100 Dollar Oil Is Coming

The price of oil has been hovering around 80 dollars a barrel for quite some time now, but get ready, because it is going to move significantly higher. Oil prices have already risen about 9 percent over the past month, and many believe that this could very well be the start of a new trend. Lawrence Eagles, a top analyst at JP Morgan, recently made headlines across the globe when he stated that oil could hit 100 dollars a barrel "much sooner than we expect". Not only that, but a number of top OPEC officials are also publicly discussing the possibility of 100 dollar oil. But just because a few people are talking about it does not mean that it is going to happen. So are there any other reasons why we should anticipate a significant increase in the price of oil?

Well, yes there is.

*The Decline Of The U.S. Dollar

Since August 27th, the U.S. dollar has declined approximately 4.8% against the currencies of major U.S. trading partners. Unfortunately, there seems to be every indication that the dollar is going to continue to decline. As the U.S. dollar continues to display weakness, just about everything priced in dollars (including oil) is going to continue to rise.

*The Threat Of Quantitative Easing By The Federal Reserve

For weeks, top Federal Reserve officials have been making public statements about the need for more quantitative easing. If the Fed does initiate a significant program of quantitative easing in the coming months, that is going to put even more downward pressure on the U.S. dollar and even more upward pressure on the price of oil.

*Other Commodities Have Been Skyrocketing

Over recent weeks, the prices of a wide array of key commodities have been absolutely skyrocketing. As I noted in a previous article, not only has the price of gold been setting records, the truth is that almost every major commodity has been spiking. In a recent column entitled "An Inflationary Cocktail In The Making", Richard Benson noted some of the commodity price increases that he has been tracking this year....

-Agricultural Raw Materials: 24%

-Industrial Inputs Index: 25%

-Metals Price Index: 26%

-Coffee: 45%

-Barley: 32%

-Oranges: 35%

-Beef: 23%

-Pork: 68%

-Salmon: 30%

-Sugar: 24%

-Wool: 20%

-Cotton: 40%

-Palm Oil: 26%

-Hides: 25%

-Rubber: 62%

-Iron Ore: 103%

The increase in the price of oil is just part of a larger trend of soaring commodity prices. As long as this trend in commodity prices continues it is unlikely that the price of oil will go down.

*The Strikes In France

The austerity strikes in France have interrupted the flow of gasoline in that country. Once the strikes are over there will be an increase in demand as inventories are restocked.

*Increased Demand From China And Other Emerging Nations

Most analysts are forecasting that the demand for oil in China and other emerging nations will continue to grow at an impressive pace. This growing demand will also cause upward pressure on the price of oil.

*The Potential Of War In The Middle East

As always, war could break out in the Middle East at any time. A minor conflict in the Middle East would likely push the price of oil over 100 dollars a barrel very quickly. A major conflict would likely push it over 200 dollars or even beyond. War is very, very difficult to predict, but it does seem quite likely that some kind of conflict will break out in the Middle East at some point over the next several years.

So how soon will oil reach the 100 dollar mark?

That is very hard to say.

But even now, Americans are already having to dig deeper into their wallets at the gas pump.

For the two week period ending October 22nd, the average price of gasoline in the United States increased 5.23 cents to $2.82 a gallon.

As the price of oil continues to rise significantly over the long-term, it is going to have an impact on thousands of other prices. Virtually all products must be transported, and an increase in the price of oil will cause those transportation costs to go up.

So an increase in the price of oil would be really bad news.

If we do see 100 dollar oil, that will be a huge challenge for the U.S. economy.

If we end up seeing 150 dollar oil (especially for an extended period of time) it will be an absolute nightmare for the U.S. economy.

So where do you think the price of oil is going? Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion....

Original Article

Here Are The Political Motives That Make Hyperinflation Inevitable

By Charles Hugh Smith

As the dollar has plummeted, discussions of hyperinflation proliferate. We should keep in mind that hyperinflation is always a political phenomenon, and only secondarily a financial one.

With the Fed's campaign to destroy the U.S. dollar now visible to all, the topic of hyperinflation inevitably arises. Hyperinflation is the endpoint of currency destruction, and with the "race to the bottom" in a "currency war" in the news, then it is a good time to discuss hyperinflation.

There has long been a lively debate underway on the Web as to whether hyperinflation is likely or unlikely. Rather than insert myself into a debate that needs no further voices, I will limit myself to three observations which I consider decisive.

1. Hyperinflation is intrinsically and necessarily a political process. The vast majority of the discussions and debates on hyperinflation seem to assume it is primarily a financial process which proceeds with some sort of inevitability once a tipping point has been reached.

Perhaps, but the policies which lead to that point of no return are political in nature. Currencies do not die of their own accord -- they must be actively destroyed by political decisions and policies.

Destroying a currency is not like falling off a cliff; gravity does not take hold until the very end. Rather, the currency must be pushed and manhandled all the way up a long steep incline to the cliff's edge and then shoved off.

At any point up to the final shove into oblivion, the political winds could change and the policy pressure that is destroying the currency would cease.

Currencies are destroyed as a political "unintended consequence" of saving the Status Quo from losing power. Rather than risk a decline in power, or an upheaval in the fiefdoms, Elites and State dependents which support the Status Quo, the Power Elites choose to debauch the currency as the "short-cut solution" to their inherently unsustainable financial woes.

Over the course of history, the usual cause of currency destruction is overindebtedness of the Central State/Monarchy/kleptocracy. Once the State/kleptocracy/Monarchy can no longer service its rising debts (usually incurred to finance war or expansion), then rather than cut expenses (which would deprive the fiefdoms, army, clergy, bread-and-circuses rabble, etc. of their share of the swag) then the status quo elects to print money to service the debts.

This works until the creditors demand gold or equivalent hard money. Then the status quo declares bankruptcy and the creditors get nothing. Usually there is a political revolution which overthrows the court, the nobility, or whatever other Elites led the nation into catastrophe.

For a modern-day equivalent, consider this example. If the Federal government were to announce that all the Social Security recipients receiving $2,000 a month would now get $200 a month, then a political firestorm would ignite.

Rather than risk overthrow, the government Elites debauch the currency so the $2,000 in today's money is soon only worth $200 in purchasing power. The government has de facto reduced the payment by 90% via destruction of its currency. But due to the stealth of this process, the citizenry are blind to the erosion. If you take 10% of their money away every year via debauching the currency, then in nine years they have lost 90% -- and all without any political fuss or risk to the status quo.

Once the populace loses faith in the currency, hyperinflation takes hold. That is the shove off the cliff -- the loss of faith in the currency. Once again that loss of faith is a profoundly political act.

There is nothing inevitable about hyperinflation. The political Status Quo can either choose or be pressured by mass uprisings to cease destroying the currency.

In the U.S., I consider such a political firestorm as increasingly likely going into 2013-2014. By 2014 I expect Congress to pass a law titled "The Federal Reserve Reformation Act" or equivalent, which basically restricts or eliminates the Fed's treasured independence.

The proximate reason for the congressional control over the Fed will be the widespread recognition that the Fed has failed the nation utterly and completely, and that their policies have acheived nothing but the debauchery of the nation's currency. That debauchery impoverishes every citizen, every enterprise and every agency of government.

I would welcome a political recognition of the Fed's failure and the resulting elimination of the Fed or at a minimum of its reconstitution as a true central bank rather than a rogue private institution with vast destructive powers beyond the reach of democracy or the citizenry.

2. There is a difference between credit and fiat money. In the usual hyperinflation scenarios (Zimbabwe, Argentina, et al.) the central government prints vast amounts of fiat money which is not backed by hard assets. Everyone loses faith in the currency and it becomes worthless. At that point the government falls and/or a new "hard" currency is issued which promptly deprives the holders of the "old money" of their wealth. That usually includes all common citizens, but not the Financial Elites, who manage to shift their wealth to other currencies or hard assets before the collapse.

Once the Elites' wealth is safely out of the country, then the government imposes capital controls.

While the U.S. has a fiat currency unbacked by anything but the promise of future payment of bonds, money is created by the instant creation of credit. Thus the Fed creates $1 trillion and buys toxic mortgage assets from the banks with the funds, and the toxic mortgages are booked as assets while the $1 trillion in credit is booked as a debt.

Now the problem with the hyperinflation scenario is that credit is immobile if people refuse to borrow it. The Fed could create $300 trillion in credit tomorrow but if nobody borrowed any of that credit money, then it cannot flow into the economy.

The Fed could buy every mortgage in the nation and make all sorts of other crazy purchases of assets, but it can't force people or enterprises to borrow and spend/invest money.

By lowering interest rates to zero and pushing liquidity, the Fed is debauching the dollar and thus reducing the purchasing power of everyone who holds dollars -- but this still doesn't inject money into the economy.

If the Fed bought every mortgage in the land, then we'd all be sending our mortgage payments to the Fed. The banks would have no toxic assets on their books, but that would not make anyone want to borrow more money from them.

In a nutshell, that is why quantitative easing is doomed to abject, total failure, except as a tool to destroy the nation's currency and thus its wealth.

The Fed's incompetence is so profound, so striking, so painfully obvious that we have to wonder just how willfully blind our political class must be.

3. The debauchery of the currency causes a reduction of purchasing power which mimics but is not the same as classic "inflation." In classic inflation, "too much money is chasing too few goods." With the Fed destroying our currency, then we pay more for commodities, and those higher prices then filter into every nook and cranny of the economy.

There is not "too much money chasing too few goods," there is a national currency being destroyed by political decisions made in the Fed and others in the nation's Financial Nobility.

To actually resolve the nation's financial crises would require a reduction or loss in political and financial power of the Elites as the chickens came home to roost. To avoid that reckoning, the Power Elites are choosing to debauch the dollar as a "short-cut" way of avoiding the political firestorm which would be ignited should the State's fiefdoms, Elites and dependents see their share of the swag reduced.

So the Power Elites in the Fed, Congress and other Central State fiefdoms would rather destroy the citizenry's currency and wealth rather than risk losing their own vast powers.

Original Article

Will the Federal Reserve Cause a Civil War?

What is the most likely cause today of civil unrest? Immigration. Gay Marriage. Abortion. The Results of Election Day. The Mosque at Ground Zero. Nope.

Try the Federal Reserve. November 3rd is when the Federal Reserve's next policy committee meeting ends, and if you thought this was just another boring money meeting you would be wrong. It could be the most important meeting in Fed history, maybe. The US central bank is expected to announce its next move to boost the faltering economic recovery. To say there has been considerable debate and anxiety among Fed watchers about what the central bank should do would be an understatement. Chairman Ben Bernanke has indicated in recent speeches that the central bank plans to try to drive down already low-interest rates by buying up long-term bonds. A number of people both inside the Fed and out believe this is the wrong move. But one website seems to believe that Ben's plan might actually lead to armed conflict. Last week, the blog, Zerohedge wrote, paraphrasing a top economic forecaster David Rosenberg, that it believed the Fed's plan is not only moronic, but "positions US society one step closer to civil war if not worse." (See photos inside the world of Ben Bernanke)

I'm not sure what "if not worse," is supposed to mean. But, with the Tea Party gaining followers, the idea of civil war over economic issues doesn't seem that far-fetched these days. And Ron Paul definitely thinks the Fed should be ended. In TIME's recently cover story on the militia movement many said these groups are powder kegs looking for a catalyst. So why not a Fed policy committee meeting. Still, I'm not convinced we are headed for Fedamageddon. That being said, the Fed's early November meeting is an important one. Here's why:

Usually, there is generally a consensus about what the Federal Reserve should do. When the economy is weak, the Fed cuts short-term interest rates to spur borrowing and economic activity. When the economy is strong and inflation is rising, it does the opposite. But nearly two years after the Fed cut short-term interest rates to basically zero, more and more economists are questioning whether the US central bank is making the right moves. The economy is still very weak and unemployment seems stubbornly stuck near 10%.

The problem is the Fed only directly sets short-term interest rates. And they are already about as close to zero as you can go. That's why Ben Bernanke has been recently talking about something called "quantitative easing." That's when the Fed basically creates money to buy the long-term bonds that it doesn't directly control, and drive down those interest rates as well. That should further reduce the cost of borrowing for large companies and homeowners. Some people are calling this "QE2" because the Fed made a similar move during the height of the financial crisis when it bought mortgage bonds. (See photos of the Tea Party movement)

Not everyone agrees this is a good move. In fact, a number of presidents of regional Fed banks, not all of which get to vote at Fed policy meetings, have recently come out against Bernanke's plans. Some say it sets bad policy. Others think it will stoke inflation, which might be the point. Few, though, have warned of armed conflict. Here's how Zerohedge justifies its prediction of why the Fed's Nov. 3rd meeting will lead to violence:

In a very real sense, Bernanke is throwing Granny and Grandpa down the stairs - on purpose. He is literally threatening those at the lower end of the economic strata, along with all who are retired, with starvation and death, and in a just nation where the rule of law controlled instead of being abused by the kleptocrats he would be facing charges of Seditious Conspiracy, as his policies will inevitably lead to the destruction of our republic.

OK. The idea that Bernanke might kill large swaths of low-income neighborhoods or Florida by his plan to further lower interest rates is a little ridiculous. But there is a point in Zerohedge's crazy. Lower rates do tend to favor borrowers over savers. And the largest borrowers in the country are banks, speculators and large corporations. The largest spenders in our country though tend to be individuals. Consumer spending makes up 70% of the economy. And the vast majority of consumers are on the low-end of the income scale. So I think it is a valid question to ask whether the Fed's desire to drive down interest rates at all costs policy is working. Companies are already borrowing at low rates. They are just not spending. (Read a special report on the financial crisis blame game)

That being said, civil war, probably not. "It is a gross exaggeration," says Allan Meltzer, who is a top Fed historian at Carnegie Mellon. "I cannot recall ever learning about riots or civil war even when the Fed made other mistakes." When I called, David Rosenberg was traveling and couldn't talk, but he did send me a quick e-mail to stress that he has never, ever suggested that any moves the Fed makes will lead to a militia uprising.

Some smart people, though, including Meltzer, it appears, and Rosenberg do think the path of quantitative easing that the Fed looks likely to embark on is the wrong move. John Taylor, a top Fed scholar at Stanford, says eventually you will have to pull the support out, and when you do a year from now when the economy is recovering he thinks it could be quite disruptive. So even if you don't double dip now, you might double dip then. And even if you don't it would make for a slow recovery. Others, such as Raghuram Rajan, who has became famous for warning about the possibility of a financial crisis back in 2005, believe low-interest rates could be creating new bubbles in say gold or commodities.

So it seems clear what the Fed is likely to do. How the economy, the militias and the rest of us react is up in the air. The count down is on. T minus 15 days to Fedamageddon. See you there, hopefully.

Original Article

Mortgage Investors To Bank Of America: We’re Pissed And We Want Our 47 Billion Dollars Back

Everyone knew that the foreclosure fraud crisis was going to spawn a festival of lawsuits, and now it looks like it is already beginning. The New York Federal Reserve Bank is part of a consortium of eight large institutional investment firms that has launched an effort to force Bank of America to repurchase $47 billion worth of mortgages packaged into bonds by its Countrywide Financial unit. It turns out that most mortgage bond contracts explicitly require the repurchase of loans when the quality of the loans falls short of promises made by the sellers. As most of us know by now, many of these mortgages that were packaged together into "AAA rated" securities were actually a bunch of junk. But this is just the beginning. There are going to be hordes of lawsuits stemming from this crisis and it is going to take years and years for this thing to work through the legal system. All of the big players in the U.S. mortgage industry are going to be paralyzed for an extended period of time by this crisis, and that means that buying a home and achieving the American Dream is going to become a lot harder for millions of Americans. Not only that, if mortgage lending institutions end up being forced to take back gigantic mountains of bad mortgages it could end up sinking a whole lot of them. The implications for the U.S. financial system would be staggering.

And it turns out that the effort by the consortium of eight large institutional investment firms to get Bank of America to take back $47 billion in mortgages is not the only action already being taken. An even larger mortgage repurchase initiative involving investors holding a total of more than $500 billion in mortgage debt is being coordinated by Dallas lawyer Talcott Franklin.

The sad reality is that all of this is going to create one of the biggest legal messes in U.S. history and lawyers from coast to coast are salivating.

For example, Peter Ticktin of the Ticktin Law Group in Deerfield Beach, Florida represents approximately 3,000 homeowners and he says that he plans to meet with a number of other prominent attorneys this week to discuss launching a nationwide class action lawsuit against the big mortgage lenders.

Mortgage companies are going to go broke just trying to defend against all the lawsuits that are coming. It is going to be a complete and total mess.

But beyond the problems with bad mortgages, there are now many legal authorities that are even questioning whether it was ever legal to package mortgages together, securitize them, and sell them at lightning speed around the globe.

A recent article in The New York Times is asking this question....

"Was the great securitization machine that made hundreds of billions of dollars in mortgage loans based on a legal foundation of sand?"

It turns out that there are some legitimate questions as to whether or not it was ever proper for the big mortgage lenders to set up and utilize MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems) to securitize and market mortgages.

The article in the New York Times went on to describe what a "worst case scenario" might look like if courts around the country start finding fundamental legal flaws with MERS....

The worst outcome would be a conclusion that errors by financial institutions had decoupled the payment promises made by borrowers from the mortgages they signed. In that case, the mortgages would be invalid. Homes could be sold without paying off lenders. There also could be heavy tax consequences for lenders, both in terms of federal income taxes and in payment of back fees for mortgage registrations to local governments across the country.

On top of everything else, the Feds are considering going after the major mortgage lenders. On Tuesday, the Obama administration warned lending institutions that it would go after them for any mortgage practices that violated federal law.

Needless to say, things are very tense at the big U.S. mortgage lenders right now, and many investors are wondering if they should start looking for the exit doors.

In fact, there are some analysts that are speculating that this could even set off another big financial crisis like we saw in 2008.

On Tuesday, U.S. stocks had their worst day in two months.

So will things get even worse for the stock market?

Let's certainly hope not, but we had all better buckle up our seat belts because there are some bumpy times ahead for the U.S. financial system.

Original Article

Winning The Currency War: The Unleasing of a “Financial Nuclear War”

by Matthias Chang

Let us be very clear about the impact of the coming massive Quantitative Easing (QEII) by the FED, the financial bully of Wall Street. It is the unleashing of a financial nuclear weapon!

The financial media is portraying this process as “a war of survival” between America and the rest of the world. This is a war waged by Wall Street. Its main instrument is a Global Ponzi Scheme.

If the American people is hoodwinked into believing the financial media, which justifies the use of “financial WMDs” against America and the world, the consequences will be catastrophic and the American economy and people will be devastated. Moreover, for the 1% of the financial elites, about half will survive, consolidate their control and form new global alliances. This is already taking place, as highlighted in my recent article. [1]

Will the American people rise to the occasion and hunt down the fraudsters on Wall Street, the US Congress and the puppet masters behind the shadow money-lending system. In this regard, I am not optimistic. The present mass movement - the Tea Party constitutes a significant diversion from the main issues that need to be addressed. The American people seem to be unaware that they have been plundered by their very own political leaders acting in concert with the global financial elites on Wall Street.

In the same way that the American people were dragged into invading Afghanistan and Iraq on the promise of victory (Bush’s Mission Accomplished), Wall Street will do likewise in launching this unprecedented financial war on the promise that they will come out the victors!

The propaganda has already commenced. The Financial Times, one of the leading mouth-pieces of the financial establishment has declared victory even before the launch of the first WMD. To quote Martin Wolf:

“To put it bluntly, the US wants to inflate the rest of the world, while the latter is trying to deflate the US. The US must win, since it has infinite ammunition: there is no limit to the dollars the Federal Reserve can create. What need to be discussed are the terms of the world’s surrender”.

Wall Street´s Utmost Arrogance. Why?



The US has “unlimited nuclear weapons” enough to destroy the entire planet. When Russia and China did not have nuclear weapons, the US dared unleash two nuclear bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima to blackmail the rest of the world to toe the line.

But, China declared that “nuclear weapons are paper tigers” and “America is a paper tiger”. However, during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, when the US and its allies had so much military superiority, they did not have the guts to unleash a regional nuclear war, or a global nuclear war!

And as they say, the rest is history.

As a declining military power, the US is left with nothing but bully tactics – the constant threat that “all options are on the table”. And this is echoed by its regional bullies – the UK, Japan and Israel against Iran, North Korea, Syria and Lebanon.

It is in the same way that I view the threat of Quantitative Easing (QEII) by the FED and Wall Street – their so-called unlimited financial WMDs.

I dare say, to borrow Bush’s words, “Bring Them On!”

This is so typical of a bully who has run out of ammunition and is using sheer arrogance to intimidate.

The Flaw In the QEII Grand Strategy

The first fundamental flaw in this grand strategy is the false assumption that because the dollar is the global reserve currency, the FED has the capacity to increase the amount of dollars in an unlimited fashion.

The second fundamental flaw is that (and notwithstanding the fact since 2007, the rest of the world has started to take measures to decouple from the US) the rest of the world would still look towards the USA as the ultimate market for their exports.

The third fundamental flaw is that the rest of the world would still be willing to accept “toilet paper Federal Reserve Notes” (printed or digital) as legal tender.

The financial generals planning this war must be in some “wonderland” to base their entire war plans on the above three fundamental assumptions. How stupid and out of touch can they get?

For starters, the USA is no longer a BUYERS’ MARKET i.e. the US is no longer in a position to dictate the terms regarding the purchase of its imports.



American consumers are drowning in debt. The financial institutions that were supporting their insatiable appetite for loans are all insolvent and cannot continue giving easy money to the consumers to indulge in their fantasies. And adding insult to injury, expect the sellers in these depressed conditions to be paid in toilet paper Federal Reserve Notes. We are not watching Comedy Hour. This is the reality show!

In the near and short term, the sellers (exporting nations) will suffer acute pain but, in the last two years regional trade has already begun to offset the drag from exports to the US.

But the near term pain of exporting nations pale in comparison to the trauma and mental anguish by Americans going to Wal-Mart and other Hypermarket retailers and not even finding the cheap goods that they were so used to purchasing.



A shift in trading patterns could potentially result in “empty shelves” in stores across America. There are over 40 million Americans on food stamps. Attached to this time bomb, is another another potentially explosive process: an impoverished and disillusioned middle class.

Moreover, within the realm of international trade, there will be growing barter trade, especially in commodities and one of the first commodities to be de-dollarised will be crude oil, the mighty crude which since 1973, has been the main pillar propping up the dollar.

If the Saudis had not succumbed to Kissinger’s blackmail, the dollar could have collapsed as a reserve currency a long time ago. Oil producing countries (with perhaps the exception of Saudi Arabia) could well enter into bilateral trade agreements (including barter) to sell crude in any currency other than the dollar.

Original Article

The Mainstream Media Is Now Obsolete

By Giordano Bruno

The progression of human society relies upon the steady distribution of information. The quality of that information, its accuracy and its honesty, determines the overall health of the cultures we create. When a source of information becomes compromised by unhealthy political ambition, social dogma, or the strangling hands of elitism, it’s like a poison well, spreading plague and pestilence throughout the nation, or even the world. Widely disseminated lies inspire delirium and madness in the masses faster than typhoid fever.

In America today, the person searching for a pure source of truth in the media inevitably stumbles across many poison wells.

Even if they are not yet actively pursuing alternative outlets of information, many people are aware, at least intuitively, when someone is trying to swindle them. You can present us with the assurance of delectable sirloin steaks on ornate silver platters, but if our faces are struck with the sickly stench of decay, we aren’t going to bite. Through its dishonesty and its distinct lack of substance, the mainstream media has turned up more noses than any putrid slab of unkempt beef ever could. The raw data is merciless in regards to the implosion of the MSM…

Top providers of print media (newspapers), including such “luminaries” as the Washington Post and the New York Times, have plunged in readership over the past several years. Last year, overall daily circulation for newspapers fell 10.6%, followed by another 8.7% drop so far this year:

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/04/top-25-newspapers-lose-1-million-readers-since-last-march/

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/US-newspaper-circulation-apf-436809869.html?x=0

Newspapers have shed about a quarter of their employees since 2001, and their revenues are expected to plunge through 2012:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/Headlines/forecast-more-pain-ahead-for-publishers-through-2012-61677-.aspx

Talk of bankruptcy has been haunting many print media providers since 2008. The common argument made here is that technology has rendered print obsolete, not their quality of news, and that when newspapers finally make the transition to the web, they will be successful again. However, those papers that have thrown their weight and money behind web based news have so far failed miserably. Rupert Murdoch’s news empire which includes the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, The New York Post, and Hulu, has been unable to draw enough readers and enough ad revenue to its websites to maintain profits. Murdoch’s response has been to blame google and others for “stealing his content, threatening to pull his sites from search engines altogether and erect “paywalls” (charging just to view the sites):

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-10393209-261.html

Murdoch’s paywalls have been an outright financial disaster not to mention a journalistic embarrassment:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100903/16545310903.shtml

Numerous other media sites that have instituted paywalls are meeting with similar results.

Television news sources are no better off. ABC and CBS evening news programs lose more and more viewers every quarter:

http://www.businessinsider.com/nbc-abc-cbs-evening-news-continue-to-lose-viewers-2010-4



CNN has over the past year lost around 50% of its viewers overall. Larry King and Anderson Cooper especially have become dead weight dragging the network into the suffocating depths:

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/08/31/cnns-primetime-viewership-hits-10-year-low-in-august-as-ratings-woes-continue/61722

MSNBC, the slimy crust at the very bottom of the mainstream media cesspool, now ranks 25th in television news. Its small audience is dwarfed by many online alternative news sources.

Fox appears to be at the head of the pack as far as ratings are concerned, and this is likely due to the network’s willingness to allow at least a small amount of fact to leak through its barrier of disinformation, but, ALL mainstream networks are in serious trouble. Blowhards like Bill O’Reilly rake in around a million viewers or more per show on average, and this seems like a substantial audience, however, when one examines the demographics of TV news viewers, one finds himself rather unimpressed.

According to Neilson, the average Fox News viewer is age 65 or older! Not that people over the age of 60 don’t count, they most certainly do, but at what point do we acknowledge that a massive portion of the American demographic (ages 25-54), a couple generations at least, have little to no interest in what Fox has to say? Now, so called “progressives” try to play the false left/right paradigm game with numbers like this, claiming that the conservative Fox (which is establishment run and not truly conservative at all) is an outmoded news source for dinosaurs. Actually, left leaning media has similar problems attracting anyone younger than 50.

Keith Olbermann, for instance, has lost around 50% of his viewers in the 25-54 demographic over the past year:

http://www.businessinsider.com/quarterly-ratings-keith-olbermann-is-slipping-in-the-key-25-54-age-demographic-2010-6

MSNBC has declined broadly among viewers 25-54. Chris Matthews ‘Hardball’ has lost around 46% over the past year:

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/04/09/msnbc-declines-broadly-among-adults-25-54-vs-2009-q1/47859



The average age of CNN viewers is 63. MSNBC is 59. ABC is 51, and NBC is 49.

This is not a matter of one fake political party outdoing another fake political party. Both sides of the false paradigm media are being shunned by anyone young enough to be exposed to alternative web news, and many older readers are beginning to turn to the internet as well. Essentially, alternative web media is now replacing the MSM. Not only this, but as the recession takes its toll, it is becoming more obvious that cost cutting consumers are much more willing to shut off their cable than they are to turn of their internet service. Cable subscribers are now beginning to decline as internet users continue to increase:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/296624

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/tw_cable_concern_i3sdnOb6y9p9PQy1o0V89H

This is not to say that mainstream news is dead. Obviously, it still operates today and is still entrenched as an aging mainstay of our society, even though the model it follows will eventually lead it to disintegration. We in the alternative media still reference mainstream sources on occasion, because it represents the establishment (and often globalist) ideology. If that ideology contradicts itself within its own information venues, those in alternative media have to be ready to point it out.

Where did the MSM go wrong? Fifteen years ago, they seemed absolutely unstoppable. Their ability to dominate information flow was unparalleled! How could such a behemoth be crippled by a bunch of amateur journalists and (*gasp*) bloggers? Let’s examine the reasons why so many Americans have now placed their trust in once underground news sources above the ramblings of corporate pundits.

The Truth Is A Right, Not A Product

The news is first and foremost a function of social progress, it is NOT meant to be a prepackaged widget built generically on an assembly line and sold to the masses at an outrageous markup. The mechanically domineering corporatist philosophy does not mix with the natural and organic flow of information distribution. It simply goes against everything human communication engenders. Our ability to share knowledge cannot be impeded without causing cultural anxiety. That anxiety often translates to a desperate need for an alternative view, even if we do not recognize what inspired our need in the first place.

The corporate media has been highly successful in the past, yet just as corrupt, so why didn’t Americans turn away from them decades ago? It wasn’t because Americans didn’t want to. The MSM has global backers with billions of dollars in capital at their disposal. They have advertising budgets the size of some small countries, and armies of marketers. Channels promote and cross promote each other even though they pretend to stand for different ideologies, feeding each other in a frenzy of inbred sponsorship. But none of this means much in the end. The only advantage the MSM ever really enjoyed was that it had no competition! (Remember, whether you watch Fox, or CNN, you’re still only getting one point of view; the globalist point of view) And, as with any company that has no competition, the public is forced to consume its product without the benefit of a comparison. The internet offered a medium free from corporate dominance, and thus, an opportunity. Look at how quickly Americans dropped the MSM the moment there was finally another option on the table, one that alternative journalists and analysts were well equipped to offer.

The “Copyleft” methods of the alternative media have also bewildered the establishment. The MSM has always seen news as a revenue source, a commodity, something to be guarded and caged. Look at Rupert Murdoch’s hasty bid to paywall his websites. The alternative media, in contrast, has treated news as a right first, and a revenue source second. The goal of web news is not necessarily to make money, its goal is to get the truth out as quickly as possible, to as many people as possible, as accurately as possible, and that is why we dominate over the MSM. We allow the sharing and re-sharing of our articles, analysis, and films. We challenge our skeptics to check our information, to put our ideas under a microscope (and they always do, rarely finding any concrete fault in our reporting, often reverting to strawman arguments instead). We explore the facts and possibilities the MSM is designed to avoid.

Imagine you are stricken with cancer, and are confronted by two men. The first is a smarmy sales associate with clammy palms who offers you a couple of aspirin in flashy packaging and unverifiable guarantees charging you inflated fees and no refunds. The second man offers you a cure at no charge with no flash, asking only for your support (word-of-mouth or monetary) if and when the cure is proven effective. Which guy are you going to shake hands with?

The “sharing method” appears at odds with traditional free market capitalism, but in reality, it compliments capitalism perfectly. As I stated, information is not a product, but insight can be. The public today does not seek out “news”, they seek out intelligent and concise analysis on the news. They look for an honest presentation of the facts, along with the ability to show the relevant connections between those facts. They want the whole truth, not fabricated processed tidbits. Not establishment talking points read from a teleprompter. If the MSM knew how to do this, or even wanted to do this, they could easily make money in grand ole’ American fashion, but they avoid giving the people what they want at all costs despite the potential profits. Why is that?

Internet News Is The Open Range, MSM A Sterile Prison

One factor that does frighten some news readers when encountering the internet is its lack of ceilings and fences; its complete denial of the traditional boundaries and filters always present in the mainstream media. When it comes to information consumption, many Americans are agoraphobic; when exposed to wide open spaces, they panic. At the same time, many people find the unbridled flow of news on the internet liberating.

Some sources of web news, like most mainstream outlets, are not reliable, while others are fantastically precise. The internet forces you, the reader and researcher, to check the viability of the information you encounter. You are no longer a passive observer frying your synapses in front of a talking box, but a participant in the realm of news, seeking out and separating that which is factual, from that which is not. Web news users have to put individual effort into their learning, which is, frankly, the way it should be.

Television and print media do not offer you avenues of information to explore, they TELL you what to believe and feel, or they simply reinforce false assumptions you have already made about the world, instead of challenging you to think beyond your cushy comfort bubble. It is far easier to sit back and accept MSM fodder, but also utterly unfulfilling and intellectually destabilizing. People whose only information exposure is through cable news seem to quite literally devolve as human beings to the point of base machine instinct. Strangely, in this way, corporate media creates a collective feeling of personal isolation in the populace. We feel drawn to the MSM because it offers the illusion of community, of connection to those around us, but in reality, it actually degrades our ability to think clearly and honestly, making connection to each other impossible. The result is a stewed mass of humanity all with the same skewed world view, but ironically, no comradery and no common ground.

Web news offers participation, it offers community, and it presses us to not only question everything, but to actually go out and answer our own questions instead of waiting for someone with a possible agenda to do it for us. The MSM cannot possibly compete with this dynamic.

Bias, Lies, And The Status Quo

The mainstream media is not nor has it ever been a “supplier” of news. In fact, the MSM is instead a “washer” of news, a turbine of scrubbing sandpaper and soap suds designed to remove those “dirty” bits of information that contradict the status quo. News wires like the AP or Reuters remove about 90% of the truth from their reporting, or combine the truth with biased opinion in an attempt to minimize its effect. Cable news then takes that information and skims out even more valuable data. The average MSM watching pop-culture zombie-bot is probably only exposed to about 1% truth in a single day, if he even pays attention to that much. For those people who couldn’t care less about anything beyond their immediate existence, 1% is more than enough. However, quite a few of us are aware of our surroundings, and extremely unsatisfied with this arrangement.

The mistake many Americans make is that they assume the corporate news is a “service”, a service to the public. It is not. The MSM attends to the interests of its shareholders and its CEO’s, and nothing more. The mainstream media is not even required by law to be factual in its reporting of information unless it is involved in defamation, and even those checks and balances are falling by the wayside. The saga of journalists Jane Akre and Steve Wilson and their fight against Fox and Monsanto’s suppression of their story on rBGH growth hormone’s cancer causing effects proved that the higher rungs of our legal system are completely cooperative in the MSM’s attempts to censor pertinent information, or even to lie outright:

http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/fox.html

Those alternative analysts who somehow slip through the corporate news net only seem to find ridicule and contempt for the facts they offer. In the video below, Peter Schiff attempts to warn the public back in 2006 of the impending market crash and housing crisis, laying out exactly how the mortgage collapse would commence. Instead of examining his logic rationally, the Fox News pundits laugh and shout over him. I wonder if these clowns are laughing now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HFNJw7xGSA

The constant attacks by the MSM (from Fox to MSNBC) on any Constitutionalist movement or organization, from the Tea Party to Oathkeepers, or any anti-establishment ideology period, have revealed a complete disregard for the objectivity journalists are supposed to pride themselves on. Ridiculous and completely unsupported accusations against Liberty Movement candidates like Ron Paul and Rand Paul, ranging from racism to extremism and terrorism, are now the norm. And they wonder why everyone is turning their televisions off!? How long can you watch a bunch of overgrown children in suits sling schoolyard taunts from satellite to satellite against honorable men who are barely given the chance to defend themselves in an equal forum? Perhaps my attention span is short, or maybe some people are easily entertained, but most of us get bored with this kind of pathetic display rather quickly.

The bottom line is that the MSM is working towards the goal of suppression, not revelation, and Americans are beginning to understand this. Why bother watching a 10 minute interview between MSNBC and Ron Paul or Rand Paul with odd time delays, video edits, Alinsky tactics, and circular logic? We learn nothing because the interview was not designed by MSNBC to explore the truth; it was designed to undermine it. Laughably, it is the establishment media that has called for regulations and gatekeepers to be placed on the alternative media due to a lack of “accountability” in the case of web news:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8ecPidqeNs

What the hell does the MSM know about accountability? Or even fact based reporting? These people are a disgrace to journalism and they have the audacity to demand professionalism from the alternative media?! I can’t possibly count how many inaccurate or fabricated mainstream stories I have covered and dissected in my years writing for the Liberty Movement. Where is all the outrage and indignance over those fallacies? Which news source is truly guilty of duplicity?

Web media is not in need of “gatekeepers”. Our readers should be capable of checking our information and deciding for themselves whether it is reliable or disingenuous. In the case of the MSM, we ARE the gatekeepers! They obviously don’t hold their own reporting to any sincere criteria…

Citizen Journalists, Citizen Justice

The alternative media represents an incredible paradigm shift, not only in the way we take part in the spread of information, but also in the way we perceive our role in world events. No longer are you and I confined to the guidelines and rules of the elitist system, a system which is ultimately intended to harm us, not help us. Today, we have tools at our disposal which render the old constrictive methods of news distribution completely obsolete. Today, right at their fingertips, each and every American has the chance to actively contribute to the greater pool of knowledge that eventually leads to the death of deceptions and the promotion of social progress.

Nothing is perfect, including the web. There will always be disinformation to sort through, regardless of any new technology or regulation. This is part of living in a free society. We do not rely on government or corporate entities to set the standards of truth, we set those standards for ourselves, and if we fail, it will only be because we set our standards too low.

I find it interesting that establishment proponents always use the proclamation of the “greater good” as a pretext for suppressing anything which threatens their power structure. But let’s think about this for a second; what is the greater good in this instance? Is it in the interest of the greater good to control and censor the internet because an inaccurate news story MIGHT be spread there? To impose “protections” on people because they are supposedly too lazy or too stupid? Or do we find greater good in free information, and developing a public mature enough to research the facts for themselves? Is it really better to maintain a monopolistic system of news that has been proven time after time to be faulty, propaganda driven, and shamelessly oversimplified? Or, is it to our benefit to provide another outlet, a more level playing field, and see which one better fills the needs of the citizenry? When we actually stop and consider what the actual “greater good” would be, we find that it does not at all coincide with the desires of the establishment.

If we need anything at this point in history, it is the citizen journalist. We need not one corporately sponsored message, but millions of independent voices all searching for the truth in their own unique way. Only then can we retrieve our American identity, and achieve a legitimate sense of justice in this country. Great changes begin with a revolution of ideas, an individual will, and a multitude of open eyes. The internet is a catalyst for such an event, the kind that occurs perhaps once in a millennium. We cannot allow it to be vilified by swindlers or dominated by tyrants under any circumstance, otherwise, we will lose our initiative, and along with it, our voice.

Original Article

It May Not Be Right But It's Legal - When Citizens Realize They Don't Need To Pay Their Banks

Dear Readers, this text came to me in an email from sources that are in the financial services business and with whom I have a personal relationship. The original text was laced with expletives and I would not use it in the form I received it. Therefore the text below has had some substantial editing in order to remove that language. The intentions of the writer are undisturbed. The writer shall remain anonymous. This text echoes some of the news items we have seen and heard today; however, it can serve as a plain language description of the present foreclosure-suspension mess. David Kotok (www.cumber.com)

"Homeowners can only be foreclosed and evicted from their homes by the person or institution who actually has the loan paper...only the note-holder has legal standing to ask a court to foreclose and evict. Not the mortgage, the note, which is the actual IOU that people sign, promising to pay back the mortgage loan

"Before mortgage-backed securities, most mortgage loans were issued by the local savings & loan. So the note usually didn't go anywhere: it stayed in the offices of the S&L down the street.

"But once mortgage loan securitization happened, things got sloppy...they got sloppy by the very nature of mortgage-backed securities.

"The whole purpose of MBSs was for different investors to have their different risk appetites satiated with different bonds. Some bond customers wanted super-safe bonds with low returns, some others wanted riskier bonds with correspondingly higher rates of return.

"Therefore, as everyone knows, the loans were 'bundled' into REMICs (Real-Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits, a special vehicle designed to hold the loans for tax purposes), and then "sliced & diced"...split up and put into tranches, according to their likelihood of default, their interest rates, and other characteristics.

"This slicing and dicing created 'senior tranches,' where the loans would likely be paid in full, if the past history of mortgage loan statistics was to be believed. And it also created 'junior tranches,' where the loans might well default, again according to past history and statistics. (A whole range of tranches was created, of course, but for the purposes of this discussion we can ignore all those countless other variations.)

"These various tranches were sold to different investors, according to their risk appetite. That's why some of the MBS bonds were rated as safe as Treasury bonds, and others were rated by the ratings agencies as risky as junk bonds.

"But here's the key issue: When an MBS was first created, all the mortgages were pristine...none had defaulted yet, because they were all brand-new loans. Statistically, some would default and some others would be paid back in full...but which ones specifically would default? No one knew, of course. If I toss a coin 1,000 times, statistically, 500 tosses the coin will land heads...but what will the result be of, say, the 723rd toss? No one knows.

"Same with mortgages.

"So in fact, it wasn't that the riskier loans were in junior tranches and the safer ones were in senior tranches: rather, all the loans were in the REMIC, and if and when a mortgage in a given bundle of mortgages defaulted, the junior tranche holders would take the losses first, and the senior tranche holder last.

"But who were the owners of the junior-tranche bond and the senior-tranche bonds? Two different people. Therefore, the mortgage note was not actually signed over to the bond holder. In fact, it couldn't be signed over. Because, again, since no one knew which mortgage would default first, it was impossible to assign a specific mortgage to a specific bond.

"Therefore, how to make sure the safe mortgage loan stayed with the safe MBS tranche, and the risky and/or defaulting mortgage went to the riskier tranche?

"Enter stage right the famed MERS...the Mortgage Electronic Registration System.

"MERS was the repository of these digitized mortgage notes that the banks originated from the actual mortgage loans signed by homebuyers. MERS was jointly owned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (yes, those two again ...I know, I know: like the chlamydia and the gonorrhea of the financial world...you cure 'em, but they just keep coming back).

"The purpose of MERS was to help in the securitization process. Basically, MERS directed defaulting mortgages to the appropriate tranches of mortgage bonds. MERS was essentially where the digitized mortgage notes were sliced and diced and rearranged so as to create the mortgage-backed securities. Think of MERS as Dr. Frankenstein's operating table, where the beast got put together.

"However, legally...and this is the important part...MERS didn't hold any mortgage notes: the true owner of the mortgage notes should have been the REMICs.

"But the REMICs didn't own the notes either, because of a fluke of the ratings agencies: the REMICs had to be "bankruptcy remote," in order to get the precious ratings needed to peddle mortgage-backed Securities to institutional investors.

"So somewhere between the REMICs and MERS, the chain of title was broken.

"Now, what does 'broken chain of title' mean? Simple: when a homebuyer signs a mortgage, the key document is the note. As I said before, it's the actual IOU. In order for the mortgage note to be sold or transferred to someone else (and therefore turned into a mortgage-backed security), this document has to be physically endorsed to the next person. All of these signatures on the note are called the 'chain of title.'

"You can endorse the note as many times as you please...but you have to have a clear chain of title right on the actual note: I sold the note to Moe, who sold it to Larry, who sold it to Curly, and all our notarized signatures are actually, physically, on the note, one after the other.

"If for whatever reason any of these signatures is skipped, then the chain of title is said to be broken. Therefore, legally, the mortgage note is no longer valid. That is, the person who took out the mortgage loan to pay for the house no longer owes the loan, because he no longer knows whom to pay.

"To repeat: if the chain of title of the note is broken, then the borrower no longer owes any money on the loan.

"Read that last sentence again, please. Don't worry, I'll wait.

"You read it again? Good: Now you see the can of worms that's opening up.

"The broken chain of title might not have been an issue if there hadn't been an unusual number of foreclosures. Before the housing bubble collapse, the people who defaulted on their mortgages wouldn't have bothered to check to see that the paperwork was in order.

"But as everyone knows, following the housing collapse of 2007-'10-and-counting, there has been a boatload of foreclosures...and foreclosures on a lot of people who weren't sloppy bums who skipped out on their mortgage payments, but smart and cautious people who got squeezed by circumstances.

"These people started contesting their foreclosures and evictions, and so started looking into the chain-of-title issue, and that's when the paperwork became important. So the chain of title became crucial and the botched paperwork became a nontrivial issue.

"Now, the banks had hired 'foreclosure mills'...law firms that specialized in foreclosures...in order to handle the massive volume of foreclosures and evictions that occurred because of the housing crisis. The foreclosure mills, as one would expect, were the first to spot the broken chain of titles.

"Well, what do you know, it turns out that these foreclosure mills might have faked and falsified documentation, so as to fraudulently repair the chain-of-title issue, thereby 'proving' that the banks had judicial standing to foreclose on delinquent mortgages. These foreclosure mills might have even forged the loan note itself...

"Wait, why am I hedging? The foreclosure mills did actually, deliberately, and categorically fake and falsify documents, in order to expedite these foreclosures and evictions. Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism, who has been all over this story, put up a price list for this 'service' from a company called DocX...yes, a price list for forged documents. Talk about your one-stop shopping!

"So in other words, a massive fraud was carried out, with the inevitable innocent bystanders getting caught up in the fraud: the guy who got foreclosed and evicted from his home in Florida, even though he didn't actually have a mortgage, and in fact owned his house free -and clear. The family that was foreclosed and evicted, even though they had a perfect mortgage payment record. Et cetera, depressing et cetera.

"Now, the reason this all came to light is not because too many people were getting screwed by the banks or the government or someone with some power saw what was going on and decided to put a stop to it...that would have been nice, to see a shining knight in armor, riding on a white horse.

"But that's not how America works nowadays.

"No, alarm bells started going off when the title insurance companies started to refuse to insure the titles.

"In every sale, a title insurance company insures that the title is free -and clear ...that the prospective buyer is in fact buying a properly vetted house, with its title issues all in order. Title insurance companies stopped providing their service because...of course...they didn't want to expose themselves to the risk that the chain of title had been broken, and that the bank had illegally foreclosed on the previous owner.

"That's when things started getting interesting: that's when the attorneys general of various states started snooping around and making noises (elections are coming up, after all).

"The fact that Ally Financial (formerly GMAC), JP Morgan Chase, and now Bank of America have suspended foreclosures signals that this is a serious problem...obviously. Banks that size, with that much exposure to foreclosed properties, don't suspend foreclosures just because they're good corporate citizens who want to do the right thing, and who have all their paperwork in strict order...they're halting their foreclosures for a reason.

"The move by the United States Congress last week, to sneak by the Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act? That was all the banking lobby. They wanted to shove down that law, so that their foreclosure mills' forged and fraudulent documents would not be scrutinized by out-of-state judges. (The spineless cowards in the Senate carried out their master's will by a voice vote...so that there would be no registry of who had voted for it, and therefore no accountability.)

See the link above for the following statements

Apr 27, 2010: This bill passed in the House of Representatives by voice vote. A record of each representative’s position was not kept.
Sep 27, 2010: This bill passed in the Senate by Unanimous Consent. A record of each senator’s position was not kept.


"And President Obama's pocket veto of the measure? He had to veto it...if he'd signed it, there would have been political hell to pay, plus it would have been challenged almost immediately, and likely overturned as unconstitutional in short order. (But he didn't have the gumption to come right out and veto it...he pocket vetoed it.)

"As soon as the White House announced the pocket veto...the very next day!...Bank of America halted all foreclosures, nationwide.

"Why do you think that happened? Because the banks are in trouble...again. Over the same thing as last time...the damned mortgage-backed securities!

"The reason the banks are in the tank again is, if they've been foreclosing on people they didn't have the legal right to foreclose on, then those people have the right to get their houses back. And the people who bought those foreclosed houses from the bank might not actually own the houses they paid for.

"And it won't matter if a particular case...or even most cases...were on the up -and up: It won't matter if most of the foreclosures and evictions were truly due to the homeowner failing to pay his mortgage. The fraud committed by the foreclosure mills casts enough doubt that, now, all foreclosures come into question. Not only that, all mortgages come into question.

"People still haven't figured out what all this means. But I'll tell you: if enough mortgage-paying homeowners realize that they may be able to get out of their mortgage loans and keep their houses, scott-free? That's basically a license to halt payments right now, thank you. That's basically a license to tell the banks to take a hike.

"What are the banks going to do...try to foreclose and then evict you? Show me the paper, Mr. Banker, will be all you need to say.

"This is a major, major crisis. The Lehman bankruptcy could be a spring rain compared to this hurricane. And if this isn't handled right...and handled right quick, in the next couple of weeks at the outside...this crisis could also spell the end of the mortgage business altogether. Of banking altogether. Hell, of civil society. What do you think happens in a country when the citizens realize they don't need to pay their debts?"