record year for compensation on Wall Street, while corporate CEO compensation rose by over 30%.…

In 2010 a dozen major companies, including GE, Verizon, Boeing, Wells Fargo, and Fed Ex paid US tax rates between -0.7% and -9.2%. Production, employment, profits, and taxes have all been outsourced….

I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this: A highly complex and largely discrete set of laws and exemptions from laws has been put in place by those in the uppermost reaches of the US financial system. It allows them to protect and increase their wealth and significantly affect the US political and legislative processes.

They have real power and real wealth. Ordinary citizens in the bottom 99.9% are largely not aware of these systems, do not understand how they work, are unlikely to participate in them, and have little likelihood of entering the top 0.5%, much less the top 0.1%….

… the American dream of striking it rich is merely a well-marketed fantasy that keeps the bottom 99.5% hoping for better and prevents social and political instability. The odds of getting into that top 0.5% are very slim and the door is kept firmly shut by those within it.”

To get into the top economic 0.01% (one-hundredth of one percent) of the population, you have to have a household income of over $27 million per year.

If you look at some of the central players who caused this economic crisis, you will see that they are among this Economic Elite group.

Former Goldman Sachs CEO and Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson had already amassed at least $700 million prior to moving to the US Treasury in 2006.

Current Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and a few other top executives at Goldman Sachs just received $111.3 million in bonuses. Blankfein just took home $24.3 million, as part of a $67.9 million bonus he was awarded.

Goldman’s President Gary Cohn took home $24 million, as part of a $66.9 million bonus he was awarded.

Goldman’s CFO David Viniar and former co-president Jon Winkelried both took home over $20 million in bonuses.

Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit just took home $80 million, in what may eventually total more than $200 million in compensation and bonuses.

Coming in at the top of the list is JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, who just took home $90 million.



If you think people in this income level don’t control the US political process, you are not paying attention. After they caused this economic crisis, they got the government to give them trillions of dollars in taxpayer support, and then, after taking our tax dollars, they gave themselves all-time record-breaking bonuses.

2009 was an all-time record-breaking year for Wall Street executives bringing in a total of $145 billion.

In 2010, they broke the all-time record set the year before by pulling in another $149 billion. The audacity of it all is stunning.

Finding people more grotesquely greedy than Wall Street executives would seem to be impossible. However, health insurance CEOs are giving them a run for their money. As the LA Times reported:

“Leaders of Cigna, Humana, UnitedHealth, WellPoint and Aetna received nearly $200 million in compensation in 2009, according to a report, while the companies sought rate increases as high as 39%….

H. Edward Hanway, former chief executive of Philadelphia-based Cigna, topped the list of high-paid executives, thanks to a retirement package worth $110.9 million. Cigna paid Hanway and his successor, David Cordani, a total of $136.3 million last year….

Ron Williams, the CEO of Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna Inc., earned nearly $18.2 million in total compensation, down from $24.4 million in 2008.”

Aetna CEO Ron Williams has recovered from his down year in 2009 by making $72 million in 2010.

Given this level of obscene profiteering within the health care industry Americans pay more for medical care than any other nation in the world.

Americans are actually forced to pay twice as much as most nations, and get lower quality care in return.

Health insurances companies openly admit reaping windfall profits because people with health insurance plans still cannot afford to go to the doctors and have stopped going unless it is an absolute emergency.

With well over 50 million people unable to afford health insurance and the skyrocketing costs.

Over 60% of all personal bankruptcies are the result of medical bills.

In fact, 75% of the medical bankruptcies filed are from people who have health insurance.

Within this Economic Elite group, you also have the war profiteering oil companies, which themselves are in large part owned by the big Wall Street banks.

While gas, oil and energy prices skyrocket for the middle class the biggest five oil companies reaped $36 billion in profit last quarter along.

These companies also receive an average of $6 billion per year in government subsidies paid for by none other than the U.S. taxpayer the same poor and middle class they rape.
Tax Breaks For The Rich, Budget Cuts For The Rest Of Us

To further demonstrate how the mega-wealthy have seized control our political process, consider that the richest 400 Americans paid 30% of their income in taxes in 1995.

They now pay only 18%.

In fact, 1,470 Americans earned over $1 million in 2009 and didn’t pay any taxes.

The average tax rate for millionaires was 22.4% in 2009, down from 30.4% in 1995.

The average millionaire saves $136,000 a year due to reduced tax rates.

Corporate tax accounted for 27.3% of federal revenue in 1955.

In 2010, corporate tax accounted for only 8.9% of federal revenue.

Corporate taxes accounted for 4.3% of overall GDP in 1955, in 2010 they accounted for only 1.3%.
Part Three :: The Perfect Storm Overhead:

(Inequality = Debt = Austerity = Civil Unrest = Inflation + Deflation = Stagflation)

The cuts in taxes for the mega-wealthy have led to record wealth inequality and resulted in a record national deficit. Meanwhile, to make up for the deficit that the richest one-tenth of one percent of the population has created, Democrats and Republicans are committed to making draconian budget cuts to vital social services, which target the poor, middle class, elderly and sick, while handing out billions more in corporate welfare annually. (Inequality = Debt = Austerity)

Just as the government has done, to make up for tax revenue lost to the mega-wealthy, Americans have made up for the decline in income by taking on large amounts of debt as well. (Inequality = Debt)

In a severely unequal society, massive debt will always be created, thus forming a vicious cycle of increasing inequality and increasing debt, until the fragmentation of society reaches a breaking point when those in debt cannot afford to pay back their debts without starving to death. We are now reaching that breaking point. (Inequality = Debt = Austerity = Civil Unrest)
Debt Slavery

The Indentured Servant Has Become The Indebted Citizen

As for statistics on Americans being buried in financial debt, the indentured servant has evolved into the indebted citizen.

As mentioned before, from 1990 – 2010 costs of living have increased 67%, while wages have stagnated and declined.

As the national debt has reached a record $14.6 trillion, total personal debt is now over $16 trillion by official government estimates.

Independent economists put the real national debt at $211 trillion.

Consumer debt is $2.5 trillion.

Credit card debt is $805 billion.

Student debt now exceeds $1 trillion.

Obviously, the more severe your debts are, the more you have to cut back in spending and the less money you have to buy new items. (Debt = Austerity)

Meanwhile, a perfect storm circles overhead as society breaks down and falls into an economic death spiral – health care, food and gas costs are skyrocketing, while income and home values are plummeting. (Inflation + Deflation = Stagflation)

Given these conditions, it is not surprising that over 250 million Americans, another record-breaking number, are currently living paycheck-to-paycheck struggling to make ends meet.
Inflation

The following charts, from Advisor Perspectives, show the increase in costs of living since 2000:



As you can see, the price of basic necessities are consistently increasing, only clothing (apparel) has declined. The second chart highlights the crucial skyrocketing cost of energy:



The third chart highlights the pernicious skyrocketing cost of education:



The cost of education essentially buries a young person in a debt that they will spend a significant portion of their life attempting to get out of. Given the increasing costs of living, and the decreasing ability to make an expected income from such an expensive level of education, this young demographic will most likely live an entire life locked into spiraling levels of debt that they will never be able to get out of.

Propaganda Inflation

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has twice, since 1980, revised the method to calculate the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures inflation.

Their methodology now masks the severity of inflation, similar to how they mask the severity of unemployment, by heavily discounting the measurement weight of energy, food and education – three of the most significant costs for most American households.

Tcurrent “official” CPI is at a 3.6% annual rate.

Calculated the way it was before Greenspan altered it in 1980, it would be 11.1%, three times worse than officially stated.

So while the government and the Federal Reserve claim that inflation is low, at 3.6% over the past year inflation for the middle class has skyrocketed.

Food prices increased 39% over the past year.

U.S. gas prices increased 34% over the same time frame.

The increase in gas cost over the past one-year masks the severity of total gas price inflation at the pump.

Gas is currently 125% more expensive since December 2008, increasing from $1.67 per gallon to $3.75.

The Hidden Tax

The Federal Reserve’s strategic policy known as Quantitative Easing (QE) has been a significant factor in the rising cost of basic necessities by deliberately stimulating inflation, while decreasing the value of the dollar.

Because ofQE2 program, the dollar lost 7.5% of its value from January 2010 through March 2010.

From August 2010 through March 2011, the dollar lost 17% of its value.

To understand how this acts as a hidden tax, consider if you had $10,000 in the bank, over this time frame you would have lost $1700 in purchasing power.

$10,000 in August 2010 would be worth $8300 March 2011. At the same time, the cost of gas and food drastically increased.

The Phantom Recovery

By decreasing the value of the dollar, the Federal Reserve is also inflating the stock market by creating the impression that stock prices are rising, which, when measured in dollars, they have.

In real terms the value of the stock market has decreased.

To understand how deceptive this strategy has been in giving the appearance of a rising market, instead of measuring overall stock value in dollars, let’s look at their overall value when measured in terms of gold:

Dow/Gold Chart from January 1, 2003 – August 8, 2011



As investor Michael Krieger explains:

“You can see from the chart above the downtrend of stock prices in real terms is completely intact and they have now hit a new low, below the previous low point in March 2009. In fact, although stocks did temporarily rise in real terms from the low in 2009 for the year as a whole, they were still down 5% in real terms. Then last year, stocks were 14% lower in terms of gold. Finally, despite a brief rally early in 2011, stocks in terms of gold are down 23% year-to-date.”

Dollar Vs. Gold

When comparing the value of the dollar to the value of gold, the dollar has lost a stunning 84% of its value since 2000.

In 2000, gold was worth $279 per ounce, as of August 8, 2011, gold is $1,725 per ounce.

In fact, the dollar continues to fall in value while gold continues to rise.

Stagflation

All these factors together create a perfect storm of stagflation.

90% of Americans are experiencing declining incomes.

The value of the dollar continues declines.

Tthe price of necessities continue to rise.

The value of the one major asset many Americans have, a house, continues to decline.

Declining home values have left 28% of US homeowners owing more on their mortgages than their home is currently worth.

10.4 million American families having lost their homes to foreclosure since 2007,

Another 10.8 million homes are at risk of default over the next six years.

This will obviously continue downward pressure on home values.
The Beaten Masses

Confronted With Severe Financial Hardship, Why Do Americans Remain Passive?

With an unprecedented sum of wealth, tens of trillions of dollars, held within the top one-tenth of one percent of the US population, we now have the highest and most severe inequality of wealth in US history.

Not even the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age were as greedy as the modern day Economic Elite.

As famed American philosopher John Dewey once said, “There is no such thing as the liberty or effective power of an individual, group, or class, except in relation to the liberties, the effective powers, of other individuals, groups or classes.”

The elite have strategically withheld wealth from 99% of the US population over the past generation

Since the mid-1970s, worker production and wealth creation has exploded.

The dramatic increase in wealth has been almost entirely absorbed by the economic top one-tenth of one percent of the population, with most of it going to the top one-hundredth of one percent.

People struggling to make ends meet are still not fighting back with overwhelming force and running the mega-wealthy aristocrats out of town because of two significant factors:

1) People are two consumed with holding on to the little they have left to try to maintain their current standard of living.

2) People have very little understanding of how much wealth has been consolidated within the top economic one-tenth of one percent.

Considering the first factor, it is obvious that people have become beaten down psychologically and financially. A report in the Guardian entitled, “Anxiety keeps the super-rich safe from middle-class rage,” suggests that people are so desperate to hold on to what they have that they are too busy looking down to look up: “As psychologists will tell you, fear of loss is more powerful than the prospect of gain. The struggling middle classes look down more anxiously than they look up, particularly in recession and sluggish recovery.”

Considering the second factor, people do not understand how much wealth has been withheld from them. The average person has never personally experienced or seen the excessive wealth and luxury that the mega-rich live in. Wealth inequality has grown so extreme and the wealthy have become so far removed from average society, it is as if the rich exist in some outer stratosphere beyond the comprehension of the average person. As the Guardian report mentioned above also states:

“… having little daily contact with the rich and little knowledge of how they lived, they simply didn’t think about inequality much, or regard the wealthy as direct competitors for resources. As the sociologist Garry Runciman observed: ‘Envy is a difficult emotion to sustain across a broad social distance.’… Even now most underestimate the rewards of bankers and executives. Top pay has reached such levels that, rather like interstellar distances, what the figures mean is hard to grasp.”

The average American vastly underestimates the severe wealth disparity.

Americans are brainwashed into believing our society is far more equal than it actually is:



(NY Times) “In a recent survey of Americans, my colleague Dan Ariely and I found that Americans drastically underestimated the level of wealth inequality in the United States. While recent data indicates that the richest 20 percent of Americans own 84 percent of all wealth, people estimated that this group owned just 59 percent – believing that total wealth in this country is far more evenly divided among poorer Americans.

What’s more, when we asked them how they thought wealth should be distributed, they told us they wanted an even more equitable distribution, with the richest 20 percent owning just 32 percent of the wealth. This was true of Democrats and Republicans, rich and poor – all groups we surveyed approved of some inequality, but their ideal was far more equal than the current level.”



The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of US population is unaware of the vast wealth at hand. An entire generation of unprecedented wealth creation has been concealed from 99% of the population for over 35 years. Having never personally experienced or known of this wealth, the average American cannot comprehend what is possible if even a fraction of it was used for the betterment of society as a whole.

In fact, given modern technology and wealth, not a single American citizen should live in poverty. The statistics clearly demonstrate that we now live in a Neo-Feudal society. In comparison to the wealthiest one-tenth of one percent of the population, who are sitting on top of tens of trillions of dollars in wealth, we are modern day serfs, essentially propagandized peasants.

The fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are struggling to get by, while tens of trillions of dollars are consolidated within a small fraction of the population, is a crime against humanity.

The day the average American fully comprehends how much wealth is consolidated within just the top one-tenth of one percent of the population, there will be a massive uprising and all the paid off politicians will be run out of town.

The next time you are stressed out, struggling to make ends meet and pay off your debts, just think about the trillions of dollars sitting in the obscenely bloated pockets of one-tenth of one percent of the population. The first step in overcoming your peasant status is to understand that you are indeed a peasant. This is a bitter pill to swallow and most will prefer to, as they have been conditioned to do, continue on their path of media-induced delusion, denial, apathy and ignorance.

However, I still cling to the hope that once enough people become aware of this hidden and obscured fact, we can have the non-violent revolution we so urgently need. Until then, the rich get richer as a critical mass with increasingly dire economic prospects desperately struggles to make ends meet.
Fascism in America

Other than driving large segments of the American population into poverty, and pushing the majority into massive debt and a state of financial desperation, there is an ever darker side to what is unfolding today. The Economic Elite have turned America into a modern day fascist state.

Fascism is a very powerful word which evokes many strong feelings. People may think that the term cannot be applied to modern day America. However, as Benito Mussolini once summed it up: “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.” In the early 1900s, the Italians who invented the term fascism also described it as “estato corporativo,” meaning: the corporate state.

Very few Americans would argue the fact that corporations now control our government and have the dominant role in our society. Through a system of legalized bribery – campaign finance, lobbying and the revolving door between Washington and corporations – the most power global corporations dominant the legislative and political process like never before. Senator Huey Long had it right when he warned: “When fascism comes to America, it will come in the form of democracy.”

As President Franklin D. Roosevelt once described fascism: “The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes strong than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.”

The most blatant modern example of this was the bailout of Wall Street, when the “too big to fail” banks got politicians to promptly hand out trillions of tax dollars in support and subsidies to the very people who caused the crisis, without any of them being held accountable.
Modern Day Slavery

Another shocking example of how far we have descended into fascism is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is a group of corporate executives who literally write government legislation. They have gone as far as setting up a system that imprisons the poor and then puts them to work, instead of paying living wages to non-imprisoned workers. Make no mistake, this is a modern day system of slavery unfolding before our eyes.

At the leadership of ALEC and various other Economic Elite organizations, poverty has essentially become a crime. To demonstrate these attacks against the poor, there was $17 billion cut from public housing programs, while there was an increase of $19 billion in programs for building prisons, “effectively making the construction of prisons the nation’s main housing program for the poor.” Before laws began to be rewritten in 1980, with direct input from ALEC, we had a prison population of 500,000 citizens. After laws were rewritten to target poor inner city citizens with much more severe penalties, the US prison population skyrocketed to 2.4 million people.



We now have the largest prison population in the world. With only 4% of the world’s population, we have 25% of the world’s prison population. As I reported previously, in a report entitled, “American Gulag: World’s Largest Prison Complex“:

“The US, by far, has more of its citizens in prison than any other nation on earth. China, with a billion citizens, doesn’t imprison as many people as the US, with only 308 million American citizens. The US per capita statistics are 700 per 100,000 citizens. In comparison, China has 110 per 100,000. In the Middle East, the repressive regime in Saudi Arabia imprisons 45 per 100,000. US per capita levels are equivalent to the darkest days of the Soviet Gulag.”

The Death Toll

The dramatic increase in poverty has obviously torn many families apart and caused a devastating psychological toll, but consider the increase in deaths as a result of poverty and severe wealth inequalities. This is a very difficult statistic to accurately measure, but Columbia University’s School of Public Health conducted an intensive examination of mortality and medical data and estimated that “875,000 deaths in the US in 2000 could be attributed to a cluster of social factors bound up with poverty and income inequality.”

As a report by Debra Watson sums up the study, “There is no reason to believe, after a decade that has seen sustained attacks on social programs and consistently high unemployment rates, that the social mortality rate has declined. On the contrary, it has likely risen.” Indeed, poverty and income inequality have skyrocketed since 2000.

Now, let’s consider the fact that, according to the Census Bureau, 31.1 million people lived in poverty in 2000, and according to Columbia’s study 875,000 deaths came as a result. This means that 1 out of every 35.5 people living in poverty die annually as a result of their impoverishment. If you extrapolate this data to the 2009 total of 52.8 million people living in poverty, you get an estimate of 1,486,338 deaths within that year. Even if you use the lower poverty totals from the Census Bureau, 43.6 million people, you get an estimate of 1,228,169 deaths in 2009.
Deliberate Systemic Attacks

The dramatic increase in economic inequality and poverty, along with the unprecedented rise in wealth within the top one-tenth of one percent of the population has not happened by mistake. It is the designed result of deliberate governmental and economic policy. It is the result of the richest people in the world, and the “too big to fail” banks, using the campaign finance and lobbying system to buy off politicians who implement policies designed to exploit 99.9% of the population for their financial gain. To call what is happening a “financial terrorist attack” on the United States, is not using hyperbole, it is the technical term for what is currently occurring.

Compare the million people who die annually as a result of these economic attacks, to the 2,977 that died on 9/11. As someone who lived three blocks from the World Trade Center, as tragic as 9/11 was, these economic attacks are much more severe and damaging to us as a nation, albeit a much slower and unseen death toll. Nonetheless, the result is of genocidal proportions. One can statistically compare the economic attacks on the US to the invasion of Iraq, which some estimate as leading to one million deaths. Once again, many of those deaths came in brutal and spectacular fashion in bombing campaigns known as “shock and awe.” However, the death toll compares to the hidden brutality of a four-year campaign of economic “shock and awe.” Just as Iraq was invaded, the US has been invaded by a global banking cartel.

As shocking as that is to realize, consider that this is happening throughout the world. While the US poverty death rate is probably higher than in most European countries, the Federal Reserve’s economic policies — along with policies from the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Bank of International Settlements — have caused rioting and uprisings over skyrocketing food prices and costs of living throughout the world. The fact of the matter, and very harsh and unfortunate reality of this crisis, is that the global economic central planners are deliberately carrying out genocidal economic policies.

As Che Guevara, a man who took on the global financial elite, once said, “The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Rockefeller, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude entails, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this.”

When tens of trillions of dollars deliberately flow to the top economic one-tenth of one percent of the global population, while large percentages live in poverty, you have to conclude, in technical terms, that a Neo-Feudal-Fascist state is upon us. The rich have never been richer, while their paid off politicians make budget cuts for the poor and middle class, and cause the cost of basic necessities to skyrocket.

You can call me extreme, but the reality of this is extreme, these people, the global economic top one-tenth of one percent, are genocidal fascists carrying out a holocaust. Fascism has evolved. There is no need to get blood on your hands while rounding up people and putting them into concentration camps when you can do it through economic policy while sitting in a jacuzzi on a corporate jet, or in a three-piece custom-made Armani, completely detached and insulated from the world in which you plunder.

However, as what happens with all empires, greed and arrogance makes them overreach. The beaten down masses get to a point where they literally can’t live under these conditions. This desperation spreads throughout the population until it reaches a critical mass, then, suddenly, they rise up and the empire begins to collapse… Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, Israel, (Northern Africa, the Middle East), Albania, Greece, Spain, Britain (Europe), Wisconsin…

The Economic Elite are overreaching and their empire is collapsing.

The decentralized global rebellion has begun…

Welcome to World War III.

Which side of history do you want to be on?

As a wise old friend once said, “You can’t be neutral on a moving train.”


"

Source: Financial Terrorism in America: Over 1 Million Deaths A Year And 62 Million With Zero Net Worth

[cannatari]

Originally Posted by cannatari

One of the most profound statements that I've ever heard is that Rome fell because the people stopped believing in the idea of it. The .01% know the value of a good stage show which is how they are able to continually opress the people. We are led to believe that all you have to do is vote for the right candidate and that the worlds problems are due to us voting for the wrong candidate but if you truly want things to change you have to break your belief in that system and most importantly break your belief that there's nothing you can do about it. This is a very risky time for the elite as they convert your belief in the dollar to a new global currency. They cannot enslave us without currency and they cannot steal from the world when countries are allowed to print their own. Global currency is coming. The world market is based on the dollar and although the dollar is being intentionally crashed, the .01% don't need to crash the dollar to usher in the new currency for any other reason than to con us into believing in it because it will never work if we lose our faith in the monetary system itself. You could even say that the entire article is propaganda for global currency. Even though it appears to be bashing the .01%, it leaves you hanging for an answer to the problem and that is exactly how they need you to feel when the ATM machine spits out the new global enslavement 20's at you.

Tricky bastards. Notice how at the end of the article it says that their empire is collapsing (because of something called over-reaching?) which is an invitation for you to sit back and do nothing.

Facism will come in the form of conspiracy.

Peace.

The Vatican calls for global currency:

News Headlines

Peace.

[joshuahazen]

"


Pope's Nazi past
Benedict XVI former Hitler Youth member


As John Paul II's right hand man, in charge of enforcing the conservative papal policy, Cardinal Ratzinger earned an unfortunate nickname from his more progressive peers: the "Panzer Cardinal". Like the tank. Pope Benedict XVI, now 78, had his own brush with warfare as a young boy growing up in Nazi Germany...

"

Read the rest...
Source: Pope's Nazi past - msnbc tv - Countdown with Keith Olbermann - msnbc.com


Some pictures of The Pope in his formative years:

Image Search Results for pope nazi youth