Is The Federal Reserve Doing A Good Job?

Source: The American Dream

Have you noticed that very few people in the mainstream media ever directly criticize the Federal Reserve?  But why should that be the case?  Criticizing top politicians from both major political parties has become a national pastime.  Most Americans love to throw mud at either the Republicans or the Democrats.  But we are told that the Federal Reserve is "above politics" and that it is absolutely vital that the Fed remain "independent".  The reality is that the Federal Reserve has more control over the performance of the U.S. economy than the president even does, and yet most Americans never spend much time thinking about the Fed at all.  It is almost as if someone has instructed us to "ignore the man behind the curtain" and most of us just blindly obey.  With the economy in such a mess and with the national debt exploding so dramatically, isn't it about time that we had a national conversation about the performance of the Federal Reserve?  Isn't it about time that we evaluated whether the Federal Reserve is doing a good job or not?

Today I came across a Bloomberg article that was full of endless praise for the secretive Jekyll Island conference in 1910 that developed the plan for the Federal Reserve system.  The following is a very brief excerpt from that article....

Although it may seem shocking to watch the 112th Congress, there was a time when national leaders were swift and decisive in getting things done. In November 1910, in the space of less than two weeks, a group of government and business leaders fashioned a powerful new financial system that has survived a century, two world wars, a Great Depression and many recessions.

But has this "powerful new financial system" really performed well for the American people?

The Federal Reserve system has now been in place for about 100 years.  That is certainly long enough to evaluate how well it has performed.

So has the Federal Reserve done a good job?

Well, one of the things that the Federal Reserve is charged with doing is to protect the value of our currency.  In other words, they are supposed to keep inflation under control.

In that regard, the Federal Reserve has failed miserably.  The U.S. dollar has lost 96.2 percent of its value since 1900, and almost 100 percent of that decline has come during the Federal Reserve era.

Corbett Report Interview 465 - Bill Still Runs for President

Source: Corbett Report
James Corbett


Bill Still, the author and documentary filmmaker behind such films as The Secret of Oz, joins us to discuss his bid for the presidential nomination for the Libertarian Party in 2012. We discuss the main planks of his platform and how interested libertarians can support his campaign.

'Pakistan-US Ties Reach Point of No Return'

Source: PressTV

Pakistani people spilled onto the streets of the capital, Islamabad, on Monday for another anti-US rally.

Thousands of demonstrators --who were opposed to what they call the US intervention in Pakistan-- chanted "death to America". The protesters described the US as "the biggest enemy" of Pakistan who will be defeated. They also denounced the US assassination attacks on Pakistani soil.

Anti-American sentiment has grown in Pakistan after 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in a US air strike in November. The attack sparked large rallies across the country. Ties between Islamabad and Washington became tense following the attack.

TSA: Tyrants Sucker America

Source: Boiling Frogs Post

TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES:

Of all of the myriad agencies, bureaucracies, laws and legislation that have sprung up to oppress the American citizenry in this age of the unending war against an abstract noun, perhaps none have garnered as much ire and opprobrium as the innocuously named Transportation Security Administration.

Created in the wake of 9/11 under the pretext of “fixing” the system that had “somehow” allowed 19 men with box cutters to supposedly commit the most egregious violation of American airspace in history (aided in no small part by the simultaneous “failure” of the entire American intelligence establishment and the most sophisticated air defense in the world), the TSA was originally placed under the Department of Transportation and tasked with securing the nation’s transportation system from future attacks. It was just a matter of months, however, before the TSA was transitioned into the newly-created Department of Fatherland Security and began turning the relatively benign process of clearing airport security into an ordeal that traumatizes and humiliates virtually everyone who has to endure it.

Minority Report-Styled Advertising Rolled Out in London

Source: Prison Planet
Paul Joseph Watson

Face-scanning technology labeled “creepy”

High-definition face-scanning cameras have been installed at a bus stop in Oxford Street, London as part of a new invasive advertising campaign that uses Minority Report-style technology to deliver gender-specific targeted ad content.

“With a 90 percent accuracy rating, the computer built into the placement analyzes and guesses gender based on specific facial attributes of the jawline, cheekbones, nose and eyes. Based on the current guess of a pedestrian’s gender, the digital placement shows an advertisement targeted at a man or a woman. As this technology continues to be applied to the field of advertising, the computer could also make a judgement about a person’s age, race or body type,” reports Digital Trends.

The $60,000 dollar ad, displayed on a screen that is a cross between an iPad and an XBox Kinect, plays a 40 second video message when a female’s face is scanned but only a brief message if a man walks past. “We’re not giving men and boys the choice to see the full ad on this occasion – so they get a glimpse of what it’s like to have basic choices taken away,” said Marie Staunton, chief executive of Plan UK, the organization featured in the ad.

The technology itself was developed by Clear Channel UK and 3D Exposure, who assert that while concerns about people being subjected to Minority Report-style invasive advertising have been voiced, what they are working on for future projects “may soon surpass what we’ve seen at the cinema.”

Privacy watchdog The Open Rights Group labeled the idea “creepy”.

Virginia Votes to Refuse NDAA

Source: RT

Although Congress approved this year’s National Defense Authorization Act, lawmakers on another level continue to find faults with its nasty detainment provisions. Virginia is now the latest state to consider laws that nix some of the NDAA.

When US President Barack Obama signed his name to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, he authorized the US military to detain and torture anyone on Earth — Americans included — without charge. Opposition was widespread even before the commander-in-chief put pen to paper, but critics are continuing to condemn the legislation only two months after Obama approved it. So weary of the NDAA are lawmakers in Virginia, in fact, that a recent vote within the state’s House of Delegates led to the passing of a counter-act that will keep those detainment provisions out of VA.

A recent meeting of lawmakers in the lower house of the Virginia General Assembly yielded an impressive 96-to-4 approval for HB 1160, a bill that will ban state officials from abiding by some elements of the NDAA. Should the act see similar support in the state’s Senate, Virginia will be spared from the detainment provisions that have garnered opposition against Congress and the Obama White House over the NDAA’s passing.

Under the Virginia law-in-waiting, state agents are forbidden from aiding “an agency of the armed forces of the United States in the conduct of the investigation, prosecution or detention of any citizen pursuant to 50 U.S.C. § 1541 as provided by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012.”

The Virginia bill would specifically see to it that Section 1021 of the NDAA is made illegal, which, per President Obama’s approval, legitimizes the detainment of any alleged terrorist, including Americans, that are believed to have committed a “belligerent act” or have supported “hostilities,”

Scary NSA Propaganda: Anonymous Cyberattack Will Take Down Power Grid

Source: Infowars
Kurt Nimmo

An article for Wall Street Journal subscribers reveals that NSA boss Gen. Keith Alexander believes the hacktavist collective Anonymous may soon have the capability to take down the power grid in the United States through a cyberattack.

Alexander has peddled his theory at White House meetings and in other private sessions, according to people familiar with the gatherings, WSJ reports. “While he hasn’t publicly expressed his concerns about the potential for Anonymous to disrupt power supplies, he has warned publicly about an emerging ability by cyberattackers to disable or even damage computer networks,” writes Siobhan Gorman.

It’s not easy to disrupt the power grid in the United States. Most systems use proprietary operating systems and applications that are “not readily available for study by your average hacker,” writes Michael Tanj. Power grid or drinking-water systems and networks are not connected to the public internet.

In other words, it would take more than the efforts of an internet meme scattered across imageboards and forums to disrupt this complex system. It would take the concerted resources of a nation-state like China or Russia – or more likely the NSA itself.

“Even in places like the United States, where there isn’t much you cannot find online, you’re not going to be able to get the depth and detail you need to turn off the lights with a simple network connection. You’re going to have to deploy national-level resources,” writes Tanj.

The NSA knows this. It is exploiting the minimal threat poised by Anonymous as part of a propaganda campaign designed to extend the reach of its “Perfect Citizen” program. Perfect Citizen is being developed by defense contractor Raytheon and consists of sensors that would report public utility anomalies to the NSA via a partnership with Homeland Security, according to Ryan Singel. A Raytheon employee described it as a “Big Brother” system.

The NSA has over the years specialized is slurping up mega-amounts of private data in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The resultant database is the largest in the world. It only makes sense the NSA will do the same with the data it will now collect from utilities and the public infrastructure.

Corbett Report Radio - The Fight Against Fluoridation with Dr. Paul Connett

Source: Corbett Report
James Corbett

Dr. Paul Connett is a retired professor of environmental chemistry and toxicology. He is the Director of the Fluoride Action Network at fluoridealert.org, which details the documented health effects of water fluoridation, from lowered IQ to increase in bone cancer. Tonight on the program we talk about the fight against fluoridation and how the people in community after community are taking the power back into their own hands and getting the fluoride removed from the water supply.

Manipulating Reality: Shaping Threats, Destroying Democracy

Source: Consortium News
Lawrence Davidson

Over the past few decades in America, reality has been put in play as never before, with powerful interests using  sophisticated “perception management,” the shaping of how the public perceives the outside world, a threat that Lawrence Davidson says is again leading the nation to destruction.

In mid-February, an array of top U.S. intelligence chiefs appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee to give their annual report on “current and future worldwide threats” to national security. Those testifying included CIA Director David Petraeus, National Intelligence Director James Clapper, Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. General Ronald Burgess, and FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Their presentations on what is and is not a real threat to the nation, as well as the reaction of the senators holding the hearings, turned out to be an exercise in one dimensional thinking. What is real? Well, what comports with your point of view. Here are two examples from their testimony:

1. The Enemy Within – Rogue individuals operating “within the ranks” of the intelligence community and armed forces now constitute a major threat to U.S. security. According to Lt. General Burgess these people are “self-radicalized lone wolves.” He pointed to the “recent massive WikiLeaks disclosures.”

Everyone involved in these hearings agreed with this assertion even though it is based on a dubious, yet unquestioned, assumption – that the behavior of U.S. government forces is a model of acceptable normal military and intelligence behavior. Those who work for the government but find this behavior unacceptable, and indeed a criminal betrayal of all that is humane, and then do something about that conviction are “self-radicalized” dangers to national security.

Image: Director of National Intelligence James Clapper talks with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office. (Photo credit: Office of Director of National Intelligence)

But what if the support of oppressive and racist regimes, the invasion of other countries based on lies, the killing of thousands upon thousands of civilians, and the official use of torture and “extraordinary rendition” constitute radical and unreasonable behavior? Then those who expose such extremism would not be the radicals at all. They would be champions of a more reasonable norm and also heroes.

My suggestion is that this is exactly the case. The country’s pursuit of its alleged national interests is being directed by a bunch of thugs in suits who have taken it upon themselves to label as “radicals” those citizen heroes who point out this fact. They are afraid that more and more citizens might see the real barbaric nature of their policies and call them to account. So, to prevent this, they criminalize (and demonize) the truth-tellers.

Propaganda Alert: The Ninja Threat from Iran

Source: Activist Post

The CNN video below is just the latest salvo in the shameless media distortion about events in Iran.  The most dangerous propaganda is of course Iran's supposed nuclear weapons threat, which is being revealed at every turn as unfounded allegations, even as Iran welcomes the IAEA to investigate and discuss their nuclear program.  Iran continues to insist that the program is strictly for energy and not world destruction.  The hyperbole, however, even extends down to the social level.  What most rational people would simply call martial arts training -- similar to what can be found in any American city -- instead receives a CNN segment title of "Iran's Potential Assassins" with the caption, "3,500 women train as Ninjas."  Funnily enough, the anchors don't seem to cooperate with the gravitas of the headline, instead stating it for what it really is: a sport, or a way toward healthy self-empowerment.  Or, even perhaps the nefarious objective to "defend their country."

Terror War Cheerleader Gets Reality Check on Underwear Bomber Facts

Source: Prison Planet
Paul Joseph Watson

C-Span callers hammer home U.S. government’s role in aiding Abdulmutallab.

A proponent of the war on terror was left with egg on his face during a recent C-Span appearance when caller after caller hammered home the fact that the underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was allowed to board Delta flight 253 by the U.S. government.

The victim of this ‘truth bomb’ was Mickey McCarter, a prominent mouthpiece for the military-industrial complex that relies heavily on the manufactured ‘war on terror’ to the tune of billions of dollars every year. McCarter is a journalist specializing in “homeland security matters” and has also worked for government agencies like the US Navy’s Bureau of Naval Personnel and the Defense Contract Management Agency.

After discussing the recent conviction of the underwear bomber with no mention of the fact that he boarded the plane only with the aid of the U.S. government, McCarter faced a barrage of callers who set him straight. The first caller immediately drew attention to Flight 253 passenger Kurt Haskell, an attorney who witnessed a well dressed Indian man force airport officials to let Abdulmutallab board the plane despite the fact that he had no passport and was on a terror watchlist.

“Why would a CIA agent….get that guy on the plane,” the caller asked, to which McCarter responded by claiming, “I am not familiar with the story,” before erroneously claiming that Abdulmutallab “raised no alarm”.

In reality, the State Department was ordered not to revoke Abdulmutallab’s visa by “federal counterterrorism officials” even though the accused bomber had known terrorist ties, in addition to the fact that his own father had warned U.S. intelligence officials of the threat posed by Abdulmutallab a month before the attempted attack.

After initially claiming otherwise, the FBI finally had to admit that Kurt Haskell’s testimony was true. When Abdulmutallab signaled he wanted to call Haskell as a defense witness, it threatened to blow the whole case wide open. However, within 48 hours he mysteriously withdrew the call and admitted all eight counts of guilt.

The notion that McCarter, who bills himself as a terror expert, has no idea about Kurt Haskell’s testimony, FBI confirmation of the fact, in addition to media reports concerning how AbdulMutallab was helped on the plane by a well-dressed man, over two years after it was initially revealed, is dubious to say the least.

Troops March on White House for Ron Paul

Source: Promethean Post
Michael Anthony

Today thousands of active duty troops, veterans and their families marched on the White House to show their support for Presidential candidate Ron Paul who continues to dominate all other candidates in military donations, including President Obama. With an “about face,” veterans and active duty service members turned their backs to the White House and sent a message to the President: Ron Paul is the choice of the troops.

Source: Selected Presidential Reports for 2011 Oct Quarterly 

Vantage Point Interviews James Corbett

Source: StratRisks
Michael Vail

Michael Vail and James Corbett discuss geopolitical flashpoints, the psychology of defeatism, behavior due to controlled response and terrorism. We dissect the political discourse and break down the media narratives and false paradigms. We run the gamet in this hour long commercial free interview. (NOTE: The BBC article about the split in the human species mentioned in this interview can be found here.)

About James:
James Corbett is an independent journalist who has been living and working in Japan since 2004. He has been writing and producing The Corbett Report, an online multi-media news and information source, since 2007. His forthcoming book, Reportage: Essays on the New World Order, will be available for purchase later this year.

For more information about Corbett and his background, please listen to Episode 163 of The Corbett Report podcast, Meet James Corbett:

Episode 163 – Meet James Corbett

NATO’s Double Game In Libya Under UN Cover Revealed

Source: Pakistan Observer
Akhtar Jamal

Suitcase size drones played decisive role.

Islamabad: A Canadian newspaper has revealed an account of NATO’s double-game in Libya and disclosed how the NATO countries collaborated with each other to topple the Libyan regime and secretly supplied most sophisticated weapons and drones to Libyan rebels.

According to the newspaper, Ottawa Citizen, the NATO states misused the UN embargo of arms and sea-blockage and enforced one-sided sanction while allowing NATO-backed special forces and trainers to slip into Libya via sea. 

The paper also disclosed that dozens of brief-case size drones were also sent to Libya to monitor and track Gadhafi forces and hunt them down.

It said that NATO partners in the Mediterranean Sea enforcing an embargo under authority of the United Nations Security Resolution 1973 allowed weapon supplies without any interception to anti- Gadhafi forces.

The publications recalled while in May of 2011 NATO had set up a ring of 20 warships to enforce a United Nations arms embargo for all sides, while the UN embargo was clearly aimed at preventing the delivery of weapons both to Gadhafi and those fighting him.

The paper added that hundreds of tonnes of ammunition and arms breezed through the blockade, “exposing what critics say was Canada and NATO’s real motive during the Libyan war of regime change under the guise of protecting civilians.”

Press TV Signals Jammed in Europe: Report

Source: PressTV

Jamming signals have been reportedly interrupting the broadcast of Press TV, Iran’s 24-hour English-language news channel, in various locations across Europe.

Press TV viewers in Europe say the frequent attacks last three to four minutes each time.

Some reports indicate that the news channel’s online stream is also targeted at the same time as jamming signals disrupt the broadcast of the channel.

Italian viewers said Saturday was the fifth consecutive day of “Press TV signal black-out in Italy.”

“Today (Saturday) was the worst day of all - almost all day no signal - neither on Satellite TV, nor online streaming,” one Italian viewer said.

This is not the first time that Iran’s television waves have come under attack. Last month, the signals for the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) channels on Hotbird were jammed from Bahrain.

Thai Muslim Leader: Mossad's MEK Responsible for Diplomat Attack

Source: Infowars
Kurt Nimmo

As officials in Thailand paraded suspects accused of attacking Israeli diplomats in Bangkok before the corporate media, new details emerged about the attack and the group responsible for them.

Syedsulaiman Husaini, the Shia leader of Thailand, said on Sunday that the inept bomb plot targeting Israeli diplomats was the work of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization, also known as MEK. He said Thai officials are not familiar with the terrorist group.

According to Husaini, the attack was a false flag designed to implicate Iran in terror attacks against Israel.

MEK works hand-in-hand with the Israeli Mossad and is responsible for killing Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahamdi Roshan in January. MEK terrorists killed American contrators and U.S. soldiers in the 1970s and is listed as a terrorist group by the State Department.

A sizable contingent of neocons and Republicans enthusiastically support the formerly Marxist group despite the fact it attempted to kidnap the U.S. ambassador to Iran, wounded a USAF Brigadier General in a 1972 assassination attempt, murdered U.S. Air Force officers and employees of Rockwell International in 1976.

“The group of MEK shills includes former top Bush officials and other Republicans (Michael Mukasey, Fran Townsend, Andy Card, Tom Ridge, Rudy Giuliani) as well as prominent Democrats (Howard Dean, Ed Rendell, Bill Richardson, Wesley Clark),” writes Glenn Greenwald.

Earlier this month the establishment media confirmed that Israeli intelligence armed and trained MEK. “U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Obama administration is aware of the assassination campaign but has no direct involvement,” NBC News reported on February 9.

'Israeli Claims of Democracy Absurd'

Source: PressTV

Contrary to its claims, the Zionist regime of Israel, which dispossesses the vast majority of Palestine's original inhabitants, is the anti-thesis of a democratic society, an analyst tells Press TV.

Interview with Ralph Schoenman, author of The Hidden History of Zionism

Acts of Love

Source: TruthDig
Chris Hedges

Love, the deepest human commitment, the force that defies empirical examination and yet is the defining and most glorious element in human life, the love between two people, between children and parents, between friends, between partners, reminds us of why we have been created for our brief sojourns on the planet. Those who cannot love—and I have seen these deformed human beings in the wars and conflicts I covered—are spiritually and emotionally dead. They affirm themselves through destruction, first of others and then, finally, of themselves. Those incapable of love never live.

“Hell,” Dostoevsky wrote, “is the inability to love.”

Graham Hancock Interviewed by Turbowolf

Source: GrahamHancock.com

Graham Hancock is one of the foremost authorities on Ancient Mysteries, having written numerous bestselling non-fiction books on the subject such as 'Fingerprints Of The Gods', 'The Sign & The Seal', 'Heavens Mirror' and 'Supernatural' and, recently, the fantasy adventure novel 'Entangled'. Turbowolf released their self-titled debut album in November 2011, a blend of dirty rocknroll, punked-up riffs & psychedelic noise. The band are about to embark on a European tour starting 23/2 in London. Their shared fascination with the esoteric & the mysterious lead to this meeting of minds.

The New Mediterranean Oil and Gas Bonanza

Source: Boiling Frogs Post
F. William Engdahl

Part I: Israel’s Levant Basin—a new geopolitical curse?

 

Recent discoveries of not just significant, but huge oil and gas reserves in the little-explored Mediterranean Sea between Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Israel, Syria and Lebanon suggest that the region could become literally a “new Persian Gulf” in terms of oil and gas riches. As with the old Persian Gulf, discovery of hydrocarbon riches could as well spell a geopolitical curse of staggering dimension.

Long-standing Middle East conflicts could soon be paled by new battles over rights to oil and gas resources beneath the eastern Mediterranean in the Levant Basin and Aegean Sea. Here we explore the implications of a gigantic discovery of gas and oil in offshore Israel. In a second article we will explore the implications of gas and oil discoveries in the Aegean between Cyprus, Syria, Turkey, Greece and Lebanon. 

An Israeli Leviathan

The game-changer was a dramatic discovery in late 2010 of an enormous natural gas field offshore of Israel in what geologists call the Levant or Levantine Basin. In October 2010 Israel discovered a massive “super-giant” gas field offshore in what it declares is its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The find is some 84 miles west of the Haifa port and three miles deep. They named it Leviathan after the Biblical sea monster. Three Israeli energy companies in cooperation with the Houston Texas Noble Energy announced initial estimates that the field contained 16 trillion cubic feet of gas—making it the world’s biggest deep-water gas find in a decade, adding more discredit to “peak oil” theories that the planet is about to see dramatic and permanent shortages of oil, gas and coal. To put the number in perspective, that one gas field, Leviathan, would hold enough reserves to supply Israel’s gas needs for 100 years.[1]

Energy self-sufficiency had eluded the state of Israel since its founding in 1948. Abundant oil and gas exploration had repeatedly been undertaken with meager result. Unlike its energy-rich Arab neighbors, Israel seemed out of luck. Then in 2009 Israel’s exploration partner, Noble Energy, discovered the Tamar field in the Levantine Basin some 50 miles west of Israel’s port of Haifa with an estimated 8.3 tcf (trillion cubic feet) of highest quality natural gas. Tamar was the world’s largest gas discovery in 2009.

At the time, total Israeli gas reserves were estimated at only 1.5 tcf. Government estimates were that Israel’s sole operating field, Yam Tethys, which supplies about 70 percent of the country’s natural gas, would be depleted within three years.

With Tamar, prospects began to look considerably better. Then, just a year after Tamar, the same consortium led by Noble Energy struck the largest gas find in its decades-long history at Leviathan in the same Levantine geological basin. Present estimates are that the Leviathan field holds at least 17 tcf of gas.[2] Israel went from a gas famine to feast in a matter of months.