Monthly Archives: January 2011

WikiLeaks: Israel aimed to keep Gaza economy on brink of collapse

open quoteIsrael told U.S. officials in 2008 it would keep Gaza’s economy “on the brink of collapse” while avoiding a humanitarian crisis, according to U.S. diplomatic cables published by a Norwegian daily on Wednesday.

Three cables cited by the Aftenposten newspaper, which has said it has all 250,000 U.S. cables leaked to WikiLeaks, showed that Israel kept the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv briefed on its internationally criticized blockade of the Gaza Strip.close quote (Read more from haaretz.com)

The Panama Deception

The Panama Deception trailer:

open quote21 years ago the US military dropped bombs on the Central American nation of Panama four days before Christmas Eve.

The 1989 US invasion eventually killed an estimated 4,000 civilians and leveled densely populated urban areas. It was vindicated through the notion that then President Manuel Noriega was an imminent threat to Panamanian democracy and American lives.

“Last Friday Noriega declared his military dictatorship to be in a state of war with the United States and publicly threatened the lives of Americans in Panama,” explained former President George H.W. Bush in December of 1989 regarding why the US was invading Panama.

However, journalists and historians insist the real cause for war were maintaining US control of the Panama Canal, Central America and US military bases in Panama.

However, major US media played a key role in selling the invasion to the American people.

Tom Brokaw of NBC reported a week before the war, “The United States declared in effect Panama’s Manuel Noriega is a threat to this country’s national security.”

What wasn’t mentioned that was Noriega had been Washington’s strongman for nearly two decades. While Bush Sr. was head of the CIA, he increased Noriega’s payroll to $100,000 dollars a year.

But as Noriega’s obedience to the US faltered, the US feared losing control of the vital Panama Canal and the closure of its strategically important military bases.

“They demonized Noriega as a means to be able to bomb and attack his country and that is what they did,” said Michael Parenti, an author and political scientist.

“Panamanian deaths were simply not of interest to the major mainstream media. The interest was solely on American deaths. The US media were puppets for this military campaign,” commented Barbara Trent, the director of the academy award winning documentary “The Panama Deception”.

During the making of Trent’s documentary film, she faced barricades from the US military. While filming thousands of refugees living inside plane hangars, military officials tried to detain Trent to prevent her from filming. However, the Panamanian refugees surrounded Trent’s filming crew and they were able to conduct interviews.

One refugee told Trent, “We want to get out of this Goddamn place, we’re tired of this! This is not no democracy! They [US] are worse than Noriega, they are plenty worse!!”

The refugees painted a grim picture that did not reflect in the US media coverage.

“The media stopped acting like the media, and acted as it has done in the Iraq as a cheer leading section,” said Parenti.close quote

The Ozone Scare

open quoteRemember when the thinning of the ozone layer was going to cause us all to die of malignant melanoma, just a few years ago? The ozone scare seems to have dropped off the radar entirely.

As you might remember, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were the evil du jour, playing the same role carbon dioxide (CO2) plays today in the global-warming scare. Environmentalists claimed that CFCs would somehow travel 40 miles up above the surface of the earth, despite the fact that CFCs are about five times heavier than air. A common case of floating bricks, no doubt.

By banning CFCs in 1989, the 196 countries who signed the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer lost a cheap, safe, nontoxic, chemically inert, noncorrosive, and nonflammable source of refrigerants, propellants, and fire-control-system components.

As with most regulations, the CFC ban hit the poor with a vengeance. Millions of perfectly functioning refrigerators could no longer be recharged with Freon, so everyone was forced to purchase new CFC-free appliances. This, of course, was especially difficult for those with low incomes.

Another group that still suffers greatly are asthma patients. The substitutes for CFC inhalers are the HFA (hydro-fluoroalkane) inhalers, which many doctors report to be of marginal effectiveness compared to the CFC version, which provided faster and longer-lasting relief from the agony of suffocation. Many patients have found that, whereas one puff used to be sufficient to reopen the airways, the new product requires two or even three puffs to work. This raises the cost of the medication due to the increased dosage. And to add insult to injury, because of their recent introduction, HFA inhalers are protected by patent law, whereas CFC inhalers were already generic. Prices per inhaler have increased from the $5–$25 range to the $30–$60 range in the United States.

Needless to say, taxpayers are still funding research into this bogus field, and the CFC ban is still alive and well. As always, regulations and funding are very easily put in place — especially when the public is manipulated with scare tactics — but they are very hard to roll back; in fact, regulations are hardly ever repealed, and the institutions in charge of enforcing them are only occasionally dismantled.

It is important to recognize the behavioral pattern of governments, NGOs, and scientists by looking at similar scares, such as acid rain, Y2K, mad-cow disease, H1N1, and now climate change and terrorism. Fear and guilt are the usual tools used to rob citizens of their liberty and money.close quote (Read more from mises.org)

New Year’s Predictions for 2011

My predictions:

1. We will see the beginning of the collapse of the bond market. The truth about flawed fiat currencies will begin to emerge. No one will want government debt. The specter of the choice between government default and hyper inflation will haunt us all.

2. In response to a great, violent threat, President Obama will appear on television and make a heroic speech about security, the American way of life, and preserving our liberty. Despite its design, the speech will not salvage his popularity.

3. Ron Paul will be accused of racism, nazi-ism, and/or homophobia. As Ron Paul popularity grows, and as his long record of accurate predictions becomes increasingly verified by the economic crisis, his message of liberty becomes increasingly threatening to the status quo. Look for slander, followed by more extreme tactics.

4. Governments hate a free press. Look for internet regulation in the U.S. and western Europe. Secret blogging and anonymity services will become increasingly valuable. More scandals will emerge, some directly threatening, incriminating the White House. The Democratic party will attempt to salvage itself by abandoning Obama.

5. Socialist explanations for the economic crisis, which blame greed and private enterprise, will get great exposure on television and in print as government looks for reasons to increase power and taxation to cover its many irresponsible programs. The socialist explanations will gain some support, but the liberty message and the culpability of government will not go away.

6. Faced with plummeting popularity, even in Donetsk, Ukraine’s ruling party, the Party of Regions, will have to chose between failure and tyranny. They will attempt to chose tyranny.

***

Peter Schiff:

* Higher commodity prices will begin to hit consumer.
* Mortgage rates will continue to rise.

***

Gerald Celente:

1. economic crisis wake up call
2. economic unions will splinter
3. government will intensify efforts to take wealth from the people
4. crime waves
5. crackdown on liberty (in the name of fighting crime)

***

See also, my predictions for:
2010
2009
2008

Peter Schiff — Year-end review

* Dow’s 10% year gain is BS. Foreign currencies did better.
* US dollar gains is also BS. Gold was up 27%! Silver was up 75%! Does that sound like a strong dollar?
* Mining stocks are beginning to lead.
* Commodities (CRB) up 18%. Oil up 17%. Cattle up 20%. Copper up 34%. Corn 40%. Wheat 43%. Soy beans way up. Sugar up 52%. Coffee 63%. Cotton up 90%.
* China may switch investments from dollars to euros in 2011.
* Kudlow show calls for more government welfare in China & less individual responsibility.

Banks Open Loan Spigot

This is not good necessarily good news. This is the newly printed money, which has been sitting dormant in the form of excess bank reserves finding its way into the economy — a harbinger for further price inflation.

open quoteSome big U.S. banks are starting to increase their lending to businesses as demand for loans rises and healthier banks seek to grab customers from weaker rivals.

After declining steadily for most of the past two years, the amount of commercial and industrial loans held by commercial banks inched upward during the past two months, according to the Federal Reserve.

Moody’s Analytics estimates that commercial and industrial lending in the fourth quarter has grown 0.2% from the third quarter, to $1.22 trillion, the first quarterly increase in two years. Moody’s predicts such lending will rise 3% next year.

An uptick in business lending is an optimistic sign for the economy and can help to make the recovery self-sustaining. close quote (Read more from wsj.com)