Former Managing Director of Goldman Sachs: Egyptians, Greeks, Tunisians and British Are All Protesting Against Pillaging of Their Economies

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Former Managing Director of Goldman Sachs: Egyptians, Greeks, Tunisians and British Are All Protesting Against Pillaging of Their Economies

Nomi Prins - former managing director of Goldman Sachs and head of the international analytics group at Bear Stearns in London - notes that the Egyptian people are rebelling against being pillaged by giant, international banks and their own government as much as anything else.
She also points out that the Greek, British, Tunisian and other protesters are all in the same boat:

The ongoing demonstrations in Egypt are as much, if not more, about the mass deterioration of economic conditions and the harsh result of years of financial deregulation, than the political ideology that some of the media seems more focused on.

***

According to the CIA's World Fact-book depiction of Egypt's economy, "Cairo from 2004 to 2008 aggressively pursued economic reforms to attract foreign investment and facilitate GDP growth." And, while that was happening, "Despite the relatively high levels of economic growth over the past few years, living conditions for the average Egyptian remain poor."

Unemployment in Egypt is hovering just below the 10% mark, like in the US, though similarly, this figure grossly underestimates underemployment, quality of employment, prospects for employment, and the growing youth population with a dismal job future. Nearly 20% of the country live below the poverty line (compared to 14% and growing in the US) and 10% of the population controls 28% of household income (compared to 30% in the US). [By the most commonly used measure of inequality - the Gini Coefficient - the U.S. has much higher inequality than Egypt]. But, these figures, as in the US, have been accelerating in ways that undermine financial security of the majority of the population, and have been doing so for more than have a decade.

Around 2005, Egypt decided to transform its financial system in order to increase its appeal as a magnet for foreign investment, notably banks and real estate speculators. Egypt reduced cumbersome bureaucracy and regulations around foreign property investment through decree (number 583.) International luxury property firms depicted the country as a mecca (of the tax-haven variety) for property speculation, a country offering no capital gains taxes on real estate transactions, no stamp duty, and no inheritance tax.

But, Egypt's more devastating economic transformation centered around its decision to aggressively sell off its national banks as a matter of foreign and financial policy between 2005 and early 2008 (around the time that US banks were stoking a global sub-prime and other forms-of-debt and leverage oriented crisis). Having opened its real estate to foreign investment and private equity speculation, the next step in the deregulation of the country's banks was spurring international bank takeovers complete with new bank openings, where international banks could begin plowing Egyptians for fees. Citigroup, for example, launched the first Cards reward program in 2005, followed by other banks.

According to an article in Executive Magazine in early 2007, which touted the competitive bidding, acquistion and rebranding of Egyptian banks by foreign banks and growth of foreign M&A action, the biggest bank deal of 2006 was the sale of one of the four largest state-run banks, Bank of Alexandria, to Italian bank, Gruppo Sanpaolo IMI. This, a much larger deal than the 70% acquisition by Greek's Piraeus Bank of the Egyptian Commercial Bank in 2005, one of the first deals to be blessed by the Central Bank of Egypt and the Ministry of Investment that unleashed the sale of Egypt's banking system to the highest international bidders.

The greater the pace of foreign bank influx and take-overs to 'modernize' Egypt's banking system, inevitably the more short-term, "hot" money poured into Egypt. Pieces of Egypt, or its companies, continued to be purchased by foreign conglomerates, trickling off when the global financial crisis brewed full force in 2008, though not before Goldman Sachs Strategic Investments Limited in the UK bought a $70 million chunk of Palm Hills Development SAE, a high-end real estate developer, in March, 2008.

When a country, among other shortcomings, relinquishes its financial system and its population's well-being to the pursuit of 'good deals', there is going to be substantial fallout. The citizens protesting in the streets of Greece, England, Tunisia, Egypt and anywhere else, may be revolting on a national basis against individual leaderships that have shafted them, but they have a common bond; they are revolting against a world besotted with benefiting the powerful and the deal-makers at the expense of ordinary people.

As Joe Weisenthal notes, a survey from Credit Suisse confirms that economic and financial problems are weighing heavily on the Egyptian people:

A recent survey from Credit Suisse on emerging markets -- which you can download here -- sheds some light on how much worse shape Egypt is in compared to other emerging markets.
Here are a few.
First of all, there's a lot of anxiety. Much of the population foresaw worsening conditions over the next six months.

Image: Credit Suisse

Meanwhile, real household income growth has been negative for all income strata.

Image: Credit Suisse

And of course, food is far and away the biggest cost that Egyptians face. So agriculture inflation bites hard.

Image: Credit Suisse

Egypt: The Point of No Return

Gerald Celente on Goldsek Radio Jan. 28, 2011 

 

Gerald Celente on RT 28 Jan 2011 

Inflation is Theft!

 

Ron Paul: What If the Fed Couldn't Buy Government Debt?

Ron Paul Explains How Iraq Was Made into an Enemy in Order to "Redesign the Middle East" 

The Love Police @ London Protest Jan 29th 2011 [Charlie Veitch] 

Exclusive -- Egypt protest at White House 

 

What's Happening in Egypt?

Sunday, January 30, 2011

What's Happening in Egypt?

Events are moving very quickly in Egypt.
The Egyptian government has expelled Al Jazeera.
Al Jazeera coverage has also been blacked out throughout most of the United States.
Fighter jets flew low over Cairo.
However, Al Jazeera just said that the commander of the army tanks in downtown Cairo told protest leader that the army would take no action so long as the protests were peaceful.
Indeed, there are indications that the army may be protecting protesters against police brutality. And see this.
Al Jazeera also interviewed a spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, who said that that radical group would support former UN weapons inspector Mohamed ElBaradei as Egyptian leader.
Al Jazeera reports:

Hundreds of judges join the protests in Cairo.

***

Al Jazeera's producer in Egypt says reports are circulating that the country's interior minister has been arrested by the army.

The generals of the Egyptian army met with Mubarak and - according to an unconfirmed report from Malta Today - the generals told Mubarak to quit.
Egyptian newspaper Al Masry Al Youm reports that Egypt's defense minister has joined protesters in Tahrir Square.
And Business Insider writes:

According to Al Jazeera, ElBaradei says he has been in contact with the military, and that he has a mandate to form a new, national unity government immediately.
Separately, Al Jazeera is reporting on emerging fears of a counter-revolution tonight, i.e. the possibility that the government will make one violent, last-ditch attempt to quash protesters once nightful comes to Cairo tonight.

Note: Even president Obama is watching Al Jazeera to find out what's going on in Egypt.
And in an update from yesterday's story, protesters have formed a human wall to protect the Cairo museum from looters.

Police use CS spray on tax protesters

UK Uncut activists hospitalised after targeting Boots in Oxford Street as part of latest day of action

Sunday 30 January 2011 19.36 GMT

 

A man washes his eyes after police used CS gas on tax protesters in London. Photograph: Tim Mitchell/PA Tax avoidance protesters needed hospital treatment today after police used CS spray to break up a demonstration on Oxford Street in central London. Hundreds of people staged peaceful sit-ins at high street stores around the country as part of the latest UK Uncut day of action, designed to highlight companies it says are avoiding millions of pounds in tax. In London protesters had successfully closed down Boots in Oxford Street – one of the companies campaigners accuse of tax avoidance – when police tried to arrest a woman for pushing a leaflet through the store's doors. Other demonstrators tried to stop the arrest and at least one police officer used CS spray, which hospitalised three people. Jed Weightman, one of those who went to hospital, said protesters had joined hands to try and prevent the arrest. "One police officer sprayed towards us and because I was tall I got a lot of it in my face," he said. "My eyes were streaming and I couldn't see anything." Earlier this week Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said police could adopt more extreme tactics to counter the growing wave of protests, and hinted that UK Uncut demonstrators could face criminal and civil charges if they invaded shops during today's protests. Activists reacted angrily to yesterday's events, claiming the police had been "heavy handed and disproportionate." Anna Williams, who saw the incident, said: "This is yet another example of political policing that is about protecting corporate interests and not those of ordinary people ... We have a right to protest when the government are making unnecessary cuts that will hit the poorest in our society the hardest." Protesters said staff at Boots had been shocked by the police tactics, and took those who were suffering from the effects of CS spray into the store and offered them free eye wash. "The staff at Boots were fantastic and took us inside and gave us free treatment," said Gordon Maloney, 20, one of the other protesters who was hit by the CS spray. "My eyes were really streaming and my face hurt but I was most struck by the violence used by the police. I have been on a lot of demonstrations and have not seen anything like this before." A spokesman for the Metropolitan police said officers had arrested a woman for damaging the door of Boots and confirmed CS spray had been used. He said he was unaware of anyone needing hospital treatment. The London demonstration was one of around 30 taking place around the UK today as part of a wider campaign against corporate tax avoidance and the government's cuts. Using the Twitter hashtag #ukuncut, the fast-expanding group has become a rallying point for protesters and past campaigns have closed down scores of high street stores accused of avoiding tax. At today's London demonstration protesters dressed in surgical masks and bloody bandages claimed Boots was avoiding huge sums of money by being registered in Switzerland, where taxes are far lower. A Boots spokeswoman said it had registered in Switzerland because "in the longer term we believe it will better reflect the increasingly international nature of our wider group". "If we had registered in Switzerland purely for tax reasons there are many other countries that we could have considered." She added that the company had contributed to the UK's finances through increased business rates and national insurance contributions resulting from the expansion of the brand.

Video of Egyptian police killing teen protester & the aftermath of riots

Egyptian protesters push back armed police

Lethal injection drug production ends in the US

Sole US sodium thiopental manufacturer, Hospira, has ceased manufacturing the drug used in administering death penalties

 

Chris McGreal in Washington
Guardian.co.uk Sunday 23 January 2011 18.17 GMT

 

 

Lethal injections are administered in 'death chambers' like this one in a prison in Huntsville, Texas. Photograph: Paul Buck/EPA US states are facing a new obstacle to enforcing the death penalty after the sole American manufacturer of a drug used in lethal injections announced it was ending production.
Some states have already been forced to seek alternative supplies of sodium thiopental abroad, including illicitly from British companies, in order to carry out executions because of a shortage of the anaesthetic after production was stalled by the lack of a key ingredient.
Now the US manufacturer, Hospira, says that it will stop production entirely after a bid to start making sodium thiopental in Italy stalled when the Rome government said it would only license manufacture if the drug was not used in executions.
Hospira said it intended to manufacture sodium thiopental to serve hospitals but "could not prevent the drug from being diverted to departments of corrections for use in capital punishment procedures".
"We cannot take the risk that we will be held liable by the Italian authorities if the product is diverted for use in capital punishment," the company said.
Sodium thiopental is an anaesthetic generally used before the administration of two other drugs that halt breathing and stop the heart. However, two states use sodium thiopental alone as it can kill on its own if used in high dosage.
All but one of the 35 US states that carry out executions use the drug in lethal injections. The shortage has delayed executions in California and Oklahoma and forced other states to scramble to find alternatives.
Hospira's decision will leave some states with no means to execute condemned prisoners, at least for some time, while they go through the extended legal processes of drawing up new protocols for lethal injections.
Last year, California and Arizona illicitly obtained supplies of the drug, manufactured in Austria, from a UK wholesaler, Dream Pharma, which had obtained it from the British licence holder, Archimedes Pharma UK. Arizona used the drug in the execution of a man in October. After an outcry, the British government imposed export controls on the drug in November to prevent its use in executions.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that Dream Pharma had exported to Arizona all three drugs used in lethal injections, which was legal at the time.
The supply of sodium thiopental held by Texas, which carries out more lethal injections than all the other US states combined, will expire in March weeks before two scheduled executions.
California was forced to call off the execution of a man in September. It tried to obtain the drug from at least six other states and from Pakistan before securing a supply from a British importer that is sufficient for about 100 executions.
The governor of Missouri last week spared a man who had been scheduled to die on Wednesday amid speculation about its supply of drugs for lethal injection.
Tennessee obtained a supply for an execution in October but it is unclear whether it will be able to carry out others.
Oklahoma has started using pentobarbital, a drug used in doctor-assisted suicides in Oregon and by the Swiss euthanasia group, Dignitas.

WHO OWNS THE MEDIA?

Man arrested with bomb outside of large mosque in Dearborn, Mich.; was busted after bragging at bar

Pugliano/Getty

Leaders at the Islamic Center of America praised local police for their quick actions against a bomb threat.

A man allegedly armed with explosives outside of one of the country's largest mosques in Dearborn, Michigan was arrested this past week.
Roger Stockham, due back in court on Feb. 4 for a preliminary examination, was charged with one count of making a false report or threat of terrorism and one count of possession of bombs with unlawful intent.
He is being held on a $500,000 bond, according to CAIR.
The downfall of his dangerous plan, according to the Detroit News, was bragging at a local bar that he was going to harm a mosque in the Detroit suburb. An alert bar employee followed the 63-year-old California resident outside, took down his license plate number and called police.
Religious leaders in the community lauded the police force's quick actions in protecting the mosque.
"The increased number of bias incidents targeting American Muslim institutions must be addressed by local, state and national officials and law enforcement authorities," Dawud Walid, the executive director of CAIR's Michigan chapter said in a statement.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations' Michigan chapter said the accused wannabe bomber was arrested on Monday in the parking lot of Islamic Center of America.
The arrest is the latest in a rash of crimes on mosques, according to CAIR. Earlier this month, a mosque in Missouri was vandalized, the organization said.

nmandell@nydailynews.com

You Are The Resistance Against The DHS Occupation Of America

Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones
Infowars.com
January 21, 2011


“Resistance V’s appeared all over the country….The V campaign meant ordinary people could feel they were doing something, however symbolic, to protest against the Occupation.”

“The British radio has called on people to write V for victory everywhere, and they are all over the place, even on shop fronts. They are also written on blackboards, on tables – everywhere. Even better, there’s a new badge: a V made with two crossed pins and worn on the lapel. Yvette and I counted seventy-five in five minutes!…On the Rue d’Astorg, I scribbled a V on a German car. I heard the sound of boots behind me, and moved off quickly.”

The Resistance, by Matthew Cobb.
America is in peril, the United States is being occupied as Homeland Security launches a total takeover of society and attempts to indoctrinate an army of citizen spies as the country accelerates its slide into banana republic despotism. Americans who can see what is unfolding feel helpless, powerless and overawed by the clear evisceration of their freedoms. The time has come for a massive campaign of powerful, symbolic, peaceful resistance.
The Department of Homeland Security has released a trio of chilling PSA video clips in which ordinary everyday activities are characterized as signs of potential terrorism, with the public being indoctrinated to assume the role of domestic spies reporting on their friends and neighbors as America sinks deeper into a decaying police state.

DHS will no longer be limited to the airport in the form of the TSA, but will become a ubiquitous entity policing everyone through a network of citizen spies and infrastructure security technology. The agency will also assume the mantle of regulating Americans’ every behavior and activity.
In wartime France, the victims of the Nazi occupation could see who their oppressors were, in 21st century America we’re not yet being policed 24/7 by black boot wearing stormtroopers, but perhaps something even more insidious – each other. Homeland Security is training Americans to spy on their friends, neighbors and colleagues by making us obsessed with the fear of terror – using the very tactic of terrorists to chill the 1st Amendment, tear up the bill of rights, and intimidate Americans into accepting constant harassment, bag searches, body scans, interrogations, and suffocating security-theatre everywhere they go.

So why the V campaign? What is it and what will it achieve? It’s all about fighting back against the psychological warfare we are now being subjected to by our new would-be slavemasters. They like to remind us that they’re our bosses with their signs – report suspicious activity posters and video messages at Wal-Mart checkouts - terrorism tip line billboards – Homeland Security posters telling Americans where they can and can’t park their car – using symbols, slogans and messages to herd the sheep and elicit their obedience is obviously a very important component of any authoritarian regime – so why not fight back with our own symbols, slogans and messages?
The Obama Joker poster campaign attracted massive attention and was a huge success in creating an underground buzz of resistance. The V for Victory campaign is based on the same basic idea.
We need to tell them who we are and that we’re not their slaves. This in turn will encourage others to feel secure in the knowledge that there are Americans who are working to protect freedom of speech and the right to criticize government without being treated as a terrorist, and that Homeland Security’s constant hyped fearmongering about non-existent terror threats is nothing more than an act of psychological warfare to make Americans shut up, mute their dissent, and follow orders like good little children.

From VIPR teams that now patrol Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor and Los Angeles rail lines; ferries in Washington state; bus stations in Houston; and mass transit systems in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Washington and Baltimore, to invasive pat downs at bus and train terminals and on street corners across the country, to radiation-emitting naked body scanners that roam the highways scanning vehicles and homes, to interrogation checkpoints at sporting and other public events, Big Sis is engaged in a total takeover of society, turning America into a giant prison grid where everyone is guilty until proven innocent and treated as a potential terrorist.
Show me a case in history where the government recruiting the citizens to spy on each other led to a more secure, happy, free and prosperous society and I’ll show you a chicken with teeth. The best possible outcome, as in East Germany, was a despotic society in which free speech was silenced and political dissidents were imprisoned. The usual outcome, as in Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany – was outright tyranny and death camps. Neither have any place in America.
Homeland Security is now trying to mimic the way of all oppressive regimes, by turning the American people against each other. Their agenda is public – DHS’ own documents clearly state that they consider libertarians, Ron Paul supporters, constitutionalists, gun owners and virtually any political activism as extremism and possible terrorism. As we have seen from a myriad of reports put out by the DHS and threat fusion centers across the country – the primary targets of Homeland Security in their campaign to have everyone treated with suspicion are people who know their rights and people who dare to exercise their freedoms.
This has nothing to do with any genuine terror threat. Americans are being coerced into living in constant fear of terror, when in reality they are more likely to die from peanut allergies, lightning strikes, or accident-causing deer than terrorist attacks.
We need to invoke the spirit of the French who were occupied by the Nazis in World War Two. The V for victory campaign in Paris and elsewhere helped the occupied to understand that the resistance against tyranny was legion. It gave the victims hope that they were not isolated and that their community was bonded in freedom, reducing fear that they would be reported to the authorities by collaborators as a subversive or terrorist for expressing dissent against their occupiers.
To encourage more people to participate in this outreach, we are incorporating it into our, “The Answer to 1984 is 1776″ campaign, and offering $7,000 dollars for the winner who posts the best video on You Tube. Second place will win $2,000, 3rd place wins $1,000. Use the V for Victory flyers we have provided to let Big Sis know that we are not her slaves. Use them on banner hangs or as stand alone flyers, post them on message boards or any places where announcements are made in your local community. Anywhere that’s legal and lawful, we want to see the V for victory proudly displayed as a symbolic message of resistance and defiance.
Click here to download all the V for Victory posters in PDF format. Pick your favorite and print them off to use as flyers, or alternatively you are free to adapt the design to your own tastes. This is a campaign that everyone who wants to put on record their opposition to this tyranny can become involved with – the added incentive of cash prizes adds the element of competition and also increases media coverage.
Remember – you are the resistance!

“Never has France been engaged in a more noble or beautiful war than in the one that is fought in cellars where her free newspapers are printed, in the nocturnal terrains and secret rocky coves where she receives her free friends and from where her free children swarm out, in the torture chambers where despite the pliers, the needles reddened by fire and the broken bones, the French die as free men.”
Joseph Kessel, French Resistance Leader.

—
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show. 

Related: The Answer to 1984 is 1776 Contest

Bill Would Protect Big Sis’ Citizen Spies From Lawsuits Bill Would Protect Big Sis’ Citizen Spies From Lawsuits Bill Would Protect Big Sis’ Citizen Spies From Lawsuits Bill Would Protect Big Sis’ Citizen Spies From Lawsuits

Bill Would Protect Big Sis’ Citizen Spies From Lawsuits

House Homeland Security Chairman Peter King wants to shield “good citizens who report suspicious activity” from the consequences of their actions


Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, January 27, 2011

New York Republican Peter King has introduced a bill that would protect the army of citizen spies Homeland Security hopes to recruit under Janet Napolitano’s “See Something, Say Something” snoop campaign from lawsuits brought by innocent people wrongly accused of being terrorists or extremists.
“A top US lawmaker unveiled legislation on Wednesday to protect individuals who tip off authorities to potential extremist threats from lawsuits, in the event that they turn out to finger innocents,” reports AFP.
House Homeland Security Chairman King, who is pushing the “See Something, Say Something Act,” wants to shield “good citizens who report suspicious activity” from facing the consequences of misidentifying innocent behavior as extremism or terror.
Of course, this will only encourage untrained people to report any behavior whatsoever, no matter how benign, as potential terrorism, creating an army of enthusiastic but hapless citizen spies.
“King said his bill would extend protections from individuals “who report suspicious activity anywhere,” adds the report, making reference to the DHS’ “See Something, Say Something” campaign, which characterizes paying for things with cash as a suspicious activity.
The program was launched with the aid of Orwellian telescreens at Wal-Mart checkouts that play a message from Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano encouraging Americans to report anything unusual to Wal-Mart managers. The program was subsequently expanded to include 9,000 federal buildings, as well as sports stadiums, businesses and communities in general.
DHS will no longer be limited to the airport in the form of the TSA, but will become a ubiquitous entity policing everyone through a network of citizen spies and infrastructure security technology. The agency will also assume the mantle of regulating Americans’ every behavior and activity. DHS signs are already in place all over the country telling people where they can and can’t park their cars.

As we have documented, every historical example of such informant programs illustrates that they never lead to a more secure society, but instead breed suspicion, distrust, fear and resentment amongst the population. The only “benefit” that such programs have ever achieved is allowing the state to more easily identify and persecute political dissidents, while discouraging the wider population from engaging in any criticism against the government.
Since its official launch, the See Something, Say Something campaign has successfully wasted thousands of dollars of taxpayer money after people reported half-empty flasks of coffee and bags of clothes as deadly threats that required a response from bomb squads.
Of course, as we have documented, the federal government is fully aware of the fact that Americans are just as likely to be killed by lightning strikes, peanut allergies or accident-causing deer than they are by terrorists.
See Something, Say Something has little to do with combating terrorism, and everything to do with implanting the notion that Americans are constantly under surveillance from each other and may be reported to the authorities for any minor example of aberrant behavior no matter how benign.
In addition, since the Department of Homeland Security has characterized political activism which targets the state as extremist and terrorist activity, Americans are being trained that exercising their constitutional rights could get them in hot water with the law should their behavior be deemed suspicious by ignorant wannabe citizen spies who see themselves as terrorist hunters.
In an ironic twist, Rep. King, who is now trying to protect snoops who identify innocent behavior as extremism from lawsuits, was one of the primary co-sponsors of a 2009 House resolution that attempted to get answers as to why Homeland Security equated veterans, gun owners, Ron Paul supporters, and people who fly the U.S. flag, with violent terrorists, following the release of the agency’s infamous MIAC report.
*********************

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show. Watson has been interviewed by many publications and radio shows, including Vanity Fair and Coast to Coast AM, America’s most listened to late night talk show.

California Residents Hit With Government Ban On Paying By Cash

District officials want to find out who “uncommonly antagonistic” individuals are by tracing requests for public records, while federal government paints cash users as potential terrorists

Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
Jan 27, 2011

Residents of Discovery Bay, California will be the first in the country to be officially denied the right to use cash to pay for public services, in a move that echoes the Department of Homeland Security’s drive to depict those who use physical money as potential terrorists.
As reported by the Contra Costa Times recently, from May onwards, residents will no long be allowed to pay water bills or purchase park permits after the Discovery Bay Community Services District board voted to ban cash transactions for all services.
Anyone paying for such public services must do so with a credit/debit card, a check or money order.
The declaration on all US money bills that “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private” will no longer apply in Discovery Bay when it comes to paying the government.
One former director on the District Board told the Times that he believes the move has come in response to a small amount of anonymous requests for copies of public records, which were then paid for in cash, a perfectly legal right.
Residents of the town have been described as “uncommonly antagonistic toward local government”, and former director David Piepho believes some are attempting to use public records “to be like snipers and take shots.”
He believes that by banning cash payments, the local government will be able to identify who these individuals are or prevent them from requesting further public information.
However, district representatives have denied those claims, instead suggesting that the ban is being put in place because handling cash puts city officials under threat from potential thieves.

The ruling sets a dangerous precedent, not only in that it effectively limits access to public records, but also particularly in light of the fact that the federal government is pushing an agenda to identify those who exclusively use cash to pay for things and do not own credit cards as suspicious and potential terrorists.
As part of the Commercial Facilities Sector Training and Resources, the following PSA video titled DHS Video No Reservations – Extension of “See Something, Say Something” program was recently released by Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The video suggests that “Terrorists and criminals do their best to cover their tracks. This may include paying by cash.” The hotel receptionist acts baffled and dumbfounded when a guest asks to pay in cash and says he does not use credit cards. Like a dutiful tattle tale she alerts her manager, concluding “I guess it’s not a problem, it’s just… WEIRD.” The narrator of the video then confirms “This is suspicious behaviour”.



Of course, what really is “WEIRD” is the fact that we’re expected to believe that US citizens will find it perfectly normal being asked to report on each other for a government that wishes your every purchase to be electronically traceable on the off chance that you might be an enemy of the state
.
Related: Big Sis Launches DHS Takeover Of Hotels, Malls & Sports Stadiums
Related: Americans Outraged As Big Sis Launches DHS Invasion Of Society
Related: You Are The Resistance Against The DHS Occupation Of America

Obama Administration Expresses Support For Mubarak As Protester Shot Dead In Egypt

Authorities shut down Internet and text messaging as riots threaten to topple regime

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Friday, January 28, 2011

The Obama administration expressed its support for under fire Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak even as footage emerged of a protester being shot dead by Mubarak’s security forces in Cairo, as the government shut down the Internet, land lines and the mobile phone network in a desperate bid to cling on to power amidst widespread rioting.


“Vice President Joe Biden spoke to the PBS NewsHour tonight with the most direct US government comments yet about the gathering Egypt protests against President Hosni Mubarak’s 29-year reign,” reports The Christian Science Monitor.
Speaking to Jim Lehrer, Biden refused to call Mubarek a dictator, and went on to lend his support to a man who presides over $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid each year.
“Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he’s been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with – with Israel. … I would not refer to him as a dictator,” said Biden, who went on to imply that some of the protesters’ demands were illegitimate.
The demonstrations are firmly centered around spiraling fuel and food prices, rising unemployment, as well as police brutality and torture of political dissidents. These factors have culminated in protesters turning on Mubarek and his regime.
“Our government is a dictatorship. A total dictatorship,” said Mohamed Fahim, a 29-year-old glass factory worker, as he stood near the charred skeleton of a car.
“It’s our right to choose our government ourselves. We have been living 29 years, my whole life, without being able to choose a president.”
The rage only intensified after authorities moved to shut down Internet access, the mobile phone network and even land lines across large areas of the country, primarily in an attempt to restrict access to the Associated Press footage showing a protester being shot dead in the street, one of at least eight victims who have been killed since the uprising began. Mubarek’s regime is also desperate to stop activists from organizing via Facebook and Twitter.

As Tyler Durden writes, the ludicrous decision to stoke more anger and chaos by shutting down communications gives an insight into what might happen under similar conditions in America.
“Ironically this act of desperation in Egypt which seeks to prevent the ongoing televising of the revolution, would be precisely the match that would set off America on a certain path to revolution: not ongoing banker rape, not Primary Dealers stealing from babies, not Greek president G-Pap robbing your wallet… merely a shutdown of Facebook and Twitter (and possibly cable) and 300 million well-armed American will promptly go apeshit.”
Despite a myriad of justifiable reasons why Egyptians would want to stage a revolution, one wonders why it took them 29 years of Mubarek’s despotic reign to do so. Are we merely witnessing a natural domino effect from what happened in Tunisia, or are there darker forces at work? Namely, the same NGO’s and elitists that were behind previous color revolutions that were artificially contrived in order to make the target country a vassal state for the new world order?
If Egyptians are given the same “freedoms” that Americans enjoy – particularly the right to choose one of two puppet Presidents controlled by the same elite every four years – will its population be equally as angry when their country becomes the next Iraq – a conquered outpost for the new global government empire?
Egyptians are right to revolt against the tyranny they have been subjected to for almost three decades, but the most important aspect of the situation now becomes the aftermath. Should Mubarek be toppled and his regime swept away, will Egypt retain its sovereignty under a popularly elected government that serves the people, or will the country simply be picked off by encircling geopolitical vultures and turned into another frontier, another giant US/NATO military base and another stepping stone towards the invasion of Iran?

Death toll in Egypt’s protests tops 100: sources

Reuters
Jan 30, 2011

More than 100 people have been killed during anti-government protests that have swept Egypt, according to a Reuters tally of reports from medical sources, hospitals and witnesses.
There was no official figure, and the real figure may be very different, given the confusion on the streets.
On Saturday in Beni Suef, south of Cairo, police shot dead 17 people trying to attack two police stations and eight people were killed during protests. Eight others were killed in clashes when prisoners tried to escape from Abu Zaabal prison in Cairo.
Some 68 deaths were reported killed in Cairo, Suez and Alexandria during Friday’s protests.

Full article here

Egyptians Defiant as Military Does Little to Quash Protests

DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
NY Times
Jan 30, 2011

CAIRO — President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt struggled to maintain a tenuous hold on power on Saturday as the police withdrew from the major cities and the military did nothing to hold back tens of thousands of demonstrators defying a curfew to call for an end to his nearly 30 years of authoritarian rule.
As street protests flared for a fifth day, Mr. Mubarak fired his cabinet and appointed Omar Suleiman, his right-hand man and the country’s intelligence chief, as vice president. Mr. Mubarak, who was vice president himself when he took power after the assassination of President Anwar el-Sadat, had until now steadfastly refused pressure to name any successor, so the move stirred speculation that he was planning to resign.
That, in turn, raised the prospect of an unpredictable handover of power in a country that is a pivotal American ally — a fear that administration officials say factored into President Obama’s calculus not to push for Mr. Mubarak’s resignation, at least for now.
The appointments of two former generals — Mr. Suleiman and Ahmed Shafik, who was named prime minister — also signaled the central role the armed forces will play in shaping the outcome of the unrest. But even though the military is widely popular with the public, there was no sign that the government shakeup would placate protesters, who added anti-Suleiman slogans to their demands.

Full article here

'US' weapons witnessed in Egypt

'US' weapons witnessed in Egypt

Sun Jan 30, 2011 11:4AM

A lot of anger has shifted to international influences in Egypt as protesters witness “made in USA” labels on the weapons used against them, says Press TV's correspondent.

Jihan Hafiz told Press TV that in Egypt “the police used excessive force to disperse protesters” as over one hundred people have already lost their lives in the past days.

The report comes as Egypt is bracing for a sixth day of protests against President Mubarak's rule.

The protesters have dismissed Mubarak's appointment of a vice-president and prime minister, calling for Mubarak's ouster.

More than 2,000 were also injured in clashes that have rocked Cairo, Suez, and Alexandria.



MD/MMA

Alex Jones: Corporations, US Government Run News Media

Russia Today
Sunday, January 30, 2011


Several huge corporations own networks and newspapers in the US. How much of the content do they control? Radio Host Alex Jones says the old media is too close to not only corporations, but the government too. Many Americans are turning to alternative online sources for the truth, but Google, which Jones alleges was created by the NSA, will soon start to censor alternative news outlets.

Top Egyptian Military Officials Cut Short Meetings in U.S.

CNN
Sunday, January 30, 2011

Washington (CNN) — Several top Egyptian military officials cut short their visit to the Pentagon on Friday, returning to where their rank-and-file were rolling through the streets to stem massive protests, a top U.S. military official said.
Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the talks involving Egyptian military officials have been aborted because of the developments. The discussions had been scheduled to run through next Wednesday, February 2.
Cartwright said that — as a matter of protocol — the U.S. and its allies “go through all sorts of contingencies” in case of major international developments. He refrained from taking any position on the unrest, beyond calling for calm.
“The key activity here that’s really important is to exercise restraint, and to do so both on (the U.S.) part but also on our counterparts in the Egyptian military,” he said.

Full story here.

Egyptian Revolution - LIVE Feeds From Twitter & Al Jazeera

Egyptian Revolution - LIVE Feeds From Twitter & Al Jazeera 

 

Spoof on US State Departments Position on Egypt

Republican Congressman Proposes Tracking Freedom of Information Act Requests

By ERIC LIPTON

Published: January 28, 2011

WASHINGTON — Representative Darrell Issa calls it a way to promote transparency: a request for the names of hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens, business executives, journalists and others who have requested copies of federal government documents in recent years.

Mr. Issa, a California Republican and the new chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, says he wants to make sure agencies respond in a timely fashion to Freedom of Information Act requests and do not delay them out of political considerations.

But his extraordinary request worries some civil libertarians. It “just seems sort of creepy that one person in the government could track who is looking into what and what kinds of questions they are asking,” said David Cuillier, a University of Arizona journalism professor and chairman of the Freedom of Information Committee at the Society of Professional Journalists. “It is an easy way to target people who he might think are up to no good.”
Mr. Issa sent a letter on Tuesday asking 180 federal agencies, from the Department of Defense to the Social Security Administration, for electronic files containing the names of people who requested the documents, the date of their requests and a description of information they sought. For those still pending after more than 45 days, he also asked for any communication between the requestor and the federal agency. The request covers the final three years of Bush administration and the first two years of President Obama’s.
“Our interest is not in the private citizens who make the requests,” said Kurt Bardella, a spokesman for Mr. Issa. “We are looking at government responses to these Freedom of Information requests and the only way to measure that is to tally all that information.”
Yearly, the federal government receives about 600,000 FOIA requests, as they are called, a vast majority from corporate executives seeking information on competitors that might do business with the government. A much smaller number comes from civil libertarians, private citizens, whistle-blowers or journalists seeking information on otherwise secret government operations.
Federal agencies typically keep logsof these requests, and some even post them on their Internet sites. But officials often remove the names of private citizens when releasing the logs to protect their privacy.
Professor Cuillier said that while Mr. Issa’s objectives might be admirable, his request was not practical. The congressman asked the agencies to respond by mid-February, but a comprehensive response could take months, delaying other pending requests.
The Obama administration has tried to improve the FOIA process, with agencies told within days of his inauguration that they should “adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure.”
But civil liberties groups complain that not all agencies are honoring this order. The Department of Homeland Security, for example, delayed some responses last year after it required career staff members to notify political appointees about inquiries submitted by certain news organizations and by a privacy group that has opposed the use of full-body scanners at airports.
A staff member on Mr. Issa’s committee said the congressman’s interest in the documents issue was spurred by such complaints. John Verdi, a senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, whose FOIA requests last year to the Homeland Security Department were subjected to political review, said he welcomed Mr. Issa’s inquiry. Federal law allows information to be withheld only for specific legal reasons.
But Mr. Verdi was uncomfortable with the idea of any single government entity having a list of every person who has made a FOIA request. “This is data that could be used to track who the biggest gadfly is,” he said.
Mr. Bardella said the oversight committee frequently received important information, like mortgage documents or corporate records, and was able to review them without compromising anyone’s privacy. It could be hard to check, though. Congress excluded itself from the Freedom of Information Act.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 29, 2011, on page A14 of the New York edition.

Senator Nelson Wants To Give Police Power To See Through Your Walls

Dave Berman
Florida Today
Saturday, January 29, 2011

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson of Orlando wants to give law enforcement the edge when trying to capture dangerous fugitives.
So on Thursday, he proposed allowing limited deployment of “sense-through-the-wall technology” developed for use by the military to help deputized federal agents with a warrant determine if a fugitive is hiding inside a building.

That technology could include hand-held radar or heat-detecting devices.
Nelson’s proposal follows the shootings of 11 police officers in five incidents nationwide since Sunday. Among those were the fatal shootings of two officers in Miami and two in St. Petersburg who were trying to arrest fugitives.

Full story here.

Obama Criticizes Internet Kill Switch In Egypt While His Own Administration Tries To Ram It Through In America

Prison Planet.com
Saturday, January 29, 2011



While his own administration tries to ram through legislation that would give Obama the power to shut down parts of the Internet under a “national emergency,” Obama himself decries Egyptian authorities shutting down the Internet for their own “national emergency”.
RELATED: Egypt’s Internet Kill Switch: Coming To America
RELATED: New Bill Gives Obama ‘Kill Switch‘ To Shut Down The Internet
RELATED: Obama Can Shut Down Internet For 4 Months Under New Emergency Powers
RELATED: Lieberman’s Model For America: Purging The Internet of Dissent

Egypt vigilantes defend homes as police disappear

Dina Zayed and Sherine El Madany
Reuters
Jan 30, 2011

Egyptians armed with sticks and razors have formed vigilante groups to defend their homes from looters after police disappeared from the streets following days of violent protests.
Banks, junctions and important buildings previously guarded by the police and state security were left abandoned on Saturday and civilians have quickly stepped in to fill the void.
“There is no police to be found anywhere,” said Ghadeer, 23, from an upscale neighbourhood. “Doormen and young boys from their neighbourhoods are standing outside holding sticks, razors and other weapons to prevent people from coming in.”
She added: “The community is working together to stop this and protect ourselves.”

Full article here

Stormtroopin’

William Grigg
LRC Blog
January 28, 2011
“When is our society going to start giving the cops the benefit of the doubt?” whined Glenn Beck in a recent on-air monologue. “There is a war on cops,” Beck insisted, reciting the alarmist and misleading police union soundbite that “the death rate of police officers … is up forty percent” since the beginning of the year. After saying that he didn’t blame recent incidents in which eleven police officers were shot in various places across the country on Marxists and other radicals, Beck did vaguely connect those incidents to “bad guys that are trying to get riots going on,” presumably by publicizing police misconduct, among other things.
A few hours before Beck unbosomed himself of that monologue, more than two dozen LAPD officers, including a tactical squad armed with shotguns and ballistic shields, laid siege to the home of Jeremy Marks, a teenager scheduled to stand trial on a spurious charge of “attempted lynching” — that is, of being a “bad guy” trying to get “a riot going on” by taunting and supposedly threatening an abusive police officer.
Marks was one of several students at Verdugo Hills High School who witnessed and captured on video an incident in which a female LAPD officer named Erin Robles roughed up a 15-year-old boy who was smoking at a bus stop. At one point an unidentified student — who, as video recordings clearly demonstrate, could not have been Marks — supposedly yelled “Kick her ass!” after the officer struck the boy with a baton and pepper-sprayed him.
Marks never touched Robles and certainly never threatened her. Furthermore, on the basis of the available evidence it’s clear that Robles wasn’t in danger. The confrontation was an ugly scene, but hardly an incipient riot, let alone a potential “lynching.”

Despite video evidence, abundant eyewitness testimony, and wild inconsistencies in police accounts of the event and Marks’s subsequent arrest at a nearby McDonald’s,  the police and prosecutors focused their attention on him, most likely because he’s the proverbial low-hanging fruit: At the time of the May 10 incident, Marks, who has a history of disciplinary problems.
Following his arrest, Marks spent more than six months in the Peter Pitchess Detention Center; bail was set at $155,000. The D.A.’ s office initially offered Marks a “deal” that would have sent him to prison for seven years. After some people who are shamefully indisposed to give the cops the “benefit of the doubt” riled up the local public, the D.A. modified the offer: If Marks were to plead guilty to several spurious charges, including “attempted lynching,” he would spend “only” 32 months behind bars.
After Google engineer Neil Fraser posted $50,000 to pay bail, Marks was released from jail and went back to school. Pre-trial hearings are scheduled for next month. Rather than following standard discovery procedures, the DA and his trained simians in the LAPD staged a Gestapo-style raid at daybreak on January 27.
“Police vehicles filled the streets of the predominantly African-American neighborhood in Lakeview terrace,” relates one account. “Neighbors were prevented from going into or out of their homes. A next door neighbor had a gun pointed at him for trying to retrieve his children from [the Marks family's] front porch.” Jeremy’s bedroom was trashed by the invaders, who seized computers, cell phones, cameras, and legal documents, many of them “privileged attorney-client communications.” A similar raid reportedly took place at the home of another student who “was targeted because he posted videos of the original incident on YouTube. These videos show that Jeremy did nothing illegal.”
Assuming that the account cited above is accurate, what it describes is the behavior of an occupying army seeking to intimidate and subdue an understandably  hostile population. The SWAT assault on Jeremy Marks’s neighborhood in search of “anti-police” video recordings was strikingly similar to raids carried out in occupied Iraq in search of people distributing “anti-coalition propaganda” or inciting “insurgent activity.”

Although he sometimes flirts with libertarian themes, Beck is clearly a punitive populist; when given the “Tom Joad Test,” he reflexively sympathizes with the State functionary wielding the club, rather than the citizen on the receiving end of officially sanctioned violence. Interestingly, Beck’s jeremiad about the purported “War on Cops” came immediately after he debuted his new anti-Iran agitprop movie “Rumors of War,” a transparent effort to cultivate support for a war against what he calls “the most dangerous regime in the world” — the distant, relatively powerless one ruling Persians, that is, not the one killing, impoverishing, and terrorizing Americans here at home.

FBI Anti-terror Squad, SWAT Team, Cops Show Up at Antiwar Event

Marc Perrusquia
The Commercial Appeal
January 26, 2011

When a police SWAT team and an FBI anti-terrorism squad showed up Tuesday at a Memphis church where peace activists were staging an event, a scene reminiscent of the turbulent 1960s ensued.
The activists, members of the Mid-South Peace and Justice Center who oppose the war in Afghanistan, characterized the encounter as police intimidation and a case of illegal surveillance.
FBI and Memphis Police Department representatives countered it was all a misunderstanding. They said they were there to protect the activists from potential harm by extremists who might oppose their views.
Read entire article

Report of armed man leads to lockdown at Wal-Mart

Daily Express
January 28, 2011

Kirksville, Mo. —A report of an armed man acting erratically in the Wal-Mart parking lot Wednesday led to the store being temporarily locked down before Kirksville Police responded to and diffused the situation with no injuries.
According to Kirksville Police Chief Jim Hughes, a passerby stopped a Kirksville Police officer and said they had seen an individual acting erratically in a truck in the Wal-Mart parking lot shortly before 2:30 p.m. The passerby believed the individual had a gun to his head.
“We don’t take these things lightly,” Hughes said, “especially nowadays.”
The individual was talking on a cell phone at the time of the incident. It’s likely that is the object the passerby identified as a gun.
Read entire article

Is the Egyptian Government Using Agents Provocateur to Justify a Crack Down On the Protesters?

Washington’s Blog
January 30, 2011
Al Jazeera reported today:

[Al Jazeera reporter] Ayman Mohyeldin reports that eyewitnesses have said “party thugs” associated with the Egyptian regime’s Central Security Services – in plainclothes but bearing government-issued weapons – have been looting in Cairo. Ayman says the reports started off as isolated accounts but are now growing in number.

The Telegraph reports:

“Thugs” going around on motorcycles looting shops and houses, according to Al Jazeera. They say they are getting more and more reports of looting. More worryingly, one group of looters who were captured by citizens in the upmarket Cairo district of Heliopolis turned out to have ID cards identifying them as members of the regime security forces.

Similarly, Egyptian newspaper Al MasryAlyoum provides several eyewitness accounts of agents provacateur:

Thugs looting residential neighborhoods and intimidating civilians are government-hires, say eyewitnesses.
In Nasr City, an Eastern Cairo neighborhood, residents attempting to restore security told Al-Masry Al-Youm that looters were caught yesterday.
“They were sent by the government. The government got them out of prison and told them to rob us,” says Nameer Nashaat, a resident working alongside other youths to preserve order in the district. “When we caught them, they said that the Ministry of Interior has sent them.”
In Masr al-Qadeema, another district, scrap metal dealer Khaled Barouma, confirmed the same account. “The government let loose convicts. They let them out of prisons. We all know them in this neighborhood,” he said, adding that the neighborhood’s youth is trying to put the place in order by patrolling its streets with batons.
“The government wants people to believe that this is an uprising of convicts, which is not the case. The government is the one that is a criminal,” Khalil Fathy, a local journalist covering the events closely, said.
In Rehab City, a wealthy gated community in New Cairo, masked thugs broke through a civilian barricade in a truck and were caught by a neighborhood watch that has been guarding the city this evening.
“Even though we caught the ones we saw, now that they’re in, we know that more will be coming and we’re all running to protect our families and houses,” said Karim el-Dib, one of the men guarding the community.
Meanwhile, protestors caught two police informants attempting to rob a bank in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria.
Ayman Nour, opposition leader and head of the Ghad Party, told Al-Masry Al-Youm that his fellow party members have caught several thugs who work forthe Interior Ministry. After capturing them in downtown Cairo and Heliopolis, Nour’s followers found ministry of interior IDs on them, Nour said.
“The regime is trying to project the worst image possible to make it clear to people that they have only one of two alternatives: either the existing order or chaos,” he said.
Scores of looting incidents have been reported since yesterday. Many residential neighborhoods have been attacked by thugs and ex-convicts, despite military presence.

Bikyamasr reports:

Eyewitnesses reported that one plain clothed man attempted to loot and destroy private property, and when confronted he was shot. Bystanders then took his identification out and revealed that he was a police officer, leaving a number of demonstrators to argue that the government has told police to instigate looting and unrest.

And American intelligence service Stratfor provides the following unconfirmed report today:

Security forces in plainclothes are engaged in destroying public property in order to give the impression that many protesters represent a public menace.

As I noted in 2008:

When agents provocateur commit violence or destroy property at peaceful protests, they are carrying out false flag terrorism.
Wikipedia defines false flag terror as follows:

False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is, flying the flag of a country other than one’s own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations, and have been used in peace-time; for example, during Italy’s strategy of tension.

If intelligence agencies or federal, state or local police themselves commit acts of violence against people or property, and then blame it on peaceful protesters, that is – by definition – false flag terror.
***
Read this to see how eagerly the mainstream media are to pin acts of violence on peaceful protesters, instead of the thugs who actually committed them.
And if you don’t know about agents provocateur, read this statement about Burma:

“They’ve ordered some soldiers in the military to shave their heads, so that they could pose as monks, and then those fake monks would attack soldiers to incite a military crackdown. The regime has done this before in Burma, and we believe they would do so again.”

And see this news from Canada, and this Wikipedia discussion.

And as I pointed out last year:

• United Press International reported in June 2005:
  

  U.S. intelligence officers are reporting that some of the insurgents in Iraq are using recent-model Beretta 92 pistols, but the pistols seem to have had their serial numbers erased. The numbers do not appear to have been physically removed; the pistols seem to have come off a production line without any serial numbers. Analysts suggest the lack of serial numbers indicates that the weapons were intended for intelligence operations or terrorist cells with substantial government backing. Analysts speculate that these guns are probably from either Mossad or the CIA. Analysts speculate that agent provocateurs may be using the untraceable weapons even as U.S. authorities use insurgent attacks against civilians as evidence of the illegitimacy of the resistance.

• Quebec police admitted that, in 2007, thugs carrying rocks to a peaceful protest were actually undercover Quebec police officers

• At the G20 protests in London in 2009, a British member of parliament saw plain clothes police officers attempting to incite the crowd to violence

Similarly, an Indonesian fact-finding team investigated violent riots which occurred in 1998, and determined that “elements of the military had been involved in the riots, some of which were deliberately provoked”.

College education could possibly be the largest scam in U.S. history

College education could possibly be the largest scam in U.S. history

National Inflation Association

The National Inflation Association believes that the United States has a college education bubble that is set to burst beginning in mid-2011. This bursting bubble will have effects that are even more far-reaching than the bursting of the Real Estate bubble in 2006. College education could possibly be the largest scam in U.S. history.

NIA's advice to the youth of America today is to think for yourselves. Don't get suckered into overpaying for a college degree that is worthless because everyone else has one. College is only worth attending if you plan on actually learning something there. If you are only going to college because you think a piece of paper is going to help you find a job, you would be much better off skipping college and entering the workforce right now at any entry level job. Your experience will benefit you more than any piece of paper.

The median U.S. home price is currently $170,600, down 26% from its peak of $230,200 in July of 2006. The Dow Jones is currently 11,672, down 18% from its peak of 14,198 in October of 2007. Oil is currently $91 per barrel, down 38% from its peak of $147 per barrel in July of 2008. After the financial panic of 2008, the U.S. saw a collapse in the prices of just about all assets, goods, services, and commodities. Between lost stock market and home equity wealth, Americans lost $10.2 trillion in paper wealth in 2008, and have only recouped a fraction of it since then.

College is the only thing in America that never declined in price during the panic of 2008. It actually rose in price substantially. The annual tuition for a private four-year college was $21,235 in the 2005-2006 school year. Despite Real Estate beginning to collapse in late-2006, college tuition rose by 4.6% in the 2006-2007 school year to $22,218. Despite the stock market beginning to collapse in late-2007, college tuition rose by 6.7% in the 2007-2008 school year to $23,712. Despite oil and other commodities collapsing in late-2008, college tuition rose by 6.2% in the 2008-2009 school year to $25,177. Even after the Dow Jones crashed to a low in early-2009 of 6,469, college tuition still rose by 4.4% in the 2009-2010 school year to $26,273.

Annual tuition for a private four-year college in America is now $27,293, up 29% from five years ago. Meanwhile, the employment situation in the U.S. has deteriorated. There are currently 130.7 million non-farm jobs in America, down 3% from 134.5 million U.S. non-farm jobs in December 2005. 3.8 million jobs have been lost, while the U.S. population has grown by approximately 14 million people during the same time period. We would need to have seen the creation of 6.7 million non-farm jobs just to stay even, but now we are 10.5 million jobs short.

Read Full Article

RELATED ARTICLES:
4 Reasons to Change the Way We View Education
A Journey to Unschooling