After Emergency Federal Reserve Meeting TODAY, Obama and Biden to Meet with Yellen! Rumor: Martial Law Discussions for Banking Failure
Post by U.S.Reporter
- Apr 11, 2016
www.superstation95.com 
RUMORS swirling say "Martial Law discussions over a banking system failure" are the reasons President Obama and Vice President Biden are to meet with Fed. Chair Janet Yellen today after the Federal Reserve's Emergency Meeting this morning.  In the history of the United States, it has never before taken place that both the President AND Vice President meet "unexpectedly" with the Federal Reserve.  Speculation is already flowing all over Washington, DC that it may have something to do with "the survival of the government."
Members of the House and Senate are said to have been "up all night" in discussions and meetings; with floods of phone calls back and forth.  
More:  Tuesday and Wednesday the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meet in DC and on Thursday the IMF and World Bank meet in DC as well.

All the leading bankers in the world will be in DC this week. 
Something wicked this way comes and it is coming very, very soon; within days we suspect.
Next Tuesday: The Chinese are scheduled to announce their switch from dollar to yuan on Tuesday, April 19th; which will send about two TRILLION in cash back to the US and send inflation skyrocketing overnight.
If you are not prepared, you have run out of time.
You need to have emergency cash to live on in case banks close for a couple weeks and shut down credit, debit cards and ATM's;  not cash to pay your bills, but rather cash to SURVIVE with for food, fuel, medicine.
Stores may have to close, so you'd better have food,  the shelf-stable type that doesn't go bad:  50lb Bag(s) of rice, Boxes of various Pasta, canned meats, jarred sauces.  Butter, sugar, salt etc.  Enough to survive for awhile just in case.
UPDATE  1:35 PM EDT  APRIL 11, 2016
While today's Expedited meeting of the federal reserve was called last Thursday, over the weekend astonishing banking developments took place in Europe.
Austria became the first European nation to utilize the new "Bail-in" regulations, seizing 54% of Senior Bondholders stock value to pay the bad debts of Hypo Alpe Adria bank / the Heta Asset Resolution AG.  While senior bond holders were considered "preferred" creditors and got 46% of their investment covered, Depositors were considered "subordinated" creditors and got: NOTHING!  Citizens were left broke. Story HERE
Five hours later, the Finance Minister of Italy called an Emergency Meeting of Italian Bankers in Rome to engage what he called a "last resort" to deal with 360 Billion in bad loans against banks with only 50 Billion in Capital.  That story is Here.
It appears an actual worldwide banking crisis is literally within view on the horizon and this week seems to be when all of it may come to a head.  Perhaps that's why the Finance Ministers of the G-20 nations will meet in Washington Tuesday and Wednesday, and then on Thursday, the World Bank and IMF will meet in Washington.
With every major banker in the world meeting in Washington this week, something is surely "up," and many people are starting to think the general public is about to get "hosed."   
UPDATE 10:59 PM EDT --
The White House released this photo of the meeting between Obama, Biden and Federal Reserve Chair, Janet Yellen.  LOOK AT YELLEN'S FACE . . . this is not a look of happiness and "all is well;" it seems more a death stare!   Did she "get told" or was she the one doing the telling of bad news?
https://www.superstation95.com/index.php/world/1144

Fleecing The American Taxpayer: The Profit Incentives Driving The Police State
 
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/11/2016 22:35 -0400 ZeroHedge.com
Submitted by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
“The Founding Fathers never intended a nation where citizens would pay nearly half of everything they earn to the government.” ? Ron Paul
If there is an absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off.
This is true whether you’re talking about taxpayers being forced to fund high-priced weaponry that will be used against us, endless wars that do little for our safety or our freedoms, or bloated government agencies such as the National Security Agency with its secret budgets, covert agendas and clandestine activities. Rubbing salt in the wound, even monetary awards in lawsuits against government officials who are found guilty of wrongdoing are paid by the taxpayer.
Not only are American taxpayers forced to “spend more on state, municipal, and federal taxes than the annual financial burdens of food, clothing, and housing combined,” but we’re also being played as easy marks by hustlers bearing the imprimatur of the government.
With every new tax, fine, fee and law adopted by our so-called representatives, the yoke around the neck of the average American seems to tighten just a little bit more.
Everywhere you go, everything you do, and every which way you look, we’re getting swindled, cheated, conned, robbed, raided, pickpocketed, mugged, deceived, defrauded, double-crossed and fleeced by governmental and corporate shareholders of the American police state out to make a profit at taxpayer expense.
The overt and costly signs of the despotism exercised by the increasingly authoritarian regime that passes itself off as the United States government are all around us: warrantless surveillance of Americans’ private phone and email conversations by the NSA; SWAT team raids of Americans’ homes; shootings of unarmed citizens by police; harsh punishments meted out to schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance; drones taking to the skies domestically; endless wars; out-of-control spending; militarized police; roadside strip searches; roving TSA sweeps; privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing Americans; fusion centers that collect and disseminate data on Americans’ private transactions; and militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition, to name some of the most appalling.
Meanwhile, the three branches of government (Executive, Legislative and Judicial) and the agencies under their command—Defense, Commerce, Education, Homeland Security, Justice, Treasury, etc.—have switched their allegiance to the Corporate State with its unassailable pursuit of profit at all costs and by any means possible. As a result, we are now ruled by a government consumed with squeezing every last penny out of the population and seemingly unconcerned if essential freedoms are trampled in the process.
As with most things, if you want to know the real motives behind any government program, follow the money trail.
When you dig down far enough, as I document in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, you quickly find that those who profit from Americans being surveilled, fined, scanned, searched, probed, tasered, arrested and imprisoned are none other than the police who arrest them, the courts which try them, the prisons which incarcerate them, and the corporations, which manufacture the weapons, equipment and prisons used by the American police state.
Examples of this legalized, profits-over-people, government-sanctioned extortion abound.
In the schools: The security industrial complex with its tracking, spying, and identification devices has set its sights on the schools as “a vast, rich market”—a $20 billion market, no less—just waiting to be conquered. In fact, the public schools have become a microcosm of the total surveillance state which currently dominates America, adopting a host of surveillance technologies, including video cameras, finger and palm scanners, iris scanners, as well as RFID and GPS tracking devices, to keep constant watch over their student bodies. Likewise, the military industrial complex with its military weapons, metal detectors, and weapons of compliance such as tasers has succeeded in transforming the schools—at great taxpayer expense and personal profit—into quasi-prisons. Rounding things out are school truancy laws, which come disguised as well-meaning attempts to resolve attendance issues in the schools but in truth are nothing less than stealth maneuvers aimed at enriching school districts and court systems alike through excessive fines and jail sentences for “unauthorized” absences. Curiously, none of these efforts seem to have succeeded in making the schools any safer.
 
On the roads: It has long been understood that police departments have quotas for how many tickets are issued and arrests made per month, a number tied directly to revenue. Likewise, red light camera schemes—sold to communities as a means of minimizing traffic accidents at intersections but which in fact are just a vehicle for levying nuisance fines against drivers often guilty of little more than making a right-hand turn on a red light—have been shown to do little to increase safety while actually contributing to more accidents. Nevertheless, these intrusive, money-making scams, which also function as surveillance cameras, are being inflicted on unsuspecting drivers by revenue-hungry municipalities, despite revelations of corruption, collusion and fraud.
 
In the prisons: States now have quotas to meet for how many Americans go to jail. Increasing numbers of states have contracted to keep their prisons at 90% to 100% capacity. This profit-driven form of mass punishment has, in turn, given rise to a $70 billion private prison industry that relies on the complicity of state governments to keep the money flowing and their privately run prisons full, “regardless of whether crime was rising or falling.” As Mother Jones reports, “private prison companies have supported and helped write … laws that drive up prison populations. Their livelihoods depend on towns, cities, and states sending more people to prison and keeping them there.” Private prisons are also doling out harsher punishments for infractions by inmates in order to keep them locked up longer in order to “boost profits” at taxpayer expense. All the while, the prisoners are being forced to provide cheap labor for private corporations. No wonder the United States has the largest prison population in the world at a time when violent crime is at an all-time low.
 
In the endless wars abroad: Fueled by the profit-driven military industrial complex, the government’s endless wars is wreaking havoc on our communities, our budget and our police forces. Having been co-opted by greedy defense contractors, corrupt politicians and incompetent government officials, America’s expanding military empire is bleeding the country dry at a rate of more than $57 million an hour, and that’s just the budget for the Dept. of Defense for 2016, with its 1000-plus U.S. military bases spread around the globe. Incredibly, although the U.S. constitutes only 5% of the world's population, America boasts almost 50% of the world's total military expenditure,  spending more on the military than the next 19 biggest spending nations combined. In fact, the Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety.
 
In the form of militarized police: The Department of Homeland Security routinely hands out six-figure grants to enable local municipalities to purchase military-style vehicles, as well as a veritable war chest of weaponry, ranging from tactical vests, bomb-disarming robots, assault weapons and combat uniforms. This rise in military equipment purchases funded by the DHS has, according to analysts Andrew Becker and G.W. Schulz, “paralleled an apparent increase in local SWAT teams.” The end result? An explosive growth in the use of SWAT teams for otherwise routine police matters, an increased tendency on the part of police to shoot first and ask questions later, and an overall mindset within police forces that they are at war—and the citizenry are the enemy combatants. Over 80,000 SWAT team raids are conducted on American homes and businesses each year. Moreover, government-funded military-style training drills continue to take place in cities across the country. These Urban Shield exercises, elaborately staged with their own set of professionally trained Crisis Actors playing the parts of shooters, bystanders and victims, fool law enforcement officials, students, teachers, bystanders and the media into thinking it’s a real crisis.
 
In profit-driven schemes such as asset forfeiture: Under the guise of fighting the war on drugs, government agents (usually the police) have been given broad leeway to seize billions of dollars’ worth of private property (money, cars, TVs, etc.) they “suspect” may be connected to criminal activity. Then—and here’s the kicker—whether or not any crime is actually proven to have taken place, the government keeps the citizen’s property, often divvying it up with the local police who did the initial seizure. The police are actually being trained in seminars on how to seize the “goodies” that are on police departments’ wish lists. According to the New York Times, seized monies have been used by police to “pay for sports tickets, office parties, a home security system and a $90,000 sports car.”
 
Among government contractors: We have been saddled with a government that is outsourcing much of its work to high-paid contractors at great expense to the taxpayer and with no competition, little transparency and dubious savings. According to the Washington Post, “By some estimates, there are twice as many people doing government work under contract than there are government workers.” These open-ended contracts, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, “now account for anywhere between one quarter and one half of all federal service contracting.” Moreover, any attempt to reform the system is “bitterly opposed by federal employee unions, who take it as their mission to prevent good employees from being rewarded and bad employees from being fired.”
 
Among defense contractors: Over the past two decades, America has become increasingly dependent on private defense contractors in order to carry out military operations abroad (the government’s extensive use of private security contractors has surged under Obama). In fact, the United States can no longer conduct large or sustained military operations or respond to major disasters without heavy support from contractors. As a result, the U.S. employs at a minimum one contractor to support every soldier deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq. With paid contractors often outnumbering enlisted combat troops, the American war effort has evolved from the “coalition of the willing” into the “coalition of the billing.”
 
By the security industrial complex: Not only is the government spying on Americans’ phone calls and emails, but police are also being equipped with technology such as Stingray devices that can track your cell phone, as well as record the content of your calls and the phone numbers dialed. The DHS has distributed more than $50 million in grants—again, paid by taxpayers—to enable local police agencies to acquire license plate readers, which rely on mobile cameras to photograph and identify cars, match them against a national database, and track their movements. Relying on private contractors to maintain a license plate database allows the DHS and its affiliates to access millions of records without much in the way of oversight. That doesn’t even touch on what the government’s various aerial surveillance devices are tracking, or the dangers posed to the privacy and safety of those on the ground.
 
The bottom line?
These injustices, petty tyrannies and overt acts of hostility are being carried out in the name of the national good—against the interests of individuals, society and ultimately our freedoms—by an elite class of government officials working in partnership with megacorporations that are largely insulated from the ill effects of their actions.
This perverse mixture of government authoritarianism and corporate profits has increased the reach of the state into our private lives while also adding a profit motive into the mix. And, as always, it’s we the people, we the taxpayers, we the gullible voters who keep getting taken for a ride by politicians eager to promise us the world on a plate.
This is a far cry from how a representative government is supposed to operate. Indeed, it has been a long time since we could claim to be the masters of our own lives. Rather, we are now the subjects of a militarized, corporate empire in which the vast majority of the citizenry work their hands to the bone for the benefit of a privileged few.
Adding injury to the ongoing insult of having our tax dollars misused and our so-called representatives bought and paid for by the moneyed elite, the government then turns around and uses the money we earn with our blood, sweat and tears to target, imprison and entrap us, in the form of militarized police, surveillance cameras, private prisons, license plate readers, drones, and cell phone tracking technology.
All of those nefarious deeds that you read about in the paper every day: those are your tax dollars at work. It’s your money that allows for government agents to spy on your emails, your phone calls, your text messages, and your movements. It’s your money that allows out-of-control police officers to burst into innocent people’s homes, or probe and strip search motorists on the side of the road. And it’s your money that leads to innocent Americans across the country being prosecuted for innocuous activities such as raising chickens at home, growing vegetable gardens, and trying to live off the grid.
Just remember the next time you see a news story that makes your blood boil, whether it’s a police officer arresting someone for filming them in public, or a child being kicked out of school for shooting an imaginary arrow, or a homeowner being threatened with fines for building a pond in his backyard, remember that it is your tax dollars that are paying for these injustices.
So what are you going to do about it?
There was a time in our history when our forebears said “enough is enough” and stopped paying their taxes to what they considered an illegitimate government. They stood their ground and refused to support a system that was slowly choking out any attempts at self-governance, and which refused to be held accountable for its crimes against the people. Their resistance sowed the seeds for the revolution that would follow.
Unfortunately, in the 200-plus years since we established our own government, we’ve let bankers, turncoats and number-crunching bureaucrats muddy the waters and pilfer the accounts to such an extent that we’re back where we started.
Once again, we’ve got a despotic regime with an imperial ruler doing as they please.
Once again, we’ve got a judicial system insisting we have no rights under a government which demands that the people march in lockstep with its dictates.
And once again, we’ve got to decide whether we’ll keep marching or break stride and make a turn toward freedom.
But what if we didn’t just pull out our pocketbooks and pony up to the federal government’s outrageous demands for more money? What if we didn’t just dutifully line up to drop our hard-earned dollars into the collection bucket, no questions asked about how it will be spent? What if, instead of quietly sending in our checks, hoping vainly for some meager return, we did a little calculating of our own and started deducting from our taxes those programs that we refuse to support?
If we don’t have the right to decide what happens to our hard-earned cash, then we don’t have very many rights at all. If they can just take from you what they want, when they want, and then use it however they want, you can’t claim to be anything more than a serf in a land they think of as theirs.
This was the case in the colonial era, and it’s the case once again.

19 Signs That American Families Are Being Economically Destroyed
 
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/11/2016 23:30 -0400 ZeroHedge.com
Via Michael Snyder's Economic Collapse blog,

The systematic destruction of the American way of life is happening all around us, and yet most people have no idea what is happening. 
Once upon a time in America, if you were responsible and hard working you could get a good paying job that could support a middle class lifestyle for an entire family even if you only had a high school education.  Things weren’t perfect, but generally almost everyone in the entire country was able to take care of themselves without government assistance. 
We worked hard, we played hard, and our seemingly boundless prosperity was the envy of the entire planet.  But over the past several decades things have completely changed.
We consumed far more wealth than we produced, we shipped millions of good paying jobs overseas, we piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world, and we kept electing politicians that had absolutely no concern for the long-term future of this nation whatsoever.  So now good jobs are in very short supply, we are drowning in an ocean of red ink, the middle class is rapidly shrinking and dependence on the government is at an all-time high. 
Even as we stand at the precipice of the next great economic crisis, we continue to make the same mistakes.  In the end, all of us are going to pay a very great price for decades of incredibly foolish decisions.  Of course a tremendous amount of damage has already been done.  The numbers that I am about to share with you are staggering.  The following are 19 signs that American families are being economically destroyed…
#1 The poorest 40 percent of all Americans now spend more than 50 percent of their incomes just on food and housing.
#2 For those Americans that don’t own a home, 50 percent of them spend more than a third of their incomes just on rent.
#3 The price of school lunches has risen to the 3 dollar mark at many public schools across the nation.
#4 McDonald’s “Dollar Menu & More” now includes items that cost as much as 5 dollars.
#5 The price of ground beef has doubled since 2009.
#6 In 1986, child care expenses for families with employed mothers used up 6.3 percent of all income.  Today, that figure is up to 7.2 percent.
#7 Incomes fell for the bottom 80 percent of all income earners in the United States during the 12 months leading up to June 2014.
#8 At this point, more than 50 percent of all American workers bring home less than $30,000 a year in wages.
#9 After adjusting for inflation, median household income has fallen by nearly $5,000 since 2007.
#10 According to the New York Times, the “typical American household” is now worth 36 percent less than it was worth a decade ago.
#11 47 percent of all Americans do not put a single penny out of their paychecks into savings.
#12 One survey found that 62 percent of all Americans are currently living paycheck to paycheck.
#13 According to the U.S. Department of Education, 33 percent of all Americans with student loans are currently behind on their student loan debt repayments.
#14 According to one recent report, 43 million Americans currently have unpaid medical debt on their credit reports.
#15 The rate of homeownership in the U.S. has been declining for seven years in a row, and it is now the lowest that it has been in 20 years.
#16 For each of the past six years, more businesses have closed in the United States than have opened.  Prior to 2008, this had never happened before in all of U.S. history.
#17 According to the Census Bureau, 65 percent of all children in the United States are living in a home that receives some form of aid from the federal government.
#18 If you have no debt at all, and you also have 10 dollars in your wallet, that you are wealthier than 25 percent of all Americans.
#19 On top of everything else, the average American must work from January 1st to April 24th just to pay all federal, state and local taxes.
All of us know people that once were doing quite well but that are now just struggling to get by from month to month.
Perhaps this has happened to you.
If you have ever been in that position, you probably remember what it feels like to have people look down on you.  Unfortunately, in our society the value that we place on individuals has a tremendous amount to do with how much money they have.
So if you don’t have much money, there are a lot of people out there that will treat you like dirt.  The following excerpt comes from a Washington Post article entitled “The poor are treated like criminals everywhere, even at the grocery store“…
Want to see a look of pure hatred? Pull out an EBT card at the grocery store.
 
Now that my kids are grown and gone, my Social Security check is enough to keep me from qualifying for government food benefits. But I remember well when we did qualify for a monthly EBT deposit, a whopping $22 — and that was before Congress cut SNAP benefits in November 2013. Like 70 percent of people receiving SNAP benefits, I couldn’t feed my family on that amount. But I remember the comments from middle-class people, the assumptions about me and my disability and what the poor should and shouldn’t be spending money on.
Have you ever seen this?
Have you ever experienced this yourself?
These days, most people on food stamps are not in that situation because they want to be.  Rather, they are victims of our long-term economic collapse.
And this is just the beginning.  When the next major economic crisis strikes, the suffering in this country is going to go to unprecedented levels.
As we enter that time, we are going to need a whole lot more love and compassion than we are exhibiting right now.
As a nation, we have made decades of incredibly bad decisions.  As a result, we are experiencing bad consequences which are going to become increasingly more severe.
The numbers that I just shared with you are not good.  But over the next several years they are going to get a whole lot worse.
Everything that can be shaken will be shaken, and life in America is about to change in a major way.

"The Greater Depression Has Started" - Comparing 1930s & Today
 
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/08/2016 20:05 -0400 ZeroHedge.com
Submitted by Doug Casey via InternationalMan.com,
You've heard the axiom "History repeats itself." It does, but never in exactly the same way. To apply the lessons of the past, we must understand the differences of the present.
During the American Revolution, the British came prepared to fight a successful war—but against a European army. Their formations, which gave them devastating firepower, and their red coats, which emphasized their numbers, proved the exact opposite of the tactics needed to fight a guerrilla war.
Before World War I, generals still saw the cavalry as the flower of their armies. Of course, the horse soldiers proved worse than useless in the trenches.
Before World War II, in anticipation of a German attack, the French built the "impenetrable" Maginot Line. History repeated itself and the attack came, but not in the way they expected. Their preparations were useless because the Germans didn't attempt to penetrate it; they simply went around it, and France was defeated.
The generals don't prepare for the last war out of perversity or stupidity, but rather because past experience is all they have to go by. Most of them simply don't know how to interpret that experience. They are correct in preparing for another war but wrong in relying upon what worked in the last one.
Investors, unfortunately, seem to make the same mistakes in marshaling their resources as do the generals. If the last 30 years have been prosperous, they base their actions on more prosperity. Talk of a depression isn't real to them because things are, in fact, so different from the 1930s. To most people, a depression means '30s-style conditions, and since they don't see that, they can't imagine a depression. That's because they know what the last depression was like, but they don't know what one is. It's hard to visualize something you don't understand.
Some of them who are a bit more clever might see an end to prosperity and the start of a depression but—al­though they're going to be a lot better off than most—they're probably looking for this depression to be like the last one.
Although nobody can predict with absolute certainty what this depression will be like, you can be fairly well-assured it won't be an instant replay of the last one. But just because things will be different doesn't mean you have to be taken by surprise.
To define the likely differences between this depres­sion and the last one, it's helpful to compare the situa­tion today to that in the early 1930s. The results aren't very reassuring.
CORPORATE BANKRUPTCY
1930s
Banks, insurance companies, and big corporations went under on a major scale. Institutions suffered the consequences of past mistakes, and there was no financial safety net to catch them as they fell. Mistakes were liquidated and only the prepared and efficient survived.
Today
The world’s financial institutions are in even worse shape than the last time, but now business ethics have changed and everyone expects the government to "step in." Laws are already in place that not only allow but require government inter­vention in many instances. This time, mistakes will be compounded, and the strong, productive, and ef­ficient will be forced to subsidize the weak, unproductive, and inefficient. It's ironic that businesses were bankrupted in the last depression because the prices of their products fell too low; this time, it'll be because they went too high.
UNEMPLOYMENT
1930s
If a man lost his job, he had to find another one as quickly as possible simply to keep from going hungry. A lot of other men in the same position competed desperately for what work was available, and an employer could hire those same men for much lower wages and expect them to work harder than what was the case before the depression. As a result, the men could get jobs and the employer could stay in business.
Today
The average man first has months of unemployment insurance; after that, he can go on welfare if he can't find "suitable work." Instead of taking whatever work is available, especially if it means that a white collar worker has to get his hands dirty, many will go on welfare. This will decrease the production of new wealth and delay the recovery. The worker no longer has to worry about some entrepreneur exploiting (i.e., employing) him at what he considers an unfair wage because the minimum wage laws, among others, precludes that possibility today. As a result, men stay unemployed and employers will go out of business.
WELFARE
1930s
If hard times really put a man down and out, he had little recourse but to rely on his family, friends, or local social and church group. There was quite a bit of opprobrium attached to that, and it was only a last resort. The breadlines set up by various government bodies were largely cosmetic measures to soothe the more terror-prone among the voting populace. People made do because they had to, and that meant radically reducing their standards of living and taking any job available at any wage. There were very, very few people on welfare during the last depression.
Today
It's hard to say how those who are still working are going to support those who aren't in this depression. Even in the U.S., 50% of the country is already on some form of welfare. But food stamps, aid to fami­lies with dependent children, Social Security, and local programs are already collapsing in prosperous times. And when the tidal wave hits, they'll be totally overwhelmed. There aren't going to be any breadlines because people who would be standing in them are going to be shopping in local supermarkets just like people who earned their money. Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of it is that people in general have come to think that these programs can just magically make wealth appear, and they expect them to be there, while a whole class of people have grown up never learning to survive without them. It's ironic, yet predictable, that the programs that were supposed to help those who "need" them will serve to devastate those very people.
REGULATIONS
1930s
Most economies have been fairly heavily regulated since the early 1900s, and those regulations caused distortions that added to the severity of the last depression. Rather than allow the economy to liquidate, in the case of the U.S., the Roosevelt regime added many, many more regulations—fixing prices, wages, and the manner of doing business in a static form. It was largely because of these regulations that the depression lingered on until the end of World War II, which "saved" the economy only through its massive reinflation of the currency. Had the government abolished most controls then in existence, instead of creating new ones, the depression would have been less severe and much shorter.
Today
The scores of new agencies set up since the last depression have created far more severe distortions in the ways people relate than those of 80 years ago; the potential adjustment needed is proportionately greater. Unless government restrictions and controls on wages, working conditions, energy consumption, safety, and such are removed, a dramatic economic turnaround during the Greater Depression will be impossible.
TAXES
1930s
The income tax was new to the U.S. in 1913, and by 1929, although it took a maximum 23.1% bite, that was only at the $1 million level. The average family’s income then was $2,335, and that put average families in the 1/10th of 1 percent bracket. And there was still no Social Security tax, no state income tax, no sales tax, and no estate tax. Furthermore, most people in the country didn't even pay the income tax because they earned less than the legal minimum or they didn't bother filing. The government, therefore, had immense untapped sources of revenue to draw upon to fund its schemes to "cure" the depression. Roosevelt was able to raise the average income tax from 1.35% to 16.56% during his tenure—an increase of 1,100%.
Today
Everyone now pays an income tax in addition to all the other taxes. In most Western countries, the total of direct and indirect taxes is over 50%. For that reason, it seems unlikely that direct taxes will go much higher. But inflation is constantly driving everyone into higher brackets and will have the same effect. A person has had to increase his or her income faster than inflation to compensate for taxes. Whatever taxes a man does pay will reduce his standard of living by just that much, and it's reasonable to expect tax evasion and the underground economy to boom in response. That will cushion the severity of the depression somewhat while it serves to help change the philosophical orientation of society.
PRICES
1930s
Prices dropped radically because billions of dollars of inflationary currency were wiped out through the stock market crash, bond defaults, and bank failures. The government, however, somehow equated the high prices of the inflationary '20s with prosperity and attempted to prevent a fall in prices by such things as slaughtering livestock, dumping milk in the gutter, and enacting price supports. Since the collapse wiped out money faster than it could be created, the government felt the destruction of real wealth was a more effective way to raise prices. In other words, if you can't increase the supply of money, decrease the supply of goods.
Nonetheless, the 1930s depression was a deflationary collapse, a time when currency became worth more and prices dropped. This is probably the most confusing thing to most Americans since they assume—as a result of that experience—that "depression" means "de?ation." It's also perhaps the biggest single difference between this depression and the last one.
Today
Prices could drop, as they did the last time, but the amount of power the government now has over the economy is far greater than what was the case 80 years ago. Instead of letting the economy cleanse itself by allowing the ?nancial markets to collapse, governments will probably bail out insolvent banks, create mortgages wholesale to prop up real estate, and central banks will buy bonds to keep their prices from plummeting. All of these actions mean that the total money supply will grow enormously. Trillions will be created to avoid de?ation. If you ?nd men selling apples on street corners, it won't be for 5 cents apiece, but $5 apiece. But there won't be a lot of apple sellers because of welfare, nor will there be a lot of apples because of price controls.
Consumer prices will probably skyrocket as a result, and the country will have an in?ationary depression. Unlike the 1930s, when people who held dollars were king, by the end of the Greater Depression, people with dollars will be wiped out.
THE SOCIETY
1930s
The world was largely rural or small-town. Communications were slow, but people tended to trust the media. The government exercised considerable moral suasion, and people tended to support it. The business of the country was business, as Calvin Coolidge said, and men who created wealth were esteemed. All told, if you were going to have a depression, it was a rather stable environment for it; despite that, however, there were still plenty of riots, marches, and general disorder.
Today
The country is now urban and suburban, and although communications are rapid, there's little interpersonal contact. The media are suspect. The government is seen more as an adversary or an imperial ruler than an arbitrator accepted by a consensus of concerned citizens. Businessmen are viewed as unscrupulous predators who take advantage of anyone weak enough to be exploited.
A major financial smashup in today's atmosphere could do a lot more than wipe out a few naives in the stock market and unemploy some workers, as occurred in the '30s; some sectors of society are now time bombs. It's hard to say, for instance, what third- and fourth-generation welfare recipients are going to do when the going gets really tough.
THE WAY PEOPLE WORK
1930s
Relatively slow transportation and communication localized economic conditions. The U.S. itself was somewhat insulated from the rest of the world, and parts of the U.S. were fairly self-contained. Workers were mostly involved in basic agriculture and industry, creating widgets and other tangible items. There wasn't a great deal of specialization, and that made it easier for someone to move laterally from one occupation into the next, without extensive retraining, since people were more able to produce the basics of life on their own. Most women never joined the workforce, and the wife in a marriage acted as a "backup" system should the husband lose his job.
Today
The whole world is interdependent, and a war in the Middle East or a revolution in Africa can have a direct and immediate effect on a barber in Chicago or Krakow. Since the whole economy is centrally controlled from Washington, a mistake there can be a national disaster. People generally aren’t in a position to roll with the punches as more than half the people in the country belong to what is known as the "service economy." That means, in most cases, they're better equipped to shuffle papers than make widgets. Even "necessary" services are often terminated when times get hard. Specialization is part of what an advanced industrial economy is all about, but if the economic order changes radically, it can prove a liability.
THE FINANCIAL MARKETS
1930s
The last depression is identified with the collapse of the stock market, which lost over 90% of its value from 1929 to 1933. A secure bond was the best possible investment as interest rates dropped radically. Commodities plummeted, reducing millions of farmers to near subsistence levels. Since most real estate was owned outright and taxes were low, a drop in price didn't make a lot of difference unless you had to sell. Land prices plummeted, but since people bought it to use, not unload to a greater fool, they didn't usually have to sell.
Today
This time, stocks—and especially commodities—are likely to explode on the upside as people panic into them to get out of depreciating dollars in general and bonds in particular. Real estate will be—next to bonds—the most devastated single area of the economy because no one will lend money long term. And real estate is built on the mortgage market, which will vanish.
Everybody who invests in this depression thinking that it will turn out like the last one will be very unhappy with the results. Being aware of the differences between the last depression and this one makes it a lot easier to position yourself to minimize losses and maximize profits.
*  *  *
So much for the differences. The crucial, obvious, and most important similarity, however, is that most people's standard of living will fall dramatically.
The Greater Depression has started. Most people don't know it because they can neither confront the thought nor understand the differences between this one and the last.
As a climax approaches, many of the things that you've built your life around in the past are going to change and change radically. The ability to adjust to new conditions is the sign of a psychologically healthy person.
Look for the opportunity side of the crisis. The Chinese symbol for "crisis" is a combination of two other symbols - one for danger and one for opportunity.
The dangers that society will face in the years ahead are regrettable, but there's no point in allowing anxiety, frustration, or apathy to overcome you. Face the future with courage, curiosity, and optimism rather than fear. You can be a winner, and if you plan carefully, you will be. The great period of change will give you a chance to regain control of your destiny. And that in itself is the single most important thing in life. This depression can give you that opportunity; it's one of the many ways the Greater Depression can be a very good thing for both you as an individual and society as a whole.

The Costs & Consequences Of $15/Hour
 
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/07/2016 15:55 -0400 ZeroHedge.com
Submitted by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,
What’s the big “hub-bub” over raising the minimum wage to $15/hr? After all, the last time the minimum wage was raised was in 2009. The argument for increasing the minimum is to create a “livable wage” for those working at that level.
Given the amount of table pounding that has ensued after the current administration proposed increasing the minimum wage, you would have assumed that a vast majority of American workers were trapped at this horrifically low level of income. Let’s take a look at some numbers.
According to the April 2015, BLS report:
“In 2014, 77.2 million workers age 16 and older in the United States were paid at hourly rates, representing 58.7 percent of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 1.3 million earned exactly the prevailing federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. About 1.7 million had wages below the federal minimum. 
Together, these 3.0 million workers with wages at or below the federal minimum made up 3.9 percent of all hourly-paid workers.”
Of those 3 million workers, who were at or below the Federal minimum wage, 48.2% of that group were aged 16-24.
Furthermore, the percentage of hourly paid workers earning the prevailing federal minimum wage or less declined from 4.3% in 2013 to 3.9% in 2014 and remains well below the 13.4% in 1979. 
Hmm…3 million workers at minimum wage with roughly half aged 16-24. Where would that group of individuals most likely be found?

Not surprisingly, they primarily are found in the fast food industry.
“So what? People working at restaurants need to make more money.”
Okay, let’s hike the minimum wage to $15/hr. That doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, right? Let’s do that math:
My son is just turning 16 in June and is going out to get his first job. He has no experience, no idea what “working” actually means, and it about to be the brunt of the cruel joke of Federal taxation when he sees his first paycheck. Let’s do the math of $15/hr assuming he works full-time this summer.

• $15/hr X 40 hours per week = $600/week
• $600/week x 4.3 weeks in a month = $2,580/month
• $2580/month x 12 months = $30,960/year.

Let that soak in for a minute. We are talking paying $30,000 per year to a 16-year old to flip burgers.
Governor Jerry Brown recently caved to Unions and passed legislation to hike the minimum wage in California to the magical level of $15. According to the Huffington Post, this will affect about 567,000 workers in Los Angeles. Here are those numbers (thanks to B. Eshelman for the math.)

• In 2015 Annual Salary $18,720 x 567,000 = $10,614,240,000
• In 2020 Annual Salary $31,200 x 567,000 = $17,690,400,000The overall total Gross for 2016 / 2017 / 2018 / 2019 / 2020 works out to $76,658,400,000 – 76.6 Billion dollars in wages.

An increase in wages of $76.6 billion in wages will be passed onto consumers in the form of higher costs of products.
However, here is the real reason that California, New York, and the current Administration are pushing for a higher minimum wage. If we only look at the increased portion of wages that will be paid under the new standard we find an increase of $23.5 Billion Dollars in Los Angeles alone which equates to:

• An Increase takes in of $764,678,880 California State Taxes.
• An Increase takes in of $342,014,400 Medicare Taxes.
• An Increase takes in of $1,462,406,400 Social Security Taxes.
• An Increase takes in of $3,423,971,250 Federal Taxes.
• Plus the employer pays equal amounts in taxes to what the employee pays. 

Not a bad way to boost tax revenue when you extrapolate Los Angeles nationwide. 
But there is also the inevitable unintended consequences of boosting the minimum wage.
The Trickle Up Effect:
According to Payscale, the median hourly wage for a restaurant manager is $11.00 an hour.
Therefore, what do you think happens when my son, who just got his first job with no experience, is making more than the manager of the restaurant? The owner will have to increase the managers salary. But wait. Now the manager is making more than the district manager which requires another pay hike. So forth, and so on.
Of course, none of this is a problem as long as you can pass on higher payroll, benefit and rising healthcare costs to the consumer. But with an economy stumbling along at 2%, this may be a problem, just as Oregon is finding out:
“Facing concerns from the right and the left that her minimum wage proposal was an obvious job killer in Oregon, Gov. Brown blinked on January 28 and has scaled back her proposal to only a $.50 raise per hour statewide July increase, from $9.25 to $9.75-per-hour.”
This move followed a recent report from the Manhattan Institute which concluded:
“By eliminating jobs and/or reducing employment growth, economists have long understood that adoption of a higher minimum wage can harm the very poor who are intended to be helped. Nonetheless, a political drumbeat of proposals—including from the White House—now calls for an increase in the $7.25 minimum wage to levels as high as $15 per hour. 
But this groundbreaking paper by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, and Ben Gitis, director of labormarket policy at the American Action Forum, comes to a strikingly different conclusion: not only would overall employment growth be lower as a result of a higher minimum wage, but much of the increase in income that would result for those fortunate enough to have jobs would go to relatively higher-income households—not to those households in poverty in whose name the campaign for a higher minimum wage is being waged.”
This is really just common sense logic. If we look at the total number of businesses in the United States we find the following breakdown:
Out of a whopping 26 million registered businesses in the United States, only 23% actually have employees. The rest are “inactive” companies that have no sales, profits, customers or workers.
Let’s dig a little deeper.
Of the 6,000,000 businesses that actually employee people 63% have fewer than 4-employees. These are the “mom and pop” shops owned by people who aren’t building a business as much as they are building a life. Most of these businesses operate on very thin margins and there is little ability to absorb dramatically higher payroll costs.
The 5-99 employee businesses likewise are generally much more sensitive to changes in costs and customer demand and would also be adversely affected by higher costs without higher levels of aggregate demand.
Problems With Hiking The Minimum Wage

1. Minimum wage jobs are “starter jobs.” These are the jobs where individuals learn how to work within a business environment, make mistakes, get fired, etc. without it impacting their long-term employment prospects. Down the road when applying for a real job, employers don’t care so much about your days “flipping burgers” or “waiting tables” as much as your education and current skill set.
2. Minimum wage jobs are not meant to supply a “livable wage.” Most minimum wage jobs, as stated, are just a quick “test” position for an employee. Once they prove themselves capable and dependable, they tend to be quickly promoted up the employment ranks. This is why only 3-million jobs out of 160 million are at or below the minimum wage. If you have been working at a job for longer than a year at minimum wage, the problem is probably you. 
3. As an “anti-poverty” tool, it is a blunt instrument. Many minimum wage earners are second or third-job holders in households with other income. That could include a teenage summer employee whose parents both have jobs. Other minimum wage workers may include retirees with income from savings and Social Security who own their homes mortgage-free.
4. Wages reflect the value employees add to final output. Given that businesses exist in a competitive environment, wages reflect the skills and market value of what an employee is capable of producing. If an employee’s production creates more income for the business his “worth” is higher and is reflected in his wages. If a firm underpays a skillful employee, another firm will recognize that talent and pay more to get it.
5. Higher wages may hurt those it is supposed to help.  First, when Seattle hiked their minimum wage, employees wanted less hours to remain on welfare. While a higher wage sounds good, after taxes it produced less income for low-income households by reducing their welfare benefits. Secondly, as stated above, the number of jobs that will likely be lost to automation will increase. A one-time cost to increase technological innovation in a restaurant is quickly repaid given a substantial increase in payroll costs. Don’t misunderstand me. I am not bashing anyone that wants to hike the minimum wage. It doesn’t affect my business one bit as no one I employee makes minimum wage.

Should we raise the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to say $8.00 an hour? Probably. The cost of living has risen since the 2009 wage hike and a $0.75 increase would likely be more palatable than a doubling.
Importantly, the unintended consequences of a minimum wage hike in a weak economic environment are not inconsequential. Furthermore, given that businesses are already fighting for profitability, hiking the minimum wage, given the subsequent “trickle up” effect, will lead to further increases in productivity and “off shoring” of jobs to reduce rising employment costs. 
So much for bringing back those manufacturing jobs.

The Lock Down Has Begun: JP Morgan Restricts ATM Cash Withdrawals
Mac Slavo
April 4th, 2016
SHTFplan.com
 

 

Last month All News Pipeline warned that major banks were preparing to tighten the screws on American account holders starting April 1st.

It appears that the lock-down of cash has begun.

Citing criminal activity as a factor, JP Morgan is limiting cash withdrawals at ATM machines.
The bank said there doesn’t appear to be fraud involved. But partly due to heightened regulatory scrutiny, banks are paying more attention to large cash transfers that could be a sign of money laundering or other types of shady activity. Typically, the card-issuing bank sets withdrawal limits, not the bank owning the ATM.

The move by the largest bank in the U.S. doesn’t affect J.P. Morgan Chase’s own customers, whose maximum daily withdrawals are set depending on the client’s account type. The bank has seen high-dollar withdrawals at both new and old ATMs, said bank spokeswoman Patricia Wexler.

J.P. Morgan Chase’s change last month affects roughly 18,000 automated teller machines nationwide and followed an interim step earlier this year limiting noncustomer cash removals at $1,000 per transaction. The earlier move was made as a temporary fix while the bank could make software changes to roll out the more stringent daily limit, Ms. Wexler said.
She added that the bank “felt it was prudent to set withdrawal limits on all of our ATMs” after identifying some large cash withdrawals from noncustomers.

In 2015 we warned readers to divest some of their assets out of bank accounts for this very reason, noting that bank glitches and arbitrary holds would begin to affect more and more depositors. And while the recent move by JP Morgan Chase appears to only affect non-customers, a recent report indicates that the Justice Department has advised bank tellers nationwide to keep any eye out on cash transactions. Suspicious activity, which by the government’s definition is as little as $3000, should be reported to law enforcement and under existing guidelines police can then seize those funds without charge or trial:
“[W]e encourage those institutions to consider whether to take more action: specifically, to alert law enforcement authorities about the problem, who may be able to seize the funds, initiate an investigation, or take other proactive steps.”
After the massive bailouts required to save the system following the crash of 2008 banks and regulators worked together to ensure that all deposit accounts in the United States are no longer the property of depositors, but rather, the banks themselves.

All customer funds in the United States are now the legal property of JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, BNYM, or whichever megabank is the counterparty on the loans the FCM or depository institution takes out in order to fund its mega-levered proprietary in-house trading desks.

In a recent interview intelligence insider Jim Rickards discusses this recent trend and provides insights into how susceptible the banking system is to not just cyber warfare or power grid failure, but confiscation in the form of bank bail-ins or outright government seizure.

Mossack Fonseca Has 441 U.S. Clients: Who Are They?
 
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/04/2016 22:31 -0400 ZeroHedge.com

•  As the shock from the initial revelation of leaked Mossack Fonseca files fades away, one recurring question has emerged: why were there no American clients of the firm named (at least not yet)? After all, leaders in Iceland, Russia, Ukraine, Brazil, Australia and many other nations are already facing questions about their use of the Panamanian law firm, and yet nothing about the US?
  

The United States is pure and good and incorruptible. pic.twitter.com/Xo9LEuCavF
— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) April 3, 2016
One hint may have emerged when observing at the funding supporters of the project, among which we find George Soros' heavily financially connected Open Society: 
Recent ICIJ funders include: Adessium Foundation, Open Society Foundations, The Sigrid Rausing Trust, the Fritt Ord Foundation, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, The Ford Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Pew Charitable Trusts and Waterloo Foundation.
Clearly, this would imply editorial intervention by the funding sources due to a potential "conflict of interest", although hopefully not as that would undermine the objective nature of this massive journalistic undertaking.
There may be a simpler explanation: as Eoin Higgins points out, the 2010 United States—Panama Trade Promotion Agreement included a taxation clause that effectively shut down any chance of the rich in the US using Panama as a shelter.
The Tax Information Exchange Agreement includes a clause, Article 5, that specifies the terms of information sharing between the two countries on tax related matters:
 
The competent authority of the requested Party shall provide upon request by the competent authority of the requesting Party information for the purposes referred to in Article 1 of this Agreement. Such information shall be exchanged without regard to whether the requested Party needs such information for its own tax purposes or the conduct being investigated would constitute a crime under the laws of the requested Party if it had occurred in the territory of the requested Party. 
The Article goes on to make clear that Mossack Fonseca’s type of services would particularly be included in the information request.
According to Higgins, "if Panama had ever been an attractive destination for American offshore storage of funds, this agreement shut the door on that possibility."
Perhaps. However that does not explain why according to an interactive map created by Brian Kilmartin which lays out shotgun data (no names) about the number of companies, clients, beneficiaries and shareholders of Mossack Fonseca, there are at least 441 clients, 3,072 companies, 211 beneficiaries and 3,467 U.S.-based shareholders of the Panamanian law firm.
It also does not explain why according to primary data compiled in Fusion's interactive universe, one can find an abundance of US-based nodes in the client/company/shareholder and beneficiary map (highlighted in blue).
Indicatively with 441 clients, the US is among the countries with the most clients served by Mossack Fonseca.
So who are these 441 clients, and why has the ICIJ decided not to reveal any of them?
Or perhaps it will all be revealed in due course.
According to a tweet by a tech editor at Germany's Suddeutsche Zeiting - the outlet that received the original leak - there will be more disclosures forthcoming.
Editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung responded to the lack of U.S. individuals in the documents, saying "Just wait for what is coming next"
— Mathew Ingram (@mathewi) April 3, 2016
 
Still, one can't help but wonder: why not do a Wikileaks type data dump, one which reveals if not all the 2.6 terabytes of data due to security concerns, then at least the identities of these 441 US-based clients.
After all, with the rest of the world has already been extensively shamed, it's only fair to open US books as well.
 
Shots Fired: Wikileaks Accuses Panama Papers' Leaker Of Being "Soros-Funded, Soft-Power Tax Dodge"
 
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 04/05/2016 23:44 -0400 ZeroHedge.com
Earlier today, for the first time we got a glimpse into some of the American names allegedly contained in the "Panama Papers", largest ever leak. "Some", not all, and "allegedly" because as we said yesterday, "one can't help but wonder: why not do a Wikileaks type data dump, one which reveals if not all the 2.6 terabytes of data due to security concerns, then at least the identities of these 441 US-based clients. After all, with the rest of the world has already been extensively shamed, it's only fair to open US books as well."
The exact same question appeared in an interview conducted between Wired magazine and the director of the organization that released the Panama Papers, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, or ICIJ, Gerard Ryle.
This is what Ryle said:
Ryle says that the media organizations have no plans to release the full dataset, WikiLeaks-style, which he argues would expose the sensitive information of innocent private individuals along with the public figures on which the group’s reporting has focused. “We’re not WikiLeaks. We’re trying to show that journalism can be done responsibly,” Ryle says. He says he advised the reporters from all the participating media outlets to “go crazy, but tell us what’s in the public interest for your country.”
Question aside about who it is that gets to decide which "innocent private individuals" are to be left alone, Wikileaks clearly did not like being characterized as conducting "irresponsible" journalism - and to the contrary, many in the public arena have called for another massive, distributed effort to get to the bottom of a 2.4TB treasure trove of data which a handful of journalists will simply be unable to dig through - and moments ago, on Twitter, accused the ICIJ of being a "Washington DC based Ford, Soros funded soft-power tax-dodge" which "has a WikiLeaks problem."
Washington DC based Ford, Soros funded soft-power tax-dodge "ICIJ" has a WikiLeaks problem #PanamaPapers https://t.co/xEXlmGg0fG
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 5, 2016
 
Moments later, in a subsequent tweet it added that the "Putin attack was produced by OCCRP which targets Russia & former USSR and was funded by USAID & Soros."
#PanamaPapers Putin attack was produced by OCCRP which targets Russia & former USSR and was funded by USAID & Soros. pic.twitter.com/tgeKfLuROn
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 5, 2016
#PanamaPapers: WikiLeaks' Kristinn Hrafnsson calls for data leak to be released in full https://t.co/5FAOtaO2Ix
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 5, 2016
Should we release all 11 million #PanamaPapers so everyone can search through them like our other publications?
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 3, 2016
And so, a new contest is born: one between the "old" source of mega leaks, and the new one. We wonder if and when Edward Snowden and/or Glenn Greenwald will also chime in.
But we are far more interested if now, that there appears to be a war brewing between Wikileaks and ICIJ, who what "information" will be released next, and whether whatever comes out will put the entire Panama Papers project in a different perspective, one which, as even Bloomberg has hinted, may have been to benefit the last remaining global tax haven around, the United States itself, as well as the most notorious provider of "tax haven" services in in said country: Rothschild.