More than a quarter of small businesses struggle to find ‘suitably skilled’ staff despite rising unemployment, a survey revealed yesterday.

The report by the Federation of Small Businesses said many of its members were desperate to hire workers but could not find them.

It warned many school leavers and graduates lacked basic skills needed for a job.

These range from turning up on time for an interview to being able to write basic English or do the most elementary maths.

The survey of more than 1,500 small businesses showed a ‘worrying’ 27 per cent have ‘found it difficult to find suitably skilled staff’.

The issue will be investigated as part of an inquiry into entrepreneurship by the Federation of Small Businesses and MPs on the All-Party Parliamentary Small Business Group.

Brian Binley, Tory MP and chairman of the parliamentary group, said: ‘Small and medium-sized businesses and entrepreneurs are expected to be driving economic growth in support of Britain’s recovery.

‘But they are finding it difficult to get the right people to help them in that task.’

One of the big problems was ‘the poor performance in our primary and secondary schools, especially with regard to literacy and numeracy’.

Unemployment has jumped to a 17-year high of 2.62million, amid warnings it will continue to rise as the Government cuts the state workforce.

Despite the massive number of people looking for a job, there are still 464,000 unfilled vacancies, according to the Office for National Statistics.

To add to the problems facing small firms, the report also found 34 per cent had ‘difficulty securing finance’.

The Federation of Small Businesses is calling on the Government to create more competition on the high street to break up the dominance of the ‘big five’ banks – Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Santander and RBS.

The Department for Education said the Government was ‘prioritising’ literacy and numeracy by ‘recruiting specialist maths teachers, introducing a phonics-based reading check for six-year-olds and restoring the rigour of GCSE and A-level exams’.

Source.

by Bob Chapman
International Forecaster – 2011-06-18

As far as we can discern the US Treasury thus far has spent and borrowed about $100 billion from the federal pension accounts. Unless there is a vote on the cash debt extension prior to August 2nd, government will probably have borrowed some $250 billion to $300 billion. The Treasury is paying virtually no interest on this debt. Three-month Treasury bills are currently yielding zero percent. Our question is how will the funds be generated to fulfill the Treasury’s obligation to the pension fund? What happens if on August 2nd if legislation is not passed? Does this go on forever? We will keep you apprised on new developments.

The current situation regarding the state of recovery in the US has turned from precarious to dismal and as we predicted a year ago May we will have to be treated to QE3 something no one really wants, but as we said before it is inevitable. The Fed and their controllers, the member bank owners of the Fed, know the present approach doesn’t work and it is only a matter of time, as a result of their policies, when more stimulus will be needed, which in turn leads to more inflation.

Due to the current state of affairs Fed Chairman Bernanke has been making one appearance on TV after another. He gets grilled over and over again and he doesn’t like the public reception at all. He shouldn’t, as more and more observers see that two quantitative easings haven’t worked. They cost at least $3.6 trillion in funds created out of thin air, and all they have done is prolong the agony. The flip side is the policy has caused higher inflation. What else can one expect when deficits astound and the Fed has to buy $1.6 trillion in Treasury bonds. A large percentage of this debt is used to wage perpetual war for perpetual peace. During this process the President has bypassed the Constitution and is deliberately repressing the freedoms of American citizens. There no longer is a separation of powers, but virtual dictatorship bought and paid for by Wall Street and banking.

It should be firmly implanted in your mind that your masters in government and those controlling government brazenly and arrogantly believe that they know better what is good for you, than you do. That is why when they speak to you their answers are dripping with condescension – as if to say, how dare you question what we tell you. Fed Chairman, Mr. Bernanke, is a perfect example of this. He, others and his predecessors have created a false economy based upon perpetual debt and upon money and credit being created out of thin air. Today that is accompanied with zero interest rates, a combination that in time can only bring a falling dollar, inflation and a collapsing economy. Mr. Bernanke appears to believe that an increased supply of money has little or no effect on the comparison between money and the prices of goods. He has to be living in a fairy tale land. Thinking such as this can only end up making a bad economic situation worse.

For more than a month the US has been faced with the task of extending the short-term debt limit. The game that is being played is that one side wants to cut the deficit and the other side does not. In reality both sides do not want to cut anything, or should we say the elitists who control these supposed representatives of the people do not want anything cut. They want the game to continue, so they can continue to loot the economy, an interesting take on this sideshow is if Treasury debt is not increased the situation grinds to a standstill.

Congress, the President and the so-called negotiators want an increase in this short-term debt of $2.4 trillion. That would be a short-term debt limit of $16.7 trillion to carry the debt limit past the next election. The offset of reduced spending is to come over the next ten years. How ridiculous and ludicrous. Do they really expect us to buy this charade?

The most recent strategy by the elitists is to keep Japan’s problems under wraps. Just do not let it into the media, even though some Japanese officials say the island could become uninhabitable. This is also why President Obama went to see Chancellor Merkel in Berlin. He urged her to make a deal to settle the Greek problem. He doesn’t understand that such a deal would make her and her party, the CDU, unelectable for a long time. The German citizens want Greece cut loose. They’ll take the losses and the result is many banks will go under. The President is as well trying to bolster his approval ratings.

The propaganda is flowing to keep Americans from panicking in the face of not recovering, no short-term debt extension, municipal and state failures and Europe starting to collapse. The elitists are in serious trouble due to these problems. The icing on the cake for them is the disaster that the Bilderberg meeting turned into in Switzerland.

US consumer confidence is lower now than it was at the beginning of the credit crisis. That isn’t unexpected when unemployment is rising, retail is falling and the manufacturing numbers out of Chicago and New York are falling steeply.

What professionals for the most part do not seem to understand is that the events of 2006/07 have never been solved. On February 2009 the inflationary depression began. There has now been a double dip since then. What we have witnessed is slight revivals caused by the injection of money and credit. Unemployment is close to the same level it was 2-1/2 to 3 years ago. That phenomenon has been the same in the UK and Europe. In the UK the Bank of England and in Europe the ECB are doing the same thing the Fed is doing and that is buying government debt by creating money and credit out of thin air. The City of London, Wall Street and Frankfurt would have you believe these injections into the systems were working, when in fact all they have done is temporarily bail out Wall Street and the City of London and the European financial centers as well as the governments involved. Nothing has been done to structurally assist the system and put people back to work. What readers have to understand is that what has been done to these economies does not work and the participants know it doesn’t work. Professionals, who are not connected with the elitists, have panicked, because they do not understand what is going on – what is being done to them. The market was ripe to fall, but there is another important factor, Wall Street wants a short-term debt extension with little or no spending cutbacks. The new conservatives say no, we are not going to do that. The market will be taken lower until these representatives see the light. How far are they willing to take the market down, probably to between 8,500 to 10,000 on the Dow, or until Congress gives them what they want. In the meantime they will attack commodities, gold and silver, so no one can profit. Unfortunately for them, that isn’t working this time. They are lower, but come back every time they are artificially pushed down. We believe that is what this market correction is all about. Wall Street will take the market down as far as they have to in order to get what they want. In the meantime the Middle East and Europe are in turmoil and wars abound in a number of Middle Eastern countries. Those on the inside understand that the market is fueled by major deficit spending and the injection of money and credit, as government inflates debt away. The economy and the market for the last two years have not justified stock prices at the level they have maintained during that period. The same is true for the UK and Europe.

Most of the professionals do not understand what is really going on and what is being done to them and their clients. Data is weak and getting weaker as economic statistics continue to fall and point to more problems ahead. This is ample justification for a falling market to aid the deliberate reduction in prices. We must remember that the only bastion of gains for the public left is the market. If it comes down Congress will hear from constituents loud and clear. That is what is supposed to force the issue on passing the short-term debt extension.

As a reaction to this free spending foreign governments have slowed or stopped their purchase of Treasury and Agency bonds leaving the job to the Fed. This problem is going to worsen as we go forward. Now it is not only foreign governments that are slowing purchases, but also American households as well. They are selling more than $1 trillion annually and sales are increasing, as mom, pop and hedge funds dump government paper.

As QE2 nears an end investors are getting emotional. It is called panic. They can expect little from the FOMC next week, Europe can expect the same from the EU meeting the following week. Greece is in a state of revolution and there is no agreement in sight. In fact, the banks, governments, the EU and the IMF cannot agree on anything. The Greeks want a break in terms. If they do not get one it is default.

We predicted Greece would pursue these ends and we told them to do so several times on radio, TV and in the press. A Greek default will not only bring the euro down, it will take down the European banking system and that was our intention from the beginning.

Greece and the other countries in financial and economic trouble should have never been included in the euro zone. They simply were not qualified and the solvent countries not only knew that, but also stood by as these countries cooked the books with the help of JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup. We wrote about it 11 years ago, but no one was listening.

The Greeks after a year of austerity have had enough of it, and are in no mood to give away their country to the bankers. An interest in the telecom company was recently sold to the Germans for $0.30 on the dollar. The Greeks are not going to stand still for anymore such sweetheart deals. When Greece entered the euro zone on January 1, 2001, they were happy to have an austerity program for entry in as much as they had the highest inflation rate in Europe. Their deficits were higher than any other EU country at that time, but the bank and sovereign loans kept coming, because it was political. The EU and the euro zone were to be the template for the new world currency and the new world government. That is why Greece and others were rushed into the euro zone. Then there was the novel and stupid concept of one interest for all, which we said at the time guaranteed disaster, and that is what we have ten years later.

We have recommended the purchase of gold and silver coins, bullion and shares since June 2000, after we got subscribers and others out of the stock market in the second week of April 2000, two weeks after the top. We did the same thing at Dow 14,000 and predicted a bottom at 6,600. The fall was to 6,550. We got subscribers out of the real estate market starting in June of 2005. As you can see we have been on top of things all those years. The call on the destruction of the euro we hope will be our best call yet. The perceived risk from our point of view is that Greece will default and leave the euro to be followed by Ireland and Portugal and later Belgium, Spain and Italy. It will probably take two to three years for this to become reality. Germans do not want the euro and never have wanted it. We believe within three years every country will be back with their own currencies and the dream of one world government for now in Europe will be a dead issue.

The Greek fallout will take down a number of too big to fail European banks, and could cause serious harm to lender countries. These mistakes will not be anything they will do again, anytime soon. We do not believe the Fed will be able to bail out European banks this time. The American public won’t stand for it after having to go to federal appellate court and traverse two years to find out the Fed lied and overstepped its charter by being banker to the world. The problems in the US are similar to those of Europe and it is only a matter of time before the US financially blows up. If Greek yields can go to 17-1/2%, so can yields in all countries in trouble, and there are plenty of them. The taxpayers in the US, UK and Europe are fed up with paying the bill for all of this speculation and mad political escapades. That will soon come to an end. It has too, as bankruptcy seems to be the only option. Three-month Treasury bills yield zero percent, and 2-year bills yield 0.40%, as the 10’s yield 2.91%. There now is only one way for yields to go and that is up. There is a limit to credit creation, but we are not at the juncture as yet. It is probably two years off, perhaps three years.

One of the aspects of the debt disease we haven’t really discussed is the fallout from Greece if and when it goes under. Thirty-three European banks hold large amounts of bonds in the PIIG countries, and they could all go under if the 5 or 6 weak countries go bankrupt. In addition, there are the countries and others who are loaded with these bonds. Like the Fed the ECB has been bailing out banks and it is against the rules, so that could put the officers in legal jeopardy. The very fact that these bankers broke the rules is onerous. The big question is are they headed for jail? If they have made mistakes the taxpayer has to pay the bills. We believe they should be in jail. The bill for exposure to the debt of the 5 financially weak nations could be $625 billion. The ECB has done the same thing the Fed has done and that is bankroll insolvent banks by buying the toxic waste they own and putting it on their balance sheets, which the public get to pay for. It is the socialization of corporate debt, fascist style. Most of the garbage has no value or little value. We always wonder what prices the Fed and the ECB pay for the soiled merchandise. Both refuse to tell us.

It is said the ECB is using 24 to 1 leverage with only $116 billion in capital and reserves. If assets fall 4.25% its entire capital base would be wiped out. That could easily happen if Greece and the other four PIIGS default. We call that ominous because none of the problem countries want to repay the debt to a gaggle of bankers who are nothing but criminals. Our take is the 5 will eventually default and perhaps Belgium as well. That means the ECB is insolvent and the major banks throughout the euro zone are as well, including many central banks. Professionals do not have a clue about how serious this is to the entire world financial system. Perhaps we are wrong. The ECB only has $268 billion in Greek bonds. That is simply a trifle for such big socialist hitters. Yet, it is double their capital base.

A Greek default would put 94% of the direct losses on European creditors and 5% would be shared by US creditors. The other side of the equation is US companies making some 90% of all losses being owed by US writers of default insurance. These US banks have sold $120 billion of credit default swaps to European banks. These are the banks that are too big to fail, which American taxpayers will have to pick up the losses for. Have those US banks hedged their exposure? We do not know, but we do know what they have done is irrational and incompetent. That is unless the US or the Fed had to for some reason guarantee losses. Something similar to what we suspected in the US banks’ sale of toxic waste to these same European banks. If the Fed, the Treasury and the Exchange Stabilization Fund are audited we will find out. These numbers are staggering, but their exposure to $100 billion in Irish debt is equally as onerous.

Such speculation and secret deals have to come to an end if we are going to survive financially. We definitely need to re-pass the Glass-Steagall Act that we fought hard to protect 13 years ago.

We can promise you that if Greece defaults eventually the ECB will be insolvent. We have dreamed of that day for 12 years. The destruction of the ECB and the euro zone, which would in part destroy the Illuminist drive into world government.

We think in order to avoid such a catastrophe the ECB would simply print more money as the Fed has, prolonging the agony. The real bailout mechanism would be France and Germany to put up their gold to save the euro zone and the euro. That is if the US allows Germany to have their gold. We can promise you that if the politicians of these two countries attempted to use their countries gold as collateral or propose its sale they would be lynched.

Like the Fed, the ECB has no credibility left. It is obvious that these two central banks only mission is to save the financial system that owns them. When are people going to smarten up? The ECB and the bankers thought Greece and the Greek people would be a pushover. The bankers thought they would just move in and loot the country. Once the Greeks were educated on the issues they made the proper choices. That is why we spent so much time on radio, TV and in the press there. Now they know the truth and the bankers, the euro and the EU are screwed. The ECB, as a result, is dead meat whether they realize it or not.

World debt is unpayable, especially that of the US, UK and the euro zone. The only solution is collapse. There can be no saving the system. It is only a matter of time and what the catalyst is. It could be Greece.

Press TV – Budget cuts, CCTV’s, bail-outs, unemployment and police brutality. Welcome to Europe! a continent that they themselves claim practicing free-market policies and being more democratic than most other countries.

Interestingly however, these past years they have all experienced a downward trend in most sectors, but of course not in military operations abroad.

Up until the Second World War, the European nations had colonized huge parts of the world. Even after the war, when the global decolonization had commenced, their presence was felt all over the world, as they had their corporations in most countries extracting resources. So when the price of oil and other natural resources began to increase some years ago, these nations were naturally first to cash in on the profit.

In a free-market economy, this should mean an increase in wealth and job opportunities for the entire society. Yet a 2008 UN report paints a different picture. The gap between the rich and poor households has witnessed a dramatic increase since 1990, despite the economic growth and creation of million jobs prior to the current financial crises.

The reason for this can be summed up in one much talked about term, inflation! Meaning that either prices have risen, or the purchasing power of money has decreased.

So when the employees wish to enjoy their income, they have to do this on credit. Consequently, debt increases, and now people are even more in debt. Being in debt however, is equal to a lack of wealth. Still people keep spending with their illusionary wealth, or what most of us would call, a credit card. What else could they do? After all, the same UN report tells us how the only way to save an ailing economy is to consume more.

And right now, everyone is in debts. Even companies and governments have debts they cannot repay. This has happened to some of the largest multinational companies, in some of the “wealthiest” European countries, such as the UBS of Switzerland or Northern Rock of England. Despite being bailed-out, they are still cutting down on certain expenses with the claim that they have to balance their financial statements. Unfortunately, it is only the man in the street that feels these cuts, lower wages and/or working conditions, longer hours of work and yet major bonuses are paid out to the elite.

This burden is clearer on ordinary citizens when the governments are faced with debts. In order not to default, which really is only a nicer way of saying not to have their regimes collapse, these governments have to both raise taxes and cut budgets.

The European governments have practically cut budgets in all sectors, except for bailing out big corporations, paying bonuses to the elite and of course in expanding their military operations abroad. No wonder people have again turned to the streets, protesting at their governments. 1st of May saw clashes between demonstrators and the police in England and Germany again. And now there are once more clashes in Greece. These clashes have been on and off for over a year now.

After all, why should military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and now Libya continue, when unemployment has reached 15.9% in Greece? Or when Northern Irelands Health department has to sack 4000 of its employees? When an increasing number of tenants in England are having problem paying their rents? When the UK national debt has reached the incredible amount of £ 1’000’000’000’000, and is increasing by £ 7’000 a second? When tuition fees have risen so much that education may soon become a luxury service? And who would ever believe that BBC would be in such a bad shape that it has to cut 25% of its budget? And yes, the same goes for most European multinational companies, downsizing their operations, shutting down factories and offices, cutting budgets, sacking people and most are happy if they have a better month than the previous month.

I suppose you could say it all started in Greece in early 2010, when its government declared the country is going bankrupt. And later, Portugal together along with the IMF and EU agreed to a €78 billion bail-out plan.

Now, this one little act of being bailed out, something so many companies and now more and more countries are faced with in a part of the world that claims to be enjoying a free-market economy, shows how these countries do not practice free-market policies at all. As in a free market, if a company is doing badly, it will lose its market share to a more successful company, and it might even be eliminated by this other company.

So, there is no free market in these countries. Instead what we have is a Casino economy. Where, you will literary gamble your own money, hoping to cash in big, but you lose. Now you are too scared to go home to tell your spouse that you have lost all your savings, so instead you go to the bank hoping that with the credit you might win your money back and even enjoy a small profit. But instead, you lose the banks money too. And now you are really scared to go home. Not only did you lose your savings, which was meant to pay for your children’s education, buy you that new car so you could have better transportation and pay for your sunny holiday trip because you need to recharge your batteries, but you also lost the banks money.

Hence, you will have to pay interest each month till this new debt is gone, so your monthly expenses have risen and you will have to cut back on your other expenses, less leisure, cheaper clothes and food, no new toys for the kids and so on. And instead of doing the right thing, which would be leaving the casino, letting your spouse know what you have done, and working together to get through this crises to be back on your feet as soon as possible, you go to the bank to spend some more of the money that is not yours, simply because the United Nation tells you that spending is good.

This ‘gambleholic’, is your employer in the company that you are working for. It is the members of parliament and the government that are running your country. The savings that has been gambled away was meant to create more job opportunities for youths, make it easier for youths to financially survive while undertaking a university degree, reduce inflation, improve health services, increase public safety and make life better for the retired.

The employer, the politician, and the leaders of the European nations have not done what they had to. They did not tell their people how they lost the people’s money. Instead they told them everything is fine and the economy is recovering, so you can go out and spend more. They even told their people if they are out of money, they could always take a loan. Then they told them, from now on everyone should save their money in pension funds, or, you will have no money when you are retired. All so the leaders could hit the slot machines. Most citizens that have retired these past years in Europe cannot even pay their own rent, as share prices in all stock exchanges all over Europe have gone down.

Now the situation is really bad in most of Europe. There have been so many cuts that hospitals, prisons and courthouses are not only sacking some employees, but closing down several branches. Universities are no longer being built to support the growth in population, but they are instead either being shut down, tuition fees are increasing, financial aid to university students are diminishing and filters are put into place to filter away unwanted students-to-be to never be accepted for a degree.

So it should not come as a surprise, when Greeks have once more turned to the streets, demonstrating against their governments spending spree. The question that remains is when will these leaders listen to their people?

KINGSTON, NY, 4 May 2011— From the fans at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia to the mobs at the White House gates, “USA, USA,” was the chant heard across the nation. Jubilant Americans celebrated the breaking news that Public Enemy No.1, terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden was dead.

Ten years have passed since the Twin Towers toppled and the Pentagon was whacked. After two failing wars and billions of dollars spent on the global manhunt to bring in Bin Laden “Dead or Alive,” America has now claimed victory. “This is bigger than the moon landing, this is huge,” exclaimed Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera.

“Justice has been done,” intoned President Barack Obama announcing Bin Laden’s death. He not only called it “a good day for America,” but also declared that “The world is safer. It is a better place because of the death of Osama Bin Laden.”

While Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed the sentiment that “justice has been served,” she evidently took issue with the Presidential vision of a “safer” world, warning that terror “won’t stop with the death of Bin Laden, we must redouble our efforts.”

If it’s a “safer” world, why the need to “redouble our efforts”? These were but two of the contradictions coming from the White House in the early hours of the breaking story, and many discrepancies would follow. Some of them would be noted and debated, but totally absent from the 24/7 news coverage, political “high-fives” and patriotic triumphalism was the simple question: Why did Osama Bin Laden, former mujahedin ally of the United States, turn against it to become Public Enemy No.1?

Was it that he and his Al Qaeda fighters suddenly decided to hate America’s “freedom and liberties” as George W. Bush maintained? Or was it remotely possible that the attacks were motivated by US foreign policy – with its unconditional support of Israel and concomitant support of the same Middle East monarchs, autocrats and dictators now being toppled in the wave of revolution?

Also absent from America’s non-stop exultation and self-congratulation, absent from the acres of newsprint and the countless hours of air time, was any discussion of the practical consequences of the death of Bin Laden who, before making it back into the headlines, had been both a fading memory and a non-issue.
Osama Bin Who?

So irrelevant had Bin Laden and his jihad rhetoric become that, in the months preceding his assassination, every one of the uprisings occurring throughout the Middle East and North Africa was secular and in direct opposition to Bin Laden’s militant pan-Islamic vision.

In a sentence: There were no practical consequences whatsoever attending the death of Osama Bin Laden. It would do nothing to:

Help America win losing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Lower the unemployment rate.
Stop the US or European nations from sinking deeper into recessions and depression.
Revive failing real estate markets or solve the debt and deficit crises.
Lower oil and food prices.
Reverse the damage or stop the radioactive fallout from Fukushima.

What Osama’s death did do was boost the President’s sagging poll numbers and deflect public attention from the news that really mattered.

On Wednesday, April 27th, just four days before Bin Laden was killed, a new Public Enemy No.1 held his organization’s first ever press conference. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told the world that the United States would continue its low interest rate polices and, in effect, continue to flood the world with cheap money.

The global equity markets immediately responded to the predictably destructive consequences. Before Bernanke ended the press conference, gold prices shot up $20 an ounce, silver $2, and the dollar fell to a 3 year low against a trade-weighted basket of currencies. Despite the Chairman’s claims to the contrary, the US dollar would continue to devalue and subsequently dollar based commodity prices would soar.

Needing neither a mountain lair nor sequestration behind closed Fed doors, the new Public Enemy No.1, “Osama” Ben Bernanke committed, in broad daylight, an act of financial terrorism that would have far reaching and long lasting implications for the American public. As the value of the dollar went down, the cost of nearly everything would go up…excepting the cost of “risk.”

This meant that financiers could continue to speculate and exploit the equity markets, with the profits going only to the 10 percent of Americans that owned 90 percent of the stocks, bonds and mutual funds. Moreover, the Fed reasoned the cheap dollar would also give a competitive edge to big US exporters. But as exports rose, so did the price of imports, putting further strains on average consumers whose real wages fell ever further behind the pace of inflation.

Bombs Away

What Osama Bin Laden’s death also did was to deflect attention from the US/NATO “humanitarian” mission in Libya, which, just two days earlier, had delivered several humanitarian bombs upon the home of Muammar Qaddafi’s son, killing him and three of his children.

The bungled attempt to assassinate Qaddafi (who had been visiting his son) was condemned by Russia, brought recriminations against NATO from other UN members for overstepping the UN mandate, and called into question the legality of the air strike. With a groundswell of public sympathy building around the world for Qaddafi’s murdered grandchildren, the very purpose and future of the entire mission was being called into question.

Trend Forecast: With the death of Osama Bin Laden, the restored, rebuilt, new and improved terror bandwagon rolls again…and it will keep rolling until Election Day 2012. Whether a real terror attack happens or not, Barack Obama, as he has done before, will take a page from the G.W. Bush playbook and keep the American public in a state of fear and hysteria.

And should terror strike the US, UK, France or other NATO ally, their governments, media “presstitutes,” pundits, and the public at large will debate and deplore the “cowardly act” and demand “swift justice.” They will blame Bin Laden sympathizers, Al Qaeda cells, Muammar Qaddafi, radical Islamists…but never will they blame themselves. They will refuse to acknowledge that what they called “terror” was nothing more than “revenge”; reprisal for foreign meddling in the domestic affairs of other nations, or retaliation for military invasions launched by the US, UK, France or other NATO ally upon a sovereign nation.

Meanwhile, back in DC, the Chairman of the Fed, Public Enemy No.1, “Osama” Ben Bernanke, will mastermind the destruction of the American dollar, the US economy and the purchasing power of the American people.

As we have been forecasting for years, gold, despite its recent pull back, is on-trend to reach $2000 per ounce (and possibly higher). And while Ben Bernanke claims that inflation is merely “transitory,” considering his penchant for printing trillions of digital dollars not worth the paper it’s not printed on, we see inflation as both entrenched and rising.

BBC – The president of the World Bank has warned that the world is “one shock away from a full-blown crisis”.

Robert Zoellick cited rising food prices as the main threat to poor nations who risk “losing a generation”.

He was speaking in Washington at the end of the spring meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Meanwhile, G20 finance chiefs, who also met in Washington, pledged financial support to help new governments in the Middle East and North Africa.

Mr Zoellick said such support was vital.

“The crisis in the Middle East and North Africa underscores how we need to put the conclusions from our latest world development report into practice. The report highlighted the importance of citizen security, justice and jobs,” he said.

He also called for the World Bank to act quickly to support reforms in the region.

“Waiting for the situation to stabilise will mean lost opportunities. In revolutionary moments the status quo is not a winning hand.”

At the Washington meetings, turmoil in the Middle East, volatile oil prices and high unemployment were also discussed.

IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn raised particular concerns about high levels of unemployment among young people.

“It’s probably too much to say that it’s a jobless recovery, but it’s certainly a recovery with not enough jobs,” he said.

“Especially because of youth unemployment… there is now a risk that this will be turned into a life sentence, and that there is a possibility of a lost generation,” he said.

Global Research, April 5, 2011

The US government lies.  Sure looks like most Americans gobble up false and misleading information that is nothing less than political propaganda. Take the highly hyped unemployment number for March, 2011 of 8.8 percent that moved like a tornado through the media and was praised by Democrat politicians and the White House.  As if that number is accurate, as if it fairly describes unemployment.  It does not.  What is called by experts, such as Leo Hindery, as the real unemployment number was actually 17.7 percent, which is remarkably higher.  To appreciate that much higher number is to throw a large bucket of cold water on all the political spin on the economic recovery.

The official government unemployment figure has been carefully crafted to intentionally underestimate actual unemployment.  The way the data are collected through a survey of homes intentionally ignores a number of unemployed and underemployed Americans.  The latter includes those who have stopped looking for a job because it has become crystal clear to them that there are no jobs for them, as well as those working part-time when what they really want is a good full time job.

Similarly, Gallup polling which takes into account these other factors found the total number for March up slightly to 20.3 percent of the US workforce.

As if this sham game is not bad enough, what the government also does not reveal with hard information is that most new jobs being created now are low wage ones often without any good benefits.  Another reason to see how delusional the economic recovery is.

To get back to a low unemployment level characteristic of a good economy could take up to ten years.  The federal lie includes 13.5 million unemployed workers but the real number is more like 28.2 million.  That means a lot more hardship and suffering in the fictional recovery than the government wants the public to know about.  The number of real unemployed workers has increased by 11.5 million since the start of the Great Recession, and just since December 2008 by 3.7 million.

The economy must add 13 million private sector jobs over the next three years-360,000 each month-to bring unemployment down to 6 percent. There is no possible or imaginable way for this to happen.  So real unemployment will remain terrible.

All this plus the fact that real wages have stagnated for many years means that the middle class in the US is in dire shape.  The most important implication of this is that there is no good reason to think that the deeply depressed housing market stands any chance of recovery for many years. There are not enough people with enough money and financial security to buy even low priced houses.  There simply are too many empty houses and even more coming from millions more foreclosures.  Without a healthy housing market it is inconceivable that a true economic recovery and meaningful growth are possible.

In other words, contrary to all the blabber from politicians and pundits, the current recovery is largely delusional as far as the vast majority of Americans are concerned.  Of course, the rich Upper Class is doing just fine.  In 2009, the richest 5 percent claimed 63.5 percent of the nation’s wealth. The richest 20 percent of Americans own 84 percent of all wealth.  The overwhelming majority, the bottom 80 percent, collectively hold just 12.8 percent.  As the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the richest 10 percent of Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income growth in the years 2000 to 2007, the most recent extended period of economic expansion.

Odds are that you, dear reader, are in the bottom 80 percent, which means you should have the good sense to see how delusional the current economic recovery is and that you should have little hope for doing well in the future.  Remember also that state and local governments facing budget shortfalls will surely layoff many more people and those congressional attempts to address the horrendous national debt and deficit will surely mean cuts in many government programs that many in the bottom 80 percent depend on.

Companies will continue to make huge profits, pay little in taxes and continue to manipulate government policies through lobbying and campaign contributions so that they keep getting away with murder of the middle class.  Corporate bigwigs and Wall Street fat cats will continue to grab incredible amounts of money.  And hardly any of the corporate crooks that have screwed most of us will get prosecuted or jailed, as they should.  Nor will there be any true, badly needed reforms of the financial sector.  Banks will continue to financially rape Americans.

Lies will keep coming from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress as well as President Obama.  Do you want to believe them?  Or can you accept the painful truth about our bleak national condition and stop voting for lying politicians that keep the corporate dictatorship in power?

Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through www.delusionaldemocracy.com.

Press TV – More than 300,000 people have taken to streets in Portugal’s capital Lisbon and 10 other major cities to protest lack of job opportunities in their country.

An estimated 200,000 protesters in Lisbon crammed the wide Liberdade Avenue and the Rossio Square, carrying banners with slogans urging a policy change to reverse surging unemployment, precarious working conditions for young people and falling living standards.

Last year, Portugal reported a record unemployment rate of 10.8 percent.

In addition to Lisbon protesters, another 80,000 people demonstrated in Portugal’s second largest city of Porto, and a Facebook appeal gathered 65,000 signatures in support of the move, LUSA news agency reported.

“Half of Portugal’s active population is either unemployed or precarious, which shows that the situation is untenable,” said 27-year-old Joao Labrincha, unemployed and one of the four organizers of the rally, quoted by AFP.

The government announced a series of extra spending cuts and tax changes on Friday aimed at bringing its budget deficit down to 4.6 percent in 2011.

The measures are designed to convince markets that Portugal can solve its problems without needing an international bailout such as those extended to Greece and Ireland.

By Angelo Bosworth and Hector Cordon

25 January 2011 – WSWS

The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) reported in December that 21,826 of Washington state’s 1.04 million school children were homeless in 2009-2010. This represents a 5 percent increase from 2009 and a 56.5 percent increase from 2005-2006. Child homelessness overall totaled 24,038, placing Washington 25th in the nation.

These figures suffer from underreporting due to the difficulty in locating the homeless, as well as the reluctance of many individuals and families to admit their circumstances.

A persistently high level of unemployment—hovering around 9 percent for the last year and a half and currently at 9.3 percent—has contributed to these grim statistics. But it is only one of many factors, which include low wages, high housing costs, poverty, and rising foreclosures.

For school children, year over year, the number living in motels was up by 12 percent, whereas those that doubled up with friends and relatives increased by 9 percent. The higher rates of change in these two figures—as compared to the 5 percent increase in child homelessness overall—reveal a pattern of homelessness creeping up on previously stable families as well as the overcrowding of homeless shelters.

Melinda Dyer, program supervisor for the education of homeless children and youth at OSPI, cautions that the actual homeless numbers are probably higher due to internal reporting issues as well as families not revealing their homeless status due to the stigma attached. The paltry sum of $850,000 provided by the federal government under the McKinney-Vento Act of 1986 cannot begin to address a problem as acute and complex as child homelessness.

According to a December 2010 US Conference of Mayors study, the three most common causes of homelessness in families are unemployment, lack of affordable housing, and poverty.

According to a study by budgetandpolicy.org published in March 2009, a full-time worker earning the then minimum hourly wage of $8.07 in Washington needed to work close to 80 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, to afford a two-bedroom apartment built under HUD Section 8 regulation—a program that purports to provide more affordable housing to poor people. This is in fact the 40th percentile of market rents and many needy people are compelled to rent at higher rates.

The typical homeless family consists of a single mother and her two children, and affordable housing is even more out of reach for these families. The average income for a single mother in Washington receiving public support is less than $550 per month, which would allow her to pay $157 in monthly rent. The cost of a two-bedroom apartment at the HUD Section 8 rate would be $672 higher than that.

Bank owned foreclosure inventories in Washington rose by 59.68 percent from December 2009 to December 2010. Month-to-month foreclosure filings have dropped 8.5 percent over that time period, which nevertheless saw 2,228 new filings for December 2010.

A report from the Institution of Taxation and Economic Policy shows that between 1979 and 2003, the bottom 20 percent of Washington residents experienced no perceptible income growth when adjusted for inflation. During this period, however, the income of the wealthiest 1 percent (some 67,000 individuals) increased a full 111 percent above inflation.

According to a report from the National Center on Family Homelessness, “America’s Youngest Outcasts,” 84 percent of homeless families with children are headed by a single mother in her late 20s with two young children. These young parents often have no more than a high school diploma or GED. Nearly all of them have histories of violent victimization, and more than one third suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder—three times the rate of the general female population.

More than 50 percent of mothers experience a major depressive episode while homeless and 85 percent report having had a major depressive episode in the past. Forty-one percent have become dependent on alcohol and drugs, a rate twice as high as in the general female population. Over one third have a chronic medical problem such as asthma, chronic bronchitis or hypertension.

Within a single year, 97 percent of homeless children have moved, 25 percent have witnessed violence and 22 percent have been separated from their families. About half of all school-age children experiencing homelessness have problems with anxiety and depression. Twenty percent of homeless preschoolers have emotional problems that require professional care. Their education is often disrupted and challenges in school are common.

The situation is even worse for youth living on their own, where a documented 42 percent have been abused and those with sexual orientations outside the conventional norm are seven times more likely to be a victim of a violent crime.

More than one in seven homeless children have moderate to severe health conditions—asthma being a common complaint—compared to less than one in sixteen middle-class children who report these conditions. Proficiency rates for homeless children in reading and math are on average 16 percent lower than scores for all students. Less than one in four homeless children graduates high school.

The substantial cuts in the proposed 2011-2013 Washington state budget are guaranteed to further increase child homelessness and general social misery in the coming two years. Governor Christine Gregoire’s submitted budget for 2011-2013 will exacerbate many of the leading causes of child homelessness as well as remove support for programs that deal with the inevitable fallout from homelessness.

The Democratic governor proposes the elimination of pre-school help for 1,324 poor children, eliminating health benefits for 27,000 children, cutting the Basic Health Plan that provides coverage for 66,000 low-income residents, doing away with Disability Lifeline Medical for 21,000 low-income disabled adults, and eliminating the State Food Assistance Program that provides food benefits for low-income legal immigrants.

Meanwhile, the various cuts to the wages and benefits of state employees will push this sector of workers a step closer to poverty and possible homelessness. The budget demands a 3 percent reduction in compensation on top of no wage increases since 2008, while unpaid temporary layoffs have cost an average employee $178 per month in 2010. Health care premiums for the average state employee would rise to $147 (from $86 in 2010) and workers will pay more in pension contributions, some up to 4.5 percent from 3.9 percent in 2009-2011.

In the light of these progressively more deplorable conditions, Governor Gregoire’s claim in her State of the State address that her budget will set “our state on a trajectory that ensures a strong financial foundation for our kids and grandkids” is a blatant lie. What is actually being proposed is the evisceration of those social programs that provide for the welfare of the most vulnerable sections of society.

Source.

TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com – January 10th, 2011

Most Americans have become so accustomed to the “new normal” of continual economic decline that they don’t even remember how good things were just a few short years ago.  Back in 2007, unemployment was very low, good jobs were much easier to get, far fewer Americans were living in poverty or enrolled in welfare programs and government finances were in much better shape.  Of course most of this prosperity was fueled by massive amounts of debt, but at least times were better.  Unfortunately, things have really deteriorated over the last several years.  Since 2007, unemployment has skyrocketed, foreclosures have set new all-time records, personal bankruptcies have soared and U.S. government debt has gotten completely and totally out of control.  Poll after poll has shown that Americans are now far less optimistic about the future than they were in 2007.  It is almost as if the past few years have literally sucked the hope out of millions upon millions of Americans.

Sadly, our economic situation is continually getting worse.  Every month the United States loses more factories.  Every month the United States loses more jobs.  Every month the collective wealth of U.S. citizens continues to decline.  Every month the federal government goes into even more debt.  Every month state and local governments go into even more debt.

Unfortunately, things are going to get even worse in the years ahead.  Right now we look back on 2005, 2006 and 2007 as “good times”, but in a few years we will look back on 2010 and 2011 as “good times”.

We are in the midst of a long-term economic decline, and the very bad economic choices that we have been making as a nation for decades are now starting to really catch up with us.

So as horrible as you may think that things are now, just keep in mind that things are going to continue to deteriorate in the years ahead.

But for the moment, let us remember how far we have fallen over the past few years.  The following are 14 eye opening statistics which reveal just how dramatically the U.S. economy has collapsed since 2007….

#1 In November 2007, the official U.S. unemployment rate was just 4.7 percent.  Today, the official U.S. unemployment rate is 9.4 percent.

#2 In November 2007, 18.8% of unemployed Americans had been out of work for 27 weeks or longer.  Today that percentage is up to 41.9%.

#3 As 2007 began, there were just over 1 million Americans that had been unemployed for half a year or longer.  Today, there are over 6 million Americans that have been unemployed for half a year or longer.

#4 Nearly 10 million Americans now receive unemployment insurance, which is almost four times as many as were receiving it back in 2007.

#5 More than half of the U.S. labor force (55 percent) has “suffered a spell of unemployment, a cut in pay, a reduction in hours or have become involuntary part-time workers” since the “recession” began in December 2007.

#6 According to one analysis, the United States has lost a total of approximately 10.5 million jobs since 2007.

#7 As 2007 began, only 26 million Americans were on food stamps.  Today, an all-time record of 43.2 million Americansare enrolled in the food stamp program.

#8 In 2007, the U.S. government held a total of $725 billion in mortgage debt.  As of the middle of 2010, the U.S. government held a total of $5.148 trillion in mortgage debt.

#9 In the year prior to the “official” beginning of the most recent recession in 2007, the IRS filed just 684,000 tax liens against U.S. taxpayers.  During 2010, the IRS filed over a million tax liens against U.S. taxpayers.

#10 From the year 2000 through the year 2007, there were 27 bank failures in the United States.  From 2008 through 2010, there were 314 bank failures in the United States.

#11 According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the number of U.S. families with children living in homeless shelters increased from 131,000 to 170,000 between 2007 and 2009.

#12 In 2007, one poll found that 43 percent of Americans were living “paycheck to paycheck”.  Sadly, according to a survey released very close to the end of 2010, approximately 55 percent of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck.

#13 In 2007, the “official” federal budget deficit was just 161 billion dollars.  In 2010, the “official” federal budget deficitwas approximately 1.3 trillion dollars.

#14 As 2007 began, the U.S. national debt was just under 8.7 trillion dollars.  Today, the U.S. national debt has just surpassed 14 trillion dollars and it continues to soar into the stratosphere.

So is there any hope that we can turn all of this around?

Unfortunately, the massive amount of debt that we have piled up as a society over the last several decades has made that impossible.

If you add up all forms of debt (government debt, business debt, individual debt), it comes to approximately 360 percent of GDP.  It is the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world.

If the federal government and our state governments stop borrowing and spending so much money, our economy would collapse.  But if they keep borrowing and spending so much money they will continually make the eventual economic collapse even worse.

We are in the terminal stages of the most horrific debt spiral the world has ever seen, and when the debt spiral gets stopped the house of cards is going to finally come down for good.

So enjoy these times while you still have them.  Yes, today is not nearly as prosperous as 2007 was, but today is most definitely a whole lot better than 2015 or 2020 is going to be.

Sadly, we could have avoided this financial disaster completely if only we had listened more carefully to those that founded this nation.  Once upon a time, Thomas Jefferson said the following….

I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.

Source.

Collapsing bridges, street lights turned off, cuts to basic services: the decline of a superpower

In February, the board of commissioners of Ohio’s Ashtabula County faced a scene familiar to local governments across America: a budget shortfall. They began to cut spending and reduced the sheriff’s budget by 20 per cent. A law enforcement agency staff that only a few years ago numbered 112, and had subsequently been pared down to 70, was cut again to 49 people and just one squad car for a county of 1,900 sq. km along the shore of Lake Erie. The sheriff’s department adapted. “We have no patrol units. There is no one on the streets. We respond to only crimes in progress. We don’t respond to property crimes,” deputy sheriff Ron Fenton told Maclean’s. The county once had a “very proactive” detective division in narcotics. Now, there is no detective division. “We are down to one evidence officer and he just runs the evidence room in case someone wants to claim property,” said Fenton. “People are getting property stolen, their houses broken into, and there is no one investigating. We are basically just writing up a report for the insurance company.”

If a county without police seems like a weird throwback to an earlier, frontier-like moment in American history, it is not the only one. “Back to the Stone Age” is the name of a seminar organized in March by civil engineers at Indiana’s Purdue University for local county supervisors interested in saving money by breaking up paved roads and turning them back to gravel. While only some paved roads in the state have been broken up, “There are a substantial number of conversations going on,” John Habermann, who manages a program at Purdue that helps local governments take care of infrastructure, told Maclean’s. “We presented a lot of talking points so that the county supervisors can talk logically back to elected officials when the question is posed,” he said. The state of Michigan had similar conversations. It has converted at least 50 miles of paved road to gravel in the last few years.

Welcome to the ground level of America’s economic crisis. The U.S. unemployment rate is 9.5 per cent. One in 10 homeowners are behind on their mortgage payments. Home sales are at record lows. While the economy has been growing for several quarters, the growth is anemic—only 1.6 per cent in the second quarter of this year—and producing few new jobs.

Even with interest rates at unprecedented lows, there is anxiety about the possibility of a double-dip recession. Sales of existing homes are at their lowest level in 15 years, and new home sales plummeted this summer to the lowest levels on record. Property and sales tax revenues have shrunk. And nowhere is this more apparent than at the local government level, where officials are being forced to roll back the everyday hallmarks of modern civilization.

Cincinnati, Ohio, is cutting back on trash collection and snow removal and filling fewer potholes.

The city of Dallas is not picking up litter in public parks. Flint, Mich., laid off 23 of 88 firefighters and closed two fire stations. In some places it’s almost literally the dark ages: the city of Shelton in Washington state decided to follow the example of numerous other localities and last week turned off 114 of its 860 street lights. Others have axed bus service and cut back on library hours. Class sizes are being increased and teachers are being laid off. School districts around the country are cutting the school day or the school week or the school year—effectively furloughing students. The National Association of Counties estimates that local governments will eliminate roughly half a million employees in the next fiscal year, with public safety, public works, public health, social services, and parks and recreation hardest hit by the cutbacks. A July survey by the association of counties, the National League of Cities, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors of 270 local governments found that 63 per cent of localities are cutting back on public safety and 60 per cent are cutting public works.

In August, the U.S. Congress passed a US$26-billion stimulus extension bill, aimed in part at saving teacher jobs. But it’s a finger in the dike. Jacqueline Byers, director of research for the counties association, said many local governments have yet to confront the full impact of the real estate crisis on government revenues because they do tax assessments only every third year. A fundamental transformation is under way. “When we come out of this recession we’re going to see government functioning very differently,” says Byers. “We are seeing more public-private partnership than we ever had for things like recreation and parks. We are seeing some of them privatize libraries. They lease the library to a private corporation that employs the workers who don’t carry retirement or health benefits.” Or they could wind up like Hood River County, Ore., which in August closed its three libraries altogether.

Some governments are looking for creative ways to replace plummeting property and sales tax revenues. Facing a US$1-billion budget shortfall, Montgomery County in Maryland appealed for corporate sponsors to step up and adopt porta-potties in its public parks. In the end, the privies were saved by a combination of park employees taking early retirement, a few private sponsorships, and a negotiated discount from the supplier, Don’s Johns. Meanwhile, Montgomery County’s school system, banking on its reputation for high standards and test scores, took the unusual step of selling its curriculum to a private textbook publisher, Pearson, for US$2.3 million and royalties of up to three per cent on sales. As part of the deal, county classrooms can be used as “showrooms”—which critics said effectively turns students and teachers into salesmen for a corporation. But the superintendent, Jerry Weast, told the Washington Post, “I tend to look at this from the perspective that we are broke.”

These cuts in infrastructure and education are more than just a temporary belt-tightening in response to a recession. They threaten long-term damage to American’s economic foundation—a foundation that has long been eroding. When the eight-lane Interstate 35 bridge collapsed in Minneapolis in 2007, killing 13 people and injuring 145, the American Society of Civil Engineers warned that the infrastructure deficit of aging postwar highways and bridges amounted to US$1.6 trillion. More than a quarter of America’s bridges were rated structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Steam pipes have exploded in New York City and the levees failed in New Orleans.

Read the full article.