Video: FIAT EMPIRE - Why the Federal Reserve Violates the U.S. Constitution

This is a new video I discovered, although it has been around for some time. I have only one problem with these documentaries and books. A Central Bank is a Central Bank, no matter what name it goes by. The practices by The Federal Reserve is no more different than that of the European Central Bank, Bank of England, Bank of Japan or the South-African Reserve Bank. Keep that in mind if you are not an American watching this video.

The problem is not exclusive to the U.S.A. Fortunately for us plebs, there are still Americans with a backbone and they are the only people exposing and addressing this issue, as far as I know.

This Award-winning documentary, which features presidential candidate Ron Paul, was inspired by the book, "The Creature From Jekyll Island" by author and FREEDOM FORCE founder, G. Edward Griffin.

To get the full documentary on DVD(with up to 120-minutes of additional uncut interviews of Ron Paul and the other experts) go to www.FiatEmpire.com/screener. To instantly download a DVD-quality version of FIAT EMPIRE, go to www.mecfilms.com/mid/orders/fiat4.htm.

Find out why some feel the Federal Reserve's practices are a violation of the U.S. Constitution and others feel it's simply "a bunch of organized crooks." Discover why experts agree the Fed is a banking cartel that benefits mainly bankers and their corporate clients as well as a Congress that would rather increase the National Debt to over $9 trillion than raise taxes. Find out how the corporate media facilitates the partnership between the Fed and Congress and why it fails to disclose what's going on. Lastly, find out how the Federal Reserve-member banks are owned and controlled by an elite group of insiders.

How to Stimulate Yourself - Part 2

The Stimulus' Short-Term Purpose
Christopher Westley

The Wall Street Journal's Mark Gongloff quotes Lehman economist Ethan Harris in this morning's "Ahead of the Tape" column:

In the rush to enact a timely package, politicians may have stopped a 2008 recession, but they have ignored a risky letdown -- after the election. [The U.S. faces ] another brush with recession in 2009" [for this reason].

Gongloff adds that once the "stimulus cocktail wears off,"

...home prices seem likely to keep falling, weighing on consumer balance sheets, confidence and spending. The expansion after the the 2001 recession ... was partly fueled by more than $1 trillion in borrowing against home equity. It is hard to see the economy getting that lift this time.

Even if the stimulus package serves to help the political class survive the November elections, it remains that (as Hazlitt pointed out) the longer and indirect consequences of policies or actions are those that the good economists will focus on. Unfortunately, democratic capitalism produces politicians and the economists who focus purely on short-term results.

Until the rank-and-file realize that it is the expanding nation-state itself, with its monetary inflation and government spending, that has created this mess, and that more of the same can only prolong the inevitable (and make it worse), then the next few years will look like the 1970s all over again. This time, could we at least be spared the disco?

FMM Comment: My recommendations still stands on How to Stimulate Yourself

Another Asian Crisis Brewing?

Japan is the next sub-prime flashpoint

There is still $300bn of bad debt out there, and Japan could be hiding most of it. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports

Just as battered investors had begun to glimpse signs of recovery in America, the next shoe has dropped with an almighty thud in Japan. Echoes are rumbling across the Far East.

The Tokyo bourse has crumbled, suffering the worst start to the year since the Second World War. The Nikkei index is down 17 per cent since Christmas, and the shares of Japanese banks are leading the slide. Mizuho Financial, Mitsubishi UFJ and Sumitomo Mitsui have all been punished as hard or even harder than those US banks at the epicentre of the sub-prime debacle.

The nagging fear is that Japan's lenders - the conduit for the world's greatest stash of savings - have taken on a far bigger chunk of mortgage securities, collateralised loans obligations and other exotica from America's structured credit boom than they have yet revealed.

Americans and Europeans have so far confessed to $130bn of the estimated $400bn to $500bn of wealth that has vanished into the sub-prime hole. Somebody, somewhere, must be sitting on a vast nexus of undisclosed losses. We may find out soon enough whether the hold-outs are in Japan. The banks have to come clean under the country's strict new audit codes by the end of the tax year in March.

Read the rest

Moral Obligations Of Walking Away

Walking away is certainly a hot topic. I brought up the issue of walking away on October 2nd 2007 in Mortgage Forgiveness Act - The Seen and Unseen.

The winner in the debt forgiveness provision (if there is a winner) is the struggling homeowner. The unseen loser is the mortgage holder, the NAR and the NAHB. Prior to this legislation a homeowner had to worry about tax liabilities of just handing over the keys and walking away. If debt was forgiven prior to bankruptcy, there was also a tax liability. Such considerations have been removed. At the margin, more people will be tempted than before to hand over the keys and walk away.

Read the rest

Debt Trap Mass Exodus

CBS4 is reporting on Miami's Middle Class Exodus.

In Broward County, foreclosures in 2006 were 8,995; in 2007, it was 23,476. For Miami-Dade County, there were 9,814 foreclosures in 2006; in 2007, there were 26,338.

In April of 2005, the Miami-Dade Housing Authority created a list for anyone who needed affordable housing. Forty-thousand people signed up. Three years later, 25,000 on the list are still waiting for a phone call.

Patrick Mason owns "Carolina Living," a magazine that markets to people from out of town. His research shows for the first time ever that Florida is now the number one exporter of people to South Carolina.

Read the rest

A boiled Egg is hard to beat

Reuters reports that the Web bank Egg withdraws cards from riskier customers. The Citigroup owned bank, following a risk review, will withdraw credit cards from 161,000 of their customers.

The Credit Card Time Bomb Is Ticking Away

Cash strapped consumers are increasingly turning to charge cards and home equity lines to support consumption. Some Debt Trends Are Good. This Isn’t One of Them.

American credit card debt is growing at the fastest rate in years, a fact that may signal coming trouble for the banks that issue them.

The Federal Reserve reported this week that the amount of revolving consumer credit that is outstanding hit $937.5 billion in November, seasonally adjusted, up 7.4 percent from a year earlier. The annual growth rate has now been over 7 percent for three months running, the first such stretch since 2001, when a recession was driving up borrowing by hard-pressed consumers.