I’m sorry, I forgot; I’m just some brain-dead, fluoridated, prescription-drugged and debt-strapped moo whose only reason for an IRS and Social Security tracked existence is to be out working to produce a revenue stream for the aristocrats and the rest of the world. - One Rather Upset Monster

A Nation Of Sheep Will Beget A Government Of Wolves - Edward R. Murrow

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. - Plato

HR1388 Gets New Name In The Senate

Update: 3/27/09:  Go here for details on the new legislation, HR1444.

IT’S BAAACK!! The Truth About HR1388, Serve America Act and The Obama Youth Army

********

(Update #5: 3-24-09 Evening:  go HERE! for more recent post.)

(Update #4: 3-24-09 7:19pm est.:  I cannot find any mention anywhere that this was actually voted on today.  I will keep looking.)

(Update #3: 3-24-09: It appears that this bill is being bundled with S277 Serve America Act which is going to be voted on today.  They are going through an awful lot of trouble to hide this bill and you would not believe who has been showing up to see how much we know about what is happening with it — hint, hint, the US Senate, besides others.  All of my loyal readers can send a wave out to Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue.  Welcome, and I will add you to the list.)

Please go check the Constitution Page at the top of this blog:

13th Amendment:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

(Update #2: 3-24-09:  The Senate will reconvene at 2:15pm eastern for this bill.  It will be shown on C-Span 2.)

(Update: 3-24-09: There is no mention of the vote on this bill. I have been looking since yesterday afternoon. As soon as I find information pertaining to it’s passage or defeat, I will post it here.)

obamayouthThis morning I received an email from a Facebook group that I became part of yesterday, Stop HR1388!! informing me that the Senate has a different name for HR1388 and is flying it under the radar to be voted on today.  What is interesting is that Tyrant Harry Reid, (and I am going to start calling all of them tyrants* because they are acting like tyrants), has asked and been granted cloture.  For those of you that are wondering EXACTLY what that means, here’s the definition from the Legal Dictionary:

Cloture is a means of terminating a filibuster, which is a prolonged speech on the floor of the Senate designed to forestall legislative action.

More from GovTrack:

NATIONAL SERVICE REAUTHORIZATION ACT–MOTION TO PROCEED — (Senate – March 19, 2009)[Page: S. 3577]

Sen. Harry Reid [D-NV]: Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that it be in order to proceed to Calendar No. 35, H.R. 1388, the National Service Reauthorization Act.

Chair: Without objection, it is so ordered.

Sen. Harry Reid [D-NV]: Mr. President, I now move to proceed to Calendar No. 35, H.R. 1388, and I send a cloture motion to the desk.

Chair: The cloture motion having been presented under rule XXII, the Chair directs the clerk to read the motion.

Chair: The bill clerk read as follows:

Chair: Cloture Motion

Chair: We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, hereby move to bring to a close debate on the motion to proceed to Calendar No. 35, H.R. 1388, a bill to reauthorize and reform the national service laws.

Sen. Harry Reid [D-NV]: Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the cloture vote occur on Monday, March 23 at 6 p.m.; and that if cloture is invoked, then postcloture time count as if cloture had been invoked at 3 p.m. that day; further, that the mandatory quorum be waived.

Chair: Without objection, it is so ordered.

I personally do not think calling our Senators is going to do any good.  They have the bit in their teeth and they are running with it.  This is just more evidence that the Democrats have “run wild” and are trying to slam through as much liberal leftist crap as they can before Bambi’s time runs out. (see Forgery)

For those of you that want to call the Senate and give them a piece of your mind, the switchboard number is 202-224-3121.

Any of my loyal readers want to do some digging and find out who started this group?  City Year.org This would be very inspiring if we had not experienced the Hitler Youth Years.


*72% of the American Public was against the Stimulus Bill and they passed it. 99 out of 100 Americans were against Tarp and they passed it.

23 Responses to HR1388 Gets New Name In The Senate
  1. lee M.
    March 23, 2009 | 7:43 am

    Diamond. I’ll see what I can find out I have friends in the school system here and I’ll see if they know if anyone is pushing it hard.

    I do know that David Gergen is a Charter Trustee, and Charlie Rose is a VP and Dean. It has gone international, as in City Year, South Africa.

    Now that you have inquired about it, their slogan is more suspect. “Give a year, change the world” and “Are you ready to change the world?”

    There goes that word CHANGE again.

    I’ll make some calls tonight and see if, and whom, anyone is really pushing it in this school system.

  2. Diamond Tiger
    March 23, 2009 | 7:46 am

    AAARRRGGGGHHHH! David Gergen and Charlie Rose are both CFR members!!

  3. lee M.
    March 23, 2009 | 8:11 am

    I know that. I wrote a piece on the CFR and the Proposed North American Union, and when I researched the membership list I almost had a heart attack. I have long suspected David Gergen, but Charley Rose surprised me. There are many more names on that list that will cause you to have a migraine.

    I came back here because thinking about the City Year thing set my little grey cells turning. I’ll tell you one thing. If I find, (and I’m afraid that I will, that this is part of the plan afoot by TPTB connected with the Obama Youth Corps, I’ll go to the next, and every, School Board meeting and really rant.

    They don’t frighten me, Diamond. I just fought a long battle with cancer and came out the winner. I’ve been kept on this earth for a reason, and maybe it is to make as much noise as I can. I don’t want to sound dramatic about it, but when you stare the grim reaper in the eye and tell him to go peddle his wares elsewhere, there is little else that can frighten you.

    There is nothing we can do about King Harry until he comes up for election again, but when they start messing with our children we have to start marching.

  4. Diamond Tiger
    March 23, 2009 | 8:33 am

    “They don’t frighten me, Diamond….I don’t want to sound dramatic about it, but when you stare the grim reaper in the eye and tell him to go peddle his wares elsewhere, there is little else that can frighten you.”

    That is exactly why I do not fear these bastards either – been there, done that.

    I have so much respect for you Lee – you have no idea!

  5. Diamond Tiger
    March 23, 2009 | 10:18 am

    Look what I found among other things:

    http://www.change.org/cityyear

  6. lee M.
    March 23, 2009 | 11:06 am

    Diamond, you may already be aware of this, but here goes.

    City Year was founded in 1988 by Michael Brown and Alan Khazei, who were roommates at Harvard Law School.

    Michael Brown, I’m sure you’ve heard of him. He was a Legislative Aide for Leon Panetta, and at one time clerked for Stephen Breyer when Breyer was a Federal Judge. He has won several awards for Community Services. (He is not to be confused with the Michael (you’re doin’ a heck of a job, Brownie) Brown of Fema fame.

    Alan Khazei, other than he is a lawyer who has a deep interest in the Community Service area. He has since left City Year and founded another Community Service organization called “Be The Change”. He is also CEO of this organization. Their goal is building nonpartisan citizen support for systemic solutions to our nation’s problems.

    City Year is apparently now City Year Inc. Cofounded by the same Michael Brown and Jennifer Eplett Reilly.

    Ms. Reilly is a wife, mother and civic leader who graduated from Wellesley in 1985 with a degree in political science. She has an MBA from Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. Her husband is Sean Reilly, president of Lamar Advertising Co. Ms Reilly left her investment banking career in N.Y. in 1988 to devote her time to Community Improvements.

    It is said that Bill Clinton modeled his Americorps Program on the City Year Program.

    If I can reach my friends at home tonight I will try to find out if the organization has appealed to the Seniors. Their age linit is 17 – 24.

    If you noticed the word CHANGE keeps cropping up. Weird.

  7. Grail Guardian
    March 23, 2009 | 11:56 am

    Not so weird. Not even surprising anymore. All according to the plan…

  8. petunia politik
    March 23, 2009 | 12:00 pm

    we all know the expression, “what a small world”…
    my point being, the obviousness of the ties is akin to reciting the six degrees of separation from kevin bacon.
    everything leads to everything else, and there are no coincidences.

    there are so many parallels within “code words” here that for anyone to think these plans have not been forged for years would be ludicrous.

    abandon ship.

    tiger mama, i’m scared for the young un’s.

  9. lee M.
    March 23, 2009 | 12:42 pm

    This will make your day – David Gergen is also associated with “Be The Change” run by Alan Khazei.

    City Year, Inc., held a dinner in Baton Rouge, La. with the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund and The Baton Rouge Area Foundation. Among other honored speakers were Bill Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama.

    IMO the more I think about it, the more I tend to believe that the intent is to bundle these groups in with Americorps, whereby they would already be products of the Federal Gov’t, since Americorps is already. I must be sick. When somebody gives me a tip that might be suspicious I’m worse than a rat terrier. I’m not satisfied until I catch the rat or am PROVEN wrong.

    See ya later.

  10. lee M.
    March 23, 2009 | 12:48 pm

    The above dinner was in 2006. Sorry about that ommission. That is important, I think because it could set a time line to other happenings.

  11. Diamond Tiger
    March 23, 2009 | 3:13 pm

    Petunia – do not be scared. The rise in gun sales in America is now being attributed to…WAIT FOR IT….WOMEN! I would love to see what would happen if they came for my son…

    BWWWAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!

    This is another side affect of sh**ing all over women in the last election cycle. We are taking care of ourselves and our families.

    I could be taking this too seriously – but I do not realistically think so.

    …and Lee – you rock again. You are an amazing woman!

  12. Kathy
    March 24, 2009 | 12:14 am

    Diamond-My husband and I just recently purchased a gun for the first time. I am not any spring chicken and I never thought I would own a gun. We are now looking into a second gun , as we have just applied for a cwp.

    When we took the class for the permit there were 27 and 9 of which were women. On Texas Darlins site there was a poster who commented that it is justice that so many of the sites were started by women, you were mention, along with Atlas and Texas Darlin. What tptb have not counted on is the hand that rocks the cradle. You just have to watch any show on nature and to what lengths the female will go to protect the young.

    I am not one to do male bashing and most women just want peaceful resolutions to problems but I for one know that my angst is not for myself by for my grown children who are productive members of society who are just trying to live their lives and obey the law.

    So for all the good ole boys out there, try to remember growing up. what was your feeling when your mother was really pissed at you and just multiply that by millions, that is what you are dealing with now, as mothers we are willing to put our lives on the line for are children, no matter what their ages are.

  13. Diamond Tiger
    March 24, 2009 | 4:55 am

    Kathy – “the hand that rocks the cradle”…a very apt expression and it reminds me of something my spousal unit said about moms running the country. We do – we are the backbone and when women start buying guns (there was a 24% and 23% increase from last year respectively in Jan 09 and Feb 09) the TPTB had better start paying attention.

    We have been the silent majority for a long time and because we still do not feel that we are heard, we are moving en masse to make sure our families are protected and fed. I purchased my first gun (NEVER thought I would own one) YESTERDAY.

    I love your comment; “So for all the good ole boys out there, try to remember growing up. what was your feeling when your mother was really pissed at you and just multiply that by millions”.

    They still don’t get it.

  14. Olivia Reed
    March 24, 2009 | 9:50 am

    Are you people serious? Do you have any idea what City Year is?

    I lived in Boston and used to see these young people every morning and you know what they do? They go to inner-city schools and tutor. They tutor!

    Classrooms are overcrowded, teachers are overwhelmed and City Year corps members go in and try to help alleviate some of the pressures teachers are under.

    The uniform, the calisthenics, all of that is arbitrary. What matters is that they are in schools mentoring and tutoring and running after school programs.

  15. Diamond Tiger
    March 24, 2009 | 10:03 am

    Olivia – it’s about Mandatory vs. Voluntary – take the time to read the bill…my readers have.

  16. 1sgboom
    March 24, 2009 | 10:44 am

    Do any of you remember the COKE commercial back in the 70s, “I’D LIKE TO TEACH THE WORLD TO SING IN PERFECT HARMONY”? Well I wonder how long it will be before that MORON in the white house brings it back to “sell” his agenda? PEPSI already has signed on to it with their billboards> One along I-80 in Sacramento had in large letters “HOPE” with the “O” looking like the OBAMA red white and blue symbol!

  17. 1sgboom
    March 24, 2009 | 11:09 am

    Diamond
    My wife and both my daughters know how to use a firearm. We all go out to a range on a regular basis. Both my wife and I are retired military, (I’m also retired law enforcement.) and we advocate ALL women to keep and learn how to use a firearm for self protection. I don’t see how the “NAZIS” plan on tracking the ammo bought today. Thousands have been stocking up on ammo since before the elections. The citizens of this nation (I mean the patriots) are armed to the teeth, and NOBAMA and his “criminals” are in for a rude awakening!

  18. Augusto Villalon
    March 24, 2009 | 11:51 am

    HR-1388 and whatever the Senate will call it, is no more no less that Fidel Castro’s militia which we witnessed in 1959. They will control the USA. The people of the USA should rise tomorrow morning after the senate signs it into law and riot until they take it out. Any Cuban who wirnessed what happened to us will tell you that the similarities are astounding.

  19. Diamond Tiger
    March 24, 2009 | 1:22 pm

    1sgboom – bought mine yesterday. I also believe that everybody should know own and know how to use one. MAKE THE CONSTITUTION a living breathing document instead of just saying it is one.

  20. Diamond Tiger
    March 24, 2009 | 1:23 pm

    Augusto, thanks for leaving your comment. Views such as yours are not heard often enough. I am flipping out because my grandparents fled eastern europe in front of communism and i also know the similarities.

  21. 1sgboom
    March 25, 2009 | 8:34 am

    WTF? I just heard that the Senate “Rubber stamped” approval of the “OBAMA YOUTH CORPS” bill. I wonder if they will give out those neat brown shirt Storm Trooper uniforms.

  22. Diamond Tiger
    March 25, 2009 | 8:49 am

    1sg – go up to the top of this post and click on “more recent post”…it has not been voted on yet.

  23. Linguist
    March 29, 2009 | 3:08 pm

    Hint: City Year gets funding from AmeriCorps.

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Pat Condell: Common Sense About A Mosque At Ground Zero

Big Brother’s Lock On Your Money Is Complete

I wrote about it; I tried to warn people, but after the healthcare fight we just went through, I think most people just wanted a breather from battling the fascists in Washington (to our long-lasting detriment).

Now we have the financial reform bill that includes the new federal agency Office Of Financial Research, and the Bureau of Consumer Protection keeping track of every single financial transaction you could possibly imagine; including your bank balance, and when you walk to the ATM to take cash out.  I wasn’t lying, but I do think I was one of very few writing about it.

The fascists have the banks, the insurance companies, the credit card companies, the car companies, OUR healthcare, and now Americans’ financial transactions.

Senate Democrats Pass Bill Allowing Govt to Collect Addresses, ATM Records of Bank Customers

(CNSNews.com) – Senate Democrats united to pass a financial regulatory bill that allows the government to collect data on any person operating in financial markets at any level, including the collection of personal transaction records from local banks, including customers’ addresses and ATM receipts. (emphasis mine)

The Senate voted 59-39 on Thursday to pass the bill – the chief aim of which is to more-heavily regulate the financial industry – sending it to a conference committee in the House of Representatives, where differences between the House and Senate versions will be ironed out.

The bill, if it becomes law, will create the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection and empower it to “gather information and activities of persons operating in consumer financial markets,” including the names and addresses of account holders, ATM and other transaction records, and the amount of money kept in each customer’s account.

The new bureaucracy is then allowed to “use the data on branches and [individual and personal] deposit accounts … for any purpose” and may keep all records on file for at least three years and these can be made publicly available upon request.

*break*

Shelby slammed the new consumer bureaucracy, saying that it was meant not to protect consumers but to “manage” them by monitoring their behavior.

“Mr. President, make no mistake, behind the veil of anti-Wall Street rhetoric is an unrelenting desire to manage every facet of commerce under the guise of consumer protection.

“They may be interested in protecting consumers, but they are more interested in managing them,” Shelby said.

Shelby also criticized the idea that Americans need government to watch over their every financial move, saying that it was better to allow people the freedom to make their own choices and fail than to never allow them the freedom to choose at all.

“Mr. President, I have faith in the American people and their ability to make good choices,” said Shelby.  “Granted, we do not always choose well.  But I believe that a poor choice freely made is far superior to a good choice made for me.”

“I am afraid that the architects of this bill do not share this sentiment,” he said. “Nor do they share my faith in the American people.”

Shelby further said that the ability of the Federal Reserve to collect such detailed information about the most basic of financial transactions was the beginning of an effort by government to regulate every financial action of every American citizen.

“This new consumer bureaucracy is intended by its architects in the Treasury to begin the process of financial regulation with the intent of changing the behaviors of the American people,” said the senator.

Shelby appears to be correct. The bill allows the bureau to collect any and all information on any person operating in the financial markets.

As it reads: “[T]he Bureau shall have the authority to gather information from time to time regarding the organization, business conduct, markets, and activities of persons operating in consumer financial services markets.”

Meanwhile, depending on the conference version of this bill, you may be able to fund a new federal agency that takes idle appropriations, invests them, and keeps the profits.  Those profits are ‘not considered the government’s property’. I am still trying to ascertain who that money actually belongs to because it is not yours anymore.

4.15.2010

Obama Turns Financial Reform Into A Political Fight

I am currently reading this bill and wanted to drop an interesting tidbit on you. For those interested in reading the 114 page Manager’s Amendment, go here. I am only a couple hundred pages into this POS but starting on page 60, a new government office is to be established. The “Office Of Financial Research” will be part of the Treasury, and will have a Director appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. This office will also have a data collection center to keep track of all financial and nonbank financial institutions so as to be able to report to Congress on companies that ‘threaten’ the economy. It is unclear how big or how many new government employees this office will create, but considering how events are unfolding now with Obamacare, I’m assuming pretty large.

The interesting tidbit pertains to the Financial Research Fund that is to be established and the ability of the Office that is providing Congress with reports to invest monies they aren’t using. Let me know if you think that’s a conflict of interest, and if you would like to know exactly how much money that is?

“Funds obtained by, transferred to, or credited to the Financial Research Fund shall be immediately available to the Office, and shall remain available until expended, to pay the expenses of the Office in carrying out the duties and responsibilities of the Office.”

The above quotes are from Chris Dodd’s markup draft. I went to the actual amended bill (Amendment No. 3739 of Bill S. 3217) that was passed and found the pertinent information starting on page 62, with the investment and non-governmental monies section on page 78. It’s still in there.

At this point, the underground economy is about to get a bit larger.

UPDATE: More information on the Office Of Financial Research, here.

11.2.2010...
How The Elites Are About To Make Us Serfs And Then Kick The Door Shut Behind Them

Tea Party Patriots Vs. The Master Class

Still have that sinking feeling in your midsection every time you think about the District of Criminals, The Fed, Bernanke, etc.?  Are you still not sleeping well at night because you know something is “so wrong” but the scope of the problem is just getting larger each day?

Remember when we spoke about giving up every last penny of our wealth to get rid of the bloodsucking elites that are killing our childrens’ futures?

After reading this commentary, you will have the concise MATH, (there’s that word again), and course of the nation that  explains why you feel like a hamster on crack, and can’t sleep at night.  The numbers do not lie.

This piece is long, it’s brutal, and it will make you weep, but I urge you to read every single word because it will resonate. Remember it when the epitome of the elite class gives his State of The Union Address, and then it will be time to get the little gray cells working because I refuse to allow these bastards to keep raping us into indentured servitude.

America’s Impending Master Class Dictatorship

Copyright 2010 by Stewart Dougherty, with all rights reserved.

FOREWORD: At certain times, focusing on the big picture is important not just for investment success, but for personal welfare, and even survival. We believe such times are here. It is estimated that 98% of Americans have never held a gold coin in their hands. Yet 100% of Americans regularly handle Federal Reserve Notes. From a contrarian standpoint, the financial message from those two statistics is clear. Even so, gold is much more than money or an investment medium; it stands for liberty and throughout history has facilitated escape and ensured freedom. Never having touched a gold coin is the monetary equivalent to never having breathed fresh air, felt the warmth of sunshine, looked up at the stars or risen from the gutter. Fiat Federal Reserve Notes are becoming nothing more than sewage decomposing in the vast, toxic septic tank of predatory Washington politics, epic Federal Reserve arrogance and error, blatant Wall Street fraud and outright Master Class plunder. Below, we outline America’s troubling and compounding predicament, and urge you to think about how to protect yourself from its consequences, both financially and personally.

Thanks to the endless barrage of feel-good propaganda that daily assaults the American mind, best epitomized a few months ago by the “green shoots,” everything’s-coming-up-roses propaganda touted by Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, the citizens have no idea how disastrous the country’s fiscal, monetary and economic problems truly are. Nor do they perceive the rapidly increasing risk of a totalitarian nightmare descending upon the American Republic.

One stark and sobering way to frame the crisis is this: if the United States government were to nationalize (in other words, steal) every penny of private wealth accumulated by America’s citizens since the nation’s founding 235 years ago, the government would remain totally bankrupt.

According to the Federal Reserve’s most recent report on wealth, America’s private net worth was $53.4 trillion as of September, 2009. But at the same time, America’s debt and unfunded liabilities totaled at least $120,000,000,000,000.00 ($120 trillion), or 225% of the citizens’ net worth. Even if the government expropriated every dollar of private wealth in the nation, it would still have a deficit of $66,600,000,000,000.00 ($66.6 trillion), equal to $214,286.00 for every man, woman and child in America and roughly 500% of GDP. If the government does not directly seize the nation’s private wealth, then it will require $389,610 from each and every citizen to balance the country’s books. State, county and municipal debts and deficits are additional, already elephantine in many states (e.g., California, Illinois, New Jersey and New York) and growing at an alarming rate nationwide. In addition to the federal government, dozens of states are already bankrupt and sinking deeper into the morass every day.

The government continues to dig a deeper and deeper fiscal grave in which to bury its citizens. This year, the federal deficit will total at least $1,600,000,000,000.00 ($1.6 trillion), which represents overspending of $4,383,561,600.00 ($4.38 billion) per day. (The deficit during October and November, 2009, the first two months of Fiscal Year 2010, totaled $296,700,000,000.00 ($297 billion), or $4,863,934,000.00 ($4.9 billion) per day, a record.) Using the GAAP accounting method (which is what corporations are required to use because it presents a far more accurate and honest picture of a company’s finances than the cash accounting method primarily and misleadingly used by the U.S. government), the nation’s fiscal year 2009 deficit was roughly $9,000,000,000,000.00 ($9 trillion), or $24,700,000,000.00 ($24.7 billion) per day, as calculated by brilliant and well-respected economist John Williams. (www.shadowstats.com) Fiscal Year 2010’s cash- and GAAP-accounting deficits will likely be worse than 2009’s, given government bailout and new program spending that is on steroids and psychotic.

Putting Fiscal Year 2009’s $9,000,000,000,000.00 ($9 trillion) deficit another way, 17% of America’s private wealth, accumulated over a period of 235 years, was wiped out by just one year’s worth of government deficit spending insanity.

Given this, is it any surprise that Treasury Secretary Geithner has announced that the release of the nation’s FY 2009 supplemental GAAP financial statements has been delayed? Remember, this is the same Secretary Geithner who bullied people to cover up the sordid details of the AIG, or more accurately, the taxpayer-funded, multi-billion dollar, Santa Claus bailout and bonus bonanza for Goldman Sachs. Do you really think this government, characterized as it is by fiscal and monetary secrecy, lies, chicanery, cronyism and stonewalling, wants the people to know what is actually happening? Obviously, it does not, so it hides from the public the inexcusable facts.

It is estimated that the top 1% of Americans control roughly 40% of the nation’s wealth. In other words, 3 million people own $21,400,000,000,000.00 ($21.4 trillion) in net private assets, while the other 305 million own the remaining $32,000,000,000,000.00 ($32 trillion). 77,000,000 (77 million) Americans (the lowest 25%) have mean net assets of minus $2,300 ($-2,300.00) per person; they live from paycheck to paycheck, or on public assistance. The lower 50% of Americans own mean net assets of $27,800 each, about enough to purchase a modest car. Obviously, it would be impossible to retire on such an amount without significant government or other assistance. Meanwhile, the richest 10% of Americans possess mean net assets of $3,976,000.00 each, or 143 times those of the bottom 50%; the top 2% control assets worth more than 1,500 times those in the bottom 50%. When you combine these facts with Wall Street’s typical multi-million dollar annual bonuses, you get an idea of wealth inequality in America. Historically, such extreme inequality has been a well-documented breeding ground for totalitarianism.

If the government decides to expropriate (steal) or commandeer (e.g., force into Treasuries) America’s private wealth in order to buy survival time, such a measure will be designed to destroy the common citizens, not the elite. Insiders will be given advance warning about any such plan, and will be able to transfer their money offshore or into financial vehicles immune from harm. Assuming that the elite moves its money to safety, there would then be $120,000,000,000,000.00 ($120 trillion) in American debt and liabilities supported by only $32,000,000,000,000.00 ($32 trillion) in private net worth, for a deficit of $88,000,000,000,000.00 ($88 trillion). In that case, each American would owe $285,714.29 to balance the country’s books.  (Remember to multiply this amount by every person in your household, including any infant children.)

If the common people suspect that something diabolical was in the works, a portion of the $32 trillion in non-elite wealth could be evacuated as well prior to a government expropriation and/or currency devaluation, resulting in less money for the government to steal. What these statistics mean is that it is absolutely impossible for the government to fund its debt and deficits, even if it steals all of the nation’s private wealth. Therefore, the government’s only solutions are either formal bankruptcy (outright debt repudiation and the dismantling of bankrupt government programs) or unprecedented American monetary inflation and debt monetization. If the government chooses to inflate its way out of this fiscal catastrophe, the United States dollar will essentially become worthless. You can be absolutely certain that a PhD. in economics, such as Dr. Bernanke, is well aware of these realities, despite what he might say in speeches. For that matter, so are Chinese schoolchildren, who, when patronized by Treasury Secretary Geithner about America’s “strong dollar,” laughed in his face. One day, perhaps America’s school children will receive a real education so that they, too, will know when to laugh at absurd propaganda.

The government has announced that during the fiscal years from 2010 through 2019, it will create an additional $9,000,000,000,000.00 ($9 trillion) in deficits, an amount that is almost certain to be understated by trillions given the country’s current economic trajectory. The government assumes that this vast additional deficit will be funded by others, such as the Chinese, as it is a statistical fact that the United States will be incapable of funding it.

Furthermore, with the budgetary equivalent of a straight face, the Office of Management and Budget reports in its long-term, inter-generational budget projection that the United States government will experience massive, non-stop deficits for the next 70 (SEVENTY) years, requiring the issuance of tens of trillions of dollars of additional debt. The OMB does not project even one year of surplus during the entire seventy year budget period.

These deficits and debts are now so gargantuan that they have become surreal abstractions impossible even for sophisticated financiers to begin to comprehend. The common citizen has absolutely no idea what these numbers mean, or imply for his or her future. The people have been deluded into thinking that America’s arrogant, egomaniacal, always-wrong-but-never-in-doubt fiscal witch doctors and charlatans, including Greenspan, Rubin, Summers, Geithner and Ponce de Bernanke, have discovered a Monetary Fountain of Youth that endlessly spits up free money from the center of earth, in a geyser of good will toward the United States. Unfortunately, this delusion is false: there is no Monetary Fountain of Youth, and contrary to the apparent beliefs of the self-deified man-gods in Washington, D.C., the debt and deficits are real, completely out of control, and 100% guaranteed to create catastrophic consequences for the nation and its people.

When government “representatives” deliberately sell into slavery the citizens of a so-called free Republic, they have committed treason against those people. This is exactly what has happened in the United States: the citizens have been sold into debt slavery that they and their descendants can never escape, because the debts piled onto their backs can never, ever be paid. Despite expensive and sophisticated brainwashing campaigns emanating from Washington, claiming that America can “grow” out of its deficits and debt, it is arithmetically impossible for the country to do so. The government’s statements that it can dig the nation out of its fiscal hole by digging an even deeper chasm have become parodies and perversions of even totally discredited and morally disgusting Keynesianism.

The people no longer have elected representatives; they have elected traitors.

The enslavement of the American people has been orchestrated by a pernicious Master Class that has taken the United States by the throat. This Master Class is now choking the nation to death as it accelerates its master plan to plunder the people’s dwindling remaining assets. The Master Class comprises politicians, the Wall Street money elite, the Federal Reserve, high-end government (including military) officials, government lobbyists and their paymasters, military suppliers and media oligarchs. The interests and mindset of the Master Class are so totally divorced from those of the average American citizen that it is utterly tone deaf and blind to the justifiable rage sweeping the nation. Its guiding ethics of greed, plunder, power, control and violence are so alien to mainstream American culture and thought that the Master Class might as well be an enemy invader from Mars. But the Master Class here, it is real and it is laying waste to America. To the members of the Master Class, the people are not fellow-citizens; they are instruments of labor, servitude and profit. At first, the Master Class viewed the citizens as serfs; now that they have raped and destroyed the national economy, while in the process amassing unprecedented wealth and power for themselves, they see the people as nothing more than slaves.

America’s public finances are now so completely dysfunctional and chaotic that something far worse than debt enslavement and monetary implosion, terrible curses unto themselves, looms on the horizon: namely, a Master Class-sponsored American dictatorship.

Throughout history, the type of situation in which America now finds itself has been a fertility factory for tyranny. The odds of an outright overthrow of the people by the Washington and Wall Street Axis, or more broadly, the Master Class are increasing dramatically. The fact that so few people believe an American dictatorship is possible is exactly why it is becoming likely.

Dictatorships have blighted history and ruined lives since the beginning of civilization. In recent times alone, tyrants such as Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Ceausescu, Amin, Hussein, Mussolini, Tojo, Kim, Pinochet, Milosevic, Tito, Batista, Peron, Pol Pot, Mugabe, Marcos, Somoza, Mengistu, Bokassa, Sese Seko, Franco, Ho Chi Minh, Mao, and Castro have power-sprayed blood onto the screen of time and ravaged mankind with murder, torture and human oppression. A full catalog of history’s tyrants would require a book of hundreds of pages. In the past 100 years alone, over 200 million human beings have been annihilated by wars, ethnic cleansings and government assassinations. Just when we think that civilization has been able to rise above tyranny’s inhumanity and disgrace, a new dictator appears on the scene to start the process all over again. Every time this happens, fear and submission paralyze the vast majority of the affected masses, leading them to “follow orders” and lick autocracy’s blood-stained boots.

History has proven to tyrants that oppression works. In fact, it is easy to control a populace, once you control the money, markets, military (including police), media and minions (the recipients of welfare, social security, free health care, government jobs and the like, who are dependent upon the state and likely to be compliant). This is exactly where the United States is today.

Recent American events paint an ominous picture of a Master Class that is now in total control.

When 90% of the American people vehemently rejected the $700,000,000,000.00 ($700 billion) TARP bailout plan, the Master Class put it on a fast track and approved it anyway.

When a clear majority of the American people said no to a government takeover of Chrysler and GM, the Master Class poured billions of taxpayer dollars into those corporate sinkholes and took them over anyway.

When the people said no to multi-trillion dollar crony bailouts for the bankers and insurers whose corruption had caused global financial mayhem, the government pledged to those elite insiders more than $13,000,000,000,000.00 ($13 trillion) of the people’s money anyway.

When the people expressed astonishment and anger that Wall Street planned to pay itself record 2009 bonuses, in the midst of America’s worst-ever fiscal and financial crisis caused by them, Wall Street stuffed its pockets with taxpayer-supported bonus money anyway.

When the people said no to a proposed $40,000,000,000.00 ($40 billion) bailout of AIG and its elite trading partners such as Goldman Sachs (an amount that subsequently exploded to $180,000,000,000.00+ ($180+ billion)), the Master Class went underground, covertly misappropriated taxpayer money and made the payoffs anyway.

When Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were nationalized at enormous taxpayer expense, the government approved $6,000,000.00 individual pay packages in 2009 (150 times the average American wage) for the CEOs of both failed companies anyway.

When a clear majority of the people said no to nationalized health care, even after being bombarded by a multi-million dollar, lie-drenched propaganda campaign designed to bamboozle them, the House and Senate passed nationalized health care bills anyway.

When more than seven million American workers lost their jobs and were subsisting on unemployment benefits and food stamps, federal government employees, who now earn DOUBLE what private sector workers earn, were given another round of pay and benefits increases anyway.

When private sector workers’ 401Ks and IRA retirement plans plummeted in value due to economic collapse and endemic Wall Street-orchestrated market corruption (including systemic front running, flash trading, naked short selling and other manipulations), government “defined benefit,” lifetime-cost-of-living-adjusted pension plans, despite already being underfunded by $2,000,000,000,000.00 ($2 trillion), were made richer than ever anyway.

The long, shameful litany of events signaling the total divorce between the Master Class and the people of the United States doesn’t stop there. It goes on and on.

The message from the American Master Class to the American people is simple and clear:

We Defy You.

Governments that openly defy the people are either already totalitarian or in the process of becoming so. Monetarily, the United States clearly functions as a totalitarian dictatorship already, with a Federal Reserve that operates in secrecy, creates limitless amounts of debt and currency at will, and showers trillions of dollars upon favored Master Class insiders with zero transparency or accountability whatsoever. The Federal Reserve is so shameless about its dictatorial powers that it flatly refuses to provide details about multi-trillion dollar bailouts and rescues of privileged elites, in open defiance of Congress and the people. The fact that they get away with these blatant acts of defiance demonstrates the true extent of the Master Class chokehold on America.

If the Master Class were a benign despot and if its policies and programs actually worked, that would be one thing. But that is not the case. Rather, its programs are in a complete shambles.

Every single government entitlement program in the United States is bankrupt. This includes Social Security ($17,500,000,000,000.00 underfunded; $17.5 trillion); Medicare Part A ($36,700,000,000,000.00 underfunded; $36.7 trillion); Medicare Part B ($37,000,000,000,000.00 underfunded; $37 trillion); Medicare Part D ($15,600,000,000,000 underfunded; $15.6 trillion), Government and military pensions ($2,000,000,000,000 underfunded; $2 trillion), Food Stamps (current underfunding difficult to measure because the number of recipients is exploding; hundreds of billions underfunded versus original projections, minimum); and the list goes on. The above underfunding amounts are NET of projected tax receipts over the next 50 years. But the current recession has invalidated virtually all long-term budget and tax receipt assumptions, meaning that the true underfunded amounts are now greater than current, already mind-boggling estimates.

While the above statistics are terrifying enough to any citizen with a functioning brain, what is Twilight Zone-eerie and a far more serious cause for alarm is the casual indifference with which the Master Class is now making the country’s dire and irreparable fiscal circumstances even worse.

The nationalized health care program will cost at least $1 trillion over the next ten years, and most likely multiples of that. It is being crammed down America’s throat by a bankrupt government that does not have the money today and will not have the money tomorrow to pay for it. Worse is the fact that the same government that has bankrupted each and every existing social program now intends to directly or indirectly control the health care of all citizens. Based on the government’s existing track record and the health care program’s enormous complexity, invasiveness and cost, the probability that it will become a national fiscal and humanitarian catastrophe is roughly 100%.

“Cap and Trade” is a multi-trillion dollar tax scam being foisted onto the American public without a legitimate debate or popular referendum. You might be surprised to learn that “Climate Revenues” are already included in the federal budget, starting with $79,000,000,000.00 ($79 billion) in fiscal year 2012, which begins only 20 months from now. During fiscal years 2012 through 2019, the government expects to collect $646,000,000,000.00 ($646 billion) in “Climate Revenues,” a completely new tax category. Have any of your elected traitors told you that they have enacted $646,000,000,000.00 ($646 billion) in “Climate” taxes beginning twenty months from now and continuing forever? These “Climate Revenues” are based on junk science, lies and hysteria, and have been pimped by greed-diseased parasites who seek to make billions from operating and manipulating the Cap and Trade “marketplace.” Favored elitists such as Hank Paulson, Al Gore, General Electric and Goldman Sachs, among others, have positioned themselves to profit from the nation’s upcoming Cap and Trade tax misery and economic debilitation.

The reality is that the giant Ponzi scheme called the United States of America is running out of money. In any Ponzi scheme, money must constantly be poured into the top of the funnel in order to pay the redeemers at the bottom. As the number of redeemers has grown, tax receipts have fallen far short of covering their withdrawals, a problem that has now become an outright government funding emergency further aggravated by the fiscal, financial and economic crises.

If the Washington and Wall Street Axis were not legally able to create and distribute counterfeit American money, the Ponzi scheme would have collapsed already. Trillions of new, out-of-thin-air, printing-press and electronic “dollars” have bought the Axis additional time, but new sources of revenue must immediately be found to keep the scam alive. Congress is fully aware of this reality. Outright tax increases would be bad politics during a recession that is morphing into a depression, and also bad for 2010 re-election campaigns, so they cannot be implemented. Therefore, Congress continues to advance the health care and Cap and Trade agendas, which are nothing but taxation Trojan Horses festooned in righteousness and sanctimony, despite overwhelming popular opposition.

If the nationalized health care program is passed, revenues and fees will kick in immediately in 2010, whereas costs will not begin to accrue until 2012 and later. The government plans to spend the revenues immediately to forestall a total fiscal collapse. Nationalized health care has absolutely nothing to do with health care; it has to do with creating an immediate revenue stream to help fix the current government funding crisis. Similarly, Cap and Trade has nothing to do with fixing the environment. It, too, is nothing more than a massive tax increase similarly designed to address the government’s epic funding shortfall, with thick slices of pork thrown  in for privileged insiders and deceitful propagandists like bloated “Father of the Internet” and now “Savior of the World” Al Gore.

The last thing the Master Class wants is for the people to understand the disastrous state of the nation’s finances. Master Class brainwashing tells the people that it is “negative” and “pessimistic” to look at the facts, despite the fact that psychological health is characterized by the ability to identify and deal with reality. The Master Class wants the people to put on Bozo the Clown happy faces and let sugar plums and green shoots dance in their brains as they write one check after another to pay for Cap and Trade, nationalized health care, and a mind-numbing assortment of other taxes and fees.

On Sunday night, November 30, 2009, North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong Il (a name that says it all, even better than Made-off’s), an international poster child of Master Class psychological illness, devalued his country’s currency by 99%. This vicious tyrant, who has given birth to a national hell on earth, is chauffeured in Mercedes Benz limousines, drinks the finest imported whiskies and dines in imperial dignity on foods prepared by personal chefs while his citizens starve to death on the streets or, at best, eke out a subsistence living. Kim became paranoid that the people were actually figuring out how to improve their pitiful, impoverished lives in tiny ways, so he decided to wipe them out. The people were given one week to exchange their money at a rate of 100 old Won for 1 new Won. Any lifetime family savings in excess of roughly $700.00 were simply confiscated by the North Korean government. To keep the people in line, the military and police were put on high alert, fully prepared to kill or arrest any protesters.

On January 9, 2010, Venezuela’s strong man Hugo Chavez devalued his country’s currency by 50%, overnight and without warning, causing immediate inflation, shortages of food and supplies, and general financial chaos throughout the nation.

While you might be shaking your head in pity over the plight of the citizens of North Korea and Venezuela, ask yourself this: could this not happen in the United States?

On April 5, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, an Obama hero, outlawed gold ownership overnight by signing Executive Order 6102, which gave the people three and one-half weeks to surrender all privately-owned bullion to the government for a price of $20.67 per ounce. On January 30, 1934, nine months after collecting the people’s gold, Roosevelt devalued the dollar 69% overnight, by raising the gold price from $20.67 to $35.00 per ounce.

Since its founding in 1913, the Federal Reserve has devalued the dollar by 98+% thanks to endless money printing and debt creation, a corrosive and impoverishing process that is now accelerating. In the past year, the Fed has engineered $20+ trillion in bailouts, subsidies and guarantees for well-connected and lucky scavengers and opportunists, an amount equal to roughly 40% of the total private wealth created in this country since its inception. All because a few elitist government man-gods with an almost perfect record of error and failure have deemed in their imperial wisdom that it shall be so. The citizens, whose hard-earned wealth is being systematically destroyed by this continual, government-decreed monetary debasement were never invited to the debate or given a say, which is par for the course for dictatorships. This massive de facto devaluation now hangs over the people’s wealth like a great monetary sword of Damocles.

Conceptually, whether it is a 50% overnight devaluation in Venezuela, a 69% overnight devaluation in the United States, a 98% devaluation in America over time, or a 99% overnight devaluation in North Korea, what is the difference? The fact is: there is no difference; monetary debasements are all the same. In each and every case, the people’s wealth is stolen via government edict, while the people stand by helplessly and in shock.

So one must ask: For whom does the bell toll? A foreign “them,” or a domestic us? Who is to say that you will not be told tomorrow morning that, effective immediately, in accordance with some perversely named mandate such as the “American Monetary Security, Wealth Preservation and Terrorism Prevention Act,” enacted by emergency for “the safety of the nation and the financial well being of the citizens,” all existing currency and bank balances will be redenominated in “New Dollars,” at a conversion rate of 1 new for every 100 old currency units? Would this not simply be another, almost predictable act of defiance toward the American people by the Master Class? And if that happened, do you honestly believe that the Master Class would not have been alerted in advance and allowed to make special preparations for itself ahead of the devaluation? Do you think they intend to go down in the same ship as the people they defy? If such a currency devaluation were announced, what could you do about it? March on Washington? But how would you get there if your money had been wiped out?

Despite what you may hear from State Media, which includes virtually all establishment news organizations, particularly financial ones (e.g., CNBC), America is on the precipice. No bankrupt nation in history has ever defended or preserved the freedoms of its citizens. In fact, it has been the exact opposite: in desperation, bankrupt governments have routinely plundered their citizens’ wealth and imposed totalitarian controls. What will make things different for the United States, the largest debtor nation in all of recorded civilization?

The United States government cannot ever, possibly pay its debts, is pathologically incapable of controlling its spending or curbing its hunger for both domestic and international empire and persistently refuses to tell the American people the truth. If America’s citizens were told the truth and given the benefit of true leadership, as opposed to the guile and dishonesty of an endless array of political liars and hacks, perhaps they could rally and defeat the problems that afflict them. But instead, they are fed by the Master Class a steady diet of narcotic propaganda that deludes, confuses and enervates them. The truth cannot set people free if it is never told, and that is the essence of America’s gathering tragedy.

In a future article, we will detail specific developments you should watch for to chart the course of America’s ominous and potentially deadly national storm. The current, grave situation is already a clear call to action. When the signals become even more urgent, it will be late in the game to take protective action, and possibly too late. Citizens should begin to prepare now not just for financial survival, but for the personal security of themselves and their loved ones should a Category 5 economic and political hurricane rip into the nation, something that becomes more likely every day.

With respect to personal finances, in virtually every national currency devaluation and major political upheaval in the past, gold has represented sanctuary for the affected people. Gold has not just preserved wealth, but personal freedom as well. While governments can devalue fiat currencies, they cannot, by edict, devalue gold. Yes, they can try to manipulate its price, but unless all governments join in the collusion, ultimately the price will return to market. The market for gold is global, and demand exists in all nations and among all peoples. Should the government attempt to confiscate gold, it will be an outright admission that the financial system is collapsing, and the people will know better than to hand over to a corrupt government their only means of survival. The most important point is this: devalued currencies never rise again. Once they are destroyed, they are gone forever, and those whose wealth had once been denominated in them are wiped out. As you have no doubt heard before, not one fiat currency has survived over time, and that is an indisputable fact. More significantly, no fiat currency has ever suffered the abuse that has been inflicted upon the United States dollar, meaning that it is at extreme risk. Gold has been money for 5,000 years. It has not merely survived, it has prevailed over each and every fiat currency collapse throughout history. Given this, the most important financial question a person can ask him- or herself today is: How is my wealth denominated at this time? And given its denomination, is my wealth likely to be safe in current and evolving circumstances?

One thing is certain: as the epic David and Goliath monetary battle unfolds, between the people fighting to defend their hard-earned wealth on one side, and a Master Class that greedily and pathologically wants to plunder them on the other, the price of gold will become extremely volatile for a period of time. Volatility will, in fact, tell you that the War on Wealth has officially been declared, and will be your signal to do whatever you must to protect what is yours. As the government Goliath and its Master Class allies short tonnes of bullion into rigged futures markets in a desperate attempt to make gold look dangerous and risky, the Davids will be coming forth not just in the United States but from all corners of the globe, buying 10 grams here and one ounce there. There are 6.8 billion Davids, versus one diseased Master Class that numbers in the small millions. There is no way the Master Class can defeat the people, if the people finally rise up and say “No More of Your Plunder. No More of Your Cold and Soulless Financial Oppression. No More of Your Cynical and Godless Exploitation.”

If you find the above argument compelling, you should consider how to protect yourself from Executive Orders that could be issued at any time, under any pretext, and that could be extremely hostile to your financial and/or personal health and well being. One simple way to start is to purchase one ounce of gold for yourself and each member of your household, and much more if you can afford it. That is not financial advice; it is merely the common sense generously communicated to you by history.

Stewart Dougherty

Stewart Dougherty is a specialist in inferential analysis, the practice of identifying historic and contemporary patterns and then extrapolating their likely effects upon the future. Dougherty was educated at Tufts University (B.A., magna cum laude), and Harvard Business School (M.B.A. and an academic Fellow). He can be reached at stewartdougherty@cs.com. He is not affiliated with or compensated by those he references or recommends. He does not offer investment or trading advice, and nothing in this article should be construed as such. This article represents the author’s personal opinions, and nothing more. The reader has the author’s permission to share, print, forward or post this article provided that the content is not changed and the author is acknowledged.

(H/T Mike)

"On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 1823
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