No Bank Deposits Will Be Spared from Confiscation

Matthias Chang
futurefastforward.com
April 30, 2013

I challenge anyone to prove me wrong that confiscation of bank deposits is legalized daylight robbery

Bank depositors in the UK and USA may think that their bank deposits would not be confiscated as they are insured and no government would dare embark on such a drastic action to bail out insolvent banks.

Before I explain why confiscation of bank deposits in the UK and US is a certainty and absolutely legal, I need all readers of this article to do the following:

Ask your local police, sheriffs, lawyers, judges the following questions:

1) If I place my money with a lawyer as a stake-holder and he uses the money without my consent, has the lawyer committed a crime?

2) If I store a bushel of wheat or cotton in a warehouse and the owner of the warehouse sold my wheat/cotton without my consent or authority, has the warehouse owner committed a crime?

3) If I place monies with my broker (stock or commodity) and the broker uses my monies for other purposes and or contrary to my instructions, has the broker committed a crime?

I am confident that the answer to the above questions is a Yes!

However, for the purposes of this article, I would like to first highlight the situation of the deposit / storage of wheat with a warehouse owner in relation to the deposit of money / storage with a banker.

First, you will notice that all wheat is the same i.e. the wheat in one bushel is no different from the wheat in another bushel. Likewise with cotton, it is indistinguishable. The deposit of a bushel of wheat with the warehouse owner in law constitutes a bailment. Ownership of the bushel of wheat remains with you and there is no transfer of ownership at all to the warehouse owner.

And as stated above, if the owner sells the bushel of wheat without your consent or authority, he has committed a crime as well as having committed a civil wrong (a tort) of conversion – converting your property to his own use and he can be sued.

Let me use another analogy. If a cashier in a supermarket removes $100 from the till on Friday to have a frolic on Saturday, he has committed theft, even though he may replace the $100 on Monday without the knowledge of the owner / manager of the supermarket. The $100 the cashier stole on Friday is also indistinguishable from the $100 he put back in the till on Monday. In both situations – the wheat in the warehouse and the $100 dollar bill in the till, which have been unlawfully misappropriated would constitute a crime.

Keep this principle and issue at the back of your mind.

Now we shall proceed with the money that you have deposited with your banker.

I am sure that most of you have little or no knowledge about banking, specifically fractional reserve banking.

Since you were a little kid, your parents have encouraged you to save some money to instil in you the good habit of money management.

And when you grew up and got married, you in turn instilled the same discipline in your children. Your faith in the integrity of the bank is almost absolute. Your money in the bank would earn an interest income.

And when you want your money back, all you needed to do is to withdraw the money together with the accumulated interest. Never for a moment did you think that you had transferred ownership of your money to the bank. Your belief was grounded in like manner as the owner of the bushel of wheat stored in the warehouse.

However, this belief is and has always been a lie. You were led to believe this lie because of savvy advertisements by the banks and government assurances that your money is safe and is protected by deposit insurance.

But, the insurance does not cover all the monies that you have deposited in the bank, but to a limited amount e.g. $250,000 in the US by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Germany €100,000, UK £85,000 etc.

But, unlike the owner of the bushel of wheat who has deposited the wheat with the warehouse owner, your ownership of the monies that you have deposited with the bank is transferred to the bank and all you have is the right to demand its repayment. And, if the bank fails to repay your monies (e.g. $100), your only remedy is to sue the bank and if the bank is insolvent you get nothing.

You may recover some of your money if your deposit is covered by an insurance scheme as referred to earlier but in a fixed amount. But, there is a catch here. Most insurance schemes whether backed by the government or not do not have sufficient monies to cover all the deposits in the banking system.

So, in the worst case scenario – a systemic collapse, there is no way for you to get your money back.

In fact, and as illustrated in the Cyprus banking fiasco, the authorities went to the extent of confiscating your deposits to pay the banks’ creditors. When that happened, ordinary citizens and financial analysts cried out that such confiscation was daylight robbery. But, is it?

Surprise, surprise!

It will come as a shock to all of you to know that such daylight robbery is perfectly legal and this has been so for hundreds of years.

Let me explain.

The reason is that unlike the owner of the bushel of wheat whose ownership of the wheat WAS NEVER TRANSFERRED to the warehouse owner when the same was deposited, the moment you deposited your money with the bank, the ownership is transferred to the bank.

Your status is that of A CREDITOR TO THE BANK and the BANK IS IN LAW A DEBTOR to you. You are deemed to have “lent” your money to the bank for the bank to apply to its banking business (even to gamble in the biggest casino in the world – the global derivatives casino).

You have become a creditor, AN UNSECURED CREDITOR. Therefore, by law, in the insolvency of a bank, you as an unsecured creditor stand last in the queue of creditors to be paid out of any funds and or assets which the bank has to pay its creditors. The secured creditors are always first in line to be paid. It is only after secured creditors have been paid and there are still some funds left (usually, not much, more often zilch!) that unsecured creditors are paid and the sums pro-rated among all the unsecured creditors.

This is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The law has been in existence for hundreds of years and was established in England by the House of Lords in the case Foley v Hill in 1848.

When a customer deposits money with his banker, the relationship that arises is one of creditor and debtor, with the banker liable to repay the money deposited when demanded by the customer. Once money has been paid to the banker, it belongs to the banker and he is free to use the money for his own purpose.

I will now quote the relevant portion of the judgment of the House of Lords handed down by Lord Cottenham, the Lord Chancellor. He stated thus:

“Money when paid into a bank, ceases altogether to be the money of the principal… it is then the money of the banker, who is bound to return an equivalent by paying a similar sum to that deposited with him when he is asked for it.

The money paid into the banker’s, is money known by the principal to be placed there for the purpose of being under the control of the banker; it is then the banker’s money; he is known to deal with it as his own; he makes what profit of it he can, which profit he retains himself,…

The money placed in the custody of the banker is, to all intent and purposes, the money of the banker, to do with it as he pleases; he is guilty of no breach of trust in employing it; he is not answerable TO THE PRINCIPAL IF HE PUTS IT INTO JEOPARDY, IF HE ENGAGES IN A HAZARDOUS SPECULATION; he is not bound to keep it or deal with it as the property of the principal, but he is of course answerable for the amount, because he has contracted, having received that money, to repay to the principal, when demanded, a sum equivalent to that paid into his hands.” (quoted in UK Law Essays, Relationship Between A Banker And Customer,That Of A Creditor/Debtor, emphasis added,)

Holding that the relationship between a banker and his customer was one of debtor and creditor and not one of trusteeship, Lord Brougham said:

“This trade of a banker is to receive money, and use it as if it were his own, he becoming debtor to the person who has lent or deposited with him the money to use as his own, and for which money he is accountable as a debtor. I cannot at all confound the situation of a banker with that of a trustee, and conclude that the banker is a debtor with a fiduciary character.”

In plain simple English – bankers cannot be prosecuted for breach of trust, because it owes no fiduciary duty to the depositor / customer, as he is deemed to be using his own money to speculate etc. There is absolutely no criminal liability.

The trillion dollar question is, Why has no one in the Justice Department or other government agencies mentioned this legal principle?

The reason why no one dare speak this legal truth is because there would be a run on the banks when all the Joe Six-Packs wise up to the fact that their deposits with the bankers CONSTITUTE IN LAW A LOAN TO THE BANK and the bank can do whatever it likes even to indulge in hazardous speculation such as gambling in the global derivative casino.

The Joe Six-Packs always consider the bank the creditor even when he deposits money in the bank. No depositor ever considers himself as the creditor!

Yes, Eric Holder, the US Attorney-General is right when he said that bankers cannot be prosecuted for the losses suffered by the bank. This is because a banker cannot be prosecuted for losing his “own money” as stated by the House of Lords. This is because when money is deposited with the bank, that money belongs to the banker.

The reason that if a banker is prosecuted it would collapse the entire banking system is a big lie.

The US Attorney-General could not and would not state the legal principle because it would cause a run on the banks when people discover that their monies are not safe with bankers as they can in law use the monies deposited as their own even to speculate.

What is worrisome is that your right to be repaid arises only when you demand payment.

Obviously, when you demand payment, the bank must pay you. But, if you demand payment after the bank has collapsed and is insolvent, it is too late. Your entitlement to be repaid is that of a lonely unsecured creditor and only if there are funds left after liquidation to be paid out to all the unsecured creditors and the remaining funds to be pro-rated. You would be lucky to get ten cents on the dollar.

So, when the Bank of England, the FED and the BIS issued the guidelines which became the template for the Cyprus “bail-in” (which was endorsed by the G-20 Cannes Summit in 2011), it was merely a circuitous way of stating the legal position without arousing the wrath of the people, as they well knew that if the truth was out, there would be a revolution and blood on the streets. It is therefore not surprising that the global central bankers came out with this nonsensical advisory:

“The objective of an effective resolution regime is to make feasible the resolution of financial institutions without severe systemic disruption and without exposing taxpayers to losses, while protecting vital economic functions through mechanisms which make it possible for shareholders and unsecured and uninsured creditors to absorb losses in a manner that respects the hierarchy of claims in liquidation.”(quoted in FSB Consultative Document: Effective Resolution of Systemically …)

This is the kind of complex technical jargon used by bankers to confuse the people, especially depositors and to cover up what I have stated in plain and simple English in the foregoing paragraphs.

The key words of the BIS guideline are:

“without severe systemic disruptions” (i.e. bank runs),

“while protecting vital economic functions” (i.e. protecting vested interests – bankers),

“unsecured creditors” (i.e. your monies, you are the dummy),

“respects the hierarchy of claims in liquidation” (i.e. you are last in the queue to be paid, after all secured creditors have been paid).

This means all depositors are losers!

Please read this article carefully and spread it far and wide.

You will be doing a favour to all your fellow country men and women and more importantly, your family and relatives.

The Crisis Is Imminent: “When The Real Crash Comes It Will Be Worse Than the Great Depression”

Mac Slavo
SHTF Plan
April 30, 2013

“The United States is like the Titanic, and I’m here with the lifeboat trying to get people to leave the ship… I see a real financial crisis coming for the United States.”
Peter Schiff
August 2006

In 2006, when he faced off with many well known Titans of investing and warned of an impending financial disaster and economic collapse, Peter Schiff was laughed at by his colleagues. He urged Americans to exit financial markets and take steps to protect themselves before the wealth held in their savings accounts, retirement investments and real estate was wiped out.

Few listened.

We know what happened next.

Now, those same financial experts who publicly vilified Schiff for his predictions six years ago are at it again. Many, including our politicians, central bankers and leading economists, have unequivocally stated that the worst is behind us, and that a global recovery is on the horizon.

Once again, Peter Schiff disagrees:

“I think we are heading for a worse economic crisis than we had in 2007,” Schiff said. “You’re going to have a collapse in the dollar…a huge spike in interest rates… and our whole economy, which is built on the foundation of cheap money, is going to topple when you pull the rug out from under it.”
Schiff says that, despite “phony” signs of an economic recovery, the cancer destroying America stems from a lethal concoction of our $16 trillion federal debt and the Fed’s never ending money printing.
…
According to Schiff, these numbers are unsustainable. And the Fed has no credible “exit strategy.”
Eventually interest rates will rise… and when they do, Schiff says, stocks will tank and bonds dip to nothing. Massive new tax hikes will be imposed and programs and entitlements will be cut to the bone.
…
“The crisis is imminent,” Schiff said. ”I don’t think Obama is going to finish his second term without the bottom dropping out. And stock market investors are oblivious to the problems.”
“We’re broke, Schiff added. ”We owe trillions. Look at our budget deficit; look at the debt to GDP ratio, the unfunded liabilities. If we were in the Eurozone, they would kick us out.”
…
“The Fed knows that the U.S. economy is not recovering,” he noted. “It simply is being kept from collapse by artificially low interest rates and quantitative easing. As that support goes, the economy will implode.”
A noted economist, Schiff has been a fierce critic of the Fed and its policies for years. And his warnings have proven to be prophetic.
…
His recent warnings, however, have been even more alarming. Will they also prove to be true?
In his most recent book, “The Real Crash” How to Save Yourself and Your Country“, Schiff writes that
when the “real crash” comes,” it will be worse than the Great Depression.
Unemployment will skyrocket, credit will dry up, and worse, the dollar will collapse completely, “wiping out all savings and sending consumer prices into the stratosphere.”
…
“All we can do now is prepare for the crash,” Schiff said. “If we brace ourselves properly and control the impact, we will survive it.”

Indeed.

We must understand that none of the fundamental problems leading up to the 2007/2008 financial crisis have been resolved.

If anything, it’s gotten worse.

Our politicians will not change, and therefore, will change nothing in Washington. Wall Street is as corrupt as ever. Our central bank continues to devalue our currency. There is no end in sight for these people. They will continue on this unsustainable path until we as a country finally hit the proverbial brick wall.

As Peter Schiff notes, the destruction to life as we know it in America and the world is imminent. It’s going to be severe.

So much so that the government has been simulating the collapse of our financial system, the collapse of our society and the potential for widespread violence.

A collapse happened in 2008, but THE collapse is still ahead.

Watch: Peter Schiff Saw It Coming:

Your Children Belong to the State

Travis Holte
lewrockwell.com
April 29, 2013

Not long ago, one bread winner could support a family, put the children through college, and have enough savings left over to comfortably retire. But then a funny thing happened on the road to serfdom. Suddenly there was a “sexual revolution” and before you knew it both parents were in the workforce, both paying income tax, both struggling to survive. And in all this, their children increasingly became wards of the State. How fortuitous for the oligarchs, hellbent on world domination?

Which leads me to today’s news. In Nazi York, under the rule of Führer Bloomberg, a pilot program is set to begin in middle schools under the auspices of combating abysmal failures in such basics as reading. It calls for an additional 2 ½ hours of incarceration per day. I kid you not. While there are homeschoolers sending their children to college by the age of 12, the State is bamboozling the booboisie into thinking this will do anything but make their kids better Prussian soldiers. Not surprising, most tax-slaving parents, happy to have a babysitter, are “on board.”

GAO Now Investigating DHS Ammo Purchases

Elizabeth Flock
US News & World Report
April 29, 2013

The Government Accountability Office tells Whispers it is now investigating large ammunition purchases made by the Department of Homeland Security. Chuck Young, a spokesman for GAO, says the investigation of the purchases is “just getting underway.”

The congressional investigative agency is jumping into the fray just as legislation was introduced in both the Senate and the House to restrict the purchase of ammo by some government agencies (except the Department of Defense). The AMMO Act, introduced Friday, would prevent agencies from buying more ammunition if “stockpiles” are greater than what they were in previous administrations.

Donelle Harder, a spokeswoman for Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., who introduced the legislation in the Senate, tells Whispers the bill would also require GAO to share the findings of its report on DHS purchases with Congress.

Read full article

George W. Bush Suggests Boston Bombings Were a Conspiracy

Former President tells ABC News attack could have been wider plot

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
April 29, 2013

George W. Bush has suggested that the Boston bombing could have been a wider organized plot, suggesting that the attacks were a conspiracy during an interview with ABC News.

Asked by ABC’s Dianne Sawyer if the Boston bombing reminded him of 9/11, Bush responded, “At first I was deeply concerned that there might have been an organized plot,” before adding that he thought the attack may have been “another consp” (Bush appeared to be saying the word ‘conspiracy before he stopped himself, before continuing, “Another highly organized attack on the country and it still may be.”

While Bush almost described the bombings as a conspiracy, his wife glared at him.

Bush has made numerous statements in the past that have raised the eyebrows of those who are skeptical of the official narrative behind terrorist attacks, including a speech before the UN shortly after 9/11 during which he remarked, “Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th.”

The YouTube community responded to Bush’s statement by noting how his wife Laura reacted.

“Look at Laura’s eyes at the exact moment he utters “another consp”. She gets extremely wide eyed for a slightest moment. Pretty revealing,” wrote one.

“Notice how at about 0:40, when the word “consp..” came out of his mouth, his wife’s eyes got bigger for a second. She definitely reacted to what he had said, as she looked directly at him, cuing him to cut it short and choose anther word,” added another.

It’s Not About Guns: Gun Control Is People Control

Anthony GucciardiInfowars.com
April 29, 2013

Gun free zones don’t lower crime rates or even prevent mass shootings, so what do they do? Gun control allows megalomaniacal politicians to exercise control over law-abiding citizens through unconstitutional legislation that paves the way towards eroding the Bill of Rights at large.

The simple fact of the matter is that the attacks on the Second Amendment should concern you, even if you don’t own a gun. In fact, I am definitely not someone you would consider a ‘gun nut’. Far from it, I actually grew up with the impression that guns were killing weapons that the average person would never truly need. After all, you could simply call a gun-wielding police officer if anything went wrong. So what drove me to become passionate on protecting the Second Amendment, even to the point of producing the new documentary Disarmed: A History of Gun Control?

It comes down to the fact that gun control and the attacks on the Second Amendment amount to much more than guns themselves. In fact, the Second Amendment’s fall will signify the fall of the Constitution at large — the very fabric of the United States. You see if the government can override the Second Amendment, why can’t they override the First Amendment? Or how about the Constitution as a whole? If we can confiscate all modern firearms and override the Constitution through federal or state law, then the Constitution now becomes a secondary piece of paper.

THE POLITICAL DOMINO EFFECT

Now gun control advocates would never want to give up the First Amendment. In fact, virtually everyone who hates the Second Amendment (which is actually an extreme minority blown up by the media) loves the First Amendment. They would tell you that giving up the First Amendment would ruin the country, no one would be granted free speech — our freedom would collapse overnight.

The error here is assuming that we can permit the government, a government full of power-hungry sociopaths, to eradicate one Amendment while assuming we will preserve the others. How could anyone think this? The answer is that they aren’t thinking, they’re responding to events that the media broadcasts to them in a certain light. Mass shootings in schools and movie theaters have pushed the mantra that it’s the guns that are to blame and nothing else.

You’re not supposed to ponder on why Batman shooter James Holmes traveled out of his way to the one movie theater that did not allow attendees to bring in their legal concealed carry weapons. You’re not supposed to ask about the fact that the Sandy Hook shooting occurred in one of the most extreme ‘gun free’ zones in the nation. You’re especially not supposed to investigate into why Columbine shooter Dylan Klebold was so afraid of the looming concealed carry law in the area. Instead, you’re supposed to emotionally react to the issue of guns. And from that reaction, your response is not supposed to be logical but emotional.

It’s not logically to think that destroying the Second Amendment and eroding our rights to own a weapon will not cause a political domino effect that leads to the dismantling of our Bill of Rights. No, it’s an emotional response that says ‘ban the guns’ without logical thought. Even examining the statistics reveals this to be the case as well.

FORMER OBAMA SECRET SERVICE: IT’S PEOPLE CONTROL, NOT GUN CONTROL

Former Obama Administration Secret Service member Dan Bongino stated it correctly when he explained in a passionate speech that gun control is not about controlling guns. Instead, it’s about ‘people control’. After withdrawing from the Secret Service without retirement pay to inform the public regarding gun control, Dan Bongino reveals that he is also not a ‘gun nut’ as some might think. It simply comes down to protecting our rights.

Watch the former Obama Secret Service member’s speech below:

GITMO Prisoner Released, Now A Suspect In The Benghazi Attack

GITMO Prisoner Released, Now A Suspect In The Benghazi Attack

Obama administration openly pushing food stamps to illegals

Mike Adams
Natural News
April 28, 2013

Documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reveal the Obama administration is actively marketing the federal food stamp program (SNAP) to illegal immigrants. A Spanish-language flyer obtainer by Judicial Watch says, “You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.”

A copy of the document is viewable by clicking here.

“USDA is actively working with the Mexican government to promote food stamps for illegal aliens,” said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton.

Although it’s far worse now, this has been going on for years. Back in 2006, Judicial Watch wrote in its Corruption Chronicles: “The United States Department of Agriculture is spending taxpayer money to run Spanish-language television ads encouraging illegal immigrants to apply for government-financed food stamps.”

Nearly $75 billion of taxpayer money is spent each year on federal food stamps, and it turns out some of that is alarmingly being handed out to illegal immigrants — people who contribute nothing to the federal tax base in America but who seem to be experts on collecting social welfare benefits of all kinds. If you are working for a living, you are buying food for illegalswho are being actively recruited by Obama and the democratic party so that they will vote more democrats into office.

Sen. John Thune (R-SD) and Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) are reportedly working on a bill that would prevent the Obama administration from marketing food stamp benefits to illegals, reports Breitbart.com.

Food stamp expenditures explode under Obama

“Since President Obama came into office, SNAP participation has increased at 10 times the rate of job creation, the annual spending on SNAP has doubled, and one in seven Americans now participates in SNAP,” Thune said. “This explosive growth in both the SNAP enrollment and federal cost of the program is alarming and requires lawmakers to take cost-effective legislative control measures.”

As the U.S. government’s own website admits, the federal food stamp program (SNAP) has increased from just 2.8 million people in 1969 to nearly 47 million people in 2012. Expenditures have now reached nearly $75 billion a year.

As Natural News has previously reported, recipients of federal food stamp money can use it to buy soda pop, birthday cakes and even luxury seafood items. Soda companies are currently raking in $4 billion a year from federal food stamps.

As the grocery receipt on the right shows, people are using food stamps to purchase lobster and porterhouse steaks. Yep, it’s true: Food stamp recipients, who include illegal immigrants, are using taxpayer money to load up on lobster and steak.

It also turns out you don’t even need to be poor to collect federal food stamps. “A federal audit revealed last year that many who don’t qualify for food stamps now receive them under a new ‘broad-based’ eligibility program that disregards income and asset requirements,” reports Tom Fitton at Breitbart.com.

Food stamp recipients can buy all the junk food they want, but they are prohibited from buying vitamins or nutritional items. The big banks like JP Morgan Chase collect billions of dollars a year off the transaction fees supporting the SNAP program.

SNAP promotes junk food, big banks and illegals

The truth about the federal food stamp program is that it promotes junk food companies, transaction profits for big banks and of course illegal immigrants. JP Morgan, by the way, donated more than $800,000 to Obama’s 2008 election campaign, and after the election, Obama worked to explode the food stamp program, generating countless millions of dollars in transaction revenues for JP Morgan.

This program, administered by the USDA, is really nothing more than a nationwide handout program to bribe voters into voting for big government. While I have nothing against people relying on federal food stamps to help them through a temporary, short-term crisis, what we have today isgenerations of voters who live on food stamps and other welfare programs. Far from being programs of “compassion” to help those in need, these programs have ballooned into grotesque, unethical systems of lifelong dependency that destroy dignity and train voters to live like helpless victims rather than capable human beings.

But that’s the way the democratic party wants it, of course: the more people they can trap in a cycle of poverty living on handouts from big government, the more votes they can win at the ballot box. He who promises the most handouts wins the elections, it seems, and there’s no reversing it once the welfare hoards exceed 50% of the popular vote. We are dangerously close to that level right now, and once we cross it, there’s no turning back from financial suicide. The voters will simply vote themselves bigger and bigger handouts until financial parasitism guts the entire economy and leads us all into a financial apocalypse.

At that point, we’ll be dealing with what I call the food stamp zombie hoards — tens of millions of people who have no idea how to work for a living, partially lobotomized by junk foods and vaccines, roaming the streets in a desperate search for food because their government benefit cards stopped working. That scenario deserves another article altogether, so I’ll save the details for later.

But make no mistake: the Obama administration wants to put millions of illegals on federal food stamps, then it wants to grant them “amnesty” citizenship so that they keep voting more democrats into office. They, in turn, will keep pushing more and more handouts until the country finds itself trapped with an 80% tax rate (like France), a 50% unemployment rate, and a cultural invasion of former Mexican nationals who inherently support socialism, political corruption and the abolishment of individual liberties.

Spread the word: We must STOP the growth of SNAP and return it to sanity. For starters, no non-citizen should receive federal food stamp benefits. But that idea seems alien to today’s Washington bureaucrats who are trying as hard as possible to turn America into the next Mexico.

Read more
Corporate Cronyism and the Food Stamp Army
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/04/05/Corporate-Cronyism…

$7,000 worth of food stamps? And driving a Mercedes, too…
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/25/7k-worth-of-food-stamps-pe…

Police State Euphemism: “Shelter In Place”

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
April 28, 2012

The Gestapo would be proud.

Philadelphia, home of the Constitution, has issued instructions on how to “shelter in place” following the successful police state lockdown in Boston.

“During last week’s events in Boston, residents were told to ‘shelter in place,’ which raises the question, would you know what to do if a similar order was issued in Philadelphia?” CBS Philly asks.

The news article provides a link to a government web page containing instructions on how to “shelter in place.” The instructions are tailored for “emergencies involving contaminated air,” but may be used for a more generalized emergency such as an order for citizens to stay indoors after the city is locked down, possibly in response to an unarmed teenager on the loose.

The Boston police state lockdown was a beta test. It went over swimmingly. Residents obeyed orders and stayed in their homes. Grocery stores closed. Hospitals were inaccessible. Roads were empty. Schools closed down. Taxi cabs didn’t run. Local business lost millions of dollars in revenue.

Then the police conducted a Fourth Amendment busting door-to-door search looking for the teenager. People went along with this, largely without question. They obeyed orders to leave their homes with hands on their heads. It resembled something out of Nazi Germany, circa 1936. Its efficiency would have made the Gestapo proud.

Later, after the allegedly dangerous teenager was arrested, citizens ran out in the street and chanted “USA, USA!” Sports fans added government-worshipping chants to their repertoire.

Mission accomplished. Now other cities are preparing to see if citizens will follow orders and “shelter in place” if told to do so by “the authorities.”

Gert ready. It’s a distinct possibility “shelter in place” will be coming to your neighborhood soon, especially after the display of groveling submission in Watertown, Massachusetts.

Bilderberg Sleuth Jim Tucker Passes Away, Aged 78

American Free Press
April 28, 2013




James P. Tucker, Jr. (12/31/1934 – 4/26/2013), famed Bilderberg Hound, author of Jim Tucker’s Bilderberg Diary, passed away yesterday due to complications he suffered following a fall.

A proper tribute to Tucker will rendered next week when the front page of AMERICAN FREE PRESS newspaper will be dedicated to Jim.

The thoughts and prayers from all of us at AMERICAN FREE PRESS go out to his family and friends. Thank you, Tucker, for all that you did to shine the light on the “criminals” of Bilderberg.

Please read his obituary below by colleague Michael Collins Piper and listen to the last interview Tucker gave AFP prior to his passing.

Our Good Friend Jim Tucker is Gone, But He May Get the Last Laugh on David Rockefeller

By Michael Collins Piper

Jim Tucker’s only regret was probably the fact he didn’t outlive his sworn nemesis of more than a quarter of a century, international banker David Rockefeller. The colorful former editor of AMERICAN FREE PRESS—and still a continuing correspondent for this newspaper—Tucker died at a hospital in Virginia on April 26 at age 78 following complications arising from injuries received after falling down the steps in his home while in the company of his family.

Best known for having trailed the aforementioned Rockefeller and the members of such high-level power groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission and, most notably, the Bilderberg group, literally all over the planet for decades, the legacy of the North Carolina-born self-described “country boy” as a hard-driving investigative reporter is one that is hard to rival.

Prior to coming to work in Washington, D.C. in 1975 as managing editor of the newly-launched national weekly, The Spotlight, Tucker had been, by his own admission, a conventional journalist with a wide range of experience in the mainstream press, largely confident that the big media in America was doing its job, bringing readers the news they needed to know. He was sports editor of the The Northern Virginia Sun, managing editor of The Daily Tifton Gazette in Georgia, managing editor of The Radford (Va.) Daily News, copy editor of The Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch; night editor of The Washington Daily News in the nation’s capital, managing editor of The Martinsville (Va.) Bulletin, and news editor of The Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal.

However, the day that Willis Carto, treasurer of Liberty Lobby, the populist institution that published The Spotlight, called Tucker into his office and described to Tucker the little-known history of the Bilderberg meetings, Tucker’s worldview—particularly from his perspective as a journalist—changed forever.

Despite all his years in the media, Tucker had never once heard of Bilderberg and he realized—as any real journalist should—that there was something wrong. As Tucker summarized it—all quite correctly—time and again, over the years, “If a hundred of the world’s best known sports figures or film stars were gathered at some exclusive resort behind closed doors for a private meeting, the entirety of the mass media would be on hand, clamoring for admittance and demanding to know what was going on. But when the world’s richest bankers, media barons, industrialists, members of royalty, and political leaders were meeting secretly and discussing public policy matters that impacted on the course of the world’s affairs, the establishment press never said a word.”

From 1975 to 1982, as editor of The Spotlight, Tucker supervised a wide-ranging array of journalists who trailed the Bilderberg and Trilateral gangs here and abroad. But in 1983, Tucker himself went on the road as The Spotlight’s man on the scene and scorched the Bilderbergers and Trilateralists with blistering real news coverage, from Japan to Portugal to France, England, Germany—wherever and whenever the global intriguers met, even as the rest of the American media remained mum, despite the fact that, over and over again, over the next three decades, Tucker’s pioneering investigations unveiled Bilderberg-Trilateral plans that had a direct influence on public policy affecting every man, woman and child on the face of the planet.

After the demise of The Spotlight in 2001—orchestrated by a clique of figures (including a corrupt federal judge) with known links to the Central Intelligence Agency and to Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad—Tucker picked up his work with the newly-launched AMERICAN FREE PRESS, for which he served for several years as managing editor, and continued pressing the Bilderberg and Trilateral vultures wherever they swooped down to nest and hatch their latest plots.

Each and every year up until 2012—Tucker was there. Hustling about, grooming sources (including members of the staffs of the hotels where Bilderberg met), lending his support to other journalists who came on the scene, and generally driving the Bilderberg elite up the wall—and, literally, into the wall: On one occasion Tucker discovered a secret listening device planted in the wall of the hotel room he was occupying in an inn located close to Bilderberg’s gathering place at one of the exclusive resorts the shadowy intriguers regularly met.

In recent years—as more and more journalists worldwide became aware of the existence of the secretive Bilderberg meetings and started arriving on the scene themselves, looking for leads, Tucker became “the man to see,” when the grizzled veteran journalist—an unabashed journalist of the old school, a two-fisted drinker and unapologetic three-packs-a-day smoker—showed up to keep the hoity-toity “suits” at Bilderberg on their toes.

Tucker maintained regular contact with a number of sympathetic sources both inside and close to the Bilderberg elite, and just days before his death, he had once again cracked Bilderberg secrecy and managed to uncover the location of Bilderberg’s upcoming meeting in England—despite (as per usual) Bilderberg’s efforts to misdirect Tucker from learning their real destination.

Having slowed down considerably in recent months, Tucker had just decided not to attend this year’s gathering, passing his torch to AFP correspondent Mark Anderson, who had joined Tucker in covering a number of recent Bilderberg gatherings, but if anything is for certain it is this: the old Bilderberg Hound will be there in spirit and, given the opportunity, he might even slip David Rockefeller a “mickey.”

Tucker is survived by two sons and literally millions of friends and admirers all over the world who appreciated Jim’s wry humor and the real journalism that he represented in every sense of the word. His literary legacy not only includes many thousands of articles published in The Spotlight and AMERICAN FREE PRESS, but also his classic memoir, Jim Tucker’s Bilderberg Diary, and The Crimes of Yalta, first published in 1984 and just recently slated for republication.

All Evidence Points To Bombings Being Staged

Infowars.com
April 27, 2013

It took a while but the Feds finally came clean to having prior knowledge of deceased bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. They also had his mother on a terrorist watch list.

Bloomberg: New Yorkers will ‘never know where our cameras are’

RT
April 27, 2013

New York City police officials intend to expand the already extensive use of surveillance cameras throughout town. The plan, unveiled Thursday, comes as part of a drive for increased security around the US following the Boston Marathon attack.

New York City Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly announced the plan during a press conference with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in which the two announced that the suspected Boston Marathon bombers were planning to attack New York next. The pair said they hope to discourage criminals by using so-called “smart cameras” that will aggregate data from 911 alerts, arrest records, mapped crime patterns, surveillance cameras and radiation detectors, among other tools, according to The Verge.

“You’re never going to know where all of our cameras are,” Bloomberg told reporters gathered outside City Hall. “And that’s one of the ways you deter people; they just don’t know whether the person sitting next to you is somebody sitting there or a detective watching.”

Kelly said the Domain Awareness System, nicknamed “the dashboard,” would centralize already existing data captured on the between 3,500 and 6,000 cameras already placed throughout the city with new technology developed in conjunction with Microsoft. The project is expected to take three years to complete and cost between $40 and $50 million.

The commissioner previously said that at least 16 terror plots had been thwarted in New York City since the attack on September 11, 2001, asserting that such law enforcement success show that the surveillance tools put in place since then have been effective. His boast came in the face of the New York Civil Liberties Union and similar privacy advocates who have asked for more transparency on the issue of police monitoring.

“The privacy issue has really been taken off the table,” Kelly said Thursday. “I don’t think people are concerned about it. I think people accept it in a post-9/11 world.”

Mayor Bloomberg agreed, using the press conference to slam the “special interests” who have objected to his policies. The American Civil Liberties Union, for one, has criticized Bloomberg’s administration for installing thousands of cameras in Lower Manhattan in a surveillance initiative that has since expanded north through Midtown.

“The role of surveillance cameras played in identifying the suspects was absolutely essential to saving lives, both in Boston, and now we know here in New York City,” the mayor said Thursday. “We’ve made major investments in camera technology – notwithstanding the objections of some special interests.”

“People are all worried about privacy,” he continued. “Yes, it is a concern, but given the balance you have between keeping people safe and total privacy, the direction the whole world is going is more cameras and better-quality cameras.”

Irrefutable evidence that GMO can harm you

Infowars.com
April 27, 2013




- Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize

- Why genetically engineered food is dangerous: New report by genetic engineers

- Open Letter from World Scientists to All Governments Concerning Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

- The Union of Concerned Scientists about GMO

- Concerns Expressed by Government Scientists about GMOs

- Dangers of Genetically Engineered Foods

- GMO Harms and Dangers

Nature is a living organism that functions through every cell and organ that is working together. There is nothing isolated in nature and everything is connected with one another. All these years science has been trying to discover and explore complexity that exists in nature. However even the most advanced 3D engineering modeling and analysis cannot fully understand all the parameters and complexity that exists within the universe and sometimes the results aren’t even half close to reality. Although technology, industrialization and innovation have been revolutionary in human’s life at the same time they have resulted in dysfunction, scarcity and even destruction of our planet. In the last few decades one of the crises that our planet have been facing is modern agricultural. Extensive farming, use of pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, genetically modified foods or crops and invention of hormones and antibiotic that are fed to our livestock have drastically changed everything.



Only 3% of US farm lands are planted with fruits and vegetables while 50% of farms are used for planting soy and corn. Even farmers treat what they plant as a commodity rather than food. With the anti-GMO labeling policies in America there is no way that you would know what you buy in grocery store isn’t genetically modified. Even if you only buy organic how could you know that the original seeds weren’t genetically modified? Yes the farmer might have used good soil and not pesticides or chemicals to grow your favorite tomatoes, but there is no way that anyone would know where the actual seeds came from.



In the last three decades industrialized agriculture, biotechnology and extensive use of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers have resulted in a weak soil, mineral & nutrition deficiencies in soil, weak immune system in human beings and animals, new diseases, viruses & global warming.

Environmental & Health Impact of GMO Seeds and Crops

Studies and research shows that soil microorganisms are very essential for soil fertility. Over 100 million microorganism and over 1000 species live in one gram of productive soil. Without these microorganisms that include fungi, bacteria, algae and insects, plants wouldn’t obtain the essential nutrition for growth. There was a huge change in US agriculture as the result of medical research on antibiotics, pesticides and synthetic chemicals during World War II. Use of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides started killing fungi, weeds and useful insects in the soil. Excessive use of hormones and antibiotics also resulted in antibiotic resistant diseases in animals and people. Our soil and livestock were doing fine until genetic engineering was invented. In genetic engineering a number of different genes are inserted into the recipient organism. At the same time chemicals & pesticides are sprayed on GMO crops which that potentially results in destruction of most of insets and living microorganisms in the soil.



These engineering crops could also contaminate wild plants with new genes and that could result in production of widely spread viruses. GMO crops could be a danger to flies, insects, birds and other animals. GMO crops could also be a threat for crop diversity. These GMO crops over time become resistant to herbicides or pest control products so stronger herbicides or pest control products will be needed. As stronger herbicides or pest control products are used there would a possibility for a more evolved version of viruses.

Here are actual cases of GMO’s harm to humans and livestock (that we eat):
1. There have been numerous cases where animals have died or became serious ill and were put down in order to avoid mass contamination or to calm down the panic that would have caused even more damage to the food industry. In Hesse, Germany many cows died suddenly when they were fed with Syngenta’s genetically engineered maize cow food and as a result of this incident the authorities in Germany decided to slaughter the rest of the cows to avoid having the mysterious disease to get out and contaminate other cattle houses. Syngenta did admit that the protein used for the cow food maize is also used for human genetically engineered foods. Oh dear, why has Syngenta now withdrawn this protein from human genetically engineered foods? Let’s ask FDA.

- Syngenta Charged for Covering up Livestock Deaths from GM Corn

- Doctors Warn: Avoid Genetically Modified Food
2. Why should you be concerned that cows eating GMO foods died and/or got contaminated with a mysterious disease? Because, if you eat meat or chicken that is contaminated as a result of a GMO with re-engineered DNA that is contaminated with a pathogen, then the DNA genes contaminate your cells and are also harmful to you. These DNA genes can be INSERTED into your own genes.

- Genetically Engineered Food Alters Our Digestive Systems

- Assessing Survival of Transgenic Plant DNA in the Human Gastrointestinal Tract

- DNA from GE foods can end up in your genes



3. Roundup Ready Soy was given to mother rats as food during a study and it was discovered that 53% of the babies born died within a couple of weeks, about 10 times worse than normal. The biochemical form and structure of rats are very similar to human which is why they are used so often for studies to protect humans against various diseases. So the study should be of a major concern to FDA and other authorities that are concerned with health impediments of GMO’s. What should be even more concerning to FDA is that the GMO soy beans given to these rats caused serious disturbances to the liver by changing the cellular function of the liver and the cell nucleus, which may cause serious changes to the way our body operates at the biological level. Who knows how far this may go – may be in a few years of nucleus changes, men will even get pregnant since some already are growing breasts due to consumption of hormones.

- Mother Rats Fed Genetically Modified Soy Led to 56% Mortality of Offspring


- Biological Effects of Transgenic Maize Fed Long Term to Mice


- Genetically Modified Soy Linked to Sterility, Infant Mortality



4. If you don’t eat beef or don’t much care about rats, then do you like lamb? When was the last time you had lamb kobabs or lamps cutlets? Nearly 2,000 sheep have died after grazing on GMO cotton crops and were found to have server toxicity and inflammation of intestines and the same toxin exists in GMO foods intended for future release to people, starting in Asia and Africa.

- Mortality in Sheep Flocks after Grazing on Bt Cotton FieldsWarangal District, Andhra Pradesh” Report of the Preliminary Assessment, April 2006

5. In United States gastrointestinal diseases (chronic and acute) have increased dramatically since mid 90s and this has been linked to GMO foods given to sheep. In Sweden, where no GMO foods are allowed for humans or cattle, there has been no change whatsoever. Scientists are still researching the inflammation causes to the intestine and the study will take another 2 years to complete, while GMO foods are still being given to sheep in US.
- Liver Damage Caused by GM Food
- How Genetically Modified Foods Lead to Inflammatory Bowel Disease

6. In UK, GMO soy was put through a thorough test on a group of students at Sheffield University, half on GMO soy and the other on non-GMO soy and the research was conducted with all other parameters being equal, e.g. water consumption, diet size, environmental factors, etc. By the end of the research the GMO soy fed subjects were experiencing some allergies with 50% of them experiencing long term allergies – compared to no GMO soy fed subjects. 7. In laboratory tests, again and again, animals avoided GMO foods compared to non-GMO equivalent. Should we trust the instincts of animals that live based on their instincts? 8. Argentina has been one of the first countries to convert half of their arable land to GMO food production and are now the country with a major serious agricultural nightmare which has resulted in more than 20,000 farmers losing their land and livelihoods to superweeds that have destroyed the soil and is now a major agricultural crises in the world.

In India every 30 minutes, one farmer commits suicide because of devastating side effects of genetically modified organisms. 9. Scientists and Genetic Engineers themselves (if not coerced nor threatened with unemployment – or worse) tell us that GMO as used in crop development is not precise or predictable and has not been shown to be safe. The technique can result in the unexpected production of toxins or allergens in food that are unlikely to be spotted in current regulatory checks.

- Why genetically engineered food is dangerous: New report by genetic engineers

- Open Letter from World Scientists to All Governments Concerning Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)

- The Union of Concerned Scientists about GMO - Concerns Expressed by Government Scientists about GMOs

- Dangers of Genetically Engineered Foods



10. The scariest of them all – the authorities (FDA and others) as well as food corporations protest profusely to any kind of labeling of GMO foods. I don’t know about you, but that certainly concerns me that they would be so adamantly against labeling and so vehemently fighting against it – as if they have nothing better to do. Why are they so much against it? What is wrong with labeling or essentially saying, “… some foods are GMO and we (FDA) as well as our partners (Food Companies) don’t think there is anything wrong with them, but for the informed consumers’ choice and for fairness, we decided to include it in the labeling”. The fact that they assume that they know best and that they are the informed, logical, and trustworthy entity and us the people, who want labeling, are ignorant, fearful, and paranoid – tells me that they are hiding something. Why not be open and truthful and let people decide if they want GMO in their food or not? In a free country, should we not have the choice to eat GMO-free foods if we want?

Californians Sign Petition For Nazi Takeover

Infowars.com
April 26, 2013

Just as we got Austinites to sign a petition to ban water. Infowars and Mark Dice teamed up to ask Californians to sign up for a Nazi Takeover, Door to Door Gun Confiscation, Add More Police Powers etc. Watch and be amazed.

Everything Is Rigged: The Biggest Price-Fixing Scandal Ever

Matt Taibbi
Rolling Stone
April 26, 2013

Conspiracy theorists of the world, believers in the hidden hands of the Rothschilds and the Masons and the Illuminati, we skeptics owe you an apology. You were right. The players may be a little different, but your basic premise is correct: The world is a rigged game. We found this out in recent months, when a series of related corruption stories spilled out of the financial sector, suggesting the world’s largest banks may be fixing the prices of, well, just about everything.

You may have heard of the Libor scandal, in which at least three – and perhaps as many as 16 – of the name-brand too-big-to-fail banks have been manipulating global interest rates, in the process messing around with the prices of upward of $500 trillion (that’s trillion, with a “t”) worth of financial instruments. When that sprawling con burst into public view last year, it was easily the biggest financial scandal in history – MIT professor Andrew Lo even said it “dwarfs by orders of magnitude any financial scam in the history of markets.”

That was bad enough, but now Libor may have a twin brother. Word has leaked out that the London-based firm ICAP, the world’s largest broker of interest-rate swaps, is being investigated by American authorities for behavior that sounds eerily reminiscent of the Libor mess. Regulators are looking into whether or not a small group of brokers at ICAP may have worked with up to 15 of the world’s largest banks to manipulate ISDAfix, a benchmark number used around the world to calculate the prices of interest-rate swaps.

Read full article

Ted Cruz: Principled Opposition To Rubio Amnesty Bill

conservativehq.com
April 26, 2013

Senator Ted Cruz, the boat-rocking limited government constitutional conservative Senator from Texas, provided another one of his patented cross examinations of a smoke-blowing government official at a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

Sen. Ted CruzCruz, the son of legal immigrants from Cuba, asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano about border security measures – the so-called “triggers” – contained in the “Gang of Eight’s” immigration bill.

Specifically, Senator Cruz asked, “If there are no objective metrics, if it is simply the subjective assessment of a host of factors, how can we have any confidence that the border will be secured and that any trigger will be meaningful?”

Read more

Cybersecurity bill CISPA tramples on Fourth Amendment rights

mercurynews.com
April 26, 2013

Silicon Valley’s members of Congress know that cybersecurity can be accomplished without destroying Americans’ online privacy. It’s too bad that the House of Representatives didn’t listen to them.

Now it’s up to the Senate or, if it fails, a presidential veto to stop the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, known as CISPA, in its current form.

The House last week voted 287-127 for this legislation, which gives the government easier access to data from Internet companies. The intent is to help protect tech firms such as Facebook and Google and financial institutions from cyber-attacks and theft of intellectual property; sharing information with the federal government will help to identify sophisticated hackers and allow companies to react quickly to attacks. But CISPA takes government access too far.

Read more

Police State Show Of Force Not Working

For first time in 17 years most Americans reject government crack down

Steve Watson
Infowars.com
April 25, 2013

In two separate polls conducted following the Boston bombings, most Americans have said that they do not support expanded government surveillance or an infringement on civil liberties.

A Fox News poll asked respondents “Would you be willing to give up some of your personal freedom in order to reduce the threat of terrorism?”

In response, 45 percent said they would not be willing to sacrifice some of their liberties, compared to 43 percent of (shee)people who said they would.

That number is down from from 54 percent on figures from 2006, and down from a high of 71 percent the month after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

It also represents the first time since 1996 that more people are unwilling to give up freedoms than those who are willing, indicating that Americans are increasingly rejecting government invasion into their privacy in the name of fighting terrorism.

Only 27 percent of respondents said they feared another terrorist attack, while 58 percent said they were simply angry about the attack. 81 percent said their everyday lives would not be changed after the bombings.

A separate Washington Post poll found that more Americans were concerned that the government would go too far in investigating terrorism than that it would not go far enough, by a margin of 48 percent to 41 percent.

57 percent said that they were not confident in the government’s ability to prevent terrorist attacks, with just 15 percent saying they had a “great deal” of confidence in the government.

95 percent said they did not leave work early or stay at home after the attacks, and 92 percent said they were not avoiding crowded or public places because of a risk of terrorism.

Both polls were conducted before Friday’s martial law style city wide lockdown.

American Gestapo: Boston Bombing Reveals Washington’s True Colors

Jerry Robinson
ftmdaily.com
April 25, 2013

The Gestapo-like tactics that were implemented in Boston last week by the military-style police forces are just a small sign of things to come in America… including a large spike in military-style drones flying over — and spying on — American cities as well as a new influx of high definition security cameras in major U.S. cities.

As we expected, the power hungry elites in Washington are using the Boston bombings to force a false choice on the American “sheeple”.

And they are using the corporate-controlled media to spread their delusional attempts at a massive power grab.

The talking heads on TV will put forth reasoning that will sound something like this…

Read more

Child Hunger Is Exploding In Greece – And 14 Signs That It Is Starting To Happen In America Too

Michael Snyder
Economic Collapse
April 25, 2013

The world is heading into a horrific economic nightmare, and an inordinate amount of the suffering is going to fall on innocent children. If you want to get an idea of what America is going to look like in the not too distant future, just check out what is happening in Greece. At this point, Greece is experiencing a full-blown economic depression. As I have written about previously, the unemployment rate in Greece has now risen to 27 percent, which is much higher than the peak unemployment rate that the U.S. economy experienced during the Great Depression of the 1930s. And as you will read about below, child hunger is absolutely exploding in Greece right now. Some families are literally trying to survive on pasta and ketchup. But don’t think for a moment that it can’t happen here. Sadly, the truth is that child hunger is already rising very rapidly in our poverty-stricken cities. Never before have we had so many Americans unable to take care of themselves. Food stamp enrollment and child homelessness have soared to brand new all-time records, and there are actually thousands of Americans that are so poor that they live in tunnels underneath our cities. But for millions of other Americans, the suffering is not quite so dramatic. Instead, they just watch their hopes and their dreams slowly slip away as they struggle to find a way to make it from month to month. There are millions of parents that lead lives that are filled with constant stress and anxiety as they try to figure out how to provide the basics for their children. How do you tell a child that you can’t give them any dinner even though you have been trying as hard as you can? What many families go through on a regular basis is absolutely heartbreaking. Unfortunately, more poor families slip through the cracks with each passing day, and these are supposedly times in which we are experiencing an “economic recovery”. So what are things going to look like when the next major economic downturn strikes?

A recent New York Times article detailed the horrifying child hunger that we are witnessing in Greece right now. At some schools there are reports of children actually begging for food from their classmates…

As an elementary school principal, Leonidas Nikas is used to seeing children play, laugh and dream about the future. But recently he has seen something altogether different, something he thought was impossible in Greece: children picking through school trash cans for food; needy youngsters asking playmates for leftovers; and an 11-year-old boy, Pantelis Petrakis, bent over with hunger pains.
“He had eaten almost nothing at home,” Mr. Nikas said, sitting in his cramped school office near the port of Piraeus, a working-class suburb of Athens, as the sound of a jump rope skittered across the playground. He confronted Pantelis’s parents, who were ashamed and embarrassed but admitted that they had not been able to find work for months. Their savings were gone, and they were living on rations of pasta and ketchup.

Could you imagine that happening to your children or your grandchildren?

Don’t think that it can’t happen. Just a few years ago the Greek middle class was vibrant and thriving.

And we are starting to see hunger explode in other European countries as well. For example, in the UK the number of people receiving emergency food rations has increased by 170 percentover the past year.

This is one of the reasons why I get upset when people say that “things are getting better”. Yes, the stock market has been setting record highs lately, but things are most definitely not getting better.

Even during this false bubble of debt-fueled economic stability that we are enjoying right now, we continue to see hunger and poverty rise dramatically in America.

Since Barack Obama has been president, the number of Americans on food stamps has grown from 32 million to more than 47 million.

Will we all be on food stamps eventually?

Will we all become dependent on the government for our survival at some point?

According to the Boston Herald, even Tamerlan Tsarnaev was receiving government welfare benefits…

Marathon bombings mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev was living on taxpayer-funded state welfare benefits even as he was delving deep into the world of radical anti-American Islamism, the Herald has learned.
State officials confirmed last night that Tsarnaev, slain in a raging gun battle with police last Friday, was receiving benefits along with his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter. The state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services said those benefits ended in 2012 when the couple stopped meeting income eligibility limits.

Isn’t that crazy?

And yes, there are some people out there that are abusing the system. In fact, the cost of food stamp fraud has risen sharply toapproximately $750 million in recent years.

But most of the people on these programs really need the help. Thanks to our incredibly foolish economic policies, there are not enough good jobs for everyone and there never will be again. The percentage of Americans that are unable to take care of themselves is going to continue to rise, and the suffering that we are witnessing right now is going to get much, much worse.

Not that things aren’t really, really bad already. Here are some signs that child hunger in America has already started to explode…

#1 Today, approximately 17 million children in the United States are facing food insecurity. In other words, that means that “one in four children in the country is living without consistent access to enough nutritious food to live a healthy life.”

#2 We are told that we live in the “wealthiest nation” on the planet, and yet more than one out of every four children in the United States is enrolled in the food stamp program.

#3 The average food stamp benefit breaks down to approximately$4 per person per day.

#4 It is being projected that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps before they reach the age of 18.

#5 It may be hard to believe, but approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are currently living in homes that are either considered to be either “low income” or impoverished.

#6 The number of children living on $2.00 a day or less in the United States has grown to 2.8 million. That number has increased by 130 percent since 1996.

#7 According to Feeding America, “households with children reported food insecurity at a significantly higher rate than those without children, 20.6 percent compared to 12.2 percent”.

#8 According to a Feeding America hunger study, more than 37 million Americans are now being served by food pantries and soup kitchens.

#9 For the first time ever, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless. That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year.

#10 Approximately 20 million U.S. children rely on school meal programs to keep from going hungry.

#11 One university study estimates that child poverty costs the U.S. economy 500 billion dollars each year.

#12 In Miami, 45 percent of all children are living in poverty.

#13 In Cleveland, more than 50 percent of all children are living in poverty.

#14 According to a recently released report, 60 percent of all children in the city of Detroit are living in poverty.

For many more facts about the dramatic explosion of poverty in this country, please see my previous article entitled “21 Statistics About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America That Everyone Should Know“.

Unfortunately, most of the time statistics don’t really tell the whole story. Numbers alone cannot really communicate the soul-crushing despair that millions of American families are enduring on a daily basis at this point.

How can numbers communicate the pain that a child feels when her grandmother does not eat because there is not enough food for everyone in the family? But this is what some families in Americaactually go through because there is not enough money…

Vanyshia tells about the sacrifices her Grandmother makes so that she and her siblings can eat. “Sometimes my Grandma can’t even eat because she has to feed me and my brother and sister. Sometimes I don’t eat as much as I want to because I leave some for my Grandma because I don’t want her to sit there and starve. Sometimes she doesn’t have enough money to buy food, so she has to go to the bank and borrow money. It makes me feel sad. I don’t want her to be hungry. I just feel sad sometimes,” says Vanyshia.

Things can be particularly tough when you are a single parent. The BBC recently profiled a single mother that is struggling to raise two young children in Iowa…

“We don’t get three meals a day like breakfast, lunch and then dinner,” says Kaylie. “When I feel hungry I feel sad and droopy.”
Kaylie and Tyler live with their mother Barbara, who used to work in a factory. After losing her job, she was entitled to unemployment benefit and food stamps – this comes to $1,480 (£974) a month.
But they were no longer able to afford to live in their house, which along with bills cost $1,326 (£873) a month, leaving little for food or petrol.
Kaylie supplemented their income by collecting cans along the railway track near their old home – earning between two and five cents per can.

For more examples like this one, I encourage everyone to go watch a recent BBC documentary entitled “America’s Poor Kids” that you can see right here.

I wonder why we don’t see more stuff like this on the mainstream news in this country?

Could it be that the mainstream media does not want to admit how bad things have really gotten?

All of this is also a reminder that we need to be generous to those in need. Times are going to get much, much harder than this, and we are all going to need one another.