Posts Tagged ‘government’

North America set to experience the greatest decline in economic activity since the days of the Great Depression. Because of declining manufacturing output, banking collapse, astronomical public debt, and an imbalanced world trade system, the world economy is predicted to enter into a depression that makes the last look like a walk in the park. The new adversary, however, is a potential swine influenza pandemic set to stifle world trade even further due to each countries’ respective containment attempts. To make things worse, the United States has initiated a new passport requirement that will cripple the North American economies.

A new passport requirement set by the United States Homeland Security department has been watched very closely by officials and interested laymen for the past few years that will likely make life extremely more difficult for the Canadian economy, but particularly those industries reliant on consumers and tourists from the United States spending their hard earned dollars in the Northern economy at places like Casinos and tourist venues. Indeed, these venues were primarily established to recoup declining revenues generated by a dwindling manufacturing sector.

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The other challenged that has recently presented itself has been the introduction of the Mexican Swine Flu that originated in that country and quickly spread to almost every country in the world. Many countries such as the United States are considering protectionist measures to contain the spread of the virus, and many politicians like Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) has called for closure of the US border until the outbreak is cessated.

“The public needs to be aware of the serious threat of swine flu, and we need to close our borders to Mexico immediately and completely until this is resolved,” Massa said in a statement. “I am making this announcement because I see this as a serious threat to the health of the American public and I do not believe this issue is receiving the attention it needs to have in the news,” Massa said.

The World Health Organisation has repeatedly said, however, that the newly mutated H1N1 virus is not found in pigs – although the animals can be the vessels for the “genetic reassortment” that produces new strains – and that pork meat is safe to eat. Joseph Domenech, chief veterinary office with the UN Food and Agriculture Officer in Rome, said the Egyptian order was “a real mistake”. “There is no reason to do that. It’s not a swine influenza, it’s a human influenza,” he said (WHO, 2009).

The new passport requirement is set to decimate these industries when it comes into effect in June, 2009. Since only 20 to 30 per cent of Americans have valid passports, it is likely that the people who do not have them will not be travelling to Canada or Mexico as previous until they obtain one. The industries currently reliant on Americans travelling to Canada and Mexico for business, tourism, and pleasure purposes will no longer be able to engage in these activities unless they have passports or risk law enforcement sanctions.

As the NY Times reports, the new passport rules brings worry to tourism areas such as Niagara Falls where they say the new rules could discourage millions of visitors from coming to one of the nation’s most majestic and romantic tourist attractions and result in billions of dollars a year in lost revenue (NY times, 2009). Other affected regions of the country going whose tourism industries will likely be decimated will be Windsor, Ontario, and Sarnia, Ontario.

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“I think there will be an impact,” John Winston, general manager of Tourism London, warned yesterday. “It is just another barrier for people to go through if they want to go back to the U.S.” Especially hard hit could be bus tours, which rely on people on moderate incomes and seniors for business, Winston said. The London region relies on the U.S. and other countries for about 12% of its tourism business, he added (Cnews, 2009).

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All signs are pointing to a total economic, political, and social collapse in the United States, but also in Canada once the full effects of the economic crisis spreads to its norther neighbor as the US economy slows to a halt. Since Canada depends mainly on the United States for its economic well being, any kind of economic collapse of the United States would immediately obliterate the Canadian economy. Indeed, during the Great Depression, Canada was affected more negatively than the United States. Canada was hit hard by the Great Depression. Between 1929 and 1939, the gross national product dropped 40% (compared to 37% in the US).

Unemployment reached 27% at the depth of the Depression in 1933. Many businesses closed, as corporate profits of $396 million in 1929 turned into losses of $98 million in 1933. Families saw most or all of their assets disappear, and their debts become heavier as prices fell. Canadian exports shrank by 50% from 1929 to 1933. Worst hit were areas dependent on primary industries such as farming, mining and logging, as prices fell and there were few alternative jobs (Wikipedia, 2009).

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Remiscent of proposed border amnesty changes that the Bush administration was trying to railroad down the throat of Congress, the Governor of California stated his opinion voicing opposition to increased immigration and lax border controls. Seeing Mexico is such a drastically different county in terms of social, health, environmental, and economic standards, it is unwise to further open the already porous border that the Amnesty Program would have done. The problem with the current situation is that NAFTA essentially makes the borders extremely porous in both economic and immigration facets.

In the economic area, corporations are allowed to take legal action – potentially overriding sovereign countries’ legal precendents — over their right to profit from that market. In the immigration front, NAFTA, by permitting heavily-subsidized US corn and other agri-business products to compete with small Mexican farmers, has driven the Mexican farmer off the land due to low-priced imports of US corn and other agricultural products. Some 2 million Mexicans have been forced out of agriculture, and many of those that remain are living in desperate poverty. These people are among those that cross the border to feed their families. (Meanwhile, corn-based tortilla prices climbed by 50%. No wonder many so Mexican peasants have called NAFTA their ‘death warrant (Common dreams, 2006).

In a nutshell, NAFTA, the ficticious free trade agreement once labelled as a “new international structure, not simply a trade agreement” by former Secretary of State and murderer, Henry Kissinger, is a method to force countries to lower their standards built up over decades of court and legal struggles. These countries signed up to NAFTA and the World Trade organization are indeed starting to realize the full effects of so called “free trade,” which is in fact a permit to allow countries to dump their slave labor goods on their markets.

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It seems that with all the financial debacles, swine flu pandemic worries, trade imbalances, and the banking failures, that each country is starting to collapse into protectionist measures designed to protect their respective interests. Indeed, as John Raulston Saul mentions in his book, the world is on its way to a collapse of globalism. The past three decades have been marked by unimpressive economic growth and sharply increasing economic inequality, and recent years have seen a marked rise in economic populism, nationalism, and conflict, much of it within states.

Why is this all happening?

To bring about the end to all industrialization and the production of nuclear generated electric power in what they call “the post-industrial zero-growth society”. Excepted are the computer- and service industries. US industries that remain will be exported to countries such as Mexico where abundant slave labor is available. As we saw in 1993, this has become a fact through the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA. Unemployables in the US, in the wake of industrial destruction, will either become opium-heroin and/or cocaine addicts, or become statistics in the elimination of the “excess population” process we know of today as Global 2000 (John Coleman, 2002).

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“Step back and think for a minute before rushing and panicking” is the message coming from Texas Congressman Ron Paul who has warned that the swine flu scare will once again be used as a precedent for big government intrusion.

History suggests a new pandemic is long overdue, but has been delayed by accidental discoveries of anti-biotics. Politicians can ignore it, like they are effectively doing concerning the economic crises, but eventually it comes around full force, hitting victims devastatingly hard. The three pandemics of the 20th century were all linked to birds, but the new emerging viral disease has spread to humans, pigs, and other species; effectively crossing species gaps. The worry here is that viruses and bacteria have been quickly adapting to conventional medicine’s arsenal of anti-biotics and anti-virals, respectively. However, it appears that much of the worry and anxiety associated with anticipated pandemics might be just hype.

Repeat of 1976 fearmongering campaign in full swing

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“It makes me think back to 1976, the first year I served in the Congress,” Paul has said in a video update. “We had a vote on the swine flu. Back then there was panic, they said it was going to sweep the nation and they rapidly came up with some flu shots and the government was going to inoculate everybody and save the world from this disaster.”

“It turned out that our instincts were correct.” the Congressman, also a medical physician, commented. “Not only did we think that the government should be involved in making medical decisions… but the flu came, the flu went and one person died, except for those individuals that died from getting the flu vaccine.”

Earlier this week we reported on the events of 1976, highlighting the fact that this last significant outbreak of swine flu in the U.S. originated at the army base at Fort Dix, New Jersey.
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President Gerald Ford and then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (a man who has long standing intimate ties with the big pharma companies that have and will reap millions in profits from these scares) instituted a mass nationwide vaccination program. More than 40 million people were vaccinated. However, the program was stopped short after over 500 cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a severe paralyzing nerve disease, were reported. Officially 30 people died as a direct result of the vaccinations, though the real figure is generally thought to have been much higher.

At the time Congressman Ron Paul was one of only two representatives to vote down the vaccination program. His comments were recorded in the book Swine Flu Expose, by Eleanora I. McBean, Ph.D., N.D.

Paul described the move as “a shocking misuse of funds …and an evil political maneuver”, “blatant advertising efforts to panic the people into taking Swine Flu shots will fail.” Paul said.

Some of the fearmongering advertisement campaigns from 1976 are featured in the following video:

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“Here we are once again, swine flu coming up and everybody is panicking.” Ron Paul says in his latest update.

“This is not to downplay the seriousness of it. Some people have died, some people might die, yet we’ve had no deaths in this country, there’s seven or eight cases up in New York, but none have even been hospitalised and yet it’s practically like we’ve been attacked by nuclear weapons.”

The Congressman put the current panic in perspective by pointing out that last year alone there were 13,000 cases of tuberculosis with the number of annual deaths last recorded in the hundreds.

Paul then opined on how the scare will once again be pounced upon to bolster and further empower big government. He referred to Janet Napolitano’s announcement Sunday that the Department of Homeland Security had started “passive surveillance protocols to screen people coming into the country.”

“How did the Department of Homeland Security get into the medical business? It’s just totally out of control,” Paul said, describing the situation as an open door invitation to allow the federal government to deal with medical problems.

The big question is ‘Does a bigger government always solve these problems?’ No, they usually make things much worse.

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Steve Watson, Infowars.net, Tuesday, April 28, 2009

GENEVA — The World Health Organization convened a meeting of an emergency advisory group Saturday to discuss the outbreak of swine flu which has infected people in Mexico and the southwestern United States.

WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan said the group would advise her on whether the worrying disease outbreak, which is reported to have claimed at least 20 lives so far, should be deemed a public health emergency of international concern.

NAPOLITANO SAYS US SHOULD SHOULD PREPARE FOR NEW FLU OUTBREAK SOON EVEN IF THIS ONE FIZZLES OUT (Reuters, 2009).

The world scientific community, including many disease research organizations, and scientific experts have been predicting an over due appearance of a pandemic similar to the Spanish flu and the black plague for many decades now. The former was responsible for the death of some 50 million people worldwide in the first half of the 20th century (1914) and was so deadly that the victims’ corpses were quickly and effectively destroyed due to fears of re-emergence. The death of 50 million people devastated world economies because of both human capital loss, but also mass protectionism due to quarantined borders. A pandemic would deal a major blow to a world economy already knocked into its worst recession in decades by the crisis in financial markets.
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History suggests a new pandemic is long overdue, but has been delayed by accidental discoveries of anti-biotics. Politicians can ignore it, like they are effectively doing concerning the economic crises, but eventually it comes around full force, hitting victims devastatingly hard. The three pandemics of the 20th century were all linked to birds, but the new emerging viral disease has spread to humans, pigs, and other species; effectively crossing species gaps. The worry here is that viruses and bacteria have been quickly adapting to conventional medicine’s arsenal of anti-biotics and anti-virals, respectively.

Countries Prepare for Next Pandemic

The top EU health official urged Europeans on Monday to postpone nonessential travel to the United States and Mexico because of the swine flu virus, and Spanish health officials confirmed the first case outside North America.

When the next influenza pandemic strikes, New Zealand’s borders are likely to be closed to all incoming travellers. The lock may be on for several days, says a pandemic planning guide for businesses. All passengers may be quarantined for at least eight days, says the guide, published yesterday by the Ministries of Health and Economic Development.

The United States, however, has no plans on closing borders for the current bout of swine flu that has infected thousands of people worldwide and killed hundreds. Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) said the border should be closed until the threat is resolved.

“The public needs to be aware of the serious threat of swine flu, and we need to close our borders to Mexico immediately and completely until this is resolved,” Massa said in a statement. “I am making this announcement because I see this as a serious threat to the health of the American public and I do not believe this issue is receiving the attention it needs to have in the news,” Massa said.

It appears as if the cheerleaders of the re-emergence of such a deadly flu similar to those described above is making headway onto the human race. Indeed, academics and scientists such as Dr. Pianka, formerly of Texas University, was a large proponent of the re-emergence of a deadly flu to advocate killing off 90% of the human population in order to save the planet. “He then showed solutions for reducing the world’s population in the form of a slide depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” writes Mims. “War and famine would not do, he explained (WND, 2006).

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It looks as if Dr. Pianka will get his wish, as there are four manifestations, commonly used by God in The Bible, for executing judgment upon people who reject Him and His commandments. These four are: the sword, famine, wild beasts and plague (see Ezek. 14:21). These are repeated over and over and are also mentioned in conjunction with the plagues of Revelation. Humanity has many sins to pay for indeed. The strange thing here is that Dr. Pianka is not the only person or group of people who have advocated for the extermination of a large segment of humanity, or the “useless eaters” as Henry Kissinger was quoted as saying. Henry represents the collective interests of the New World Order chiefly spoken through groups like the Council of Foreign Relations.

A New Plague?

The global pandemics that the 21st century encountered 6-8 years ago such as SARS and the outbreaks of bird flu in China have been the contemporary outbreaks that worried global scientific communities and spurred tremendous amounts of conspiracy theories. Infections like the bird flu encountered in China were suspected as being the proof that the influenza virus was on its way to spreading to humans; crossing the barrier from species to species. Indeed, this was the case with the H5N1 virus that did spread to humans, but was mainly contained in areas like China thanks to quick quarantines. he World Health Organisation has warned that H5N1 could seed a human pandemic that could infect one fifth of the world’s population, and hospitalise 30 million, of whom some 20 per cent would die (WHO, 2006).
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In a strange series of coincidences, President Obama, while visiting Mexico during his trip in April, 2009, came into contact with a man infected with the suspected emergence of the next major flu pandemic spread by contact with swine. Obama was received at Mexico’s anthropology museum in Mexico City by Felipe Solis, a distinguished archeologist who died the following day from symptoms similar to flu, Reforma newspaper reported (Bloomberg, 2009).

Pandemics encourage protectionism?

Pandemics, if they were allowed to flourish, would easily do so even easier than the outbreaks of the early 20th century because of the increased mobility of humans. Increasing trade between countries with diverse cultures and standards, courtesy of the so called free trade agreements amorously pushed by the world’s elite, make it easier for people and transport to easily spread disease. To curb outbreaks, governments of the past have utilized border restrictions and outright closures of them to halt outbreaks, but the World Health Organization (WHO) believes there is no need to close Mexican border despite over 1,000 cases of human infections with swine flu registered in the country, Mexico’s health minister said Friday (Xinhua, 2009). The caveat here is that they say this because they do not wish to spur even further protectionism that the financial crisis of late has been encouraging.

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It appears as if the addage “never let a good crisis go to waste” is ringing especially true with the current financial crisis ravaging the economies of the world, but especially the former economic powerhouse, the USA. Rohm Emanuel’s famous quote regarding the current financial crisis, “Never let a serious crisis go to waste…it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.” Indeed, according to a former professor of Public Administration at the University of Windsor, “governments use crises to push their agendas.”

Employing a crisis to push a specific policy agenda is certainly not new, as many past events such as government sponsored terror or false flag incidents have shown. It appears that the Canadian government is using its illegitimate power over the Canadian people to push a certain agenda in the form of the long suspected goal of a North American Union similar to the European Union. This is just another step on the treacherous road to continental integration and a North American Union on the European model in an incrementalist fashion.
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See the press release on Harper’s website here.

“The CentrePort Canada initiative involves using the James Armstrong Richardson International Airport and surrounding land as a hub to import goods from Asia and Europe and then distributing those goods throughout North America by air, rail and road. The governments of Canada and Manitoba are jointly funding the next phase of this project, which involves building a high-speed transportation corridor.”

Flashbacks:

• Ignatieff on Obama visit: Crisis an opportunity for continental, global integration
• $12B for infrastructure forms key pillar of stimulus package
• Architect of North American integration urges reboot
• Border ‘two-headed monster,’ industry minister says
• “North American Parliament” Meets At Integration Forum
• Continental Business Lobby Releases List of Priorities for Government to Address at SPP Talks
• New Documents Reveal North American Union PR Campaign
• North American Union plan headed to Congress in fall

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Area mayor questions wisdom of CentrePort plan in region frequently flooded

National Post, PATRICK WHITE

WINNIPEG — With long stretches of Manitoba’s roads and rails submerged beneath floodwaters that continue to baffle forecasters, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced his government’s support yesterday for the construction of a Winnipeg-based road and rail hub.

The federal and provincial governments will chip in more than $100-million each to build a four-lane expressway that would link CentrePort – a 20,000-acre manufacturing, warehousing and transportation depot slated for construction near the Winnipeg airport – with major rail and highway networks.
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The announcement was made as flood-protection officials upgraded crest forecasts along the Red River to the third-highest levels in the past 100 years.

Mr. Harper, who spent much of the day with Manitoba Premier Gary Doer touring the sodden Red River Valley by helicopter, pledged federal assistance to homeowners.

“The federal government stands ready to assist in any way that is needed,” he said.

But as money flows into the CentrePort project, one southern Manitoba mayor questioned the appeal of a North American hub that relies on transportation arteries so frequently severed during times of flood.

“If we want to be recognized as a mid-continental trade corridor we have to able to provide the transportation, and right now that’s where we are lacking,” said Dale Hoffman, mayor of Morris, Man., situated 70 kilometres south of Winnipeg. “We have to get our highways out of the floodwaters first.”

Morris sits along Highway 75, the main road between Winnipeg and the U.S. With a ring dike surrounding Morris sealed off due to high water, traffic is detouring 45 minutes around the town.

Mr. Hoffman showed Mr. Harper around the town’s extensive dike system yesterday, but said he didn’t have time to suggest solutions to the highway problem.

One of Mr. Hoffman’s proposals involves digging a channel along the Red all the way from the U.S. border to Lake Winnipeg, a 180-kilometre span.
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“You’re talking possibly a 50-year project,” he said. “What we need is a vision for how we’re going to stop the flooding from happening every third year.”

Mr. Doer said he discussed flood-proofing Highway 75 with Mr. Harper yesterday.

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“We have five or six options we’re looking at,” he said.

Meanwhile, some residents north of Winnipeg whose houses were battered by automobile-sized ice pans over the weekend returned to assess the damage. In all, floodwaters have damaged about 200 homes, the province says.

In St. Laurent, 90 kilometres north of Winnipeg, overland flooding crept across half the town’s roads yesterday, swamping basements and causing cancellation of school bus service.

“This is the worst I’ve ever seen,” said town councillor Hugh Sigurdson. “All the water decided to come at once and come with a bang – and it’s not done yet.”

Indeed, flood forecasters raised the expected crest of the Red River in Winnipeg by half a metre yesterday. The city asked for volunteers to top up 60 dikes and raise 40 more.
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Chief provincial flood forecaster Alf Warkentin said unprecedented ice cover, high local runoff and an unusually long crest north of the border have all worked to complicate his projections.

“Forecasting is never 100 per cent accurate,” he said. “Sometimes you get a little surprise.”

The world scientific community, including many disease research organizations, and scientific experts have been predicting an over due appearance of a pandemic similar to the Spanish flu and the black plague for many decades now. The former was responsible for the death of some 50 million people worldwide in the first half of the 20th century (1914) and was so deadly that the victims’ corpses were quickly and effectively destroyed due to fears of re-emergence. The death of 50 million people devastated world economies because of both human capital loss, but also mass protectionism due to quarantined borders.

History suggest a new pandemic is long overdue, but has been delayed by accidental discoveries of anti-biotics. Politicians can ignore it, like they are effectively doing concerning the economic crises, but eventually it comes around full force, hitting victims devastatingly hard. The three pandemics of the 20th century were all linked to birds, but the new emerging viral disease has spread to humans, pigs, and other species; effectively crossing species gaps. The worry here is that viruses and bacteria have been quickly adapting to conventional medicine’s arsenal of anti-biotics and anti-virals, respectively.

It appears as if the cheerleaders of the re-emergence of such a deadly flu similar to those described above is making headway onto the human race. Indeed, academics and scientists such as Dr. Pianka, formerly of Texas University, was a large proponent of the re-emergence of a deadly flu to advocate killing off 90% of the human population in order to save the planet. “He then showed solutions for reducing the world’s population in the form of a slide depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” writes Mims. “War and famine would not do, he explained (WND, 2006). “We are turning the planet into a “fat human biomass,” Pianka said. “[Disease] will control the scourge of humanity,” he told the audience.

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It looks as if Dr. Pianka will get his wish, as there are four manifestations, commonly used by God in The Bible, for executing judgment upon people who reject Him and His commandments. These four are: the sword, famine, wild beasts and plague (see Ezek. 14:21). These are repeated over and over and are also mentioned in conjunction with the plagues of Revelation. Humanity has many sins to pay for indeed. The strange thing here is that Dr. Pianka is not the only person or group of people who have advocated for the extermination of a large segment of humanity, or the “useless eaters” as Henry Kissinger was quoted as saying. Henry represents the collective interests of the New World Order chiefly spoken through groups like the Council of Foreign Relations.

A New Plague?

The global pandemics that the 21st century encountered 6-8 years ago such as SARS and the outbreaks of bird flu in China have been the contemporary outbreaks that worried global scientific communities and spurred tremendous amounts of conspiracy theories. Infections like the bird flu encountered in China were suspected as being the proof that the influenza virus was on its way to spreading to humans; crossing the barrier from species to species. Indeed, this was the case with the H5N1 virus that did spread to humans, but was mainly contained in areas like China thanks to quick quarantines. he World Health Organisation has warned that H5N1 could seed a human pandemic that could infect one fifth of the world’s population, and hospitalise 30 million, of whom some 20 per cent would die (WHO, 2006).
[ad#fsbo468ad1]
In a strange series of coincidences, President Obama, while visiting Mexico during his trip in April, 2009, came into contact with a man infected with the suspected emergence of the next major flu pandemic spread by contact with swine. Obama was received at Mexico’s anthropology museum in Mexico City by Felipe Solis, a distinguished archeologist who died the following day from symptoms similar to flu, Reforma newspaper reported (Bloomberg, 2009).

Pandemics encourage protectionism?

Pandemics, if they were allowed to flourish, would easily do so even easier than the outbreaks of the early 20th century because of the increased mobility of humans. Increasing trade between countries with diverse cultures and standards, courtesy of the so called free trade agreements amorously pushed by the world’s elite, make it easier for people and transport to easily spread disease. To curb outbreaks, governments of the past have utilized border restrictions and outright closures of them to halt outbreaks, but the World Health Organization (WHO) believes there is no need to close Mexican border despite over 1,000 cases of human infections with swine flu registered in the country, Mexico’s health minister said Friday (Xinhua, 2009). The caveat here is that they say this because they do not wish to spur even further protectionism that the financial crisis of late has been encouraging.

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Here is the latest newsletter/article from Elliott Wave, one of my favorite trend researching and investment companies on the web today.

Think That Central Banks Move the Markets? Think Again
April 23, 2009

By Mark Galasiewski

The following is excerpted from Elliott Wave International’s Global Market Perspective. The full 120-page publication, which features forecasts for every major world market, is available free until April 30. Visit Elliott Wave International to download it free.

Conventional wisdom says that central banks can influence or even direct financial markets and the macroeconomy. The very existence of Elliott waves challenges such assumptions. For if markets responded to every central bank directive, how could Elliott waves exist? Parallel trend channels, Fibonacci price relationships, the similarity of form between waves of different sizes and time periods—none of that would be possible. Central bank decisions would have to coincide perfectly with turning points in Elliott waves, and we know that just doesn’t happen. But even without using waves, we can expose the conventional wisdom for the fallacy that it is.

Take, for example, this assertion in a recent article in a U.K. economic weekly: “Part of the aim of central banks in driving down interest rates is to encourage a greater risk appetite among investors.” Two key assumptions underlie that statement: a) central banks determine interest rates; and b) lower interest rates can increase society’s appetite for risk.

To see how the first assumption is false, let’s take a look at the daily chart of Australian interest rate data. It duplicates a study that Elliott Wave International has often done with U.S. interest rate data. It shows how movements in the cash target rate set by Australia’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), appear to follow those in 3-month Australian Treasury Bills. After decisive moves up in T-bills from 2006 to early 2008, for example, the RBA faithfully raised its target. T-bills have since led the RBA during the financial crisis of the past year. In fact, the record indicates that the RBA almost always follows T-bills over time.

The proper conclusion to draw is not that the RBA has orchestrated the decline in rates since the early 1980s—but that it’s been riding it. During good times, central bankers look like geniuses; during bad times, they get tarred and feathered. Closer to the truth is that their interest-rate decisions are not proactive, but reactive, and that they continually follow in the footsteps of the market for lack of any other useful guide.

Now let’s look at the second assumption: that lower interest rates increase society’s appetite for risk. A simple glance at the weekly chart shows this assumption to be false. After the 1987 crash, the ASX All Ordinaries actually rallied for two years on rising rates and then sold off through 1990 on falling rates. Stocks then rose in 1991 on continued falling rates and sold off in 1992 on even lower rates. Continue following the chart to the right and you will see that there is no consistent correlation between the direction of interest rates and that of the stock market.

The myth of central bank potency is so pervasive that conventional analysts can’t even imagine a better explanation for price trends: that the market is the dog wagging its central bank tail, not the other way around.

---

For more information, download Elliott Wave International’s FREE issue of Global Market Perspective, available until April 30. The 120-page publication covers every major world market, global interest rates, international currencies, metals, energy and more.

---

Mark Galasiewski is the editor of Elliott Wave International’s Asian Financial Forecast and member of EWI’s Global Market Perspective team covering Asian stock indexes.

It looks like students, home owners, business lenders, and the general population who loan money from banks and other institutions are not the only ones getting the monetary shaft these days. Indeed, students pay exorbitant loan fees and interest rates just in an attempt to compete with others both in their local economy but also in countries where educations are state subsidized and the eventual graduate sometimes immigrates to the latter student’s local economy to compete for the same jobs. Given many new immigrants are coming from minority status countries, guess who gets the job first?

International debt is a new form of slavery through which the rich nations enslave the poor with money that can never be paid back.
When countries in poverty owe large amounts of money to wealthy nations, it’s the poorest people who suffer the worst impact. The burden of debt leaves their governments precious little to improve the lives of their citizens.
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Debt becomes a trap they can’t get out of.

It’s a new kind of slavery that robs people’s control over their own futures.

Yet when a poor country’s debt is cancelled, it provides a great opportunity to improve the lives of millions of people. Let’s look at some compelling reasons why we should drop the debt.

Debt costs lives

In the world’s poorest countries, the majority of their people have no access to basics like clean water, adequate housing, healthcare and education. In spite of that, these countries must pay debt service to wealthy nations and institutions, at the expense of providing vital services to their citizens.

Consider this: Between $10 billion and $15 billion is needed a year to turn around the AIDS crisis in Africa that claims 7,000 lives a day. Almost $15 billion is paid in debt service by sub-Saharan Africa to wealthy nations and institutions every year. Where do you reckon the money should go instead?

At school in Tanzania

In 2001, Tanzania received a partial debt write-off of over $2 billion. With the money it saved, the Tanzanian government abolished school fees for primary education. Enrolment increased by 50% between 2002 and 2003. An extra 1,000 schools were built. Hundreds more teachers were trained. Books and learning materials were provided. Amazingly, around 1.6 million children were able to go to school for the first time.

Cancellation delivers results

Startling results can be achieved from even small amounts of debt relief. In Uganda, school enrolment has more than doubled. In Mozambique, it meant immunisation for 500,000 children. In Honduras, three more years of schooling can be provided.
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Paid back, and back, and back

These nations have already paid back their debts ? several times over. Skyrocketing interest rates and compound interest inflate the amount and make repayment impossible.
Example: Nigeria borrowed $5 billion, paid back $16 billion to date but still owes a shocking $32 billion.

Makes foreign aid more effective

Foreign aid like that from Australia frees up money for poor countries to pay their debts to other wealthy nations and institutions. Between 1990 and 1997, developing countries actually paid more in debt service than they received in aid. If debts are cancelled, aid can be used more effectively in reducing poverty and ultimately lessen these countries? dependence on aid.

Join in to drop the debt

Without debt relief, poor countries will never be able to repay all their debts. Is there anything that ordinary people can do about it?

Yes! Millions of people around the world have joined the Jubilee ?Drop the Debt? campaign to ?drop?, or cancel 100% of the debt owed by the poorest countries.

When these countries no longer have to spend all their money paying back debt and high interest charges, they can provide much-needed services like clean water, sanitation, health and education for their citizens.

Source: Jubilee Campaign Australia

House prices are falling and too many homeowners are discovering that
the value of their home is less than the amount owing on the mortgage. Unemployment numbers are going up and estimates are that the rates for 2009 will spike beyond 8%.

Personal and business bankruptcies are surging with approximately
88,000 bankruptcies in Canada in 2008 and many more expected in 2009. Too many fellow-Canadians are experiencing serious financial troubles because of the downturn in the manufacturing and financial sectors of our economy. Why??

As we ponder the ?why? answer, it is worthy of note that the number
one cause of these critical and depressing financial troubles facing
individuals, families and small to medium-sized businesses is the
growth of credit card debt due to the malfunction of usury. All
debtors/borrowers are servants to creditors/lenders and are therefore
victims of the modern tyranny of usury-banking practices.

Usurers commonly reduce oppressed borrowers (individuals, businesses,
governments) to beggars. And for lack of knowledge, and because they too, are saddled with usury-bearing debts our fellow-citizens – the police, lawyers, judges and court staff – enforce the usury contracts and unknowingly become servants to their masters – the same greedy usurers.

Is the vice of greed a factor in what is currently happening in our
orthodox financial system of usury-based, debt money? Is the virtue of
giving a factor in the growth and expansion of the usuryfree community currency movement? And is usuryfree living not only a possibility but a real probability in this 21st Century? Let’s explore some facts as we seek answers to these timely questions.
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To understand the difference between living with usury and
usuryfree living, one must first be re-educated on a couple of key
definitions. Let’s start with the word – interest. Interest ought
to be correctly defined as usury and this definition can be
confirmed by many significant supporting statements from all of the
Holy Books.

For example, the Bible has many verses that absolutely forbid the
charging/exacting of usury on money. In summary, meticulous research
reveals that any percentage of interest on money above zero percent
is correclty defined as usury. Likewise, the Koran has similar
verses regarding the forbidding the curse of usury.

Additional support for the correct definition of interest is offered
by any of those few pioneering Socreds who are still alive in this
21st Century. One elder Socred is rumoured to have made these two wise statements about interest otherwise known to him as usury – (a)
Interest or usury is theft. and (b) Remember this, money cannot
have babies.

My observation is that debtors are enslaved financially because they
are paying usury to their creditors – who are knowingly or
unknowingly motivated by the vice of greed. To live without paying
usury is noteworthy, BUT usuryfree living cannot be fully experienced
until all of us are freed from usury – that means that we neither pay
no usury nor do we receive any usury from our so-called savings.

Usuryfree creatives is another phrase that requires a definition.
Usuryfree creatives are often considered to be a sub-group in the
larger, well known group known as cultural creatives. Any search
engine will provide sources for a detailed explanation of cultural
creatives.

Usuryfree creatives who are fully aware of the truth about modern
money creation seek to experience the reality of usuryfree living and
commonly enage in barter/trade using one or more of the growing number of usuryfree community currencies. Usuryfree creatives have learned that they can create and spend their own community currency which is free of interest or usury.

Usuryfree creatives commonly use these usuryfree community currencies as a complement with diminishing amounts of usury-based debt money which exists as computer blips on credit cards or debit cards or in cheques or paper notes of federal cash. Does anyone else sense an agenda by the PTB’s (Powers That Be) to take away these paper notes of federal cash so that every negotiated exchange is tracked by Big Brother’s invasive computer system?

Research reveals that the vice of greed is directly associated with
the design flaw of usury in our orthodox system of debt-based money.
Indeed, there is much evidence of an abundance of greed in the
conventional, but floundering financial marketplace.

My observation is that this ugly vice of greed is driven by the
constant and ever-present shortage of money which is direclty caused
by the element of usury. Close examination suggests that both
currently and historically, usury is the direct and/or indirect cause
violence, wars, poverty, scarcity and lack – locally, nationally and
internationally.

The unnatural and man-made function of usury is not only a design flaw in our orthodox system of debt money, but also an evil and immoral element that feeds this vice of greed while legally permitting
creditors (bankers) to steal wealth (money and property) from enslaved debtors who for lack of knowledge keep signing impossible loan and mortgage contracts created by the greedy creditors.

To eliminate usury and experience the reality of usuryfree living is
an honoured goal pursued by usuryfree creatives as we progress into
this 21st Century. Usuryfree creatives are likely to practice the
virtue of giving or gifting as they experience peace, abundace and
prosperity as a by-product of usuryfree living. Evidence suggests that
there is a shift in the thinking of those usuryfree creatives who
grasp the simple detail that there is no need to hoard any currency
that bears no usury – so they willingly share their abundance with
those who lack.

As this current economic crisis deepens to a Grand-daddy Depression
that will make the 1929 Economic Crash look like a Sunday picnic, the
teaching and practice of usuryfree living is being promoted by
usuryfree creatives not only as a likely possibility, but also as a
distinct probablity.
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Most creditors (usurers) are not likely to be fully aware that they
can directly and/or indirectly referred to as practitioners of the
vice of greed. Neither are debtors aware of how they are victims in
this modern but cruel world of usury-based, debt finance (money). This
lack of knowledge by both creditors and debtors can be attributed to
the failings of formal education as well as the mainstream print and
electronic media. Whether this malfuntion in our formal education
system is by design or by accident is left for the reader to decide.

During the latter years of the 20th Century when the internet was in
its birthing process, many diligent ands meticulous researchers began
to effectively network their knowledge through email, news groups,
blogs and websites. As the design flaw of usury is being exposed for
the killer machine that it is, more and more re-educated individuals
are proudly defining themselves as usuryfree creatives.

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Usuryfree creatives organized the first UsuryFree Day (November 13th)
and UsuryFree Week (November 13th to 19th) in 2004 to celebrate and
foster the concept of usuryfree living. Each year, during UsuryFree
Week seminars and workshops are held in living rooms, community
centres, church basements, school auditoriums, hotel rooms etc.

During UsuryFree Week participants learn the difference between
living with usury and usuryfree living. Currently, events are
being planned to celebrate the Fifth Annual UsuryFree Day/Week from
November 13th to 19th, 2009.

Brought to you by EconoChristian.com but written by Tom Kennedy. You can read the rest of the article here.

Given the fact that manufacturing jobs and industries account for only one fifth (1/5th) of economic output of countries in the OECD, it is important to realize potential impacts this shift from tangible output driven economies to a more service oriented one, and the pundits’ chants that it is an advantageous phenomenon. Some questions to consider are: is the contraction of manufacturing in developed economies a result of so called manurity in economies or is it that the forced of globalization, speerheaded by government trumping corporations in search of cheap labor?
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Economists and gullible financial analysts, not to mention mentally disabled laymen touting the end of manufacturing as good thing, miss some central points concerning losing manufacturing:

The key fact is that manufacturing is the back bone of an economy because this sector is the one which actually produces tangible items. Some might say that intangible items like financial services, computer programs, and the like are products, but the reality of the situation is that these activities can be done almost anywhere in the world by anyone. What will stop these industries from fleeing just as manufacturing did? Indeed, they would flee even faster due to their nebulous nature. We have seen are only in the infant stages of the off shoring phemonenon of industries such as financial services and computer programming by large multi national companies.

Pundits will gather that this is the natural occurance of economies in that it drifts from an industrial boom to a post-industrial, so called information age and transforms into a mainly service sector based economy based on research, development, and management, but this is the theory that the economists push on behest of government to brainwash populations into accepting their fate of accepting lower wages, lower job security (if at all), and reduced spending.
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Let us explore this theory and implementation of this paradigm for a short while. Post-industrial really doesn’t mean “after industry”, it just really signifies the new industries that have come into being along side of traditional factory production. These new industries are computer technology, telecommunications, media and information processing (to name a few. Try and think of some more). These industries function unlike traditional industrial industries (auto, machine, building, textile, etc) because:

• a) their product is different (ie, non-tangible goods and services)
• b) some of the post-industrial professions involve more educated workers (white-collar as opposed to blue-collar) and
• c) production can take place in a number of different places (ie, not in a factory).

The problem Westerners and industrialized countries have is that the economists and political pundits hired by their respective governments have slowly but surely been brainwashing the financial, economic, and general population and trying to sell them on the idea that the next phase of an industrial economy is the incremental loss of manufacturing industries because “this is the way” as if it were some biblical law.
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Indeed, economics has become a religion into its own with paradigms such as so called “free trade” being pushed down peoples’ throats when in fact this idea is a fiction because all trade agreement are managed unless what you were aiming for was world government, and it just so happens this is what the politicians have been instructed to do.

Straight from the horse’s mouth, the International Montary Fund describes this phenomenon: During the past 25 years, employment in manufacturing as a share of total employment has fallen dramatically in the world’s most advanced economies, a phenomenon widely referred to as “deindustrialization.” The trend, particularly evident in the United States and Europe, is also apparent in Japan and has been observed most recently in the Four Tiger economies of East Asia (Hong Kong, China, Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan Province of China). Not surprisingly, deindustrialization has caused considerable concern in the affected economies and has given rise to a vigorous debate about its causes and likely implications.

The real cause of deindustrialization is corporations’ constant attempts to find the cheapest possible labor and price, but at what cost? The Western world has some of the highest and stricted labor, environmental, and health regulations in the world which provides safe, healthy, and reliable products.

While the contraction of manufacturing employment has often been compared to that of agriculture, it does not apepar that non-homothetic preferences hahve played a similarly important role in deindustrialization. Indeed, if services are “superior” goods, then consumers would increase their relative demand for services as per capita incomes increase. This would in turn cause a decline in output and employment in the manufacturing sector.

There is, however, little evidence that shifts in the pattern of expenditures between services and manufacturing can explain the secular shift of employment out of manufacturing into services (Saeger, 1997).

However, corporations and governments really do not care about any of these three pillars of human dignity, therefore seek out the cheapest possible price to make the quickest buck. This is not a long term, sustainable relationship, but an extremely chaotic one with the ultimate goal of world government. While this may seem an unbelievable statement, if you were to realize that if all governments were eliminated, there wouldn’t be a need for things like tariffs and taxes or borders to regulate trade and commerce, but this is a fiction in an ideal world. What the powerful policy makers of the planet wish to do is create a one world government controlled by themselves as demonstrated by Dr. John Coleman:

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What Jesus Had to say about deindustrialization:

James 5:1-6, Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.

Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.

Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.

Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.

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You can download a very interesting e-book here that explains the phenomenon of globalization, the loss of manufacturing in developed economies, and the results these effects have on the socio economic dynamics in these victimized countries.

Written by EconoChristian.com

If there was ever a maxim that lived throughout the ages of investing, sticking with “what everyone needs” certainly rings true today as it did 1000 years ago. That is, what “everyone needs” is basic necessities such as housing, food, clothing, healthcare products, and such items that people cannot live without for more than a few days. In economics we call this kind of item “demand inelastic,” which means that the demand for these kinds of items remains relatively the same as income decreases or increases compared to other items like cars, computers, and other luxury items like televisions and so on.
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The problem the US and Canada are facing is that a large portion of their manufacturing base has been off shored or sent to other countries in the past 20 to 30 years as so called trade agreements such as NAFTA, World Trade Organization, and other so called free trade instruments have been established which gave companies incentive to send middle class jobs to other countries which effectively stripped the parent coutnries of their bread and butter jobs, which eliminated or significantly reduced the spending power of the middle class.

Countries like Japan have, since the 70s to 1980s, pegged their currency to the dollar to take advantage of the manufacturing sector which gave incentive to US and Canadian producers to relocate to Japan or to allow more imports from Japan to be dumped into the US. Now we have a different problem: China, Mexico, Thailand, and Vietnam, but mainly China and its huge population base, extremely low standards, and manipulated currency.
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Since it is predicted that a large portion of the manfuacturing industry we have offshored in the past 20-30 years will return probable best way to attack this is to go back to Standard &Poor’s sector data for the time. However, it won’t be a very fine analysis as it would likely miss emerging industries. It is known that electronics were hot investments as the 1930s wore on– particularly radio, which was state-of-the-art at the time. Zenith Radio emerged as a leading producer: its stock languished until 1935 when it went from the range of 2-2 5/8 at the beginning of the year to 13 1/2 at the end of the year.

Many items, including stocks, reached a historic low in the early 30s.
Some never recovered, but others doubled from their low before the end of the thirties. Therefore we could be in a good buying position later this year, but it is assumed that large increases are unlikely from today’s position. Selling short would be smart before a crash later this year, but there is a fair chance weak prosparity will continue several more years, resulting in large losses for short sellers. So many things have changed since the 30s, and it is thought we won’t learn much, except that a disasterous crash is possible.
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Precious metals are where you can NEVER go wrong since Canada has a large reserve of natural minerals, metals, elements such as uranium and paladium used in nuclear reactors and catalytic converts, respectively (not to mention other uses). Specifically, food and food production is pegged to become the next “big thing” in the United States as the world’s producer of food, or so the prediction goes.

In mainstream economics, the theory is that the primary sector is agriculture from where the development cycle begins for any country. After that comes the secondary sector (manufacturing) and then the tertiary one (services). USA is now sitting at the tertiary sector at the top of this value chain and China seems to be enjoying its manufacturing status. India just jumped from primary to tertiary because of its’ hopping on the information technology bandwagon.

For the ultra safe, conservative types of portfolios, the best bets would be to invest in essential metals like gold, silver, copper, and paladium because these metals will always be in need and will likely raise in price as the world consumes more of the latter two metals. Indeed, copper and paladium are increasingly being used in electronics and other modern applications.

Written by EconoChristian.com