JustGetThere

Congressman Paul speaks on the floor about assassinations of Americans by their own government.

CNN | U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, a stalwart foe of government spending, won a blowout victory Saturday in the annual Conservative Political Action Conference presidential straw poll.

With participants naming "reducing the size of federal government" as their top issue, the 74-year old libertarian hero captured 31 percent of the 2,400 votes cast in the annual contest, usually seen as a barometer of how the GOP's conservative wing regards their potential presidential candidates.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney finished second with 22 percent of the vote, ending a three-year winning streak at CPAC. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin finished third with 7 percent of the vote, followed by Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty at 6 percent and Indiana Rep. Mike Pence at 5 percent.

They were followed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who tied at 4 percent. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, South Dakota Sen. John Thune and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour rounded out the results.

Five percent of participants voted for "Other" and 6 percent was undecided.

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Editor: It's official, the hijacking is complete. The Tea Party movement has been usurped by the GOP, this is confirmed by the $100,000 payout for Sarah Palin. The history of the movement has been hidden from the public by the MSM just like George Orwell's 1984 newspeak. From the Guardian :

"The term tea party, a reference to the Boston Tea Party, is credited to a commentator on CNBC, Rick Santelli, who launched a tirade last February against the Obama administration's financial plans and called for a display of outrage which he called a Chicago tea party."

Below is an excerpt from a article I wrote describing the hijacking in its infancy:

Excerpt from: A Message To The Revolution: The Easiest Way To Destroy A Movement Is To Become It

I guess you could say that the media's new catch phrase these days is Tea Party. A couple of years ago, this tradition was reborn by a nationwide grassroots movement of non-partisan freedom lovers, who are seeking a return to the Constitutional roots of this nation.

Arising first as the Ron Paul Revolution and now the Campaign For Liberty, this diverse and tech-savvy group of creative individuals reignited the idea of liberty in the political collective consciousness.

The problem is that the Orwellian newspeak media has left out the fact that the Ron Paul Tea Parties started under the Bush administration, and were not focused on attacking Bush, but instead were exposing the unconstitutionality of the Fed, IRS, NAU, Patriot Act, NAFTA, wars for empire and the list goes on. Our enemy is not a politician, political party or pundit, it's the corporate governmental mechanisms of control that expand no matter who is in office.

This blatant hijacking of the patriot, truth and liberty movement, should be further confirmation that the majority of Americans are waking up and shaking off the two-party propaganda tool that is used to divide and conquer. New counter measures had to be taken by the ruling oligarchy to prevent any further movement outside their control system. The current financial crisis has lifted the veil just enough for some light to pass through, so they need to apply a new layer of filters to conceal the truth behind the veil.

Now that the GOP has taken hold and assimilated the leadership of this former grassroots movement, it makes sense for them to move against the ideals that were the foundation. The very criticisms that are being levied against Congressman Paul are the bedrock issues that helped form this group of individuals. This is much more then ousting Ron Paul, it's about destroying the movement of liberty by imprinting the old neocon paradigm under a new name.

By David Edwards and Daniel Tencer

Raw Story | There is more than a little irony in the fact that congressman Ron Paul is facing three primary challengers this year, all of them linked in some way to the Tea Party movement.

Many observers give the libertarian from Texas credit for having sparked the Tea Party movement in 2007 when he held a "money bomb" fundraiser on the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, raking in some $6 million for his presidential run in one day.

But, as the Dallas Morning News reported earlier this week, Paul is facing three primary challengers -- more than he has faced in the past six primaries combined. And every one of the challengers is linked to the Tea Party movement.

Washington Independent contributor David Weigel told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Monday night that the Tea Party movement of today has little in common with that fundraiser in 2007.

"Those libertarian ideas [may be] popular at the Cato Institute, [but] they're not really popular with Tea Party activists," Weigel said.

As the Morning News put it, Tea Partiers say Paul is "too focused on his national ambitions; that his views are too extreme; that he doesn't support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; that he votes 'no' on everything, including federal aid for his district after Hurricane Ike."

By comparison, "the Sarah Palin version of Tea Party conservatism is a little bit less specific," Weigel said. "It's more slogany. You can write the talking points on your hand if you want to."

That the Tea Party movement has become a threat to Paul is not lost on the congressman.

The Morning News reports that, in December, Paul sent out a letter to supporters saying that his opponents "turned their attack dogs loose on me," and warned that the anti-incumbent mood among voters could affect him as well.

"There is one thing Paul does that might backfire," Weigel wrote at the Washington Independent. "While Paul votes against basically all spending bills, he notoriously gets earmark requests into those bills, so that local projects survive when other members vote those bills through. That barely dinged Paul in 2008, but it may become an issue now."

Editor: It's official, the hijacking is complete. The Tea Party movement has been usurped by the GOP, this is confirmed by the $100,000 payout for Sarah Palin. The history of the movement has been hidden from the public by the MSM just like George Orwell's 1984. From the Guardian :

"The term tea party, a reference to the Boston Tea Party, is credited to a commentator on CNBC, Rick Santelli, who launched a tirade last February against the Obama administration's financial plans and called for a display of outrage which he called a Chicago tea party."

Below is an excerpt from a article I wrote describing the hijacking in its infancy.

Excerpt from: A Message To The Revolution: The Easiest Way To Destroy A Movement Is To Become It

I guess you could say that the media's new catch phrase these days is Tea Party. A couple of years ago, this tradition was reborn by a nationwide grassroots movement of non-partisan freedom lovers, who are seeking a return to the Constitutional roots of this nation.

Arising first as the Ron Paul Revolution and now the Campaign For Liberty, this diverse and tech-savvy group of creative individuals reignited the idea of liberty in the political collective consciousness.

The problem is that the Orwellian newspeak media has left out the fact that the Ron Paul Tea Parties started under the Bush administration, and were not focused on attacking Bush, but instead were exposing the unconstitutionality of the Fed, IRS, NAU, Patriot Act, NAFTA, wars for empire and the list goes on. Our enemy is not a politician, political party or pundit, it's the corporate governmental mechanisms of control that expand no matter who is in office.

This blatant hijacking of the patriot, truth and liberty movement, should be further confirmation that the majority of Americans are waking up and shaking off the two-party propaganda tool that is used to divide and conquer. New counter measures had to be taken by the ruling oligarchy to prevent any further movement outside their control system. The current financial crisis has lifted the veil just enough for some light to pass through, so they need to apply a new layer of filters to conceal the truth behind the veil.

Huffington Post | This weekend marks the controversial National Tea Party Convention in Nashville at the elaborate Gaylord Opryland Hotel. This convention has been dogged by vocal opposition from other aspects of the Tea Party movement and the departure of major sponsors as well as some speakers over financial aspects of the event. The kickback has led some pundits to suggest that the convention has put the entire Tea Party movement in jeopardy.

Many in the Tea Party movement became disenchanted with the National Tea Party Convention after it was revealed that the company behind the convention is a "for profit" entity. Tea Party acolytes became more upset with the high price of admission to attend. To participate in either the convention proper or Sarah Palin's speech costs $349 plus fees; for both, $549.

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The CIA was created at the behest of the bankers on Wall Street. OSS spook and Wall Street lawyer Frank Wisner was recruited by Dean Acheson to work under Charles Saltzman, at the State Department’s Office of Occupied Territories in 1947. The CIA’s first director, Allen Dulles, was a Wall Street lawyer.

The CIA is Wall Street’s finely honed tool for the neoliberal agenda of the banksters. “A considerable proportion of the developed world’s prosperity rests on paying the lowest possible prices for the poor countries’ primary products and on exporting high-cost capital and finished goods to those countries. Continuation of this kind of prosperity requires continuation of the relative gap between developed and underdeveloped countries – it means keeping poor people poor,” former CIA agent Philip Agee wrote. “Increasingly, the impoverished masses are understanding that the prosperity of the developed countries and of the privileged minorities in their own countries is founded on their poverty.”

“Throughout its entire history, the CIA has set up an elaborate shell game of ‘proprietaries’ (front companies), money-laundering operations and off-the-books projects so complex that no outsider — and few insiders — could ever keep track of them. BCCI was neither the first nor the last of these,” writes Mark Zepezauer.

Excerpt from the Campaign for Liberty Regional Conference in Atlanta, GA.

As the crowd begins to cheer, Ron Paul states, “We need to take out the CIA”.

“They are a government unto themselves. Their in buisnesses, their in drug buisnesses… and… they take out dictators. We need to take out the CIA.”
___



From Raw Story:

US House Rep. Ron Paul says the CIA has has in effect carried out a “coup” against the US government, and the intelligence agency needs to be “taken out.”

Speaking to an audience of like-minded libertarians at a Campaign for Liberty regional conference in Atlanta this past weekend, the Texas Republican said:

There’s been a coup, have you heard? It’s the CIA coup. The CIA runs everything, they run the military. They’re the ones who are over there lobbing missiles and bombs on countries. … And of course the CIA is every bit as secretive as the Federal Reserve. … And yet think of the harm they have done since they were established [after] World War II. They are a government unto themselves. They’re in businesses, in drug businesses, they take out dictators … We need to take out the CIA.

Paul’s comments, made last weekend, were met with a loud round of applause, but they didn’t gather attention until bloggers noticed a clip of the event at YouTube.

Paul appeared to be referring to news reports that the CIA is deeply involved in air strikes against Al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan and Pakistan. A suicide bombing late last year against Forward Operating Base Chapman in Afghanistan took the lives of seven of CIA operatives, including two contracted from Blackwater. The event highlighted the CIA’s deep involvement in the war effort.

Paul’s reference to the CIA being “in the drug business” refers to long-running allegations that the CIA has funded some of its covert operations with proceeds from drug-running. That claim was most famously made in a 1996 investigative report from the San Jose Mercury-News, which alleged that cocaine from the Contra-Sandinista civil war in Nicaragua was making its way to the streets of L.A. via the CIA.

Ron Paul: "I made an agreement to support all the Republicans in Texas, while I'm the most independent Republican in Congress but there's a limit to how much independence you can get away with."

Editor:Isn't this type of party-line agreement the reason our country is in the state it's in? I ask you the readers. Is there a limit to political independence? How do you feel about Ron Paul supporting these neocon candidates? Let us hear your opinion in the comment section

Talk show host John Bush asks Ron Paul why he asked his supporters to vote for a 22 year Republican incumbent Lamar Smith, who voted for the war in Iraq, Patriot Act and the banker bailout bill twice.

American Banking News | Saying the Federal Reserve is the only institution in the world he knows of that isn’t audited, famed investor and author Jim Rogers said in an interview, “It’s incomprehensible to me these people are saying they have no reason to be audited — they must have done something wrong, must have something to hide.”

This was in response to a question of whether Rogers supported the bill by Ron Paul to audit the Federal Reserve.

Rogers strongly states that we not only need to audit the Fed, but like Ron Paul, we need to completely abolish it as well. Reasons for that, according to Rogers, are: “The Fed is printing huge amounts of money, which we’ll have to pay for sometime. The Fed is borrowing gigantic amounts of money on their balance sheet…the numbers are so staggering that this is going to have ramifications before too much longer.”

This practice of course has been the systemic problem of having a Federal Reserve in the first place, as it has been employing these practices since its inception, albeit on a smaller level than the extraordinary measures they’ve taken recently.

In an amazing statement most of us can only hope fervently for, Rogers says that he believes the Federal Reserve won’t need to be abolished by anyone, as it’s “going to abolish itself” sometime in the next several years. He particularly points out the horrendous performances of current Fed chairman Ben Bernanke as well as his predecessor Alan Greenspan, who in reality set up the circumstances which Bernanke responded to so poorly.

As Rogers states in the interview, he has found no credible reason for the Federal Reserve not to be fully audited, and suggests the idea of an independent Fed being interfered with by Congress concerning monetary policies, especially interest rates, is for the most part nonsense and irrelevant to the action if it does happen.

Again, there is probably much the Federal Reserve is hiding to resist the audit so much. If not, you would think they would embrace it gladly to allow its great decisions and monetary genius be seen by us all. That’s of course not the case, and is not going to happen unless it’s forced upon them by the government, which looks increasingly like it will be.

When pressed on whether the shutting down of the Federal Reserve would be devastating to the economy, Rogers stated: “Yes it would be complicated and painful for a while. But I’d rather find out they’re bankrupt today than to find out in five or 10 years — when they’ve had another 10 years of this madness where they’re printing even more money [and] taking out even more debts in our name.”

Rogers also reminds us that there have been several other central banks in the history of the United States, and when they were shut down we kept on going successfully without them. There’s no reason to suspect it would be any different without the Federal Reserve as well.

By VICTORIA MCGRANE

Politico | Is libertarian rock star and Texas Republican Ron Paul going mainstream?

He’s got everyone from South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint to Minnesota moderate Democrat Collin Peterson to California liberal Barbara Boxer on his side in his audit-the-Fed crusade. He’s drawing liberal support in his push to rein in the cost of the war in Afghanistan. Senate candidates like Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes of New Hampshire are finding Dr. No’s populist economic anger to be useful in the campaign, echoing Paul’s criticism of the Federal Reserve.

Even Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is delivering backhanded compliments, taking credit for merely allowing a vote on Paul’s amendment to audit the central bank.

This convergence of odd bedfellows, and the economic angst that’s driving it all, is yet another signal that President Barack Obama is going to have more and more trouble keeping his traditional Democratic allies on his side as the economic debate continues. It seems that everyone is looking for something new to latch on to in the economic debate — even if those ideas belong to one of the more eccentric members of Congress.

“This brought people together [from] the whole political spectrum, from progressives and liberals and libertarians and conservatives. ... they all came together. That, to me, is what is really so important,” said Paul, who has been introducing his audit-the-Fed measure since the early ’80s.

After so many tries, this time Paul’s measure attracted 313 co-sponsors in the House, representing every possible point on the political spectrum. It also scored a strong vote in a key committee and has a companion in the Senate that’s supported by a bipartisan coalition of senators.

And Paul’s economic views, long dismissed by the political establishment, seem to be resonating more broadly than just the audit-the-Fed measure, both in the larger financial reform debate and the growing concern about the cost of continuing the war in Afghanistan.

Read full article

American Banking News | In a recent and unusual action, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke wrote a column in a newspaper, in this case the online version of the Washington Post, which attempted to undermine the legislation initiated by Ron Paul to at minimum require that the Federal Reserve be fully audited by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

Some of Bernanke’s thoughts are actually very disturbing, and confirm more than ever why the Fed needs to be audited. Let’s look at several comments he made in the column.

In reference to auditing the Fed and taking away its regulatory powers, Bernanke said this:

“These measures are very much out of step with the global consensus on the appropriate role of central banks, and they would seriously impair the prospects for economic and financial stability in the United States.”

What Bernanke subtly attempts to do here is take the issue out of the authority of the United States in the minds of the readers and place it in the authority of “global consensus.” Who cares about global consensus, and what he also calls the “appropriate role of central banks?”

With the fact that Bernanke continually refers to this in a variety of ways when attempting to defend the Federal Reserve in its ‘doing business as usual,’ it seems to strike at the core of what Ron Paul and many of us are concerned about, and that is what types of entangling alliances and agreements are being made with foreign governments and foreign central banks without lawmakers or the American people knowing what they are. This, probably more than anything else, is what Bernanke wants to keep hidden.

Essentially how I read it, is Bernanke is attempting to make it look like this isn’t an American issue but some type of global issue. Bernanke is wrong! If this isn’t an American issue than what is? It already unveils that Bernanke has something to hide in this regard, and global governance through these financial alliances seems to be a big part of it. All Americans should be concerned about that.

The other major attempt at manipulation Bernanke attempted to persuade people with the column was to make it seem like all of this is just a result of the public being angry with the Federal Reserve for not handling the current economic crisis in a way that it would largely be avoided.

“The Federal Reserve, like other regulators around the world, did not do all that it could have to constrain excessive risk-taking in the financial sector in the period leading up to the crisis,” Bernanke said.

Bernanke goes on to say that once they got hold of things they then came to the rescue and made things much better for us (laughter in the background).

The problem with Bernanke’s idea that lawmakers are simply responding to the anger of the public over the situation is completely false, at least in how it relates to Ron Paul and auditing the Fed. It could possibly true with Chris Dodd’s proposal to create a super agency to regulate monetary policy, as he’s behind in the polls in his bid for reelection, and has been perceived as a friend of the big banks for a long time.

But with Ron Paul, he has been on the record for decades concerning not only reining in the Federal Reserve, but ending it altogether. So to make it look like this is something new, is completely dishonest on the part of Bernanke, who knows full well the beliefs and thoughts of Ron Paul on the matter over the decades.

Finally, Bernanke plays the old card of political independence, which it seems he is the only one concerned with. Bernanke writes that if the public perceives Congress is influencing interest rate decisions, it “would undermine the confidence the public and the markets have in the Fed to act in the long-term economic interest of the nation.”

There’s no other way to say it, that is just a bunch of hot air. The vast majority of the public has no idea how all of this works, and to say they’re walking around thinking with dread that Congress could be influencing interest rates, is bizarre to say the least.

For the markets, they just try to figure out what the near-term interest rates will be to make base their decisions on. Those rates don’t always match the expectations of the markets, and so aren’t that important or as valuable for market confidence as Bernanke is attempting to make us think.

The bottom line to me is Bernanke knows the proposal by Christopher Dodd probably will have little if any possibility of passing into law. What he fears is the bringing to light of the activities of the Fed, which the full audit from the Government Accountability Office would do, through the legislation presented by Ron Paul, which has unprecedented support. This is why he’s attempting to confuse and distort the issue, in order to take our focus away from what needs to be done.

StreetInsider | A key House panel approved the Paul-Grayson Amendment by an overwhelming 43-26 Thursday afternoon, which will give watchdogs new authority to audit the Federal Reserve.

Here is a summary of the Paul-Grayson Amendment:

Dear Financial Services Committee Colleague:

It is encouraging to see the issue of Federal Reserve transparency receiving so much attention during this current markup. Today we plan to offer an amendment to the Financial Stability Improvement Act that expands on the many extant proposals to enhance Federal Reserve transparency. Our amendment is based on HR 1207, the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, which has broad bipartisan and grassroots support. The bill is cosponsored by 309 Members of Congress, including all Financial Services Committee Republicans and 13 Financial Services Committee Democrats.

The amendment removes restrictions on GAO audits of the Federal Reserve, as HR 1207 does, but makes a few changes to take into account some of the concerns that the Fed has made known in public testimony. Specifically, the Paul/Grayson amendment:

* Exempts unreleased transcripts and minutes from meetings of the Board and FOMC to address the Fed’s concerns that free and open debate in their meetings would be stifled.
* Sets a 180-day time lag for release of details of market actions the Fed has undertaken, to address the Fed’s concerns that Congress or GAO is second-guessing its actions.
* Removes boilerplate language that allowed GAO to make recommendations on monetary policy and adds a section stating that nothing in the amendment shall be construed as interference in or dictation of monetary policy to the Fed.

Unlike proposals that target the Fed’s 13(3) facilities, the Paul/Grayson amendment opens up the entire $2 trillion Federal Reserve balance sheet to a GAO audit. The Fed’s recent purchases of nearly $800 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBS) have occurred under the MBS Purchase Program, authorized under section 14(b) of the Federal Reserve Act. This program, which is expected to reach a size of $1.25 trillion, would remain exempt from audit even if all the current 13(3) audit proposals were to go into effect. Targeting facilities that are in the process of being drawn down and that are authorized under a specific subsection of the Federal Reserve while allowing other facilities to spring up in their place is counterproductive to true transparency. All purchases and loans that appear on the balance sheet should be subject to audit, without loopholes for the Fed to evade scrutiny.

More importantly, the Paul/Grayson amendment does not create any additional burdens. Some competing proposals, while making a good effort at expanding the number of 13(3) facilities open to audit, take a step backwards by imposing new restrictions on GAO that are more burdensome than the restrictions currently written into law. We cannot accept these new restrictions. Unlike competing proposals, this amendment amends existing restrictions on GAO audit authority, a necessary precondition for a complete audit. Competing proposals leave these restrictions in place, and even add new ones.

We also reject the false dichotomy between transparency and independence. The Paul/Grayson amendment would achieve the necessary transparency of the trillions of dollars of Fed interventions while keeping Congress from directly intervening in the decision-making process. Independence should not be synonymous with secrecy. We urge our colleagues to support the Paul/Grayson amendment.

Sincerely,

Ron Paul, Member of Congress
Alan Grayson, Member of Congress

By Paul Joseph Watson

Prison Planet | CNN and the L.A. Times are speculating that Congressman Ron Paul may be about to announce that he will run for President in 2012 following the revelation that the Texan will speak at rallies in two key early caucus states next month.

Paul will visit the key early primary state of South Carolina on Nov. 9 to give a speech on “the future of individual liberty and the importance of the U.S. Constitution” at the University of South Carolina. He then moves on to Iowa, another key early presidential battleground, on Nov. 13 to speak to students at Iowa State University.

“This morning speculation was rife that South Carolina, which holds one of the early primaries in the presidential calendar, could be the launching pad for a new Ron Paul bid,” reports the L.A. Times’ Johanna Neuman.

CNN are also speculating on the announcement, asking “Will Ron Paul give it another go in 2012?,” adding that Paul beat one time frontrunner Rudy Giuliani in last year’s South Carolina primary.

Alex Jones commented on the story by pointing out that 2012 would be the perfect time to Ron Paul to launch his second bid for the presidency, following the massive grass roots success of the first campaign. Jones successfully predicted that the Congressman’s son, Rand Paul, would run for the Senate after he challenged him to do so publicly, which led the incumbent Senator in Kentucky to announce that he would not run against Rand Paul.

Jones said that Paul is the only candidate who will inject real issues into an otherwise sterile debate format and that with the world government takeover unfolding at rapid pace, the timing could not be more prescient. Jones urged Paul to announce as early as possible, preferably before February 2010, so that the maximum amount of momentum could be put behind the campaign and fundraising could start early. Jones recalled that the Congressman was surprised at the level of support that was generated behind his 2007-2008 campaign, but that this had been predicted by the Austin talk show host from the beginning.

Paul would be able to harness a perfect soapbox opportunity to highlight the fact that the very things he has been warning about for decades are all coming into fruition as we approach 2012. From the falling dollar to taxes on carbon emissions, the Congressman’s predictions are all coming to pass, giving him more credibility in the public eye.

Jones said that even if Paul was not ultimately successful, the liberty movement would win either way because real issues would be forced into the national spotlight. Jones said that a 2012 run was Ron Paul’s “destiny” and that his life had been building to this point all along.

Without revealing his sources, Jones stated that he was “completely confident” Ron Paul would announce his decision to run and that it would be made well in advance of the 2011 time frame when campaigning would begin.

The Texas Congressman has been instrumental in leading a grass roots revolt against the real culprits behind the economic collapse, the Federal Reserve, introducing a bill to audit the private organization which has received widespread support from both Republicans and Democrats but has been blocked at every turn by elitists in Washington.

If you thought the impact of the Ron Paul Revolution in 2007 and 2008 was damaging to the new world order agenda, then imagine what kind of momentum could be built up over the next few years as we head towards 2012, which globalists have marked down as a key juncture by which they want their global feudalist system firmly in place.

It almost seems like fate that the Congressman should lead the mass resistance to the globalist agenda at this crucial time in history, and we implore him to take on that hefty responsibility while guaranteeing that the grass roots will rally behind him with a ferocity never before seen in recent political times.

Bloomberg | Central banks flush with record reserves are increasingly snubbing dollars in favor of euros and yen, further pressuring the greenback after its biggest two-quarter rout in almost two decades.

Policy makers boosted foreign currency holdings by $413 billion last quarter, the most since at least 2003, to $7.3 trillion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Nations that report currency breakdowns put 63 percent of the new cash into euros and yen in April, May, and June, Barclays Capital data show. That’s the highest percentage in any quarter with more than an $80 billion increase.

World leaders are acting on threats to dump the dollar, while the Obama administration shows a willingness to tolerate a weaker currency in an effort to boost exports and the US economy, as long as it doesn’t drive away creditors. The diversification signals the currency won’t rebound anytime soon, after losing 10.3 percent on a trade-weighted basis the past six months, the biggest drop since 1991.

“Global central banks are getting more serious about diversification, whereas in the past they used to just talk about it,’’ said Steven Englander, chief US currency strategist at Barclays. “It looks like they are really backing away from the dollar.’’

The dollar’s 37 percent share of new reserves fell from about a 63 percent average since 1999.

America’s currency has been under siege as the Treasury sells a record amount of debt to finance a budget deficit of $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2009.

Foreign companies are starting to say their economies are being hurt by the weak dollar. The economies of Japan and Europe depend on exports that get more expensive whenever the greenback slumps.

The USS America is sinking—and Japan is getting off while it can.

By Robert Morley

The Trumpet | For over 50 years, one party ruled Japan virtually uninterrupted. During that time, Japan remained a loyal ally and supporter of U.S. policy. This month, a historic event took place.

Japan has new leadership. In a landslide victory, a new party has done the seemingly impossible. A new freshman class of leaders now governs the Land of the Rising Sun. The effects are already rippling across the Pacific toward America.

Yukio Hatoyama is Japan’s new leader. He officially took office last Wednesday, and he is already threatening to split with the United States.

Hatoyama blames America for the global economic crisis and says that the U.S. is responsible for “the destruction of human dignity.” He campaigned on protecting traditional Japanese economic activities and reducing U.S.-led globalization.

During the run-up to the election, Hatoyama’s finance minister told the bbc he was worried about the future value of the dollar, and that if his party were elected in the upcoming national elections, it would refuse to purchase any more U.S. treasuries unless they were denominated in Japanese yen.

Japan is the world’s second-largest economy. It is also America’s second-most-important creditor. The U.S. government owes Japan over $724 billion! The only nation America owes more money to is China ($800 billion). The U.S. also imports $140 billion worth of goods from Japan each year.

If Japan were to follow through with its threat to only lend in yen, the dollar would probably fall hard. What would that mean? America gets more expensive consumer goods, higher unemployment, and currency inflation. If other nations like China follow suit, we would be looking at a currency crisis—Zimbabwe-style.

The new government in Japan has also pledged to diversify its foreign currency reserves away from the dollar. This means that at some point, it will need to dramatically reduce how much money it lends to America. America is planning to borrow record amounts over the next couple of years, so something isn’t adding up here. Where will the money come from?

Read full article

Ryan Grim

Huffington Post | The Federal Reserve, through its extensive network of consultants, visiting scholars, alumni and staff economists, so thoroughly dominates the field of economics that real criticism of the central bank has become a career liability for members of the profession, an investigation by the Huffington Post has found.

This dominance helps explain how, even after the Fed failed to foresee the greatest economic collapse since the Great Depression, the central bank has largely escaped criticism from academic economists. In the Fed's thrall, the economists missed it, too.

"The Fed has a lock on the economics world," says Joshua Rosner, a Wall Street analyst who correctly called the meltdown. "There is no room for other views, which I guess is why economists got it so wrong."

One critical way the Fed exerts control on academic economists is through its relationships with the field's gatekeepers. For instance, at the Journal of Monetary Economics, a must-publish venue for rising economists, more than half of the editorial board members are currently on the Fed payroll -- and the rest have been in the past.

The Fed failed to see the housing bubble as it happened, insisting that the rise in housing prices was normal. In 2004, after "flipping" had become a term cops and janitors were using to describe the way to get rich in real estate, then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said that "a national severe price distortion [is] most unlikely." A year later, current Chairman Ben Bernanke said that the boom "largely reflect strong economic fundamentals."

The Fed also failed to sufficiently regulate major financial institutions, with Greenspan -- and the dominant economists -- believing that the banks would regulate themselves in their own self-interest.

Despite all this, Bernanke has been nominated for a second term by President Obama.

In the field of economics, the chairman remains a much-heralded figure, lauded for reaction to a crisis generated, in the first place, by the Fed itself. Congress is even considering legislation to greatly expand the powers of the Fed to systemically regulate the financial industry.

Paul Krugman, in Sunday's New York Times magazine, did his own autopsy of economics, asking "How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?" Krugman concludes that "[e]conomics, as a field, got in trouble because economists were seduced by the vision of a perfect, frictionless market system."

So who seduced them?

The Fed did it.

Read full article

RonPaul.com | Missing Sentence in Transcript Causes Premature HR 1207 Victory Celebration

Several blogs and forums reported during the past 24 hours that Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank, said that Ron Paul’s bill to audit the Federal Reserve, HR 1207, will pass in October.

Incorrect Reports about Barney Frank’s Statement on HR 1207

Washington Times: Barney Frank says Ron Paul bill will pass

Politico: Barney: Fed audit bill will pass in October

Business Insider: Barney Frank: Yes, We Will Pass Ron Paul’s “Audit The Fed” Bill

United Liberty: Frank: Vote on HR 1207 in October

Daily Paul: Video: Barney Frank Says House Will Pass HR1207 in October

ZeroHedge: Barney Frank Says The House Will Pass HR 1207 In October

Mish: Barney Frank Says Ron Paul’s Audit The Fed Bill Will Pass In October

Washington Independent: Ron Paul’s ‘Audit the Fed’ Bill to Get October Vote?

The source of the rumor seems to be the following video.