meanwhile, moody's suggests US eliminate debt ceiling... from afp: US President Barack Obama pressed polarized lawmakers Saturday to avert what he called economic "Armageddon" by quickly forging a deal to prevent an early August debt default by the world's richest country. "Simply put, it will take a balanced approach, shared sacrifice, and a willingness to make unpopular choices on all our parts," Obama said in his weekly radio address. "That means spending less on domestic programs," the president explained. "It means spending less on defense programs. ... And it means taking on the tax code, and cutting out certain tax breaks and deductions for the wealthiest Americans." The US government reached its debt limit of $14.29 trillion in May, and since then the Treasury Department has used special measures to allow the government to keep paying its bills. But unless the limit is raised by August 2, the Treasury says, growing spending and debt service commitments will force a default, which would have disastrous ripple effects throughout the global financial system.
Welcome to the 75th episode of New World Next Week - the video series from Corbett Report & Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in alternative news & open source intelligence. This week:
Subscribe to NewWorldNextWeek.com to get hi-quality episodes to download, burn & share. And as always, stay up-to-date by subscribing to the feeds from Corbett Report here & Media Monarchy here. Thank you.
from autopia: Next month, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is expected to declare that all vehicles must contain an event data recorder, known more commonly as a “black box.” The device, similar to those found in aircraft, records vehicle inputs and, in the event of a crash, provides a snapshot of the final moments before impact. That snapshot could be viewed by law enforcement, insurance companies and automakers. The device cannot be turned off, and you’ll probably know little more about it than the legal disclosure you’ll find in the owner’s manual. The pending mandate looks to some like a gross overreach of government authority, or perhaps an effort by Uncle Sam, the insurance industry and even the automakers to keep tabs on what drivers are doing. But if you’re driving a car with airbags, chances are there’s already one of these devices under your hood... How much it affects you depends upon where you live and what data points it records. How much it will affect you in the future may depend on a new set of standards that spell out exactly what data is collected and who can access it.
from wsj: Summer may be on its way and Osama bin Laden may be dead, but that doesn’t mean the sun is going to shine on the dollar. Ben Bernanke made sure of that. The Fed Chairman’s insistence last week that U.S. ultra-loose monetary policy is here to stay not only indicated his lack of confidence in the recovery but confirmed fears the U.S. Federal Reserve is falling behind the curve. As a result, not even good news will help the U.S. currency now... All this means that even good economic news will not save the dollar now. The true test could well come on Friday with the latest unemployment numbers, data that traditionally should give the dollar direction. But, if the Fed is saying no change is in sight, even strong non-farm payrolls won’t stop the dollar from floundering. This whole “good news is bad news” theme was apparent as Osama bin Laden’s assassination by U.S. forces in Pakistan broke.
update: US gasoline settles at 33-month high on stock draw from cbs local: With gas prices pushing $4 a gallon, a lot of people are trying to stretch their dollar at the gas pump, but some of them are trying to stretch it a little too far. Since the beginning of March, AAA has seen an 18 percent increase in the number of roadside calls for people running out of gas. “I never put a lot in because I can’t afford to fill it up,” Leo Greek, a stranded motorist, said. He says he’s not even sure how much it would cost to fill up his truck these days because he hasn’t done it for a while. He gets only what he needs and today he underestimated. “It’s frustrating,” Greek said. “I can’t believe it has to be that expensive, but I know everybody’s going through it.” According to AAA, gas prices in the Pittsburgh area have gone up 26 cents per gallon in the last month. “Before it was more absentminded than anything else,” Jim Krebs with Brighton Service said. “But now, I believe that’s what it is. I believe people are like, ‘Man, I got to buy something else so I’m not going to put gas in the car. I should be able to make it,’ and they don’t.”
from reuters: The United States is on a fiscal path towards insolvency and policymakers are at a "tipping point," a Federal Reserve official said on Tuesday. "If we continue down on the path on which the fiscal authorities put us, we will become insolvent, the question is when," Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher said in a question and answer session after delivering a speech at the University of Frankfurt. "The short-term negotiations are very important, I look at this as a tipping point." But he added he was confident in the Americans' ability to take the right decisions and said the country would avoid insolvency. "I think we are at the beginning of the process and it's going to be very painful," he added. Fisher earlier said the US economic recovery is gathering momentum, adding that he personally was extremely vigilant on inflation pressures. Fisher added that the U.S. Federal Reserve had ways to tighten its monetary policy other than interest rates, including by selling treasuries, changing reserves levels and using time deposits.
from 24/7 wall st.: The population of the United States has increased steadily by roughly 2.5 million people every year since World War II. Throughout prosperity and hard times, Americans continue to have families. Many of the country’s regions have expanded to accommodate this population increase. Some cities have grown faster than others as the result of being at the center of some important new technology or job market. Others have lost residents because of failing industries and migration. Nevertheless, some of these cities have continued to grow slowly, or at least remain relatively stagnant, buoyed by the rising tide of the national population. There are some cities, however, which have experienced such severe hardship and decline that their populations have actually decreased significantly. New Orleans has lost more than a quarter of its population in the past ten years as the result of Hurricane Katrina. The rest of the cities that have lost major parts of their population have seen their flagship industries which include coal, steel, oil, and auto-related manufacturing fall off or completely collapse.
bernanke's fed sets sail with $600b 'quantitative easing' from cnbc: The Federal Reserve launched a controversial new policy on Wednesday, committing to buy $600 billion more in government bonds by the middle of next year in an attempt to breathe new life into a struggling U.S. economy. The decision, which takes the Fed into largely uncharted waters, is aimed at further lowering borrowing costs for consumers and businesses still suffering in the aftermath of the worst recession since the Great Depression. The U.S. central bank said it would buy about $75 billion in longer-term Treasury bonds per month. It said it would regularly review the pace and size of the program and adjust it as needed depending on the path of the recovery. In its post-meeting statement, the Fed described the economy as "slow", and said employers remained reluctant to add to payrolls. It said measures of inflation were "somewhat low."
the fed at jekyll island: 100 years later, they're baaack! from blacklisted news: The Federal Reserve is going back to Jekyll Island to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the infamous 1910 Jekyll Island meeting that spawned the draft legislation that would ultimately create the U.S. Federal Reserve. The title of this conference is "A Return to Jekyll Island: The Origins, History, and Future of the Federal Reserve", and it will be held on November 5th and 6th in the exact same building where the original 1910 meeting occurred. In November 1910, the original gathering at Jekyll Island included U.S. Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Department A.P. Andrews and many representatives from the upper crust of the U.S. banking establishment. That meeting was held in an environment of absolute and total secrecy. 100 years later, Federal Reserve bureaucrats will return to Jekyll Island once again to ”celebrate” the history and the future of the Federal Reserve. Sadly, most Americans have no idea how the Federal Reserve came into being... It was a system that was designed by the bankers and for the bankers. Now, the bureaucrats running the system are returning to Jekyll Island to congratulate themselves. Those attending the conference on November 5th and 6th include Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, Goldman Sachs managing director E. Gerald Corrigan and the heads of the various regional Federal Reserve banks. You can view the entire agenda of the conference right here. It looks like that there will be plenty of hors d’oeuvres to go around, but should the Federal Reserve really be celebrating their accomplishments at a time when the U.S. economy is literally falling to pieces?
from before it's news: In what is being described as one of the most astounding power grabs in modern history by newspaper headlines around the World, President Obama has succeeded in his audacious plan to remake America into a full fledged godless communist empire barely one year into his term with the enactment into law by the US Congress of his mammoth health care plan innocuously named H.R. 3200-Americas Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 and described by one Kremlin legal expert as having “nothing at all to do with health, but everything to do with control.”
To fully grasp the full and grim implications of Obama’s power grab over the American people with his Nationalization of the United States entire health care industry and student loan programme accomplished with the passing of this new law, it must be remembered that since taking office on January 20, 2009 he has also taken over their automobile, mortgage, and banking industries too with the Internet said being next “in his sights”.
banks in georgia, north carolina & kansas closed by regulators from bloomberg: Banks in North Carolina, Georgia and Kansas with combined assets of $1.5 billion were seized by regulators last week, costing the U.S. insurance fund $363 million and pushing this year’s tally of failures to 40. Southern Community Bank of Fayetteville, Georgia, and 111- year-old Cooperative Bank in Wilmington, North Carolina, were closed June 19 by state officials, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency shut First National Bank of Anthony, Kansas. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was named receiver.
unemployment at highest level in 25yrs from washington times: The turmoil ravaging General Motors and Chrysler generated big jumps in joblessness last month throughout the Midwest, sending Michigan's unemployment rate above 14 percent and pushing three nearby states into double digits. Jobless rates in Illinois and Indiana surpassed 10 percent, while Ohio's approached 11 percent, according to data released Friday in a Labor Department report. The half-percentage-point jump in the national unemployment rate rippled throughout the country as 48 states and the District of Columbia reported increases in their jobless rates in May. The U.S. unemployment rate rose from 8.9 percent in April to 9.4 percent in May, its highest level in more than a quarter-century. The rate was 10.8 percent near the end of 1982.
cia recruiting laid-off bankers in nyc from newsmax: Laid off from Wall Street? The CIA wants you -- as long as you can pass a lie detector test and show that you are motivated by service to your country rather than your wallet. The Central Intelligence Agency has been advertising for recruits and will be holding interviews on June 22 at a secret location in New York. "Economics, finance and business professionals, if the quest for the bottom line is just not enough for you, the Central Intelligence Agency has a mission like no other," one radio advertisement for the agency says. "Join CIA's directorate of intelligence and be a part of our global mission as an economic or financial analyst. Make a difference in your career and for your nation," it says.
financial dictatorship spreads to europe from steve watson: The European Union is set to mirror moves in the US to overhaul the economic regulatory oversight system, in a move that will see national regulators superceded by European supervisors. “The proposals involve creating three pan-European watchdogs next year to ensure countries introduce new rules on supervision.” Reports the London Telegraph. “Under the proposals, there is to be a European Banking Authority in London, an Insurance Authority in Frankfurt, and a Securities Authority in Paris. All European leaders agreed today to their creation.” These three new bodies will have the authority to dictate and implement decisions on regulatory standards across the board in every member state. Furthermore, the deal will see the creation of a European Systemic Risk Board, that would “monitor the build up of risks”, issue recommendations for action and oversee their implementation. The chairmanship of this new body will be elected by members of the general council of the European Central Bank. This mirrors plans in the US to hand the private Federal Reserve powers to simply seize and take over any company it defines as a risk to the economy. Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised by the move given that, for the most part, the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank are run by the same private globalist banking corporations.
bankster 'holiday' planned for september? from kurt nimmo: Bob Chapman’s influential International Forecaster is reporting on the possibility of a so-called “bank holiday” planned for late August or early September. According to Chapman’s sources, U.S. embassies around the world are selling dollars and stockpiling money from respective countries where they operate. “Some US embassies worldwide are being advised to purchase massive amounts of local currencies,” writes Harry Schultz, “enough to last them a year.” Schultz publishes the Harry Schultz Letter, an international investment, financial, economic, and geopolitical newsletter named as “Newsletter of the Year” by Peter Brimelow of Market Watch in 2005 and 2008. Schultz believes the global elite are in the process of engineering an FDR-style “bank holiday” of undetermined length in order to “sort-out the bank mess” and impose new bank rules. On March 5, 1933, in the depths of the banker engineered “Great Depression,” newly elected Franklin Roosevelt declared a “bank holiday” that forced banks closed for four days. Roosevelt then rammed the Emergency Banking Act through the legislature. Passed by Congress on March 9, the act granted FDR near dictatorial control over the dealings of banks. It also allowed the Secretary of the Treasury the power to compel every person and business in the country to relinquish their gold and accept paper currency in exchange.
numbers on welfare see sharp increase from wsj: Welfare rolls, which were slow to rise and actually fell in many states early in the recession, now are climbing across the country for the first time since President Bill Clinton signed legislation pledging "to end welfare as we know it" more than a decade ago. Twenty-three of the 30 largest states, which account for more than 88% of the nation's total population, see welfare caseloads above year-ago levels, according to a survey conducted by The Wall Street Journal and the National Conference of State Legislatures. As more people run out of unemployment compensation, many are turning to welfare as a stopgap. The biggest increases are in states with some of the worst jobless rates. Oregon's count was up 27% in May from a year earlier; South Carolina's climbed 23% and California's 10% between March 2009 and March 2008.
condo dwellers finding empty buildings from miami herald: Joshua Hamann jokingly compares himself to the last human in a city overrun by zombies. He's not suggesting his neighbors are zombies. The problem is, he has no neighbors. Hamann dwells in a newly opened condo. And in the six weeks since moving into the gleaming new Everglades on the Bay in downtown Miami, he has felt pretty lonely. Hamann occupies one of only about 50 sold condos in his 49-story tower, out of 409 units. A couple miles north at Midtown Miami, Alisha Marks knows the same feeling. "It was pretty much a ghost town when I got here," she says.
fair use notice: this site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. we are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, & social justice issues, etc. we believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US copyright law. In accordance with title 17 usc section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.