by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) The time between today and the day the global debt collapse reaches our shores is finite. The U.S. national debt clock shows a nation spiraling into financial oblivion. When Ron Paul says “Americans should be panicking” over the Fed’s new QE unlimited policy of infinite money creation, he was actually holding back. In reality, Americans should have been protesting in the streets… everywhere!
But instead, they’re going to deny reality, vote in the upcoming election, and pretend that whoever occupies the Oval Office has both the intention and the power to make any real difference. That belief is delusional, as is the belief that the national debt somehow doesn’t really matter.
The delusions are, of course, leading us all directly into a head-on collision with history, where the global debt collapse unfolds at a quickening pace and becomes “real” for hundreds of millions of people in North America who have so far escaped the reality of the financial collapse happening across Europe. Before that day comes, here are 26 things you might want to get done.
26 things to get done before the global debt collapse
See a holistic dentist and get the mercury removed from your mouth.
Buy some hardcopy books so you have something to read when the power grid fails.
Move your money out of the big globalist banks.
Bury your gold and silver. Use an appropriate container to protect from moisture and don’t forget to tell someone else where you’ve buried things, just in case you don’t make it.
Get the heck out of the city and learn some country living skills.
Pay off as many assets as you can so you have a clear title to anything you don’t want the banks to seize.
Get right with God or whatever spiritual focal point you practice.
Wrap up needed apologies or forgiveness. Don’t allow regrets to burden you in a time of crisis.
Make color copies of all your important documents, then store them in a safe place. (BTW, a bank’s safe deposit box is NOT a safe place. Those will all be looted.)
Get off prescription meds. Any dependence on prescription drugs is a death wish in a collapse scenario.
Stock up on diatomaceous earth (DE) to protect your garden vegetables. The stuff stores forever.
Stock up on extra glasses or contact lenses if you might need them.
Get fit, you’ll need to be more fit if you hope to survive.
Take out some cash and start saving nickels. Why? Because nickels are actually still worth a nickel in terms of what they’re physically made of.
Learn to use shortwave radio, or better yet get a radio operator’s license.
Learn and practice basic gardening skills.
Learn how to raise chickens, goats or other small animals.
Buy a premium-quality set of basic gardening tools, even if you don’t yet garden.
Get training on how to use your firearms. When you really need them, there won’t be time to practice. If you want to practice on your own, buy the new book by Joe Nobody, entitled, “The Home Schooled Shootist” and start using it.
If you own rifles, sight them all in and use threadlock on anything that might work itself loose in a firefight. You don’t want your gear falling apart when you need it most.
Plant some figs, aloe vera or other low-maintenance food-producing plants. Do it now to give these plants as much time as possible to start producing food.
Stock up on salt, colloidal silver and other hard-to-get items that you’ll routinely need.
Spend more time outdoors to get used to sunlight exposure.
Get a reliable guard dog who can help provide protection for your family and property.
Buy extra pairs of socks. You can never have too many pairs of quality socks. And you absolutely do not want to have to make them yourself later on.
Obviously, this list can go on forever, but these 26 things should be at the top of your “preparedness to-do list.” Bang out as many as you can while staying healthy, informed, well stocked and as far away from high density population areas as possible. The cities will suffer the most in almost any conceivable debt collapse scenario, so take advantage of the relative tranquility that exists right now to move out of the city and get squared away out in the country.
Trust me, you’ll be glad you did very, very soon. In terms of timelines, many smart people think we are on the verge of a sudden global debtcollapse. Others think we’re heading into a “slow collapse” that could accelerate over the next 2-3 years. Some people believe a lot is riding on the upcoming election, and what I’m hearing is that if Romney gets elected, many Obama supporters are going to riot in the streets. Whereas if Obama gets re-elected, U.S. business owners may very well revolt against the failed economic policies Obama has so far pursued. Either way, it’s not a pretty picture. Either way, you need to get prepared now for the inevitable.
In this edition of the show Max interviews Charles Hugh Smith from oftwominds.com. He talks about the newly released third round of quantitative easing and its effects on US economy. Charles Hugh Smith has been an independent journalist for 22 years. His weblog, http://www.oftwominds.com, is a daily compendium of observations and analysis on the global economy and financial markets, as well as notable political, social, and cultural trends.
QE3, or quantitative easing 3, lingers in the back of investors’ minds.
Few investors seem to know exactly what quantitative easing really means.
We’ll take the time to explain it now.
QE3 Explained
Quantitative easing is a simple concept: a central bank “prints” money to buy long- and short-dated government debt. The goal is to drive down interest rates, boost demand for investment capital, and increase economic output.
Supply and demand are equally powerful forces in the currency and debt markets as they are in the market for shoes, toothpaste, or jelly beans. Increasing supply means lower prices. For currency, the price is not only the current price, but also the future price—interest rates.
Many think that quantitative easing 3 will never come. The Fed has agreed to make the market for dollars liquid with a promise to keep interest rates at 0-.25% for the next two years. That action alone should keep the price of money inexpensive enough to end all talk of QE3.
Effects of QE3
We can’t predict with certainty what the Federal Reserve will do to boost output, stave off deflation, and promote general economic growth. However, we can explain how QE3 will affect the markets, pending that it does eventually come:
Lower Treasury Yields – The Federal Reserve is authorized to buy US Treasuries with freshly printed dollars. When the Fed bids up the price of US Treasuries, the yield on US Treasuries moves down. This is true for any bond—price and yield are inversely-related.
Lower dollar value – By nature of any quantitative easing program, the Fed must create more dollars to buy up US Treasuries. Naturally, this results in a lower dollar value against other currencies, as the price of the currency is dictated primarily by supply and demand.
Inflation concerns – It happens every time the Fed acts to loosen monetary policy. Inflation remains low in the US, but a small group of investors worry that quantitative easing will lead to inflation. The reality is that the Fed would like to see inflation, since it has thus far failed to create any real measurable amount of it. Deflation remains a top concern.
Rising asset prices – Assets are priced into the future, whether we’re talking about stock prices, or the price for a barrel of oil. When the time value of money falls, investors can pay for earnings further out into the future. Bernanke made it clear his goal was to boost the financial markets, and that means giving lift to asset prices.
Sept. 3 – As evidence of a global slowdown increases we ask three financial industry experts how they see this month playing out and the key elements of risk. Eurozone economy, investors, emerging markets, S&P cyclical evidence in the US QE. Federal reserve
Is the stock market going to crash by the end of this year? Are we on the verge of major financial chaos on a global scale? Well, this is the time of the year when investors start getting nervous.
We all remember what happened during the fall of 1929, the fall of 1987 and the fall of 2008. However, it is important to keep in mind that we do not see a stock market crash in the fall of every year.
Some years the stock market cruises through the months of September, October, November and December without any problems whatsoever. But this year conditions certainly seem to be right for a “perfect storm” to develop.
Technical indicators are screaming that a stock market decline is imminent and sources in the financial industry all over the world are warning that a massive crisis is on the way.
What you are about to read should alarm you. But it is not a guarantee that anything will or will not happen. When Ben Bernanke gives his speech at the Jackson Hole summit on Friday he could announce to the rest of the world that the Federal Reserve has decided to launch QE3 and that the Fed will be printing up trillions of new dollars.
If that happened global financial markets would leap for joy. So it is always a dangerous thing when anyone out there tries to tell you that they can “guarantee” what is about to happen in the financial world. There are just so many moving parts. But if we do not see major intervention by the governments of the world or by global central banks a major financial crisis could rapidly develop this fall.
The conditions are certainly right for a stock market collapse, and we could easily see a repeat of what happened back in 2008.
The truth is that the second half of 2012 looks a little bit more like the second half of 2008 with each passing day.
For example, credit default swaps are soaring just like we saw back during the last financial crisis. The following is from a recent article in the Telegraphby Harry Wilson and Philip Aldrick….
Insurance on the debt of several major European banks has now hit historic levels, higher even than those recorded during financial crisis caused by the US financial group’s implosion nearly three years ago.
Credit default swaps on the bonds of Royal Bank of Scotland, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and Intesa Sanpaolo, among others, flashed warning signals on Wednesday. Credit default swaps (CDS) on RBS were trading at 343.54 basis points, meaning the annual cost to insure £10m of the state-backed lender’s bonds against default is now £343,540.
The Telegraphalso publishedsome ominous warnings from anonymous banking executives in their recent article….
“The problem is a shortage of liquidity – that is what is causing the problems with the banks. It feels exactly as it felt in 2008,” said one senior London-based bank executive.
One anonymous banker was even bold enough to predict a “market shock” for “September or October”….
“I think we are heading for a market shock in September or October that will match anything we have ever seen before,” said a senior credit banker at a major European bank.
Of course there are analysts on this side of the pond that are incredibly bearish right now as well. The warnings from Europe line up very well with what Bob Janjuah of Nomura Securities has been saying….
Based on the reasons set out earlier and also covered in my two prior notes, over the August to November period I am looking for the S&P500 to trade off down from around 1400 to 1100/1000 – in other words, I expect over the next four months to see global equity markets fall by 20% to 25% from current levels and to trade at or below the lows of 2011! US equity markets, along with parts of the EM spectrum, will I think underperform eurozone equity markets, where already very little hope resides.
Others are issuing similar warnings. Just check out what a couple of Bank of America analysts said in a report the other day….
Our strategists see an unusually high number of macro catalysts over the next 3-6 months that could take markets lower. We expect economic growth to disappoint in the second half of the year in anticipation of the fiscal cliff. This would exacerbate any slowdown from the deepening recession in Europe and decelerating growth in emerging markets. There is also the ongoing tension in the Middle East, the potential for a US credit downgrade and accelerating downward analyst estimate revisions. To top it off, September is seasonally the weakest month of the year for stock price returns.
There has been an unusual amount of chatter in the financial world about the September to December time frame.
That could mean something or it could mean nothing.
But is is very interesting to watch what some top financial insiders are doing with their stocks right now.
As I have written about previously, George Soros has dumped all of his stock in banking giants JP Morgan, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.
Are they just being paranoid?
Or do they know something that we do not?
If you are looking for the next “Lehman Brothers moment” in the United States, you might want to watch Morgan Stanley. Morgan Stanley was heavily involved in the Facebook IPO disaster, earlier this year their credit rating was downgraded, and now there are persistent rumors that Morgan Stanley is in big trouble and that it will be allowed to fail. You can check out some of these rumors for yourself here, here and here.
But of course as I have said all along the center of the coming crisis is going to be in Europe, and many analysts agree with me. For example, the following is what the chairman of Casey Research, Doug Casey, had to say during a recent interview….
Europe is a full cycle ahead of the U.S. Its governments and its banks are both bankrupt. It’s a couple of drunks standing on the street corner holding each other up at this point. Europe is in much worse shape than the U.S. It’s highly regulated, highly taxed and much more socially unstable.
Europe is going to be the epicenter of the coming storm. Japan is waiting in the wings, as is China. This is going to be a worldwide phenomenon. Of course, the U.S. will be in it, too. We’re going to see this all over the world.
Much of southern Europe is already experiencing depression-like conditions. Unemployment in both Greece and Spain is well above 20 percent and both economies are steadily shrinking.
Money is flowing out of Spanish banks at an unprecedented rate right now. Just take a look at these charts. The only thing that is going to keep the Spanish banking system from totally collapsing is outside intervention.
But the truth is that all of Europe is in big trouble. Even German companies are slashing job right now. For example, check out what Siemens is up to….
German engineering conglomerate Siemens (SIEGn.DE) is in early internal talks to cut thousands of jobs in response to a weakening economy, particularly in Europe, a German newspaper reported.
Decisions could be made in October or November, according to daily Boersen-Zeitung, which did not specify its sources.
A Siemens spokesman declined to comment.
We are living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, and at some point that bubble is going to burst in a very messy way.
It is vital that people understand that our system is not even close to sustainable.
Knowing exactly when it will collapse is not nearly as important as understanding that a collapse is absolutely inevitable.
I think what former World Bank economist Richard Duncan had to say recentlyis very helpful….
“The explosion in credit drove economic growth in the U.S. and around the world, and now that’s the only thing that’s keeping us from collapsing in a debt/deflation spiral,” he said. “[What] I think everybody needs to understand is that the kind of economy that we have now, it’s not capitalism. It has very little in common with capitalism. Capitalism was an economic system in which the government played very little role …. Under capitalism, gold was money and the government had nothing to do with it. Now the central bank creates the money and manipulates its value.”
And he is very right.
We aren’t seeing a failure of capitalism.
What we are witnessing is the failure of debt-based central banking.
And if you think that the global elite are not aware of what is happening then you have not been paying attention.
This summer the global elite have been preparing very hard. Either they are getting very paranoid or they know things that we do not.
If you want to catch up on what the global elite have been up to recently, check out these three articles that I have published previously….
If you are waiting for the nightly news to tell you what to do, then you have not learned anything.
Did anyone in the mainstream media warn you about what was about to happen back in 2008?
Of course not.
The “authorities” insisted that everything was going to be just fine and many average Americans were absolutely wiped out.
So don’t expect someone to come along and nicely inform you that your retirement savings are about to be absolutely devastated.
In this day and age it is absolutely critical for people to learn to think for themselves.
Barack Obama is not going to save you.
Mitt Romney is not going to save you.
The U.S. Congress is not going to save you. They are too busy living the high life at taxpayer expense.
The system is not looking out for you. Nobody is really going to care if your financial planning gets turned upside down. This is a cold, cruel world and you need to understand how the game is played. The financial insiders are looking out for themselves and most of them usually are able to avoid financial disaster.
Average folks like you and I are normally not so fortunate.
There are lots of warning signs that indicate that this fall could be a very turbulent time for global financial markets.
In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss the naked crime wave resulting from an overdose of synthetic stimulants like quantitative easing, bailouts and low interest rates. In the second half of the show Max talks to Ian Fraser of IanFraser.org about the Li(e)bor scandal and other banking crime waves emerging from the City of London.
Click image to see more photos. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)Amid unwavering public apologies Monday from former employees of the General Services Administration (GSA), one official chose to remain mum.
Jeff Neely, the GSA official who organized a lavish 2010 conference for the agency, sat motionless–save for several eyebrow raises–as ranking House Oversight Committee chairman Elijah Cummings (D-M.D.) accused him, a regional commissioner, and his wife of having “used taxpayer funds to bankroll a lavish lifestyle.” The grilling occurred in front of a national audience at the first of at least four hearings this week on the conference scandal.
And when it came time for Neely to apologize or defend himself, he only uttered one phrase.
“Mr. Chairman, on the advice of my counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my Fifth Amendment constitutional privileges,” Neely repeatedly responded Monday to questions about the scandal, which centers around about $830,000 in taxpayer dollars that was used for a three-day employee conference in 2010, as well as on mundane questions such as his former job title.
Dozens arrested in an international day of solidarity where 1500 activists
tried to land in Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport to travel to the occupied
Palestinian territories
Argentina’s decision to take control of Spanish firm Repsol’s shares in one of Argentina’s largest oil producing companies could have political ramifications.
There has already been anger from Madrid over the plan to nationalise Repsol’s stake in Argentine-firm YPF, and Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said measures against Argentina will be announced in the next few days.
Argentina’s plans to seize control of its biggest oil company YPF has drawn howls of protest from Madrid. Spain is angry as its energy giant Repsol has a controlling stake of nearly 60 per cent.
Vowing to take measures, Foreign Minister José Manuel García Margallo called the move unlawful: “The Spanish Government condemns the arbitrary decision taken by the government of the Republic of Argentina to expropriate the shares which Repsol has in the YPF Company.”
The World Bank has chosen its new president, Korean-American health expert Jim Yong Kim, sticking with the tradition of picking an American for the top job. Alan Fisher reports from Washington.
Senate torpedoes ‘Buffett Rule’ bill
By Bernie Becker
The Senate on Monday rejected a Democratic proposal intended to ensure millionaires pay a minimum tax rate.
In a mostly party-line 51-45 vote, Democrats fell short of the 60 votes they needed to move forward with a debate on the so-called “Buffett Rule” legislation, with all but one Republican, Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), voting to oppose proceeding on the legislation.
Sen. Mark Pryor (Ark.) was the only Democrat to vote against the motion, though Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who caucuses with Senate Democrats but missed Monday’s vote, released a statement announcing his opposition to the Buffett Rule.
Fifty Democrats supported the motion to proceed to the bill, including Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who previously had opposed similar efforts. Nelson cited the deficit for changing his position, but his decision to retire and not seek reelection at the end of this Congress might also have played a role.
Both parties expected the result, and the issue of whether wealthier households should pay higher taxes on investment income appeared likely to remain at center stage through November’s presidential election.
House Republicans swept into the majority pledging to do away with the commemorative resolutions that clogged up the floor schedule in recent years, but for one evening on Monday, honorary bills filled the docket once again.
Lawmakers approved two Congressional Gold Medals, debated a third and discussed minting a coin in honor of Mark Twain.
The only living person among the honorees was golf legend Jack Nicklaus, a personal friend of Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), himself an avid golfer. Nicklaus grew up in Boehner’s home state of Ohio, and in 2002, he testified before Boehner’s Education and Workforce Committee on the “First Tee” program aimed at promoting values in young people through golf.
The House passed a bill awarding a medal to Nicklaus in a 373-4 vote. All of the “no” votes came from Republicans.
Democratic Rep. Joe Baca (Calif.) spearheaded the honor for Nicklaus and recruited Rep. Tom Rooney (Fla.) as a Republican co-sponsor. Rooney went to school with Nicklaus’s children in Florida and remains friends with his family.
As the brouhaha over the General Services Administration’s excessive spending continues to unfold, the real loser is not the GSA, but Sin City itself, according to two Nevada Democrats.
The GSA got in trouble when a report by the GSA Inspector General brought to light a conference in Las Vegas on which the agency spent $823,000 of taxpayer money. The conference included lavish luxuries like a clown, bicycles that were used for a team building exercise and a mind-reader.
The House oversight committee is holding a series of hearings on other instances that have since come to light of extravagant spending by the agency.
But according to former Democratic Rep. Dina Titus, who is currently seeking a return to Congress, the hearings are not an attack on the GSA, but an attack on Las Vegas.
“President Obama acted swiftly to punish those responsible for this blatant misuse of tax dollars. However, these hearings are nothing more than an attack on Las Vegas,” Titus said. “Washington Republicans should stop using Las Vegas as a punching bag to score cheap political points and start working on putting Americans back to work.”
http://www.euronews.com/ Investors have become wary of Spain’s financial health again, forcing the government to pay ever more to borrow money.
Ten year bonds went above 6 per cent, after data showing Spanish banks borrowed record amounts from the ECB.
There are fears Spanish bonds might hit the psychological 7 per cent panic barrier unless the ECB starts buying again.
IMF Raises Global Forecast for First Time Since Early 2011
By Ian Katz
The International Monetary Fund raised its global growth forecast for the first time in more than a year, with the U.S. boosting the outlook while recent improvements remain “very fragile.”
The world economy will expand 3.5 percent this year, compared with a January projection of 3.3 percent, the Washington-based IMF said today in its World Economic Outlook. It sees growth of 4.1 percent in 2013, up from 4.0 percent. It raised its forecasts for the U.S. to gains of 2.1 percent this year and 2.4 percent in 2013.
The report reflects the IMF’s view that the euro area, while still facing an economic downturn and the “hard to quantify” potential risk of a country’s default, has stabilized since last year. The euro area economy is projected to decline by 0.3 percent in 2012, an improvement from the 0.5 percent in the IMF’s previous forecast. China is projected to grow 8.2 percent and Japan 2 percent this year.
U.S. Housing Starts Unexpectedly Drop to Five-Month Low
By Alex Kowalski
Builders began work on fewer homes than forecast in March, signaling a sustained industry recovery will take time to get underway.
Housing starts dropped 5.8 percent to a 654,000 annual rate, less than the lowest estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News and the least since October, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. The slump was led by the volatile multifamily category, which at the same time showed a jump in permits, a proxy for future construction.
While warmer weather may have spurred home construction at the beginning of 2012, a competing supply of cheap existing properties may be steering potential buyers away from purchasing a new home. That means home construction may not help boost the economy in 2012.
Insiders Tell Jim Sinclair, $17 Trillion In QE Coming (GLD, IAU, SLV, AGQ, UUP, UGL, UDN)
Dominique de Kevelioc de Bailleul: No matter how the Fed tries to manipulate the markets through its orchestrated communiques, more ‘quantitative easing’ is coming, says ‘Mr. Gold‘ Jim Sinclair. And this time, $17 trillion more of Sinclair’s mantra “QE to infinity” is a done deal, according to him.
How does he know?
“How does anyone know an answer to a question? By being told. By having sources,” Sinclair revealed to King World News, Friday. “I’m half a century in the business. I’ve constantly kept up my contacts in a very unique and focused way. Quantitative easing was made clear to me, prior to Bernanke’s speech to the Washington group, prior to quantitative easing.”
Starting back in August, I began suggesting that we were approaching a Systemic Crisis/ Crash scenario in the markets.
The technical and fundamentals both supported this forecast, but I completely underestimated the degree to which the Central Banks and EU would attempt to prop up the market.
At that time, I thought it likely we’d see a Crash, which would then be met with another round of stimulus, which would push the economy temporarily into the green. It seemed the most logical outcome given that we were heading into an election year with a President whose ratings were at record lows.
Instead, the Federal Reserve, particularly those Fed Presidents from Financial Centers (Charles Evans of Chicago and Bill Dudley of New York) began a coordinated campaign of verbal intervention, hinting that more easing or QE was just around the corner.
These verbal interventions coincided with coordinated monetary interventions between the Federal Reserve and other world Central Banks: first on September 15 2011 and again on November 30 2011.
The effects of both coordinated moves were short-lived in terms of equity prices, but they did send a message that the Central Banks were willing to intervene in a big way to maintain the financial system. This in turn helped to ease interbank liquidity problems in Europe (more on this in a moment) and maintain the belief that the Fed backstop or “Bernanke Put” was still in effect.
Another issue that served to push the markets higher was European leaders’ decision to go “all in” on the EU –bail out project. I’ve tracked those developments closely in previous articles.
Regarding this factor, I also underestimated the extent to which leaders would push to hold things together. After all, Greece had already received bailouts in excess of 150% of its GDP and still posted a GDP loss of 6.8% in 2011. It’s hard to believe they’d want to accept more austerity measures and more debt.
Moreover, political tensions between Greece and Germany had reached the point that Greeks were openly comparing German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble as Nazis while the Germans referred to Greece as a “bottomless hole” into which money was being tossed.
Looking back on it, the clear reality was that Germany wanted to force Greece out of the EU but didn’t want to do it explicitly: instead they opted to offer Greece aid provided Greece accepted austerity measures so onerous that there was no chance Greece would go for it.
Thirty-six insurgents are dead after an eighteen hour standoff between US led NATO and Afghan forces, and Taliban members. It was part of a spring offensive by the Taliban, and according to one of their spokesman, it was a plan two months in the making. According to one of the captured insurgents, the attacks were linked to the Haqqani network, from the Afghan-Pakistan border. The attacks left eight members of the Afghan Security Forces dead as well, President Hamid Karzai praised the forces for their efforts, but quickly called out NATO for having a serious intelligence failure.
Leaked CIA Memo: Bush knew US torture was ‘war crime’
Water boarding and stress positions… just two of the torture techniques used by the U.S. against terror suspects. Now, a secret memo has been leaked which brands them “war crimes”, and shows the Bush administration was warned against their use. As RT’s Marina Portnaya explains, many feel President Obama isn’t doing enough to make up for America’s past mistakes.
Hezbollah leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah First Guest On New Julian Assange Show pt.1
Hezbollah leader Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah First Guest On New Julian Assange Show pt.2
ABUJA (Reuters) – French oil major Total has shut down a gas plant in Nigeria’s onshore Niger Delta, following a leak caused by a technical incident, the company said in a statement.
The leak occurred on a block that also contains crude oil in Rivers state, one of the three states that make up the Niger Delta, a vast wetlands region veined with hundreds of kilometres of labyrinthine creeks and waterways.
“On April 3rd, Total E&P Nigeria Limited (TEPNG) was alerted about some water and gas resurgence points, observed in an uninhabited area close to its onshore Obite gas production facilities, on the OML 58 license,” a statement on the company’s website said.
Business leaders lash out at both parties, tell Congress: Do your job
By Alexander Bolton
Business groups are exasperated that Congress has made little progress on issues they see as vital in helping the ailing economy.
Industry leaders are lashing out at both parties for shifting into campaign mode with more than 200 days to go before the November election.
While corporate officials acknowledge that Congress was never likely to undertake the complex task of reforming the tax code or the politically dangerous assignment of immigration reform during an election year, they thought there would be more progress in other areas.
For example, they are perplexed that Congress has no immediate plans to extend 60 tax provisions that expired at the end of last year. The transportation authorization bill, traditionally one of the easiest bills to pass in Congress, has become stalled by an internecine fight in the House, and energy legislation, another priority, is not likely to come up in the Senate because Democratic leaders want to shield vulnerable colleagues from casting difficult votes on Environmental Protection Agency regulations and oil-and-gas drilling.
“It’s driving everyone crazy that 60 provisions of the tax code expired last December 31 and 41 more are slated to expire this year,” said John Engler, president of the Business Roundtable, an association of chief executives from the nation’s biggest corporations.
Tax week is upon us in the US and many Americans will have to pay the government, but are all Americans paying their fair share? April 17 is the deadline for all citizens to file their taxes but most Americans dread this day. The tax system has been a major topic for debate especially in this election year and many are calling for a change of the system. So will this be a year of reform for the tax system? The Market Ticker’s Karl Denninger joins us with his take on the tax system.
Muslim peer’s ‘£10m to capture Obama’ was actually a legal fund to put Blair on trial
Labour peer Lord Nazir Ahmed was suspended by the Labour Party amid claims he had offered a 10 million pound bounty for the capture of U.S. President Barack Obama
Britain’s first Muslim peer has offered to set up a £10million legal fund to bring Tony Blair before the International Court of Justice in the Hague.
It had been reported initially that Lord Ahmed of Rotherham put up the cash as a ‘bounty’ for the capture of U.S. president Barack Obama.
But a video of his speech at a reception in Pakistan last Friday suggests his remarks concerned the former prime minister as well as Mr Obama’s predecessor, George W Bush.
He is heard saying in Urdu: ‘Even if I have to beg in Haripur, Pakistan, the U.S. or Britain, even if I have to beg, I am willing to raise and offer £10million so that George W Bush and Tony Blair can be brought to the International Court of Justice on war crimes charges.’ Read Full Article Here
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Labour peer Lord Nazir Ahmed was suspended by the Labour Party amid claims he had offered a 10 million pound bounty for the capture of U.S. President Barack Obama
