The Deth Guild

Our resident Financial Guru Gus has been on our ass to listen to and read some David Stockman, and admittedly, we’ve been procrastinating. Now, in our defense, things have been slightly hectic in these parts, what with preparing for the coming Civil War, looming Financial Collapse, getting our shit in order for some outbreaks of good old fashioned bedlam, and putting food on the table – makes for a busy workweek.

Excuses aside, now that we’ve actually had a moment to collect our whits, put down our copies of Resistance to Tyranny, and read up on this Stockman fellow, we have a photo-perfect illustration on why Gus utterly and totally knows his shit. So, Dave old boy, consider yourself added to the list o’ canaries in the coal-mine, alongside Denninger, Smith, Cashin, and “the Tylers.” You’re in good company.

Now, we loath driving traffic to Satan’s Play-pen, but this article by David Stockman is worth the read. Some choice excerpts follow:

“Over the last 13 years, the stock market has twice crashed and touched off a recession: American households lost $5 trillion in the 2000 dot-com bust and more than $7 trillion in the 2007 housing crash. Sooner or later — within a few years, I predict — this latest Wall Street bubble, inflated by an egregious flood of phony money from the Federal Reserve rather than real economic gains, will explode, too.”
– David Stockman

Sounds like good times are coming….

“Since the S.&P. 500 first reached its current level, in March 2000, the mad money printers at the Federal Reserve have expanded their balance sheet sixfold (to $3.2 trillion from $500 billion). Yet during that stretch, economic output has grown by an average of 1.7 percent a year (the slowest since the Civil War); real business investment has crawled forward at only 0.8 percent per year; and the payroll job count has crept up at a negligible 0.1 percent annually. Real median family income growth has dropped 8 percent, and the number of full-time middle class jobs, 6 percent. The real net worth of the “bottom” 90 percent has dropped by one-fourth. The number of food stamp and disability aid recipients has more than doubled, to 59 million, about one in five Americans.

So the Main Street economy is failing while Washington is piling a soaring debt burden on our descendants, unable to rein in either the warfare state or the welfare state or raise the taxes needed to pay the nation’s bills. By default, the Fed has resorted to a radical, uncharted spree of money printing. But the flood of liquidity, instead of spurring banks to lend and corporations to spend, has stayed trapped in the canyons of Wall Street, where it is inflating yet another unsustainable bubble.

When it bursts, there will be no new round of bailouts like the ones the banks got in 2008. Instead, America will descend into an era of zero-sum austerity and virulent political conflict, extinguishing even today’s feeble remnants of economic growth.”
– David Stockman

Yup all things will be happy and perfect forevermore…

“Soon Americans stopped saving and consumed everything they earned and all they could borrow. The Asians, burned by their own 1997 financial crisis, were happy to oblige us. They — China and Japan above all — accumulated huge dollar reserves, transforming their central banks into a string of monetary roach motels where sovereign debt goes in but never comes out. We’ve been living on borrowed time — and spending Asians’ borrowed dimes.”
– David Stockman

What’s that odor… something’s burning… smells like charred skittles and unicorn farts…

“”While the Fed fiddles, Congress burns. Self-titled fiscal hawks like Paul D. Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, are terrified of telling the truth: that the 10-year deficit is actually $15 trillion to $20 trillion, far larger than the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of $7 trillion. Its latest forecast, which imagines 16.4 million new jobs in the next decade, compared with only 2.5 million in the last 10 years, is only one of the more extreme examples of Washington’s delusions. ”
– David Stockman

The killing joke…

“That, of course, will never happen because there are trillions of dollars of assets, from Shanghai skyscrapers to Fortune 1000 stocks to the latest housing market “recovery,” artificially propped up by the Fed’s interest-rate repression. The United States is broke — fiscally, morally, intellectually — and the Fed has incited a global currency war (Japan just signed up, the Brazilians and Chinese are angry, and the German-dominated euro zone is crumbling) that will soon overwhelm it. When the latest bubble pops, there will be nothing to stop the collapse. If this sounds like advice to get out of the markets and hide out in cash, it is. ”
– David Stockman

Read the entire thing HERE.

The folks over at American Mercenary want to remind us all what a collapse looks like:

“Collapse looks like today. And collapse will look like tomorrow, and the day after that.”

“Collapse looks like everything getting more expensive. Roads getting turned from blacktop back into gravel. Abandoned houses being stripped of copper wire. Cities not able to provide fire, police, and EMS teams to every neighborhood.”

“All organisms have a life cycle. Some are violently fast like E. Coli, replicating itself every eleven minutes until it destroys the environment or comes into harmony with it, being killed as often as it splits. Or fast and insidious like a virus, invading cells to do nothing but replicate replicate replicate until it is stopped by the host, or kills the host, but not before moving on to a new host.”

“All life cycles have a part labeled, “death.”

“In a normal cycle you have “origin/birth, rapid growth/maturation, reproduction, death.” Normally that “reproduction” part of the cycle is the point of hope, the continuing of the wheel of time. But as the wheel of time spits out a new generation the windmill of fate tosses you to the ash heap of history.”

“History is a funny subject. You cannot do an experiment with history, so you really aren’t a scientist but you can learn powerful insights into the way things are, because of the way things were. Sometimes I like to think that the way things are now will be a good indicator of the way things will be in the future.”
– American Mercenary

Read the entire thing HERE.

In a nut shell… the collapse of our civilization is… this… welcome aboard the good ship Titanic. Stay a while. Stay forever…

When direct taxation on individuals do not work, simply apply a tax to the corporations. If not anything else, we will control incentive on free enterprise….

French President Francois Hollande may have finally found a way to tax the really rich: by making their companies pay.

In a televised interview Thursday night, he said he wants companies that pay their employees more than 1 million euros ($1.3 million) to pay 75 percent payroll taxes on those salaries.

The proposed tax, which still needs to be approved by parliament, replaces one of Hollande’s signature campaign proposals: to tax individuals who earns more than 1 million euros at 75 percent. France’s highest court has thrown out that plan and the government has been looking for a replacement.

“What’s my idea? It’s not to punish,” Hollande said. “When so much is asked of employees, can those who are the highest-paid not make this effort for two years?”

As we all know, going to a full digital currency only ignites the elites hatred if it outside the confines of the their control structure.  Within that structure, within that control, they are masters. This means that “we” in this era must expect changes to economic policy in order for this cycle to play out. There should be no surprise to anyone these changes will be evident when that control is threatened. From Hedge..

The Russians are taking a page from the Europeans book (and not a positive one for libertarians). Given the substantial criminal activity and illegal entrepreneurship in Russia – the grey and black economies account for 50–65 percent of GDP and estimates that about $50 billion was taken out of Russia illegally in 2012 alone – the great and glorious leaders have decided to impose restrictions on cash transactions. As Russia Beyond The Headlines reports, Russia may ban cash payments for purchases of more than 300,000 rubles (around $10,000) starting in 2015 – starting with a higher ($19,500) restriction in 2014. They will also enforce mandatory cash-free salary payments (cash compensation accounts for 15% of GDP currently) in an effort to both bring some of the population’s ‘grey’ income out of the shadow; and increase the volume of cash reserves in the banks. It would appear that wherever we look now, leadership are realizing that the limits of fiscal and monetary policy have been reached and now changing rules, limiting freedom, and outright confiscation are the only way to maintain a status quo. Ironic really, when the enforcement of said rules may just be the catalyst for the end of the status quo as the middle class suffers.

There is another side to the move toward plastic, however. Cash-free payments will result in higher prices for some goods and services. The middle class will suffer the most, because the “risk group” includes property and automobile transactions. The luxury segment will also be affected, including customized tours.

Full Hedge article HERE

The Necromancer Minion Calculator has been fixed, updated to the latest patches, and now works properly. Click HERE to use it.

A letter posted by Mike Vanderboegh of the Sipsey Street Irregulars:

Any man who seeks to deny essential liberty to another without cause is an evil son of a bitch. He cannot be a “Good Man”. It is irrelevant if his family likes him or if he is kind to animals, sends his mother in-law flowers or makes the trains run on time. It is irrelevant if you served with him or if he has done brave things in the past. No amount of desire to “protect” or to “secure” or “prevent” will improve him. Declarations of his desire to apply “common sense” and be “reasonable” cannot redeem him. His desire to deny essential liberty to one, based on the actions of others, reveals the monster that abides in the soul of that man. If he seeks this, stating that the loss of liberty is necessary for the health of the society, he is the philosophical twin of every tyrant and mass murdering butcher in history. If American society is to survive, the decent, honest citizens must band together to drive these evil people from our society. They must suppress their innate “live and let live” philosophy and face the unpleasant fact that the man who seeks to deny an individual or a society those essential liberties is a potential killer whose bloody solutions will be incrementally revealed as he gains power.
– Bob Wright

Read the original HERE along with the comments.

Simply perfect.

Banks wrote off $3 billion of student loan debt in the first two months of 2013, up more than 36 percent from the year-ago period, as many graduates remain jobless, underemployed or cash-strapped in a slow U.S. economic recovery, an Equifax (EFX.N) study showed.

“Continued weakness in labor markets is limiting work options once people graduate or quit their programs, leading to a steady rise in delinquencies and loan write-offs,” Equifax Chief Economist Amy Crews Cutts said in a statement.

U.S. student loan debt reform has become a more pressing issue since the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) reported in March 2012 that the total surpassed $1 trillion by the end of 2011 and as interest rates on subsidized Stafford loan rates are set to double in July.

Delinquencies have spiked in the last eight years, with about 17 percent of the nearly 40 million student loan borrowers at least 90 days past due on their repayments, a February report from the New York Federal Reserve Bank showed.

Looks like the pressure on the dam is building…

Full Reuters Article HERE

Looks like China and Brazil are ready to strengthen their economic ties further and continue to establish a work-around to the current worlds reserve currency and trade dynamic. Reuters reports HERE

BRICS members China and Brazil agreed on Tuesday to trade in their own currencies the equivalent of up to $30 billion per year, moving to take almost half of their trade exchanges out of the U.S. dollar zone.

The agreement, due to last three years and signed hours before the start of a BRICS summit in Durban, South Africa, marked a step by the two largest economies of the emerging powers group to make real changes to global trade flows long dominated by the United States and Europe.

Trade between the two countries totalled around $75 billion in 2012. Brazilian officials have said they hope to have the trade and currency deal operating in the second half of 2013.

At the summit in Durban, the fifth held by the group since 2009, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are widely expected to endorse plans to create a joint foreign exchange reserves pool and an infrastructure bank. They are also due to discuss trade and investment relations with Africa.

Looks like the timetable has been upped some from the last time we check on this. An established foreign exchange reserve and infrastructure bank could severely undermine the dollar’s supremacy at a point where a swing in power is clearly evident.

Bloomberg Notes:

The biggest emerging markets are uniting to tackle under-development and currency volatility with plans to set up institutions that encroach on the roles of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. “The deepest rationale for the BRICS is almost certainly the creation of new Bretton Woods-type institutions that are inclined toward the developing world,” Martyn Davies, chief executive officer of Johannesburg-based Frontier Advisory, which provides research on emerging markets, said in a phone interview. “There’s a shift in power from the traditional to the emerging world. There is a lot of geo-political concern about this shift in the western world.”

The BRICS nations, which have combined foreign-currency reserves of $4.4 trillion and account for 43 percent of the world’s population, are seeking greater sway in global finance to match their rising economic power. They have called for an overhaul of management of the World Bank and IMF, which were created in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in 1944, and oppose the practice of their respective presidents being drawn from the U.S. and Europe.

Trade within the group surged to $282 billion last year from $27 billion in 2002 and may reach $500 billion by 2015, according to data from Brazil’s government. Foreign direct invesment into BRICS nations reached $263 billion last year, accounting for 20 percent of global FDI flows, up from 6 percent in 2000, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development said on its website yesterday.

“If they announce a BRICS bank it will be quite something,” O’Neill said in an e-mailed reply to questions on March 15. “At a minimum it symbolizes they can achieve something as political group and means lots of other things could follow in the future. It also means that they will have their own kind of special World Bank, which may aid infrastructure and trade projects.”

Interest rates near zero in the U.S., Japan and Europe have fueled foreign investors’ appetite for higher-yielding assets, driving up currencies from Brazil to Turkey. Brazil has warned of a global currency war as nations take reciprocal action to weaken their currencies and protect export industries.

Full Bloomberg Article can be viewed HERE

T.L. Davis of T.L. in Exile makes his final post:

A lawless government breeds a lawless public.

I don’t know when the apple turns, it has for me already. I feel bound by no laws the federal government has passed through its sham of a legislature. I regard them as laws passed in commission of a fraud. To whatever extent I obey a federal law it is within my understanding of rightful liberty.

Civility is not a legal thing, it is a social thing. One might pass all the hate-speech laws they wish, it does not change the heart wherein lies the hate. The speech one uses is a reflection of the inner self and to pass laws against speech is to pass laws against emotion, against expression, against the privacy of one’s skull.

To pass laws against possession of guns will not stop violence, it will not stop possession, it will only escalate the encounter between police and otherwise law-abiding citizens. It will indeed make outlaws of those who possess guns.

These laws are laws passed by a government estranged from the people; a government peering down at the masses concerned mostly with control of those masses, not working in conjunction with the people to find that elusive, necessary balance between liberty and security.

These laws show a disrespect for the people; a contempt for them and rightfully so. The people have lacked any significant education over the past several decades where social engineering has replaced the purpose of educators and indoctrination the purpose of the schools. Why should the government view the people as capable of anything other than following orders?

But for the rebels.

There are those who recall a once great nation. One in which the government feared abridging liberty for the backlash it would cause. There has been an unhealthy lack of fear in these recent decades.

Whenever the collectivists wish to abolish certain rights they claim that the founders could not have conceived of a society wherein there were cars, or school shootings, etc. What they never address is that the founders could not have conceived of a nation of children afraid to arise against the power of the government, fearful of the methods of oppression the government has developed. They could not have conceived of citizens fearful of speaking out, fearful of the IRS, fearful of rogue agencies denying rights as if they were mere suggestions.

It is time to start taking our rights seriously. It is past time. We risk the destruction of all rights if we do not fight back now. There is no future time when it will be “okay” to fight back against this Goliath.

I confess I am losing interest in this blog. I know there are a number of people who consider these words, these points of view valuable and I thank them for that, but really, it is useless.

It is time to respect the laws of this nation with the same regard the government officials have for the Constitution. It is time to honor this society with the reverence those in public service have for their oaths of office.

This is not America.

Whatever patriotism one feels for the United States is misplaced. To fight for America is to fight against those who have entered office under false testimony; those who have sworn to defend something they seek to destroy. There is no talk of going back to the Constitution, only to alter it through judicial ruling and illegal laws.

There is talk of imprisoning citizens for having committed no act. The mere possession of something previously legal is illegal and failure to relinquish it is a crime. This is not America. This is not liberty. This is not justice. There is not one single thing the government has done since the passage of the Patriot Act that is legal, that is right, that is American.

We have been overthrown, a quiet coup, but a coup nonetheless.

We must become counter-revolutionaries and the struggle must begin immediately. We must identify with the counter-revolution and take what comes.

Our nation is sick. It will not heal itself. Standing aside as a concerned relative will not heal the wounds inflicted by the aggressor. It is time to reach our hands into the gore and work to save the nation so many of our troops have died to protect.

That, or turn away, throw up your hands and give it to them freely.

This may be my last post. Anything else I might write will only be fodder for the Goliath.
– T.L. Davis

Read the entire thing – and the comments – HERE.

More and more people are becoming resigned to the inevitable bloodshed that is going to take place in America. It is beyond obvious that words, votes, and pinning hopes on the rulings of corrupt courts will matter. The powers that be are hell-bent on taking the brass ring, and the patriots are weary of rattling their tail.

The warnings have gone unheeded, and the fool’s finger goes wiggling yet again back into the snake’s lair.

It’s time for the rattlesnake to bite. Twas not unprovoked – the blame falls on the shoulders of the cretins sticking their greedy digits in the den, not on the snake defending itself.

Sic semper evello mortem Tyrannis.

The Diablo I characters section is now completed. The Diablo II and III characters are still a work in progress. Click HERE for more information.

Bill Quick at Daily Pundit has brought something to our attention… i.e. the fact that Jim Carrey is a titanic simpering fuck-slag:

Jim Carrey’s ‘Cold Dead Hand’: Hey, here’s a song for ‘heartless motherf*ckers unwilling to bend for the safety of our kids’ | Twitchy

You know, if gun owners were what the gun grabbers say they are, most of the gun grabbers, especially loudmouthed fucktards like Jim Carrey (an over-the-hill has-been whose funniest moments were decades ago) would have been gunned down by now.
– Bill Quick

Read the entire thing HERE.

We’d like to note that this hypocritical sack of dicks is going to be starring in “Kick-Ass 2” as a violence-dishing vigilante – which is enough to draw more than a few well deserves smirks as he waxes poetic on “gun-violence.” Perhaps those of you interested in liberty and individual rights might want to find something else to spend your hard earned money on. Just a thought.

After all – what’s the point of financially supporting our mortal enemies? Starve’em before we have to hang’em.

Looks like we have a bailout folks and those with more than $100,000 of skin in the game are not going to be pleased. Reuters reports HERE

Cyprus dodged a disorderly default and unprecedented exit from the euro by bowing to demands from creditors to shrink its banking system in exchange for 10 billion euros ($13 billion) of aid.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades agreed to shut the country’s second-largest bank under pressure from a German-led bloc in a night-time negotiating melodrama that threatened to rekindle the debt crisis and rattle markets.

With the ECB threatening to cut off emergency financing for tottering banks as soon as today, Cyprus’s leaders engineered another way of shrinking the island’s financial system.

The revised accord spares bank accounts below the insured limit of 100,000 euros. It imposes losses that two EU officials said would be no more than 40 percent on uninsured depositors at Bank of Cyprus Plc, the largest bank, which will take over the viable assets of Cyprus Popular Bank Pcl (CPB), the second biggest.

Cyprus Popular Bank, 84 percent owned by the government, will be wound down. Those who will be largely wiped out include uninsured depositors and bondholders, including senior creditors. Senior bondholders will also contribute to the recapitalization of Bank of Cyprus.

The seizure of larger deposits may spark tensions with Russia, the source of an estimated $31 billion in holdings in Cypriot banks, according to Moody’s Investors Service. A Cypriot mission to Moscow last week failed to yield an alternative to the European-sponsored bailout.

The effort to go after insured deposits, while abandoned, may have harmful repercussions, said Moody’s in a note early today. “Policy makers’ recent decisions raise the risk of deposit outflows, capital flight, increased bank and sovereign funding costs and broader financial-market dislocation throughout the euro area in the future,” Moody’s said.

Up front this may look to be resolved now. However behind the scenes the Russians may not be through with the EU…

There is yet to be a clear reaction from Russia but Russian depositors are likely to be hit hard by this deal. Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov has suggested today that an extension of the €2.5bn loan given to Cyprus is not guaranteed – something which the eurozone indicated was necessary last night. Separately, Russia remains the key energy supplier for most of the EU and has already issued veiled threats around this deal – such as a withdrawal of money from the EU and a switch-away from euro currency reserves.

Russian reaction above and additional summary can be read HERE

Some Russians may or may not have suffered depending on whether or not they found a roundabout to withdraw cash while Cyprus ran around panicking. From REUTERS

In banknotes at cash machines and exceptional transfers for “humanitarian supplies”, large amounts of euros fled the east Mediterranean island before and after Cypriot lawmakers stunned Europe by rejecting a levy on all bank deposits.

No one knows exactly how much money has left Cyprus’ banks, or where it has gone. The two banks at the centre of the crisis – Cyprus Popular Bank, also known as Laiki, and Bank of Cyprus – have units in London which remained open throughout the week and placed no limits on withdrawals. Bank of Cyprus also owns 80 percent of Russia’s Uniastrum Bank, which put no restrictions on withdrawals in Russia. Russians were among Cypriot banks’ largest depositors.

While ordinary Cypriots queued at ATM machines to withdraw a few hundred euros as credit card transactions stopped, other depositors used an array of techniques to access their money.

Companies that had to meet margin calls to avoid defaulting on deals were granted funds. Transfers for trade in humanitarian products, medicines and jet fuel were allowed.

Chris Pavlou, who was vice chairman of Laiki until Friday, said while some money was withdrawn over a period of several days it was in the order of millions of euros, not billions.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the bank closure had limited capital flight but that the ECB was looking closely at the issue. He declined to provide figures.

Update from GATA: From another angle it looks like offshore account party is over for Cyprus…

For Fedor Mikhin the deluge of overseas phone calls began on Wednesday, just five days after the EU first proposed the ill-fated tax levy on Cypriot depositors.

There were the two Andorran bankers who called offering to open bank accounts for the Cyprus-based businessman in the Pyrenees, and then Mr Mikhin’s Swiss bank, which announced it would be sending representatives to Limassol to poach Russian clients on Tuesday, the day Cyprus is due to reopen its banks for the first time in over a week.

While last week saw dozens of well-heeled Russians and their representatives fly down to Cyprus to check on bank accounts and confer furiously with Cypriot officials, they are being closely followed by another wave of visitors: the European bankers who hope Cyprus’ loss will be their gain.

One Cypriot lawyer with Russian clients said he had already been approached by half-a-dozen European banks in locales ranging from Latvia to Switzerland to Germany, some of them promising they could open new bank accounts for his clients in under an hour.

In Limassol, a lawyer for a Russian oligarch described receiving a call from the tycoon’s Swiss bank, which offered to open bank accounts for all the oligarch’s Cyprus-based employees as a favour, as well as emails from a dozen local Cypriot consulting firms imploring him to use their services when opening new accounts abroad.

While it remains to be seen how Cyprus’ many Russian businessmen will be affected by the proposed bailout and what comes after, most appear to have one foot out the door already. They are now considering to which jurisdiction they will move their businesses and how.

“The Cypriots killed their country in one day,” says Mr Mikhin, referring to Friday March 15, when President Nicos Anastasides accepted the EU’s proposal to seize E5.8 billion in emergency funds from Cyprus’ local and foreign depositors.

“The locals should understand: As soon as the money leaves, the people who go to restaurants, buy cars, and buy property leave too. The Cypriots’ means of living will disappear,” he says. “They are saying we laundered all the money, but they lived on that money for 10 years and forgot about it.”

Brandon Smith at Alt-Markets reminds our task-masters that their days are numbered:

Years ago while writing for Neithercorp Press I penned an article entitled “One Day Soon, We’ll All Be Homegrown Terrorists”. In that piece I described a not so far off future in which martial law, economic collapse, and the destruction of civil liberties stood imminent. I related my views on the propaganda rhetoric of the SPLC, and how they were using false association to tie liberty groups to any deviant organization they could think of, including racists and domestic terrorists, in order to condition the American public to react to our message with immediate contempt.

It became clear to me then that the SPLC, which had become the propaganda wing of the widely reviled Department Of Homeland Security, was helping set the stage for a paradigm shift in the U.S. This shift would obviously include economic and social disruption, as well as political turmoil beyond anything our nation has seen for over 150 years. But most importantly, it would pave the way for certain elements of the American populace, namely those who are awake, aware, and outspoken, to be labeled “enemy combatants” dangerous to the state.

Though posing as an anti-racist monitoring institution, the SPLC’s primary concern has never been the KKK or “White Identity”. Rather, the SPLC’s job has been and always will be to marginalize and defame those who stand against centralized federal power, regardless of how corrupt that power has become. They are not anti-racists, or liberals, or concerned citizens; they are STATISTS, who only care about maintaining the superiority of a government that has been bought and paid for many times over by a gaggle of international financiers with delusions of godhood.

The SPLC, of course, has so far utterly failed in their efforts to stop the rise of Constitutional activists. By their own admission, “patriot groups” have expanded exponentially since 2008, and continue to develop freely even in the face of wildly absurd character attacks taken from the amoral (immoral) guidebook of Saul Alinsky himself. The truth, once realized, is difficult if not impossible to stop.

Unfortunately, the establishment understands this as well…

Given a few more years, the Liberty Movement will indeed prevail in the struggle for the “infowar”. Naysayers who claimed we were merely an ineffective and irrelevant peripheral of society are now faced with a strong and growing minority which has the power to swing state and local elections, as we did in 2012, simply by refusing to vote for oath breaking Republicans, sending the message that if the Republican party ever wants to win again, they had better run honest Constitutionalists. Those who claimed our message was “insane conspiracy theory” must now explain the indefinite detention and rendition provisions of the NDAA, the government approved unleashing of 30,000 surveillance drones in American skies, the Obama Administration’s assassination list which includes U.S. citizens, and the push for gun registration and confiscation which is already beginning to take place in some states.

How did we know what was coming? Was it intuition or lucky conjecture? Neither. All we had to do was look at the trends of the day and use logic to discern the most likely outcome.

Our concerns, which were once called “fringe”, are now going mainstream. We were right, they were wrong. Though, I wish we had been wrong.
– Brandon Smith

The finisher:

Regardless of what they might say about us in the future, these are the reasons why we will fight, and our pledges to resist are not empty assertions. We will stop the course of tyranny from completing in this country and in this era, one way or another. If this makes us “extremists”, or “terrorists”, then so be it. I, for one, am tired of the long running game of lies and reserved rhetoric. They know a fight is coming, and we know a fight is coming. Let’s just admit it and be done with it. Their greatest weakness is that they have to use deceit, propaganda, media monopoly, and false flag violence in order to convince the public that they are the “right side”. All we have to do is continue telling the truth, and stand fast.
– Brandon Smith

Read all of his article HERE – and the comments.

We hope Mr Smith’s right. We have to, since it’s either hope on the long-shot, or tumble into a pit of black despair. Before this sick tapestry has unfurled, there will be literal buckets of blood spilled – that of tyrants, patriots, and (sadly, as always), the innocent – all co-mingled.

Such is the price of liberty left undefended.

One thing is for certain, the SPLC is purely a wacko moonbat propaganda mill, but we’re not entirely certain how seriously they are taken by anyone standing to the right of Noam Chomsky. Even the leftist controlled media outlets are reluctant to run with Southern Poverty Law bilge sauce – the info is so comically false that even the low information crowd casts an jaundiced eye on their stats.

Their clownish public image does nothing to mitigate the fact the SPLC is a posse of evil fuck-offs who probably deserve to swing from a rope however.

Time for an update on the Cyprus debacle from HEDGE…

It seems that the Cypriot government is going full circle on its plans to save its nation and its people. As UK Think Tank Open Europe notes, “it now seems we have come all the way back round to the deposit levy as a solution in Cyprus. Overnight, the EU/IMF/ECB Troika rejected the plans for a Cypriot solidarity fund, particularly one based on pension assets and gas reserve revenues (which German Chancellor Angela Merkel specifically spoke out against).” The new – Plan ‘D’ – (Plan A – Haircuts; Plan B – Beg Russia for Bailout; Plan C – Solidarity Fund) appears to be moar haircuts and double-dip on the large depositors (seemingly what Brussels wants anyway). Plan ‘D’ – a restructuring and bigger deposit levy(a 12.2% tax on deposits above €500,000 or a 9.46% deposit on deposits above €100,000 would yield the necessary €3.5bn) – “may amount to trying to burn the larger depositors twice,” as the plan to shift bad assets to a bad bank (along with the large uninsured depositors) and wound down (meaning 20-40% losses) and still face the initial large-deposit-tax – leaving the Russians large depositors with 50%-plus losses.

Thinking about the plan in more detail, it occurred to us that this may amount to trying to burn the larger depositors twice. As we noted in today’s press summary, the plan essentially is to move all the bad assets to a bad bank, along with the large uninsured depositors (€100,000+). These assets would then be wound down or sold off at a large discount with the depositors footing the bill (and taking losses of 20% – 40%). This, along with the merging of Bank of Cyprus and the good bank, is how the recapitalisation costs will be reduced by €2.3bn.

So, the large depositors will take significant losses here and yet may still face a large deposit tax as well? That seems to be pushing the boundaries to us, although it is not impossible. Cyprus would not recover as destination for foreign investment for some time. One way to structure this could be for the tax only to be applied to depositors above €500,000 (as we suggest below) and the bad bank to apply to all uninsured deposits. Obviously, the bad bank scheme also only applies to Laiki bank, but as the second largest Cypriot bank it is still likely to account for a large amount of big deposits.

Still this could see larger depositors taking up to 50% hits in some cases. We can’t imagine Moscow would take that one lying down

Bloomberg Adds HERE

As Russia spurned the island nation’s bid for a loan, Merkel told a closed-door meeting of legislators in Berlin today that she’s annoyed the Cypriot government hasn’t been in touch with the so-called troika of international creditors for days, according to a party official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the briefing was private. Cyprus’s decision to test Europe is unacceptable, she told them.

“We’re not ready to accept solutions that are full of wind,” Michael Fuchs, deputy parliamentary leader of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, said after the meeting. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to play poker in this matter, especially when you think that there’s a risk that two banks will become insolvent next Monday.”

Sounds pretty serious Merkel. You want to play chicken, you better be able to call the bluff. Some countries may not just roll-over and beg.

Figured it would happen eventually. There was no way the powers that be would let Bitcoin hang around to long without some measures to assure full circumvention of the banking system did not occur. Step one of course had to be a legitimate, reasonable entry into the regulation process so that steps 2, 3, & infinity could then follow. Lets take a look at step one….

WallStreet Journal Reports HERE

“the U.S. is applying money-laundering rules to “virtual currencies,” amid growing concern that new forms of cash bought on the Internet are being used to fund illicit activities.”

The move means that firms that issue or exchange the increasingly popular online cash will now be regulated in a similar manner as traditional money-order providers such as Western Union Co. WU +0.07% They would have new bookkeeping requirements and mandatory reporting for transactions of more than $10,000.

Moreover, firms that receive legal tender in exchange for online currencies or anyone conducting a transaction on someone else’s behalf would be subject to new scrutiny, said proponents of Internet currencies. The arm of the Treasury Department that fights money laundering said Monday that the standard federal banking rules aimed at suspicious dollar transfers also apply to firms that issue or exchange money that isn’t linked to any government and exists only online.

“We are beyond the stage where this was just funny money and a fun online thing. This is used as a currency,” said Nicolas Christin, associate director of Carnegie Mellon University’s Information Networking Institute.

Bitcoins can be used in a host of legitimate transactions—for example, website Reddit allows users to upgrade services using bitcoins and blog service WordPress.com’s store accepts them as a form of payment. Pizzaforcoins.com also lets bitcoin savers pay for deliveries through Domino’s and other pizzerias.

On the other hand, at least one online service takes bitcoins as payment for illegal drugs, according to a Federal Bureau of Investigation report last year. Bitcoin’s backers point out that criminals will use any currency for money laundering or illegal purchases.

“I think it’s inevitable that just like you have U.S. dollars used by thieves and criminals, it’s sadly inevitable you will have criminals use a virtual currency. We want to work with authorities,” said Jeff Garzik, a Bitcoin developer.

What they are not reporting is this comes at the heels of mass downloads of PtP Bitcoin apps from the web. Ranging from Argentina and now to Spain and the rest of Europe. Mr. Bill Still noted that any currency that is finite and regulated will retain value, even with no physical backing. As people realize they get no return on deposits anyways due to low interest rate policies, and that their money isn’t really “theirs” anymore, why be in the system anyways? As Hedge notes HERE, HERE

And in Argentina….

My friend Sir Charles at PricedinGold.com wrote me this morning from Argentina’s Salta province (near Doug Casey’s lovely property in Cafayate) and told me that TEA Turismo, a local tour operator and rental car agency there has started accepting BITCOINS.

If you’re not familiar, bitcoins are digital currency units that are not controlled by any government. Bitcoins can be exchanged for goods, services, and other currencies, privately and anonymously.

For obvious reasons, Bitcoins are becoming increasingly popular in Argentina as people seek any means necessary to survive the economic destruction.

Needless to say, it would have been a hell of a lot easier to take these steps BEFORE it all hit the fan… not after.

Daniel Greenfield at Sultan Knish sums up our titanic cluster-fuck:

China pretends that America isn’t being run by lefty professors-for-life with worse math skills than manatees and America pretends that China’s economy isn’t one giant Potemkin village maintained with currency manipulation and slave labor. Everyone pretends that everyone wants to be in the EU, despite a pesky refusal to hold actual referendums on the topic (and to ignore those that have been held) and also pretends not to notice all the money in the EU budget that can’t be accounted for.

All this is Cyprus and Greece, but on a much bigger scale. Everyone is spending money that they don’t have as a return on future investments that depend on improved productivity and development; even as most of those countries commit to a Green worldview that exchanges development and productivity for austerity and malaise. China can still put pedal to the metal, because its middle class is still only forming. Once it has fully formed and the currency games end, then so will China’s boom.

Whether or not other governments and their banking systems begin looting consumers as crudely as the Cyprus scheme attempted to do; loot them they shall. They have been looting them for some time already and there is no way that they are going to stop. The social and financial systems of the modern world are much too expensive and too unsustainable to do anything else. All this will be declared necessary. It will hit the rich harder than the middle class, on paper, though the reality will be different. And it will go on hitting the middle class, because that is, as a famous bank robber once said, where the money is.

The middle class is the economic heart of a nation. Building it up moves a country into first rank status. And then everything else follows, including a gargantuan government. Unbuilding a country requires trashing the middle class. And we are now in the unbuilding phase of human civilization.

The left likes to pretend that removing the middle class will make room for some clean regime of the oppressed. What it will actually do is remove the citizenry with enough power and wealth to keep government in check and replace it with beggars and rebels who depend on government subsidies while hating the government. If you want to see what an extended bout of that looks like, you can travel to the Middle East. These days you can try Europe as well.
– Daniel Greenfield

And the closer:

That is one more reason why American liberals should not be too proud of the Obama machine. What looks shiny and clever in 2013 may take on a whole different appearance as the malaise drags on and an angry jobless generation looks to get its payback and paychecks by voting for anyone who screams the loudest.

Beating Mitt Romney was no great achievement. Neither was beating McCain. But at some point the government-media complex of social welfare and crony capitalism will go up against an angry populist with an agenda and an organized movement, from the right or the left, and then things will get properly ugly. That man isn’t on the scene yet, but he’s probably hanging around meetings somewhere and imagining what he will do if he ever gets the chance. And if he ever gets the chance, it won’t be pretty.
– Daniel Greenfield

Read the entire thing HERE.

Mr. Greenfield is dead on – all this shit is paving the way for something horrible. Something Hitler would hold in awe.

If Jugg-ears the blight-bringer and his merry band of puppeteers don’t burn the joint down first that is.

Via Hedge HERE

Although understandable why someone would put their money in a Swiss account considering rampant government theft, it is probably poor form to be in charge of Tax evasion for your country then be caught with said account…

Moments ago French budget minister Monsieur Cahuzac resigned, for the same reason he had been investigated several months ago. Namely, having an “undisclosed” Swiss bank account. Minister in charge of battling tax fraud… resigns for having a secret Swiss account. We’ll let that sink in for a bit before we go back to that other farce in the eastern Mediterranean.

It’s been some time now since it first came to light that JPMorgan was naked short selling silver on the market (silver they never had to begin with). With these large positions, they can drive the price down at opportune times and hold silver under key resistance levels and essentially control the market. At opportune times, they can remove those positions slowly with little harm. When silver shot up unexpectedly, they were caught with their britches down and had to begin flooding the market to allow time to un-lever. Short 40% of the net contracts, but not holding any of the physical, any rise in silver price could kill should it be called in. Hence, the noted manipulation lawsuit brought against JP a few years ago. Not to mention the out of left field margin requirement hikes which cooled off the Silver run.

Well, looks like the bad guys win this round again… Via Reuters HERE

U.S. District Judge Robert Patterson in Manhattan said the investors, who bought and sold COMEX silver futures and options contracts, failed to show that JPMorgan manipulated prices at their expense, including by amassing huge short positions that were not justified by market events at the time.

In a decision made public on Monday, Patterson said that while the investors showed that JPMorgan had the ability to influence prices, a fact the bank did not dispute, they failed to show that the bank “intended to cause artificial prices to exist” and acted accordingly.

A lawyer for the investors did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

JPMorgan did not immediately respond to a similar request.

Investors had, in at least 43 complaints filed in 2010 and 2011, accused banks of amassing hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal profit by manipulating silver prices.

After the lawsuits were consolidated, HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA.L) was dropped in September 2011 as a defendant, leaving JPMorgan and 20 unnamed individuals as defendants.

Patterson had rejected the investors’ claims in December, but gave them one last chance to bolster their case.

The complaint had sought triple damages for what it called JPMorgan’s antitrust violations in distorting silver prices between 2007 and 2010, including through alleged “fake” trades late in the day when market volume was thin.

Jarluf’s Damage Calculations, Magic Find Tables, the Updated Runewords Listing, and Horodric Cube Recipes have been updated and formatted. For more information, click HERE.

Looks like we are getting a little more than we bargained for with the Cyprus fiasco. Jim Sinclair at King World News gives his take HERE

“The wire reports on the Cyprus situation are working overtime to try to make the case that 80% of the deposits belong to the people of Cyprus, and only 20% of the deposits belong to the Russians.  That’s absolutely false.  After 1985, when the ‘Robber Barrons’ of Russia took over the general economics of Russia, that was the transformation from the KGB to private business.  The primary place for exported Russian funds was Cyprus.

“What’s just happened is the IMF has backed up, lauded, supported, and publicized, as if it were a victory, the taking of 10% of what really turns out to be 80% of Russian ‘black money.’  Russian ‘black money’ is KGB money, now in business.  The leader of Russia (Putin) was a former KGB official.  Whose money do you think they have taken?  This is the biggest mistake the IMF could possibly have ever made.”

It’s very dangerous in doing business with the Russians, to lose their money.  Revenge will be very much a part of the motivation for what happens from this point forward.  This type of event will take us out of the $1,500s and we may never see those prices again in our lifetimes.”

Have you ever danced with the Devil by the pail Moon light?

Update from Hedge/Reuters

Reuters headlines crossing the closing tape, supposedly out of a (very credible) Greek source, according to whom the Eurogroup will give Cyprus more flexibility on bank levy, and that Cyprus should safeguard depositors under €100,000…

Finally, the Russian response to the discovery that haircuts on big deposits just rose from 9.9% to over 15% will hardly be warm and cuddly.

And updated again HERE

It now seems sure that the ongoing discussion in Cyprus’ government will see a “no” vote as the WSJ is reporting a rather stunning gamble by the Cypriots (and by Cypriots we mean European leaders) to force the Russians to bear the brunt of the cost of the bailout. The non-resigned Cypriot FinMin is heading to Russia to propose a deal that includes imposing a 20% to 30% levy on Russian-held deposits in Cypriot banks, which could cost them billions of euros. In exchange, Russia will be given equity in Cyprus’s future national gas company and some additional strategic benefits in the sector, while Russian investors would be given control of the board of directors at Cyprus’s banks. The apparent quid pro quo in this deal does nothing to hide the fact that private property was stolen and while pointing fingers just at the Russians may play well for PR purposes, it is described as “a long shot” as the Kremlin notes, “it’s practically impossible to talk without knowing details.”

Nothing new, but musing none the less. The bank of Cyprus has “gone there”, to that place the overlords said we would never go…

Cyprus will impose a levy of 6.75% on deposits of less than €100,000 – the ceiling for European Union account insurance, which is now effectively gone following this case study – and 9.9% above that. The measures will raise €5.8 billion, Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who leads the group of euro-area ministers, said…

And what happens when the Cypriot bank run that has taken the country by storm this morning spreads everywhere else, now that the scab over Europe’s biggest festering wound is torn throughout the periphery as all the other PIIGS realize they too are expendable on the altar of mollifying voters and investors in the other countries that make up Europe’s disunion.

Officials have struggled to find an agreement that would rescue Cyprus, which accounts for just half of a percent of the euro region’s economy, without unsettling investors in larger countries and sparking a new round of market contagion. Policy makers began meeting at 5 p.m. yesterday in a hastily convened gathering, seeking to overcome differences on bondholder losses while financial markets were closed.

While the tax on deposits will hurt wealthy Russians with money in Cypriot banks, it will also sting ordinary citizens. Some ATMs in the country have run out of cash, Erotokritos Chlorakiotis, general manager of the Cooperative Central Bank, told state-run CYBC.

Funds to pay the levy were frozen in accounts immediately, ECB Executive Board Member Joerg Asmussen said. The levy will be assessed before Cypriot banks reopen on March 19 after a March 18 national holiday. Sarris said electronic transfers will also be limited until then.

It didn’t take long before the Cyrpus Cooperative bank issued a statement saying “some ATMs run out of cash” – by some they likely mean all as the entire country is now gripped in a full force depositor run.

With the first light of day after the unprecedented decision to the Eurogroup on the terms of the Memorandum of Agreement and the taxation of savings, hundreds of people flocked to Cyprus stores credit cooperatives Larnaca to withdraw their deposits.

With the opening of stores found they could not withdraw all their money, because the electronic system of credit cooperatives was not working. And when it became possible, writes the Daily Cyprus, the system seemed to finally hit the appropriate amount of the new tax, which provoked strong reactions. Even after the government ordered the stores eventually closed.

At the same time, according to information or ATMs of banks give no money so that there is a huge inconvenience.

Congratulations Cyprus savers – you were just betrayed by both your politicians, and by Europe – sorry, but you are the “creeping impairments” in the game known as European bankruptcy. And so is anywhere between 6.75% and 9.9% of your money, which you were foolish enough to keep with your banks (where at least you were compensated with a savings yield of… 0%).

More importantly, as of this morning Europe has finally grasped that there is a 6.75% to 9.9% premium to holding physical cash in your mattress rather than having it stored with your local friendly insolvent bank.

Full Hedge/Boomberg/Philenews HERE

aaaaaaaaand a bit more since this is really heating up…..

In a radical departure from previous aid packages, euro zone finance ministers want Cyprus savers to forfeit up to 9.9 percent of their deposits in return for a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout to the island, which has been financially crippled by its exposure to neighboring Greece.

The decision, announced on Saturday morning, stunned Cypriots and caused a run on cashpoints, most of which were depleted within hours. Electronic transfers were stopped.

The move to take a percentage of deposits, which could raise almost 6 billion euros, must be ratified by parliament, where no party has a majority. If it fails to do so, President Nicos Anastasiades has warned, Cyprus’s two largest banks will collapse.

One bank, the Cyprus Popular Bank, could have its emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) funding from the European Central Bank cut by March 21.

A default in Cyprus could unravel investor confidence in the euro zone, undoing the improvements fostered by the European Central Bank’s promise last year to do whatever it takes to shore up the currency bloc.

A meeting of parliament scheduled for 10.00 a.m. ET on Sunday was postponed for a day to give more time for consultations and broker a deal, political sources said. The levy was scheduled to come into force on Tuesday, after a bank holiday on Monday.

BREAKS A TABOO

Making bank depositors bear some of the costs of a bailout had been taboo in Europe, but euro zone officials said it was the only way to salvage Cyprus’s financial sector, which is around eight times the size of the economy.

European officials said it would not set a precedent.

Via Reuters

Hitler bails out Cyprus HERE

Image above: Some depositor left his bulldozer in from of Cyprus bank. Something must have “upset” him….

The Diablo Character Class pages are under construction, so expect some weird issues and styling problems. I.E. YES WE KNOW IT’S FUCKED UP. Also, we are looking for those knowledgeable in Diablo III Skills and classes for our write-up.

For more information, click HERE.

Welp, looks like we got another one of those “plans” in the works. According to Reuters

The proposed plan represents a major step by U.S. intelligence agencies to spot and track down terrorist networks and crime syndicates by bringing together financial databanks, criminal records and military intelligence. The plan, which legal experts say is permissible under U.S. law, is nonetheless likely to trigger intense criticism from privacy advocates…

Financial institutions that operate in the United States are required by law to file reports of “suspicious customer activity,” such as large money transfers or unusually structured bank accounts, to Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

The Federal Bureau of Investigation already has full access to the database. However, intelligence agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, currently have to make case-by-case requests for information to FinCEN.

The Treasury plan would give spy agencies the ability to analyze more raw financial data than they have ever had before, helping them look for patterns that could reveal attack plots or criminal schemes.

The planning document, dated March 4, shows that the proposal is still in its early stages of development, and it is not known when implementation might begin.

A move like the FinCEN proposal “raises concerns as to whether people could find their information in a file as a potential terrorist suspect without having the appropriate predicate for that and find themselves potentially falsely accused,” said Sharon Bradford Franklin, senior counsel for the Rule of Law Program at the Constitution Project, a non-profit watchdog group.

Despite these concerns, legal experts emphasize that this sharing of data is permissible under U.S. law. Specifically, banks’ suspicious activity reporting requirements are dictated by a combination of the Bank Secrecy Act and the USA PATRIOT Act, which offer some privacy safeguards.

Might want to keep an eye on this one.

Preacher over at Watchman A. Hornblower joins the growing chrous:

I spent but 4 years serving in the U.S.M.C. That was 40 years ago. I have never deserted my Oath nor will I. I’m not as young as then, not as capable nor as strong. This one thing I am: more determined today to defend and protect whatever of mine that would be placed at risk by those of you who would subvert my peaceful existance.

I do not want this fight which you and your kind have instigated. This fight frightens me to my very core – not for my sake because I’ve been blessed beyond my deserving. I fear for my children’s children and what they will suffer in unacceptable loss of individual and collective freedoms.

I don’t look to fight but I am armed and will remain so in anticipation of your conspiratorial aggresion which will inevitably reach out personally against me and mine. You have made this a personal fight and I take it very personally. When you do come, with your overwhelming numbers and machinery, I will not run. It has been expressed that your numbers in public actions display the level of fear you have of us. Your fears are well founded. God as my witness, when you come, there will be those of you who will not “go home safe”. We must not lose. Nor may we neglect to rise up in fury with the full force of wounded Liberty.

What did you expect? Unreserved subjection? An abject surrender of all we hold dear? Did you really think that all of America would prostrate herself for the cause of the collective? Really? You have been wrong in all your expectations.

Read the whole thing and the comments HERE.

Is it becoming abundantly clear where this thing is headed yet?

Get on those preps folks.

If we’re wrong: All parties back down, we don’t have to enjoy a Civil War, and us here at Deth H.Q. will be the happiest of anybody at not having to see loved ones killed and dismembered. We loose all our credibility, and you casual readers, point fingers and laugh at us – which we will gleefully accept, given how horrid the alternative.

The downside for those who take our advice? They got some extra food, which they saved cash on though buying in advance. Food said people then get to enjoy eating. (This is why we advise people to buy the food they normally prepare, not MRE’s, or expensive “survival food”).

The downside is literally zero. Get to work.

Mike Hendrix, over at Cold Fury, issues his final warning to the totalitarian troglodytes seeking to re-create the Armenian Extermination:

I don’t see any way short of violent uprising to stop them. As I’ve noted previously, government health care was the brass ring for liberal-fascists, redefining as it does the relationship between citizen and state; once they successfully grabbed that, they became emboldened by their success, and now they will never stop until uncontested power over their subjects is totally assured. They can never be certain of that while even a handful of patriots remain armed and therefore dangerous to their totalitarian ambitions.

One can almost admire them for the patience and cunning with which they’ve slowly entangled us in their insidious web. More than a hundred years they’ve worked for this moment: from the dawn of the original Progressive movement, through the advent of Gramsci’s, Alinski’s, and Cloward-Pivens’ ideas on practical application of Marxist revolutionary theory, to the election of the first president (Clinton) to have imbibed those toxins almost with his mother’s milk, to the misbegotten disaster of a Peter Principle incarnation now infesting the Oval Office. They’re very nearly home, and they know it.

All they have to do now, really, is kill a few million of us.

Which, per Bill Ayers, they’re perfectly willing to do; call it a small price to pay, since that’s exactly how they’re going to see it. Probably won’t even have to kill that many, they figure, since they assume that we’re all the same sort of craven cowards they are and will no doubt be properly cowed once they’ve dragged only a few of us out of our homes and shot us down like dogs for daring to resist the New Fairness™.

Make no mistake about that one, folks: if patriot blood must be spilled in veritable buckets to complete the transformation of the once-free Republic into their sodden, bankrupt mess of a socialist tyranny, well, hey, you know what they say about omelets and eggs, man.

So, well, yeah: call me foolish, call me irresponsible, call me a paranoid WINGNUTZ!™ extremist loon, but they are most definitely coming, and there will most assuredly be resistance. Bloody resistance. My view on it all? Same as Michael Williamson’s: No, tough shit, and deal with it.

You cannot “protect” a right while calling for limitations on it.

I have a constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms. SCOTUS says so. I’m sorry it makes you feel uncomfortable. At this point, your options are education on the subject, or therapy. Otherwise, you’re trying to negotiate away my rights in exchange for…what? A “compromise” requires each side to give something. So what are you going to give me in exchange?

I’ve never heard anyone from your side (well-intended or not) offer a “compromise.” What they want is for me to give up something I have, in exchange for…nothing.

No. Happy now?

No? Oh, I’m sorry. How about “No”?

You’re not getting what you want. End of discussion. You have nothing to offer, and it wouldn’t matter if you did.

Consider: What can the hardcore fundamentalists offer as a compromise for ending abortion? What can they offer in exchange for outlawing recognition for gay partners? What can they offer in exchange for outlawing pornography?

See the problem? You want 100% of what you have, and 50% of what I have. When you talk about “weapons of easy mass murder,” you’re conflating the concept with guns that I own, and guns that my teenage kids have owned since they were seven years old.

Perfectly normal, common, guns, of the kind that shoot bullets, like every other gun. You do want to take those away from me, or make it more complicated for me to own them, and in exchange, you’re offering me nothing.

So, it’s not a compromise, so there is nothing to discuss.

What we need to discuss is that you’re afraid of something you can’t effectively define in words, and you are a published author. If it’s that hard for you, how hard is it for others? And why should we pass laws based on ignorance?

Constitutional right. I keep repeating it because a lot of well-meaning people are not getting it: It doesn’t matter if you’re unhappy. It wouldn’t matter even if there WERE a connection between particular guns and murder. Much like there is a connection between homosexuality and AIDS. Provably. We live in a free society. We accept that certain actions of the individual aren’t always positive for the body politic. But you can’t argue against one without logically arguing against others. You can say “porn causes rape” or “gays cause AIDS” or “guns cause death” and the answer is, “So what?” even if you could make a valid case for them.

And as you can see from the posts above—the laws don’t work. No effect whatsoever. Rifles are involved in less than 400 killings a year, out of a third of a billion people. Statistically irrelevant, and no cost benefit analysis would support such laws—the police and legal effort is better used elsewhere. Cases in point: The rifle at Sandy Hook was in compliance with CT’s so-called “assault weapon” ban. It wasn’t an “assault weapon.” At Va Tech, the shooter used reduced capacity 10 round magazines. Banning standard capacity magazines (Definitions again: you don’t get to redefine them as “high capacity” or call them “clips” based on your phobia and ignorance) had no effect. So, now New York is asking for 7 round limits…from no limit to 30 to 20 to 15 to 10 to 7 in some jurisdictions. You CANNOT tell me, with that information, that “no one is trying to take away your guns.” Yes, they are.

They most certainly are, and they’re perfectly happy to use ostensibly well-intentioned ignorati like Mike’s correspondent as stalking horses to set the keystone in the frame of their prison-state. Like I said: I’m with Mike. No. Not just no, HELL NO.

Molon labe, motherfuckers. And rotsa ruck with that. You have been warned. All of you, “well-intentioned” or otherwise: You. Have. Been. Warned.

Now: onwards, to whatever sorry, tragic denouement your side can see its way clear to forcing on us. Because again, make no mistake: this blood will be on your hands, not ours. All you have to do to turn the coming horror aside is back off, honor the Constitution (and your oath to it, if you’ve taken one), respect facts, logic, and the simple truth in an adult manner, and leave us the hell alone. Let’s just see if that’s something you’re capable of.

No sensible person will be holding his breath. He’ll be loading mags and hunkering down instead.
– Mike Hendrix

Read the whole thing HERE and follow Mike’s links to other like-minded patriots.

The rattle-snake is positively livid. Our insuferable taskmasters had best tread lightly – this won’t be a dry bite.

T.L. Davis of T.L. in Exile lets his voice ring loud and clear:

“It is dying time.”

“For the better part of a month I have been deliberating on this fact; coming to grips with the implications of it. The powers who exercise control will ultimately come to kill us. The longer we object to their domination, the more surely they will devise a way to eliminate those who recognize them as the enemy.”

“The wave of gun legislation moving through the legislatures of the states is not without complicity with the federal government. What the federal government cannot expect the whole House or Senate to agree to, they have encouraged individually through the states with some success. The result is simply citizen disarmament through any means, which is an act of war against the rights of the people. Those who see their rights being violated and have the nerve to resist have become the enemy of the politician.”

“It is a long list now, that of rights being violated by the federal government. There is no right left in the Bill of Rights that have not come under attack by governments the nation wide. Governments at best are a tolerable evil, but when they focus their police powers against the people and their rights, they have crossed the line from tolerable evil to intolerable evil.”

“The soldier knows when it is time to die. It is determined by men who do not have to suffer the consequences. It is determined by circumstances created by those who gain from it. Politicians do not fear war as the people do. They are safe. They make the policies; they create the conditions. It is left to the people to decide when they have gone too far.”

“They have gone too far.”

“Those entrusted with the finances of this great nation have squandered it and bankrupted the treasury. Those entrusted with the rights of the people have violated them. Those entrusted with the security of the state have forsaken it.”

“They are traitors.”
– T.L. Davis

Read the entire thing HERE – and the comments just might prove useful…

Hat-tip to Old Remus and the Western Rifle Shooters Association for the image:

Just ask the Indians. Or the Bonus Army. Or the Japanese-Americans.

From Hedge, looks as if SEC thinks there is something fishy going on in the great State of Illinois…..

An issue being examined is whether Illinois was taking future savings and treating them as current reductions in the cost of the pension fund, said Robert Kurtter, a managing director in the public finance division at Moody’s Investors Service, who said his firm spoke with Illinois officials about the inquiry. One of the measures that Illinois took to save costs was to raise the retirement age for newly hired Illinois workers.

Illinois’s pension system is only about 50% funded with liabilities of about $136 billion, according to Moody’s. The underfunding, one of the  worst among states in the nation, is partly the result of the state frequently skipping its recommended contributions to fund.

Today, over two years after the above news, the SEC finally concluded HERE their analysis of one part of the massively underfunded Illinois Pension system and found the Illinois failed to inform investors about the impact of problems with its pension funding schedule as the state offered and sold more than $2.2 billion worth of municipal bonds from 2005 to early 2009. The SEC also said Illinois failed to disclose that it had underfunded the state’s pension obligations, increasing the risk to its overall financial condition.

Reuters completes the already well-known picture: “Illinois has one of the worst-funded pension systems in the country. Governor Pat Quinn and the state legislature are currently locked in a political battle as to how best to fix an unfunded liability of $96.8 billion – a gap so large, it has led Illinois to have the worst credit rating among U.S. states.

The SEC’s order finds that Illinois misled investors about the effect of changes to its funding plan, particularly pension holidays enacted in 2005. Although the state disclosed the pension holidays and other legislative amendments to the plan, Illinois did not disclose the effect of those changes on the contribution schedule and its ability to meet its pension obligations. The state’s misleading disclosures resulted from various institutional failures. As a result, Illinois lacked proper mechanisms to identify and evaluate relevant information about its pension systems into its disclosures. For example, Illinois had not adopted or implemented sufficient controls, policies, or procedures to ensure that material information about the state’s pension plan was assembled and communicated to individuals responsible for bond disclosures. The state also did not adequately train personnel involved in the disclosure process or retain disclosure counsel.

Pain trains coming to a State hopefully not near you..

Bob Owens over at his blog points out this latest intolerable act:

Chuck Schumer’s S. 374, the Orwellian “Protecting Responsible Gun Sellers Act of 2013,” has been an empty shell… until he slipped in Amendment ALB13180 (PDF) today, which shows the “teeth” of the bill. It is an extremely aggressive attempt to destroy the Second Amendment by isolating and criminalizing extremely common behaviors among gun owners.

Doubt me?

Take a looking at a sampling of what it Sebastian notes it would outlaw:

– If you leave home for more than 7 days and leave anyone at home, that becomes a felony illegal transfer. 5 years in prison for each of you.

– If you take a friend shooting and allow him to fire your gun, that is a felony illegal transfer. 5 years in prison for each of you.

– If you have a gun lost or stolen and don’t report it within 24 hours, you’ve committed a felony. 5 years in prison.

– If you lend a gun to someone for to try out at the range, provide a loaner for a student in training, let your son shoot a rifle you purchased while hunting, or provide a gun to a woman for self-defense, you’ve committed a felony. 5 years in prison for each of you.

That’s just scratching the surface. Make sure you read the rest about how it could Schumer’s law put gun dealers out of business, and create a de facto national registry… a prelude to confiscation.
– Bob Owens

Click HERE to read the rest, and the comments.

Still think you’re gonna fix this by voting casual readers?

A Commenter over at Resistor in the Rockies reminds people that angry shit-talking is the easy part:

Talk is cheap folks – unless you are willing to back up your voice with violence, then your voice is utterly meaningless. That is the lesson we are to take from all that has happened.

The Tea-Party rallies were decent, clean, respectable. They were ignored. Ridiculed. Marginalized.

Why was that?

Because, the powers that be knew the Tea-Party people will not kill them or their loved ones.

The Muslims, by contrast, engage in violent uprisings and rampages over the slightest provocation – and the Government and their goons piss themselves with terror at the thought of offending them in the slightest.

Why is this?

Because the Muslims are dangerous, and when you poke them, they kill you, your kids, your friends, and blow up buildings. So the political class and their loyal media dogs shits themselves at the thought of crossing them.

The lesson to take away from this, is that you, as a people, will be utterly and thoroughly ignored unless you are willing to back up your beliefs with violence.

If you are not a “threat” to THEM, then the political class will run you over, again and again, knowing full well that as the day closes, you’ll roll over and play serf.

Violence is not “Evil” or “Good.” It is a tool – nothing more. A tool to be used when other avenues have proven fruitless.

So ask yourselves – will you simply vent your steam on an message board, and do nothing? Will you try to work within the confines of a rigged system designed to destroy your beliefs?

Or will you draw upon the tools God has provided you to make these insulated fools who would crown themselves your masters FEAR you as they properly should.

They fear the population of the inner city – because they will riot.

They fear the black-block anarchists because they tear apart entire cities.

They fear the Muslims because they will kill and destroy at the slightest provocation.

They do not fear you patriotic Americans. You are “respectable, law abiding citizens” after all, and they are free to stomp on your beliefs until those cherished institutions are are nothing but dust.

I will say again – your voice is meaningless unless you are willing to back it up with violence. Angry fist-pounding and threats means nothing.

Search deep in your souls. Decide now. Will you accept the chains? Will you bluster and pound your fist? Or will you reach deep down into that tool-bag, and give your voice meaning?

Words are easy to ignore.
Actions, get attention.

Make them fear you, or lick their boots, while raging impotently at the internet.
– Anonymous

Read the entire post HERE.

That dude is dead on. Unless a people are willing to back up their values with violent action, then those values are so much shit. The government and their propagandist media PROVES this every time they plant their asses on the fence like deaf, dumb, and blind monkeys – while their reporters get raped or Ambassador’s blown to fuck in the middle-east by Allah-loving barbarians.

See a pattern casual readers? We do – sadly. Unless a group demonstrates a willingness to unleash a six-flavor-rainbow of HELL if trampled on, then trampled they fucking ever shall be.

America – was nice while it lasted.

Hey… about those preps – tick-tock…

Starcraft Replays Area is now posted – if any of you have some fun, stupid, awesome, or lame replays you’d like hosted, reply here and we will arrange to get them added to the site. For more information, click HERE.

Emperor Misha, at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, has some “pointers” for those seeking ultimate power over America:

“You see, you don’t understand how this whole “asymmetric warfare” thingamajig that you love to talk about on TeeVee to sound smarterer than the proles really works. You think that it’s just a domestic version of the grand battles that you’ve read about in history books about traditional wars and that you’ll be safely hidden behind your lines with the enemies on the other side of those line. Those are international wars, and they bear no resemblance whatsoever to an intranational war, which is what you’ll be facing.”

“There are numerous examples to choose from, but we’d suggest that you just pick up a book about the Balkans. That describes it quite well. Or you could pick the Revolutionary War, but it’s obvious to us by now that you really couldn’t care less about that particular war which birthed a Constitution that you swore, impatiently, an oath to during a lot of pomp and circumstance, wishing that they’d just get it over with already so you could get on to taking bribes and sodomizing underage interns.”

“Here are a few pointers, just to get you started:”

“1) You won’t know who is your enemy and who is your friend. The person who might put a bullet in the back of your head tomorrow could be your neighbor or could be standing in line ahead of you, right now, at the grocery store.”

“2) Even if you yourself are safe, those you care about won’t be. Ironically, the more solidly you build the wall to protect yourself against the consequences of your own treason, the more likely you make it that retaliation will strike somebody else that you love. If we can’t get to you, then we’ll get to somebody or something you love.”

“3) Everything you depend on in your daily life, right down to stuff you don’t even think about right now, everything, was either built by or maintained by people who might just hate your guts. You like to have the lights on in your house? Don’t count on it staying on. The people who built the power plant know how to destroy it. The car you drive? The mechanic fixing it might just be a patriot adding a few “extra features” to it before he hands you back the keys. Just a few examples. We’re sure you can come up with many more if you sit down and think about things that you depend on others to provide for you. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE MIGHT BE SOMEBODY WHO WANTS YOU DEAD. Actually, you might not want to think about that at all. But you should.”

“4) Your enemies, We the People, those of us who believe in the Constitution and know our responsibility to it, are far more numerous than you think. And we’re everywhere. And we don’t wear uniforms so you can easily identify us. Nor will we identify ourselves. No, we will NOT allow ourselves to be gunned down in encounters we cannot possibly hope to prevail in. Instead, we will “meekly submit” for the cameras and then go home to plot your destruction. And we will do so. The more you stump on us, the more you force us to endure humiliation in order to live to fight another day on OUR terms, the deeper our hatred will burrow and the less of a fuck we will care when an opening presents itself to make you wish that you had never been born.”

“5) A lot of us went through military training. We are MUCH better equipped, mentally, to handle the kind of situation that you’re FORCING upon us than your mall ninjas, no matter how much you try to buy up all of the “latest and greatest” military equipment for them. Equipment alone doesn’t win the battle. Look up “Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion of” if you doubt us. Moreover, we’re all bound to an oath that we, unlike you, took seriously when we made it. We’re all trained, finely honed, to focus on the mission and our honor, second to absolutely nothing else. And we’re supremely well equipped to train those of our fellow patriots who didn’t go through that. Just ask the Egyptians, Syrians et al how they fared about the Israelis in 1947 when the pisslamists were armed to the teeth against a bunch of rag tag Jews. Or ask, if you could, our Founding Fathers who went up against, and DEFEATED, the world’s most preeminent military power with “nothing but a bunch of armed peasants.”

“6) A lot of us, don’t you just love “The Melting Pot?”, come from countries where we experienced just what you are trying right up front and personal, and we experienced it at the hands of tyrants who were a heck of a lot more experienced and powerful that you are, yet they still failed. They’d memorized and internalized everything there is to know about how to subjugate and enslave a people while you idiots were still jacking off to Saul Alinsky, yet they still failed. You think you’re better than them? Best of luck. You read the book, they WROTE IT. Your systems will be undermined by people much more experienced than you from day one, fuck we’re already doing it right now because we know where this train is headed, and you dilettante fuckheads can’t come up with anything that we haven’t seen a hundred times worse before. Yet we’re still standing, aren’t we?”

“Those are just a few bullet points. There are many, many more.”

“Do you morons think that you have it in you to live the rest of your lives with one eye open, even when you sleep, knowing that everything you care about is a target, just to fuck with your minds.”

“Do you?”

“Think again.”

“For the love of all that’s good and holy, think again.”

“Because you’re not giving us any choice here.”

“For your own sakes, we already have established that you don’t give a single used fuck about anybody other than yourselves, give us that choice.”

“If not, you own it now. You have been warned. From this point out, every death, every tragedy, every single drop of blood is on your hands. You had the choice, you chose to ignore it. And anything from here on out is your responsibility.”

“Oh, you can lash out in anger and slap us in irons, you can kill us even, but millions will pick up for us. We don’t care. We. Don’t. Care.

“The mission is everything, and our mission is to preserve, uphold and protect the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign AND domestic, so help us G-d.”

“You puny, self-absorbed, corrupt assholes don’t even figure in that equation.”

“You have a choice. YOU have a choice. Choose poorly, and the consequences will be on YOU, and your punishment will be the stuff that horror stories are made of.”

“Choose wisely.It’s ON.”

“Thatisall.”
-Emperor Misha I

Read the entire threat HERE – and the comments, which are likely to get lively.

He’s dead right of course. The “ProgNazis” as his royal highness refers to them, are unable to understand the scope of the typhoon-in-a-can they are opening – they are far too self-absorbed and surrounded by the like-minded to comprehend the black cloud forming over the nation’s heartland.

Those who’d rule have been emboldened by the good-natured tolerance that decent, God-fearing Americans show towards ass-hattery. That being said, these gentry-class gutter-snipes have been piling straws on the camel’s back for a long time, and it’s knees are getting ready to buckle.

When the camel at last collapses, those-who’d-rule will discover the devil was it’s rider, and he’s bringing all of hell with him.

Remember…

10 USC section 311 wrote..

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

We are the militia. In no universe should we allow them to disarm us. Not wile we are sucking air.

Resistor in the Rockies throws the gauntlet:

“We will not comply.
We will not submit to background checks for private party transactions.
We will continue to purchase standard capacity magazines and bring them in State.
We will not turn our guns in…court order on not.
We will not acknowledge unjust and treasonous laws.
We will not be subjugated.
It’s going to get real.
Decide what you will do now.
You should have an answer already.”
– Resistor in the Rockies

Read the entire post HERE.

Attention gentry-class puke-weasels: You’re playing with fire, though your latent narcissism prevents you from seeing that. You may think you can be protected from all the angry peasantry and their pitchforks. And maybe some of you can. But, we wonder – can the same be said for those close to you? Your staffers? Your minions and goons?

We doubt that. Probably something you should think about before you rile up all the serfs.

We will shed no tears for whatever you bring on yourselves and those near you. In fact, we may even celebrate, by cracking open a beer, and toasting to whatever lucky bastard had the fortune of sending a blight-bringing statist off to whatever hell is reserved for liars, betrayers, and oath breakers.

Sic semper tyrannis

The Classic Starcraft Maps Section has been updated. Small updates to the text, version history, and some ancient typos corrected. Click HERE for more information.

From Brietbart:

House GOP Leaders: We Can Pass Gun Control, Immigration, Without Republican Support

With more and more conservatives in the House rebelling against John Boehner’s increasingly questionable Speakership, Republican House leadership is now moving to quash in-house concerns by reaching across the aisle for support. Leadership is moving in the wake of a surprising move by 16 House Republicans to vote against a Republican leadership-crafted closed rule on a government funding bill. The rule was designed to limit amendments to the government funding bill, but some House conservatives, concerned over the Boehner team’s refusal to consider a floor vote on an amendment to defund Obamacare implementation, bucked Boehner on the rule.

After undergoing that unpleasant shock, House leadership hasn’t responded by listening to the concerns of the more conservative members of its caucus. Instead, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said on Sunday that he would be open to ramming through bills without the support of a majority of his own Republican caucus. Not just on small bills. On issues like immigration and gun control, McCarthy said, he’d be open to taking rogue Republicans across the aisle to work with Democrats.
– The World's Smallest Jew

Read the entire thing HERE, and prepare your flaying knives folks.

Do it you Whigified GOP cock-weasels… we fucking DARE you. Pass some gun-control with the help of the shit-clown Marxists on the left. You’ll hang with them in the end when the people rise up and set right that which you and your ilk shat upon. These would-be-tyrants see themselves as kings of a free people, and there is only one way to properly deal with such monsters.

God forgives.

We don’t.

Update I: Some Protein Wisdom

Jeff Goldstein over at Protein Wisdom has this to say about the betrayers:

Well, the sad truth is, the House had the chance to vote the leadership out and did not. I’m not sure what that says, precisely, but I can tell you that it suggests we conservatives, classical liberals, TEA Party-types, and libertarians should not believe that just because we’ve been able to affect a wave of electoral change that we have been able to affect in any great degree a change to the mindset of the ruling class, who looks upon constituencies as ways toward power, not as their representatives.

It’s long-past time we brought back the tar and feathers, and cleansed the DC swamp of permanent politicians who are interested only in their own power and influence.

Spit.
– Jeff Goldstein

Read the whole thing HERE, before you head off the the local hardware store to purchase a good stiff length of rope.

Considering all the talk about a few billion in cuts here or there, it still surprises me the lack of attention the Fed gets. From printing 85 billion or so a month to the initial lending window to foreign banks, the Fed goes relatively unscathed. It seems the boys at the top of the banking pyramid has concerns about foreign banks here in the U.S.

So much so that they just lent them $100 billion dollars…

Full post HERE

Tagging on to the recent linchpin article, it looks as if Germany has a new party. Lets see who they would like to have as part of their new member ship shall we…

Anti-euro political parties in Europe in recent years have so far tended to be either well to the right of center or, as evidenced by the recent vote in Italy, anything but staid. But in Germany, change may be afoot. A new party is forming this spring, intent on abandoning European efforts to prop up the common currency. And its founders are a collection of some of the country’s top economists and academics.

“Democracy is eroding,” reads a statement on its website (German only). “The will of the people regarding (decisions relating to the euro) is never queried and is not represented in parliament. The government is depriving voters of a voice through disinformation, is pressuring constitutional organs, like parliament and the Constitutional Court, and is making far-reaching decisions in committees that have no democratic legitimacy.”

Still, with concern in Germany growing that the country has become the de-facto paymaster for the rest of the euro zone, Alternative for Germany could attract a fair number of protest votes from frustrated conservatives. Judging by the increasing difficulty Merkel has faced in pushing euro bailout packages through parliament in Berlin over the last 15 months, the level of frustration on the center-right could be growing. Indeed, Lucke has said that he is in touch with a handful of euro-skeptic parliamentarians from the Free Democrats, Merkel’s business-friendly junior coalition partners.

Ultimately, however, the party’s success will likely have more to do with the state of the common currency as the election approaches. Should the crisis flare up, so too could anti-euro sentiment. That sentiment in Germany now has a political home.

Lets see if the German people can harness some of that aggressive, pissed off attitude we know they carry.

HERE for full article

Bob Owens over at his Blog stopped by the local Gun Emporium to see if the lines were still wrapped around the building:

“There were 25 souls patiently queued up from the front door down the sidewalk into the parking lot. This is the new normal, and has been for months. Sometimes the line is shorter, sometimes it is longer, and on days that it is cold and rainy, people sit in their vehicles until the store opens, but there is always a line.”

“I drop in every few weeks or so. Some of the more senior clerks there know my face if they can’t recall my name; this is the FFL (federal firearms licensee) that I most often used when a manufacturer transfers in a rifle or pistol for me to test and evaluate. I haven’t been inside in two weeks, but the last time I was there was the same as it has been from mid-January onward.”

“There are no AR-15s, no AK-pattern rifles, no M1As, no FALs, nor anything else that might reasonably impersonate a semi-automatic rifle. For that matter, there are no Garands worth their price, nor Enfields, nor Mosins.”

“Likewise, the glass handgun cases have largely been empties of service pistols. There are still a few, but most tend to be painfully expensive or the dogs that no one wants. Magazines for all of these are gone, of course, as are most common calibers of ammunition.”

“How much longer will this go on?”

“That seems to be the million dollar question, and I’m not going to pretend I have an answer. Many are pretending that they know, but if people continue to buy firearms in multiples, magazines by the case, and ammunition by the pallet, we simply can’t predict how long the run will last.”

“In my estimation, this is the most heavily-armed the American people have ever been. I’m including the World Wars. Even then, the guns and ammo were going to military units deploying overseas, not going towards suburban stockpiles, and under freshly turned earth in hidden caches.”

“Nor have Americans ever been better trained to wage a war, specifically an insurgency. More than a decade of warfare in Asia and Africa have left us with large numbers of highly-trained veterans of wars without front lines, many of them well-trained in how guerrillas organize and fight, and of course, in counter-insurgency tactics.”

“All of this is happening as the radical left wing of the Democratic party is working its media assets in national and local media to wage a propaganda war against the Constitution. They think they will gt away with it, since far too many dim souls are willing to give up their freedom for the illusion of safety, despite the Founder’s constant warnings against tyranny. Are they mistaken? I think so.”

“Far too many read the writing on the wall in similar ways. As long as they do, the lines will continue until there is no need to buy firearms, or until it is time to use them.”
-Bob Owens

Read the entire article HERE – and the comments – these have become so important lately.

Every panic buy we have seen – EVER – has calmed down after a few months – but not this time. The rate or purchases, caching, and bulk buying is, if anything, accelerating. This is a population preparing itself for battle with it’s government.

Don’t step on rattle-snakes, and you won’t get bit Mr. Government Employee. Just a tip from the penut gallery as we, like so many others, go about caching that 8th crate of .223 Remington in a nondescript location somewhere between Northern South Dakota and South-Western Montana.

As Mr. Owens says – tread lightly.

The Unit pages for the Original Starcraft have been formatted and completed. Visit the Terran, Zerg, and Protoss pages by clicking the links. Additionally we removed some 13-year old typos and errors to the content. For more information, click HERE.

Bill Quick over at Daily Pundit takes a well deserved swipe at RINO extraordinaire Allahpundit screeching from his gilded perch, Hot Air:

Senate confirms Brennan to lead CIA, 63/34 « Hot Air
The last name there is the biggest, of course. I guess Rubio thought that, having spoken on the floor twice yesterday in Paul’s defense, he had enough political cover to throw hawks a bone by voting for Brennan. Graham, meanwhile, stated on the floor this morning that he would vote for him as a vote of confidence in the drone program, i.e. as a rebuke to Paul.
– Allahpundit

“Since Allahpundit is a smart guy, and since he’s been reading and commenting on current political events as a blogger almost as long as I have, I have to assume his attempt to mischaracterize Paul’s filibuster yesterday as being generated by his opposition to the entire drone program is being done with malice aforethought. AllahP once got quite irritated with me for questioning his integrity but, you know, this sort of shit is what it is.”

“Paul was challenging, not the drone program itself, but the contention that Barack Obama, as president, he had the power and authority to execute American citizens in America, citizens who weren’t actively engaged in attacking the U.S., and to execute them without due process.”

“AllahP is perfectly aware of the difference, and yet he offers the first mischaracterization anyway. I’m sure the fact that this misinterpretation just happens to play into the narrative Ruling Party hacks like McCain and Graham are peddling is just, well, coincidence. Right?”

“Otherwise, one might begin to suspect that Allahpundit is something of a Ruling Party hack himself, and that just wouldn’t do, would it?”
– Bill Quick

Read the entire thing and the comments HERE. And maybe while you’re there, hit the tip-jar to give Mr. Quick his due for blowing a kneecap off a gleeful gentry-class-dick-sucker like Allahpundit.

Given that Hot Air has devolved into what is essentially an establishment Republican blow-job fest – a pathetic shadow of what it once was back in the Mistress’s era – we happily consider them willing conspirators with the rest of “the enemy,” and as Emperor Misha’s plans come together, can only hope they are dealt with accordingly.

There have been many glorious inventions by mankind, but the “EDIT” features shall forever rank amongst the best.

Mission Accomplished soldiers – GOOD WORK.

Someone at work a few days ago said there was little to no evidence that some of the things I have talked with him (Econ) have any merit. Well, very little if any. He wanted some proof that he could research himself. Challenge accepted. I pulled together some of my favorite econ videos (A few non-econ) to send his way. Figure I would post it in case someone else ever wanted a one stop shop for those just starting to wake up.

Kyle Bass – Simply my favorite economist. Straight, to the point, fact based, no bullshit hedge fund guy. You can enjoy some of my favorites HERE, HERE, HERE, or HERE

Bill Still – What can I say about Bill. The man simply knows what he is talking about when it comes to Government, History, and monetary policy.

The secret of OZ – HERE

The Money Masters – PART1, PART2

Chris Martenson – Natural Resources, Exponential Growth, Economy

Unfixable – HERE

David M. Walker – Former Comptroller General of the U.S. Left his position in government to our and warn of the dangers up the upcoming economic challenges.

Crossroads – HERE

Catherine Austin Fitts – Wall-street and how they play the middle man. They are a parasite. Can be viewed HERE

Peter Schiff – Sometimes the rants can be redundant. But, when in front of a larger audience, he can do a great job of explaining things from the ground up. Here are two examples of this HERE, and HERE

Steven Molyneux – His facial expressions alone are worth watching.

U.S.

EUROPE

Casey Research

ECON

LIBERTARIAN and Global Perspective

Just Starting Newbs – This is my beginning newbs area. Sometimes the links above can be a little overwhelming and they need to start light. Here are some people can digest a little better…

     Occupy Movement – Sometimes they are just pissed off and don’t know why. The talking heads have them blaming capitalism. Remember, occupy folks have a short attention span. Here is a short 10 min video to send their way. Capitalism isnt the issue. Daniel Hannon at Oxford University HERE

     HighSchool – How to help kids understand banks and money creation. HERE

     Crash Course on Bubbles HERE

     Austrian vs. Keynesian economics Rap video HERE

     Overdose: The Next Financial Crisis HERE

     Chris Hedges – A more liberal take on things if this is all they can stomach. General Topics HERE

Other Topics – Just a few links that seem to always seem to pop back up from time to time

     Originalist vs. Activist – Understanding of constitutional interpretation HERE and HERE

     Fack Check: Guns, Gas Prices, Petro-Dollar

     RNC & DNC Rigged Teleprompters – Sheep, all of them HERE

RON PAUL

Foreign Policy Predictions in 2002

Farewell Speech 2012-2013

The re-vamp process has started on the Starcraft section. We’ve completed the Racine’s Rebelspage, Starcraft Patches area, and the Debug Commands. The other sections are under construction and will look strange for the next several days. For more information, head to the Landing Page.

If you think China doesn’t have its own issues you might want to think again. The mortgage market in China is downright scary (imagine politicians deciding budget consumption with a game of hungry hungry hippos). Housing debt in China noted by Bloomberg HERE.

Sheng is part of a generation of middle class that Chinese media has dubbed “fang nu,” or housing slaves, a reference to the lifetime of work needed to pay off their debts. They’re taking on mortgages even as the government maintains property curbs to damp prices that have almost tripled since China embarked in 1998 on a drive to increase private home ownership.

“It’s a treat for myself because I could never afford such a luxury after I start repaying my housing loans next month,” said Sheng, who paid 1.1 million yuan for the one-bedroom apartment on the city’s western outskirts and will be using about 70 percent of her salary to service her mortgage.

Chinese homebuyers typically use 30 percent to 50 percent of their monthly incomes to repay mortgages, said Wu Hao, a manager at the loan brokerage of Bacic & 5i5j Group, Beijing’s second-biggest realtor for existing homes. It advises clients to keep monthly repayments lower than one-third of their incomes.

Cai Yue, a 33-year-old manager at a Shanghai-based pharmaceutical company, bought her first home 10 years ago after graduation, among the first wave of Chinese taking out mortgages as the government tried to encourage home ownership by offering income tax rebates and the cheapest funding in two decades.

Cai borrowed 50 percent from the bank for her 300,000 yuan apartment in 2003. Her monthly payment was 1,600 yuan, about 40 percent of her salary at the time.

“It was quite a modern idea to take on a mortgage back then,” said Cai, who earned 3,700 yuan a month back in 2003 and declined to disclose her current income.

Remember, we have ghost towns. They have ghost cities. No shit. Entire metropolitan cities build with no one in them. And you thought our housing bubble was bad. Check the video HERE

I think we all know what happens when markets figure out the exit but it does please me some to hear it coming from CNBC….

“The Fed is printing a lot of money. They are forcing people into markets. You shouldn’t be buying securities because you’re forced to buy them by zero rates. you should buy them because you think they’re great value. They’re great value only relative to zero interest rates. they’re not great value on an absolute basis.”

“I don’t know when it’s going to end, but my guess is, it’s going to end very badly; and it’s going to end very badly because, again, when you get the biggest price in the world, interest rates, being manipulated you get a misallocation of resources and this is going to end in one of two ways – with a malinvestment bust which we got in ’07-’08 (we didn’t get inflation). We got a malinvestment bust because of the bubble that was created in housing. Or it could end with just monetizing the debt and off we go in inflation. So that’s a very binary outcome. they’re both bad.”

“the thought that you can exit from wherever the balance sheet will be at that time, 4 trillion, wherever it is, in an orderly manner the chairman testified that will give the market plenty of warning, do you know what guys like me are going to do when they sell the first bond out of 4 trillion? and don’t think that letting the bonds run off isn’t selling. that debt has to be refinanced. if you do not — if you just let all the bonds run off that is still 4 trillion in selling. and it’s not till they actually sell the first one, it’s till you get the whiff — what do you think — what do you think the markets are going to do when they figure out the exit. look what happened in qe-1 and qe-2 ended which is why i don’t think this sever going to end.”

“we know is that it’s not a real market driven number? and we know the longer you keep it there, the greater the miss-allocation, and the greater the pain.”

Full Hedge article and video HERE

Dear Greece,

Run away. Run far far away…..

Trying to find innovative ways to fight tax evasion, Greece’s General Secretariat for Information Systems has completed an application that will allow the state’s monitoring and collection mechanism to access the country’s banking system via an online connection and let the government have access to depositor bank accounts.

The application, which will let the Finance Ministry troll through the accounts of all depositors suspected of tax evasion means online inspectors can scour through records of deposits, loans, credit card use and other data without permission from the account holder.

Full Post HERE

There is nothing quite like the Attorney General flat out admitting that the banks and corporations are beyond the reach of our laws. Although not in the least bit surprised, I did find the flat out admittance to be a bit below there standards. Whenever a market has no counterbalance the consequences can be severe. It is exactly this reason systemic risks are taken by the corporate elite.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa: In the case of bank prosecution. I’m concerned we have a mentality of ‘too big to jail’ in the financial sector, spreading from fraud cases to terrorist financing to money laundering cases. I would cite HSBC.

I think we are on a slippery slope and that’s background for this question. I don’t have recollection of DOJ prosecuting any high-profile financial criminal convictions in either companies or individuals.

Assistant Attorney General Breuer said that one reason that DOJ has not sought these prosecutions is because it reaches out to ‘experts’ to see what effect the prosecution will have on the financial markets.

Attorney General Eric Holder: We will endeavor to answer your letter, Senator. We did not, as I understand it, endeavor to obtain experts outside of the government in making determinations with regard to HSBC.

Just putting that aside for a minute though, the concern that you have raised is one that I, frankly, share. I’m not talking about HSBC here, that would be inappropriate. But I am concerned that the size of some of these institutions becomes so large that it does become difficult for us to prosecute them when we are hit with indications that if we do prosecute — if we do bring a criminal charge — it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy. I think that is a function of the fact that some of these institutions have become too large.

Again, I’m not talking about HSBC, this is more of a general comment. I think it has an inhibiting influence, impact on our ability to bring resolutions that I think would be more appropriate. I think that’s something that we — you all [Congress] — need to consider. The concern that you raised is actually one that I share.

Full article can be read HERE

Someone asked me the other day if I were to actually invest in equities where would I invest? One of my replies was emerging technologies including solar/water. Admittedly, solar is not at the right price point to clear the market.  The losses taken in to date in the auto industry should take care of any questions there. However, the mention of water seemed to surprise him. It shouldn’t have. There is a huge upcoming water shortage in this country and I was glad to see a reminder of it today on Zero Hedge. Im not a global warming guy by any means but I understand the importance of fresh water and the consequence of not having any. Here’s a few things to chew on while pondering drone strikes here in the U.S….

1. The Ogallala Aquifer is being drained at a rate of approximately 800 gallons per minute.

2. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, “a volume equivalent to two-thirds of the water in Lake Erie” has been permanently drained from the Ogallala Aquifer since 1940.

3. Decades ago, the Ogallala Aquifer had an average depth of approximately 240 feet, but today the average depth is just 80 feet. In some areas of Texas, the water is gone completely.

4. Scientists are warning that nothing can be done to stop the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer. The ominous words of David Brauer of the Ogallala Research Service should alarm us all…

“Our goal now is to engineer a soft landing. That’s all we can do.”

5. According to a recent National Geographic article, the average depletion rate of the Ogallala Aquifer is picking up speed….

Even more worrisome, the draining of the High Plains water account has picked up speed. The average annual depletion rate between 2000 and 2007 was more than twice that during the previous fifty years. The depletion is most severe in the southern portion of the aquifer, especially in Texas, where the water table beneath sizeable areas has dropped 100-150 feet; in smaller pockets, it has dropped more than 150 feet.

6. According to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. interior west is now the driest that it has been in 500 years.

7. Wildfires have burned millions of acres of vegetation in the central part of the United States in recent years. For example, wildfires burned an astounding 3.6 million acres in the state of Texas alone during 2011. This helps set the stage for huge dust storms in the future.

8. Unfortunately, scientists tell us that it would be normal for extremely dry conditions to persist in parts of western North America for decades. The following is from an article in the Vancouver Sun…

9. Experts tell us that U.S. water bills are likely to soar in the coming years. It is being projected that repairing and expanding our decaying drinking water infrastructure will cost more than one trillion dollars over the next 25 years, and as a result our water bills will likely approximately triple over that time period.

10. Right now, the United States uses approximately 148 trillion gallons of fresh water a year, and there is no way that is sustainable in the long run.

11. According to a U.S. government report, 36 states are already facing water shortages or will be facing water shortages within the next few years.

12. Lake Mead supplies about 85 percent of the water to Las Vegas, and since 1998 the level of water in Lake Mead has dropped by about 5.6 trillion gallons.

13. It has been estimated that the state of California only has a 20 year supply of fresh water left.

14. It has been estimated that the state of New Mexico only has a 10 year supply of fresh water left.

15. Approximately 40 percent of all rivers in the United States and approximately 46 percent of all lakes in the United States have become so polluted that they are are no longer fit for human use.

A couple of more articles from Casey Research and The Atlantic with some of the notes below. Make sure to check the Searching for a Way Out section via Casey Research…

Looked at another way, that ball of all the water in the world represents a total volume of about 332.5 million cubic miles. But of this, 321 million mi3, or 96.5%, is saline – great for fish, but undrinkable without the help of nature or some serious hardware. That still leaves a good bit of fresh water, some 11.6 million mi3, to play with. Unfortunately, the bulk of that is locked up in icecaps, glaciers, and permanent snow, or is too far underground to be accessible with today’s technology. (The numbers come from the USGS; obviously, they are estimates and they change a bit every year, but they are accurate enough for our purposes.)

Accessible groundwater amounts to 5.614 million mi3, with 55% of that saline, leaving a little over 2.5 million mi3 of fresh groundwater. That translates to about 2.7 exa-gallons of fresh water, or about 2.7 billion billion gallons (yes billions of billions, or 1018 in scientific notation), which is about a third of a billion gallons of water per person. Enough to take a long shower every day for many lifetimes…

However, not all of that groundwater is easily or cheaply accessible. The truth is that the surface is the source for the vast majority – nearly 80% – of our water. Of surface waters, lakes hold 42,320 mi3, only a bit over half of which is fresh, and the world’s rivers hold only 509 mi3 of fresh water, less than 2/10,000 of 1% of the planetary total.

And that’s where the problem lies. In 2005 in the US alone, we humans used about 328 billion gallons of surface water per day, compared to about 83 billion gallons per day of water from the ground. Most of that surface water, by far, comes from rivers. Among these, one of the most important is the mighty Colorado.

Atlantic

Declining Fresh H2O supplies: According to Global Water Security, “one third of the world’s population will live near water basins where the water deficit will be larger than 50 percent by 2030.” Many regions that are already experiencing water stress will become “extremely more stressed” or even “exceptionally more stressed.” In some areas, rapid depletion of underground aquifers will be the culprit. In others it will be reductions in meltwater as glaciers recede. In the Andes, hundreds of glaciers will simply disappear in coming decades, eliminating dry season water supplies. Similar, though more gradual, dynamics will be at play in the Himalayas, sometimes referred to as the world’s “third pole”.

The About Us page has been completed, complete with the guild staff and some incidental information. Click HERE for more information, or use the “About Us” button to the left.

One of the better articles I have read recently. Thanks to Charles Smith of Two Minds….

Central bankers have been counting on “the wealth effect” to lift their economies out of the post-2009 global meltdown slump. The wealth effect concept is simple: flooding the economy with credit and zero-interest money boosts the value of assets such as housing, stocks and bonds. Those owning the assets feel wealthier, and thus more inclined to borrow and spend more money. This new spending creates more demand which then leads employers to hire more employees.

Unfortunately for the bottom 90% who don’t own enough stocks to feel any wealth effect, the central bankers got it wrong: wages don’t rise as a result of the wealth effect, they rise from an increased production of goods and services. Despite unprecedented money-printing, zero interest rates and vast credit expansion, real wages have declined.

The unintended consequence of inflating asset bubbles to drive an illusory wealth effect is that speculative bubbles inevitably pop, creating a pervasive poverty effect. The asset bubble creates phantom collateral that households borrow against. When the bubble pops, they’re left with the debt and debt payments (“the poverty effect”) while the ephemeral “wealth” has vanished.

I tend to think of “inflation” as the effect on the purchasing power of wages from the differential rate of change of money supply (and by extension bank lending and GDP) to wages (relied upon virtually exclusively by 90% of households, including those receiving transfers from taxes on wages) with regard to production.In other words, if wages are rising along with production and prices, price inflation is largely a reflection of population, value-added output and consumption, and commensurate returns to labor from growth of money and production, i.e. an optimal growth condition.

However, if growth of money (M2) and bank lending (and GDP, which rises as a result of gov’t deficit spending), exceeds growth of wages and production, money inflation tends to result in price inflation that erodes the purchasing power of wages and private production. This reflects economic conditions that are sub-optimal or recessionary.

To the extent that there is a so-called “wealth effect,” the flow effect is likely in the opposite direction as is commonly assumed; that is, rising production and wages to money supply affect an increase in asset prices; therefore, it should be referred to as the “wage effect” on growth of economic activity and asset prices, rather than the converse.

Thus, the S&P 500 dropping back to the level of the mid-’90s (when the bubble commenced) would reflect the “wage effect” and actual sub-par economic conditions rather than the dubious “wealth effect” assumed from rising asset prices.
Of course, in the hyper-financialized US economy and global imperial trade regime, this is heresy.

Full article can be read HERE

Emperor Misha I at the Anti-idiotarian Rottweiler has declared war – and we stand in solidarity with him:

With all of the above and numerous other things that we’ve all seen lately, it’s become quite abundantly clear to His Imperial Majesty that, with the inexcusable idiocy of the American voters who pulled the lever for their own destruction (and ours as well), the gloves are well and truly off. No trying to hide it anymore. The Fascist “Democrats” are all in, this is it, dictatorship or bust and they’re not even pretending to mean otherwise.

And with clear evidence on hand regarding the useless GOP majority in the House who, under the “leadership” of Neville Chamberlain Boner, have rushed to roll over for every single treasonous power grab by the Ogabe Regime (and don’t even get us started on the even more useless GOP surrender monkeys in the Senate), it is quite obvious that reinforcements for those of us who would like to resurrect America-That-Was for the benefit of ourselves, our children and our children’s children, are not forthcoming.

The ballot box has, we regret to inform you, failed. Keeping the House in GOP hands has not helped any at all, as a matter of fact it has only provided the enemy occupational regime with a fig leaf in the shape of “look, the GOP went along with it, it’s bipartisan!”

Our nation is under occupation. The forces of our enemies do not regard our Constitution with anything but disdain, they do not govern with our consent, rather they try to enforce their rule upon us against our express dissent, we have no way of petitioning the “government” in a useful fashion for a redress of grievances as our petitions are ignored, not only by the regime but also by our alleged “allies”, the GOP.

We have no rule of law. The supreme law of our land, the Constitution for which our forefathers bled, is being utterly ignored at will, and as the OgabeCare debacle showed us, not even the Supreme Court can be expected to abide by it. Furthermore, as to the numerous other acts of treason against our Constitution, none in the GOP have the guts to stand up and challenge them in a meaningful fashion. A few soundbites, some hearings, and that’s it. In spite of us currently living under a regime that has committed impeachable crimes against said Constitution too many times to count, not once has articles of impeachment been on the table.

We are a lawless nation occupied by tyrants and thugs and our government of “checks and balances” is not functioning the way it was intended to anymore.

It is therefore with a heavy heart that we, finally, after much deliberation (which is a great part of the explanation why we haven’t been all that active lately), proclaim that it’s time to stop pretending that this will all iron itself out. When even the supreme law of our land can’t count on finding allies in Congress, it is rendered not meaningless, but impotent.

The ingenious system that our Founders devised to keep our nation one of free men and women cannot function when none of the actors in said system can find it in themselves to uphold their oaths of office. They, too, by betraying their oath, have become enemies of the Constitution. Those who are passive in the face of the enemy are no different from those who aid and abet him.

It is, we guess, to be expected from the gutless wonders of DC. They, having never (with the possible exception of a very select few who have so far failed to make an impression) faced true adversity or sacrifice, naturally cower in the face of such, prioritizing their own creature comforts over the sacred duty of honoring their oaths. It is no excuse, they are fully responsible for their betrayal and will and must be held accountable, but we’re not particularly surprised by their cowardice. Our Sacred Founders, who all of them faced far worse than a scathing editorial in The New York Times and the possible loss of a lucrative sinecure in government, would have pissed on them and shat in their mouthes.

As to the rest of us? Well, we’ll each have to make our own minds up. His Imperial Majesty’s choice is clear, if not easy. An oath is an oath. Once laid down, you’re bound by it, the hell with the consequences. Not that the consequences don’t matter, they’re particularly dire in situations such as the one we all face right now, but to renege on an oath is to forever lose your honor, and that is just about the worst thing that can happen to a person, in our opinion.

Your worth is in how much you’re willing to sacrifice to honor your word. If you’re not bound by your word, then you’re not bound by anything and nothing you say or do has any meaning whatsoever.

And the oath, if ever you laid it down (and how we wish that it was mandatory for every citizen of this nation), has been triggered. That was a long time ago, but back then we could still hold off and say “it might yet fix itself, we still have two parties” because nobody in their right minds want to reach for the last box unless forced to. There are, as LC Fa Cube Itches said once, no “splendid little wars.” But we’re past that point. We now know that we have no true allies in Congress who feel bound in the least by their oaths if it interferes with their personal ambitions in the slightest.

If you’re still not sure that it has been triggered, particularly the part about “against all enemies, foreign AND domestic”, read through the Declaration of Independence and its very thorough and reasonable justification for our Founders’ decision to part ways with King George. Then make a check mark every time you find a grievance against King George that the current regime is equally guilty of. If you grow tired of the exercise quickly because you run out of ink, you get the point.

So what does that mean for those of us who meant what we said when we laid down the oath?

As to what we should do at this point, we don’t know yet.

But we know it’s up to us, all of us, now. We’re the only friends the Constitution has left, and if we betray it too, then we might as well shred it.

War has been declared upon us and it’s time to prove that we meant it when we raised that right hand.

Playtime is over. Shit just got real.

Embrace the suck, and know that you’re doing this not just for yourselves or your oath, you’re doing it for future generations too. If you have children, then that’s all we need to say.

It’s on.

Thatisall.
– Emperor Misha I

Read the entire thing HERE like your life depends on it. And the COMMENTS – especially the Goddamned comments folks.

The Emperor just summarized the raging morass of emotions many of us here at Deth H.Q. have been coping with while watching King Barry Hussain Obama, his fellow Marxists, and their slobbering, drooling Republican lap-dogs, (the unholy triumvirate), raining destruction and misery from on high.

These illegitimate monsters lording over us from Mordor on the Potomac must go – and it has become patently obvious that our laws, our votes, and our courts will offer us absolutely ZERO means to effect that change.

We stand with the Emperor.

Shit just got undeniably real folks.

So what does that mean?

Prepare your families for the worst sorts of dislocations of essential services. (You’d think we have been trying to warn you what was coming or something…)

Bob Owens, The Captain’s Journal, Western Rifle-shooters Association, and posters at the Rottweiler are calling their shots.

Picked up a theme yet?

Good, we don’t feel the need to spell it out – if you’re too stupid to get where this is going, you deserve to starve, freeze, and die of thirst in the dark.

See to your family’s basic needs – water, food, protection from elements, medication, and sanitation. Prepare for extended periods of no water and no power. If the DHSS comes for the guns, they will promptly be given “bigger concerns” as the logistical pipeline that feeds this entire nation gets torn out from under them by the very people that built the fucker.

We begged you to buy guns and ammo three years before the panic. We suggested you to buy body-armor before the panic buying and legal-beagles started clamping down on it, (both are now happening), and having been proven twice right, we now ask that you see to your loved one’s most basic needs.

You don’t need all the neatest and greatest Mall-ninja wear. You don’t need black tacti-cool web-gear (leave that to the SWAT-clowns). What you do need is some grub and fluid to wash it down with. And we ain’t talking MRE’s or Expensive Freeze Dried shit either – buy the canned stuff your normally eat or like. Just more of it. Buy eight cases of bottled water. Maybe have a few hundred extra garbage bags to shit in – put them in your toilet, use as normal. Got candles? Maybe a way to heat your home for a few days?

No this is not extreme. The Government cannot, and will not take care of you. Oh, you argue otherwise? I got about a million people formerly of New Orleans who would tell you to fuck right the hell off. And another hundred-odd-thousand-or-so in New York STILL freezing their ass off in the dark.

Storm’s coming. Prepare your family for that eventuality. We ain’t asking. We’re ordering. Cause we care.

Although Paul Krugman denies currency wars are under way HERE , China doesn’t seem to agree…

From the Telegraph:

China’s central bank deputy governor Yi Gang said: “China is prepared. In terms of both monetary policies and other mechanisms, China will take into full account the quantitative easing policies implemented by central banks of foreign countries.”

However, Mr Yi said a currency war can be avoided if policymakers follow the consensus reached at the Group of 20 nations meeting in Moscow last month.

 

I guess China doesn’t take kindly to quantitative easing policies, especially when they hold large amounts U.S. debt. It’s not just the U.S. Looks like Japan would like to print their way out of a two decade deflationary cycle…

Japan

The promise of “drastic monetary easing” from Haruhiko Kuroda, expected to be confirmed in the top role at the Bank of Japan (BOJ) within weeks, raised concerns over the impact on trade.

Mr Kuroda said he would set no limits on the amount of money the Bank pumps into the economy, warning its current policies were not enough to lift inflation to the 2pc target.

Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, has been struggling with deflation for nearly two decades, with falling prices encouraging consumers to delay purchases in the hope of paying less later – entrenching the downwards economic spiral.

Mr Kuroda acknowledged the likely impact of more aggressive monetary easing would be for the yen to weaken, strengthening Japanese exporters’ competitive edge – but said that was not the direct goal.

 

Of course Europe has their own troubles with exports that will need to, and will be, address via printing“aggressive” monetary policy. Lets not forget Argentina who is a little further down paper money manipulation road….

HEDGE

Today, in a futile attempt to halt inflation, the government of Cristina Kirchner announced a two-month price freeze on supermarket products. The price freeze applies to every product in all of the nation’s largest supermarkets — a group including Walmart, Carrefour, Coto, Jumbo, Disco and other large chains. The companies’ trade group, representing 70 percent of the Argentine supermarket sector, reached the accord with Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno, the government’s news agency Telam reported. As AP reports, “The commerce ministry wants consumers to keep receipts and complain to a hotline about any price hikes they see before April 1.”

Perhaps they will. What consumers will certainly do is scramble into local stores to take advantage of artificially-controlled prices knowing very well they have two short months to stock up on perishable goods at today’s prices, before the country’s inflation comes soaring back, only this time many of the local stores will not be around as their profit margins implode and as owners, especially of foreign-based chains, make the prudent decision to get out of Dodge while the getting’s good and before the next steps, including such measures as nationalization, in the escalation into a full out hyper inflationary collapse, are taken by Argentina’s female ruler.

I guess this is the new normal for wold monetary policy. Maybe it is “growth” wars instead of currency wars. The question I have is who is going to grow, the people or the policy makers. Devaluing the currency has other effects.

“Central banks are going to throw the kitchen sink at reviving growth and spurring inflation because the alternative to that is deflation,” Neil Williams, head of economic research at London-based Hermes Fund Managers, which oversees about $42 billion, said in a phone interview on Feb. 27. “The countries that have overall loosened their policies most have had the weakest currencies. It’s not a blatant attempt to out-grow others, it’s just a case of all countries trying to do the same thing at the same time.”

A year later, Russian leader Vladimir Putin said that the Fed’s strategy of printing dollars to buy Treasuries to inject cash into the financial system was evidence the U.S. was “being parasitic with the dollar’s monopoly position.”

“We neutralized, softened the currency war issue that other countries are facing,” Mantega said last week in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York. “I didn’t invent the currency war, I just pointed out a problem that can be overcome with an accord among countries.”

Read the full Bloomberg article HERE

We can’t make this shit up folks… Joel Gehrke at the Washington Examiner reports the response to Rand Paul’s questioning of Eric Holder:

Rand Paul: “Does President Obama have the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial?”

Eric Holder: “It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States.”

Read the entire sickening display HERE.

Any doubts yet about what we face?

Most people recognize that saving the European Union as it currently sits will require both massive write-downs and a supreme sacrifice by the German people in order to remain together. As the divide between French and German entities grow so does the reflection in sales.

REUTERS

New car sales in Germany fell by more than 10 percent year-on-year in February, signaling the crisis for Europe’s auto makers is deepening as recession-hit consumers curb spending. New car sales in the region dropped to a 17-year low in 2012. Speaking ahead of the industry meeting in Geneva, the sales chief of General Motors’ (GM.N) Opel brand said car sales for the whole of Europe might fall by as much as 10 percent this year. Until recently, industry executives have been penciling in a decline of around 3-5 percent for Europe’s car market in 2013. The market shrank 7.8 percent last year. Germany continues to outperform markets such as France and Italy, where car registrations tumbled 12 percent and 17 percent respectively in February. German car sales fell 2.9 percent in 2012, including a 16 percent drop in December.

When Germans finally start to feel the pinch themselves you will see the sentiment change very quickly. Without massive write downs or the solid support from Germany, Europe’s experimental Union will unravel faster than Lindsay Lohan’s career.

Nowhere to go but up right? Relatively low inflation rate and median growth. The future looks bright. I mean look at Wall-Street. Dow Jones at 14,164! The worst is over!

The herd may protect you from getting picked off but it can also drive you over a cliff without realizing it. Here are a few tidbits and some historical data provided by the studs at Hedge before people start jumping back into equities…

Dow Jones Industrial Average: Then 14164.5; Now 14164.5

Regular Gas Price: Then $2.75; Now $3.73

GDP Growth: Then +2.5%; Now +1.6%

Americans Unemployed (in Labor Force): Then 6.7 million; Now 13.2 million

Americans On Food Stamps: Then 26.9 million; Now 47.69 million

Size of Fed’s Balance Sheet: Then $0.89 trillion; Now $3.01 trillion

US Debt as a Percentage of GDP: Then ~38%; Now 74.2%

US Deficit (LTM): Then $97 billion; Now $975.6 billion

Total US Debt Oustanding: Then $9.008 trillion; Now $16.43 trillion

US Household Debt: Then $13.5 trillion; Now 12.87 trillion

Labor Force Particpation Rate: Then 65.8%; Now 63.6%

Consumer Confidence: Then 99.5; Now 69.6

S&P Rating of the US: Then AAA; Now AA+

VIX: Then 17.5%; Now 14%

10 Year Treasury Yield: Then 4.64%; Now 1.89%

EURUSD: Then 1.4145; Now 1.3050

Gold: Then $748; Now $1583

NYSE Average LTM Volume (per day): Then 1.3 billion shares; Now 545 million shares

A good indication of how the middle to poor portion of our population is doing can be provided by taking a look at businesses which rely heavily on that demographic. Lets check Walmart’s February sales (2013). According to Bloomberg….

“In case you haven’t seen a sales report these days, February MTD sales are a total disaster,” Jerry Murray, Wal- Mart’s vice president of finance and logistics, said in a Feb. 12 e-mail to other executives, referring to month-to-date sales. “The worst start to a month I have seen in my ~7 years with the company.”

“Higher payroll taxes “go against our customers’ wallet,” Family Dollar Chief Executive Officer Howard Levine said on a Jan. 3 conference call. “Clearly, they do not have as much for discretionary purchases than they did. Wal-Mart’s Geiger in his e-mail urged employees to improve business by “fixing something that could really make a difference to our performance.” He quoted Tim Yatsko , the company’s executive vice president of global sourcing, saying: “We need to ‘stop the stupid.’”

Stop the stupid indeed. Well. If the overlords are invested it is relatively safe right? Well not according to Biderman …

“insiders at U.S. companies have bought the least amount of shares in any one month,” and that the ratio of insider selling to buying is now 50-to-1 – a monthly record. “So far the mass delusion is holding.”

Hold steady captain. The icebergs will move before we get there….

The Guild’s official printable emergency manual has been added to the Zombie’s and Shit section. Click HERE to download the manual directly. It contains a pack-guide, a series of useful medical tips, edible plant suggestions, and excerpts from the USMC and SAS guides.

Well, according to a recent Bloomberg article HERE it looks as if they now want to restructure and share some risk with private owners..

“Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will create a common platform for issuing mortgage-backed securities as they wind down operations and plan for a future in which the two companies no longer exist, their regulator said yesterday…”

“Their new joint securitization company will have its own chief executive officer and chairman, and will be funded by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, DeMarco said yesterday. It will create a single standard for issuing securities that could survive independently if the two companies no longer exist, he said.

The two enterprises this year also will aim to execute $30 billion each in transactions in which they share the risk of backing single-family loans with private participants in the market. Those could involve mortgage insurance or include the issuance of different types of securities.

“What we’re looking for is to have some portion of the risk sold off to private owners and that way reduce the exposure of the taxpayer and demonstrate the viability of these types of transactions,” DeMarco said on the call.”

Although these two did not directly partake in the “lump sum” of private packaging of mortgage-backed securities via the wall street pain train , they did help facilitate the bubble by distorting the market. The intent is usually noble; help those struggling get a home. However, all free markets require risk/reward balance. Whenever credit scores and lending standards are lowered to where risk/reward is rendered useless or unlimited guarantee’s are issued, you will increase the likelihood of bubble formation and create a moral hazard in the system.  This is of course is not a right or left issue as GWB himself encouraged and enacted policies which pushed along-side Wall-street in helping form one of the biggest bubbles ever seen. No credit or no money down? No problem. Actually, there is a problem. Although noble in intent, many folks who should not have been handed loans for a new home were not able to handle their finances when the bubble burst. They were set up to fail. Credit scores and financial history are reviewed for a reason.

What do these institutions do ??? Fannie and Freddie were essentially a backstop to private lenders and provided liquidity to the system. They helped repackage and made guarantees so lenders could free capital and keep the system flowing. Although pounded by the left that Fannie and Freddie were not the cause of the crisis, they still fail to see how it contributes.

As noted HERE they still don’t see this to be an issue…

“Since mortgage lenders don’t have to hold these loans on their balance sheets, they have more capital available to make loans to other creditworthy borrowers. Lenders also have an added incentive to offer safe and sustainable products—namely long-term, fixed-rate mortgages—because they know Fannie and Freddie will likely purchase them. Since Fannie and Freddie guarantee payments in the event of a default—for a fee, of course—investors don’t have to worry about credit risk, which makes mortgages a particularly attractive investment.”

Again, I understand that private firms eventually worked their way around Fannie and Freddie and began packaging their own securities but that does not mean guaranteeing anything is a good either.  It is precisely the opposite concept that something can fail or is not guaranteed that help regulate the market. The fear of losing is what keeps the riskier investments at bay. Additionally, like any financial institution (Most especially Wall-Street) they should be allowed to fail. They did not keep enough capital at hand to be solvent and did not diversify their portfolio to handle a downturn in housing. They of course collapsed and guaranteed citizens fork over their money to the tune of 190 billion taxpayer dollars.

The best thing we could have done is let both wall street and institutions like these go the natural way of the market.

Hat-tip to Bill Quick at Daily Pundit:

Ken Jorgustin at Modern Survival has some interesting tid-bits regarding our overlords preparing to deal with the inevitable fall-out of their tyranny…

The Department of Homeland Security (through the U.S. Army Forces Command) recently retrofitted 2,717 of these ‘Mine Resistant Protected’ vehicles for service on the streets of the United States.

Although I’ve seen and read several online blurbs about this vehicle of late, I decided to dig slightly deeper and discover more about the vehicle itself.

The new DHS sanctioned ‘Street Sweeper’ (my own slang due to the gun ports) is built by Navistar Defense (NavistarDefense.com), a division within the Navistar organization. Under the Navistar umbrella are several other companies including International Trucks, IC Bus (they make school buses), Monaco RV (recreational vehicles), WorkHorse (they make chassis), MaxxForce (diesel engines), and Navistar Financial (the money arm of the company).
– Ken Jorgustin

Read the entire thing HERE.

Ahhh… ain’t Janet’s personal little Waffen-SS just so darn irresistibly cute when it tries to act all Mall-ninja?? Such a pwetty-wittle-tanky-wanky-dare… we bet there’s even a dispenser inside it for their camouflaged-pull-ups.

Commenter genes at Daily Pundit reminds folks that such vehicles make for great BBQs.

One can always heat things up a bit.

The Finns perfected the design and tactical use of the petrol bomb. The fuel for the Molotov cocktail was refined to a slightly sticky mixture of gasoline, kerosene, tar, and potassium chlorate. Further refinements included the attachment of wind-proof matches or a phial of chemicals that would ignite on breakage, thereby removing the need to pre-ignite the bottle, and leaving the bottle about one-third empty was found to make breaking more likely.[9] As the cooling system was almost invariably placed where direct fire wouldn’t hit it, the target of choice was the rear deck of a tank; the burning contents of the bottle would pour through the large cooling grills and ignite fuel, hydraulic fluids and ammunition.

A British War Office report dated June 1940 noted that:

The Finns’ policy was to allow the Russian tanks to penetrate their defences, even inducing them to do so by ‘canalising’ them through gaps and concentrating their small arms fire on the infantry following them. The tanks that penetrated were taken on by gun fire in the open and by small parties of men armed with explosive charges and petrol bombs in the forests and villages… The essence of the policy was the separation of the AFVs from the infantry, as once on their own the tank has many blind spots and once brought to a stop can be disposed of at leisure.[10]

Molotov cocktails were eventually mass-produced by the Alko corporation at its Rajamäki distillery, bundled with matches to light them. Production totalled 450,000 during the Winter War. The original design of the Molotov cocktail was a mixture of ethanol, tar and gasoline in a 750 millilitres (0.79 US qt) bottle. The bottle had two long pyrotechnic storm matches attached to either side. Before use, one or both of the matches was lit; when the bottle broke on impact, the mixture ignited. The storm matches were found to be safer to use than a burning rag on the mouth of the bottle.
– Genes

The more the patriots rattle their tails, the more odious and clownish the response of the gentry-class rulers in this country gets. Wasteful, stupid, and ineffective to boot.

Good.

If we may some day find ourselves embroiled in a life or death struggle, we’d sooner it be with the sort of foe that finds these outlandish monstrosities prudent.

The Warcraft III Custom Characters Section is up and formatted. Here you can see the detailed stats, powers, skills, and equipment of our custom character kits. Over time, expect additional heroes to show up on the roster.

Click HERE for more information.

The new Capital Market Section is now up, and our Resident Financial guru Gus will provide the occasional blow-by-blow as the crooks in charge of American economic policy steal every penny we have ever earned – or ever will.

Good times. Gooooood times… especially when the zombie’s SNAP cards stop working.

Click HERE for more information.

Mike Vanderboegh at the Sipsey Street Irregulars gives aspiring patriots three critical historical lessons:

As an amateur historian of this sad century whose time is almost up, I would like to reflect upon six lessons I have learned in my studies. Folks who wish to live free and prosperous in the next century would do well to understand the failures of the past.

LESSON NO. 1: If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and take you someplace you do not want to go because of who you are or what you think — kill him. If you can, kill the politician who sent him. You will likely die anyway, and you will be saving someone else the same fate. For it is a universal truth that the intended victims always far outnumber the tyrant’s executioners. Any nation which practices this lesson will quickly run out of executioners and tyrants, or they will run out of it.

LESSON NO. 2: If a bureaucrat, or a soldier sent by a bureaucrat, comes to knock down your door and confiscate your firearms — kill him. The disarmament of law-abiding citizens is the required precursor to genocide.

LESSON NO. 3: If a bureaucrat tells you that he must know if you have a firearm so he can put your name on a list for the common good, or wants to issue you an identity card so that you be more easily identified — tell him to go to hell. Registration of people and firearms is the required precursor to the tyranny which permits genocide. Bureaucrats cannot send soldiers to doors that are not on their list.
– Mike Vanderboegh

Click HERE for the rest of the article.

We can’t think of anything that needs to be added to this thought process. Perhaps an engineer’s flow chart?

Is a Government Goon at your door?
Y/N
Y
Is he there for your guns?
Y/N
Y
Kill him.

Hrm. That could be darkly humorous.

Angelo Codevilla, writing for Forbes, has an amazing piece regarding the Whig-i-fication of the Republican party – a subject we have beaten to death over the past several years – but he puts in a succinct and powerful way the correctly illustrates just how far up shit-creek the Neo-cons are:

“On January 1, 2013 one third of Republican congressmen, following their leaders, joined with nearly all Democrats to legislate higher taxes and more subsidies for Democratic constituencies. Two thirds voted no, following the people who had elected them. For generations, the Republican Party had presented itself as the political vehicle for Americans whose opposition to ever-bigger government financed by ever-higher taxes makes them a “country class.” Yet modern Republican leaders, with the exception of the Reagan Administration, have been partners in the expansion of government, indeed in the growth of a government-based “ruling class.” They have relished that role despite their voters. Thus these leaders gradually solidified their choice to no longer represent what had been their constituency, but to openly adopt the identity of junior partners in that ruling class. By repeatedly passing bills that contradict the identity of Republican voters and of the majority of Republican elected representatives, the Republican leadership has made political orphans of millions of Americans. In short, at the outset of 2013 a substantial portion of America finds itself un-represented, while Republican leaders increasingly represent only themselves.”

“By the law of supply and demand, millions of Americans, (arguably a majority) cannot remain without representation. Increasingly the top people in government, corporations, and the media collude and demand submission as did the royal courts of old. This marks these political orphans as a “country class.” In 1776 America’s country class responded to lack of representation by uniting under the concept: “all men are created equal.” In our time, its disparate sectors’ common sentiment is more like: “who the hell do they think they are?”

“The ever-growing U.S. government has an edgy social, ethical, and political character. It is distasteful to a majority of persons who vote Republican and to independent voters, as well as to perhaps one fifth of those who vote Democrat. The Republican leadership’s kinship with the socio-political class that runs modern government is deep. Country class Americans have but to glance at the Media to hear themselves insulted from on high as greedy, racist, violent, ignorant extremists. Yet far has it been from the Republican leadership to defend them. Whenever possible, the Republican Establishment has chosen candidates for office – especially the Presidency – who have ignored, soft-pedaled or given mere lip service to their voters’ identities and concerns.”

“Thus public opinion polls confirm that some two thirds of Americans feel that government is “them” not “us,” that government has been taking the country in the wrong direction, and that such sentiments largely parallel partisan identification: While a majority of Democrats feel that officials who bear that label represent them well, only about a fourth of Republican voters and an even smaller proportion of independents trust Republican officials to be on their side. Again: While the ruling class is well represented by the Democratic Party, the country class is not represented politically – by the Republican Party or by any other. Well or badly, its demand for representation will be met.”

“Representation is the distinguishing feature of democratic government. To be represented, to trust that one’s own identity and interests are secure and advocated in high places, is to be part of the polity. In practice, any democratic government’s claim to the obedience of citizens depends on the extent to which voters feel they are party to the polity. No one doubts that the absence, loss, or perversion of that function divides the polity sharply between rulers and ruled.”

“Representation can be perverted. Some regimes (formerly the Communists, and currently the Islamists) allow dissent from the ruling class to be represented only by parties approved by the ruling class. Also, in today’s European Union the ruling class’ wide spread and homogeneity leaves those who do not like how their country is run with no one to represent them. Though America’s ruling class is neither as narrow as that of Communist regimes nor as broadly preclusive as that of the European Union, the Republican leadership’s preference for acting as part of the ruling class rather than as representatives of voters who feel set upon has begun to produce the sort of soft pre-emption of opposition and bitterness between rulers and ruled that occurs necessarily wherever representation is mocked.”

“To see how America’ country class can be represented, let us glance at how the current division of American politics into a ruling class and a country class came about and why it is inherently unstable.”
– Angelo Codevilla

Please read the entire thing HERE.

Give our regards to the fucking Whigs. In hell. Seems the legislation they just rubber stamped will take the guns out o the hands of any person that raises their voice to a woman…

Bill Quick at Daily Pundit, lets us know how the assholes of the GOP sold out Americans yet again…

Don’t Yell At Your Girlfriend – You Could Lose Your Right to Own A Firearm! Thanks, Boehner and Cantor, You Progressive Putzes!

From Protein Wisdom:

But perhaps worst of all, conviction under such federal law will negate the right to gun ownership — meaning that men, women, homosexuals, and the transgendered can all lose their 2nd Amendment rights for inflicting “emotional abuse” on a partner, or even for engaging in “unpleasant speech – Which I suppose trumps the “shall not be infringed” portion of the amendment’s text in the Bill of Rights.

“If you need any more graphic evidence of the hostility of the GOP Faction of the Ruling Party to constitutionally guaranteed individual liberties, I can’t imagine where you will find it other than right here.”

“The leadership of the GOP Faction threatened conservative apostates from their statist ideology with open political warfare unless they knuckled under and stopped supporting individual liberty over the power and control of the state, the altar at which the GOP Faction worships almost as religiously as do the Democrat Faction (the controlling faction) of the Ruling Party.”
– Bill Quick

Click HERE to read the whole thing.

We are not amused. The more bullshit laws they impose, the more bullshit laws we will ignore. And may God forgive any apparatchik that attempts to enforce them. Because the patriots won’t.

Full Disclosure: Long cordage.

The display issues on the Warcraft III Maps and Custom Heroes pages have been addressed. Please note the Custom Heroes page is still under construction, and content will be added as time goes by.

The older posts from 2012 are available in the News Archives Section. Here you can read old updates and articles from years long past - which is rather interesting for seeing the evolution of people's thoughts and opinions over time.

‣ Click HERE to read more.