Weapons of war sighted on American city streets!

MRAPS are "weapons of war"? All 16 DHS has?


 

February 22, 2013
The Feds Want Your Retirement Accounts
By John White

Quietly, behind the scenes, the groundwork is being laid for federal government confiscation of tax-deferred retirement accounts such as IRAs. Slowly, the cat is being let out of the bag.

Last January 18th, in a little noticed interview of Richard Cordray, acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Bloomberg reported "[t]he U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [CFPB] is weighing whether it should take on a role in helping Americans manage the $19.4 trillion they have put into retirement savings, a move that would be the agency's first foray into consumer investments."  That thought generates some skepticism, as aptly expressed by the Richard Terrell cartoon  published by American Thinker.

Days later On January 24th President Obama renominated Cordray as CFPB director even though his recess appointment was not due to expire until the end of 2013.

One day later, in the first significant resistance to President Obama's concentration of presidential power, a three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington DC unanimously said that Obama's Recess Appointments to the National Labor Relations Board are unconstitutional.  Similar litigation testing the Cordray appointment to the CFPB is in the pipeline.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) created by the 2,319 page Dodd-Frank legislation is a new and little known bureau with wide-ranging powers.  Placed within the Federal Reserve, a corporation privately owned by member banks, the CFPB is insulated from oversight by either the President or Congress, its budget not subject to legislative control.  It is not even clear that a new President can replace the CFPB director on taking office.

Unusual legal and political environments have a significant impact on the CFPB. With Cordray's recess appointment in doubt several questions remain unanswered.

1) What will become of the CFPB when Cordray's appointment is found invalid?  An indicator comes from the NRLB, which operated unconstitutionally for years without a quorum.  In 2007 the Senate threatened no NLRB nominations reported out of committee.

The NLRB continued operating with two members.  Then a Supreme Court ruling in June of 2010 invalidated the NLRB decisions for lack of a quorum.  Fisher & Phillips give the details about what was done next.

But recovery from the Supreme Court's sting was quick, with Liebman and Schaumber still on the Board and with two new Members confirmed, ... the suddenly full-strength Board simply added a new Member to the "rump panel" of the original decisions and managed to rubber-stamp many of the disputed Orders - at a record-setting pace - with the same result...

This may explain why President Obama renominated Cordray a year early.  Once confirmed Cordray can rubber-stamp decisions made while he was unconstitutionally appointed.  Otherwise those decisions will be invalidated.

2) What will the CFPB do with your money?  The CFPB incursion into individual personal savings, in order to control how you invest your money, isn't a new idea. Current proposals grew from a policy analysis as disclosed by Roger Hedgecock.

On Nov. 20, 2007, Theresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, presented a paper proposing that the feds eliminate the tax deferral for private retirement accounts, confiscate the balance of those accounts, give each worker a $600 annual "contribution," assess a mandatory savings tax on every worker and guarantee a 3 percent rate of return on the newly titled "Guaranteed Retirement Accounts," or GRAs.

How would that be accomplished?  The Carolina Journal reported Ghilarducci's 2008 testimony to Nancy Pelosi's House.

Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers' personal retirement accounts "including 401(k)s and IRAs" and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration.

Your Government universal GRA investment savings account is an annuity managed by Social Security.  Hedgecock noted '[m]ake no mistake here: Obama is after your retirement money. The "annuities" will "invest" not in the familiar packages of bond and stock mutual funds but in the Treasury debt!'

By 2010 Bloomberg published an article titled  "US Government Takes Two More Steps Toward Nationalization of Private Retirement Account Assets." In that article Patrick Heller observed that, with Democrat control of Congress and the Presidency:

n mid-September 2010 the Departments of Labor and Treasury held hearings on the next step toward achieving Ghilarducci's goals. The stated purpose was to require all private plans to offer retirees an option to elect an annuity. The "behind-the-scenes" purpose for this step was to get people used to the idea that the retirement assets they had accumulated would no longer be part of their estate when they died.

So the Government would get the money, not the estate or family of the people who saved the money during a lifetime of work.  That's a one hundred percent death tax on savings.  Worse, the most responsible and poorest families will be penalized.

Democrats had a blueprint for diverting people's savings from private investment to government debt.  Then in 2010 the Tea Party won the house...

3) Why should the Government intervene in people's savings decisions?  The justifications for Government intervention in private financial decisions are varied.  Panic over the economy, Wall Street, mandating savings equity, eliminating investment risk, financial crisis losses, retirement security, much-needed oversight, your 401K becomes a 201K, shoddy financial products, and predatory investment bankers are just a few.

If the financial industry is so predatory, how is it possible that savers keep any money?  More importantly, we have all those government agencies, FDIC, FINRA, SEC, Labor Department, Treasury Department, NCUA, Office of Thrift Supervision, FHFA, NCUSIF, Comptroller of the Currency, Office of Foreign Assets Control, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, hundreds of criminal penalties, and state level regulators.  Are we admitting the Government is incapable of policing criminal and predatory behavior?  Do we have invincible predators plundering the people, or do politicians Cry Wolf?

And about that crisis in the economy.  Former Congressman Barney Frank, one of the authors of Dodd-Frank, admitted to Larry Kudlow that Government was to blame for the housing crisis.

Professor Ghilarducci said "humans often lack the foresight, discipline, and investing skills required to sustain a savings plan."  Professor Ghilarducci tells us that people are flawed, no argument there.

Her solution, substitute Government decisions for the judgment of the millions of people who actually earned and saved the money.  She fails to mention the government bureaucrats wielding the power to compel you to comply are themselves imperfect.  Which is preferable, one faulty Government solution or millions of individual free choices?

4) Are there other forces pushing Government to confiscate people's savings?  With $16 trillion in debt the short answer is yes.  When governments embark on a path of spending money they don't have, they resort to financial repression.  According to Wikipedia:

Financial repression is any of the measures that governments employ to channel funds to themselves, that, in a deregulated market, would go elsewhere. Financial repression can be particularly effective at liquidating debt.

Do we have any evidence that the US Government is pursuing financial repression?  Yes we do. Jeff Cox at CNBC.  "US and European regulators are essentially forcing banks to buy up their own government's debt-a move that could end up making the debt crisis even worse, a Citigroup analysis says."

An Investors Business Daily article, Banks Pressured to Buy Government Debts, notes that "anks can't say no. They fear the political fallout. So they meekly submit to the government's dictates."

Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal reports that "n 2011, the Fed purchased a stunning 61% of Treasury issuance."  Then a CNS News article revealed that  "o far this calendar year [2013], the Federal Reserve has bought up more U.S. government debt than the U.S. Treasury has issued."

5) Is the health of Social Security (SS) a factor? There are several potential measures of when Social Security retirement goes broke.  One measure is when FICA tax income doesn't cover the cost of retirement checks.  We have passed that point already.  Others say that SS is fine until the lock box runs out of special issue bonds (IOUs).

Even though the SS bonds in the lock box cannot be sold on the open market, the Treasury Department remains under political pressure to honor that obligation by borrowing real cash to redeem the IOUs.   At least until the IOUs in the lock box are gone.  How long is that?  Based on a credible source, Bruce Krasting at Zerohedge suggests not long.

SS consists of two different pieces. The Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI). Both entities have their own Trust Funds (TF). OASI has a big TF that will, in theory, allow for SS retirement benefits to be paid for another 15+ years. On the other hand, the DI fund will run completely dry during the 1stQ of 2016.

So Krasting expects the President and Congress will soon be forced to choose between 4 solutions:

1 Increase Income Taxes

2 Increase Payroll Taxes

3 Cut disability benefits by 30%

4 Kick the can down the road and raid the retirement fund to pay for disability shortfalls.

Krasting predicts Congress and Obama will be behind door number four. His credible source is the Congressional Budget Office report Social Security Trust Fund--February 2013 Baseline.  In the footnotes it projects a $1 Trillion drain on the retirement fund which currently holds $2.8 Trillion.  That's a loss of approximately one third of the retirement IOUs. 

Krasting however omits another possible solution, politicians can raid private retirement savings to put more IOUs in the lock boxes and more real money in the Treasury.  Other people's money is a temptation and $19.4 Trillion is a very large temptation.

Social Security is the largest entitlement program with a trust fund of $2.8 Trillion IOUs, soon to be reduced by another $1 Trillion.  Can any politician, addicted to spending, resist that temptation of $19.4 Trillion?  That's real people's real money that will be spent by Government in exchange for IOUs given to the SS lock box.

Meanwhile newly minted Senator Elizabeth Warren has entered the debate.  Conservatives and Republicans have challenged the CFPB in the wake of the unconstitutional recess appointment.  Bloomberg speculates that Warren might agree to trim the CFPB powers in a compromise. Bloomberg reported:

"A strong independent consumer agency is good for families and lenders that follow the rules and good for the economy as a whole," Warren said yesterday in an interview. "I will keep fighting for that." [snip]

Some observers have suggested that Warren's original support for a commission-led bureau might mean she would be amenable to compromise on that issue. Warren spokesman Dan Geldon said such speculation is mistaken.

"Senator Warren thinks the single director structure makes sense and that CFPB should continue to be able to operate, like every other banking regulator, without relying on appropriations for its funding," Geldon said.

Bloomberg also notes that soon "the Senate will have to decide whether to vote to confirm director Richard Cordray in his post, which would make a legal challenge pointless."

Conservatives and Republicans challenge the surrender of legislative power to the bureau, the concentrated power of a single director, the unconstitutional recess appointments, and the violation of constitutional separation of powers.  The Republican position is the constitutional questions and litigation presently underway should be resolved prior to approving a director of CFPB.

The constitutional issues surrounding Dodd -- Frank and the CFPB are beyond the space for this article.  For those interested in the legal issues, a good synopsis can be found at the Mark Levin Radio Show podcast for February 18th.  Mark is an attorney and his Landmark Legal Foundation has argued many cases before the Supreme Court.  He can explain complex legal issues in straightforward language.


Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2013/02/the_feds_want_your_retirement_accounts.html at March 26, 2013 - 02:28:27 PM CDT

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9952979/Cyprus-bail-out-savers-will-be-raided-to-save-euro-in-future-crises-says-eurozone-chief.html

Cyprus bail-out: savers will be raided to save euro in future crises, says eurozone chief
Savings accounts in Spain, Italy and other European countries will be raided if needed to preserve Europe's single currency by propping up failing banks, a senior eurozone official has announced.

 By Bruno Waterfield, in Brussels
5:11PM GMT 25 Mar 2013

The new policy will alarm hundreds of thousands of British expatriates who live and have transferred their savings, proceeds from house sales and other assets to eurozone bank accounts in countries such as France, Spain and Italy.

The euro fell on global markets after Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch chairman of the eurozone, told the FT and Reuters that the heavy losses inflicted on depositors in Cyprus would be the template for future banking crises across Europe.

"If there is a risk in a bank, our first question should be 'Okay, what are you in the bank going to do about that? What can you do to recapitalise yourself?'," he said.

"If the bank can't do it, then we'll talk to the shareholders and the bondholders, we'll ask them to contribute in recapitalising the bank, and if necessary the uninsured deposit holders."

Ditching a three-year-old policy of protecting senior bondholders and large depositors, over €100,000, in banks, Mr Dijsselbloem argued that the lack of market contagion surrounding Cyprus showed that private investors could now be hit to pay for bad banking debts.


"If we want to have a healthy, sound financial sector, the only way is to say, 'Look, there where you take on the risks, you must deal with them, and if you can't deal with them, then you shouldn't have taken them on,'" he said.

"The consequences may be that it's the end of story, and that is an approach that I think, now that we are out of the heat of the crisis, we should take."

The announcement is highly significant as it signals the mothballing of the euro's €700bn bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which Spain and Ireland wants to be used to recapitalise their troubled banks.

"We should aim at a situation where we will never need to even consider direct recapitalisation," he said.

"If we have even more instruments in terms of bail-in and how far we can go on bail-in, the need for direct recap will become smaller and smaller."

The eurozone had been planning to roll out the ESM as a "big bazooka" in mid-2014 that could help save banks and prevent financial turmoil in countries such Spain or Italy, a development that has been delayed by German resistance.

Mr Dijesselbloem's comments will alarm countries like Ireland and Spain that had been hoping to access the ESM in order to restructure banks without killing off their financial sector by inflicting huge losses on investors.

"I think the approach needs to be, let's deal with the banks within the banks first, before looking at public money or any other instrument coming from the public side," he said.

"Banks should basically be able to save themselves, or at least restructure or recapitalise themselves as far as possible."

In a note published on Monday following the Cyprus bailout deal, Barclays warned that "the decision to bail in senior bank debt and large depositors will likely have a price impact on equity and credit instruments of those euro area banks that are perceived as the weakest".

Mr Dijsselbloem acknowledged that "there is still nervousness" but claimed that any jitters on financial markets caused by the new approach would be a good thing because it would raise the cost of borrowing for unsound banks, an argument unlikely to win friend in Madrid or Rome.

"If I finance a bank and I know if the bank will get in trouble, I will be hit and I will lose money, I will put a price on that," he said.

"I think it is a sound economic principle. And having cheap money because the risk will be covered by the government, and I will always get my money back, is not leading to the right decisions in the financial sector."

Last night, the Dutch finance minister tried to row back from his comments by insisting that "Cyprus is a specific case".

"Macro-economic adjustment programmes are tailor-made to the situation of the country concerned and no models or templates are used," he said.

Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades admitted the eurozone bailout deal he struck in Brussels on Monday was painful but said Cyprus could now make a fresh start after having come a "breath away" from collapse. He also said there would be a criminal investigation into the crisis.

Banks in Cyprus will remain closed until Thursday, the nation's central bank announced. It had said earlier that banks would reopen today after a week-long shutdown, except for Laiki and Bank of Cyprus.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpollaro/2013/03/23/cyprus-anything-but-unique-and-why-to-worry/

Cyprus, Anything But Unique and Why to Worry



In a New York Times opinion piece entitled A Bank Levy in Cyprus, and Why Not to Worry, Andrew Ross Sorkin assured his readers that far from Armageddon the Cyprian banking crisis is unique and therefore nothing to worry about.

Sorkin begins…

While the bailout of Cyprus is a fascinating case study and raises interesting theoretical questions about moral hazard for policy wonks and talking heads, here is the reality: It is largely irrelevant to the global economy. Cyprus is tiny; its economy is smaller than Vermont’s. And the bailout is worth a paltry $13 billion, the equivalent of pocket lint for those in the bailout game. Even the larger issue about bailing out a country by taking money from depositors — which quickly created outrage around the world — seems overblown.

Realizing that “taking money from depositors” is undoubtedly the issue of greater concern to “policy wonks and talking heads,” Sorkin continues…

The worry is that the European Union and I.M.F. have created a dangerous precedent by making depositors share in the pain of the bailout. Historically, the goal of bailouts has been to raise confidence in banks so depositors don’t flee. The approach in Cyprus is at odds with that notion, raising questions about whether future bailouts in countries like Spain and Italy — if they are needed — could affect depositors.  The alarmist thinking is that depositors will move their money from troubled banks, creating a death spiral.

Sorkin then dismisses this concern outright…

But, in truth, the smart money knows that the bailout of Cyprus says very little about future actions.

He continues…

Given the brutal history between Russia and so much of Europe — and speculation that so much of the money is ill gotten — it is clear why it would be so politically unpalatable to countries in the euro zone, Germany in particular, to bail out Russian depositors.

But not to worry, says Sorkin, this is a unique event…

There is very little chance that politicians would ever choose to use the model they developed in Cyprus in a country like Italy or Spain, where a run on the banks would have such profound implications.

And “even if the bank levy creates a bank run” in Cyprus, Sorkin concludes, “the contagion would be limited,” presumably because the Cyprian banking system is so tiny.

We here at THE CONTRAIAN TAKE have a different take.

The European Union and I.M.F. may or may not use the bank deposit levy as a means of raising monies in future bailout schemes, but that is not the core issue. The core issue is that the Cyprian banking system, in fact the whole Eurozone banking system was and is an accident waiting to happen.  And far from being a unique case it is in fact the general case.

Here’s why…

The Cyprian banking system, like all banking systems today, is a fractional reserve system. In a fractional reserve banking system, banks are permitted under law to create deposit money out of thin air. After establishing a “comfortable” cash reserve, generally through the collection of deposit accounts, fractional reserve banks make loans and/or buy assets, “funding” those loans/asset purchases by creating customer bank deposits and/or writing checks on themselves (the later which are deposited in another bank). Austrian economists call these deposits uncovered money substitutes.  Money substitutes because they are redeemable at par, on-demand in currency and thus perfect substitutes for currency in one’s cash holdings.  Uncovered because the currency backing them is not there.

The working assumption on the part of the banks is that only a small percentage of depositors will ever redeem their monies at any one time. So this banking model works as long as most depositors keep their money on deposit in the banking system. It blows up when too many of those depositors seek redemption at the same time.

The simple fact is ALL fractional reserve banks are technically insolvent because they cannot possibly keep their promise to redeem all their depositors’ money at the same time. As such, they are always and everywhere susceptible to a bank run. All it takes is a trigger, a loss of confidence in a bank’s ability to redeem its deposits and boom… a run on the banks and with it an implosion of the banking system and the economy it inhabits.

Cyprian depositors are currently lining up at ATM machines to redeem what is rightfully their money. They are doing so because what they thought was money held in safekeeping for them is simply not there.  The proximate trigger for these lines was/is the proposed bank levy on deposit accounts. The growing size of those lines are the realization that their money is not there, indeed never was. If the money was there the run would stop.

The broader takeaway here is this…  Fractional reserve banks are all technically insolvent so therefore anything that casts doubt on their solvency and by extension their ability to redeem their on-demand deposit obligations is fodder for a bank run.

As for the larger Eurozone banking system, it too is a fractional reserve system. It’s banking model is no different then the Cyprian banking model. And it’s an extremely fragile one at that. This is especially true for the banking systems in the troubled Eurozone periphery, whose banks are loaded up with impaired assets. Because of this, many depositors in these countries are already concerned about the solvency of the banks. The potential for a bank deposit levy hitting the shores of these countries is insult to injury, one more reason for depositors to question the “moneyness” of their deposit accounts. As a result, it is one more thing that puts these banking systems closer to implosion.

There is even more cause for worry, something that makes the Eurozone banks, whether they be Cyprian, Spanish, Italian or even German, more prone to a bank run then say the banks in the US, UK, Japan and heck even in Zimbabwe. The banks that populate these banking systems have in times of depositor stress, and at a moment’s notice, access to a central bank willing, indeed mandated to use its printing press to make good on depositor demands.  The Eurozone banks and their depositors have no such lifeline. Those lifelines have been jettisoned to the ECB and the political quagmire that is the European Union.

Perhaps bank depositors in Spain and Italy are mulling this fact right now. Perhaps they are thinking this… Will the ECB’s printing press be there for us?  Handicapped as it is by the politics of the European Union, can it be?  If the European Union would stoop to something as contentious as a bank deposit levy, even if the ECB’s printing press eventually shows up during the next banking crisis, will it only do so at a discount? What else might be in store for us?  Maybe one needs to take evasive action before all this goes down.

Take note, we are not saying the existence of a central bank lifeline via a printing press is something to be desired.  Its use may halt a bank run, but at the cost of eventually trashing the value of the currency and indirectly the value of depositor accounts too.

So what’s next?

The Cyprian banking system is a mess and will likely be restructured. Many bank depositors may very well lose some of their money in the process, or, at the very least, be limited in the amount of money they can withdraw from their bank accounts. In the extreme, Cyprus could exit the Eurozone, convert over to a new currency and then Cyprian bank depositors, Cyprian creditors and the Cyprian people en masse will all be trashed when the Cyprian government devalues the new currency.

As for the possibility of any of this causing a wider banking/financial crisis in the Eurozone, replete with bank runs, we are on high alert.  In a world of highly-levered fractional reserve banks, neck deep in troubled assets, “funded” by increasingly worried depositors and back-stopped by an ECB lifeline that is anything but instantaneous, we suggest anything could happen.  At a minimum, like we saw during the Irish, Greek, Portuguese and Spanish banking scares, we expect to see some depositor migration from the banks of the more economically challenged Eurozone periphery into the Eurozone center and to the US (and into Euro currency too). Of special interest to us will be if that migration is broad based, not largely confined to the larger, internationally mobile depositors (as was the case in prior banking scares).  If so, things could get very interesting, very quickly, especially so if the European Union and I.M.F. don’t backtrack on bank deposit levies as a policy tool in future banking bailouts.

One thing is for sure… none of what has transpired is good for the fragile Eurozone banking system and by extension the financial markets and economy.

http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cjs07.htm

SIR ROBERT PEEL'S INNOVATION

The history of modern law enforcement began 166 years ago with the formation of the London Metropolitan Police District in 1829. By creating a new police force, the British Parliament hoped to address the soaring crime rate in and around the nation's capital, attributed at the time to rapid urban growth, unchecked immigration, poverty, alcoholism, radical political groups, poor infrastructure, unsupervised juveniles, and lenient judges. The principles adopted by Sir Robert Peel, the first chief of the London Metropolitan Police, for his new "bobbies" have served as the traditional model for all British and American police forces ever since. These principles include the use of crime rates to determine the effectiveness of the police; the importance of a centrally located, publicly accessible police headquarters; and the value of proper recruitment, selection, and training.
 
However, perhaps the most enduring and influential innovation introduced was the establishment of regular patrol areas, known as "beats." Before 1829, the police--whether military or civilian--only responded after a crime had been reported. Patrols occurred on a sporadic basis, and any crime deterrence or apprehension of criminals in the act of committing crimes happened almost by accident.
 
Peel assigned his bobbies to specific geographic zones and held them responsible for preventing and suppressing crime within the boundaries of their zones. He based this strategy on his belief that the constables would:
 
* Become known to the public, and citizens with information about criminal activity would be more likely to tell a familiar figure than a stranger * Become familiar with people and places and thus better able to recognize suspicious persons or criminal activity, and * Be highly visible on their posts, tending to deter criminals from committing crimes in the immediate vicinity.
 
To implement fully the beat concept, Peel instituted his second most enduring innovation: The paramilitary command structure. While Peel believed overall civilian control to be essential, he also believed that only military discipline would ensure that constables actually walked their beats and enforced the law on London's mean streets, something their nonmilitary predecessors, the watchmen, had failed to do.
 

Police in paramilitary uniforms with automatic weapons riding in an armored vehicle! 

http://www.policeone.com/police-products/apparel/undergear/articles/99417-The-psychological-influence-of-the-police-uniform/

The police uniform is a tradition as old as the field of law enforcement itself In 1829 the first modem police force, the London Metropolitan Police, developed the first standard police apparel. These first police officers, the famous "Bobbies" of London, were issued a dark blue, paramilitary-style uniform.. The color blue was chosen to distinguish the police from the British military who wore red and white uniforms at the time. The first official police force in the United States was established in the city of New York in 1845. Based on the London police, the New York City Police Department adopted the dark blue uniform in 1853, Other cities, such as Philadelphia, Boston, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Detroit quickly followed suit by establishing police departments based on the London model, including the adoption of the dark blue, paramilitary-style uniform.

To this day, the majority of police uniforms in. the United States continue to have a paramilitary appearance and are generally of a dark color

I see a lot of hype. Especially when I see the phrase "militarization of law enforcement". 

I'd love to see Nappy drug in front of congress, but ammo buys by DHS are the least of my concerns.

Because I'm interested in the truth. Remember how the "DHS was buying tanks" traveled like wildfire and is now obviously wrong.

Here is a link to DHS' response to Sen. Coburn, posted on his website:

http://www.coburn.senate.gov/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=9cde768f-bb3a-4fd9-8176-1745c21519c2

Back to the original article:
"Second, the DHS and most federal and state law enforcement agencies DO NOT use hollow point pistol ammo and expensive Sierra Match King hollow point sniper rounds for “training”.  Anyone who knows anything about combat simulation training knows that you use the cheapest plinking ammo you can find, and this includes the government"

I have been the Range Safety Officer where feds have shown up and shot duty grade ammo they were given for practice. I have been at shooting classes where feds showed us for a 4 day class with a 1000 + round count with Uncle Sugar supplied duty ammo for their sidearms. I was envious, to say the least. A friend that works for a DHS agency used to get up to 200 rounds a month for practice if he wished.

As to the assertion about "sniper training". Law enforcement precision marksmen/countersnipers or whatever term you prefer, train with ammo that duplicates the same ballistic characteristics as the ammo they'd use for an actual call out. The ideal is to buy a large amount of ammo from the same production lot and training with it so that when you have to take a precision shot from a cold bore you know exactly the point of impact. You can't get away with buying cheap "practice ammo" for training and save the 308 - 168 gr HP-BT - Federal Premium Sierra Match King Gold Medal for the day you've got to drop the hostage taker.

Let me show you what Blackwater, er... Academi requires for their Sniper class:

http://academi.com/training-courses/course-title/basic-le-military-sniper/overview

Introduction


This is an intensive five-day course for military and law enforcement candidates. This course is designed for individuals with minimal or no experience using a scoped firearm, and will give them a solid foundation on sniper skills for use with their department or unit. This is a pass/fail course that tests marksmanship abilities under a time requirement for a certificate of course completion. Students who are unable to successfully qualify will receive a certificate of attendance.





Aim

At the end of this course the successful graduates will be able to set up their own sniper firearm system, zero the scope to the firearm, be able to judge the distance to a target and successfully read the winds to effectively engage the target.

Topics
 •Safety precautions
•Firearm maintenance
•Sniper equipment
•Ballistics
 •Marksmanship principles
•Shooters log book
•Spotting methods
•Applying corrections (elevation and windage)
•Methods of judging distance
•Methods of observation, aids and procedures
•Sniper range card
•Methods of engaging moving targets
•Supported and unsupported shooting positions

Ammunition Requirements

400 rounds match-grade ammunition.


Gear
 •Sniper firearm system (bolt action or semi-auto, .308 is recommended) including scope (mil-dot reticule pattern is recommended); a bipod mount for the firearm is highly recommended
 •Complete firearm cleaning kit (push rod, brass jag, powder solvent, copper solvent, bore guide)
•Spotting scope with tripod (good quality scope with variable zoom settings and a reticule pattern is recommended)
•Ear and eye protection
•Backpack or equipment bag
•Calculator
•Range clothing appropriate to the season
•Rain gear
•A water bottle or other hydration system
•Sunscreen and insect repellant in summer months
 •Sling for the firearm
•Shooting bag (bean bag, shooting glove or both)
 
Method

This course is a combination of classroom theory, practical field applications and live-fire applications.

Skill Prerequisites

Current law enforcement and active-duty military only.

I'm no fan of computer crime, but 35 years for what Aaron Swartz was supposed to have done was hardly justice in my mind.

At every level of law enforcement, you qualify with your duty ammo. I can say I've seen the feds shoot a large amount of the same ammo in training. Every Fed I know gets issued ammo for practice on their own time.

http://www.fletc.gov/training/programs/firearms-division/interesting-facts-about-the-firearms-division.html

Interesting facts about the Firearms Division

FAD has approximately 49 buildings that include indoor and outdoor firing ranges, offices, ammunition and weapons storage, equipment and supply storage spaces.
The indoor range complex and the outdoor ranges (to include 2 outdoor ranges currently under construction) have a combined total of approximately 384 firing points for live fire training.
These do not include the various scenario-based training ranges that FAD uses for tactical training.
FAD has approximately 9 training ranges used for scenario-based tactical firearms training.
There are approximately 150 staff members assigned to the Firearms Division including managers, support personnel and instructors.
The instructor cadre consists of former law enforcement and/or military personnel who now work for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) and current law enforcement personnel detailed from many of the agencies who participate in training conducted at the FLETC.
Training requires the use of approximately 15 million rounds of ammunition annually.
The ammunition includes lead projectiles and reduced hazard (environmentally friendly) ammunition.
The reduced hazard ammunition accounts for approximately 70 percent of the ammunition expended for training.
FAD offers 8 advanced firearms training programs. These programs are open to Federal, state and municipal law enforcement personnel. Some international law enforcement personnel attend these programs when they are sponsored by one of the Federal partner agencies.
FAD offers approximately 120 firearms courses.  Many of these are contained in FLETC basic, agency basic and advanced law enforcement training programs.
FAD conducts advanced export training (off site) at other Federal, state and municipal facilities around+ the country on an as-needed basis.
 
Fad Innovations Through The Years
 1978- Developed first electronic Firearms Training Simulator for law enforcement utilizing a video player to project a scenario onto a screen for law enforcement “Judgment Pistol Shooting (JPS).” The unit was a Beta Vision video tape player that projected onto a white screen made of paper. Live handguns were used to fire special plastic projectiles that would put holes into the paper screen when fired at the video images. A special microphone picked up the shot sound and automatically paused the video scenario) allowing instructors to evaluate both judgment and accuracy of students involving the appropriate application of or restraint from the use of deadly force.
1985- Developed first computer controlled Firearms Training Simulator using laser video disks rather than video tape with laser equipped handguns to improve on the original “JPS” system.
1992- Assisted F.A.T.S. (Firearms Training Systems, Inc.) with the first commercially produced and sold Firearms Judgment Training System for Law Enforcement)
2000- Worked with major ammunition manufacturers to develop the first frangible and reduced hazard ammunition for firearms training.
2010- In conjunction with military and military contractors developed the first law enforcement Virtual Force on Force Firearms Judgment Training Simulator System. This system takes the training to the next level allowing tactile feedback to the student (simulator can fire non-lethal projectiles at the student for immediate feedback as to their use of concealment or cover while also allowing the student to utilize different job tools in conjunction with the simulations, e.g.: flashlight, pepper spray, taser device, etc. for less than lethal applications of force. Laser equipped firearms are still used when students must use deadly force based on the circumstances they are engaged with during the simulation. Students are critiqued on their decision making, articulation of the facts, and appropriate use of the law enforcement equipment provided as everything relates to the legal requirements placed upon them.
 
If you need additional information or have questions about the advanced training programs offered by FAD, please contact the Law Enforcement Program Specialist for Advanced Programs at FAD (See below for contact information).
 
Law Enforcement Program Specialist- FAD Advanced Programs
FLETC
FAD, Building 221
1131 Chapel Crossing Road
Glynco, GA  31524

Telephone:  912 267 2278
E-Mail : FLETC-FADPOC@FLETC.DHS.GOV

http://www.defensereview.com/sigarms-and-heckler-kochhk-defense-win-major-pistol-contracts-with-dhs/

SIGARMS and Heckler & Koch/HK Defense Win Major Pistol Contracts with DHS

 Published by David Crane in Pistols on August 16th, 2005


by David Crane
 david@defensereview.com


Sigarms, Inc. and Heckler & Koch, Inc./HK Defense) both recently won monster pistol contracts (in 9mm, .40 S&W, and .357 SIG calibers)–for up to 65,000 pistols, each–with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Sigarms’ pistol contract is worth $23.7 million. The SIG-Sauer pistols chosen by DHS are the SIG P226R-DAK, SIG P229R-DAK, and SIG P239-DAO (double-action-only). The DAK trigger system is also double-action-only, only it offers a relatively light, smooth 6.5-pound trigger pull. The Heckler and Koch (HK)/HK Defense pistol contract is valued at $26.2 million. The HK pistol models chosen are the HK P2000 US, HK P2000 SK Subcompact (a.k.a. HK P2000SK Subcompact), and the USP Compact/LEM (Law Enforcement Modification). The LEM trigger is basically HK’s version of SIG’s DAK trigger (or Glock’s Safe-Action trigger), and vice versa. According to the company, the LEM trigger allows for faster follow-up shots (repeat shots) on target than a standard double-action-only system, due to a lighter trigger pull (7.3-8.5 lbs) and shorter trigger reset than standard DAO trigger systems. The LEM trigger utilizes a two-piece "pre-cocked hammer" comprised of a cocking piece and an external hammer. The hammer is pre-cocked when a round is chambered (slide is cycled).  The LEM system supposedly also provides for more reliable primer ignition, since it utilizes a stronger hammer spring.
 

The following is a reprint of the official Department of Homeland Security Press Release on it:…
 
"Department Of Homeland Security Awards Handgun Contracts

For Immediate Release
 Press Office
 Contact 202-282-8010
 August 24, 2004


The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced the award of two contracts today for handguns for all organizational elements within the department, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Transportation Security Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.


SIGARMS Incorporated and Heckler & Koch, Incorporated each received a contract award with a maximum quantity of 65,000 pistols that may be purchased over the next five years. SIGARMS Incorporated, a small business located in Exeter, New Hampshire, received a $23.7 million contract for 9 x 19 mm and .40 caliber pistols. Heckler & Koch, a large business located in Sterling, Virginia, received a $26.2 million contract for 9 x 19 mm, .40, and .357 caliber pistols.


The two contracts will enable DHS personnel to acquire handguns in three popular law enforcement calibers and a variety of sizes. These contracts represent the results of the department’s Strategic Sourcing Program that is designed to optimize cross-departmental acquisitions through collaboration of agency technical and acquisition experts. The Weapons and Ammunition Commodity Council, part of the strategic sourcing program, identifies and consolidates emerging firearms and ammunition requirements for all Homeland Security components. As part of this effort, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released a Request for Proposals in February 2004 for the procurement of handguns. The ICE National Firearms and Tactical Training Unit led the ensuing evaluation.


“This type of multiple contract award will provide the government the flexibility it needs to enable the DHS entities to address their diverse operational missions, while still maximizing logistical efficiencies found through standardization,” said Thomas Trotto, Director of the ICE National Firearms and Tactical Training Unit.


The technical evaluation of the proposals included a comprehensive handgun test protocol involving a rigorous battery of environmental, reliability, durability, and other tests. Approximately three million rounds of ammunition were fired through 690 handguns of 46 different models during the testing, which took almost four months to complete. Aside from the actual live firing, additional testing was conducted through laboratory analysis and armory inspections. In all, each model was evaluated against more than 50 characteristics before arriving at a technical rating. This data was used in conjunction with past performance and pricing information to select the winning contractors.


The Homeland Security Weapons and Ammunition Commodity Council continues to analyze the department’s requirements for weapons, ammunition, and other officer safety products to identify additional strategic sourcing opportunities."


Click here to read the original/official press release (above) at the DHS website.


You can contact Sigarms, Inc. by phone at 603-772-2302, or by fax at 603-772-9082.


HK Defense Federal Operations can be contacted by phone at 703-450-1900 Ext. 246 or 289. Military Operations can be contacted at Ext. 272. The fax number for HK Defense is 703-450-8163.

http://www.americanrifleman.org/blogs/where-has-the-ammo-gone/

Where Has All The Ammo Gone?
3/13/2013
 

In case you hadn’t noticed, we are in the midst of an ammunition, primer and propellant shortage. Stories are making both local and national news, and rumors abound on the Internet. I understand there have been large Federal contracts, but those cannot come close to explaining the increased demand for ammunition and components. There is more than a billion—that’s billion with a “B”—rounds of .22 Long Rifle produced in this country every year. One estimate puts it at closer to a billion and a half. The DHS has not bought a billion and a half rounds of .22 LR, so it cannot be pinned on them. Also, it is unlikely to me that Janet Napolitano is trying to corner the world market on Hodgdon Varget, even though it is one of my favorite go-to powders.
 
I have some anecdotal evidence of what is going on here. A friend called me from the parking lot of a gun store in Southwest Virginia, “Mark, I just scored 5,000 rounds of Federal .22 Long Rifle!” I cut his euphoria short by saying, “Tim, you have never bought more than 500 rounds of anything before.” To which he replied, “Yeah, but I bought all they had.” I believe Tim’s “score” is being replicated all across the country every time the UPS truck arrives.

In another instance, a colleague and her husband were traveling and stopped by a gunshop off the beaten track and managed to scoop up some .223 Rem. “The last five boxes we have,” the clerk told them. “It just came in.” Odds are my friend Tim had not passed through there yet. They were delighted, and for good reason. You can buy all the .257 Roberts you want, but .223 Rem. is difficult to find. Actually my somewhat cynical colleague speculated the store owner really had a shipping container of .223 out back, but was only selling five boxes at a time as sales tactic to increase store traffic. Perhaps.
 
There is a downstream effect of such purchasing behavior. When people are motivated by external political exigencies to purchase more ammunition than they customarily purchase, there is less ammunition for others. Friends of mine are hesitant to go to the range and shoot as they don’t know when they can replenish their ammunition supply. That goes for matches, too.
 
All the major ammunition companies have increased capacity and production over last year’s levels, which was a banner year. If the ammunition makers are producing more ammunition than ever before—regardless of government contracts—why is there no ammo on the shelf? Simply put, other people are buying it before you do. This is basic supply and demand. When demand is high and supply low, prices increase. And my friend Tim could not have bought it all.

Speculation has also played a role. Two of my editors are voracious readers of The Valley Trader, a convenience store newsprint classified for the Shenandoah Valley, where they both live. Usually The Valley Trader is full of great stuff, such as “FOR SALE: Men’s boots: $40.” It doesn’t say the size (which I regard as somewhat important) or what brand or style, but the good news is that they are only $40. My favorite of all time though is “TRADE: Will trade a lemur for a zero turn mower.” I haven’t priced lemurs recently (now that “Zaboomafoo” is off the air), but that does not seem like a trade I would want to make. Now sprinkled through its pages are ammo speculators. A definitive pattern is developing. Ammunition purchased opportunistically at larger retail outlets—which have not raised their prices to the gouge level—is going for three to five times the retail price. Again, supply, demand and scarcity. When a product is scarce, you can charge more for it. And those that have the product, often do so. Whether it results in an ammunition equivalent of the South Sea Company Bubble of 1720, remains to be seen. It is my belief as the political agitation slows, shelves will slowly start filling again.
 
Which begs the questions: How much Winchester white box 230-grain, .45 ACP can I get for a lemur?

Watch Wesbury's plow horse run!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/food-stamps-put-rhode-island-town-on-monthly-boom-and-bust-cycle/2013/03/16/08ace07c-8ce1-11e2-b63f-f53fb9f2fcb4_story.html

Food stamps put Rhode Island town on monthly boom-and-bust cycle




View Photo Gallery — Rhode Island town relies on food stamps: In Woonsocket, R.I., a third of the residents use SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, to pay for groceries. That means the businesses in the struggling town also rely on the program to survive.


By Eli Saslow,

Published: March 16



 WOONSOCKET, R.I. – The economy of Woonsocket was about to stir to life. Delivery trucks were moving down river roads, and stores were extending their hours. The bus company was warning riders to anticipate “heavy traffic.” A community bank, soon to experience a surge in deposits, was rolling a message across its electronic marquee on the night of Feb. 28: “Happy shopping! Enjoy the 1st.”

In the heart of downtown, Miguel Pichardo, 53, watched three trucks jockey for position at the loading dock of his family-run International Meat Market. For most of the month, his business operated as a humble milk-and-eggs corner store, but now 3,000 pounds of product were scheduled for delivery in the next few hours. He wiped the front counter and smoothed the edges of a sign posted near his register. “Yes! We take Food Stamps, SNAP, EBT!”



Graphic




State residents who receive SNAP





.

“Today, we fill the store up with everything,” he said. “Tomorrow, we sell it all.”

At precisely one second after midnight, on March 1, Woonsocket would experience its monthly financial windfall — nearly $2 million from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. Federal money would be electronically transferred to the broke residents of a nearly bankrupt town, where it would flow first into grocery stores and then on to food companies, employees and banks, beginning the monthly cycle that has helped Woonsocket survive.

Three years into an economic recovery, this is the lasting scar of collapse: a federal program that began as a last resort for a few million hungry people has grown into an economic lifeline for entire towns. Spending on SNAP has doubled in the past four years and tripled in the past decade, surpassing $78 billion last year. A record 47 million Americans receive the benefit — including 13,752 in Woonsocket, one-third of the town’s population, where the first of each month now reveals twin shortcomings of the U.S. economy:

So many people are forced to rely on government support.

The government is forced to support so many people.

The 1st is always circled on the office calendar at International Meat Market, where customers refer to the day in the familiar slang of a holiday. It is Check Day. Milk Day. Pay Day. Mother’s Day.

“Uncle Sam Day,” Pichardo said now, late on Feb. 28, as he watched new merchandise roll off the trucks. Out came 40 cases of Ramen Noodles. Out came 230 pounds of ground beef and 180 gallons of orange juice.

SNAP enrollment in Rhode Island had been rising for six years, up from 73,000 people to nearly 180,000, and now three-quarters of purchases at International Meat Market are paid for with Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards. Government money had in effect funded the truckloads of food at Pichardo’s dock . . . and the three part-time employees he had hired to unload it . . . and the walk-in freezer he had installed to store surplus product . . . and the electric bills he paid to run that freezer, at nearly $2,000 each month.

Pichardo’s profits from SNAP had also helped pay for International Meat Market itself, a 10-aisle store in a yellow building that he had bought and refurbished in 2010, when the rise in government spending persuaded him to expand out of a smaller market down the block.

"The bottom line is, the DHS does NOT use hollow point 40. cal
or .308 sniper rounds for training or qualifications."

Where did you get this? Because I can tell you that's incorrect.

Any policy requires a critical analysis of cost/benefits.

I remember when it was impossible for middle eastern dictators to possess WMD...

 

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/03/robert-farago/the-truth-about-the-dhs-mraps/

The Truth About the DHS’s MRAPs

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Robert Farago

 
There’s been a lot of internet buzz about the Department of Homeland Security’s “new” MRAPs (a.k.a., tanks). I’ve been holding off posting about the story; there’s a lot of bad intel out there about government gun grabbers. Just because gun owners are paranoid doesn’t mean Uncle Sam is as bad as they think it is. Sometimes, of course, it’s worse. But it appears that the report that the DHS has purchased 2700 new MRAPs is wrong. Here’s the 411 from the official spokesman for Das Vaterland. I mean, Homeland . . .
 



The MRAPs were transferred to DHS from the Department of Defense, free of charge. But despite recent reports, they have actually been in service since at least 2008.
 
“The MRAPs we have are not new,” Ross Feinstein, a spokesman for DHS, told Business Insider. “We have been using them for years.”
 

“[The vehicle] is used in the execution of high-risk warrants — including drug trafficking, smuggling, and contraband,” Feinstein told Business Insider. “We have 16 MRAPs nationwide.”
 
Sixteen is a lot less than 1700. But still . . . drug trafficking? Isn’t that the DEA’s deal? Or the ATF if it’s guns. Or the CIA if it’s foreign terrorists. Or is that the FBI? They do explosives too, right?
 
You know in all this excitement I lost track of all the federal agents with SWAT and SRT teams ready to enforce federal gun control laws of one sort or another. But I do remember that the DHS recently raided a New Mexico gun dealer, confiscated his guns and charged him with . . . nada.
 
So the DH is out there, grabbing guns. But they only have 16 heavily armored troop vehicles with which do it. Feel better now?

What's the price for not fighting back?

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/03/05/nro-ammunition-purchases-by-government-not-a-conspiracy/comment-page-3/

NRO: Ammunition purchases by government not a conspiracy


posted at 3:21 pm on March 5, 2013 by Ed Morrissey






We have been getting plenty of e-mail about purchases and contracts for ammunition by government agencies, which seem to have prompted a run on ammunition by private consumers and the shortages that these runs usually entail.  The e-mails usually express concern over the supposedly massive amounts of ammunition being stockpiled and the threat to American liberty that it represents.  At National Review — not exactly a shill for Barack Obama — editor Charles C. W. Cooke looks at the actual numbers and debunks the conspiracy theories:
 

Nonetheless, one could reasonably ask why the Social Security Administration would need any ammunition at all. Are the elderly especially unruly these days? Jonathan L. Lasher, in the SSA’s external-relations department, explained to theHuffington Post that the ammunition is “for the 295 agents” in the outfit’s office of inspector general “who investigate Social Security fraud and other crimes.” Divide the rounds by the number of agents, and you get about 590 per agent; in a given year, that’s about ten rounds a week. “Most will be expended on the firing range,” Lasher continued.
 
Okay. And why does the USDA need 320,000 rounds? Because it runs the Forest Service, which covers “155 national forests” and “20 national grasslands” on a total of “193 million acres of land.” As well as agents in the field, the outfit has a law-enforcement unit based in Washington, D.C., whose responsibility it is to enforce federal laws and regulations. In context, those 320,000 rounds look a lot less threatening: If the U.S. Forest Service were to distribute ammunition at the same rate as the Social Security Administration, they would have enough for just 542 agents — not bad for an organization that covers an area the size of Pakistan (or twice the size of Japan or Germany).
 
It’s all about scale. Forty-six thousand rounds also sound like a lot for the National Weather Service. (Actually, the ammo was requested by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement, which is overseen by the same department.) In reality, it’s not that much. The service has only 63 armed personnel, which brings the purchase out at around 730 rounds per officer. This, suffice it to say, does not present a great threat to the Republic. As the NRA has noted, “more than a few NRA members would use that much ammunition in a weekend shooting class or plinking session.” There are enough risks to the right to bear arms and to American liberty in general, the NRA continued, without “inventing threats.”
 
Cooke also explores the more significant contracts of over 500 million rounds combined for the FBI and DHS, both obviously law-enforcement agencies, which have been the subject of other e-mails.  The DHS contract runs for five years, Cooke explains, and doesn’t require DHS to make the purchases.  It’s a pricing-contingency arrangement, one that makes a lot of sense for cost stability and control, that reserves as much as 450 million rounds over the period of the contract.
 
We get a lot of e-mail with various doomsday scenarios built on conjecture, and we don’t address most of them for the simple reason that we’d rather focus on actual issues. This particular meme has built up some staying power, however, and Cooke’s column should get wide distribution in order to set minds at rest and put them to more productive use.  And Cooke has a suggestion where we can start:
 

Questions do still abound: Whether it is in possession of one bullet or 1 million bullets, should the federal Department of Education be armed in the first place? If so, why? Should its OIG be investigating external fraud rather than handing it over to the police or the DOJ or the FBI? For those federal departments that play no role in combating domestic and foreign threats — such as the DoE — what would constitute a threat requiring armed confrontation with malefactors?
 
Read this all the way through to see what happens when organizations without a criminal law-enforcement mission try to go it alone; it doesn’t end well.  Shouldn’t agencies like the DoE work through the FBI or US Marshals in order to enforce the law?  This seems like a ripe area for reform and consolidation within the federal government, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we couldn’t wring out some significant savings by eliminating duplication in law enforcement.
 
Update: Patriot Perspective addressed this a year ago, and has more thoughts today.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/03/18/it-begins-confiscation-of-private-funds-by-governments-desperate-for-cash-n1537402

It Begins: Confiscation of Private Funds by Government Desperate for Cash


 Katie Pavlich
 News Editor, Townhall





Mar 18, 2013 01:10 PM EST
 
 
The small country of Cyprus is giving the world a grave reality check today by reminding everyone that government money is simply the people's money redistributed as the European Union prepares to seize private bank account savings in order to bailout years of bad economic decisions.
 

The surprise decision by euro zone leaders to part-fund a bailout of Cyprus by taxing bank deposits sent shockwaves through financial markets on Monday, with shares and the bonds of struggling euro zone governments tumbling.

 The bloc struck a deal on Saturday to hand Cyprus rescue loans worth 10 billion euros ($13 billion), but defied warnings - including from the European Central Bank - and imposed a levy that would see those with cash in the island's banks lose between 6.75 and 9.9 percent of their money.

 The initial response of investors was unambiguous. Shares lurched lower, the euro fell to a new three-month low, while safe-haven assets such as gold and German government bonds jumped.

 The cost of insuring the debt of even high-quality European banks against default also rose sharply with analysts citing fears the decision could spark contagion across peripheral regions with the potential for widespread outflows of deposits.

 "If I were a saver, certainly in Spain or maybe Italy, I think I'd be looking askance at these measures and think this could yet happen to me," Peter Dixon, global financial economist at Commerzbank said.
 
Cyprus is an incredibly small country. It's smaller by area than Hawaii and has the same GDP as the state of Vermont yet, it's having a massive impact on the markets as individuals make a run on banks and investors pull out their money. Europeans in stronger countries like Germany are asking if this could happen to them and here in the United States, people should be asking the same question.
 
As a reminder, the United States government has been eying and researching how Americans use their 401k plans for quite some time now. Recently we saw the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau suggest the government help "manage" retirement plans.
 

The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is weighing whether it should take on a role in helping Americans manage the $19.4 trillion they have put into retirement savings, a move that would be the agency’s first foray into consumer investments.
“That’s one of the things we’ve been exploring and are interested in in terms of whether and what authority we have,” bureau director Richard Cordray said in an interview. He didn’t provide additional details.

 The bureau’s core concern is that many Americans, notably those from the retiring Baby Boom generation, may fall prey to financial scams, according to three people briefed on the CFPB’s deliberations who asked not to be named because the matter is still under discussion.

 The retirement savings business in the U.S. is dominated by a group of companies that handle record-keeping and management of investments in tax-advantaged vehicles like 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts. The group includes Fidelity Investments, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Charles Schwab Corp. (SCHW) and T. Rowe Price Group Inc. (TROW) Americans held $19.4 trillion in retirement assets as of Sept. 30, 2012, according to the Investment Company Institute, an industry association; about $3.5 trillion of that was in 401(k) plans.
 
In February, the Washington Times went so far as to ask "is your 401k about to be nationalized?"
 

The $19.4 trillion sitting in personal retirement accounts like the 401K may be too tempting an apple for a government that is quite broke, both monetarily and morally.  The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray recently mentioned these accounts in a recent interview, stating “That’s one of the things we’ve been exploring and are interested in, in terms of whether and what authority we have.”

This agency, created by the 2010 Dodd-Frank-Act, is very concerned about how safe your retirement savings are. They are apparently concerned that retiring baby boomers may become victims of financial scams.

 If the government takes control of retirement accounts, it will not be called “nationalization.” There will most likely be an indecipherable document that provides an opt-out option (initially), but why would you want to do that? The US government only wants to ensure the safety of your retirement funds; they did after all create a new bureaucracy for that specific purpose.  And what could be a safer investment than US bonds?
 
In case you're wondering, gold is up today.

http://reason.com/blog/2013/03/19/savor-the-richly-deserved-defeat-of-fein

Savor the Richly Deserved Defeat of Feinstein's 'Assault Weapon' Ban

Jacob Sullum|Mar. 19, 2013 3:07 pm

 

Senate Judiciary CommitteeYesterday Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) revealed that her "assault weapon" ban will not be part of the gun control bill that Senate Democrats plan to offer next month. Although her bill still can be offered as an amendment, Politico reports, "its exclusion from the package makes what was already an uphill battle an almost certain defeat." At the risk of reading too much into this delightful development, I count it as a victory not just for the Second Amendment but for rationality in lawmaking.
 
As a comparison of the testimony pro and con readily reveals, supporters of Feinstein's bill never offered a plausible, let alone persuasive, explanation for the distinction she drew between the guns she deemed "legitimate" and the dreaded "assault weapons" she sought to ban. The closer you looked at the bill, the less sense it made, a fact that Feinstein tried to paper over by encouraging people to conflate semi-automatic, military-style rifles with the machine guns carried by soldiers. That flagrant fraud sufficed to win passage of the federal "assault weapon" ban that expired in 2004 (which was also sponsored by Feinstein), and it continues to influence public opinion. But this time around it was not enough to obscure the absurdity of Feinsten's attempt to distinguish between good and evil guns by reference to irrelevant features such as barrel shrouds and adjustable stocks. With no evidence or arguments to offer, Feinstein despicably invoked dead, "dismembered" children in a transparent bid to short-circuit logical thought. Her appeal to blind fear was familiar to anyone who has watched this authoritarian centrist rail against mythical drugs or kowtow to the national security state. I savor her richly deserved defeat.

The SPLC is a bunch of dishonest lefty douchebags, however there are more than a few inaccurate points in the above article that have been debunked in several posts above.

Know why Rand Paul is surging right now?

Balls.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100562290

S&P Warns of Socially Explosive Situation in Euro Zone

 
 Published: Monday, 18 Mar 2013 | 6:15 AM ET



 Standard and Poor's sees a high risk that Spain, Italy, Portugal and France will not be able to carry through necessary reforms as the unemployed become less willing to put up with austerity, S&P's Germany head Torsten Hinrichs told a newspaper.

"The high unemployment in Spain, Italy and France is socially explosive," Hinrichs was quoted as saying in Monday's Neue Osnabrcker Zeitung.

"There has to be a social consensus for saving measures. High unemployment ... does not help."

Hinrichs said the people of Spain and Portugal had already proven they were willing to bear with austerity measures, but "this cannot continue forever".

In Italy, there was the further danger that "a new government may not be strong enough for the still necessary reforms to strengthen growth," he said.

Hinrichs said S&P still rated Germany as a triple A with stable outlook and did not see any reason for concern: "It is one of the few AAA and stable countries that we still have in Europe".

The weak profitability of the banking sector due to the profusion of banks was the only problem in Germany, he said, although he saw positive changes in the sector in terms of equity capital and refinancing.

http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/problems-at-fha-too-big-for-congress-to-ignore-1057393-1.html

Problems at FHA Too Big for Congress to Ignore


Larry Taylor

MAR 12, 2013 9:00am ET



Recent blog posts from the House Financial Services Committee about the risks in the Federal Housing Administration indicate significant and growing political risk for the program. Clearly Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) and his fellow Republicans have some issues with the program, but even less partisan observers of the program recognize there are significant problems. Most recently, the U.S. Government Accountability Office identified the program as high risk and in need of reform.

The deteriorating financial condition of the FHA stems mainly from its slow response to changing market conditions and its attempts to prop up a rapidly deteriorating residential housing market. As the bubble began to burst, the FHA was slow to adjust its guarantee programs and Congress even significantly increased the size of loans the FHA could make in 2008, moving the FHA far beyond its original mission of providing home loans to low-income Americans. As a result, the dollar volume of new loans guaranteed by the FHA tripled between 2007 and 2008, then almost doubled again in 2009, to more than $330 billion. As of the end of FY 2012, the FHA insured $1.1 trillion of loans through its Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund programs.

The FHA continued to increase the amount of loans it guaranteed despite not meeting its congressionally mandated capital threshold of 2%. According to the FHA, this was done to help prop up the housing market, which is plausible. A less charitable interpretation, however, is that the FHA continued to "double down" on the housing market in an attempt to keep its capital levels above zero, but ran out of room to keep doubling its exposure as its market share rose from less than 5% of originations in 2006 to almost 30% of all originations in the third quarter of 2008. The rapid addition of new loans, which had not yet had time to sour, allowed the FHA to offset the impact of its older insured loans with expected revenue from insurance on new loans.

The FHA has dramatically improved the credit scores of its borrowers in recent years, but continues to be a major source of mortgages to people with bruised or nonexistent credit histories. In the fourth quarter of FY2012, 44% of all FHA borrowers either had no credit score or a score of 679 or lower. In addition, the FHA's commitment to low down payment financing has not wavered through the depths of the credit crisis, as 95% or greater loan-to-ratio financing has continued to make up an overwhelming majority of the loans guaranteed by the FHA.

As a result, most FHA borrowers owe more on their home than they are likely to net on sale for at least several years after origination, assuming a stable housing market. Given the huge volume of loans guaranteed by the FHA in recent years, the preponderance of FHA borrowers who are mediocre to poor credit risks, and the likelihood of these borrowers owing more than their house is worth after factoring in sales costs, the FHA could continue to have the potential to incur huge losses in the event of future housing market downturns for the foreseeable future.

It'll really work this time, I swear!

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100548913

No Money? No Worries. Home Lenders Ease Up Rules


   
 Published: Wednesday, 13 Mar 2013 | 8:41 AM ET
By: Diana Olick
CNBC Real Estate Reporter



Mortgage Credit Show Signs of Thawing
 Wednesday, 13 Mar 2013 | 8:18 AM ET
CNBC's Diana Olick reports banks and lenders are loosening up the purse strings. There's been a "noticeable increase" in the purchase of fixed-rate low down payment loans, some with as little as 3-5% down, but they may require mortgage insurance.





 As housing heads into the critical spring market, credit is finally beginning to thaw. Lenders are increasingly approving low down payment loans, and government sponsored mortgage giant Fannie Mae is buying more of them.



It is a noticeable shift from the last four years, when 20 percent down on a home purchase loan was the only game in the neighborhood.

"In general lenders have been willing to do more than they may have been willing to do in the past," said John Forlines, chief credit officer for Fannie Mae's single family business. "Our requirements have not changed significantly, but other parties taking risk, the lenders and mortgage insurance companies in particular, have been more flexible than they may have been in the past."
 

Fannie Mae will buy loans with as little as 3 percent down payment, but these loans require private mortgage insurance. During the worst of the housing crash, when the private insurers were sinking under billions of dollars in claims on defaulted loans, that insurance was tough to get.
 



The only low down payment loan left was through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA)—the government's loan insurer. The FHA took on a huge share of the market, far more than it was ever meant to, and while that helped prop up the mortgage market in the short term, it was not sustainable, and the FHA took on huge losses.

Coming here soon.

I'll put it this way, Wesbury deserves this award as much as Buraq deserved his Nobel Peace Prize.



About Pulsenomics LLC











Pulsenomics LLC is an independent consulting and research firm that provides its clients unique and objective insights to enhance new product development and strategy, to revitalize services, and to build brand recognition.  We specialize in developing markets for data-driven products and services, investable indices, exchange-traded products and real estate derivatives.


By monitoring the pulse of relevant markets, competition, regulatory and political landscapes - and by drawing from decades of experience in executing strategic plans for mold-breaking products and services - Pulsenomics delivers solutions and market intelligence that are timely, relevant, and conducive to sustained competitive advantage.
 
Our research effort includes creation and management of expert surveys, corporate/employee surveys, consumer surveys and polls to identify trends and expectations that are relevant to effective business management and monitoring economic health.
 







Founder
 Terry Loebs is the Founder and Managing Member of Pulsenomics LLC.
 
Terry has more than 25 years of product development, product marketing, data analytics, sales and business development experience in the financial industry.  Most recently, as a Managing Director of and consultant to MacroMarkets LLC, he led the effort to transform and establish the Case-Shiller Home Price Indices (now known as the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices) into the world’s most recognized home price performance benchmark. Terry was also a catalyst for the development of related financial products and foundational market infrastructure for U.S. home price risk management, as well as for product marketing initiatives for MacroShares, an innovative exchange-traded product structure for commodities, real estate, economic indicators and other alternative asset classes.
 
At Case-Shiller Weiss, Inc., Terry was director of business development and sales before becoming its Co-President.  As Senior Vice President at Fiserv Inc. (purchased CSW in 2002), Terry continued his leadership of the property data analytics group and related product management, sales, marketing and business development activities.
 
Terry developed and managed the Case-Shiller Index business, home price forecast and automated valuation model products of the company for more than a decade, and he is recognized as a pioneer in fostering broad acceptance and understanding of home price indexes, property valuation and other risk management technologies within the lending and mortgage-backed securities industries.  Terry started his career on Wall Street as a fixed income analyst and soon thereafter became immersed in the mortgage capital and housing markets as a whole loan trader, mortgage servicing rights and financial institutions banker.   Terry earned his undergraduate degree at the Fairfield University School of Business, and his MBA at The New York University Stern School of Business.  He holds Finra Series 7 & 63 licenses.
______________________________________________________________________________________________

What is Zillow?
 
Our Mission
 

Our mission is to empower consumers with information and tools to make smart decisions about homes, real estate and mortgages.
 
What We Do
 

Zillow is a home and real estate marketplace dedicated to helping homeowners, home buyers, sellers, renters, real estate agents, mortgage professionals, landlords and property managers find and share vital information about homes, real estate and mortgages. We are transforming the way consumers make home-related decisions and connect with real estate professionals.
 
It starts with our living database of more than 110 million U.S. homes* - including homes for sale, homes for rent and homes not currently on the market. Add to that Zestimate® home values, Rent Zestimates and lots of other useful information you won't find anywhere else, and as a result, consumers are given an edge in real estate.
 
In addition to Zillow.com, we also operate Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, where borrowers connect with lenders to find loans and get the best mortgage rates; and Zillow Mobile, the most popular real estate mobile platform today.
 
What's With the Name?
 

The Zillow name evolved from the desire to make zillions of data points for homes accessible to everyone. And, since a home is about more than just data - it is where you lay your head to rest at night, like a pillow - "Zillow" was born.
 
* Zillow Internal, February 2013
 


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


By Diane Tuman

Another suggestion that the 'pubs become DRM-lite.

Snooki-ization is not the answer.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-13/central-banks-seen-buying-more-gold-yen-renminbi-to-diversify.html

Central Banks Seen Buying More Gold, Yen, Renminbi to Diversify

 By Debarati Roy - Mar 13, 2013 5:00 AM MT.



Central banks are increasing purchases of gold, yen and China’s renminbi to reduce their dollar and euro holdings as a percentage of total reserves, the World Gold Council said.

Official holdings increased to more than $12 trillion in 2012 from $2 trillion in 2000, while the share of gold and currencies apart from the greenback tripled in absolute terms since 2008, the London-based council said today in a report. The group is funded by gold producers.

Central banks added 534.6 tons of gold to reserves in 2012, the most since 1964, the council said last month. Barclays Plc forecast government purchases of 300 tons in both 2013 and 2014. Currency debasement and inflation concerns will spur metal demand, Morgan Stanley said in a Feb. 25 report.

“Building gold reserves in tandem with new alternatives is an optimal strategy as central banks remain under-allocated to gold and many attractive alternatives are either too small or, as is the case with the renminbi, not yet open to broader international participation,” Ashish Bhatia, the manager for government affairs at the council, said in the report.

Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest producer, Newmont Mining Corp. and AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. are among council members.

To contact the reporter on this story: Debarati Roy in New York at droy5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steve Stroth at sstroth@bloomberg.net

http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2013/03/14/the-secret-document-that-set-obamas-middle-east-policy/?singlepage=true

The Secret Document That Set Obama’s Middle East Policy

March 14th, 2013 - 9:42 am
“… we have to confront is violent extremism in all of its forms. … America is not — and never will be — at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security — because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women, and children. And it is my first duty as president to protect the American people.”  – President Barack Obama, Cairo, June 2009
 
“The United States is now experiencing the beginning of its end, and is heading towards its demise. … Resistance is the only solution. [Today the United States] is withdrawing from Iraq, defeated and wounded, and it is also on the verge of withdrawing from Afghanistan. [All] its warplanes, missiles, and modern military technology were defeated by the will of the peoples, as long as [these peoples] insisted on resistance.”  – Muslim Brotherhood leader Muhammad al-Badri, Cairo, September 2010

 


What did the president know, and when did he know it? That’s a question made classic by the Watergate scandal. Now, it is possible to trace precisely what Obama knew and when he knew it. And it proves that the installment of power of the Muslim Brotherhood was a conscious and deliberate strategy of the Obama administration, developed before the “Arab Spring” began.
 
In February 2011, the New York Times ran an extremely complimentary article on President Obama by Mark Landler, who some observers say is the biggest apologist for Obama on the newspaper. That’s quite an achievement. Landler praised Obama for having tremendous foresight, in effect predicting the “Arab Spring.” According to Landler: 
 

President Obama ordered his advisers last August [2010] to produce a secret report on unrest in the Arab world, which concluded that without sweeping political changes, countries from Bahrain to Yemen were ripe for popular revolt, administration officials said Wednesday.
 
Which advisors? The then counter-terrorism advisor and now designated CIA chief John Brennan? National Security Council senior staffer Samantha Power? If it was done by Obama’s own staff, rather than State and Defense, it’s likely that these people were the key authors. Or at least one of them was.
 
So should U.S. policy help allies avoid such sweeping change by standing firm or by helping them make adjustments? No, explained the report, it should get on the side of history and wield a broom to do the sweeping. The article continued:
 

Mr. Obama’s order, known as a Presidential Study Directive, identified likely flashpoints, most notably Egypt, and solicited proposals for how the administration could push for political change in countries with autocratic rulers who are also valuable allies of the United States, [emphasis added] these officials said.
 
The 18-page classified report, they said, grapples with a problem that has bedeviled the White House’s approach toward Egypt and other countries in recent days: how to balance American strategic interests and the desire to avert broader instability against the democratic demands of the protesters.
 
As I noted, the article was quite explicitly complimentary (and that’s an understatement) about how Obama knew what was likely to happen and was well prepared for it.
 
But that’s precisely the problem. It wasn’t trying to deal with change, but was pushing for it; it wasn’t asserting U.S. interests but balancing them off against other factors. In the process, U.S. interests were forgotten.
 
If Landler was right, then Obama did have a sense of what was going to happen, and prepared. It cannot be said that he was caught unaware. This view would suggest, then, that he thought American strategic interests could be protected, and broader instability avoided by overthrowing U.S. allies as fast as possible and by showing the oppositions that he was on their side. Presumably the paper pointed out the strength of Islamist forces and the Muslim Brotherhood factor, and then discounted any dangers from this quarter.
 
One could have imagined how other U.S. governments would have dealt with this situation. Here is my imagined passage from a high-level government document:
 

In light of the likelihood of sweeping political changes, with countries from Bahrain to Yemen ripe for popular revolt, U.S. policy should either help friendly governments retain control or encourage them to make reforms that would increase the scope of freedom in a way that would satisfy popular desires without endangering U.S. interests and long-term stability. In the event that the fall of any given regime seemed likely, U.S. policy should work both publicly and behind the scenes to try to ensure the triumph of moderate, pro-democratic forces that would be able to prevent the formation of radical Islamist dictatorships inimical to U.S. interests, regional peace, and the well-being of the local population.
 
(Note: again, that is my reconstruction and not a quote from the document.)
 
Such an approach would have been easy, and in line with historic U.S. policy. We have every reason to believe that the State Department and the Defense Department favored such an approach.
 
But let’s look at precisely how the White House described the U.S. policy it wanted:
 

… how the administration could push for political change in countries with autocratic rulers who are also valuable allies of the United States.
 
In other words, a popular revolt was going to happen (I’ve seen the cables from the U.S. embassy in Tunisia that accurately predicted an upheaval), but would it succeed or fail? The Obama administration concluded that the revolt should succeed and set out to help make sure that it did so. As for who won, it favored not just moderate Islamic forces — which hardly existed as such — but moderate Islamist forces.

Which didn’t exist at all.
 
Anyone who says that the United States did not have a lot of influence in these crises doesn’t know what they are talking about. Of course the U.S. government didn’t control the outcome; its leverage was limited. But there’s a big difference between telling the Egyptian army to stay in control, dump Mubarak, and make a mild transition, and we, the United States, will back you — and telling them that Washington wanted the generals to stand aside, let Mubarak be overthrown, and have a thorough regime change. A fundamental transformation, to coin a phrase.
 
So the Obama administration did not stand beside friendly regimes or help to manage a limited transition with more democracy and reforms. No, it actively pushed to bring down at least four governments — Bahrain, Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen.
 
It did not push for the overthrow of two anti-American regimes — Iran and Syria — but on the contrary was still striving for good relations with those two dictatorships.

Equally, it did not push for the fall of radical anti-American governments in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

No, it only pushed for the fall of “valuable allies.”

There was no increase in support for dissidents in Iran despite, as we will see in a moment, internal administration predictions of unrest there, too. As for Syria, strong administration support for the dictatorship there continued for months until it was clear that the regime was in serious trouble. It seems reasonable to say that the paper did not predict the Syrian civil war.
 
Want more evidence about the internal administration document? Here’s another article from the time, which explains:
 

The White House had been debating the likelihood of a domino effect since youth-driven revolts had toppled President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia, even though the American intelligence community and Israel’s intelligence services had estimated that the risk to President Mubarak was low — less than 20 percent, some officials said.
 
According to senior officials who participated in Mr. Obama’s policy debates, the president took a different view. He made the point early on, a senior official said, that “this was a trend” that could spread to other authoritarian governments in the region, including in Iran. By the end of the 18-day uprising, by a White House count, there were 38 meetings with the president about Egypt. Mr. Obama said that this was a chance to create an alternative to “the al-Qaeda narrative” of Western interference.
 
Notice that while this suggests the debate began after the unrest started, full credit is given to Obama personally, not to U.S. intelligence agencies, for grasping the truth. This is like the appropriation by the White House of all the credit for getting Osama bin Laden, sort of a cult of personality thing.
 
We know for a fact that the State Department predicted significant problems arising in Tunisia (from the Wikileaks documents), and perhaps that is true for other countries as well. But if Obama wants to take personal credit for the new U.S. policy that means he also has to take personal blame for the damage it does.
 
Now I assume what I’m about to say isn’t going to be too popular, but I’ll also bet that history will prove it correct: the revolution in Egypt was not inevitable, and Obama’s position was a self-fulfilling prophecy. And judging from what happened at the time, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton agrees with me.

The idea of an “alternative to the al-Qaeda narrative” of Western interference is straight John Brennan. What Obama was really saying: So al-Qaeda claims we interfere to put reactionary pro-Western dictators in power just because they’re siding with us? We’ll show them we can put popular Islamist dictators in power, even though they are against us!
 
If I’m writing this somewhat facetiously, I mean it very seriously.
 
And here’s more proof from the Washington Post in March 2011, which seems to report on the implementation of the White House paper’s recommendations:
 

The administration is already taking steps to distinguish between various movements in the region that promote Islamic law in government. An internal assessment, ordered by the White House last month, identified large ideological differences between such movements as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and al-Qaeda that will guide the U.S. approach to the region.
 
That says it all, doesn’t it?
 
The implication is that the U.S. government knew that the Brotherhood would take power — and thought this was a good thing.
 
It continued:
 

“If our policy can’t distinguish between al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, we won’t be able to adapt to this change,” the senior administration official said. “We’re also not going to allow ourselves to be driven by fear.”
 
Might that be John Brennan? I’d bet on it.
 
What did Obama and his advisors think would happen? That out of gratitude for America stopping its (alleged) bullying and imperialistic ways and getting on the (alleged) side of history, the new regimes would be friendly. The Muslim Brotherhood in particular would conclude that America was not its enemy.

You know, one Brotherhood leader would supposedly say to another: all of these years we thought the United States was against us, but now we see that they are really our friends. Remember Obama’s Cairo speech? He really gets us!
 
More likely he’d be saying: we don’t understand precisely what the Americans are up to but they are obviously weak, cowardly, and in decline.
 
In fact, that’s what they did say. Remember that President Jimmy Carter’s attempts to make friends with the new Islamist regime in Iran in 1979 fed a combination of Iranian suspicion and arrogance which led to the hostage crisis, and Tehran daring to take on the United States single-handed. America, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini said at the time, can’t do a damned thing against us.
 
Incidentally, everyone except the American public — which means people in the Middle East — knows that Obama cut the funding for real democratic groups. His Cairo speech was important not for the points so often discussed (Israel, for example) but because it heralded the age of political Islamism being dominant in the region. Indeed, Obama practically told those people that they should identify not as Arabs, but as Muslims.
 
In broader terms, what does Obama’s behavior remind me of? President Jimmy Carter pushing Iran’s shah for human rights and other reforms in 1977, and then standing aloof as the revolution unrolled — and went increasingly in the direction of radical Islamists — in 1978.
 
As noted above, that didn’t work out too well.
 
Incidentally, the State Department quite visibly did not support Obama’s policy in 2011. It wanted to stand with its traditional clients in the threatened Arab governments, just as presumably there were many in the Defense Department who wanted to help the imperiled militaries with whom they had cooperated for years. And that, by the way, includes the Turkish army, which was being visibly dismantled by the Islamist regime in Ankara.
 
While the State Department backed down on Egypt, it drew the line on Bahrain. Yes, there is a very unfair system there in which a small Sunni minority dominates a large Shia majority, and yes, too, some of the Shia opposition is moderate, but the assessment was that a revolution would probably bring to power an Iranian satellite government. 
 
But the idea — that they’re going to be overthrown anyway so let’s give them a push — did not apply to Iran or Syria or Hamas-government Gaza or Hizballah-governed Lebanon and not at all to Islamist-governed Turkey.
 
It makes sense that this basic thinking also applied to Libya, where dictator Muammar al-Qadhafi was hardly a friend of the United States, but had been on better behavior lately. As for Syria, the U.S. government indifference to who actually wins leadership of the new regime seems to carry over from the earlier crises.
 
Credit should be given to the U.S. government in two specific cases. Once the decision to overthrow Qadhafi was made, the result was a relatively favorable regime in Libya. That was a gain. The problem is that this same philosophy and the fragility of the regime helped produce the Benghazi incident. The other relatively positive situation was Iraq’s post-Saddam government, to which most of the credit goes to Obama’s predecessor but some to his administration. Still, Iraq seems to be sliding — in terms of its regional strategic stance, not domestically — closer toward Iran.
 
At any rate, the evidence both public and behind the scenes seems to indicate that the Obama administration decided on two principles in early 2011.
 
– First, let’s help overthrow our friends before someone else does so, and somehow we will benefit from being on the winning side.
 
– Second, it doesn’t really matter too much who takes power, because somehow they will be better than their predecessors, somehow we will be more popular with them, and somehow U.S. interests will be preserved.
 
Landler definitely thought he was making Obama look good.

Instead, he was showing us that the bad thinking and disastrous policy was planned and purposeful.

Nice journalism career you got here, shame if anything should happen to it....


The Chicago way...

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/03/11/Schakowsky-Assault-Weapons-Ban-is-Just-the-Beginning

Schakowsky: Assault Weapons Ban 'Just the Beginning'
 


by Joel B. Pollak11 Mar 2013

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a member of the Democratic Party’s leadership in the House of Representatives, suggested to Jason Mattera at a Feb. 13 women’s rights rally that plans for an assault weapons ban and private-sales background checks were only the beginning of a broader gun control agenda extending to handguns as well.
 
Schakowsky evidently did not recognize Mattera, a conservative video journalist and senior investigative reporter for Talk Radio Network, who infamously confronted Vice President Joe Biden in the Capitol. (Mattera introduced himself to Schakowsky by name but did not indicate that he was filming or that he is conservative.) She spoke to Mattera as if he were a fellow gun control enthusiast--and Mattera played along, eliciting answers about Schakowsky’s enthusiasm for gun control.
 






“We want everything on the table,” Schakowsky told Mattera. “This is a moment of opportunity. There’s no question about it.”
 
One poignant exchange was as follows:
 

Schakowsky: We’re on a roll now, and I think we’ve got to take the--you know, we’re gonna push as hard as we can and as far as we can.
 
Mattera: So the assault weapons ban is just the beginning?
 
Schakowsky: Oh absolutely. I mean, I’m against handguns. We have, in Illinois, the Council Against Handgun... something [Violence]. Yeah, I’m a member of that. So, absolutely.
 
In another exchange, Schakowsky proposed allowances for states and municipalities to ban guns--though such laws have been repeatedly rejected by the Supreme Court:
 

Mattera: We’ll never get a handgun ban with the Second Amendment as stated.
 
Schakowsky: I don’t know. I don’t know that we can’t. And there may be an allowance, once again, for communities--I have communities in my district that prohibited handguns within their borders. The rights of municipalities and states to view that as a sensible way to keep people safe--I don’t think it’s precluded.
 
When Mattera asked why legislators were not pressing for a handgun ban, given that most murders are committed with handguns, Schakowsky replied: “Because we’re not going to be able to win that. Not now.” She went on to explain why background checks were a useful interim policy, arguing that they would “address any kind of weapon.”
 


Schakowsky’s remarks about plans for broader gun control are not the first time she has revealed the long-term goal behind short-term policy debates. She has a tendency to do so when speaking to apparently sympathetic audiences. In 2009, she told a crowd that the goal of Obamacare would be to “put the private insurance industry out of business.”
 
Officially, Democrats--including Schakowsky--hew to the party line as laid down by the president, which pledges support for the Second Amendment and for gun ownership in rural communities where hunting and shooting are viewed as traditional pastimes.
 
Gun owners fear that the Sandy Hook-inspired gun control measures before Congress--none of which would have stopped the mass shooting at Sandy Hook--are a prelude to broader regulations, including the banning of handguns and the eventual registration and confiscation of firearms, despite earnest assurances by Democrats to the contrary.
 
The Democratic Party has taken a hard line on guns recently, with President Obama’s strategist, David Axelrod, joining New York mayor Michael Bloomberg in backing gun control enthusiast Robin Kelly over former Rep. Debbie Halvorson, who has an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, in the recent primary to replace former Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. of Illinois. Kelly has promised to be a “leader” in “banning guns.”

Guns for me, not for thee.

It's not that the anti-gunners are anti-gun, they are anti-gun for the unwashed masses.

When does Woodward wake up to find a horse's head in his bed?

Meanwhile, the PLAN plots to destroy the 7th fleet.

And we wonder why the Chinese laugh at us.

If I were them, I'd avoid getting on the same plane with all the other survivors....

Still waiting on the Stevens autopsy report.

Transparency and Open Government
Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies
SUBJECT:      Transparency and Open Government

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government.  We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent.  Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing.  Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. My Administration will take appropriate action, consistent with law and policy, to disclose information rapidly in forms that the public can readily find and use. Executive departments and agencies should harness new technologies to put information about their operations and decisions online and readily available to the public. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.

Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. Knowledge is widely dispersed in society, and public officials benefit from having access to that dispersed knowledge. Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.

Government should be collaborative.  Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government. Executive departments and agencies should use innovative tools, methods, and systems to cooperateamong themselves, across all levels of Government, and with nonprofit organizations, businesses, and individuals in the private sector.  Executive departments and agencies should solicit public feedback to assess and improve their level of collaboration and to identify new opportunities for cooperation.

I direct the Chief Technology Officer, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Administrator of General Services, to coordinate the development by appropriate executive departments and agencies, within 120 days, of recommendations for an Open Government Directive, to be issued by the Director of OMB, that instructs executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles set forth in this memorandum. The independent agencies should comply with the Open Government Directive.

This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by a party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

This memorandum shall be published in the Federal Register.

BARACK OBAMA
.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57573613/six-months-later-where-are-the-benghazi-survivors/

By Sharyl Attkisson /
CBS News/ March 11, 2013, 12:58 PM
Six months later, where are the Benghazi survivors?


Today marks six months since the September 11, 2012 terrorist attacks on the U.S. compounds in Benghazi, Libya in which four Americans were killed, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Some watchdog groups, members of the media and Republican members of Congress are asking: Where are the more than two dozen U.S. personnel who survived the attack but haven't been seen nor heard from in public since? There were also an undisclosed number of witnesses at the U.S. compounds in Tripoli but they also have not spoken publicly.


In a recent press report, Secretary of State John Kerry said he visited one survivor at "Bethesda hospital," and referred to him a "remarkably courageous person who is doing very, very well." Kerry added, "I've called his wife and talked to her." But the identities, condition and testimony of the survivors and witnesses have been closely held from the public.


Source: Press officers partly responsible for Benghazi talking points changes
White House declines to release images from night of Benghazi attacks

Republicans demanded more information about Benghazi in recent weeks before they would agree to allow Obama Administration nominees to move forward in the Senate. A source familiar with material turned over to the Senate Intelligence Committee by the Obama Administration in response tells CBS News that long sought-after FBI transcripts of some survivors were included but had been "blacked out" or redacted. Three Senate Republicans including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., say they want the survivors to be made available for interviews about what happened the night of the attacks.




Meanwhile, a State Department review board found that despite requests from Stevens for more security prior to the attack, there were no military resources in place close enough to come to the rescue of Americans during the attack. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey testified that troops have been placed on a higher state of alert since then.


Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified in January she was unaware of Stevens' unmet security requests. She said the highest ranking official who received them at the State Department was undersecretary Patrick Kennedy. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Dempsey said they were aware of Stevens' requests and concerns.




At a press conference on November 14, 2012, President Obama stated that his administration has provided all information regarding "what happened in Benghazi." Yet, when CBS News asked for White House photos from the night of the attacks, surveillance video that was promised last November, and answers to outstanding questions, a White House official told us that there would be no further comment.


CBS News has filed multiple Freedom of Information requests for Benghazi-related material, but none has been provided. Judicial Watch, a watchdog group, is suing the U.S. government in an attempt to receive some of the denied information.

My money is on China using the usual "Good totalitarian, bad totalitarian" game on the rest of the world.

It's kind of like a guy that jumps from the Empire State Building. Halfway down and everything seems to be going fine....

Why America's middle class is losing ground
By Tami Luhby @CNNMoney March 5, 2013: 11:51 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)

When Debbie Bruister buys a gallon of milk at her local Kroger supermarket, she pays $3.69, up 70 cents from what she paid last year.
Getting to the store costs more, too. Gas in Corinth, Miss., her hometown, costs $3.51 a gallon now, compared to less than three bucks in 2012. That really hurts, considering her husband's 112-mile daily round-trip commute to his job as a pharmacist.

Bruister, a mother of four, received a $1,160 raise this school year at her job as an eighth-grade computer teacher. The extra cash -- about $97 a month, before taxes and other deductions -- isn't enough for her and her husband to keep up with their rising costs, especially after the elimination of the payroll tax break. Its loss shrunk their paychecks by more than $270 a month.

"If you look at how much prices are going up, you get in the hole really quick," Bruister said. "It's a constant squeeze."

In the wake of the Great Recession, millions of middle-class people are being pinched by stagnating incomes and the increased cost of living. America's median household income has dropped by more than $4,000 since 2000, after adjusting for inflation, and the typical trappings of middle-class life are slipping out of financial reach for many families.

Families with young kids are struggling to afford childcare and save for the ever-climbing costs of college. Those nearing retirement are scrambling to sock away funds so they don't have to work forever. A weak labor market means that employed Americans aren't getting the pay raises they need to keep up -- especially with big-ticket items such as health care eating away at their paychecks.

Economists say it boils down to two core problems: jobs and wages. The traditional "middle-class job" is disappearing.
Mid-wage occupations such as office managers and truck drivers accounted for 60% of the job losses during the recession, but only 22% of the gains during the recovery, according to a National Employment Law Project analysis of Labor Department data. Low-wage positions, on the other hand, soared 58%.

Uncertainty and insecurity are weighing down the middle class, even those who haven't had a break in employment. More than 40% of those surveyed in a recent Rutgers University study said they were "very concerned" about job security.

They're also not very optimistic about the near future. Fewer than one-third believe that economic conditions will improve next year, and an equal number think they will get worse, according to the Rutgers survey, conducted by the university's Heldrich Center for Workforce Development. Only 19% believe that job, career and employment opportunities will be better for the next generation.

The survey's title sums it up: "Diminished Lives and Futures: A Portrait of America in the Great-Recession Era."

Dan Heiden of Eagan, Minn., embodies that life. Before 2007, the union supermarket worker owned an apartment and socked away funds in the bank and in a retirement account.

Then the store cut his hours.

"The economy tanked," said Heiden, who now works no more than 30 hours a week. "They aren't hiring full-time any more because they can pay less."

The 37-year-old had to sell his apartment and move into his parents' basement. He has also curtailed his social life, eating out less and hanging out with friends at their homes instead of going to bars. He's depending more on credit cards and is no longer able to save much for retirement.

"Luckily, I don't have a family, because then it would be a tighter squeeze," Heiden said. "I just pray and hope the economy turns around."

Related: Calculate your cost of living in another city

Full-time employment is one casualty of the recession. The number of people working part-time for economic reasons -- meaning that they would like longer hours but can't find work -- has soared to nearly 8 million, up from 4.8 million five years ago.

Those with full-time jobs are also feeling the pressure.

Take Lois Karhinen, 55, who has been working since she was a teen. A state employee in New York, she's worried she and her husband won't have enough money saved by the time she wants to retire in 11 years.

Her husband is a government contract worker, and they fear his job could disappear any day. Their income has taken a hit because she has been furloughed several days since 2011. At the same time, her health insurance payments, union dues and other expenses have gone up.

The couple is no longer able to cover all of their monthly expenses -- including the mortgage, car loans, home repair loans and student debt -- with their paychecks alone.

"I watch every month our savings deplete," said Karhinen, who lives in Queensbury, N.Y. "I'm realizing we're not young enough to save a lot."

The downturn in the housing market also hurts. The couple bought their house in 2006, hoping it would serve as an investment and help support their retirement. But now, they would only break even if they sold it, she says -- if they were lucky.

The mortgage crisis "hollowed out" the middle class, said Tamara Draut, vice president of policy and research at Demos, a public policy research organization. Much of their wealth is tied into home values, but national home prices are still 29% below their mid-2006 high, according to S&P Case-Shiller.

That means some folks have lost all their home equity and may never get it back. Others can't take out loans to finance repairs, college for the kids and other expenses.

There's one more big squeeze hitting households: health care. Since 2002, insurance premiums have increased 97%, rising three times as fast as wages, according to Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research & Educational Trust.

In Mississippi, Bruister now has an $1,800 deductible, compared to $500 a few years ago. When she goes to the doctor, the bill typically tops $100 -- so she tries to avoid going.

"Health care for me has turned into more of a luxury item," said Bruister, 52. "I go every year for the checkups my insurance pays, but after that you just tough out the other illnesses."

Economists say they don't expect much improvement for the middle class any time soon. The recession is officially over, but the recovery is fragile, and its gains aren't evenly spread. Between 1993 and 2011, the top 1% of America's earners saw their income soar by 58%, while everyone else only got a 6% bump.

That's making it even harder for most households to get ahead.

"The middle class was always synonymous with economic security and stability," Draut said. "Now it's synonymous with economic anxiety." 

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/thomaspascoe/100023182/the-gap-between-rich-and-poor-will-continue-to-grow-until-we-give-up-on-qe/

The gap between rich and poor will continue to grow until we give up on QE
By Thomas Pascoe Economics Last updated: March 5th, 2013



Monopoly money means that it's more of a rich man's world than ever.
The world's rich are getting richer. The Forbes billionaire list was published this morning (there are now 1,426 of them globally in dollar terms, with 210 new entrants in the last year), and collectively they are $800bn richer than they were a year ago. Each billionaire is, on average, $100m richer than in 2011, with an average wealth of $3.7bn.

It can hardly be a surprise. Across the world, stock markets are booming (Dow futures indicate it will open today around the 14,170 mark, a new record). Bond prices are also strong in developed markets despite those same sovereigns usually being mired in a debt crisis. At the same, no major currency has collapsed, thanks to the cancellation effect of simultaneous Western devaluation, and commodities (WTI crude is perhaps the exception), have looked fairly stable, even though the bull run has stopped. In short, if you have any asset base at all, you had to be quite special to have lost money in the last year.

Strong stocks and strong bonds are an unusual mix. Theoretically and historically, money has washed from one to the other causing rises and falls along the way. What is unusual about the present climate is that so much money has been created by central banks that there is sufficient available to create a bubble in, well, everything.

This has a lot to do with how QE operates. Unlike straight money printing, it is designed to transfer money to banks, not to the consumer or to the government. The banks swap their existing government bonds for newly printed money. In theory, the banks now lend this cash on the high street to consumers and businesses. In reality, that has been a problem. Burnt by the financial crisis, banks have imposed tougher lending criteria at a time when creditworthiness is impaired. As such, they cannot lend. Instead the money ends up in the trading account. It gets spent on financial instruments in proportion to the greed (equities) or fear (bonds) of the institution in question. The main reason that QE has not been catastrophically inflationary is that so little of it has filtered down to the high street. For the most part, it has simply pushed up values across the board in the financial markets.

In short, if you came into this last year owning assets, you will have done well. Of course, whether protecting asset prices come what may is a good or useful thing for a central bank to be doing is another thing altogether.

While those at the top have done well from the magic money mountain that was summoned into being by QE, those who have done badly are those with relatively fixed wages and no assets. As the nominal price of assets increases, and wage growth lags inflation, the distance between the renting class and the owning classes grows greater still.

Even if living standards do level out eventually, or even match the OBR's three year projection (4pc wage growth, 2pc inflation) it is worth remembering that inflation is a net cost (we pay it on our salaries after tax), while wage rises are gross benefits (we lost a large part of the gain to tax before it hits our account). Any wage rise will need to be well above inflation to sustain living standards.

For the asset wealthy, however, this is less of a problem. The same money printing which causes inflation in the real economy also props up asset prices. Inflation of 3pc per year is less onerous when the FTSE is making 6pc a year, as it was last year.

Despite uprating in line with CPI inflation, those hit hardest of all are likely to be those who rely on state benefits – from pensions downwards. For all sorts of reasons, CPI is acutely useless at capturing true inflation (the substitution effect and qualitative dilutions see to that). Tullet Prebon have put actual inflation at 7.8pc in 2011, and 3.7pc in 2012, as against 2.8pc CPI and 1.7pc wage growth in each. Given that since 2007, British wages are up 10pc, but food is up 29.8pc, power is up 46.3pc and petrol is up 56.5pc, this seems an understatement. If you have both a fixed income and increases are strictly tied to CPI then you have experienced a very significant fall in living standards since the crisis began.

None of this is written in the socialist perspective, implying that the problems of the poor can only be solved by confiscation from the rich, or that any advantage gained by one section of society is a cost to another. Nor is it written in the point of view, prevalent on the internet, which insists that such machinations constitute a deliberate robbery of the poor by shadowy figures hell bent on a new feudalism. It is simply the case that in financial policy, particularly, we seldom think through the consequences of our actions. Very clever men have a capacity for very great mistakes which often elude simpler souls. Western money printing is slowly burning the bridges between rich and poor. Whatever the economic benefit (and I am dubious there), it is worth considering that there is a significant social cost.

They had O'Keefe dead-bang busted, yet they granted him immunity. Why? They didn't need the original footage. The video posted online coupled with sworn statements from the ACORN employees would be enough for a grand jury or information to be issued. They could have gotten the original footage for trial through a grand jury subpoena or search warrant.

If this slightly more than 2% cut in the rate of growth of federal spending caused this, then an actual 5% cut should have the market at 28000, yes?

Or, it could be all the QE-Infinity funny money distorting things.....

He's predicted 15 of the last 0 recoveries.

Plow horse? His analysis smells more like a feedlot.