Economics/Monetary Policy | infowebstorm.com

30 Signs That The U.S. Economy Is About To Go Down The Toilet

20 09 2011

If you think the U.S. economy is bad now, just wait for a few months. Things are about to become absolutely nightmarish. None of the long-term economic trends that are hollowing out our economy have been addressed and more bad economic news seems to come out virtually every single day. Now there is constant talk of the “next recession” in the mainstream media. But did the last recession ever truly end? The number of good jobs continues to decline, more stores are closing, incomes continue to go down, credit card debt and student loan debt are soaring, the housing market resembles a corpse, the number of Americans living in poverty continues to rise and government debt is at unprecedented levels. We are losing blood fast, and almost all of our leaders are either too corrupt or too incompetent to be able to do anything about it. The U.S. economy really and truly is about to go into the toilet, and if something is not done very quickly we are going to experience a complete and total economic disaster in this nation.

Americans have been promised over and over that this economic downturn is just “temporary” and that things will return to normal soon. During this upcoming election cycle, the Democrats will swear that they have all the answers and that if we just elect them everything will be okay. The Republicans will also swear that they have all the answers and that if we just elect them everything will be okay.

Well, both sides are lying. The economic plans of both major political parties are a joke. Neither of them can restore economic prosperity to this nation.

Our politicians could delay the coming economic collapse by borrowing gigantic piles of money and pumping all of that cash into the economy. But stealing from our children and our grandchildren is not exactly sound economic policy.

Yes, the U.S. economy is in bad shape right now, but things are about to get even worse. The long-term problems that are destroying our economy have not been fixed, and the leaks in our ship are going to continue to grow.

The following are 30 signs that the U.S. economy is about to go into the toilet….

#1 An increasing number of unemployed Americans have become so desperate that they have started to look for work overseas. For example, the number of Americans that are submitting applications for temporary work visas in Canadahas approximately doubled since 2008. Other Americans are willing to learn foreign languages and travel to the other side of the world if that is what it takes to land a decent job. Just consider the following quote from a recent USA Today report….

Job placement firms are reporting a surge in American worker interest in booming economies such as Hong Kong, Singapore, China and, increasingly, India. Hunt Partners, an executive search firm, estimates that it’s getting 50% to 100% more unsolicited résumés from Americans looking for Asia-based positions today than before the recession.

#2 When Barack Obama first took office, the official U.S. unemployment rate was 7.6 percent. Today it is 9.1 percent.

#3 The number of Americans that are concerned that they will lose their jobs continues to hover near record highs. According to Gallup, 30 percent of all employed Americans are worried that they will soon be laid off.

#4 After three straight years of very high unemployment, you can feel frustration and desperation in the air almost everywhere that you go. Many unemployed Americans are now at the end of their ropes. The following is from a testimonial that was recently posted on The Atlantic….

The most difficult part of the job search is:

1. that I don’t live near a factory or outsource outlet in China, India, or Malaysia.

2. trying not to appear desperate for a job when I am, in fact, quite desperate for a job.

3. that I am subject to everyone’s advice on how to get a job, but no real job leads.

4. that I am reminded that having a good job is not an entitlement.

5. that when I become depressed from my job search, I’m told told to cheer up or else give a bad vibe to prospective employers … yet when I become happy through non-search related activities, I am reminded that I should be looking for work

7. that when I confide to friends and family that I have “given up” to pursue more fruitful interests, it elicits a crushing look of disbelief, disappointment, and disgust

8. waiting for permission to give up.

#5 The percentage of American men that are employed continues to plummet. In July, only 63.5 percent of all men in the United States had a job. Since 1948, that number has only been lower one time (63.3 percent in December 2009).

#6 Back in the 1950s, manufacturing accounted for about 28 percent of U.S. GDP. Last year, it accounted for just 11.7 percent. Meanwhile, manufacturing now accounts for about 25 percent of GDP in China and they now actually have more factory production each year than we do. Sadly, Barack Obama is pushing for even more trade agreements that will send millions more of our jobs overseas.

#7 The percentage of Americans that are working low paying jobs continues to relentlessly march upwards. Back in 1980, less than 30% of all jobs in the United States were low income jobs. Today, more than 40% of all jobs in the United States are low income jobs.

#8 According to John Williams of shadowstats.com, after you add in all short-term discouraged workers, all long-term discouraged workers and all Americans that are working part-time because they cannot find full-time employment, the real unemployment rate should be approximately 23 percent.

#9 We are starting to see another huge wave of store closings and layoffs. For example, the parent company of Payless stores has announced that it will be permanently closing 475 stores. Borders is in the process of closing every single one of its 399 stores. Also, Bank of America has just announced that it will be closing about 600 branches, and that could result in the loss of about 30,000 good jobs.

#10 Median household income has fallen for three years in a row.

#11 Americans are really starting to rack up consumer debt once again. According to Time Magazine, U.S. consumers are on pace to collectively add 54 billion dollars in credit card debt in 2011.

#12 Student loan defaults are rising very sharply. Just consider the following excerpt from a recent New York Times article….

The share of federal student loan defaults rose sharply last year, especially at for-profit colleges and universities, where 15 percent of borrowers defaulted in the first two years of repayment, up from 11.6 percent the previous year.

#13 According to a chart in The Economist, whenever the number of newspaper articles in the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal that mention the word “recession” goes over 1,500 in a particular quarter, the U.S. economy almost always goes into a recession.

#14 The U.S. housing crash just continues to get worse. The index of home builder sentiment put out by the National Association of Home Builders fell once again during the month of September. With such a glut of unsold foreclosed homes on the market, it is making things really hard of home builders. Things have gotten so bad that even the U.S. government now owns nearly a quarter of a million foreclosed homes. The impact of this housing nightmare on families has been absolutely devastating. Just check out what a recent Time Magazine article had to say about what has been going on in California….

The impact on children has been brutal: since 2007, 7% of the state’s children have had a foreclosure process started on their homes, the fourth-highest level in the nation, according to a study released this month by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

#15 Many believe that due to much tighter lending standards, it is now harder to be approved for a mortgage than at any other time since World War II. This is absolutely crushing the housing market.

#16 Most Americans don’t seem to expect housing prices to recover for an extended period of time. One recent survey found that 54 percent of Americans believe that there will not be a housing recovery until “2014 or later“.

#17 The combined debt of the largest GSEs (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Sallie Mae) has increased from 3.2 trillion in 2008 to a whopping 6.4 trillion in 2011. If that debt goes bad, U.S. taxpayers will be left holding the bill.

#18 There are now nearly 50 million Americans that do not have health insurance, and the percentage of Americans covered by employer-based health plans has fallen for 11 years in a row. Meanwhile, Americans now spendabout 3 times as much on health care as they did back in 1990.

#19 The Postal Service has publicly announced that it is “on the verge” of financial collapse.

#20 The number of small businesses continues to fall. I recently noted this fact on The American Dream Blog….

The number of “self-employed” Americans continues to rapidly shrink. According the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16.6 million Americans were self-employed back in December 2006. Today, that number has shrunk to 14.5 million. Even though we have 14 million unemployed people in this country and jobs are incredibly difficult to come by, the number of people trying to work for themselves continues to decrease because the environment for small businesses in this country has become so incredibly toxic.

#21 American consumers have become tremendously pessimistic. According to one recent survey, 61 percent of all Americans believe that they will not return to their “pre-recession” lifestyles until at least 2014. According to a different recent survey, 39 percent of Americans actually believe that the U.S. economy has now entered a “permanent decline”.

#22 Many U.S. investors certainly seem to believe that trouble is coming. According to CNN, last month the number of bets against the S&P 500 was the highest that we have seen in about a year.

#23 The number of U.S. households that are “doubling up” continues to grow. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of combined households has increased by 10.7 percent since 2007.

#24 When Barack Obama moved into the White House, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States was $1.83. Today it is $3.58.

#25 The number of Americans living in poverty grew by 2.6 million last year. That was the largest increase since the U.S. government began calculating poverty figures back in 1959.

#26 Back in the year 2000, 11.3% of all Americans were living in poverty. Today, 15.1% of all Americans are living in poverty.

#27 On Barack Obama’s first day on the job, there were about 32 million Americans on food stamps. Today, there are more than 45 million Americans on food stamps.

#28 If there is a financial collapse in Europe, that will definitely plunge us into another recession. Right now, things do not look promising. At this point, headlines all over the world are proclaiming that Greece is dangerously close to defaulting.

#29 At some point soon, investors all over the globe may decide that it is time to start dumping U.S. government debt. For example, Chinese officials are now openly talking about the need to “liquidate” their holdings of U.S. Treasuries.

#30 The U.S. national debt continues to explode in size and spiral out of control. According to Professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff, the U.S. “fiscal gap” increased by about 6 trillion dollars last year. In fact, Kotlikoff makes a compelling argument that Greece is actually in better shape financially than the United States is.

Do you now understand how much trouble we are in?

The long-term trends that are destroying us continue to get worse.

The United States is steamrolling directly toward an economic collapse.

When this economy hits bottom and splatters all over the place, it is not going to be easy to fix.

The America that we know today is going to be wiped out by a gigantic mountain of debt and by the consequences of decades of really bad decisions.

We were handed the keys to the greatest economic machine in the history of the world and we have wrecked it.

So prepare for really, really hard times ahead.

The era of endless prosperity is ending.

Next comes the pain.

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Tags: Barack Obama, China, Economy of the United States, Gross domestic product, Hong Kong, India, Recession, United States
Categories : Economics/Monetary Policy, Politics

Ron Paul Cheated Out Of Sure Victory In Texas Straw Pole Cancelation; Due To Lack Of Interest By Other GOP Candidates

20 09 2011

Ron Paul is riding high again after his California Straw Poll victory yesterday, but some Paul supporters are questioning why the Texas Straw Poll was cancelled for “lack of interest,” and whether it was actually killed because the Congressman would have inflicted an embarrassing defeat on Governor Rick Perry in his own state.

According to a June 16 Washington Times report, the Texas GOP decided to cancel the straw poll, which was held on September 1 last year, because of a “lack of interest expressed by the candidates,” and due to fears that the event would not recoup the financial outlay needed to stage it.

The claim that the poll was cancelled due to “lack of interest” doesn’t correlate with the firestorm of media attention generated by Rick Perry’s announcement of his candidacy, as well as the building momentum of the Paul campaign, which went supernova after the media hoax of attempting to pretend the Congressman doesn’t exist spectacularly imploded last month.

There seems little doubt that Ron Paul would have defeated Rick Perry in the Texas Straw Poll, sending out the embarrassing message that those who know Perry’s record best, lone star state voters, have no trust in his leadership. This would have been a massive blow to the perception of Perry’s electability nationwide.

A presidential survey of voters in both candidate’s home state conducted by the Azimuth Research Group last month found that Texans would be more likely to vote for Congressman Ron Paul over Gov. Perry by a margin of 22% to 17%.

Indeed, Paul has made it a focus of his campaign, including an expensive TV commercial, to bring attention to what the Perry campaign fears the most, his outing as a globalist RINO (Republican In Name Only).

A Texas Straw Poll win for Paul would have thrown fresh spotlight on Perry’s history as a campaign manager for Al Gore, and his legacy of big government policies such as his support for the Trans Texas Corridor, toll roads owned by foreign companies, and his 1993 advocacy of Hillarycare.

It would not be the first time a straw poll was cancelled by establishment Republicans in order to neutralize a winning platform for Ron Paul’s campaign. The 2007 San Francisco straw poll was cancelled due to there being “too many Ron Paul supporters”. The Colorado straw poll was also cancelled that year, with the Adams County GOP citing the exact same reason.

The establishment media has openly attempted to unfairly marginalize Ron Paul’s campaign this year. Following a September 12 Republican debate in Cincinnati, a straw poll found Ron Paul to be the winner. However, CNN refused to release the results of the poll and instead published an online poll, omitting Ron Paul from the list of candidates.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.

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Tags: Al Gore, Mitt Romney, republican, Rick Perry, Ron Paul, Texas, Texas Straw Poll, Trans Texas Corridor
Categories : Constitution, Economics/Monetary Policy, Personal Liberty, Politics, Ron Paul 2012, States Rights

Operation Twist: FED Ready for QE3 – KURT NIMMO FOR PRISONPLANET.COM

20 09 2011

Daily Forex Fundamentals, written by Danske Bank, says the FOMC will probably get QE3 rolling by the end of the year or early in 2012.

“Following the continued deterioration in economic data, we expect the Fed to take action in the form of a twist in the central bank’s portfolio towards longer maturity government bonds,” the Danish bank writes.

Unless we see significant improvements in economic data over the next couple of months we deem it likely that the Fed will initiate QE3 (buying either more government bonds or mortgages). This could happen either by end 2011 or early next year. We will particularly be looking to employment data, where we need sustainable and significant improvement in the coming months, in order for QE3 to be taken off the table.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets on Wednesday and more information on QE3 is expected at that time.

The main scenario for the Wednesday meeting will be for the Fed to start shifting its portfolio of government bonds towards holding more long-term securities and fewer short-term securities. This extension of the portfolio’s maturity is designed to push down long-term interest rates. We see this as a highly likely outcome of the meeting.

The interest rate currently stands at 0.25% and the Fed may move it down to 0.10%, “in order to increase the banks’ incentive to lend.”

Big banks, however, are not in the business of lending money to Main Street. Since the fall of Glass-Steagall, banks have been in the business of buying and selling complex derivatives and writing credit default swaps. “Fees are good, bonuses come in, and the fed or government will always be there to bail them out if things get hairy,” notes UrbanDigs.com.

Interest rates at or near 0% guarantee capital destruction. “Capital destruction is the main byproduct of monetary inflation, a concept totally foreign to the inflation engineers at the USFed and its satellite central banks,” writes Jim Willie for Financial Sense.

They are agents of magnificent systemic devastation. In the wake of each QE round are discouraged creditors who turn away in disgust. The damage and inflation feeds upon itself in stages of intense wreckage. The motive, need, and desperation for QE3 is being formed here and now, to be announced by late summer probably. Prepare for QE to infinity, endless hyper-inflation, a process that cannot be stopped, as the urgent needs grows. Any attempt to halt the process results in almost immediate total annihilation. So continuation of QE rounds serves to manage the deterioration process and guide the financial structures gradually and orderly into oblivion.

Add to capital destruction mounting inflation. The Fed considers this a good thing. “So now we are beginning to hear murmurings about the possible invigorating effects of ‘just a little inflation.’ Perhaps 4 or 5 percent a year would be just the thing to deal with the overhang of debt and encourage the ‘animal spirits’ of business, or so the argument goes,” writes Paul Volcker, former Fed boss, for the New York Times.

Bernanke and the Fed are moving us toward an inflationary depression. The Federal Reserve was established in 1913 specifically for that reason, as Rep. Charles Lindbergh noted. “The new law will create inflation whenever the trusts want inflation. From now on, depressions will be scientifically created,” he warned.

Bernanke admitted the Fed created the Great Depression with its monetary whipsaw weapon. It is now working on the Greatest Depression.

The Federal Reserve is not about saving business and creating jobs. It’s about a slow-motion destruction of the economy that will pave the way toward the bankster nirvana of a global economy that will present humanity with the most effective and insidious mechanism for slavery ever devised.

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Tags: Charles Lindbergh, Danske Bank, Federal Open Market Committee, Federal Reserve System, Great Depression, New York Times, Paul Volcker, Quantitative easing
Categories : Constitution, Economics/Monetary Policy, Globalism, Personal Liberty, Police State Control, Politics, Ron Paul 2012

Life After An EMP Attack: No Power, No Food, No Transportation, No Banking, And No Internet!: THE AMERICAN DREAM

19 09 2011

Most Americans do not know this, but a single EMP attack could potentially wipe out most of the electronics in the United States and instantly send this nation back to the 1800s. If a nuclear bomb was exploded high enough in the atmosphere over the middle part of the country, the electromagnetic pulse would fry electronic devices from coast to coast. The damage would be millions of times worse than 9/11. Just imagine a world where nobody has power, most cars will not start, the Internet has been fried, the financial system is offline indefinitely, nobody can make any phone calls and virtually all commerce across the entire country is brought to a complete stop. A nation that does not know how to live without technology would be almost entirely stripped of it at that point. Yes, this could really happen. An EMP attack is America’s “Achilles heel”, and everyone around the world knows it. It is only a matter of time before someone uses an EMP weapon against us, and at this point we are pretty much completely unprepared.

The sad thing is that we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars hunting down “terrorists” in caves on the other side of the globe and we have been told that because of “national security” it is necessary for our private areas to be touched before we are allowed to get on an airplane, but our government is doing essentially nothing to address what is perhaps our biggest security vulnerability.

What would you and your neighbors do if the power went out and it did not ever come back on?

What would you do if an EMP attack happened in the middle of the winter and you suddenly were not able to heat your home any longer?

What would you do if all the electronics in your car got fried and you simply could not drive anywhere?

What would you do if all the supermarkets in your area shut down because food could not be transported across the country anymore?

What would you do if you were suddenly unable to call your family and friends for help?

What would you do if you were suddenly unable to get the medicine that you needed?

What would you do if your debit cards and credit cards simply did not work any longer and you could not get any of your money out of the bank?

What would you do if all of these things happened all at once?

A single EMP attack would be the worst disaster that the United States has ever seen by far.

An electromagnetic pulse could potentially fry the vast majority of all the microchips in the United States. In an instant, nearly all of our electronic devices would be rendered useless.

Yes, the federal government knows all about this. The following excerpt is froman April 2008 report by the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack….

“The consequences of lack of food, heat (or air conditioning), water, waste disposal, medical, police, fire fighting support, and effective civil authority would threaten society itself.”

Most of us have become completely and totally dependent on electricity and technology. Without it, most of us would be in huge trouble.

The following is how an article in the Wall Street Journal described the potential consequences of an EMP attack….

No American would necessarily die in the initial attack, but what comes next is potentially catastrophic. The pulse would wipe out most electronics and telecommunications, including the power grid. Millions could die for want of modern medical care or even of starvation since farmers wouldn’t be able to harvest crops and distributors wouldn’t be able to get food to supermarkets. Commissioner Lowell Wood calls EMP attack a “giant continental time machine” that would move us back more than a century in technology to the late 1800s.

It wouldn’t be so bad if we had the knowledge and the infrastructure to live the way that they did back in the 1800s, but today that is simply not the case.

Dr. William Graham was Ronald Reagan’s science adviser and the chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack. Dr. Graham believes that in the event of a large scale EMP attack, the vast majority of Americans would either freeze, starve or die from disease.

According to Graham, in the aftermath of an EMP attack life in America “would probably be something that you might imagine life to be like around the late 1800s but with several times the population we had in those days, and without the ability of the country to support and sustain all those people.”

Would you be able to survive?

All of those big bank accounts may never be able to be recovered after an EMP attack. Your money might be instantly fried out of existence.

The following is what Graham believes would happen to the financial system in the event of an EMP attack….

“Most financial records are stored electronically. ATMs, which depend upon both power and telecommunications, would not be available; banks, which try to back up records but in general aren’t strongly aware of the EMP problem, would face the problem of unprotected storage and computer systems”

This is the danger of having a financial system that is so dependent on technology. We may wake up one day and find that all the money is gone.

But if an EMP attack actually happened, the biggest concern for most of us would be trying to figure out how to survive.

The president of the Center for Security Policy, Frank Gaffney, is convinced that a single EMP attack could result in the deaths of the vast majority of the population of the United States….

“Within a year of that attack, nine out of 10 Americans would be dead, because we can’t support a population of the present size in urban centers and the like without electricity”

Are you starting to get a feel for the scope of the problem?

The sad thing is that so much could be done to protect this country from an EMP attack.

Right now, most vital U.S. military infrastructure has at least some protection from an EMP attack.

But the general population has been left completely and totally vulnerable.

It has been estimated that the entire power grid could potentially be protected for about 20 billion dollars. Considering the fact that we have spent over 400 billion dollars in Afghanistan, I think that we could afford it.

We have spent our national security dollars very, very badly and someday it is going to come back to bite us in the rear end.

Right now, other nations around the world are working feverishly to develop EMP weapons. The following is from a statement by Dr. Peter Vincent Pry to the United States Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security on March 8th, 2005….

Russian and Chinese military scientists in open source writings describe the basic principles of nuclear weapons designed specifically to generate an enhanced-EMP effect, that they term “Super-EMP” weapons. “Super-EMP” weapons, according to these foreign open source writings, can destroy even the best protected U.S. military and civilian electronic systems.

But it is not just Russia and China that have been developing “Super-EMP” weapons. According to Newsmax, it is believed that North Korea may have tested a “Super-EMP” weapon back in 2009….

North Korea’s last round of tests, conducted in May 2009, appear to have included a “super-EMP” weapon, capable of emitting enough gamma rays to disable the electric power grid across most of the lower 48 states

Remember, all it would take is one strategically placed EMP attack to wipe out this nation.

But an EMP weapon is not the only danger that can produce this type of effect. The truth is that a really bad geomagnetic storm could also potentially producealmost as much damage.

This is something that everyone knows is one of our biggest vulnerabilities and it is something that we can make preparations for.

Yet the Bush administration and the Obama administration have just stood there and have done nothing.

Our idiocy is astounding.

General Eugene Habiger, the former head of U. S. Strategic Command, has said the following about the possibility of an EMP attack in the future….

“It is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when.”

Remember, this is something that could cause millions times more damage than 9/11 did.

Instead of molesting old ladies at airports and chasing goat herders around the mountains of Afghanistan, perhaps we should be addressing our largest security vulnerabilities.

But that would require using some common sense. Sadly, common sense seems to be in very short supply in Washington D.C. these days.

So if the government is not going to do anything about it, that means that it is up to you to prepare yourself and your family. This world is becoming very unstable and disasters can strike at any time.

We all saw what happened after Hurricane Katrina. The government response was a nightmare. An EMP attack would be millions of times worse and the federal government probably would not even be able to get you and your family any assistance.

You would truly be on your own.

So are you ready?

This is yet another reason why the number of preppers in the United States is exploding. A lot of people can see how the world is changing and they understand that the federal government is not going to come through for them when the chips are down.

An EMP attack could end life as we know it at any time.

It is a glaring security vulnerability and the entire world knows that it is there.

I hope that you are getting ready, because the government certainly is not.

Comments : 3 Comments »
Tags: Electromagnetic pulse, Electronics, Lowell Wood, Nuclear weapon, Ronald Reagan, United States, Wall Street Journal, Warfare and Conflict
Categories : Economics/Monetary Policy, Health, Science/Tech

Gore’s 24hr Show Gets Negative Reaction From Fellow Global Warming Activists: Marc Morano; Climate Depot

19 09 2011

[Update - Sept. 18, 2011: Yet Another Key Claim of Gore Bites the Dust! NOAA lead author of U.S. Climate Science Assessment Report on Texas drought: 'This is not a climate change drought' -- For constant updates on Gore see here.]

Former Vice President Al Gore 24 hour climate “reality” show is surprisingly facing strongly negative reviews from Gore’s fellow global warming activists and environmental allies. In addition, two German scientists ridiculed Gorefor his “apocalyptic” tone and his “promise of salvation.”

Climate activist Bob Ward was tepid about Gore’s show. “One could complain that some of the presentations overstated the certainty and wrongly implied that individual weather events could be attributed to climate change,”lamented Ward. Ward is the Policy Director, for the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

M. Shanahan

Mike Shanahan, of the International Institute for Environment and Development, bragged that he purposefully avoided watching Gore’s climate telethon.

“I actually avoided the Goreathon, and I guess that says something in itself,” Shanahan wrote. He added that a journalist sent him a text declaring: “Gore gets gold for most boring and least galvanizing talk on climate, ever…That, and possibly damaging.”

Shanahan was blunt in his opinion of Gore: “Climate Change needs a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King or a Mandela, and Al Gore is none of those.”

Other global warming activists were just as wary of having anything to do with Gore’s attempt to link al bad weather to man-made global warming.

“Overall, I don’t think this (Gore’s) initiative will do much good. For one thing, Al Gore is now as much a hindrance as a help on climate change advocacy, as he’s been characterized (probably unfairly) as a highly partisan figure, and so immediately gets about half of all folks offside,” Barry W. Brook, the director of climate science at the Environment Institute at University of Adelaide in Australia, said.

“Gore is in the situation that certain X-wing fighter pilot was during the assault on the Death Star (in the film Star Wars), when Luke Skywalker called out over the intercom: ‘Pull out Wedge, you can’t do any more good back there!’”

Brook went even further, declaring the entire man-made global warming debate to be futile.

“I think the climate change debate is over. It’s like a snow mobile slipping on slush — it isn’t moving forward any time soon.”

The UK Guardian’s Leo Hickman, a prominent media activist for man-made global warming, was embarrassed by Gore’s extreme weather link to man-made global warming linkage.

“I was a little nervous this morning logging into Climate Reality…And, I have to say, my heart immediately sank,” when viewing it, Hickman wrote. Hickman asked: “Is Gore now a help or hindrance to global warming cause?” See: Hickman on Gore’s ‘Death by PowerPoint’– “I have suffered this torture too many times over the years…[Gore's show had] slide after slide of extreme weather events…& linking everyone, it seemed, to rise in [man-made] emissions…that is a very contentious peg on which to hang your hat…That kind of talk traditionally requires lots of caveats and careful explaining. Done with abandon and raw emotion – as this presenter seemed to be doing – and you are quickly labeled in some quarters as a climate ‘alarmist.’”

Professor Judith Curry, the chair, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta echoed these sentiments.

“If the intent of Al Gore’s telethon is to garner broad support for climate and energy policies such as proposed by the UNFCCC (e.g. the Kyoto protocol), I anticipate that this effort will backfire and energize the opposition to such policies,” Curry, who has shifted her views more towards the skeptical view of global warming in recent years, wrote on her blog.

“As a scientist I find the mantra ‘remove the doubt, reveal the deniers’ to be objectionable and antithetical to the scientific process. Gore’s effort will further polarize an already inflamed and politicized debate surrounding the science and policy response to climate change,” Curry explained. She also noted that Gore’s tactics will lead to more scientists declaring their dissent from man-made global warming. “Just today, Physics Nobel Laureate Ivar Giaever explains his resignation from APS,” Curry noted.

Gore’s ‘promise of salvation’

A pair of German scientists noted the religious overtones of Gore’s 24 hour climate telethon. “There was only one message, an apocalyptic one, with the respective promise of salvation; sometimes the discourse almost switched into a religious sermon: once we behave climate friendly, there won’t be any storms or other natural disasters anymore,” wrote German scientists Hans von Storch & Werner Krauss of the Helmholtz Centre for Materials and Coastal Research in Geesthacht, Germany.

Storch and Krauss chided Gore for seemingly linking every bad thing to man-made global warming. “Highly speculative (and deterministic) assertions such as the interpretation of the Arab upheavals as a result of global warming were made repeatedly, sold as scientific knowledge and without being challenged,” the scientists noted. Also see: DudGate! Gore’s Last Gasp – German Media Completely Ignores His Bitter Slur-athon

Skeptics of man-made climate change fears were also brutal on Gore’s latest climate science effort.

Canada’s Sun TV commentator with Charles Adler compared Gore to scandal ridden U.S. televangelist Jimmy Swaggart and warned of a “dangerous cult of personality” surrounding Gore. Adler mocked Gore as a prophet who was “going to hold back droughts.”

Physicist Dr. Lubos Motl also ridiculed Gore for being a “prophet.” “Gore had to personally train about 3,000 random people from the whole globe. The idea is that he is the prophet so anyone who ever touches him immediately gets the status of a priest in his community, a kind of medium religious rank,” Motl wrote.

“The media almost totally ignored the non-event in this case. Well, in fact, even a huge majority of the alarmist blogosphere (not just Real Climate) remained silent about this bummer,” Motl noted.

A. Watts

Meteorologist Anthony Watts noted how boring Gore’s climate telethon was becoming four hours into it. See: Gore’s 24 hour show a flop!? ‘After hour 4 it is starting to look like a massive dud’

Watts also unloaded on Gore for comparing global warming skeptics to tobacco company propaganda. See: Meteorologist Watts Tells Gore to shove his tobacco analogy up his A@* — ‘For the record, Mr. Gore, both of my parents died of smoking related illnesses. As a result, I abhor everything about tobacco. Therefore Mr. Gore, you can take that comparison and forcefully insert it into the bodily orifice of your choice’

Watts also noted that Gore brought on a former Miss Rhode Island contestant ‘to talk about sea level rise — while warmist Paul Higgins of AMS sputters to non-answers‘

Steve Milloy of Junk Science, called Gore a “tobacco hypocrite.” “Gore & his family were quite content to profit from tobacco users for more than 20 years after 1964 publication of first Surgeon General report on smoking.” Milloy wrote.

The skeptical website Real Sciencemocked the timing of Gore’s 24 hour climate telethon. Scientist Steve Goddard, the publisher of the website noted the massive cold spell in the U.S. and the inconvenient climate data that coincided with Gore’s event. See: Breaking: Sea Level Continues Its Historic Decline — ‘Envisat shows that the 2 year long decline is continuing, at a rate of 5mm per year’ — The ‘Gore Effect’ extends to sea level! ‘No doubt Gore will pass this good news on to all his viewers’

Goddard also noted that during Gore’s 24 hour show, Arctic ice made impressive gains in size. See:‘Arctic Gained A New Manhattan Of Ice Every Two Minutes Yesterday — ’16 city blocks of new ice forming every second!’ & The ‘Gore Effect’ Hits Arctic Ice! 2,200 Manhattans Of New Arctic Ice Growing In The Last 5 Days — ‘A new Manhattan of ice is being born every 3 minutes!’

The skeptical website Tom Nelson, also noted the so-called “Gore Effect.” See: ‘Gore Effect’ strikes again: During Gore’s 24-hour climate show, and while it’s still summer in the N. Hemisphere, 16 new city blocks of Arctic ice formed every second!’

CFACT (the parent company of Climate Depot) mocked Gore for “jumping the shark.” See: ‘Note to Al Gore: You’ve jumped the shark’ Skeptics at CFACT react to Gore’s 24 show: ‘We tuned in. What we found exceeded our worst expectations’ — ‘Speaker after speaker showed slide after slide of tragedy. Flooded houses, parched crops, starving kids. Shameless…Not only is human progress not responsible for severe weather, it is the best chance we have to meet these children’s nutritional needs in the future’

Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer pulled no punches in evaluating Gore’s scientific claims. See: Gore’s 24 Hour Climate Astrology Show Slammed: Gore’s beliefs are ‘matters of faith, not observable scientific reality’ — Current weather is NOT ‘outside realm of natural climate variability’

News Round Up of Gore’s 24 Hours of Climate ‘Reality’: (for continuous updates, please go here)

Watch Now: Climate Depot’s Morano on Canadian TV: ‘Gore is a desperate man. Gore has utterly and completely failed…Gore is promoting ‘climate astrology’ (Int. begins at 06:40) – Morano: ‘No matter the weather, it’s just what global warmists would have expected. It is now akin to predictions of Mayan calendar or Nostradamus…But, the science is clear: Big tornadoes are on decline since 1970s, hurricane activity is near 40 year lows, sea level is dropping…polar bears (doing fine), Mt. Kilimanjaro gaining ice. From A-Z, Gore has egg on his face when it comes to man-made global warming’

MUST READ: In Anticipation Of The Gore ‘Lie-A-Thon’ – Severe Weather Reality From The 1950s, 1960s & 1970s

Paging Al Gore: Read this ‘list of severe weather incidents that took place during the 50s, 60s and 70s. These terrible and destructive events occurred well before the current decade’s hysteria about CO2 emissions. These events represent empirical evidence (reality) that refutes Al Gore’s type of climate science’

‘A study published in 2011 in Geophysical Research Letters on causes of the 2010 Russian heat wave deduced that it ‘was due to internal atmospheric dynamical processes’ — Paging Al Gore: Peer-reviewed Study: ‘It is unlikely that the warming attributable to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations contributed significantly to the magnitude of the [Russian] heat wave’

Climate Depot Response to Gore: “Gore has severely overreached in his 24 hour ‘reality’ show by claiming virtually every weather event to be a result of man-made global warming. Even global warming activists are cringing at Gore’s unscientific climate astrology claims. Gore wants us to believe that our SUV’s are weather machines — will he blame witches for crop failures next? Memo to Al Gore from Climate Depot: The UN and Congress cannot legislate, tax or regulate the weather.”

Gore’s spokesperson Maggie Fox ducks radio debate at last minute with skeptic! ‘They know that their claims will not withstand critical scrutiny’
DudGate: Gore’s Climate Reality Project: a massive dud – even warmists are panning it now

Gore brings on Miss Rhode Island to talk about sea level rise — while warmist Paul Higgins of AMS sputters to non-answers

‘Note to Al Gore: You’ve jumped the shark’ Skeptics at CFACT react to Gore’s 24 show: ‘We tuned in. What we found exceeded our worst expectations’ — ‘Speaker after speaker showed slide after slide of tragedy. Flooded houses, parched crops, starving kids. Shameless…Not only is human progress not responsible for severe weather, it is the best chance we have to meet these children’s nutritional needs in the future’

Flashback: Watch Now: Climate Depot’s Morano on Fox News Mocking Gore’s ‘Climate Astrology’: ‘This is now akin to the predictions of Nostradamus or the Mayan calendar’ – Morano: ‘There is no way anyone can falsify the global warming theory now because any weather event that happens ‘proves’ their case…Man-made global warming has ceased to be a science, it is now the level of your daily horoscope’ — Gore [in 2006 film] did not warn us of extreme blizzards and record cold winters coming’

The ‘Gore Effect’ Hits Arctic Ice! 2,200 Manhattans Of New Arctic Ice Growing In The Last 5 Days — ‘A new Manhattan of ice is being born every 3 minutes!’

Arctic Ice fails to reach record low — But Gore still claims record low!?

The ‘Gore Effect’ is Back! Early Freeze Could Severely Damage Minnesota Crop Production

It’s official, NOAA shows the ‘Gore Effect’ hitting America tonight – Cold Wave Has Perfect Timing!

Surprise summer snow in Colorado

Climate Depot Factsheet on the ‘Gore Effect’ Phenomenon: ‘Happens when global warming-related event, or appearance by Gore is marked by exceedingly cold weather’

Hour by Hour analysis: 24 Hours of Climate Reality: Gore-a-thon – Hour 6

Analysis: Gore’s effort to ‘expose’ climate change skeptics will instead show that Gore is a charlatan’

‘It is a mistake to blame human activities for current weather extremes. The NIPCC concluded that ‘the data reveal there have not been any significant warming-induced increases in extreme weather events.’ The report’s authors showed that this was the case whether the phenomenon being studied was precipitation, floods, drought, storms, hurricanes, fire, or other weather-related events’

Wash. University’s College Democrat student says paying well over $100k for Gore to speak on campus was a ‘steal’ — ‘Thank you Treasury for funding Al Gore’

‘The University’s treasury absolutely did the right thing by approving money for the purpose of bringing Al Gore to campus. Gore is a generational figure…Bringing Al Gore will up our ‘going green’ street cred in a big way…this is a steal…the cost to the students, because of the alternate funding, is substantially lower than it would normally be to bring Al Gore to campus’

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Tags: Al Gore, Climate change, Death by PowerPoint, Global warming, Hans von Storch, Judith Curry, Leo Hickman, London School of Economics
Categories : Constitution, Economics/Monetary Policy, Globalism, Health, Personal Liberty, Police State Control, Politics, Science/Tech

Market Havoc And Threats To Your Pension: BOB CHAPMAN; INTERNATIONAL FORECASTER

19 09 2011

We have warned subscribers and listeners and those on the Internet over and over again that government was going to come after your private retirement funds including 401K’s and IRA’s that hold $6.6 trillion in investments.

This past week in a grand deficit cutting bargain the Senate Finance Committee explored “Tax Reform Options Promoting Retirement Security.” The excuse is to make 401K plans more efficient; to keep Social Security afloat and to switch funds from these retirement plans to be used elsewhere by government. It is called a looting procedure. The idea is to replace the 401K with a tax break that would allow government to offer bigger benefits to low earners and changes in withdrawal choices at retirement. It would include a change in the way Social Security benefits are calculated to reduce eventual payout and subsidize the poor via a government guaranteed annuity. There would also be an increase in the retirement age. This approach is similar to something you would find in the communist manifesto. Take from the bigger producers to subsidize the lesser producers. Each according to his ability and each according to his means.

We are told Social Security will be out of funds in 2036, which is untrue and the Congress does not mention that the trust fund has been looted since June of 1935. All that is left are worthless bonds. Those that read the Act will find that if government does not have the funds for Social Security they must sell bonds to fund any shortfalls. This fact is, of course, ignored by the Congress and the person who calls himself president. They are more interested in loophole-closing rate-lowering tax reform, which are code words to cut current Social Security income and transfer those funds to other pet socialist projects, that government deems more important. The Congress could care less that you paid taxes for a lifetime for this payout, and it is not a benefit, because you paid for it, and have your benefits shifted to those on lower income brackets or to pet socialist projects. What upsets the socialist and fascists in government is that the tax break for defined contribution retirement plans is that it will cost the Treasury $212.2 billion between 2010 and 2014. What really galls them is that 80% of the payout goes to the top 20% of earners and they want those funds to be redistributed to the less fortunate, to offset debt or to be applied in other socialized areas. One of the proposals is to roll back the current $16,500 annual 401K tax deferred contribution to a level of $10,500. If this is followed government would capture $450 billion in additional tax revenue, and low-income workers would not be affected. We suggest congress change the law and tax the $2.2 trillion parked offshore in tax havens at 35% and bring in revenue of $800 billion or more and to keep that revenue stream going. That means only $1 trillion would have to be cut from military spending and we’d have a balanced budget. That would be just too simple and it might upset the transnational conglomerates and the military industrial complex.

Needless to say, Americans would stop saving conventionally and purchase gold and silver related assets that have appreciated more than 20% annually for the past 11-1/2 years. These changes would render 401Ks and IRAs redundant. The incentive would be gone and all those funds might not be available to the government for redistribution to low-income citizens.

The bottom line is the government wants your retirement and more taxes. Private annuities could face insurance company collapse if the Dow went to 3 or 4,000 and of course the government is insolvent. For current retirees there has been no COLA increase as inflation has ranged from 5% to 11.2% and by the looks of it the CPI will be rigged lower again, so there never will be an adjustment in payout. The latest is a chained CPI, which would further lower benefits.

This is the brave new world planned by your masters. You people should smarten up and dump your retirement plans now. Stop being seduced by the tax breaks or shelter and run your own savings away from the clutches of government. If you don’t you could end up losing it all.

There are those who make excuses for the Federal Reserve and for the European Central Bank as well. Both are controlled by the banking community and are only interested in enriching themselves. These central banks take their orders who own or control these central banks. In the case of the ECNB and other sovereign banks, they are responsible for the terrible state of finances in the euro zone. Yes, we know the banks, and sovereign bans made the loans or brought the bonds, but the ECB has a direct connection into these institutions. The ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet is supposed to be a very bright banker. If that is so, why did this happen on his watch? We will tell you why. It is because he serves the bankers and not the people. He is just another front man for the Illuminists, just as Mr. Bernanke is. Mr. Trichet has only 2-months to go and then he can rejoin his banker friends.

As a result of Europe’s version of the financial wild west Greek credit default swaps are at a record 3,470 BPS as investors, citizens and others await default. Greek two-year yields rose 852 BPS and the Italian 10-year notes rose 12 BPS to 5.39%. The euro was off 3.9% this past week and probably is headed lower. These past three weeks Mr. Trichet engaged in a bond buying program of Italian and Spanish bonds, is a foolhardy undertaking. It resulted in the resignation of Mr. Stark, because he opposed the bond-buying program. Mr. Stark was the vice chairman of the German Bundesbank for four years. German banker Alex Weber and Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann also agree with Mr. Stark.

The 2008 credit crisis wreaked havoc on European, UK and US markets and as a result the latest episode, which has been playing out over the past two years, has really taken its toll on the value and stability of the euro. The euro zone is in a state of contagion with six of its sovereign members in serious financial trouble. The pull of saving the euro has been much stronger than a common sense approach to allow the insolvent to go bankrupt, something that was inevitable, and which we predicted years ago. This same pressure, or mind set, is what propelled the ECB to violate its own rules to arbitrarily buy the bonds of Italy and Spain in the open market. These acts are what finally pushed Germany citizens over the edge. It is a fundamental difference culturally, socially and financially between sovereign nations that have very little in common. We have lived among these cultures and speak their languages. We knew from the very beginning that the European approaches to amalgamation would never work. The European common market and then the European Union, an unnatural combination of people’s anthropologically, which had little in common. The 3% public debt formula that came out of the Maastricht Treaty was unattainable for at least 1/3 of euro zone members; along with one-interest rate fits all was a loser since its inception. That is because each economy was and is at a different stage of financial and economic development. The EU was an experiment and a forerunner for world government. It is as simple as that. Yes, the euro zone is crumbling and the bankers who control all these politicians and bureaucrats are going to lose out and take their losses and in that process many will face failure and rightly so. The creators of the EU, euro zone and ECB have a failing monstrosity on their hands, an expanding debt crisis. What could the ECB and sovereign central banks have been thinking about to allow such extension of credit? It defied all the rules of prudent banking. There are many to blame here reaching all the way back into the 1960s. The dogged insistence of merging of nations under the pretext of preventing future wars, when in fact it was a blatant attempt to create a one-world government.

The debt bubble has enveloped Greece, Ireland and Portugal and most likely will suck in Belgium, Spain and Italy in the process. There is absolutely no way a financial crisis can be avoided and it’s already been in this stage of failure for two years. No country can bailout these six without destroying themselves. Can 21 nations find $4 to $6 trillion to bail out the six? We do not think so, and we have said this from the beginning. Fragile isn’t the word for it, neither is contagion. The operative phrase is object failure.

You might think these are strong words, but they are not. We have watched this fiasco for 53 years knowing from the beginning it would never work. We lived in Switzerland, worked and went to school there, and experienced what it was like living in a country based on a parasitical concept. The bankers there are now in as much trouble as those elsewhere in Europe. For the sake of business they have recently attached their currency to the euro at the worst possible time. They are now going to financially suffer with the rest of Europe. You are seeing a flight out of the euro into gold and silver and you will see that same flight from the Swiss franc in the future.

How could the ECB believe that they could solve the problem by aggressively interfering in the markets? All they did was get the bankers holding this rancid paper off the books, transferring the failure on to the backs of already overburdened taxpayers? It is the same thing the Fed has done, the same model. This all is not the result of incompetence, negligence or mismanagement. This lending was deliberate and with forethought. There was and is another agenda and that is world government.

Why would anyone buy a Eurobond even if Germany backed the bond with others, if the six nations are insolvent? That could only be to keep the one world game going. Those who are waiting for the Germany to succumb may have a long wait. If the Bundestag passes such legislation there could be a revolution in Germany. Germans do not care about the credit system, the euro, the euro zone, the EC or anything else. They never wanted the EU and much less the euro. They want to cut their losses, because they see the costs being endless. They want to take their losses and move on. The situation with Greece is again at the forefront as the current German government prepares plans to back up the financial sector, as the Greeks prepare for default. Papandreou, PM of Greece, just gave a speech in Thessaloniki, blaming all his problems on the previous administration. During that speech, and before and after, the PM and his entourage were petted with eggs and yogurt, as some threw rocks. That led to men in hoods causing chaos. Greece could go into bankruptcy at any time. That would be a lifesaver for Germany, Mrs. Merkel and the CDU, the Christian Democratic Union. The PM wants to take 200,000 taxi driver licenses, which are worth the price of a home, away from them and give those contracts to a German consortium. These facts are part of the equation that you never hear about.

As far as we can see the “Eurobond” is dead, but there are things known as zombies that rise from the dead. Smug Americans should be aware that NYC Legacy banks have written about $150 billion in credit default swaps and money market funds chased the yields on sovereign bonds on about 50% of their assets. How much are they at risk – $500 billion?

Five US banks control 95% of derivatives, the biggest of which by far is JPMorgan Chase, which says European and Asian banks are being subsidized and that the rules favor them, which is detrimental to US banks. This claim of course is baseless. More of a psychological distraction. European banks are probably facing losses in a mark-to-market of $500 billion to $1 trillion and US banks are off at least as bad off. As an aside the events in Europe could cost US transnational conglomerates dearly. As an example Dow Chemical gets one-third of its sales from Europe, Carnival Cruise Lines 50% and Coca Cola 100%. The rest of the Dow and the S&P 500 are in the same general category. We suppose next both European and US banks will be bailed out as too big to fail by their governments. That is what is currently in process in Germany. The week of September 11th will leave a very important imprint on the system of finance worldwide. We are sure that behind the scenes the Fed is working feverishly with European banks and governments to create money and credit in order to bail these basket cases out. All major banks have eagerly violated the rules and now expect the taxpayers of the US, UK and Europe to bail them out. Smart people are pulling all of their funds out of banks and putting their assets into gold and silver coins, bullion and shares. With that in mind the US treasury, the Fed and foreign central banks continue day after day attacking gold and silver to discredit them as safe alternative investments. It works for a few days, but the effect dies quickly. They are not fooling the informed public anymore; the flight to quality grows in intensity with each passing day.

As you can see the Greek default will open up a Pandora’s Box of problems for banks and for sovereign countries as contagion takes hold. We have seen as a result that the Swiss National Bank has linked its currency, the franc, to the plunging euro, so its goods can currently compete in the euro zone. This was a short-term decision and a terrible choice. It eliminates the Swiss franc as a safe haven currency, as money flows out of the franc on a long-term basis and into gold and silver. From our point of view a terrible choice. This is your face devaluation will be something the Swiss will pay for over a long period of time. First they roll on American accounts for the US IRS, and then they deliberately devalue. They must have financial suicide in mind. Swiss policymaking is simply dumb and that goes for other countries as well. Almost all currencies are opting for an increase in money and credit to gain time. Each entity has its propaganda machines operating full tilt. As an example of desperation Treasury Secretary Geithner was interviewed by Jim Cramer, the bombastic clown at CNBC. Cramer is bright, but he is nothing less than a cheap hustler. CNBC is now absent any real talent that is credible after the departure to CNN of Erin Burnett. The Illuminists could have arranged the job at CNN. She is a member of the CFR. The network has fossilized. Monetary expediency and fiscal profligacy are the name of the game practically worldwide. That leaves little stability and forces a flight to quality. These elitists cannot help themselves. They are trapped and there is no escape from worse trouble ahead.

Greek default, as we predicted almost two years ago, is on the way. The timing we’ll leave to the psychics, but it won’t be long. We hope it is total default, because anything less would defeat the underlying purposes. Finally, Germans have refused to throw good money after bad. They have come to realize that their part of the $4 to $6 trillion bailout of six insolvent countries would render them insolvent as well. That has led the German government to shore up its national bank structure, including landbanks, which are similar to savings & loans. The government also took a hard stance toward Greece unless it meets fiscal targets. Ring-fencing financial institutions is the German equivalent of circling the wagons.

As a result the euro fell the most in a year versus the dollar. We guess they were overlooking US exposure to European debt problems. The NYC legacy banks could lose $150 billion in credit default swaps losses and how about the $300 billion that pension and money market funds invested in Europe’s toxic bonds in search for a yield? As we have always written – never, ever, ever, chase a yield. Mr. Geithner is running hither and yon trying to find political will, when Europe has simply run out of gas. Europe’s problems are unfixable and only bankruptcy can ensue in a number of countries. The EU and the euro, the basis for one-world government is dead. The silver spike has been driven into their hearts. The bank rating reductions are underway in Europe as a result of blatantly imprudent lending. Even the exulted Lord Rothschild had to infuse capital into Societe Generale to keep it from failing two short weeks ago.

Germany leads the hit parade at the biggest holders of Greek government debt with some $22 billion in exposure. Germans are looking for 50% losses in Greek bonds; a deal they turned down 1-1/2 years ago. At the time we said they were foolish and as it turns out they were. They may get 50% but we do not think so. Germany is preparing for the worst. In six state elections since Hamburg in March the CDU has lost them all. The latest in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Merkel’s home state. We will see what happens in Berlin on Sunday. The voters in every election have rejected putting more money on the line for bailouts. An Emnid poll showed 53% of Germans oppose further bailouts. There is no question that Europe financially is upside down and headed for more trouble down the road. Do not feel left out the UK and US are close behind.

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Tags: European Central Bank, Individual Retirement Account, Jean-Claude Trichet, Jens Weidmann, Pension, Social Security, United States, United States Congress
Categories : Constitution, Economics/Monetary Policy, Personal Liberty, Police State Control, Politics

9 Presidential Traits That Make Dr. Ron Paul the Most Electable Candidate

18 09 2011

Americans need to elect a president in 2012 who is a self-made person with a track record of doing more than throwing empty words and money at problems. No more smooth-talking, self-serving presidents surrounded byWall Street types and lobbyists. We are going on 20 years of electing two lawyers (Clinton for eight years, our current president for three years) and the son of a wealthy man (Bush for eight years). The U.S. needs to elect a true public servant who has the honorable character, wisdom and experience to serve America’s well-being.

Here are the top 10 presidential traits our next president must have.

10. He is not a lawyer. (This eliminates Bachmann,Romney, our current president and Santorum, who are all lawyers.) He is not a Wall Street insider. He is not in the running due to an extremely wealthy and connected father who pulled strings and paved the way for him. (This eliminates Romney for a second time, andHuntsman.) He has a background in business and education and a track record of spending less than he makes and responsibly managing a budget. This leaves us with Rick Perry, Dr. Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich,Gary Johnson, Herman Cain (if his tenure on the Federal Reserve Board doesn’t disqualify him) and Buddy Roemer.

9. He has served in a branch of the military. Protection of the U.S. is one of the most important duties and if soldiers are to be sent overseas, the president should know the reality of that. Applying traits 10 and 9, this leaves us with only Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Dr. Ron Paul.

8. He has been faithful to his spouse. Fidelity in a marriage shows honor, self-discipline and the ability to keep a promise. Sex and money are big temptations in positions of power. He needs a track record of being able to keep his word in the face of pressure and temptation. If married, the spouse is someone who would also serve the public well.

7. He has a track record of public service, so she understands how our country and government work. He will follow the U.S. Constitution and not assert hers or her party’s agenda onto citizens, yet at the same time, she would explain and make the difficult changes that might seem unnerving at first.

6. He has strong personal values that are consistent with his voting records as well as his public and private conduct. We Americans know who we are getting when we elect him.

5. He will reverse Roe v. Wade or support defunding Planned Parenthood. He will have the courage and wisdom to initiate intelligent, rational, creative and effective research and discussions that identify the root causes of unwanted pregnancies and develop approaches that lead to reduction and prevention of them in the United States.

4. He does not have a chip on his shoulder or something to prove. He has a calming influence and seems like an ordinary person. Your mind and body feel relaxed listening to him, not on guard trying to catch tricks, evasion or half answers. He is not hypnotic, overly charismatic or charming; this type of person is often not genuine.

3. When you watch videos of him or see her on TV, He is easy to understand and makes sense. He wants to empower others rather than confuse them and keep them dependent, he is like the good teacher you had growing up who made the material understandable.

2. He has a clear written plan for the U.S.’s financial stability, economic recovery, energy independence, spending cuts, social issues, legal immigration and border protection. He eliminates self-dealing and corruption while empowering Americans through self-sufficiency and independence. He has a history and track record of follow-though, integrity and honor in his matching words and actions. He is able to identify root causes of problems and present viable solutions.

1. He is honest, forthright and a true public servant who serves America, his citizens and does not serve himself and his inner circle. You feel comfortable trusting him with your life, the lives of your family members, your security and your money — because that is exactly what you are doing when you elect the president.

Dr. Ron Paul meets nine of these 10 traits – more than any other candidate, including our current president.

Take the time to read their bios and view their campaign sites. Who would best serve the country best based on these 10 criteria?

“In the circumstances, alarm is justified. The man who isn’t alarmed simply doesn’t understand the situation — or he is crazy. But alarm is one thing, and hysteria is another. Hysteria impels people to destroy the very thing they are struggling to preserve.”
–Harry Truman

Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: Buddy Roemer, Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Ron Paul, United States, Wall Street
Categories : Constitution, Economics/Monetary Policy, Personal Liberty, Politics, Ron Paul 2012, States Rights

Congressman RON PAUL Wins California Straw Poll!

18 09 2011

LOS ANGELES – Minutes ago in front of the California Republican Party convention delegation at the JW Marriott at L.A. Live, CRP Chairman Tom Del Beccaro announced Congressman Ron Paul as the winner of the 2011 California Straw Poll. A full breakdown of the results is copied below. A total of 833 ballots were cast during the 2011 Straw Poll which included a write-in opportunity for the first time. The 2011 California Straw Poll was held on Saturday, September 17^th between 9:00AM – 5:00PM, where CRP members, associate members, and registered guests were allowed to choose their favorite from among the 11 official Republican presidential candidates.

2011 Straw Poll Full Results (Votes, %)

Congressman Ron Paul (374, 44.9%)

Governor Rick Perry (244, 29.3%)

Mitt Romney (74, 8.8%)

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (64, 7.7%)

Jon Huntsman (17, 2.0%)

Herman Cain (15, 1.8%)

Newt Gingrich (14, 1.7%)

Thad McCotter (7, 0.8%)

Rick Santorum (7, 0 Gary Johnson (2, 0.2%)

Fred Karger (1, 0.1%)

Write-ins (15, 1.8%)

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Tags: California Republican Party, Fred Karger, Herman Cain, Los Angeles, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Ron Paul, Thad McCotter
Categories : Constitution, Economics/Monetary Policy, Personal Liberty, Politics, Ron Paul 2012, States Rights

THE TOP 40 REASONS TO DOUBT THE OFFICIAL STORY OF 9/11

16 09 2011

40 REASONS TO DOUBT THE OFFICIAL STORY OF SEPTEMBER 11th, 2001

… An outline in simple talking points …

We are continuing to compile the best documentation links for every single point on this page, and intend to post the updated version as soon as possible, and create teaching tools and more from the info. This is a significant and time-consuming process–if you have useful links, please send them to janice[at]911truth[dot]org. Thanks for your help!
If you use the search function with title key words, you will discover that 911Truth.org is home to articles backing virtually every point made below. Much of the basic research is available at the Complete 9/11 Timeline (hosted by cooperativeresearch.org), the 9/11 Reading Room (911readingroom.org), and the NY Attorney General Spitzer petition and complaint (Justicefor911.org). For physical evidence discussion, see Point 7.

THE DAY ITSELF – EVIDENCE OF COMPLICITY

1) AWOL Chain of Command
a. It is well documented that the officials topping the chain of command for response to a domestic attack – George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Myers, Montague Winfield – all found reason to do something else during the actual attacks, other than assuming their duties as decision-makers.
b. Who was actually in charge? Dick Cheney, Richard Clarke, Norman Mineta and the 9/11 Commission directly conflict in their accounts of top-level response to the unfolding events, such that several (or all) of them must be lying.

2) Air Defense Failures
a. The US air defense system failed to follow standard procedures for responding to diverted passenger flights.
b. Timelines: The various responsible agencies – NORAD, FAA, Pentagon, USAF, as well as the 9/11 Commission – gave radically different explanations for the failure (in some cases upheld for years), such that several officials must have lied; but none were held accountable.
c. Was there an air defense standdown?

3) Pentagon Strike
How was it possible the Pentagon was hit 1 hour and 20 minutes after the attacks began? Why was there no response from Andrews Air Force Base, just 10 miles away and home to Air National Guard units charged with defending the skies above the nation”s capital? How did Hani Hanjour, a man who failed as a Cessna pilot on his first flight in a Boeing, execute a difficult aerobatic maneuver to strike the Pentagon? Why did the attack strike the just-renovated side, which was largely empty and opposite from the high command?

4) Wargames
a. US military and other authorities planned or actually rehearsed defensive response to all elements of the 9/11 scenario during the year prior to the attack – including multiple hijackings, suicide crashbombings, and a strike on the Pentagon.
b. The multiple military wargames planned long in advance and held on the morning of September 11th included scenarios of a domestic air crisis, a plane crashing into a government building, and a large-scale emergency in New York. If this was only an incredible series of coincidences, why did the official investigations avoid the issue? There is evidence that the wargames created confusion as to whether the unfolding events were “real world or exercise.” Did wargames serve as the cover for air defense sabotage, and/or the execution of an “inside job”?

5) Flight 93
Did the Shanksville crash occur at 10:06 (according to a seismic report) or 10:03 (according to the 9/11 Commission)? Does the Commission wish to hide what happened in the last three minutes of the flight, and if so, why? Was Flight 93 shot down, as indicated by the scattering of debris over a trail of several miles?

THE DAY – POSSIBLE SMOKING GUNS

6) Did cell phones work at 30,000 feet in 2001? How many hijackings were attempted? How many flights were diverted?

7) Demolition Hypothesis
What caused the collapse of a third skyscraper, WTC 7, which was not hit by a plane? Were the Twin Towers and WTC 7 brought down by explosives? (See “The Case for Demolitions,” the websites wtc7.net and 911research.wtc7.net, and the influential article by physicist Steven Jones. See also items no. 16 and 24, below.)
FOREKNOWLEDGE & THE ALLEGED HIJACKERS

8) What did officials know? How did they know it?
a. Multiple allied foreign agencies informed the US government of a coming attack in detail, including the manner and likely targets of the attack, the name of the operation (the “Big Wedding”), and the names of certain men later identified as being among the perpetrators.
b. Various individuals came into possession of specific advance knowledge, and some of them tried to warn the US prior to September 11th.
c. Certain prominent persons received warnings not to fly on the week or on the day of September 11th.

9) Able Danger, Plus – Surveillance of Alleged Hijackers
a. The men identified as the 9/11 ringleaders were under surveillance for years beforehand, on the suspicion they were terrorists, by a variety of US and allied authorities – including the CIA, the US military”s “Able Danger” program, the German authorities, Israeli intelligence and others.
b. Two of the alleged ringleaders who were known to be under surveillance by the CIA also lived with an FBI asset in San Diego, but this is supposed to be yet another coincidence.

10) Obstruction of FBI Investigations prior to 9/11
A group of FBI officials in New York systematically suppressed field investigations of potential terrorists that might have uncovered the alleged hijackers – as the Moussaoui case once again showed. The stories of Sibel Edmonds, Robert Wright, Coleen Rowley and Harry Samit, the “Phoenix Memo,” David Schippers, the 199i orders restricting investigations, the Bush administration”s order to back off the Bin Ladin family, the reaction to the “Bojinka” plot, and John O”Neil do not, when considered in sum, indicate mere incompetence, but high-level corruption and protection of criminal networks, including the network of the alleged 9/11 conspirators. (Nearly all of these examples were omitted from or relegated to fleeting footnotes in The 9/11 Commission Report.)

11) Insider Trading
a. Unknown speculators allegedly used foreknowledge of the Sept. 11th events to profiteer on many markets internationally – including but not limited to “put options” placed to short-sell the two airlines, WTC tenants, and WTC re-insurance companies in Chicago and London.
b. In addition, suspicious monetary transactions worth hundreds of millions were conducted through offices at the Twin Towers during the actual attacks.
c. Initial reports on these trades were suppressed and forgotten, and only years later did the 9/11 Commission and SEC provide a partial, but untenable explanation for only a small number of transactions (covering only the airline put options through the Chicago Board of Exchange).

12) Who were the perpetrators?
a. Much of the evidence establishing who did the crime is dubious and miraculous: bags full of incriminating material that happened to miss the flight or were left in a van; the “magic passport” of an alleged hijacker, found at Ground Zero; documents found at motels where the alleged perpetrators had stayed days and weeks before 9/11.
b. The identities of the alleged hijackers remain unresolved, there are contradictions in official accounts of their actions and travels, and there is evidence several of them had “doubles,” all of which is omitted from official investigations.
c. What happened to initial claims by the government that 50 people involved in the attacks had been identified, including the 19 alleged hijackers, with 10 still at large (suggesting that 20 had been apprehended)? http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-worldtrade-50suspects,0,1825231.story

THE 9/11 COVER-UP, 2001-2006

13) Who Is Osama Bin Ladin?
a. Who judges which of the many conflicting and dubious statements and videos attributed to Osama Bin Ladin are genuine, and which are fake? The most important Osama Bin Ladin video (Nov. 2001), in which he supposedly confesses to masterminding 9/11, appears to be a fake. In any event, the State Department”s translation of it is fraudulent.
b. Did Osama Bin Ladin visit Dubai and meet a CIA agent in July 2001 (Le Figaro)? Was he receiving dialysis in a Pakistani military hospital on the night of September 10, 2001 (CBS)?
c. Whether by Bush or Clinton: Why is Osama always allowed to escape?
d. The terror network associated with Osama, known as the “base” (al-Qaeda), originated in the CIA-sponsored 1980s anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. When did this network stop serving as an asset to covert operations by US intelligence and allied agencies? What were its operatives doing in Kosovo, Bosnia and Chechnya in the years prior to 9/11?

14) All the Signs of a Systematic 9/11 Cover-up
a. Airplane black boxes were found at Ground Zero, according to two first responders and an unnamed NTSB official, but they were “disappeared” and their existence is denied in The 9/11 Commission Report.
b. US officials consistently suppressed and destroyed evidence (like the tapes recorded by air traffic controllers who handled the New York flights).
c. Whistleblowers (like Sibel Edmonds and Anthony Shaffer) were intimidated, gagged and sanctioned, sending a clear signal to others who might be thinking about speaking out.
d. Officials who “failed” (like Myers and Eberhard, as well as Frasca, Maltbie and Bowman of the FBI) were given promotions.

15) Poisoning New York
The White House deliberately pressured the EPA into giving false public assurances that the toxic air at Ground Zero was safe to breathe. This knowingly contributed to an as-yet unknown number of health cases and fatalities, and demonstrates that the administration does consider the lives of American citizens to be expendable on behalf of certain interests.

16) Disposing of the Crime Scene
The rapid and illegal scrapping of the WTC ruins at Ground Zero disposed of almost all of the structural steel indispensable to any investigation of the collapse mechanics. (See also item no. 23, below.)

17) Anthrax
Mailings of weapons-grade anthrax – which caused a practical suspension of the 9/11 investigations – were traced back to US military stock. Soon after the attacks began in October 2001, the FBI approved the destruction of the original samples of the Ames strain, disposing of perhaps the most important evidence in identifying the source of the pathogens used in the mailings. Were the anthrax attacks timed to coincide with the Afghanistan invasion? Why were the letters sent only to media figures and to the leaders of the opposition in the Senate (who had just raised objections to the USA PATRIOT Act)?

18) The Stonewall
a. Colin Powell promised a “white paper” from the State Department to establish the authorship of the attacks by al-Qaeda. This was never forthcoming, and was instead replaced by a paper from Tony Blair, which presented only circumstantial evidence, with very few points actually relating to September 11th.
b. Bush and Cheney pressured the (freshly-anthraxed) leadership of the Congressional opposition into delaying the 9/11 investigation for months. The administration fought against the creation of an independent investigation for more than a year.
c. The White House thereupon attempted to appoint Henry Kissinger as the chief investigator, and acted to underfund and obstruct the 9/11 Commission.

19) A Record of Official Lies
a. “No one could have imagined planes into buildings” – a transparent falsehood upheld repeatedly by Rice, Rumsfeld and Bush.
b. “Iraq was connected to 9/11″ – The most “outrageous conspiracy theory” of all, with the most disastrous impact.

20) Pakistani Connection – Congressional Connection
a. The Pakistani intelligence agency ISI, creator of the Taliban and close ally to both the CIA and “al-Qaeda,” allegedly wired $100,000 to Mohamed Atta just prior to September 11th, reportedly through the ISI asset Omar Saeed Sheikh (later arrested for the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was investigating ISI connections to “al-Qaeda.”)
b. This was ignored by the congressional 9/11 investigation, although the senator and congressman who ran the probe (Bob Graham and Porter Goss) were meeting with the ISI chief, Mahmud Ahmed, on Capitol Hill on the morning of September 11th.
c. About 25 percent of the report of the Congressional Joint Inquiry was redacted, including long passages regarding how the attack (or the network allegedly behind it) was financed. Graham later said foreign allies were involved in financing the alleged terror network, but that this would only come out in 30 years.

21) Unanswered Questions and the “Final Fraud” of the 9/11 Commission:
a. The September 11th families who fought for and gained an independent investigation (the 9/11 Commission) posed 400-plus questions, which the 9/11 Commission adopted as its roadmap. The vast majority of these questions were completely ignored in the Commission hearings and the final report.
b. The membership and staff of the 9/11 Commission displayed awesome conflicts of interest. The families called for the resignation of Executive Director Philip Zelikow, a Bush administration member and close associate of “star witness” Condoleezza Rice, and were snubbed. Commission member Max Cleland resigned, condemning the entire exercise as a “scam” and “whitewash.”
c.The 9/11 Commission Report is notable mainly for its obvious omissions, distortions and outright falsehoods – ignoring anything incompatible with the official story, banishing the issues to footnotes, and even dismissing the still-unresolved question of who financed 9/11 as being “of little practical significance.”

22) Crown Witnesses Held at Undisclosed Locations
The alleged masterminds of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohamed (KSM) and Ramzi Binalshibh, are reported to have been captured in 2002 and 2003, although one Pakistani newspaper said KSM was killed in an attempted capture. They have been held at undisclosed locations and their supposed testimonies, as provided in transcript form by the government, form much of the basis for The 9/11 Commission Report (although the Commission”s request to see them in person was denied). After holding them for years, why doesn”t the government produce these men and put them to trial?

23) Spitzer Redux
a. Eliot Spitzer, attorney general of New York State, snubbed pleas by New York citizens to open 9/11 as a criminal case (Justicefor911.org).
b. Spitzer also refused to allow his employee, former 9/11 Commission staff member Dietrich Snell, to testify to the Congress about his (Snell”s) role in keeping “Able Danger” entirely out of The 9/11 Commission Report.

24) NIST Omissions
After the destruction of the WTC structural steel, the official Twin Towers collapse investigation was left with almost no forensic evidence, and thus could only provide dubious computer models of ultimately unprovable hypotheses. It failed to even test for the possibility of explosives. (Why not clear this up?)

25) Radio Silence
The 9/11 Commission and NIST both allowed the continuing cover-up of how Motorola”s faulty radios, purchased by the Giuliani administration, caused firefighter deaths at the WTC – once again showing the expendability, even of the first responders.

26) The Legal Catch-22
a. Hush Money – Accepting victims” compensation barred September 11th families from pursuing discovery through litigation.
b. Judge Hallerstein – Those who refused compensation to pursue litigation and discovery had their cases consolidated under the same judge (and as a rule dismissed).

27) Saudi Connections
a. The 9/11 investigations made light of the “Bin Ladin Airlift” during the no-fly period, and ignored the long-standing Bush family business ties to the Bin Ladin family fortune. (A company in which both families held interests, the Carlyle Group, was holding its annual meeting on September 11th, with George Bush Sr., James Baker, and two brothers of Osama Bin Ladin in attendance.)
b. The issue of Ptech.

28) Media Blackout of Prominent Doubters
The official story has been questioned and many of the above points were raised by members of the US Congress, retired high-ranking officers of the US military, the three leading third-party candidates for President in the 2004 election, a member of the 9/11 Commission who resigned in protest, a former high-ranking adviser to the George W. Bush administration, former ministers to the German, British and Canadian governments, the commander-in-chief of the Russian air force, 100 luminaries who signed the “9/11 Truth Statement,” and the presidents of Iran and Venezuela. Not all of these people agree fully with each other, but all would normally be considered newsworthy. Why has the corporate-owned US mass media remained silent about these statements, granting due coverage only to the comments of actor Charlie Sheen?

GEOPOLITICS, TIMING AND POSSIBLE MOTIVES

29) “The Great Game”
The Afghanistan invasion was ready for Bush”s go-ahead on September 9, 2001, with US and UK force deployments to the region already in place or underway. This followed the failure earlier that year of backdoor diplomacy with the Taliban (including payments of $125 million in US government aid to Afghanistan), in an attempt to secure a unity government for that country as a prerequisite to a Central Asian pipeline deal.

30) The Need for a “New Pearl Harbor”
Principals in US foreign policy under the current Bush administration (including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle and others) have been instrumental in developing long-running plans for worldwide military hegemony, including an invasion of the Middle East, dating back to the Ford, Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations. They reiterated these plans in the late 1990s as members of the “Project for a New American Century,” and stated a clear intent to invade Iraq for the purpose of “regime change.” After 9/11, they lost no time in their attempt to tie Iraq to the attacks.

31) Perpetual “War on Terror”
9/11 is supposed to provide carte-blanche for an open-ended, global and perpetual “War on Terror,” against any enemy, foreign or domestic, that the executive branch chooses to designate, and regardless of whether evidence exists to actually connect these enemies to 9/11.

32) Attacking the Constitution
a. The USA PATRIOT Act was written before 9/11, Homeland Security and the “Shadow Government” were developed long before 9/11, and plans for rounding up dissidents as a means for suppressing civil disturbance have been in the works for decades.
b. 9/11 was used as the pretext to create a new, extra-constitutional executive authority to declare anyone an “enemy combatant” (including American citizens), to detain persons indefinitely without habeas corpus, and to “render” such persons to secret prisons where torture is practiced.

33) Legal Trillions
9/11 triggers a predictable shift of public spending to war, and boosts public and private spending in the “new” New Economy of “Homeland Security,” biometrics, universal surveillance, prisons, civil defense, secured enclaves, security, etc.

34) Plundered Trillions?
On September 10, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld announced a “war on waste” after an internal audit found that the Pentagon was “missing” 2.3 trillion dollars in unaccounted assets. On September 11th, this was as good as forgotten.

35) Did 9/11 prevent a stock market crash?
Did anyone benefit from the destruction of the Securities and Exchange Commission offices at WTC 7, and the resultant crippling of hundreds of fraud investigations?

36) Resource Wars
a. What was discussed in the Energy Task Force meetings under Dick Cheney in 2001? Why is the documentation of these meetings still being suppressed?
b. Is Peak Oil a motive for 9/11 as inside job?

37) The “Little Game”
Why was the WTC privatized just before its destruction?

HISTORY

38) “Al-CIA-da?”
The longstanding relationship between US intelligence networks and radical Islamists, including the network surrounding Osama Bin Ladin. (See also point 13d.)

39) Historical Precedents for “Synthetic Terror”
a. In the past many states, including the US government, have sponsored attacks on their own people, fabricated the “cause for war,” created (and armed) their own enemies of convenience, and sacrificed their own citizens for “reasons of state.”
b. Was 9/11 an update of the Pentagon-approved “Project Northwoods” plan for conducting self-inflicted, false-flag terror attacks in the United States, and blaming them on a foreign enemy?

40) Secret Government
a. The record of criminality and sponsorship of coups around the world by the covert networks based within the US intelligence complex.
b. Specifically also: The evidence of crime by Bush administration principals and their associates, from October Surprise to Iran-Contra and the S&L plunder to PNAC, Enron/Halliburton and beyond.

REASON NUMBER 41:
RELATED MOVEMENTS AND PARALLEL ISSUES

Ground Zero aftermath movements:
- Justice for the air-poisoning cover-up (wtceo.org)
- “Radio Silence” (radiosilencefdny.com)
- Skyscraper Safety (www.skyscrapersafety.org).

Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: 9/11 Commission, 9/11 Commission Report, Central Intelligence Agency, Coleen Rowley, George W. Bush, Hani Hanjour, Phoenix Memo, World Trade Center
Categories : Constitution, Economics/Monetary Policy, Globalism, Personal Liberty, Police State Control, Politics, Science/Tech

Ron Paul IS Electable, But The Media Would Have You Think Otherwise

15 09 2011

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has a good chance of winning his party’s nomination and the presidency next year, yet few in the media (mainstream or otherwise) seem to notice.

Ensuring that voters understand this is essential to having an informed discussion about the direction the country should take in the coming years.This is especially true because of the frequency in which people write off the congressman since they consider him unelectable.

Before we begin, I should note that I write this as someone who does not agree with Paul on everything, does not belong to any group advocating his election and does not plan to join any group advocating such.

I also write this, however, as someone who shares his passion for promoting personal and economic freedom and as someone who believes he is probably the only presidential candidate from any party that has a chance of doing net good while in office.

With that said, let’s look at some of the major indicators of electability in order to determine just how good a shot Paul has.

For many, the most important question regarding electability is a candidate’s performance in head-to-head matchups against the president. By this metric, Paul does very well, averaging 41.5 percent to President Barack Obama’s 43 percent in polls conducted in the last month.

Only one candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, does better by this standard, and his average margin of victory against the president is just 0.6 percent. Additionally, only one other candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, comes close to either Romney or Paul, losing to the president by an average of 2.5 percent.

This means voters looking for a candidate that can beat Obama but that has a more consistent record of promoting limited government than Romney or Perry should give the congressman another look.

After considering his chances against the president, most people are curious about Paul’s performance in national polling relative to his fellow Republican contenders. Despite the cable news channels’ fervent efforts to elevate statist, warmongering candidates such as Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Paul has consistently placed third among announced candidates for about two weeks.

His average standing in the national polls among declared GOP candidates since Aug. 27, according to RealClearPolitics.com, is third place (9.2 percent), behind Perry (31.8 percent) and Romney (19.8 percent). This still leaves him a distant third, but he has gone from trailing Bachmann by seven percent on July 20 to leading by three points as of Tuesday.

Those who think Paul is too far behind to make a surge should recall that, at this point in the 2008 cycle, Arizona Sen. John McCain, the eventual GOP nominee, was in a distant third place (15.3 percent), trailing former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (28.6 percent) and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson (23.4 percent).

In addition, polls conducted in states that hold the first primaries and caucuses can be very important.

There has only been one general poll conducted in the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire in the last month, but Paul placed a solid third in it, earning 14 percent, much less than Romney’s 36 percent but quite close to Perry’s 18 percent. RealClearPolitics.com lists three polls conducted in the leading caucus state of Iowa in the last month, and Paul averages a respectable fourth in those.

The fact that he came within one percentage point of winning the Ames Straw Poll in August, however, is a strong indication of a passionate, well-organized following, something that will be especially beneficial in small-scale contests such as caucuses and small-state primaries.This recent success in polls of Republicans in these consequential states means Paul has the potential to catch a major break if he can win or place second in one or both.

Finally, one metric that can influence and be influenced by polling numbers is fundraising success.

In the second quarter of this year (the most recent complete quarter) Paul was second only to Romney in fundraising, and his margin over the third-place fundraiser (former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who has since dropped out) was a comfortable $4.5 million to $4.2 million.

This is an indication that he will be able to compete with the president’s fundraising machine in the general election.

The above figures do not prove Ron Paul is destined to be the GOP nominee and our 45th president, but the news media should acknowledge that they at least prove his viability as a contender.

Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: Ames Straw Poll, Barack Obama, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, republican, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Ron Paul
Categories : Constitution, Economics/Monetary Policy, Personal Liberty, Politics, Ron Paul 2012, States Rights

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