Jordy Blog

With over 250 RSVPs in 24 hours, the Peter Schiff event tonight is on! If you want to really understand what’s going on with our economy, how we got here, and what we can do about, come hear from one of the few people who PREDICTED it would happen. RSVP and details for this FREE event are at http://tinyurl.com/schiff-rsvp

BACKGROUND
Peter Schiff is a well-known Austrian-school economist, best-selling author, radio-show host, investment broker, and financial commentator. Peter is a recent senatorial candidate, and he also served as an economic adviser to Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential campaign. Peter Schiff is perhaps most famous for his detailed, accurate predictions of the housing bubble, the resulting subprime mortgage crisis, the automotive industry crisis, and the crisis in the banking and financial markets. These predictions are documented in his famous YouTube video called “Peter Schiff was right”, as well in his books and many other publications and recordings. Please join Campaign for Liberty and other liberty-minded groups at this FREE event, as Peter explains how we got here, where we’re going, and perhaps how you can protect yourself and your assets from other financial crises that still loom ahead! RSVP below!

IMPORTANT NOTE
Obviously this is pretty short notice. To respect Peter’s time, we will only be holding this event if we can get at least 50-100 solid RSVPs. (And ideally we would get much more than that!) What that means is that, in order for this event to happen, you’ll need to call, email, and text your friends. And don’t forget to share this link (http://tinyurl.com/schiff-rsvp) on Facebook and Twitter! We’ll email a final confirmation to everyone who signs up, regardless of the outcome.

Also note that Peter will also be speaking (along with lots of other great speakers) at the 2011 Grassroots Economic Summit hosted by iCaucus on the same day. There is a $25 charge to attend that event, but it may be worth it for those who have the time and money to attend an all-day event. There are more details on that event on the iCaucus site.

RSVP HERE!

Here’s some good data visualization of the recent unemployment rate per county in the US:

That’s what a “jobless recovery” looks like. My prediction: it’s going to get much, much worse.

I saw this picture on the unnecessary quotes blog and thought, “Nope, those quotation marks are definitely necessary.”

There’s nothing quite like an accidental jab at the Federal Reserve Banking System’s legalized monopoly on counterfeiting to make you want to laugh and cry at the same time. :)

I’ve written many times about the evils of central banking, including our own central bank, the “Federal Reserve”.

Congressman Ron Paul has written a bill, HR 1207 – The Federal Reserve Transparency Act of 2009, that would go a long way to remedying some of our problems by (essentially) subjecting the Federal Reserve System to audits. As it stands we can’t even see how much of our inflationary bailout money (and credit) is going to whom, but this bill would fix that.

Anyway, the bill is getting serious momentum and now has 165 co-sponsors. If your Congressmen (not Senators) are still not on that list, please contact them and ask them to co-sponsor the bill. Here in Utah, both Jason Chaffetz and Rob Bishop have signed on as co-sponsors, so only Jim Matheson remains.

I’ll be taking part in my second-ever protest today. My first was a recent “End the Fed” rally at the SLC branch of the Federal Reserve Bank. Today I’m attending a couple of the Utah Tea Parties.

Frankly, I’m outraged by the tax and spend policies that BOTH major parties have been adhering to lately. Actually, most Republicans prefer the “borrow and spend” method, which is even more insidious: passing our debt to future generations and incentivizing inflation as a “cheap” means of paying that debt.

I think Jefferson said it best:

We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds… [we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers… And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for [another ]… till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery… And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.

Although Daniel Webster was more succinct:

The power to tax is the power to destroy.

If you agree with either of those statements, you should join us!

Here’s the most complete set of Utah locations I have found so far:

City: Salt Lake City ~ 1st Event
When: April 15, 12:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Where: Federal Building Plaza, 125 South State Street
Program
Activist and Author Candace Salima
Attorney General Mark Shurtleff
Congressman Jason Chaffetz (3rd District)
Congressman Rob Bishop (1st District)
For more information, contact Adam Gardiner at agardiner14@gmail.com (801-814-8963).

City: Logan
When: April 15, 4:00pm – 6:00 pm
Where: 241 North Main Street (south of Logan Library/City Hall)
For more information, contact Susan Southwick at susanksouthwick@gmail.com.

City: Salt Lake City ~ 2nd Event
When: April 15, 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Where: US Post Office Salt Lake City, 1795 W 2100 S
For more information, contact David at saltlaketeaparty@gmail.com (801-377-8224).

City: Provo
When: April 15, 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Where: Old Utah County Courthouse at the corner of University and Center
For more information, contact David at saltlaketeaparty@gmail.com (801-377-8224).

City: St. George
When: April 15, 5:00pm – 7:00pm
Where: Vernon Worthen Park, 300 S 400 E
For more information, contact Rinda Hunter at rinda.hunter@washco.utah.gov.

City: Vernal
When: April 15, 5:00 pm
Where: 150 East Main Street
For more information, contact Susan Southwick at susanksouthwick@gmail.com.

City: Richfield
When: April 15, 5:30pm – 7:30pm
Where: City Park, near 300 North and Main Street

I hope to see you there!

By the way, I’ll be spending most of my time protesting inflation: the hidden tax.  I’ll do a post illuminating the disasterous effects of inflation later.

China calls for new reserve currency. This could get scary.

Check Baldwin was the Constitution Party‘s 2008 presidential nominee. I voted for him because he is so dead right on so many issues. Here’s one of them:

President And Congress Grovel Before The Fed
By Chuck Baldwin
February 10, 2009

This column is archived at
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2009/cbarchive_20090210.html

According to Bloomberg News (Monday, February 9, 2009), “The stimulus package the U.S. Congress is completing would raise the government’s commitment to solving the financial crisis to $9.7 trillion, enough to pay off more than 90 percent of the nation’s home mortgages.

“The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation have lent or spent almost $3 trillion over the past two years and pledged up to $5.7 trillion more. The Senate is to vote this week on an economic-stimulus measure of at least $780 billion. It would need to be reconciled with an $819 billion plan the House approved last month.

“Only the stimulus bill to be approved this week, the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program passed four months ago and $168 billion in tax cuts and rebates enacted in 2008 have been voted on by lawmakers. The remaining $8 trillion is in lending programs and guarantees, almost all under the Fed and FDIC. RECIPIENTS’ NAMES HAVE NOT BEEN DISCLOSED. [Emphasis added]

“‘We’ve seen money go out the back door of this government unlike any time in the history of our country,’ Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, said on the Senate floor Feb. 3. ‘Nobody knows what went out of the Federal Reserve Board, to whom and for what purpose. How much from the FDIC? How much from TARP? When? Why?’”

Senator Dorgan is exactly right. No one oversees the Fed. The Fed is held accountable to absolutely nobody. But Senator Dorgan (as with everyone else in Congress) has no one to blame but himself. Ever since the Marxist, E. Mandell House, convinced President Woodrow Wilson to create the Federal Reserve in 1913, the Congress of the United States has had virtually nothing to do with the way our fiscal policies are managed. The Fed (which is not even a government agency, but rather a private corporation consisting of mostly foreign bankers) dictates America’s financial policies.

The reality of just how our civil magistrates have come to grovel before the Fed was revealed in a column written recently by Cal Thomas. Mind you, Cal was not trying to castigate President Bush in his column. Just the opposite: his column was full of praise and adulation for the former President. In recounting his last interview with President George W. Bush, however, Cal unwittingly revealed the almost limitless power that the Fed wields over even the President of the United States.

Here is what Cal wrote: “Bush defends himself against a charge by a member of the Republican National Committee that he has behaved like a ‘socialist’ because of his massive bailout spending. He [Bush] says he still believes in less government spending, but when Henry Paulson, secretary of the U.S. Treasury, and Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, tell him that if he doesn’t act, the result will be worse that the Great Depression, ‘you can sit there and say to yourself, “well, I’m going to stick to principle and hope for the best, or I’m going to take the actions necessary to prevent the worst.”‘”

In other words, when the Fed says, “Jump!” the President asks, “How high?” And, with the exception of Congressman Ron Paul of Texas (and maybe one or two others), the same is true for members of the House and Senate.

In other words, ladies and gentlemen, America is being run by a private banking cartel, the majority of whom are not even citizens of these United States.

Ever since the Fed was created in 1913, America has been subjected to recession after recession, not to mention one Great Depression. Some are even predicting that the United States is now actually entering a second Great Depression. Please understand this: the Federal Reserve has manipulated every bit of this financial crisis for the express purpose of enriching the international bankers on the backs (and bankruptcies) of the American taxpayers. And what does our illustrious Congress do? They continue to give billions and even trillions of taxpayer dollars to the very same group of gangsters who created and perpetuate this financial fraud. And, as with Congress, Presidents from both major parties likewise promote and defend this chicanery.

Yet, the U.S. Constitution, in Article. I. Section. 8. Paragraph. 5., clearly gives Congress the authority “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.”

This constitutional requirement makes two obvious demands: 1) only the elected Congress, not some private foreign (or even domestic) banking interest, has the power to make monetary policy, 2) U.S. currency must be hard currency, i.e. gold and silver. Paper money–known as the Federal Reserve Notes–is not even legal tender under the U.S. Constitution.

In truth, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 is itself unconstitutional. In simple terms, the Act did not amend or expunge Article. I. Section. 8. Paragraph. 5. of the Constitution; it merely ignored it. (And Congresses and Presidents have been ignoring the Constitution ever since.)

In fact, Article. I. Section. 10. Paragraph 1. of the U.S. Constitution specifically states, “No State shall . . . coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.”

Can anyone not see that the Federal Reserve is an illegitimate system? I will even go so far as to say that the Federal Reserve should be regarded as a corrupt, criminal system! If I were President, not only would I do everything in my power to oppose any and all financial bailouts to these international banksters, I would instruct the Justice Department to pursue criminal charges of fraud, corruption, manipulation, and outright thievery against the Fed. Instead of padding their fat assets in a million-dollar penthouse, they should be serving most of the rest of their lives in the Big House.

In the meantime, Congressman Ron Paul has again introduced a bill in the House of Representatives to terminate the Federal Reserve. It is H.R. 833: To abolish the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal reserve banks. The Bill was introduced on February 3 and, to date, has no cosponsors. That’s right. No cosponsors.

Until the American people demand that their elected members of Congress live up to their duties and responsibilities under the Constitution, they will continue to have their pockets picked clean by these corrupt banksters in New York City (and London) and their contemptible facilitators in Washington, D.C. Passing Dr. Paul’s bill would be a great place to start.

*If you appreciate this column and want to help me distribute these editorial opinions to an ever-growing audience, donations may now be made by credit card, check, or Money Order. Use this link:

http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/donate.php

(c) Chuck Baldwin

If you don’t understand the history and the motives of the Federal Reserve System, you need to get informed. I believe that your very freedom depends on it.

Robert Lefevre observed that “Government is a disease that masquerades as its own cure.“

Obama’s “Economic Stimulus” package, like Bush’s and Bernanke’s banking bailouts, typify this statement. No sooner is the economic knife twisted in on our belly than our haggardly assailant disappears into the night. Immediately our saviour appears, riding on his white horse and swearing revenge. But how did he get here so fast?

Obama’s Economic Stimulus Package

Let’s just look at the Obama’s so called “economic stimulus” package logically.

Was our current economic situation really caused by a lack of green energy? Did we really just not have enough STD prevention education? Was it all this really because we didn’t have enough high speed internet in rural areas? Was it because our current highway system is inadequate? Did we just not have enough food stamps?

If none of these problems were part of the underlying problem, how does fixing them constitute a solution? Yet that’s literally what we’re being billed. Government simply changes out the labels in its pork processing plant, and all-of-a-sudden we can’t get enough. In government, just re-brand whatever your selling as “Economic Relief”, “Stimulus Package”, or “Cure to Whatever Happens to Ail You Today”, and it’s bound to sail right through.

Sure, there’s much more to Obama’s “Economic Stimulus” plan than funding STD prevention education, but it’s all crap because it all ignores the recessions’ underlying causes. Even the tax cuts are crap because, just like the Bush tax cuts, there is no associated cut in spending. In fact, to say that we’re getting quite the opposite of spending cuts is a remarkable understatement.

Cutting taxes without cutting spending requires either inflation or debt. The former (like taxation) steals from current citizens, while the latter steals from future citizens. Both payment vehicles are immoral. Should income taxes be decreased or even eliminated? Absolutely. But the only lasting way that government can stop stealing the wealth of its citizenry is to stop spending it!

Our Current Recession: the Cause and the Cure

If we really want to fix our economic problems, we need to fix them at the cause. But remarkably few people understand the cause –and that’s what makes us so vulnerable to government deception.

To understand the cause and the cure of our current recession, shouldn’t we look to the people with proven track records –you know, the people that actually foresaw the current crisis before it happened? Remarkably, the solutions offered by people like Peter Schiff and Ron Paul –people who were dead right about the economy even before the bubble burst– are still being relatively ignored. The alternative approach: what our economy really needs is more people teaching kids how to use condoms. Good grief!

If you want to understand the cause of recession, as well as its cure, Ron Paul says it pretty succinctly:

Cures for Our Economic Disease

I have recently had several opportunities on various news programs to discuss the economy and what is wrong with the so-called economic stimulus package. I have said over and over what we shouldn’t be doing, and now I’d like to explain what we should be doing.

But to improve the situation, you must first have a solid grasp of how we got here. Government policies and central planning created the housing bubble, now going bust. About a decade ago the government made expanded homeownership and affordable housing a public goal. Through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the secondary mortgage market the government incentivized creative, low down-payment, more widely available mortgage products, and discouraged the market-proven lending standards of the past. The Federal Reserve kept interest rates artificially low, which added more fuel to this fire. Many related sectors temporarily flourished because of this, and many people got into homes they otherwise could not have afforded. The increased demand for housing sent prices soaring until in many markets housing became even more unaffordable, necessitating even more creative mortgages, and impossibly leveraging homeowners. Many risky investment vehicles such as mortgage-backed securities, derivatives, credit default swaps grew out of this unsustainable situation. As the foreclosures began, the house of cards started to tumble. Too many people have confused the symptoms and the pain of the bust with the problematic policies that caused the bubble, which is really what needs to be treated.

First of all, just as the best cure for a hangover is not to drink so much, the best cure for a recession is a recession. It is time to sober up and return to free market sanity, risk and reward, supply and demand, without political intervention. Politicians are good at catering to the needs of special interests, but very bad at determining what needs to take place in the market. Government should stick to punishing fraud and enforcing contracts. When they use the tax code, bureaucratic departments and their manipulative rules and regulations to dictate social and economic behavior, we end up with distortions and malinvestments. Bailing out banks, continuing failed Fed policies and strapping the taxpayer with toxic debt will worsen the pain, and punish the innocent.

If Congress really wanted to do something helpful, it would cut taxes. Ideally, we would repeal the income tax altogether and get the IRS off the economy’s back, which would be a huge boon. We should also cut spending. Cut every unconstitutional department and program, every wasteful governmental encroachment on the people’s liberty and money, starting with our massive overseas empire. The cost of our empire is bringing us to our knees, just as the Soviets’ empire did to them. Congress should also abolish the Federal Reserve and take back its responsibilities to ensure sound money, safe from the manipulations of powerful banking interests.

These things would constitute real change, real economic stimulus. The plans being bandied about Washington are just more of the same. As long as no one seriously considers the cure, we are unfortunately destined to prolong the disease.

There it is, refreshingly simple.

Now that we’ve identified our assailants as big government and central banking, maybe we can go after them! Or wait, here come a couple brave knights who seems more than willing to do that for us. Hold on a second… Don’t we know you?

I really like Glenn Beck when it comes to the economy:

This uncontrolled spending (and it’s underlying debasement of the currency) may well destroy us.

Inflation, as a means of overthrowing the free market:

Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens … Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of over-turning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose. – John Maynard Keynes (via quoty)

Inflation, as a means of overthrowing our nation and our liberties:

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. – Thomas Jefferson (via quoty)

Sadly the “change” mantra was nothing more than a seductive lie, because when it comes to the policies of spending and inflation, Comrades Obama and Bush (not mention McCain) are exactly the same.

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss. :(