This is about the best article I have read that explains why costs keep going up but the consumer price index (CPI) hardly budges at all. The government CPI pricing scheme does not reflect the true cost of living but yet all cost of living adjustments are tied to it. Read the article and you will get the deceptive drift.

CPI Two-Step -

Why the CPI Matters

Why, you ask, does the BLS go through all this trouble? Simple: Because the CPI is the single most important index in the world. No matter who you are, this index has a direct impact on the wages you earn, the taxes you pay and the benefits you receive.

Here’s why: Each year, the government uses the CPI to make cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) to Social Security, military and federal pensions and food stamps. They also use it to fine-tune the cost of school lunches, to determine the yield on inflation-protected bonds (TIPS), and since 1985, to adjust the federal income tax structure to prevent inflationary tax bracket creep.

A few percent a year may not seem like much, but when you compound it year after year and apply it to programs covering hundreds of billions of dollars in spending, it really adds up. That goes double for the federal government: With all those programs tied to the CPI, CPI-related adjustments alone amount to one of the larger items in the federal budget

What our government allows some countries to get away with in the name of free trade is demented, it is criminal.
Do we have traders or traitors running our foreign trade policy?

Time to get tough with China on trade

The Bush administration has abysmally mismanaged U.S. trade policy. We hope that the next administration learns from its mistakes. President Bush’s solution to the worsening U.S. trade deficit with China was (drum roll please) talk. That’s right. His strategy was talk, talk, talk; journalists call it “jawboning.” In December 2006, President Bush sent our government’s top five financial leaders to China to convince the Chinese to mend their ways and allow the yuan to
appreciate against the dollar. But, in 2007 our trade deficit with China worsened yet again to $252 billion from $229 billion the previous year. Talking loudly while carrying no stick doesn’t work.

The case is made that their is plenty of oil in the earth. At even half of the price we see today there would be no oil shortage if it were not for the government regulations preventing the exploration and extraction and OPEC nation government’s creating intentional shortages to rob importers. The free enterprise system could solve our energy problems in a few years if government would just get out of the way. Not to even mention that oil may not be a fossil fuel at all and that new deposits may be being created.

FrontPage Magazine

All this should make one thing amply clear – there is enough oil to go around for a very long time. Even on conservative assumptions – accelerating consumption and few new discoveries – earth’s oil supplies should last for at least a century.

This, however, is the worst case scenario. We can be reasonably certain that new exploration and advancing technologies will in coming years greatly add to the quantities of available oil. So much so that Morris Adelman, Professor Emeritus in Economics at Harvard, has argued that the ‘amount of oil available to the market over the next 25 to 50 years is for all intents and purposes infinite.’

The notion that this planet is running out of oil is one of the great misnomers of our age. There is more oil available today than there was a hundred, fifty or ten years ago. And there is every indication that this trend will continue into the future. Instead of lamenting that we are running out of it, it would be far more accurate to say that we are constantly bumping into new oil. This is why two years ago the Economist headlined an article on the topic The Bottomless Beer Mug.
The general public, however, is largely ignorant of these facts. The divergence between the conventional wisdom and reality could hardly be any wider. Profoundly misinformed and alarmed, people place false hopes in misguided alternatives. Rather than implementing harmful, inefficient and expensive substitutes, we should insist that our government lift the obstacles which prevent us from availing ourselves of this superabundant resource.

The high cost of energy can be solved by lifting government restrictions and giving incentives for oil companies to drill and refine. All the energy we need can be found at less than half the energy equivalent of the cost of a barrel of oil today. Free enterprise will remedy shortages and price spikes but when free enterprise is stymied by government economic and energy disasters like we see today are certain. Affordable energy is not a pipe dream unless we continue to let a minority with bazaar views strangle everyone else.

An Alaskan pipe dream?

My “Black Gold Stranglehold” co-author, Jerome Corsi, and I have been begging our leaders to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, or ANWR, which could be producing an additional million barrels of oil per day which, when refined, equals 27 million gallons of gasoline or diesel. Think of the impact that would have on current market conditions. And while it should have been done years ago, it is not too late.

Nothing would send a stronger signal to the energy markets that America is serious about exploration of future reserves than if we initiated a “Manhattan project”-style effort in obtaining domestic sources of oil. For far too long our country has been held in the grip of radical environmentalists who have been unable to grasp the idea that modern technological advances allow us to safely harvest oil in the most extreme locations.

Congress, especially a Democratically controlled Congress, tends to believe every solution is found in higher taxes. Those in Democratic leadership, including Hillary Clinton, are renewing their call for a “windfall profits tax” on big oil. Nothing will do more harm than higher taxes or government regulation on the current market conditions. If government wants to help than they should fast track legislation to open up our domestic sources of oil … now!

This will allow the breathing room necessary to pursue all other alternatives such as wind, solar, nuclear, bio-mass, ethanol, etc. And as technology increases and economies of scale kick in, prices will become competitive and in time supplement oil, coal and natural gas. We believe the future for reducing usage of traditional hydrocarbon sources of energy is very promising. But for now, let’s use what we have in abundance to meet the needs of millions of Americans.

Government will keep trying to fix the problems they created until they end up killing us all.

The windfall profiteers

the story that really delves into the devious mind of the politician, and reveals why politicians will never be interested in “saving” any money, came courtesy of New York Rep. Charles Rangel.

Get this – Rangel actually told a reporter, with a spin worthy of the top criminal defense lawyers in the land, that he spends $777 of taxpayer money a month for his Cadillac DeVille because driving a cheaper car would be a sign of disrespect to his constituents. Wow. That takes cojones the size of … well, Charles Rangel’s cojones.

These are the kind of people who are charged with “fixing” all our problems, including high gas prices and how to stimulate the economy.

Contrary to the views of the environmental hysterics, increased carbon dioxide would actually be beneficial to life on the earth. As would global warming but there is no significant warming going on anyway due to CO2 or anything else. If you really want a green planet pump up the CO2. It is essential for plant life. If man tries to limit carbon dioxide there will be no natural benefits but the economic and social consequences will be terrible.

Roy Spencer on Carbon Dioxide on National Review Online

As a climate researcher, I am increasingly convinced that most of our recent global warming has been natural, not manmade. If true, this would mean that global temperatures can be expected to peak in the coming years (if they haven’t already), and global cooling will eventually ensue.

Just for the sake of argument, let us assume that manmade global warming really is a false alarm. In that case, we would still need to ask: What are the other negative effects of pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere?

Well, plant physiologists have known for a long time that most vegetation loves more carbon dioxide. It grows faster, is more drought-tolerant, and is more efficient in its water use. While the pre-industrial CO2 concentration of the atmosphere was only about 280 parts per million (ppm) by volume, and now it is around 380 ppm, some greenhouses pump it all the way up to around 1,000 ppm. How can environmentalists claim that helping vegetation to grow is a bad thing?

The bigger concern has been the possible effect of the extra CO2 on the world’s oceans, because more CO2 lowers the pH of seawater. While it is claimed that this makes the water more acidic, this is misleading. Since seawater has a pH around 8.1, it will take an awful lot of CO2 it to even make the water neutral (pH=7), let alone acidic (pH less than 7).

Still, the main worry has been that the extra CO2 could hurt the growth of plankton, which represents the start of the oceanic food chain. But recent research (published on April 18 in Science Express) has now shown, contrary to expectations, that one of the most common forms of plankton actually grows faster and bigger when more CO2 is pumped into the water. Like vegetation on land, it loves the extra CO2, too

This article clearly explains much of what you need to know about the American economy. If you wonder why the economy has been reported as being so good over the years but you cannot make ends meet or find a good job this article just might clear up the matter for you. You have been lied to by your government for decades.

Now add to the facts in this article the $10 Billion and rising national debt, the over $50 trillion in unfunded liabilities coming due, rising taxes, rising food and energy prices caused by environmental radicals and carbon loons, and the cost of socialism and wars and you will understand that things are going to get much worse very soon. America’s standard of living will be less than half of what it is today within a decade.

Don’t feel too bad much of the rest of the world will do almost as bad except for the rich elite, energy exporters and developing nations with nukes.

Can you live on half of your income or worse adjusted for inflation in the future? You better start thinking about how you will do that, because you certainly will if you survive the upheavals.

Numbers Racket: Why the economy is worse than we know KEVIN PHILLIPS / Harper’s Magazine v.316, n.1896 1may2008

The real numbers, to most economically minded Americans, would be a face full of cold water. Based on the criteria in place a quarter century ago, today’s U.S. unemployment rate is somewhere between 9 percent and 12 percent; the inflation rate is as high as 7 or even 10 percent; economic growth since the recession of 2001 has been mediocre, despite a huge surge in the wealth and incomes of the superrich, and we are falling back into recession. If what we have been sold in recent years has been delusional “Pollyanna Creep,” what we really need today is a picture of our economy ex-distortion. For what it would reveal is a nation in deep difficulty not just domestically but globally.

Undermeasurement of inflation, in particular, hangs over our heads like a guillotine. To acknowledge it would send interest rates climbing, and thereby would endanger the viability of the massive buildup of public and private debt (from less than $11 trillion in 1987 to $49 trillion last year) that props up the American economy. Moreover, the rising cost of pensions, benefits, borrowing, and interest payments—all indexed or related to inflation—could join with the cost of financial bailouts to overwhelm the federal budget. As inflation and interest rates have been kept artificially suppressed, the United States has been indentured to its volatile financial sector, with its predilection for leverage and risky buccaneering.

Arguably, the unraveling has already begun. As Robert Hardaway, a professor at the University of Denver, pointed out last September, the subprime lending crisis “can be directly traced back to the [1983] BLS decision to exclude the price of housing from the CPI. . .With the illusion of low inflation inducing lenders to offer 6 percent loans, not only has speculation run rampant on the expectations of ever-rising home prices, but home buyers by the millions have been tricked into buying homes even though they only qualified for the teaser rates.” Were mainstream interest rates to jump into the 7 to 9 percent range—which could happen if inflation were to spur new concern—both Washington and Wall Street would be walking in quicksand. The make-believe economy of the past two decades, with its asset bubbles, massive borrowing, and rampant data distortion, would be in serious jeopardy. The U.S. dollar, off more than 40 percent against the euro since 2002, could slip down an even rockier slope.

The credit markets are fearful, and the financial markets are nervous. If gloom continues, our humbugged nation may truly regret losing sight of history, risk, and common sense.

Every time you go to the gas pump or pay your heating bills or food bills you can thank the environmental extremists and all the politicians that kowtow to them for the higher prices that you will now pay.
Also notice the hypocritical actions of the “environmentalists” outlined in this article.

Blame Clinton, greens for high gas prices

Environmental extremists prefer to mandate the expanded use of ethanol, rather than using abundant oil supplies. This alternative produces less energy per gallon of fuel than gasoline, while driving the price of food upward, causing riots and forcing the cultivation of more land where wildlife can no longer flourish.

Environmental extremists wring their hands and cry crocodile tears at the thought of “ruining” the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge by using only 2,000 of the 18 million acres for oil production. But they seem to have no problems with the idea of covering millions of acres in the southwest with solar panels.

Environmental extremists celebrate their victory in banning DDT to save birds. But they have no problem with miles and miles of wind turbines that slaughter millions of birds every year. Nor do they seem to have any sympathy for the millions of people who have died from malaria as a direct result of the ban on DDT.

Big oil is not to blame for the high price of gasoline; the blame must fall squarely in the lap of the environmental extremists who use propaganda and fear-mongering to block the increases in the production of readily available fossil fuels. There are sufficient reserves of coal to last about 200 years. Despite Jimmy Carter’s 1970s declaration that the world would be out of oil by 2000, and considering the anticipated increase in demand, there are enough known oil reserves to last at least 60 years. This energy should be available now.

Every time a person fills up at the pump, he should visualize the billions of barrels of oil that are waiting in Alaska, and the billions of barrels of oil that are waiting in the Dakotas and Montana, and the billions of barrels of oil that are waiting just off shore – and curse the environmental extremists who are forcing him to pay far more for his transportation than is necessary.

Our own government is to blame for high gas and energy prices and it will get much worse if we let them go forward with the green polices that they are planning.

Blame Congress for soaring gas prices

It’s time for consumers to strike back against the real culprits behind rising gasoline and food prices.

Who deserves blame? Middle East sultans? Oil company executives? Commodities speculators?

How about blaming our very own United States Congress? For decades, Congress has led our government into disastrous decisions by being the patsy of radical environmentalists, naysayers and prophets of doom. Recent presidents have done little to resist.

Now American consumers pay the price while politicians try to evade and shift the blame.

However, we can lower gas prices by reversing misguided federal policies, and lower food prices, too. It’s all about what we learned (or should have) in Economics 101 – supply and demand.

Obama is an ultra liberal elitist idealist and univeralist who believes that all problems can be solved if he is in charge. Like many products of our modern educational system truth is what he wants it to be and says it is. Like New Spiritually (New Age) believers He lives in positive thinking Yeswecanland and cannot be bothered with reality.

Obama claims to have all the social solutions but the numbers do not add up. There simply is no way to pay for all his social programs. It will not only fail it will bring the nation to economic ruin. There is no way his foreign policy will work either. If he thinks he can deal with evil tyrants and terrorists by tossing sweet carrots to them he will openly be made a fool like Jimmy Carter and then he will probably overreact with his stick and start a war.

Obama obviously cannot take criticisms. Can you imagine the reaction of Obama if the press and the people of this country turn against him and mock him like they have done to George Bush. At least McCain knows he has a problem in this area and he might become aware of any overreaction before he does something foolish. Obama’s reaction toward America or another nation may be more like his pastor. Beware of Oprahitis Obamutopia and Yeswecanland these are Liberal islands of delusion.

Beware Obamutopia

Obama’s recurring theme rears its naive head again: We can all get along – even terrorists – if we remove the arbitrary barriers against believing in man’s perfectibility and that even terrorists and tyrants aren’t evil.

Obama’s health care proposals are similarly fantastic. He would provide every American with coverage that’s at least equal to that of members of Congress. With his executive wand, he would reduce everyone’s premiums by $2,500 a year and outlaw exclusions for pre-existing conditions. Dr. Barack would also mandate that the health care industry focus more on prevention and primary care. But wait, there’s more: He’ll accomplish all this by the end of his first term.

This is just a sampling. But what’s scarier than Obama’s far-fetched promises is that people – in droves – believe them. We must hope others are paying closer attention.

It sounds like a real working process that will produce oil from any biomass and it could be the answer for our energy crises but what nobody has mentioned is the cost projections for making this oil when it is mass produced? Perhaps the major national media just does not think it will be cost effective so they do not report on it. From what I read about the process, it seems to me that it could be done at much less than what we are paying for oil now. However, I have no way of really knowing that, so lets hear some realistic cost projection figures per barrel and then maybe we all can get more excited about it.

National news media burying amazing oil breakthrough?

It could potentially be one of the biggest energy breakthroughs in history – genetically manipulating bacteria to quickly convert anything that grows out of the Earth into oil. But the biggest names in the national media have thus far not provided any coverage of this possible solution to skyrocketing gas prices and Ameria’s long-term energy security.

Every so often I read the daily news and I just get feed up with the inept leaders that are running this world. They do not seem to have a collective grain of wisdom between them.

Today we read that wholesale prices are up 1.1 percent in one month! Oil is at $113 a barrel and rising and food prices have gone up so much that people in poor countries are in danger of starvation.

Now who were the idiots that suggested we make grains into alcohol to run cars? I recall that Bush signed a piece of nutty legislation that will make 20 percent of our liquid fuel alcohol. The EU and other countries are also converting grains to alcohol. Meanwhile, people in poor countries are going hungry and are in danger of starving. Great thinking guys! With leadership and thinking like that you must of slept through your education classes and especially through your leadership training. These nutty polices must be reversed now!

I know the hype coming from Al Gore, had something to do with these government polices and that is why I say Al Gore is the most dangerous man in the world. Those that follow his leading will in the end bring starvation to millions.

Since you world leaders are clueless let me tell you the solutions?

1. Stop converting grains to make alcohol to run in cars. It was never needed. It is inefficient and the world does not have food to burn! Will this increase demand on oil? Not much. Any oil shortfalls can be taken care of quite easily as I will outline below.

2. Stop paying over $100 a barrel for oil to these vultures. I would not pay more than $50. How do we do that? First we DISBAND OPEC by world or U.S. decree. It is an illegal monopoly. If anyone whats to argue about it, that is why our taxes pay for all our aircraft carrier task forces. They were built to protect us from foreign enemies. If anyone thinks paying these extortion rates for oil (from wells that we developed in the Middle East) are not a huge danger to our country they are not living in reality. By the way, “our friend” Saudi Arabia alone could pump enough additional oil to bring the world oil prices down significantly.

3. Cut through the environmental red tape and allow for oil drilling off our coasts and in Alaska. There is significant oil there. All oil companies during this national emergency should be required to reinvest most profits into new energy production until balanced energy levels are achieved.

4. Vastly expand coal production and scrap all the restrictions put on new coal plants because of the global waring nonsense. We could make liquid fuel out of coal slurry for our cars and also use coal generating plants for spare electric generation at night for charging electric cars.

5. Build some damn refineries. Not one has been built in 30 years in this country mostly due to asinine environmental regulations. Meanwhile stop the insane laws that required scores of different types of fuel and fuel additives that adds to the costs and creates spot fuel shortages. Let the refineries we have produce 5 or 6 different major fuels and not be required to make 50.

6. Stop this crazy oil speculation in the markets. They are adding a third to the price of oil and they add nothing to our economy other than gambling. It can be stopped.

7. Government Incentives for mass production of reasonable priced electric cars for city commuting.

8. A major national project to develop solar energy production. They are doing it in Israel, we can certainly do it here. Solar energy at less then 10C a KW hour is easily achievable in the Southwestern deserts with today’s technology. The above ground land area in the Nevada Nuclear Test Site alone could produce much of the electricity needs for this country at reasonable rates.

Contact your representatives in Washington and demand action.

They have no scientific facts to support the Left driven Co2 warming hysteria. They will not accept scientific facts when it is presented to them. So perhaps the next step is to exposed the real reasons for this fraud on the world. When the truth is exposed these blackbirds will be put in cages. Then all the pigeons following them will fly away looking for new refuse piles to scavenge.

American Thinker: The slick trick behind global frauding

In Stalin’s Russia any dissenter from the Party Line was guilty. Innocence had to be proved. It’s a standard tyrant’s trick. During the reign of Oliver Cromwell in England, witchhunters did not have to prove that their victims were guilty. The accused witches had to prove their innocence.

That’s what Al Gore has done to science: He and his friends have flipped innocence and guilt from normal science to Stalinist science.

In Al Gore’s America, any “global warming denier” is guilty until proven innocent. He or she must have been bought off by Big Oil. Skeptics, no matter how well-qualified, must prove the negative about really silly alarmist hogwash. And whenever some prediction is falsified, the warm mongers have an explanation: it’s just a temporary glitch in the data. Oh, yes, we were wrong about 1998, but just wait till 2050! The excuses are endless.

There are no facts robust enough, consistent enough, and verified enough to support the mass hysteria. The climate system is hypercomplex, nonlinear and poorly understood. The media spinners are immensely ignorant about real science, and just care about the next scare headline. There’s a lot of wild speculation and a mob of self-serving politicians, bureaucrats and media types who stand to gain a ton of power and money by suckering millions of taxpayers. Al Gore just started a 300 million dollar PR campaign to convince everybody. When was the last time you saw 300 million bucks being spent to promote a scientific hypothesis that was already proven? We’re not spending millions to prove the existence of gravity. The uproar and money involved in this fraud is in direct proportion to the lack of solid facts.

The last ten years have seen global cooling, not warming.

Although I do not agree that Co2 is causing global warming I do agree with the other points in this article. The overreaction to climate change by the European Union could have much more serious consequences than any possible man caused warming.

FT.com / Comment & analysis / Comment - A foolish overreaction to climate change

The first is that the European Union, which already has the bit between its teeth on this issue, will severely damage its own economy by deciding to set an example to the world. And the second is that it will seek to limit that damage, as President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and others are already urging, by imposing trade barriers against those countries that are not prepared to accept mandatory cuts in their emissions.

A lurch into protectionism, and the rolling back of globalisation, would do far more damage to the world economy in general and to the developing countries in particular than could conceivably result from the projected resumption of global warming.

It is high time this folly ended.

Detroit is the nation showcase for liberalism. With what we see in Detroit you would think that people, especially black people would get the message. Instead we see the same mistakes spreading to big cities all over the nation. The people of the U.S. have become so bamboozled by liberalism they are actually considering making a liberal product of Detroit their President.

If you wish to experience America’s future under liberalism just move to Detroit.

Detroit’s tragic love affair with liberalism

The liberal Democrat hacks running Michigan into the ground (complicit with the pathetic, country club Republicans) aren’t the least interested in real solutions for Detroit because, as I stated before, parasitic liberalism thrives in chaos, envy and victimhood. Also, Mayor Kilpatrick’s sycophantic cronies realize when the mayor goes down, that they will all go down together. That’s why the mayor’s appointees publicly and vociferously disparage anyone who dares speak out against Kilpatrick, including daily attacks against prosecutor Worthy. Nevertheless, tick-tock-tick-tock, His Honor indeed has date with destiny.AMERICA! Get yourself a big bucket of popcorn and a giant Coke, because the show KKK (King Kwame Kilpatrick) is about the give the world will make what the KKK (Ku Klux Klan) did to my people in Birmingham, in Selma, in Atlanta, in Mississippi, look like child’s play.

Show me a monopoly (liberalism) and I’ll show you a tyranny (Detroit).

Think about this. Housing has already dropped 10 percent if it drops 30 percent like many think it will remove over 6 Trillion in wealth from Americans.

Local governments will be collecting far less taxes on property meaning that they will have to drastically cut services or raise everyone’s taxes.

Those who have less then 30 percent equity in their house will have to come up with money to sell it and they will have to come up with more money to pay selling costs.

All this means that there are not going to be a whole lot of people moving in the next few years, meaning that they will not be buying the house you are trying to sell either.

In addition, few will be able to get home equity loans because they will not have enough home equity. Anyone who can look at this information and not see a very deep recession in the future is a blind optimist.

So who wants to take the rap as president during this economic downturn?

Lords of Housing: Believing in the $22.5 Trillion Housing Market. » Dr. Housing Bubble Blog

If we then extrapolate this information with the recent Case-Shiller Index decline, we realize that over $2.41 trillion of residential housing value has evaporated into thin air($20.15/.893)=($22.5644) | $22.5644 - $20.15 = $2.41 trillion

Keep in mind that we are not using the peak price of the market.
Estimates range from $23 to $24 trillion. It is becoming rather clear
that when all is said and done, we may be seeing 20 to 30 percent
nationwide declines in home prices. How much more equity will this
destroy? Let us run the scenario further:

Drop	Equity Lost
Current 10.7% drop	$2.41 trillion
20% drop	$4.28 trillion
30% drop	$6.29 trillion

The problem of course is not necessarily with those with no
mortgage, but many who bought at peak prices with very little equity.
Those that went in with no money down, 5, 10, even 20 percent down
stand to be underwater when the market reaches its bottom.

I do not usually agree with all of Dr. Cuddy’s views but we certainly are heading toward a World Socialist Government and it looks like it will get here sooner than most people think.

Dr. Dennis Cuddy — Back to the 1930s ­ “Papiere, Bitte”

“This will result in the world’s population submitting to the power elite’s
“International Planning” (for International Socialism) whereby they
will manage the world’s (and each nation’s) economy. The political structure
they will form to do that will be a World Socialist Government.”

“The power elite at the global level wants to eliminate homeschooling, and efforts toward that end have already begun in Germany and other nations. The power elite simply cannot allow parents (usually with traditional values of morality and patriotism) to impart their values to their children. Only the public schools can indoctrinate children with globalism and moral relativism, which are necessary to condition the masses to accept a non-biblical World Socialist Government”

Get ready for the selling of America. When our bosses all speak with a foreign accent we will have only ourselves to blame.

America’s Coming Garage Sale - TIME

So the outcome is inevitable. As the financial crisis in the U.S. persists, the combination of decreasing asset prices and a weakening dollar will make the U.S. cheaper and cheaper to foreign investors. Irresistibly cheap. The U.S. is, after all, still a highly desirable place to own property, companies and securities. Foreign investors will see the crisis as a golden opportunity to buy prime pieces of Americana at bargain-basement prices. So all those dollars in banks around the world will flood back into the U.S. to buy stocks, bonds and property. Debt-burdened Americans, desperate for fresh cash, will be only too happy to sell — or be forced to sell. The U.S. will become one giant garage sale, where the buyers are Japanese banks, Chinese state-run investment funds and oil-rich Arab sheikdoms.”There is, simply put, no way out of this situation for America. If you don’t believe me, perhaps you’ll believe Warren Buffett. The Sage of Omaha predicted this very scenario in 2003 in an article in Fortune. He tells the story of two fictional islands, Thriftville and Squanderville. In Squanderville, the residents live beyond their means by importing from Thriftville in return for IOUs. Eventually, Thriftville converts this debt into Squanderville assets until Thriftville owns all of Squanderville. America, Buffett warned, was facing the same fate. “Our trade deficit has greatly worsened, to the point that our country’s ‘net worth,’ so to speak, is now being transferred abroad at an alarming rate,” Buffett wrote.

Americans, meet Squanderville.”

There is no painless solution to this crises since there are over 50 trillion dollars of unfunded liabilities coming due. The only significant thing that can be done about this is to reduce future benefits. If they just raised taxes to pay the costs it would further depress the economy and it would make the shortfall worse. Unless something is done really soon paying out these unfunded liabilities are going to rapidly add to our national debt. That means more erosion of our standard of living through stagflation.

Here is what I expect from the next government if the economy recovers:
- The full retirement age will be raised to 70
- Social Security and Medicare taxes will be increased
- Continued understating of inflation and CPI adjustments for benefit increases.
- Denial of some medical treatments.
- Means testing to receive full benefits
- Passing some costs on to the future.
If the economy collapses the government will default and just pay for the tents and soup lines.

Government Benefit Programs in Trouble

The first year that payments will exceed income for Social Security will occur in 2017, just nine years from now, reflecting growing demands from the retirement of 78 million baby boomers. Medicare is projected to pay out more than it receives in income starting this year.”The financial difficulties facing Social Security and Medicare pose enormous challenges,” the trustees said in their report. “The sooner these challenges are addressed, the more varied and less disruptive their solutions can be.”

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, one of the trustees, warned that the country was facing a fiscal train wreck unless something is done.

“Without change, rising costs will drive government spending to unprecedented levels, consume nearly all projected federal revenues and threaten America’s future prosperity,” Paulson said in releasing the new report. “Our nation needs a bipartisan effort to strengthen both programs for future retirees.”

From the article you get the picture that these people were shown that there was no global warming since 1998. Yet it did not even phase them because this whole scam is not about global warming anyway.

The other day I got a computer magazine all talking about global warming and what we all need to do about it. So why would a computer magazine jump on the global warming bandwagon? I can’t really see it selling more issues, it might even make a few people like me angry enough to cancel their subscription. The only answer is that the editors of the magazine like so many others have been been successfully brainwashed.

No matter how much science is published discrediting man caused global warming we cannot reach the masses with the truth. That is because certain high level people in government, education and media are actively continuing the brainwashing. They simply have too much money and power to lose to ever admit that there is no true scientific facts backing their claims. It is just like trying to preach salvation in Jesus to those blinded by the world. They simply choose not to see and be saved.

The only way this socialist tax transfer scheme is going to be stopped is if God puts us into a ice age. People now only believe what they are told by their media masters and gurus. They have been so dumbed down in their schools that they cannot think for themselves. They just sit in front of the liberal media propaganda program for their daily feeding.

Think I am wrong? How else would you explain the current socialist nominations for president? The formation of the godless EUSR? The rise of the new fascist Russia? The rise of godless communist China? How do explain the voters in our own country thinking a Marxist with a social gospel contrary to the Bible will solve our foreign and domestic problems? How do you explain how any of this will solve the certain Western economic collapse caused by everyone spending beyond their means for decades? The world has obviously entered into a time of global brainwashing on many fronts.The whole world is being set up for a fascist socialist hybrid.

I have to tell you, the way this country is going it simply has no future. It will not exist as the United States by next decade. We do not have to wait for the fall of the United States, it is is already happening so fast that in a few years most of the country will be dwelling in a depressed socialist police state that might as well then be named the USS of A.

I simply do not see the majority of American people doing anything to stop this slide into Marxism and its brainwashing. Prove me wrong! Please!

FOXNews.com - Junk Science: The Global Warming Bubble - Opinion

Sacrificing many trillions of dollars of GDP for a trivial, 45-year-delayed and merely hypothetical reduction in average global temperature must be considered as exponentially more asinine than the dot-bombs of the late-1990s and the NINJA subprime loans that we now look upon scornfully.So who in their right mind would push for this?

I met many of them up-close-and-personal last week at a major Wall Street Journal conference at which I was an invited speaker. My fellow speakers included many CEOs (from General Electric, Wal-Mart, Duke Energy and Dow Chemical, to name just a few), California’s Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the heads of several environmental activist groups.

The audience — a sold-out crowd of hundreds who had to apply to be admitted and pay a $3,500 fee — consisted of representatives of the myriad businesses that seek to make a financial killing from climate alarmism.

There were representatives of the solar, wind and biofuel industries that profit from taxpayer mandates and subsidies, representatives from financial services companies that want to trade permits to emit CO2, and public relations and strategic consultants to all of the above.

We libertarians would call such an event a rent-seekers ball — the vast majority of the audience was there to plot how they could lock in profits from government mandates on taxpayers and consumers. It was an amazing collection of pseudo-entrepreneurs who were absolutely impervious to the scientific and economic facts that ought to deflate the global warming bubble.

Americans have been lied to by government for many years about inflation. The inflation rate is much higher then what the government reports. By lying about inflation they erode our standard of living by an average of 3 percent a year and then they tell you how good the economy is and Americans are making more then ever. If that were true how come it now takes two people to work in a family to make end meet when thirty years ago it took one? The buying power of the average wage earner or those who live on pensions or savings has been going down for many years.

The real puzzle to me is how the government gets away with it? Why has the government not been sued for this obvious fraud on the American people?

What’s America’s real inflation rate?

Greenspan’s own solution was to keep interest rates artificially low, as low as the 1 percent interest rates Greenspan in 2003 aspired to hold that low for years – while simultaneously rigging the CPI numbers.The Greenspan years can be characterized as a strategy of lying about inflation to avoid the adverse political consequences of being honest and facing the true cost-of-living music.

By lying about inflation, Greenspan justified 1 percent interest rates, which in 2003 were the lowest rates in 45 years, in a determined plan to keep the economy growing while he was at the helm.

But one result of the Greenspan liquidity party was to fuel real inflation.

So, when you wonder why food and gasoline cost so much when the government says inflation is low, just remember: You are being lied to – something we suspect you figured out long ago, just by going to the supermarket and the gas station.

This author makes the case for the Fed’s bailouts but he also makes it clear just how close we are to another great depression.

What is not talked about is the greed that got us into this mess. The Fed can try to bail out this sinking ship but even if it does temporarily keep it afloat it cannot stop the ship’s rotten timbers from leaking like a sieve. The ship will take on more water when the next tempest hits.

There are over $400 trillion in derivatives out there backed by almost nothing. If the banks and brokerages have to come up with real money to cover losses on this gambling debt there is not enough money in the world to stop the economic collapse.

For decades the banks and brokerages have been living like fat cats off of a derivative pyramid scheme making bets of 100 to 1 that property would continue to increase in value. They paid out high dividends on their gambling winnings and left nothing in the bank to cover future losses. Now this author suggests that as property values drop and these gamblers cannot cover their own losses that the Fed should cover their losses until property values start going up again. Maybe that is the only solution to keep out out of a great depression but of course if they know that taxpayers will bail them out when they are on a losing streak they will even be more reckless with their gambling in the future.

The Fed may have to do so much bailing out by creating more and more dollars that it will make hyper-inflation certain. That inflation could have the same financial impact on individual Americans as would any depression.

The truth is that almost everyone in the Western world has been living for decades beyond their means and now the bills are coming due. The economic system is going to crash and only after most assets and debts are wiped out can a new system be set up. Let them try to keep the world financial ship afloat as long as they can with their bucket brigade bail outs but the storm always eventually comes and this rotten ship will go to the bottom.

Sooner Fed bail-outs than the 1930s revisited - Telegraph

The crisis has since spread to prime mortgages. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - the fortress agencies that guarantee 60 per cent of America’s $11 trillion mortgage market - began to crumble last week. Even bodies standing at the top of the credit system are no longer deemed safe. As Barclays Capital put it, this was a “tsunami event”.Or in the words of City veteran David Buik at Cantor Fitzgerald: “No one in living memory has ever seen a banking crisis like this. I am older than God, and the outlook has never looked as bleak.”

Any smug assumption that this will remain a local American affair may soon be confounded. The IMF has abruptly changed its tune. “Obviously the financial market crisis is now more serious and more global than a week ago,” it said on Monday.

Property booms will soon be deflating across the Anglo-Saxon world and the eurozone’s Club Med belt. Japan is already on the brink of recession. Debt levels are higher now in most rich countries than they were in 1929. The levels of financial leverage are greater.

As the Bank for International Settlements wrote last year, we are more vulnerable to a 1930s dénouement than people realise - should the authorities botch the response.

Like some other free-market bears, I now find myself in an odd position. For years we castigated the central banks for inflating a reckless credit bubble by holding interest rates too low. Now we have flipped. We are on the other side, defending monetary stimulus, even defending the state takeover of Bear Stearns debt.

I have been warning for quite a while that an economic collapse is coming. I do not think the bankers and politicians will be able to end this downturn with a wave of their magic wand even if they may be able to pull off that illusion for a short period until the greater reality hits.

America’s have been spending beyond their means for many decades and very greedy people have been gambling with all their investments. Now the chickens are coming home to roust and the financial house of cards is about to fall.

When unemployment starts rising and debts are not paid you will see a downward spiral begin that will either lead to a great depression or great government intervention bringing hyper-inflation. Either outcome will be tragic for most Americans.

Then Americans might realize that even this nation is not exempt from judgment. The next President whoever he or she may be, will be seen as a total failure. The President will be sitting over the start of an American disaster that could last into the foreseeable future.

Economic winter is on its way

All that two decades of frantic bailing out and bubble blowing has accomplished is to enrich a few fortunate investors and delay the inevitable while significantly jacking up the terrible price that Americans will ultimately pay. The business cycle can be influenced, but it cannot be eliminated. For every economic action, there will be an equal and opposite reaction, and since the financial house of cards has been built ever higher and ever more vulnerable during this decades-long period of delay, chances are very high that the collapse will be swifter and more brutal than even the economic pessimists can currently envision. This is far from a failure of the free markets; it is merely more evidence of the futility of central economic planning.If we are fortunate, it is only a long and hard economic winter that is approaching. If we are unfortunate, it is the financial Fimbulwinter that will precede a political Ragnarok.

From what I have been reading the revolution is probably not as far in the future as you might think.

CFP: Two Weeks Away from a Revolution

Americans are being screwed by their own government. It’s being led by a President who insists we are “addicted” to oil and a Congress that will not permit the exploration or extraction of the oil we have, so we have to import most of it.It is a Congress whose leadership such as Rep. Pelosi, Sen. Reid, Sen. Lieberman, and others keep lying about global warming. Sen. Hillary Clinton wants to seize oil company profits and spend it in some fashion, presumably not to find any new oil. Sen. McCain is a global warming believer, too. All of these people are a danger to the future of this nation and there doesn’t appear to be a damn thing we can do about it.

Thanks to them, life for Americans is going to get more expensive.

One wonders when the revolution will begin?

Mr. Samuelson offers no real solutions in this article and we could pull the plug on OPEC anytime we got a backbone. The oil cartel is illegal for starters.

Further, the U.S. energy bill that was recently passed only makes things worse. Nothing in that bill is going to change our dependence on foreign oil. Suggesting higher gas taxes at a time when people can not even afford to drive to work is totally moronic.

there are several ways we could deal with this problem. One is to increase oil and coal production but we have handcuffed ourselves with our stupid environmental laws. We could also help Canada develop their oil reserve - which is the largest in the world - instead we say we cannot use their oil because it violates junk science CO2 restrictions.

China is the main reason for the present tight oil markets. We could stop buying the $400 billion dollars of products we buy from them each year. We have no reason to be buying from a communist tyrannical nation that is arming to the teeth against us. We should be buying from the America’s and making friends in our own region of the world. Ending trade with China would stop their expansion and oil would become plentiful.

We could build new oil refineries and coal slurry refineries and we could start a go-to-the-moon like project on solar energy. Deflating the balloon of the oil speculators will cut the price sharply.

We could tell Saudi Arabia that we saved their butt from Saddam and they will increase output until oil gets down to some defined price or we will go in and do it for them. They are now using much of the huge profits that they are taking in to fund every anti Western and anti American radical Islamic agenda. They and their OPEC buddies are also putting the West on the brink of economic collapse. Why should we put up with their extortion ring?

Those are only a few of the things we could do. What we should not do is allow this to continue to go on and to act like making cars to get a few more miles to the gallon is really going to solve any energy problems. We have a problem because our own stupid polices have made us become our own worst enemy.

RealClearPolitics - Articles - The Triumph of OPEC

We are paying for past shortsightedness. Dependence on oil imports, now almost 60 percent of U.S. supply, is inevitable. But we could limit OPEC’s market power by curbing our demand and increasing our supply. As the worldwide gap between supply and demand rises, it’s harder for producers to control the market. More have spare capacity; more are tempted to increase production to raise revenues. Today’s surplus is concentrated in a few countries, especially Saudi Arabia, which can adjust production to influence prices.Americans rant at foreign producers on the silly presumption that they should subordinate their interests to ours. But we refuse to do much that would actually limit their freedom of action. It was only last year that Congress raised fuel-efficiency standards for new cars and light trucks. We have steadfastly rejected higher gasoline taxes to curb unnecessary driving and strengthen demand for fuel-efficient vehicles (better to tax ourselves than let foreigners tax us through higher prices). And we have consistently restricted oil drilling in Alaska and elsewhere.

By doing so little to check its own thirst for imports, the United States has contributed to OPEC’s present triumph. The extent of that triumph will be tested this year and next. Non-OPEC oil supplies — from Brazil, Canada and Kazakhstan, among other places — will increase. Meanwhile, a weaker global economy may dampen demand. Even OPEC may be unable to hold prices at today’s high levels. Whatever happens, the long-term threat of a global oil cartel will remain. We should be taking the hard steps to limit its power. Considering our past complacency, we probably won’t.

You might like to know what electing a Democratic president will cost you? For starters is will be over $3000 a year in new Federal taxes. You can also be certain that you will pay additional costs for planned socialized programs such as Medical care and Social Secrity. You will soon be paying as much taxes as the Nations of Europe so that the government can run your life.

FrontPage Magazine

Despite healthy tax revenues and federal spending that tops $25,000 per household, the House Democratic majority has proposed a fiscal year (FY) 2009 federal budget that:

• Raises taxes by $1.265 trillion over five years and $3.911 trillion over 10 years, or more than $3,135per household annually;
• Includes 17 reserve funds that could be used to raise taxes by hundreds of billions more;
• Increases discretionary spending by 8 percent and does not terminate a single wasteful program; and
• Completely ignores the impending explosion of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid costs.

The real horror story in world economic system is derivatives. It is a monetary gambling scheme using IOU’s backed by almost nothing. Those who buy derivatives are gambling and they use this phony paper wealth to create investment bubbles all over the worlds. Right now they are driving up commodities. When the derivative bubble bursts no government has anywhere near the resources to keep it from spiraling into financial Armageddon. it will bring the end of the world economic system. It is this bubble that keeps all the Federal bankers up nights. At some point this house of cards will crash the whole system.

Financial Armageddon: Not Plain Vanilla

In short, despite Buffett’s clear warnings, a massive new derivatives bubble is driving the domestic and global economies, a bubble that continues growing today parallel with the subprime-credit meltdown triggering a bear-recession.Data on the five-fold growth of derivatives to $516 trillion in five years comes from the most recent survey by the Bank of International Settlements, the world’s clearinghouse for central banks in Basel, Switzerland. The BIS is like the cashier’s window at a racetrack or casino, where you’d place a bet or cash in chips, except on a massive scale: BIS is where the U.S. settles trade imbalances with Saudi Arabia for all that oil we guzzle and gives China IOUs for the tainted drugs and lead-based toys we buy.

Lets face it, the US is run by morons only because dumbed down idiots elect their American Idol. Now you know why the founders of this country did not want everyone to have a vote. There is not going to be a pleasant outcome to this. We are witnessing the beginning of the end of a superpower.

The Next US President Will Be the Chauncey Gardener of Energy - HUMAN EVENTS

It is certain that the United States is in for an energy price and supply shock the likes of which we have never experienced or imagined. While high prices, to a reasonable extent can be tolerated, hell will break loose if massive supply disruptions emerge. We are much closer to them than people think. Those who think that we can conserve ourselves to energy independence need not read any further. They are vastly wrong and it is pointless to argue with them.The first proof of trouble to come is that none of the three US presidential candidates, Senators John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, have paid much attention to the fact that oil, gas and coal — the sources that provide 87% of US energy – can, through better use of the latter two can be taken advantage of to help free us from the “tyranny of oil.” Their lack of interest is breathtaking considering that whoever gets elected will probably be confronted with $120 per barrel oil.

I suggest it is high time for OPEC to be outlawed. It is an illegal organization under international law and is a threat to the security interests of the U.S. and much of the world. And I don’t think it should take years going through world courts to determine what we know is already the truth. There are various ways that we could deal with OPEC but it would take some leadership instead of just kissing the feet of these oil ministers who insist on fixing oil prices at obscene levels. Put someone like me in charge for one month and they would find themselves playing a very high stake poker game where I hold all the aces.

It is time the free market system played out and the nations of the world were not being extorted by a group of international pirates that love to call themselves oil ministers. It is time for these nations to get ready to play with a level trading deck because the American people are not going to allow these international pirates to rip us off much longer.

OPEC president says he favours cutting oil output - Yahoo! News

VIENNA (AFP) - OPEC president, Algerian Oil Minister Chakib Khelil, said here Tuesday that he would “prefer” the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries to cut oil production at its upcoming ministerial meeting.
ADVERTISEMENT”I would prefer in this situation to lower production because demand globally is going to be lower,” Khelil told a press briefing ahead of Wednesday’s meeting in Vienna.

Algeria joins Iran and Venezuela in calling for a cut in output ahead of the second quarter when demand for heating fuel was expected to drop owing to warmer temperatures in energy-hungry Europe and the United States.

All three are traditional hawks in OPEC, frequently favouring output cuts to support oil prices, which are trading at record highs above 100 dollars per barrel.

Amid soaring prices, analysts believe OPEC will agree to maintain output on Wednesday. This would not be enough, however, to appease energy consuming nations who want OPEC to increase production to help bring down prices.

The White House on Tuesday urged OPEC to keep world markets “well supplied.”

John McCain is a not too smart globalist like Bush. They both finished at the bottom of their class for good reasons. Read what Pat says below and tell me this did not happen. Oh, by the way, we are still in the good times. Wait till the bad times hit.

John McCain on trade: Ahistorical nonsense

America rose to power behind a Republican tariff wall. What has free trade wrought? Lost sovereignty. A sinking dollar. A hollowing out of U.S. manufacturing. Stagnant wages. Wives forced into the labor market to maintain the family income. Mass indebtedness to foreign nations, and a deepening dependency on foreign goods and borrowings to pay for them. We have sacrificed our country on the altar of this Moloch, the mythical Global Economy.It took Rip Van Republican 20 years to wake up to the disaster of open borders and five years to realize the folly of igniting wars in which no vital interest was at risk. How long before the GOP wakes up to the reality that globalism is not conservatism, never was, but is a pillar of Wilsonian liberalism, in whose vineyards our faux conservatives now daily labor.

Global warming is a crises only because it is the chosen hyped crises of the elite to carry out their plan of global governance over all. All the leading candidates running for president are backed by world power brokers and pose a grave danger to the well being of the world.

FOXNews.com - Global Warming: Is It Really a Crisis? - Opinion

John McCain, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton all promise massive new regulations that will cost trillions of dollars to combat global warming. McCain says that it will be his first task if he wins the presidency. After consulting with Al Gore, Obama feels the problem is so imminent that it is not even really possible to wait until he becomes president.Ironically, this political unanimity is occurring as global temperatures have been cooling dramatically over the last decade.

Global temperatures have now largely eliminated most of the one degree Celsius warming that had previously occurred over the last 100 years. Hundreds of climate scientists have warned that there is not significant man-made global warming.

A conference in New York on Monday and Tuesday this week will bring 100 scientists together to warn that the there is no man-made global warming crisis.

Yet, we just keep on piling on more and more regulations without asking hard questions about whether they are justified.

Want to know the insanity of it all? All over the news we hear that we are not in a recession yet because the GNP has not shrunk for six month in a row. They also tell us we do not have high inflation because the government manipulated CPI does not reflect the true cost of living for most people.

Yet, what difference does it make what these pin heads call it? Working people and people on fixed incomes are quite aware that the costs of basic necessities have gone up 10 to 20 percent in the last year and that they only got a 2 percent increase in compensation. That means they lost over ten percent of their buying power in one year.

So let the egg heads call it what they want, but the common people know that we are getting worse off every month. Acting as if we are not in a economic crises because it just does not fall into your economic name category is deceptive and an insult to those who are losing their homes and jobs and cannot afford the increased costs of food, energy and medical care. We are now in the worst times since Jimmy Carter and it is going to get much worse now that the Feds will start dropping increasingly worthless dollars out of helicopters just so they do not have to use the “recession” word. By creating money out of thin air they are insuring that the price of everything will keep going up in the future. Meanwhile the Federal government and the media will keep telling us how fine the economy is because the GNP is expanding - Yeah, its expanding with increasingly worthless dollars.

Worries Grow for Worse ‘Stagflation’: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s a toxic economic mix the nation hasn’t seen in three decades: Prices are speeding upward at the fastest pace in a quarter century, even as the economy loses steam.Economists call the disease “stagflation,” and they’re worried it might be coming back.

Lets not forget that the ancient killing of the babies for Moloch and the modern practice of abortion have the same abominable results. Why would this generation not reap the consequences? They will.

If the babies had not been killed the ratios of younger workers to older folks on Social Security would be much higher than it will be. Those who had abortions can blame themselves when their surviving young will not support them when they are old.

Modern-Day Moloch - Tom Brewton - Feb 26, 08

Liberal-progressive-socialist politicians, intent upon buying votes of the masses, deliberately ignore the ongoing sacrifice of young, working people on the materialistic altar of mandated welfare-state spending for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. As with the Carthagenian ruling councils, it’s all about near-term political success, without a scruple over immolating our children.The ratio of younger workers to older folks on Social Security and Medicare-Medicaid is rapidly declining. FICA taxes have risen relentlessly. One of two things must occur over the next couple of decades. Either taxes on future young workers will rise to devastating levels, or today’s young workers will not receive the welfare handouts for which they now labor.