---
Found this on the net.. I don't want to spend the time needed to check it all out but I'm pretty certain it's true..
Greg
---
Elementary and secondary education is mostly obligatory and free in developed countries. At the same time, remarkable number of countries have both universal health care and free post-secondary education. Universal health care is actually part of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, which US did not ratify in full. So much for country fighting worldwide for human rights.
Now, to leave all my rant aside, countries that have both free universal health care and free post-secondary education are:
- Argentina
- Brazil
- China
- Denmark
- Finland
- Greece
- Norway
- Sweden
- Sri Lanka
- Cuba
- Libya (prior to the revolution)
If under free education you mean only secondary education (no free college) than the list gets too big to write here since most of the countries in the world offer free health care in one form or another. You can find the full list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care
Friday, October 25, 2013
What my life has been like.. lately..
---
The end of August Mrs Warrior was on one of her "shopping" trips with out daughter, son & grandkids. These adventures are usually rummage sales all day long but sometimes flea markets too..
During the process she ran across a 1998 Dodge RAM pickup truck and sent me a picture of it. We had been discussing the need of a truck here on the ranch & all so I told her to go for it. Well.. turned out our son-in-law & daughter were looking for a truck too so our son-in-law went to look at it and talk to the guy selling it. The guy wanted $2,000.00 for it (and yes it did run) but our son-in-law talked him down to $1,400.00 and bought it. Later, when he found out we really wanted it too, he felt bad and sold it to us for the $1,400.00.
It built my deck in one trip to Lowes.. (about 10x20 all 2x6's, 4x4's, concrete piers) and seemed like a damn good truck though we bought a battery for it and it kept draining it after sitting for a few days (short maybe). We had to put close to $500.00 in it to get it shaped up enough to pass inspection, get tags, etc. So we had a couple grand in it but, like I said, it seemed like a good truck.
The tags are what got us.. Come to find out we had bought a stolen truck! It ended up going back to it's rightful owner who wasn't even decent enough to cover any of the costs we had incurred fixing it up.
So there went 2 grand down the toilet..
A week later our car blew a head gasket which by the time we covered rental car costs and paid for the repair, about a week) we were out another $1,400.00!
In the mean time I had done my due diligence, researched and bought what was supposed to be a good chainsaw ($400.00). It hasn't put a drop of chain oil on the chain since we bought it so I haven't been able to use it other than trying it out.. The "dealer" we bought it from sucks, had it for a week, told us it was fixed, and.. it isn't! Taking it to a different dealer today to see about getting it going..
Then yesterday everything seemed ok and then.. NO water in the house! Looks as if our well pump has quit and I'm guessing we'll be out another $1,500.00 for this repair..
File under "What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger"
Donations welcome LMAO
Greg
The end of August Mrs Warrior was on one of her "shopping" trips with out daughter, son & grandkids. These adventures are usually rummage sales all day long but sometimes flea markets too..
During the process she ran across a 1998 Dodge RAM pickup truck and sent me a picture of it. We had been discussing the need of a truck here on the ranch & all so I told her to go for it. Well.. turned out our son-in-law & daughter were looking for a truck too so our son-in-law went to look at it and talk to the guy selling it. The guy wanted $2,000.00 for it (and yes it did run) but our son-in-law talked him down to $1,400.00 and bought it. Later, when he found out we really wanted it too, he felt bad and sold it to us for the $1,400.00.
It built my deck in one trip to Lowes.. (about 10x20 all 2x6's, 4x4's, concrete piers) and seemed like a damn good truck though we bought a battery for it and it kept draining it after sitting for a few days (short maybe). We had to put close to $500.00 in it to get it shaped up enough to pass inspection, get tags, etc. So we had a couple grand in it but, like I said, it seemed like a good truck.
The tags are what got us.. Come to find out we had bought a stolen truck! It ended up going back to it's rightful owner who wasn't even decent enough to cover any of the costs we had incurred fixing it up.
So there went 2 grand down the toilet..
A week later our car blew a head gasket which by the time we covered rental car costs and paid for the repair, about a week) we were out another $1,400.00!
In the mean time I had done my due diligence, researched and bought what was supposed to be a good chainsaw ($400.00). It hasn't put a drop of chain oil on the chain since we bought it so I haven't been able to use it other than trying it out.. The "dealer" we bought it from sucks, had it for a week, told us it was fixed, and.. it isn't! Taking it to a different dealer today to see about getting it going..
Then yesterday everything seemed ok and then.. NO water in the house! Looks as if our well pump has quit and I'm guessing we'll be out another $1,500.00 for this repair..
File under "What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger"
Donations welcome LMAO
Greg
Monday, October 7, 2013
Lying via the omission of fact #MSM is an eager accomplis for #government, #banksters and #corporations
---
THIS is the way the "crisis" has been handled by politicians, bankers and corporations and especially the media. The plan is the same regardless of the issue.
Be it the financial crisis of 2008, the Fort Hood [terrorist] shootings, Bengazi, the IRS scandal or the true condition of the U.S. economy. The SOP (standard operating procedure) of the State is first to deny, then blame the other guy, then over a period of YEARS [if not decades] to very slowly leak the truth a minuscule amount at a time so as to control and obfuscate it as much as possible.
In this article there is some truth but it's truth that MANY knew YEARS ago.. Just now be leaked out ever so slowly to the public..
I hope you don't mind my commentary intermixed..
---
Families hoard cash 5 years after crisis -Click for source
NEW YORK - Five years after U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed, triggering a global financial crisis and shattering confidence worldwide, families in major countries around the world are still hunkered down, too spooked and distrustful to take chances with their money.
An Associated Press analysis of households in the 10 biggest economies shows that families continue to spend cautiously and have pulled hundreds of billions of dollars out of stocks, cut borrowing for the first time in decades and poured money into savings and bonds that offer puny interest payments, often too low to keep up with inflation.
"It doesn't take very much to destroy confidence, but it takes an awful lot to build it back," says Ian Bright, senior economist at ING, a global bank based in Amsterdam. "The attitude toward risk is permanently reset."
A flight to safety on such a global scale is unprecedented since the end of World War II.
The implications are huge: Shunning debt and spending less can be good for one family's finances. When hundreds of millions do it together, it can starve the global economy.
Some of the retrenchment is not surprising: High unemployment in many countries means fewer people with paychecks to spend. But even people with good jobs and little fear of losing them remain cautious.
"Lehman changed everything," says Arne Holzhausen, a senior economist at global insurer Allianz, based in Munich. "It's safety, safety, safety."
The AP analyzed data showing what consumers did with their money in the five years before the Great Recession began in December 2007 and in the five years that followed, through the end of 2012. The focus was on the world's 10 biggest economies -- the United States, China, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Russia, Italy and India -- which have half the world's population and 65 percent of global gross domestic product.
Key findings:
Retreat from stocks: A desire for safety drove people to dump stocks, even as prices rocketed from crisis lows in early 2009. Investors in the top 10 countries pulled $1.1 trillion from stock mutual funds in the five years after the crisis, or 10 percent of their holdings at the start of that period, according to Lipper Inc., which tracks funds.
They put more even money into bond mutual funds -- $1.3 trillion -- even as interest payments on bonds plunged to record lows.
---[commentary]
" The DJIA hit a market low of 6,443.27 on March 6, 2009, having lost over 54% " As of NOW, today 10/07/2013, some 5 years later as I type the DOW is at 14,992 after thus far having topped out somewhere around 15,677.
So my question is if people really hate stocks, are dumping them and buying bonds then WHY is the stock market still near all time highs?! I'll tell you why.. Because WE don't MATTER, at all.
---[end commentary]
Shunning debt: In the five years before the crisis, household debt in the 10 countries jumped 34 percent, according to Credit Suisse. Then the financial crisis hit, and people slammed the brakes on borrowing. Debt per adult in the 10 countries fell 1 percent in the 41/2 years after 2007. Economists say debt hasn't fallen in sync like that since the end of World War II.
People chose to shed debt even as lenders slashed rates on loans to record lows. In normal times, that would have triggered an avalanche of borrowing.
---[commentary]
The powers that be can only hope and pray for "triggering an avalanche of borrowing / ie; DEBT". Rates are NOT lower for debt slaves at all.. If anything the financial crisis has plunged more middle class families into higher credit card default rates of about 30% interest! Just because the Federal Reserve Bank is loaning fiat to their banking buddies at ZERO (0) percent interest rates doesn't mean very many normal American citizens are getting a break at all. The ONLY possible way to have good credit in this country / PONZI scheme economy is to need no credit at all. Sure lenders have "slashed rates on loans" if you are shopping for a house, have excellent credit and at least 20% down. (As far as I'm concerned the way it SHOULD be).
---[end commentary]
Hoarding cash: Looking for safety for their money, households in the six biggest developed economies added $3.3 trillion, or 15 percent, to their cash holdings in the five years after the crisis, slightly more than they did in the five years before, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The growth of cash is remarkable because millions more were unemployed, wages grew slowly and people diverted billions to pay down their debts.
Slump: To cut debt and save more, people have reined in their spending. Adjusting for inflation, global consumer spending rose 1.6 percent a year during the five years after the crisis, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, an accounting and consulting firm. That was about half the growth rate before the crisis and only slightly more than the annual growth in population during those years.
Consumer spending is critically important because it accounts for more than 60 percent of GDP.
---[commentary]
WTF? "Consumer spending accounts for more than 60 percent of GDP"? Before now I always heard 70%.. Has government spending increased to lower the consumer spending as a percent of GDP? IMHO global consumer spending "rising" is still not enough, no matter how small the increase. This crisis cannot end until our economy experiences the DEFLATION it craves. Said deflation will / would flush the greed and corruption out of Wall Street and Washington alike.
---[end commentary]
Developing world not helping enough: When the financial crisis hit, the major developed countries looked to the developing world to take over in powering global growth.
---[commentary]
Dying for Chinese, Indian [BRIC] "consumers" to join the "debt slave parade of humanity".
---[end commentary]
The four big developing countries -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- recovered quickly from the crisis. But the potential of the BRIC countries, as they are known, was overrated. Although they have 80 percent of the people, they accounted for only 22 percent of consumer spending in the 10 biggest countries last year, according to Haver Analytics, a research firm. This year, their economies are stumbling.
Consumers around the world will eventually shake their fears, of course, and loosen the hold on their money. But few economists expect them to snap back to their old ways.
---[commentary]
BULLSHIT! It's NOT about "consumer fear" it's about unsustainable economic policy! You f'ing dipshit idiots!
---[end commentary]
One reason is that the boom years that preceded the financial crisis were "fueled by families taking on enormous debt", experts now realize, not by healthy wage gains. No one expects a repeat of those excesses.
More importantly, economists cite psychological "scarring," a fear of losing money that grips people during a period of collapsing jobs, incomes and wealth, then doesn't let go, even when better times return. Think of Americans who suffered through the Great Depression and stayed frugal for decades.
Although not on a level with the Depression, some economists think the psychological blow of the financial crisis was severe enough that households won't increase their borrowing and spending to what would be considered normal levels for another five years or longer.
To better understand why people remain so cautious five years after the crisis, AP interviewed consumers around the world. A look at what they're thinking -- and doing -- with their money:
Rick Stonecipher of Muncie, Ind., doesn't like stocks anymore, for the same reason that millions of investors have turned against them -- the stock market crash that began in October 2008 and didn't end until the following March.
"My brokers said they were really safe, but they weren't," says Stonecipher, 59, a substitute school teacher.
Americans sold the most in the five years after the crisis -- $521 billion, or 9 percent of their mutual fund holdings, according to Lipper. But investors in other countries sold a larger share of their holdings: Germans dumped 13 percent; Italians and French, more than 16 percent each.
The French are "not very oriented to risk," says Cyril Blesson, an economist at Pair Conseil, an investment consultancy in Paris. "Now, it's even worse."
---[commentary]
"Now, it's even worse." <-- Wrong verb dipshit! Try "Now, it's even BETTER." ---[end commentary] It's gotten worse [BETTER!] in China, Russia and the U.K., too. Fu Lili, 31, a psychologist in Fu Xin, a city in northeastern China, says she made 20,000 yuan ($3,267) buying and selling stocks before the crisis, more than 10 times her monthly salary then. But she won't touch them now, because she's too scared. In Moscow, Yuri Shcherbanin, 32, a manager for an oil company, says the crash proved stocks were dangerous and he should content himself with money in the bank.
In London, Pavlina Samson, 39, owner of a jewelry and clothes shop, says stocks are too "risky." What's also driving her away may be something that runs deeper: "People feel like they're being ripped off everywhere," she says.
Holzhausen, the Allianz economist, says the crisis taught people not to trust others with their money. "People want to get as much distance as possible from the financial system," he says.
The crisis also taught them about the dangers of debt.
After the crisis hit, Jerry and Madeleine Bosco of Tujunga, Calif., found themselves facing $30,000 in credit card bills with no easy way to pay the debt off. So they sold stocks, threw most of their cards in the trash, and stopped eating out and taking vacations.
Today, most of the debt is gone, but the lusher life of the boom years is a distant memory. "We had credit cards and we didn't worry about a thing," says Madeleine, 55.
In the U.S., debt per adult soared 54 percent in the five years before the crisis. Then it plunged, down 12 percent in 4 1/2 years, although most of that resulted from people defaulting on loans. In the U.K., debt per adult fell a modest 2 percent, but it had jumped 59 percent before the crisis.
Even Japanese and Germans, who weren't big borrowers in the years before the crisis, cut debt -- 4 percent and 1 percent, respectively.
"We don't want to take out a loan," says Maria Schoenberg, 45, of Frankfurt, Germany, explaining why she and her husband, a rheumatologist, decided to rent after a recent move instead of borrowing to buy. "We're terrified of doing that."
Such attitudes are rife when it has rarely been cheaper to borrow around the world.
"A whole new generation of adults has come of age in a time of diminished expectations," says Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo, the fourth-largest U.S. bank. "They're not likely to take on debt like those before them." [We can only hope and pray this is true!]
Or spend as much.
After adjusting for inflation, Americans increased their spending in the five years after the crisis at one-quarter the rate before the crisis, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. French spending barely budged. In the U.K., spending dropped. The British spent 3 percent less last year than they did five years earlier, in 2007.
High unemployment has played a role. But economists say the financial crisis, and the government debt crisis that started in Europe a year later, has spooked even people who can afford to splurge to cut back.
The wealthiest 1 percent of U.S. households are saving 30 percent of their take-home pay, triple what they were saving in 2008, according to a July report from American Express Publishing and Harrison Group, a research firm.
After years of saving more and shedding debt, the good news is that many people have repaired their personal finances.
Americans have slashed their credit card debt to 2002 levels. In the U.K., personal bank loans, not including mortgages, are no larger than they were in 1999. In addition, home prices in some countries are rising.
So more people have the capacity to borrow, spend and invest more. But will they?
Sahoko Tanabe of Tokyo, 63, lost money in Japan's stock market crash more than two decades ago, but she's buying again. "Abenomics," a mix of fiscal and monetary stimulus named for Japan's new prime minister, has ignited Japanese stocks, and she doesn't want to miss out. "You're bound to fail if you have a pessimistic attitude," she says.
But for every Tanabe, there seem to be more people like Madeleine Bosco, a Californian who ditched many of her credit cards says. "All of a sudden you look at all these things you're buying that you don't need," she says.
---[commentary]
Exactly.. I, personally, would love to see nothing more than the END of consumerism, period.
---[end commentary]
© 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
THIS is the way the "crisis" has been handled by politicians, bankers and corporations and especially the media. The plan is the same regardless of the issue.
Be it the financial crisis of 2008, the Fort Hood [terrorist] shootings, Bengazi, the IRS scandal or the true condition of the U.S. economy. The SOP (standard operating procedure) of the State is first to deny, then blame the other guy, then over a period of YEARS [if not decades] to very slowly leak the truth a minuscule amount at a time so as to control and obfuscate it as much as possible.
In this article there is some truth but it's truth that MANY knew YEARS ago.. Just now be leaked out ever so slowly to the public..
I hope you don't mind my commentary intermixed..
---
Families hoard cash 5 years after crisis -Click for source
NEW YORK - Five years after U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed, triggering a global financial crisis and shattering confidence worldwide, families in major countries around the world are still hunkered down, too spooked and distrustful to take chances with their money.
An Associated Press analysis of households in the 10 biggest economies shows that families continue to spend cautiously and have pulled hundreds of billions of dollars out of stocks, cut borrowing for the first time in decades and poured money into savings and bonds that offer puny interest payments, often too low to keep up with inflation.
"It doesn't take very much to destroy confidence, but it takes an awful lot to build it back," says Ian Bright, senior economist at ING, a global bank based in Amsterdam. "The attitude toward risk is permanently reset."
A flight to safety on such a global scale is unprecedented since the end of World War II.
The implications are huge: Shunning debt and spending less can be good for one family's finances. When hundreds of millions do it together, it can starve the global economy.
Some of the retrenchment is not surprising: High unemployment in many countries means fewer people with paychecks to spend. But even people with good jobs and little fear of losing them remain cautious.
"Lehman changed everything," says Arne Holzhausen, a senior economist at global insurer Allianz, based in Munich. "It's safety, safety, safety."
The AP analyzed data showing what consumers did with their money in the five years before the Great Recession began in December 2007 and in the five years that followed, through the end of 2012. The focus was on the world's 10 biggest economies -- the United States, China, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Russia, Italy and India -- which have half the world's population and 65 percent of global gross domestic product.
Key findings:
Retreat from stocks: A desire for safety drove people to dump stocks, even as prices rocketed from crisis lows in early 2009. Investors in the top 10 countries pulled $1.1 trillion from stock mutual funds in the five years after the crisis, or 10 percent of their holdings at the start of that period, according to Lipper Inc., which tracks funds.
They put more even money into bond mutual funds -- $1.3 trillion -- even as interest payments on bonds plunged to record lows.
---[commentary]
" The DJIA hit a market low of 6,443.27 on March 6, 2009, having lost over 54% " As of NOW, today 10/07/2013, some 5 years later as I type the DOW is at 14,992 after thus far having topped out somewhere around 15,677.
So my question is if people really hate stocks, are dumping them and buying bonds then WHY is the stock market still near all time highs?! I'll tell you why.. Because WE don't MATTER, at all.
---[end commentary]
Shunning debt: In the five years before the crisis, household debt in the 10 countries jumped 34 percent, according to Credit Suisse. Then the financial crisis hit, and people slammed the brakes on borrowing. Debt per adult in the 10 countries fell 1 percent in the 41/2 years after 2007. Economists say debt hasn't fallen in sync like that since the end of World War II.
People chose to shed debt even as lenders slashed rates on loans to record lows. In normal times, that would have triggered an avalanche of borrowing.
---[commentary]
The powers that be can only hope and pray for "triggering an avalanche of borrowing / ie; DEBT". Rates are NOT lower for debt slaves at all.. If anything the financial crisis has plunged more middle class families into higher credit card default rates of about 30% interest! Just because the Federal Reserve Bank is loaning fiat to their banking buddies at ZERO (0) percent interest rates doesn't mean very many normal American citizens are getting a break at all. The ONLY possible way to have good credit in this country / PONZI scheme economy is to need no credit at all. Sure lenders have "slashed rates on loans" if you are shopping for a house, have excellent credit and at least 20% down. (As far as I'm concerned the way it SHOULD be).
---[end commentary]
Hoarding cash: Looking for safety for their money, households in the six biggest developed economies added $3.3 trillion, or 15 percent, to their cash holdings in the five years after the crisis, slightly more than they did in the five years before, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
The growth of cash is remarkable because millions more were unemployed, wages grew slowly and people diverted billions to pay down their debts.
Slump: To cut debt and save more, people have reined in their spending. Adjusting for inflation, global consumer spending rose 1.6 percent a year during the five years after the crisis, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, an accounting and consulting firm. That was about half the growth rate before the crisis and only slightly more than the annual growth in population during those years.
Consumer spending is critically important because it accounts for more than 60 percent of GDP.
---[commentary]
WTF? "Consumer spending accounts for more than 60 percent of GDP"? Before now I always heard 70%.. Has government spending increased to lower the consumer spending as a percent of GDP? IMHO global consumer spending "rising" is still not enough, no matter how small the increase. This crisis cannot end until our economy experiences the DEFLATION it craves. Said deflation will / would flush the greed and corruption out of Wall Street and Washington alike.
---[end commentary]
Developing world not helping enough: When the financial crisis hit, the major developed countries looked to the developing world to take over in powering global growth.
---[commentary]
Dying for Chinese, Indian [BRIC] "consumers" to join the "debt slave parade of humanity".
---[end commentary]
The four big developing countries -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- recovered quickly from the crisis. But the potential of the BRIC countries, as they are known, was overrated. Although they have 80 percent of the people, they accounted for only 22 percent of consumer spending in the 10 biggest countries last year, according to Haver Analytics, a research firm. This year, their economies are stumbling.
Consumers around the world will eventually shake their fears, of course, and loosen the hold on their money. But few economists expect them to snap back to their old ways.
---[commentary]
BULLSHIT! It's NOT about "consumer fear" it's about unsustainable economic policy! You f'ing dipshit idiots!
---[end commentary]
One reason is that the boom years that preceded the financial crisis were "fueled by families taking on enormous debt", experts now realize, not by healthy wage gains. No one expects a repeat of those excesses.
More importantly, economists cite psychological "scarring," a fear of losing money that grips people during a period of collapsing jobs, incomes and wealth, then doesn't let go, even when better times return. Think of Americans who suffered through the Great Depression and stayed frugal for decades.
Although not on a level with the Depression, some economists think the psychological blow of the financial crisis was severe enough that households won't increase their borrowing and spending to what would be considered normal levels for another five years or longer.
To better understand why people remain so cautious five years after the crisis, AP interviewed consumers around the world. A look at what they're thinking -- and doing -- with their money:
Rick Stonecipher of Muncie, Ind., doesn't like stocks anymore, for the same reason that millions of investors have turned against them -- the stock market crash that began in October 2008 and didn't end until the following March.
"My brokers said they were really safe, but they weren't," says Stonecipher, 59, a substitute school teacher.
Americans sold the most in the five years after the crisis -- $521 billion, or 9 percent of their mutual fund holdings, according to Lipper. But investors in other countries sold a larger share of their holdings: Germans dumped 13 percent; Italians and French, more than 16 percent each.
The French are "not very oriented to risk," says Cyril Blesson, an economist at Pair Conseil, an investment consultancy in Paris. "Now, it's even worse."
---[commentary]
"Now, it's even worse." <-- Wrong verb dipshit! Try "Now, it's even BETTER." ---[end commentary] It's gotten worse [BETTER!] in China, Russia and the U.K., too. Fu Lili, 31, a psychologist in Fu Xin, a city in northeastern China, says she made 20,000 yuan ($3,267) buying and selling stocks before the crisis, more than 10 times her monthly salary then. But she won't touch them now, because she's too scared. In Moscow, Yuri Shcherbanin, 32, a manager for an oil company, says the crash proved stocks were dangerous and he should content himself with money in the bank.
In London, Pavlina Samson, 39, owner of a jewelry and clothes shop, says stocks are too "risky." What's also driving her away may be something that runs deeper: "People feel like they're being ripped off everywhere," she says.
Holzhausen, the Allianz economist, says the crisis taught people not to trust others with their money. "People want to get as much distance as possible from the financial system," he says.
The crisis also taught them about the dangers of debt.
After the crisis hit, Jerry and Madeleine Bosco of Tujunga, Calif., found themselves facing $30,000 in credit card bills with no easy way to pay the debt off. So they sold stocks, threw most of their cards in the trash, and stopped eating out and taking vacations.
Today, most of the debt is gone, but the lusher life of the boom years is a distant memory. "We had credit cards and we didn't worry about a thing," says Madeleine, 55.
In the U.S., debt per adult soared 54 percent in the five years before the crisis. Then it plunged, down 12 percent in 4 1/2 years, although most of that resulted from people defaulting on loans. In the U.K., debt per adult fell a modest 2 percent, but it had jumped 59 percent before the crisis.
Even Japanese and Germans, who weren't big borrowers in the years before the crisis, cut debt -- 4 percent and 1 percent, respectively.
"We don't want to take out a loan," says Maria Schoenberg, 45, of Frankfurt, Germany, explaining why she and her husband, a rheumatologist, decided to rent after a recent move instead of borrowing to buy. "We're terrified of doing that."
Such attitudes are rife when it has rarely been cheaper to borrow around the world.
"A whole new generation of adults has come of age in a time of diminished expectations," says Mark Vitner, a senior economist at Wells Fargo, the fourth-largest U.S. bank. "They're not likely to take on debt like those before them." [We can only hope and pray this is true!]
Or spend as much.
After adjusting for inflation, Americans increased their spending in the five years after the crisis at one-quarter the rate before the crisis, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. French spending barely budged. In the U.K., spending dropped. The British spent 3 percent less last year than they did five years earlier, in 2007.
High unemployment has played a role. But economists say the financial crisis, and the government debt crisis that started in Europe a year later, has spooked even people who can afford to splurge to cut back.
The wealthiest 1 percent of U.S. households are saving 30 percent of their take-home pay, triple what they were saving in 2008, according to a July report from American Express Publishing and Harrison Group, a research firm.
After years of saving more and shedding debt, the good news is that many people have repaired their personal finances.
Americans have slashed their credit card debt to 2002 levels. In the U.K., personal bank loans, not including mortgages, are no larger than they were in 1999. In addition, home prices in some countries are rising.
So more people have the capacity to borrow, spend and invest more. But will they?
Sahoko Tanabe of Tokyo, 63, lost money in Japan's stock market crash more than two decades ago, but she's buying again. "Abenomics," a mix of fiscal and monetary stimulus named for Japan's new prime minister, has ignited Japanese stocks, and she doesn't want to miss out. "You're bound to fail if you have a pessimistic attitude," she says.
But for every Tanabe, there seem to be more people like Madeleine Bosco, a Californian who ditched many of her credit cards says. "All of a sudden you look at all these things you're buying that you don't need," she says.
---[commentary]
Exactly.. I, personally, would love to see nothing more than the END of consumerism, period.
---[end commentary]
© 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
#Oathkeepers on #Economic collapse
---
NOTE: This is not the complete article.
Be sure to click here to view the entire article
From our friends The Oathkeepers
Oath Keepers.org
Oct. 1, 2013
WHY WE ARE DOING THIS:
In addition to this being part of our mission anyway, we feel like we are flat running out of time and we need to get as prepared as possible as fast as possible. The Oath Keepers national Board of Directors war-gamed what we think is the most likely move by our enemies to scrap the Constitution. On the BOD at the time were a Special Forces Major, an Army Ranger, and a Marine Scout-sniper veteran, as well as a retired Navy Commander and several Vietnam combat vets, and several other combat arms veterans. Playing devil’s advocate, and putting themselves in the enemy’s shoes, we estimated that the most effective course for “them” to follow would be to:
1. Intentionally trigger a catastrophic economic collapse as an economic “neutron bomb” (kills the people, but leaves the land intact). With the current intentional lack of a Strategic Grain Reserve, our population is in a strategic “checkmate” position where an economic collapse could be a near-extinction event for our population. During the Cold War, the U.S. government maintained three years worth of grain in a Strategic Grain Reserve for the entire US population because they knew that in the wake of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union, it could take three years to recover and grow crops again. Without that reserve, those who survived the exchange would starve to death before they could possibly restart growing enough food. We now have no such Strategic food reserve, which means that any catastrophic interruption in food delivery could kill millions of Americans. Such a disruption could occur because of even a limited nuclear exchange, an EMP strike (either man-made, or natural, as a result of solar activity), or, an economic collapse.
Currently, our economy is in such a weak state that an economic collapse could be intentionally triggered at any time. Because of the lack of a food reserve, and because few Americans store food on their own, such a collapse would lead to mass starvation, just like in the aftermath of a nuclear exchange.
The US government is spending billions of dollars on ammunition, armored vehicles, and weapons for DHS and local police. It is spending nothing on food for the people. They are preparing to control and contain us, and to shoot us, but not preparing to feed us. Why is that? You know the answer.
2. Let the country descend into chaos. A national economic collapse would be like a “national Katrina” but lasting far longer, and because it is nation-wide, it would be far more intense. The cities would implode. All the government would have to do is contain them and let them implode. in the midst of that chaos, they could also do a decapitation strike on the leaders of the liberty movement, but other than that, “They” could just sit back and wait a month, two months, or three to be really sure the people are at a maximum level of starvation, weakness, and chaos, and then:
3. Ride in like the cavalry, to “save” us by means of martial law and scrapping our constitution once-and-for all. They could blame the collapse on the so-called “free market” and on not having enough government power, and they could blame delays in relief on the “extremists” in the patriot movement (i.e. “we would have gotten the food trucks in sooner, but the extremists were ambushing our safety check-points and resisting the necessary relocation to relief camps”). Their ready to go solution would be a world-wide version of the Fed, and a world wide government. People would be told to “just turn in your guns, and you’ll get food” and “just turn in the extremists, and you’ll get food.”
ADDITIONAL ANALYSIS:
To the above, we now add Brandon Smith’s insight that with a war in Syria, the elites can trigger an economic collapse with a war – with Russia and China using economics as a weapon in retaliation. All China would have to do is dump US treasuries and refuse to trade with US dollars. That would begin the final death-spiral of the dollar.
The Chinese would be blamed for the collapse, rather than the banksters. “They” would tell the American people that the evil Chinese are to blame for the death of the dollar, and anyone who resists the “emergency measures” by the US government would be accused of aiding the enemy. They would say “domestic extremists took advantage of the Chinese economic attack on us to push their own racist and extremist anti-government agenda, making the collapse worse by attacking peace-keepers and international relief volunteers, and by attacking and resisting US officials who were trying to restore law and order.”
It is because of the systemic weakness of the American people, and our strategic checkmate position of having no strategic food storage and no effective local security, that we feel the need to take Oath Keepers operational and put our focus on each chapter being a training cadre to get their communities as prepared and organized as possible in whatever time we have left.
We urge you to presume the worst in the short term, and to work in three or four month sprints – assume that a collapse will be triggered this fall/winter and do all you can to get yourselves and your communities ready.
If it doesn’t happen in the next four months, then do another sprint, of three or four more months of preparation. And keep going until it happens – which it will eventually, no matter what anyone does. The dollar is doomed.
We encourage each individual to build a food reserve, to set aside food for their neighbors (10% of their food is for others), and to have basic communications (at least a hand-held dual band radio), basic medical, and water purification, shelter, and weapons and ammo. We will post more details on our recommendations for preparedness in a follow-up post.
Everyone is encouraged to use the above team building model and template to build a team within their family, extended family, and friends, and to then do the same in their neighborhoods, and in their civic organizations. From the individual, to the family, neighborhood, civic org, town, county, and state. Bottom up.
OK. Let us know how to improve the above.
For the Republic,
Stewart Rhodes
Founder and President of Oath Keepers
PS - As a reminder and clarification, from the beginning of Oath Keepers we have had two prongs to our mission:
1. Reinforce the oath-keeping of the current serving.
2. Reinforce the oath-keeping of the veterans (and any citizens who want to join us in our efforts).
From the start, we have been about more than just RTI to the current serving, and well over a year ago we launched our Operation Sleeping Giant, to help put more focus on waking up veterans groups and on the critical need for people to implement preparedness, security, economic independence, and local sovereignty, in their local communities as part of our effort to restore the Republic from the ground up.
However, that aspect of our mission has still not gotten the attention it deserves among our members. All too often I see and hear members describing their mission as just “RTI” to the current serving and not fully implementing the other half of our strategy.
So, to bring that second prong of our mission back where it belongs – with equal attention paid to it along with RTI to the current serving – we will be including the Operation Sleeping Giant mission on our main website, rather than having it on some sister-site (which is not getting it done).
And, most importantly, we will be instructing our members, and our local and state chapters, to form up into operational mutual-aid and community-aid teams, just like we are asking the veterans groups to do. Some of our local chapters are already doing this, but we need to make it a nation-wide effort, and a main part of our mission.
We have been asking VFW halls, Marine Corps League halls, etc. to see themselves as a unit, as a source of stability and aid to their communities, as the pool of manpower that can serve as a civil defense unit for their town and county, as the Sheriff’s Posse, and as a pool of manpower that can serve as the militia for their community (preferably established by formal act of their city or county government). Likewise for churches, neighborhood watches, etc.
If we are going to ask veterans groups, and neighborhood watches, to see themselves as such a unit, then we need to do the same within our own org, and especially within our local chapters at the town and county level. That way, when we talk to veterans groups, we won’t be asking them to do anything that we are not doing ourselves, and we can also work out the bugs and have a working model for what we want them to do.
The ultimate goal is not to have all the veterans join Oath Keepers and have a bunch of Oath Keepers teams doing all the work in each town and county. Instead, the ultimate goal is for us to help them get their already existing veterans orgs organized into well trained (and training), well equipped, and organized teams. And, even broader than that, the goal is to enlist their help in then establishing strong neighborhood watches throughout their community, and then strong town and county level civil-defense units, posse, and ultimately, strong town and county militia, on the way to fully restoring the state militia.
As I said above, think of this as a Special Forces type mission. SF can do direct action, but their primary job, and what makes them a serious force multiplier, is to train and then lead others.
An SF A team is first and foremost a cadre of teachers, who help organize and train others to take care of themselves.
That is how we should see ourselves. Our primary job is not to have Oath Keepers try to be the security force in our towns and counties, but to help the entire community, and key parts of it, get their crap wired tight so they can take care of themselves. That way, we are a force multiplier, much like SF. Trust me, our enemies will not be happy about us doing this! They would much rather we try to form ourselves into some exclusive, members-only “militia” that will only get so big. They don’t want us going into already existing veterans orgs and reactivating those veterans and helping them turn their local VFW into a working unit. Nor do they want us to help folks establish effective neighborhood watches (with teeth) and effective mutual aid associations in churches, Tea Party groups, and at the town and county level. Nor do they want us to help form up a posse to back a good sheriff.
So, let’s do what they don’t want us to do.
And let’s lead by example for the following reasons:
1. So we walk our talk. We can say with a straight face that we are not asking anyone else to do anything we are not doing ourselves.
2. So we have a working model of what we want other groups to do, where we work out the bugs on what works, and what doesn’t, and which they can adopt as an easy, “turn-key” solution, with our recommended structure, SOPs, recommended training priorities, and equipment lists. Of course, they can adapt and modify what we do to their particular needs, but at least we can offer them a good start by our own example.
3. So we have a solid training cadre of specialists in key skills who can then work to replicate themselves both within our org and also within the broader community. And a big part of that replication will be to get other veterans orgs to realize they already have members of their halls who have unique knowledge who can serve as their own version of an operational team as well as a cadre of trainers who then go out and train others in the community.
---
Good work & good luck Oathkeepers.. Here's what you / we are up against..
Garden Plot / CONPLAN 2502 (Civil Disturbance Operations)
Greg
NOTE: This is not the complete article.
Be sure to click here to view the entire article
From our friends The Oathkeepers
Oath Keepers.org
Oct. 1, 2013
WHY WE ARE DOING THIS:
In addition to this being part of our mission anyway, we feel like we are flat running out of time and we need to get as prepared as possible as fast as possible. The Oath Keepers national Board of Directors war-gamed what we think is the most likely move by our enemies to scrap the Constitution. On the BOD at the time were a Special Forces Major, an Army Ranger, and a Marine Scout-sniper veteran, as well as a retired Navy Commander and several Vietnam combat vets, and several other combat arms veterans. Playing devil’s advocate, and putting themselves in the enemy’s shoes, we estimated that the most effective course for “them” to follow would be to:
1. Intentionally trigger a catastrophic economic collapse as an economic “neutron bomb” (kills the people, but leaves the land intact). With the current intentional lack of a Strategic Grain Reserve, our population is in a strategic “checkmate” position where an economic collapse could be a near-extinction event for our population. During the Cold War, the U.S. government maintained three years worth of grain in a Strategic Grain Reserve for the entire US population because they knew that in the wake of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union, it could take three years to recover and grow crops again. Without that reserve, those who survived the exchange would starve to death before they could possibly restart growing enough food. We now have no such Strategic food reserve, which means that any catastrophic interruption in food delivery could kill millions of Americans. Such a disruption could occur because of even a limited nuclear exchange, an EMP strike (either man-made, or natural, as a result of solar activity), or, an economic collapse.
Currently, our economy is in such a weak state that an economic collapse could be intentionally triggered at any time. Because of the lack of a food reserve, and because few Americans store food on their own, such a collapse would lead to mass starvation, just like in the aftermath of a nuclear exchange.
The US government is spending billions of dollars on ammunition, armored vehicles, and weapons for DHS and local police. It is spending nothing on food for the people. They are preparing to control and contain us, and to shoot us, but not preparing to feed us. Why is that? You know the answer.
2. Let the country descend into chaos. A national economic collapse would be like a “national Katrina” but lasting far longer, and because it is nation-wide, it would be far more intense. The cities would implode. All the government would have to do is contain them and let them implode. in the midst of that chaos, they could also do a decapitation strike on the leaders of the liberty movement, but other than that, “They” could just sit back and wait a month, two months, or three to be really sure the people are at a maximum level of starvation, weakness, and chaos, and then:
3. Ride in like the cavalry, to “save” us by means of martial law and scrapping our constitution once-and-for all. They could blame the collapse on the so-called “free market” and on not having enough government power, and they could blame delays in relief on the “extremists” in the patriot movement (i.e. “we would have gotten the food trucks in sooner, but the extremists were ambushing our safety check-points and resisting the necessary relocation to relief camps”). Their ready to go solution would be a world-wide version of the Fed, and a world wide government. People would be told to “just turn in your guns, and you’ll get food” and “just turn in the extremists, and you’ll get food.”
ADDITIONAL ANALYSIS:
To the above, we now add Brandon Smith’s insight that with a war in Syria, the elites can trigger an economic collapse with a war – with Russia and China using economics as a weapon in retaliation. All China would have to do is dump US treasuries and refuse to trade with US dollars. That would begin the final death-spiral of the dollar.
The Chinese would be blamed for the collapse, rather than the banksters. “They” would tell the American people that the evil Chinese are to blame for the death of the dollar, and anyone who resists the “emergency measures” by the US government would be accused of aiding the enemy. They would say “domestic extremists took advantage of the Chinese economic attack on us to push their own racist and extremist anti-government agenda, making the collapse worse by attacking peace-keepers and international relief volunteers, and by attacking and resisting US officials who were trying to restore law and order.”
It is because of the systemic weakness of the American people, and our strategic checkmate position of having no strategic food storage and no effective local security, that we feel the need to take Oath Keepers operational and put our focus on each chapter being a training cadre to get their communities as prepared and organized as possible in whatever time we have left.
We urge you to presume the worst in the short term, and to work in three or four month sprints – assume that a collapse will be triggered this fall/winter and do all you can to get yourselves and your communities ready.
If it doesn’t happen in the next four months, then do another sprint, of three or four more months of preparation. And keep going until it happens – which it will eventually, no matter what anyone does. The dollar is doomed.
We encourage each individual to build a food reserve, to set aside food for their neighbors (10% of their food is for others), and to have basic communications (at least a hand-held dual band radio), basic medical, and water purification, shelter, and weapons and ammo. We will post more details on our recommendations for preparedness in a follow-up post.
Everyone is encouraged to use the above team building model and template to build a team within their family, extended family, and friends, and to then do the same in their neighborhoods, and in their civic organizations. From the individual, to the family, neighborhood, civic org, town, county, and state. Bottom up.
OK. Let us know how to improve the above.
For the Republic,
Stewart Rhodes
Founder and President of Oath Keepers
PS - As a reminder and clarification, from the beginning of Oath Keepers we have had two prongs to our mission:
1. Reinforce the oath-keeping of the current serving.
2. Reinforce the oath-keeping of the veterans (and any citizens who want to join us in our efforts).
From the start, we have been about more than just RTI to the current serving, and well over a year ago we launched our Operation Sleeping Giant, to help put more focus on waking up veterans groups and on the critical need for people to implement preparedness, security, economic independence, and local sovereignty, in their local communities as part of our effort to restore the Republic from the ground up.
However, that aspect of our mission has still not gotten the attention it deserves among our members. All too often I see and hear members describing their mission as just “RTI” to the current serving and not fully implementing the other half of our strategy.
So, to bring that second prong of our mission back where it belongs – with equal attention paid to it along with RTI to the current serving – we will be including the Operation Sleeping Giant mission on our main website, rather than having it on some sister-site (which is not getting it done).
And, most importantly, we will be instructing our members, and our local and state chapters, to form up into operational mutual-aid and community-aid teams, just like we are asking the veterans groups to do. Some of our local chapters are already doing this, but we need to make it a nation-wide effort, and a main part of our mission.
We have been asking VFW halls, Marine Corps League halls, etc. to see themselves as a unit, as a source of stability and aid to their communities, as the pool of manpower that can serve as a civil defense unit for their town and county, as the Sheriff’s Posse, and as a pool of manpower that can serve as the militia for their community (preferably established by formal act of their city or county government). Likewise for churches, neighborhood watches, etc.
If we are going to ask veterans groups, and neighborhood watches, to see themselves as such a unit, then we need to do the same within our own org, and especially within our local chapters at the town and county level. That way, when we talk to veterans groups, we won’t be asking them to do anything that we are not doing ourselves, and we can also work out the bugs and have a working model for what we want them to do.
The ultimate goal is not to have all the veterans join Oath Keepers and have a bunch of Oath Keepers teams doing all the work in each town and county. Instead, the ultimate goal is for us to help them get their already existing veterans orgs organized into well trained (and training), well equipped, and organized teams. And, even broader than that, the goal is to enlist their help in then establishing strong neighborhood watches throughout their community, and then strong town and county level civil-defense units, posse, and ultimately, strong town and county militia, on the way to fully restoring the state militia.
As I said above, think of this as a Special Forces type mission. SF can do direct action, but their primary job, and what makes them a serious force multiplier, is to train and then lead others.
An SF A team is first and foremost a cadre of teachers, who help organize and train others to take care of themselves.
That is how we should see ourselves. Our primary job is not to have Oath Keepers try to be the security force in our towns and counties, but to help the entire community, and key parts of it, get their crap wired tight so they can take care of themselves. That way, we are a force multiplier, much like SF. Trust me, our enemies will not be happy about us doing this! They would much rather we try to form ourselves into some exclusive, members-only “militia” that will only get so big. They don’t want us going into already existing veterans orgs and reactivating those veterans and helping them turn their local VFW into a working unit. Nor do they want us to help folks establish effective neighborhood watches (with teeth) and effective mutual aid associations in churches, Tea Party groups, and at the town and county level. Nor do they want us to help form up a posse to back a good sheriff.
So, let’s do what they don’t want us to do.
And let’s lead by example for the following reasons:
1. So we walk our talk. We can say with a straight face that we are not asking anyone else to do anything we are not doing ourselves.
2. So we have a working model of what we want other groups to do, where we work out the bugs on what works, and what doesn’t, and which they can adopt as an easy, “turn-key” solution, with our recommended structure, SOPs, recommended training priorities, and equipment lists. Of course, they can adapt and modify what we do to their particular needs, but at least we can offer them a good start by our own example.
3. So we have a solid training cadre of specialists in key skills who can then work to replicate themselves both within our org and also within the broader community. And a big part of that replication will be to get other veterans orgs to realize they already have members of their halls who have unique knowledge who can serve as their own version of an operational team as well as a cadre of trainers who then go out and train others in the community.
---
Good work & good luck Oathkeepers.. Here's what you / we are up against..
Garden Plot / CONPLAN 2502 (Civil Disturbance Operations)
Greg
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