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 by Al Martin The Obama Regime: Floundering As a Policy of State (6-29-09) You may have noticed that Secretary of Debt Timothy Geithner is being kept out of sight, as is Economic Non-Advisor Larry Summers, because they have both stuck their foot in their mouths so many times that they don’t want to keep putting them out up front. I think what they’re doing is that they’re protecting the “home team,” like Geithner and Summers who are part of Obama’s inner circle. They are being protected against themselves by keeping them away from the media. Now Fed Chairman Bernanke is increasingly being stuck out front on purpose because they view him as an outsider and they don’t know how much political support they want to put behind him for another term. The New “Double-Dip” Economy -- It Ain’t Gonna Be An Ice Cream Sundae; Joe Six Pack America: Sheared Again (6-22-09) Are you prepared for the coming “double-dip” economy? It is becoming increasingly clear that what I call the Endlessly Bullish Shills have lost the battle of promoting the Lie of a “V-Shaped Recovery,” and that in fact, even a “U-Shaped Recovery” is not likely either. What is much more likely is a so-called “W-Bottom.” In other words, we have reached the “peak” of the first so-called recovery and we are in the apex of the bottom of the W. What does that mean? Real World Economics: The Global Bailout Bubble - Is the Planet Drowning in Liquidity? (6-15-09) Yes, the planet is drowning in money. That’s literally what’s happening. Governments are printing money as fast as they can. Corporations are issuing new equities and bonds. These events have had the odd effect of simultaneously creating both deflation and inflationary pressures. What does it all mean? The Market Confidence Game; Time for Sec. of Debt Tim “Let’s Print Some More Money” Geithner & Fed Chairman Ben “Bail Em All Out” Bernanke to Go (6-8-09) Market gyrations have been ruling the day, and more importantly, even though the equities closed with very little change, after a pretty wild ride, the equities moved up after a sharply better than expected unemployment report. They were looking for job losses of 525,000 and came up with a loss of 345,000. However the unemployment number is one of those statistics that is very much a double-edged sword because Joe SixPack, who looks at the evening news doesn’t know what the sub-components of the report are, from a hole in the wall. Nor would he understand. He’s just told what the unemployment rate is, which is almost meaningless. The sub-components (how many payroll jobs were gained or lost, the month-over-month hourly wage figures, the average hourly work week, is what’s really important. The unemployment number itself really isn’t. But back to the gyrations… What the market didn’t like was the big jump in the unemployment rate, wherein the rate jumped from 8.9% to 9.4%, which was much higher than what they were looking for. The Coming Debacle in Commercial Real Estate (6-1-09) Speculative bubbles continue to balloon, as housing data shows home prices continue to collapse. So the economic absurdities continue unabated. We are now completely immersed in the Obama FantasyLand Economy where everything is supposed to be “wonderful.” It’s like Wall Street Journal’s Andrew Ross Sorkin just said – Look at what equity prices are doing. There aren’t any problems. GDP isn’t falling. Everything’s just great. Meanwhile, last Thursday night (May 28), the Fed actually came out with a statement which in essence said – we do not understand what is happening. That certainly inspired confidence. Cue up the laugh track… The Obama Regime Creates a Financial Frankenstein with Trillions of Borrowed Money (5-25-09) Readers have asked why we don’t write about “political” topics, as we have done in the past. Unfortunately there is nothing “political” anymore. That has all taken a back seat now, even in the general media. Nobody cares about anything “political” anymore. Now it’s all “economic.” Why? Because the governments understand that the planet’s economy continues to teeter as it were on the brink. Every week they are faced with a new problem. Certainly the news of the week last week was the credit rating agencies and the attack they made on the U.K. Gilts (government bonds) and the second warning they made about U.S. Treasuries on Friday (May 22) that roiled the planet’s bond and currency markets. Understanding Economics 101 (Part 2) -- The Market Correction: Coming Soon? Or Has It Arrived? (5-18-09) In recent news, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has had some success in dealing with the Carlyle Group kickback scheme. In fact he is one of the few regulators in the United States who has had success in getting settlements out of people. He got $20 million out of them which is really just nickels and dimes in the greater scheme of things. Banks “Pass” Phony Stress Test & Enter New Fantasyland Economics (Son of BFLAP) (5-11-09) The Geithner “bailout,” including the bogus so-called “Stress Test” for banks, as well as the so-called Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP) which allows financial institutions to trade their “trash” for cash, has thus far been a dismal failure. Essentially the Obama Regime is using US taxpayers as the new dumping ground for every worthless asset imaginable. You may have heard about the Fed’s new equation for economic recovery -- Absurd Divided by Bogus Equals Cockamamie... Lying with Statistics: The Reflation Trade Hoax & Avoiding the D-Word -- Deflation (5-4-09) We are now witnessing history in the making. Domestic equity prices have generated a 4th sell signal in as many weeks last Friday - May 1, 2009, with the completion of the so-called Dow Theory Indicator. The first part of the Indicator which many people are familiar with is the Dow Industrials divided by the Dow Transports. This already generated a sell signal 4 weeks ago, but we now have the other half of that index, namely the Dow Industrials divided by the Dow Utility Index, also flashing a sell signal. Historically this has always been a danger sign, when the Dow Utility Index rises proportionately more than does the Industrials or Transports. This has happened only 4 times in the 113 year history of the Dow Jones indices. What does this mean? The Conspiracy Against Joe SixPack; The Fed’s Bogus Stress Test Scam (4-27-09) The Obama Regime is lying. The banks lie, and people don’t understand why. What is the motivation? The motivation is that the Obama Regime is scared shitless of telling the truth because if the people knew just how close the United States, and by extension the rest of the planet, is to utter economic collapse, their fear would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now they’re effectively sacrificing Joe SixPack. How? Because the Obama Regime’s lies, complicit with the lies of financial media’s Great Market Shill Machine brought in a record number of Joe SixPack 300 Share Buyers. This has taken place within the last 3 months, from February to April 2009. They’ve brought in Joe SixPack buying, and this has been done in concert with the complicity of the investment banks which are not selling stock. There’s the key. Joe alone can’t hold up the equity market. He can only do so -- if selling is withheld. So what exactly is the conspiracy? Understanding Economics 101: Tricks of the Trade & Understanding P/E Ratios (April 20, 2009) Over the years, I’ve had many questions from people who don’t understand economics. People hear the terms “fiscal stimulus” or “monetary stimulus” but they don’t have a clue. Or they hear “Price/Earnings (P/E) Ratio,” which is how do you value markets, and they don’t know what this means. Or they hear the term “economic fundamentals” and it doesn’t mean anything to them. The ignorance is enormous. People don’t even understand what “supply” and “demand” means and how that affects price expectation. One of the most common questions I have been asked – why do all markets seem to be in a continuous state of overvaluation? And then there’s the story of the Market Fundamentalist vs. the Market Shill, and it is the ongoing battle… This is very relevant now because the equity markets are dangerously overbought – and even the Shills admit that now, saying that the market needs some sort of a pullback. Even the Shills know that the further you stretch the rubber band, the harder it snaps back… Dumb Money: Failing to Learn the Lessons of History (4-13-09) The dumb money pouring into the equity markets should take a look at history, specifically what happened after 1933, to see how equity and real estate prices declined, What caused those declines is the same problem we’re having now. The similarities are such that they are simply amazing. There’s credit quality downgrade, increasing corporate and governmental defaults and increased write-downs. That’s exactly what took markets lower in the second half of 1933 and into 1934. Now we see the new asset bubble being created in the markets by a confederation of the Obama Regime and a constant Bullish Shillism by the media with conveniently timed press releases. They have asked banks to pre-release their first quarter earnings if they are better than expected, such as Wells Fargo did on Thursday. This then prompted another rally in a significantly overbought market. Reflation? No Bottom in Sight… (4-6-09) The Global Financial Crisis and the G-20 Meeting in London have highlighted the ongoing battle between the Reflationists, who believe that government fiscal stimulus will reinflate (or reflate) the world economy Versus the Supply/Demand Fundamentalists, who think that commodity and equity prices are still overvalued. Reuters has reported that “G20 leaders have endorsed a strategy that will transfer loan losses from banks and creditors to taxpayers (via government debt guarantees) and savers (via money creation and inflation). In their summit communique, they committed themselves to a strategy of reflation and moderate inflation in the medium term. While this is plausible and consistent, it has profound implications for asset allocation. It favors borrowers and owners of equities, commodities and other real assets, at the expense of savers and those holding cash balances and government debt. “(See G20 agrees inflation is solution to crisis) The reflation trade is a bet that a rebound in the global economy will reflate the value of all assets, and drive up interest rates, as well as commodity prices. So what’s wrong with this “theory”? Expatriation Update: What’s Hot & What’s Not (3-30-09) It’s time once again for an expatriation destination update. So here’s the latest… The Obama Regime Prepares for Civil Unrest; 1930-1940: Is It a Portent of 2009-2019? (3-23-09) Economic history in the United States today parallels 1930-1940. Therefore if you want to see what 2009 to 2019 will look like, just look at what happened from 1930-1940. Gold confiscation. Gun confiscation. Property confiscation… Unveiled: The Great Bullish Market Conspiracy; CNBC Market Shills Jim Cramer & Larry Kudlow -- One Down, One To Go (3-16-09) Is this the end of CNBC, the Financial Entertainment Network, and its domination of what’s been called the “financial porn” market on TV? CNBC is another part of the government-media conspiracy, which manipulates the markets through fear, greed and ignorance. Last week the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart castigated and in fact eviscerated CNBC Market Shill Jim Cramer for his disingenuous if not criminal so-called “investment advice.” Earlier that day Cramer appeared on the Martha Stewart Show, where she had him pounding dough, quipping that he was practicing on Jon Stewart’s head. After playing that clip, Jon Stewart said that Cramer doesn’t work dough; Cramer loses it for other people. Now CNBC has gone so over the top that their slogan for the show is “In Cramer We Trust” replacing God with a TV huckster named Jim Cramer. So what exactly is the Great Bullish Conspiracy with all of its interlocking components that work in tandem every single day? Global Power Shift: What’s America’s New Role? (3-9-09) The consequences of Bushonomics I and II and the enormous build-up of debt at all levels of American society, which caused debt-financed consumption to maintain artificially high Gross Domestic Product (GDP) far exceeding what has been America’s traditional 2-1/2% annual growth r has accelerated what was an ongoing change in power structures on the planet by causing the US economy to be “Japanized.” Wall Street vs. Herbert (Hoover) Obama (3-2-09) The war between Wall Street and the Obama Regime was played out last Friday as traders pounded the bank stocks lower after the release of more details of the so-called Geithner Bank Rescue Plan. What’s interesting is they’re not calling it Obama’s Plan. Now they’re lining up the potential sacrificial lambs, so now it’s called the Geithner Plan. The Obama Regime is smart enough to know that everything they’ve proposed so far has not worked -- and will not work. Therefore, the first thing you do, if you’re in the business of politics, is you set up a scapegoat. And between Gethner and Bernanke, guess who’s getting set up? Who could it be that will end up as “the fall guy”? (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) What Hath Bushonomics Wrought? The Financial Exhaustion of the United States (And Planet Earth) (2-23-09) There is a financial exhaustion of the United States and indeed of Planet Earth that has occurred during the first decade of the 21st century because of Bushonomics, a “school” of economic thought, which was adopted not only in the United States but globally. In short, Bushonomics is negative debt-financed consumption. So what hath Bushonomics wrought around the world? Obama’s Bogus Housing Rescue Plan: A Darker Shade of Pink (2-16-09) Last Thursday was the unveiling of the Obama Housing Rescue Plan. This was supposed to have been released with great fanfare, but they learned from last week’s release of the Banking Rescue Program when the markets got hit due to the lack of specificity not to expect anything. The New Housing Rescue Plan, however, also contains few specifics. So we have seen further confirmation of what we’ve been saying before -- every rally that has been created through the announcement of another Obama Financial Rescue Cum Bailout Program is nothing more than a fresh short-selling opportunity. It’s apparent that the plans that they have are unworkable and they are coming up against the same “brick wall” the Bush Regime came up against. The “brick wall” is that you can’t untie bundled mortgages that have been resold 64 times. So even though the market lifted substantially, the so-called New Housing Rescue Program does not apply to any existing mortgages. So what good is it? Obamanomics: Post-Bushonian Bi-Partisan Fantasyland Economics (2-9-09) What we have seen in market reactions is that Obama has everyone pumped up into believing that he can fix everything and mitigate the effects of the current recession. Obama is now being billed by the Democrats as some sort of a miracle worker, even though he’s promising things he can’t deliver, namely mortgage relief that is unworkable and tax relief that isn’t going to happen. He keeps saying that we’re going to be able to create 4 million new jobs. That’s nonsense because he’s fighting a recession in which there are already 500,000 layoffs a month. The recession is sapping the value of the fiscal stimulus, even though this is being promoted to the unwashed, so that the unwashed have piled into the markets. The tone of the news broadcasts is that Obama is the savior -- that the markets can sustain levels of overvaluation for years to come, that there will be no more foreclosures, that he will create 4 million new jobs, and that he can prevent the current recession from deepening. The way this is being billed to the public is false, but the unwashed are lapping it up. They’re buying equities willy-nilly, and they’re buying real estate again under the premise that if they can’t make the payments, Obama will… False Hope: Obama’s ‘Bad Bank’ Rescue Plan, A Trillion Dollar Boondoggle for Taxpayers (2-2-09) The new plan that has been floated by Obama’s so-called ‘Economic Recovery Team,’ led by former Under-Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers and former NY Fed governor Timothy Geithner is what’s now known as a “Good Bank/ Bad Bank” rescue plan. This may be likened to a Good Cop/ Bad Cop scenario, in which everyone seems to be talking out of both sides of their mouth. They’re talking about having the US Treasury purchase so-called “toxic assets” from the nation’s commercial and investment banks. “Toxic assets” is another name for busted-out mortgage paper, not only sub=prime mortgage paper, but defaulted mortgage paper like CDOs, CMOs and other securities that are now worth, let’s say, less than 30 cents on the dollar. Obamanomics, Economic Reality, and the Price of Gold (1-26-09) The so-called “Obama Shill” turns more desperate, as the world falls apart. So what’s the difference between the Bush Regime and the Obama Regime? Not much. Last week we saw more affirmation of what the incoming Obama-Biden Regime is attempting to accomplish by maintaining a shill to keep markets overbought for as long as possible -- before economic reality sets in. What he’s doing is no different than what the Bush Cheney Regime did with oil, namely, they did everything they could from a policy standpoint to maintain high oil prices for as long as possible fro the purpose of wealth consolidation within the Bushonian constituency. Now Obama is trying to maintain overvalued equity markets for as long as possible to prevent the IRAs and 401Ks of the working class from looking any worse by instituting mortgage reform in an effort to reduce foreclosures, none of which is workable, by the way. Japanization Rules: Global Economic Collapse Postponed… For Now (1-19-09) Consensus builds in Washington. Japanization of the world’s economy is the only way to prevent global economic collapse and preserve the new “modified” capitalism. For the first time, officials of the incoming Obama-Biden Regime, as well as senior members of Congress in both parties are using the word Japanization in financial media. Now you see people in Washington using the term, including former under-secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers, who will be the new chairman of the Presidential Council of Economic Advisors. Summers is widely respected in both parties, and he’s the new go-to guy, as they say in Washington, for the new Obama-Biden economic policy. Why is there a new consensus now? Because it’s either that -- or we allow global economic collapse to occur. Is Obama Keeping Market Bubble Alive? (1-12-09) It’s becoming clear that Obama is playing the shill game. Please note some of the speeches he made last week, where he provided very few specifics about his financial stimulus program. Nevertheless he urged the equity markets to move higher despite ever increasing bearish fundamentals. It’s obvious that he wants to extend the honeymoon with the markets as long as he can. All he’s managing to do, however, is rob Peter to pay Paul. Why? Because Obama has now been keeping the markets artificially inflated by joining the shills of the financial media that we are not to worry about the depths of this recession and that we are not to be concerned about multi-million job losses nor are we to be concerned about a 25% decline in S&P earnings. Obama is implying this and in so doing, when the honeymoon is over 30 to 60 days from now, he is ensuring a greater decline in equity prices than would otherwise have occurred because he is part of the “Shill Program,” shall we say, that is keeping equity prices artificially inflated. So who is responsible? Welcome to the World of Deflation; Will Japanization of the Planet’s Economy Prevent Global Economic Collapse? (1-5-09) The impact of Japanization is that it retards the ability of the middle class to create wealth. Traditionally this is how the middle class created wealth. They have done this by buying a home which has increased smartly in value over time and investing in stocks that have always risen in value over time. But what if you take that away… The World Turned Upside Down! (2008 Year-End Recap and 2009 Outlook) (12-29-08) 2008 was the year that helped Americans get rid of their much-cherished, rose-colored glasses, which had so long blinded them to the “Great Lie” that everything worked the way they thought it did. Very simply put, 2008 was the year of the Global Unwinding of Speculative Bubbles caused by Bushonomics. In 2008, Bushonomics became not just a domestic, but a global event. It was also the year when the speculative bubbles that Bushonomics created simply burst, laying bare the motives of Bushonomics itself. A Sordid and Tawdry Affair: Central Banks Attempt Bailouts – Again & Again & Again… (12-22-08) The efforts of global central banks to keep their economies together – what a sordid and tawdry affair it has become. They’re like a bunch of little rats running around in the back room, trying to keep the whole thing together with little bits of string and baling wire. That’s what they have to do – to prevent global economic collapse. You can see these little rats with the faces of Bernanke, Trichet and King. And they’re all running around with little pieces of string in their teeth and their paws are trying to pull all sorts of stuff to hold the planet’s economy together. Don’t Be Overhyping “Hope”: An Open Letter To President Obama… (12-15-08) Dear President Obama, Please tone down market expectations of your economic stimulus program. You’ll be glad you did. Here’s why… Beware - Major Disconnect Between Economic Reality & Stock Prices (12-8-08) The most important issue today is the continuing dangerous move higher in equities (stock prices). Recently the number one question on CNBC and Bloomberg from Joe Six Pack 100 Share Investors has been – How the hell have equities been able to move higher after such inordinately bearish news flows? The End of US Sovereignty: How the Fed Is Playing Chicken with Future Creditors of the United States (12-01-08) This is the story of how changes in the TARP Bailout Program will negatively affect millions of working class investors. TARP was the name of the original Treasury-Federal Reserve bailout/rescue package, and now that it’s been changed, we’re way beyond Plan B. You could say that now we’re up to TARP #14. TARP has been changed and changed and changed again. Now we’re to the point that it is far removed from what the government’s original intent really was. Now there's even more danger on the horizon, and here's what we have to look forward to... The End of the Republican Party (11-24-08) The story that’s not being talked about and that the Bullish Shills are avoiding in financial media is the enormous compression in interest rates that has occurred in US Treasury instruments. People just don’t understand what type of picture of the future that’s painting. It’s worth mentioning that for the first time in the history of the issuance of US Treasury securities, which began in 1795, we saw both 1 and 3 month Treasury bills trade to negative yields last week. This means that you the buyer are paying the Treasury to own them. The Treasury’s no longer paying you. You are paying the Treasury for the privilege of owning them. There is an upside and it’s called capital preservation. US Treasury instruments are now trading at negative yields. The 2-year Treasury note traded at well under 1%. So what does this portend for the future? Welcome to the New Socialist America: Another Bushonian Bitch Slap to the Republican Right; Why Bretton Woods III Is Crucial To Avoid Global Economic Collapse (11-17-08) Mainstream media has been desperately trying to avoid the connection between the practice of Bushonomics II and its loosened regulatory environment and how that has created speculative bubbles the likes of which the planet’s financial markets had never been seen before. The subsequent collapse of these speculative bubbles is now creating economic stress in the planet’s capital marketplaces also with a ferocity never seen before. Bill O’Reilly on Fox News bemoans all of the recent Federal Reserve-Treasury bailouts and/or rescue initiatives, which by the way, are absolutely essential -- if the planet’s economies are to be kept in business. O’Reilly has been whining about this claiming that it’s putting the United States on the road to socialism – and he’s absolutely correct. That is, in fact, what’s happening. However, nobody wants to make the linkage between the New Socialist America and Bushonomics, which is what caused it. This is what has happened and what we have written about before -- the practice of Bushonomics II and the purposeful and dangerous change in the regulatory environment. The irony is that Bushonian Crony Capitalism has brought about a New Socialist America. Obamanomics & The ‘Zombification’ of American Business (11-10-08) The socialization of America has already begun under the Bush Regime -- and it will continue under the Obama Regime. Be prepared for the price tag. The move to bail out the nation’s banks and brokerage firms will soon expand to include a bailout of insurance firms, like AIG, and certain heavy industry firms and probably the carmakers. Why? Because the Bush-Cheney Regime was compelled to do it to prevent economic collapse. The incoming Obama-Biden Regime will continue to expand this program because it is politically popular with the Democratic Left. Whether it’s corporate or personal socialization of the US economy, it doesn’t make any difference. Nobody is looking at the cost of doing this, even though it was easy for the Fed and the Treasury to act under the Bush-Cheney Regime, providing support, rescue or bailouts (to whatever you want to call it) for the nation’s banks, investment houses, etc. The Bush-Cheney Regime understood that it was “survival time,” even though the process of socializing the US economy is not a road they wanted to travel down. Now they must do it… What’s next? Planetary Deflation & The Case Against Gold; Explaining Gold to Gold Bugs Again… (11-3-08) The financial upheaval in global financial markets has led to a sharp increase in demand for physical bullion. As a consequence premiums on gold bullion and gold bullion coins have soared to levels never before seen, where indeed we find that one-ounce bullions coins are now trading as much as 14% above their bullion value, as people continue to chase them and mints worldwide are unable to keep up with demand. We do not advise paying this tremendous premium to own gold because the price is completely unwarranted. It should be remembered that the usual premium is 3%, but we are seeing enormous premiums simply because mints can not keep up with the demand for the physical gold coins. Demand for physical bullion/coins always increases during times when the markets are in a state of upheaval. How to Survive the Recession (And the Depression) (10-27-08) Last week, starting Thursday night, there was a severe downdraft in global equity markets, caused by several governments closing their markets prematurely. Also there was nervousness, created early Friday morning by fearmongers, that the domestic equity markets would suffer a meltdown due to widespread bank closures. This proved not to be the case. However we saw that even the mainstream media kept feeding the frenzy by showing pictures of the unwashed lining up in front of banks in the dark waiting for them to open or showing pictures of people desperately running like lemmings from ATM to ATM looking for cash. The End of the Middle Class? One Step Away from the Brink: Financial Collapse Has Been Postponed, But the Damage Is Done (10-20-08) The global economy has stepped away from the brink of economic collapse… but the damage has been done. The brink was approached last week when the planet’s economy was perilously close to collapse, but thanks to unusually speedy government action by the G-7, including the United States, the planet’s economic system was flooded with money along with far-reaching guarantees for banks etc., regarding interbank lending and government purchasing equity directly, which was able to ease credit liquidity sufficiently to avoid a complete meltdown. We saw that subsequently reflected in rallies in equities and the sell-off both in US Treasuries and other government bonds which is what should have happened to deal with what has become in essence a Global Bailout. So does Joe Six Pack Investor live to fight (or invest) another day? Is the Bottom Near? Panic Selling Grips the Markets & What Must Be Done Next to Avoid Global Economic Collapse (10-13-08) Last week the hysterical liquidation of securities shows that the markets are ignoring all news flows. It was absolute “panic selling” (irrational hysterical selling) that has gripped the boards, in a continuing bid to “go cash,” which has become the new mantra in the markets. We did see signs, however, that the “credit crunch trade” was beginning to ease. Restoring Confidence in the Markets: What Must Be Done To Prevent Global Economic Collapse (10-6-08) The economic fate of the planet will be played out this week, even as it seems that the unwashed will be the death of us all. Why? Because there have been thousands of phone calls to Congress, especially to Republicans, demanding a NO vote to the bailout package. Republicans themselves are responsible for this attitude because this is the line they have continually dished up. The line they maintain is that government intervention is going to result in the socialization of America, or in their minds, turning America away from capitalism and embracing socialism. Is this just ideological nonsense? How to Solve the Global Financial Crisis (Sep. 29, 2008) Wall Street and Main Street: there is no difference -- and those who think there is are dangerously naive. So what has been holding up the bailout package negotiations? Part of the problem has been that both houses of Congress, as well as the Treasury Department and the Fed keep calling this a “bailout” package or a “rescue” package, when in fact it isn’t either. In fact, if they stopped calling it that, they would have had an easier time getting it done. They should have called it an “investment” package, which in fact is what it is. It’s investing public monies in busted out debt in order to re-liquefy markets. Much of this debt, although we use the term “busted out,” is still serviceable. In other words, the interest is still being paid on it. The foreclosure rate is now 25% in sub prime properties, but that means that 75% is still being serviced. There is no one package of paper that is all foreclosed. Simply put, if this package was called “Your Investment in America,” it would go over much better with the working class and furthermore it would alleviate much of the Republicans’ angst (those who are fundamentally opposed to government bailouts or rescues) about calling it a “bailout.” What’s really obstructing this package is there’s too much politics and ideology being injected into it by the Republicans. The Socialization of America: Paulson & Bernanke Roll the Dice (9-22-08) In order to prevent a general economic collapse of US financial markets, which would have quickly become a global collapse, the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve came together with proposal that is now before Congress which involves essentially a $1.5 trillion bailout, take over and a “guarantee” of a wide variety of US financial markets. The keystone of this bailout package is to provide $800 billion to purchase so-called “toxic mortgage paper” from banks and other financial institutions in order to re-liquefy marketplaces. Meltdown on Wall Street: Let’s Bail Out Everybody - Except Working Class Republicans (9-15-08) The meltdown of the US banking industry has begun. Last week there was the defacto collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have effectively become penny stocks. All the dividends on the preferred Fannie and Freddie shares, which were widely held by working class Republicans, have been suspended. The problem is that Fannie and Freddie preferred shares have been continuously promoted by many investment banks, (Merrill Lynch in particular), as “the thing” to own because it will always allegedly pay a superior dividend -- and it has a defacto government backing -- and besides it’s a “patriotic” investment, like “investing in America.” What we have seen is that those people who have invested on that kind of bent (the Larry Kudlow shill that it’s “good to invest in America”) have been the very same US citizens who have taken the largest losses. In Fed We Trust? Shorting Bill Gross’s ‘Financial Tsunami’ Picks (9-8-08) Have Fannie and Freddie really been “rescued”? Meanwhile there are fresh quarterly statistics out of the NMBA which shows that real estate is not only continuing to decline in the United States, but as we have been predicting, the decline is now being paced or led by prime property. And that is the noticeable change. It’s no longer sub-prime that is pacing the decline. This essentially means mortgages above $700,000. Prime mortgage paper is becoming the next victim of Bushonomics. Now we are seeing more and more investment firms like Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch reporting losses on prime paper, which is something that they all said couldn’t possibly happen. They kept claiming that prime paper has always been immune to housing downturns. Fannie & Freddie Update: Bonds - Yes, Shares – No; Joe Six Pack Investors Will Become the Ultimate Bag Holders -- Again (9-1-08) The faux sense of calm in the markets has become glaringly obvious to traders. However we have seen Joe Six Pack Investors come back into the markets on the long side. Also we saw substantial rallies in Fannie and Freddie common shares, despite the fact that both Fed Chief Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson have both said that any government bailout would wipe out common shareholder equity. The Shills that we hear on CNBC and Bloomberg have said that Fannie and Freddie MAY be able to survive on their own. That MAY mean that the bears have overstated their case. Or they overstated the problems of Fannie and Freddie. The conclusion? You, Joe Six Pack Investors, are once again free to buy your 300 shares once again. This is nonsense. This concept, however, caused a substantial rally in Fannie and Freddie, whilst professional traders looked at the late week rally as perhaps a last shorting opportunity in the stocks before government intervention. Bernanke vs. Paulson: Clash of the Titans; How Long Can Fannie & Freddie Stay in Business? (8-25-08) There’s a real battle going on between the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury. When the Fed governors wrapped up their meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming last Friday, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke and it was clear that he was directing his comments at U.S. Treasury Secretary Paulson, suggesting that the Treasury is interfering with the Fed’s “too big to fail” policy. He also inferred that Paulson was misleading the financial markets into believing that Treasury could bail everybody out and that the US could put together endless rescue packages, change regulations, reach settlements or could do whatever is necessary to prevent another meltdown in equity prices. Bernanke was saying that there is still much more economic pain to come particularly through housing. In fact the was saying that there’s nothing too big to fail, including Fannie and Freddie, and that Fannie and Freddie can not become a bottomless pit into which public money can be thrown simply to bail out large institutional shareholders and bondholders, and especially foreign sovereign wealth funds. This is what Paulson is clearly concerned about. Bernanke is saying that foreign governments made investments at discounted prices, and therefore understood the risks like any other investor, and so it is not the place of the US taxpayer to bail out foreign sovereign wealth funds. What are the consequences of this policy clash? The New ATM -- Your IRA and 401K Plans; How Far Down Will Commodities Go? (8-18-08) It interesting and even telling to note that the new pro-Bush faction Republican initiative would allow debit cards to be linked to IRA, 401K, and other plans. This is actually a good idea. And it will most likely become law because the Democrats are in a politically awkward position and they really can’t oppose it. What’s fostering this is that the Bush Cheney Regime is desperate to maintain consumption in this country. Consumption is now falling sharply. Also we see that retail sales numbers and personal consumption numbers continue to fall and gross domestic product are now in minus figures. New Speculative Stock Market Bubble; Prepare for ‘Bloody Reversal’ in ‘Dangerously Overbought’ Equities (8-11-08) Commodity prices continue to fall back, while equities (stocks) continue to rise. Why? There are several factors which should be mentioned in order to understand how a brand new speculative bubble in the stock market has been created. The recent rally in the equities can be tied to the bogus rally in the dollar which has exerted downward pressure on commodity prices. This is then being construed as an immediate bullish factor for the equities, when in reality, it is not bullish at all. In the immediate sense, we see that the energy and commodity stock indexes have exerted downward pressure within the larger equity indices. Commodity Prices Falling; Is the Stock Market Next? (8-4-08) According to the Financial Times, commodity prices have taken their biggest dive in 28 years. Is the stock market next? How To Survive Economic Collapse From Bushonomics (7-28-08) (WARNING: There may be too much truth and reality in the following column. Read it at your own risk.) Desperate Housewives of Working Class Republicans (7-21-08) Recently we found out that many of the subscribers of Al Martin Raw.com are housewives of Working Class Republicans, who just happen to be the greatest victims of Bushonomics. We hear regularly from them, particularly on radio shows when they call in and tell me their sob stories. I wish they wouldn't do it, but they don't have any other outlet. They're turning my radio shows into something where you have to have a crying towel just to listen to it. It's like going from Dr. Phil to Dr. Al. I've told such women who have called in before -- If you're married to a Working Class Republican, who's in love with George Bush, divorce the bum -- before he takes you down. Did Fear Bids in the Market Lead to Panic Selling? Is a Black Monday in the Offing? (7-14-08) Did the markets see panic selling on Friday (July 11)? There was a big sell-off, but there was an equally big recovery – with stocks closing about mid-range. There was a lot of fear coming into Friday’s session. The euro markets were down and the European financial indexes were all getting hit. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went down. US financials had backed off right down to their Thursday’s lows. Lehman Brothers went down to $16 per share. The fear bid coming into Lehman Brothers is the same as it’s been for weeks and weeks – namely that Lehman’s capital base had eroded to the point that they couldn’t make good on their counter-party obligations pursuant to derivative contracts that they had entered into. Every effort was made in Thursday’s and Friday’s trade to support Lehman Brothers. The rest of the financial houses came and bid the stock. PIMCO’s Bill Gross came out and said that PIMCO was doing as much business with Lehman Brothers as it always did. He also expressed his opinion that Lehman Brothers’ counter-party obligation capability was sound, although our opinion of Bill Gross and PIMCO has diminished over the last 30 days because of his incessant poo-poohing of Treasuries and touting of high-yield junk and munis because PIMCO has taken a big position in them and in which it has lost money. Preview of a Post-Economically-Collapsed World (7-7-08) As the weather gets hotter, the nation starts to sweat, even as the consequences of Bushonomics have become more telling. Last week, for example, there were news reports of Christian prayer groups, praying for lower gas prices at gas stations. Hookers are hooking for gas cards, offering defined services for $25 or $50 gas cards. A nationwide gasoline retailer has been reported offering $5 off coupons on Zoloft, if you buy 10 gallons of gas, a new form of cross marketing under Bushonomics. There has also been a push in Congress by the Big Pharmaceutical companies to turn a variety of prescription anti-depressant drugs into over the counter drugs because demand for them has soared so much. The pharmaceutical industry is right because it would bring the price down. It should be remembered that this regime has purposely kept prices of antidepressants cheap anyway. Of course, Bushonian Regimes understand the consequences of Bushonomics to the Joe Six Packers, and they try to make it easier on them, albeit in small ways. Working Class Republicans: Dazed and Confused in the Heartland (6-30-08) Working class Republicans have unfortunately been the greatest victims of Bushonomics. They have, on a percentage basis, seen the greatest numbers of their jobs exported under the Bushonian US Jobs Export Program. They have seen their real wages (net income minus inflation and taxation) lag behind the most of any group. Proportionately they have suffered the highest number of foreclosures on their homes. They have also suffered the highest number of repossessions on their loans for autos, motorcycles, boats, RVs, etc. On a prorated basis, they have also suffered the highest delinquency and default rates in credit cards and home financed lines of credits. Also the investments, traditionally held by working class Republicans like municipal bond funds, have lost as much as 50% of their value in the last six months. One in seven of all municipal bond funds have become illiquid and worthless. About 50 % of high yield funds, which are commonly held by many working class Republicans, have also failed. And, domestic common stock mutual funds, another mainstay of working class Republicans, have performed just as miserably. Working class Republicans have also been the greatest victims through the loss of their pension plans and health insurance. It can not be emphasized enough that Bushonomics, as defined by George Bush, Sr., is “the continuous consolidation of wealth and power into ever higher, tighter and righter hands.” In other words, Bushonomics is a continuous trickle-up of wealth – and working class Republicans have done more than their fair share in making Bushonomics work. Global Banks Warn of Economic “Catastrophe”; Is UBS Failure Coming Next? (6-23-08) Global equity markets, which have already been falling for weeks, came under renewed pressure last week, when on Wednesday (June 18) RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland), one of the largest banks on the planet, warned of dire pending economic conditions, advising clients “to brace for a full-fledged crash in global stock and credit markets.” The PATRIOT Act and You: Repossession, Body Writs and Debtors’ Prison (6-16-08) During the last couple months, we have been seeing that the Bush Cheney Regime is increasingly using the PATRIOT Act to expand the legal power of creditors. This is an absolutely essential step in attempting to reverse record repossession and foreclosure rates. It should be noted that there have also been record arrearages in property taxes and public utility bills, etc. This has become a real threat to the American economy, and it is of course one of the entrails of Bushonomics. Markets Gone Wild. What’s Next? (6-9-08) Friday’s market meltdown -- does it set up for the classic Friday / Monday trade and a new market panic? Inflationary Expectations vs. Economic Reality; Closing the Circle of Bushonomics (6-1-08) As we start to see the end results of Bushonomics and its wealth consolidation, which is working according to plan, we need to be reminded of the statements of the GAO from a half of a year ago, that the bottom 50% of the economic population now accounts for only 25% of the gross domestic product of the nation. Thus, by the classical Smithsonian definition of capitalism, the bottom 50% of the nation has been rendered economically unproductive. In other words, the cost of their consumption exceeds the value of their contribution. This then completes the circle in this country which also represents new investment opportunities, which we will further disclose. First of all, the beginning of this circle is the inordinate rise of inventories of commodities of all types. The coming problem in America? PIMCO Buys Junk: From ‘Dark Pools’ and ‘Dark Markets’ (5-26-08) Is Bill Gross making a “gross” mistake? Bill Gross, head of PIMCO, the world’s largest bond funds manager, has been recently seen on CNBC and Bloomberg consistently pooh-poohing US Treasuries. This seems odd, since most of the PIMCO bond funds are US Treasury oriented. The Fed's Bailout Efforts Turn America Red (5-19-08) So, is the notorious Bush Cabal lapdog Karl Rove really switching sides by being a Fox News commentator and "advising" Democrat candidates in the 2008 elections? Bye-Bye Pension Plans, Roving Hordes of BOVOBS and Here Come Body Writs – Again (5-12-08) Last week we saw increasing signs of further serious deterioration in the nation’s public and private defined benefits and pension system. Attention got refocused on this issue when State Street Bank, which is not only a large commercial and investment bank, but also happens to be the largest manager of public and corporate defined benefit pension plans in the United States, announced that it has taken fresh billions in write-downs due to its investments in subprime et al. Whether It’s Clinton, Obama or McCain, Bushonomics Must Be Maintained (5-5-08) Very simply put, Bushonomics, as George Bush Sr. defined it, is the continuous consolidation of money and power into ever higher, tighter and “righter” hands, which is accomplished by fostering an economic policy that relies on negative debt financed consumption in order to maintain economic growth. The Market Disconnect, Speculative Bubbles & That Popping Sound in the Distance (4-28-08) The disconnect in the markets continues as two-year Treasury notes fell back last week, when in fact news flows would suggest that they should be rising. (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) Wall Street-SEC-Fed Fraud; The Libor Conspiracy (4-21-08) Markets have continued to rally despite ongoing reports of operating losses and increasing asset write-downs. In fact activity in the markets reflects an Alice in Wonderland unreality that is unprecedented in history. It has reached a new level of absurdity even for traditional American Fantasy-Land Economics, which approaches the “Neronomics” (or necronomics as in the economics of death) in the last days of the Roman Empire. FED Actions Hide Global Financial Disaster (4-14-08) The Fed's recent actions in trying to manipulate the markets are masking much deeper and larger problems. In fact, what is becoming increasingly noticeable is that the Fed, having committed a full 40% of its balance sheet to so-called TAF and SuperTAF Short-term Money Auctions, is in a greater risk of running out of money. (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) Wall Street Cheers Bailout by U.S. Taxpayers (4-7-08) The Federal Reserve has engineered a bailout of the failed Bear Stearns bank using JPMorgan Chase in a move that is widely perceived as “corporate welfare” or “Wall Street socialism.” While U.S. homeowners continue to suffer due to the widespread mortgage debacle, Wall Street is being rescued from its risky and speculative deals by the Fed itself in a bailout package, which has effectively become the stealth nationalization of the banking industry in America. In Fed We Trust (3-17-08) The economy of the American Empire is declining daily as shown by the increased volatility of the markets on Friday March 14, which was caused by the near-collapse of Bear Stearns, which would have been finished had not the Fed come to the rescue. The Decline & Fall of the American Empire (Part 2); The Collapse of the Carlyle Capital Scam (3-31-08) The Bush White House is using US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to try to consolidate regulatory powers in the Federal Reserve at the expense of other federal regulatory agencies like the SEC, CFTC, etc. It appears to be another federal centralization of power, as was accomplished through the Department of Homeland Security several years ago. This action would turn the Federal Reserve into a federal "super-agency" which would have control of virtually all securities and investment banking regulations. (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) The Fall of the American Empire; $70/Barrel Oil -- How Soon? (3-10-08) A major meltdown in the markets was narrowly averted on Friday, March 7, when the Federal Reserve announced a doubling of its Term Auction Facility (TAF) money auction from $50 to $100 billion dollars per month (which is effectively 28 day money). In its announcement, the Fed said that the reason it was doing this was because of continuing illiquidity in the nation’s subprime markets, subprime municipal junk and junk bond market. In other words, by this action, the Fed is saying that $50 billion a month is not enough. It is not providing enough short-term liquidity to allow the financial institutions that carry inventories and make markets in these securities to do what they are in business to do -- to maintain liquid markets in these securities. This is very serious indeed. Is a Global Food Shortage Coming? Is the TAF (Term Auction Facility) Another Fed Conspiracy? Don’t Bet on It. (It’s Just Business as Usual) (2-3-08) US banks have “borrowed” $50 billion from the Federal Reserve using a relatively new credit facility called the Fed’s Term Auction Facility (TAF) against what analysts have been calling “dodgy collateral” also known as SIV’s and other mortgage backed paper. What does this mean? Bad News for Momentum Traders: Commodity Funds Create New Speculative Bubble (2-24-08) Last week commodity funds have created what we believe will be a whole new second speculative bubble in commodity prices -- far beyond what their underlying supply/demand equation can support. This bubble, however, is different than the bubble created in 2006, which fell apart in 2007. The Bush Cabal Buys Back America for Pennies on the Dollar (2-18-08) Last week the marketplace revealed yet another consequence of Bushonomics, namely, that the municipal bond market (which we have been warning people to get out of) began to unravel in earnest as liquidity in the municipal bond market simply dried up. By Wednesday’s session, we saw that three out of five municipal bond auctions were simply being cancelled due to lack of bids. In the daily municipal cash market where states, counties, municipalities have to turn to if they are unable to rollover securities, we saw that some districts, including the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, were forced to pay as high as 20% for money last Thursday. We also saw on Thursday in cash-market municipal borrowing that a wide variety of the nation’s counties, ranging from Harris County, Texas, to Bergen County, New Jersey, had to pay between 9% and 11% for money. This is an increase from 4% for money the week before – yet another ominous sign of the diabolical efficiency of Bushonomics. Deflation? Or Inflation? The Debate Rages On... (2-10-08) The Fed has cut rates once again, and the debate of the day remains -- is the US headed for deflation or inflation? What economic pundits are confused about (and it really shows a lack of understanding of Economics 101) is that with this tremendous surge in commodity prices and with interest rates being cut, which is traditionally inflationary, why isn’t there any inflation being created? Bushigula Strikes Again; Bogus Rogue Trader Fall Guy (2-4-08) The Fed cut rates another 50 basis points in line with expectation. This lead to short-covering rallies in all capital markets across the planet. However, that is all these rallies were. Also aiding last week’s advances, despite negative news flows from the United States, included the first decline in the monthly unemployment statistics in three years. This is very significant. Employment is clearly weakening. One of the last pins that was supporting consumption, as it were, is clearly weakening. However, what is really behind the market rallies is this idea in marketplaces that a consortium of global banks is going to come to the rescue of U.S. bond insurers, principally AMBAC and MBIA. Panic in the Markets: Investors Don’t Buy Bush’s Bogus Economic Bailout (1-21-08) The fiscal destruction of USA Inc. has arrived. Last week we saw the loss of $7 trillion of equity in U.S. capital marketplaces. In other words, $7 trillion in total equity value of all publicly traded U.S. capital marketplaces was lost in shareholder, bondholder or other equity stakeholder value. This is the greatest single weekly loss of equity holders ever. And since U.S. citizens hold about 75% of all domestic securities outstanding, they are the ones who felt the brunt of that diminishment. Bush-Cheney Regime Turns USA into United Serfs of America (1-14-08) Even the Bush Cabal has suffered unintended consequences through the practice of its economic policies, namely the enormous accrual of debt and the cost of servicing that debt under the current regime has forced the United States to become dependent on the money of China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and Russia, the principal purchasers of U.S. debt, for its continuing existence as a nation state. However, what we have seen more recently is the trickle-down effect of Bushonian economic policies, in that even corporate America is becoming increasingly dependent on foreign monies to stay in business. No More Santa Claus Rallies in the Market? (1-7-08) Will the so-called Santa Claus and January Effect rallies become consigned to the annals of history? Last week markets had their worst first-week-of-January performance since 1932. This is a very dangerous portent -- but what does it exactly mean? The ‘Upside’ of Bushonomics Now and Then: How the Smart Money Makes More Money During Times of Wanton Deficit Spending (12-31-07) And now for something completely different… The post-war agenda made Bushonomics, i.e. government deficit spending and debt-financed consumption, both inevitable and necessary -- as we have previously written. When decisions were undertaken globally, by all nations acting in concert, not to restrain population growth in the post-war global regime, it was necessary for all nation states to change their economies from savings-generated to consumption-generated gross domestic product. The reason why that was necessary is because the old economic order that had existed on the planet, or at least prior to the Second World War, were economies that were based on savings. It could be called “savings-generated economic growth.” The problem with savings-generated growth is that it can only sustain a certain growth in population. Beware: Money Market Funds in Danger (12-24-07) This is the Christmas present from Bushonomics for you in 2007: Collapsing money market & bond funds. If you have your money in so-called money market funds, you may be in danger of losing it all. Why? Because unbeknownst to most, as they say, these funds may be invested in toxic unsaleable CDO’s and SIV’s. The Bushonomics Fire Sale Has Begun; Will Another Clinton Inherit Another Bushonian Mess? (12-17-07) It sure looks that way. The historical parallels are eerily similar. So let us assume that Hillary Clinton is the next President. It’s a reasonable assumption, so that on January 20, 2009, she will be inheriting another Bushonian fiscal mess, just as her husband Bill Clinton inherited the same in 1993. U.S. Conference of Mayors Releases Frightening Report on Housing Debacle (12-3-07) Last week, the U.S. Conference of Mayors came out with an extensive report of the current housing debacle and its projections for 2008. The report that was released was their annual report on the housing debacle, which drew on resources from a variety of associations and government agencies, such as the National Mortgage Brokers Association, National Association of Realtors, The American Bankruptcy Association, the Federal Home Loan Credit Board, etc. This was the most exhaustive report done on the housing debacle and the statistics were nothing short of frightening. This was absolutely the talk of the markets last week. In 2008, the report concluded that U.S. residential real estate will fall in value by another $1.2 trillion. Inflation AND Deflation in the USA? (Financial Doom-and-Gloomers & Gold Bugs Need a Lesson in Economics) (11-26-07) Last week the doom-and-gloomers and the gold bugs got more airtime than ever before because of the global financial apocalypse that is being unleashed. These individuals for the most part, however, are not sophisticated traders, nor are they professional economists. They only want to look at the dollar-gold relationship, which gold bugs talk about ad nauseum. This includes a so-called analyst by the name of Gerard Celente of the so-called Trends Research Institute who is predicting $2,000/ounce gold. Coming soon. He even coined a phrase called “Panic of 2008” ( you got to love the marketing angle). (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) The Old Wall Street Bulls Throw in the Towel… It’s All Falling Apart (The Financial Bloodbath Continues) (11-19-07) Last week was another major turning point in the worldwide financial debacle as prominent investors like George Soros and Jimmy Rogers pronounced the end of the U.S. dollar. Bloomberg reported that Rogers in an interview from Singapore where he has moved his family and business, is urging investors to get out of the dollar. He was quoted as saying, “If you have dollars, I urge you to get out. That's not a currency to own.'' …The dollar fell 9.5 percent this year against a basket of six major currencies as a housing slump slowed the economy and losses stemming from sub-prime mortgage defaults spread among U.S. banks.” Rogers also noted that he was shifting out of all his dollar assets and “plans to buy commodities, Japanese yen, the Chinese yuan and the Swiss franc.” Exposed! Official Lies of the Fed & Treasury; Stagflation Has Already Begun (Will BOVOBs Glow in the Dark?) (11-12-07) US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson is publicly proclaiming that he supports a so-called “strong dollar” policy, even while the dollar is crashing around the world and losing value while we sleep. Officials of the Bush Cheney Regime, namely, the Treasury Secretary and the Chairman of the Fed Ben Bernanke, are now forced to publicly tow the regime’s line -- that the United States maintains a strong dollar policy, which, of course, is nonsense. What does his Orwellian double-speak really mean? How the Fed Rate Cut Sustains All Speculative Bubbles & What To Expect in the Future (11-5-07) Once again, by cutting interest rates, the Fed rides to the rescue of the market bubble. The Fed cut rates another 1/4 point as concern over excessive speculation in stock and commodity markets grows… The Anti-Bear Conspiracy: Markets Turned Upside Down (10-29-07) Who will tell the truth about how the markets are being manipulated? The market action we saw last week was unlike anything ever seen before. Particularly in the last two sessions of the week, it demonstrated the unbelievable level of coordinated manipulation that now exists among all markets, not simply in commodity markets, but equity and debt markets as well. This is simply the desperation of the bullish market shills to keep the markets afloat. The October Crash 20 Years Later: What Are Markets in Oil & Gold Telling Us Today? (10-22-07) As a reminder of Black Monday 20 years ago, the markets sold down sharply on Friday, Oct. 19, with the Dow losing nearly 400 points. Right at the end of the session, we saw some of the hedge funds come in with shill bids in the S&P at 1500. That was, by the way, to prevent the S&P cash index from settling below 1500, a key psychological level. And this, of course, has proved to be a common tactic of the hedge funds in their continuous effort to shill the markets. Future Not Bright for ‘Useless Eaters’ (10-15-07) Day by day, Bushonomics is making the future clearer. Wealth consolidation is speeding up. Expatriation is booming, and the newly formed class of so-called useless eaters will be seeing a not very bright future. In fact Bushonomics is accelerating the creation of the useless eater class. So let us paint a picture of what the next decade will look like. The picture became clearer last week with the release of income and wealth dispersion statistics within the United States, as seen on Bloomberg News as well as the newly released Zogby poll on expatriation. Boycott CNBC: Financial Media/ Retail Broker Conspiracy Enters Danger Zone (10-8-07) Somebody has to say it, and I might as well be the one. It’s time to boycott CNBC. Why? Because what I have called Wanton Bullish Shillism has crossed the line. CNBC, in its conspiracy with retail brokerages, who also happen to be advertisers, has continuously attempted to shill the markets and now it has become outright dangerous. In effect CNBC is teaching young investors, people just opening IRA and 401(k) accounts and starting to invest in securities, this “new” concept that “losses are good.” On Friday, October 5th, the segment done by David Faber on CNBC, announced that Merrill Lynch had taken a $4.5 billion loss in the third quarter. The inference then was when you lose $5B, you can sit back and watch your stocks go up. Greenspan Predicts Housing Market Collapse; Hillary Gets Full Support from Bush Cabal (10-1-07) Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan is still flogging his book “The Age of Turbulence,” (said turbulence having largely been caused by his policy decisions) and in the meantime is also predicting the collapse of the housing market. In fact his housing market predictions are frightening, even though what Greenspan is saying is nothing that hasn’t been said before. (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) The Bernanke Fed: Following the ‘Economic Collapse’ Script (9-24-07) This is the long and broad view of what Bernanke is doing with the Fed. He is simply inheriting and following the script, as it were, from the Greenspan Fed. The Greenspan Fed has been roundly criticized for reducing interest rates, thus creating a lot of cheap money, which has fueled speculative bubbles worldwide. Then there are the reasons why nobody applauds him because it’s an area that no one dares talk about… The Legacy of Alan Greenspan: Is He Responsible for the Global Speculative Bubbles?. (9-17-07) The Greenspan Fed policy consistently injected a lot of cheap money into the global economy -- money that was looking for a place to go. When there’s a lot of cheap money, because of a “loose-money” policy, that is very fertile ground for the creation of speculative bubbles in many asset classes. Greenspan is certainly largely responsible for the creation of asset bubbles, which would not have been created were it not for the Fed keeping interest rates too low for too long. Rich Republican Re-Gentrification Goes Global: A Bitch Slap to the Republican Working Class. (9-10-07) Regarding expatriation of US citizens, let us look at who they are, by breaking them down into classifications, like, for instance, retirees, who have expatriated from the United States since the late 1960s, which was the first expatriation wave into Mexico. The Bush-Bernanke Flop: No Safe Harbor For Investors During Current Economic Meltdown (9-3-07) The speeches by George Bush and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke were both flops. Their message? Help for the sub-prime junk bond debacle is NOT on the way. The Great Central Bank and Stock Market Conspiracies (That's Two - Two Conspiracies For the Price of One – And Guess Who's Paying?) (8-27-07) What has kept the sub-prime and related junk paper bubble from breaking and spreading financial ruin throughout the planet? This includes the conglomeration of junk debt and fictitiously priced Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) that were sold to investors around the world. After all, approximately $1.2 trillion of this junk paper has been packaged, repackaged and then sold to oftentimes unwitting buyers. What did the central banks do to keep this global debt bubble from popping? (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) Recession – Inflation – Deflation – Depression – Stagflation - Global Collapse…? (8-20-07) So what did the Federal Reserve do, why did they do it -- and most importantly, what can we expect next? On the Edge of the Precipice: How the Global Market Meltdown Was Averted – For Now… (8-13-07) Equity markets came down sharply last Thursday and most commodity boards also fell, after BNP Paribas, announced that they had effectively closed down the three sub-prime funds that they managed. Part of the problem is what they said as opposed to what their actions really were. This action touched a raw nerve that everyone has been trying to gloss over. In other words, these funds were suspended, meaning redemptions were suspended, which means effectively shutting them down. But it’s not because the funds ran out of money, it’s because they were unable to price the assets in the fund. Dictatorship in America: Protecting Corporate-Government Fraud (8-6-07) George Bush finally got his wish. When Bush became president in 2000, he famously stated, “If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier -- just so long as I'm the dictator.” (source) Now with new executive orders coming out with frequent regularity as well as the notorious PATRIOT Acts I & II and the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the American dictatorship is a fait accompli. (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) Market Analysis: Just a Sell-Off -- Not a Meltdown. So Far… (7-30-07) Global markets shuddered last week as the so-called “fear” bid prompted investors to transfer their holdings to government Treasury bonds, while $526.1 billion (half a trillion dollars) in shareholder wealth was wiped out from the stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500 index. Even though the market rebounded after a sharp drop, the so-called “flight to quality” bid continued amid concerns that the sub-prime mortgage debacle would infect other housing markets, while the yen carry trade, which facilitates cheap credit on a global scale, is now investors’ primary concern. The Multi-Trillion-Dollar Debacle: Anatomy of the Failing Hedge Fund Industry (7-23-07) The investment banks and their hedge funds are using their capital reserves to shore up their disappearing “assets” because of the failure of mortgage backed debt bombs also known as CDOs (Collateralized Debt Obligations), which are over-leveraged derivatives equivalent to junk debt. Bear Stearns is tapped out. Goldman Sachs has pretty deep pockets. But every day, they’re committing $150 million more of their own reserves to prevent having to mark down their junk bond inventories in what’s called “mark to the market.” So who’s actually pressuring them to go “mark to market”? What’s America’s Greatest Export? Junk Debt! And More on the Blackstone IPO Tax Scam (7-16-07) The decline of the American Empire continues apace. According to statistics released by the Department of Commerce last week, and as was widely reported in financial media, America’s leading export has now become junk debt in dollar terms. This is simply incredible for a once mighty manufacturing nation. Hedge Fund Industry Collapses; When Will The Derivative (CDO) Bubble Pop? (7-9-07) People don’t realize that the hedge fund industry has already begun to collapse. It’s just like that little bank in Austria that failed, which signaled the start of the Great Depression, as noted in “The Sound of Music” when the Von Trapp Family had to leave. People don’t pay attention because the hedge fund failures are all relatively small failures, but this year, for instance, an average of two so-called “small” hedge funds are collapsing every week. These are generally considered to be hedge funds with $500 million or less in assets. So who has invested in these hedge funds and how vulnerable are you to this global financial train wreck? The Bush Cabal’s Supreme Court: It’s the Best “Justice” Money Can Buy (7-2-07) This is the story of how Bush Cabal friendly courts help the “consolidation of wealth and power into higher tighter and righter hands,” as George Bush Sr. once said. The Blackstone Group & The Secret History of Bush Cabal Frauds (6-25-07) The Blackstone Group floated a $4-billion Initial Public offering (IPO) on Friday, June 22, 2007, marking a new benchmark of Bush Cabal Fraud. It was comprised of 133 million shares, priced at $31. That was the IPO price. However, what they sneakily did (and this is a come-on or a shill game) was, at the last minute on Thursday night, they authorized their broker dealers, or the syndicate managers handling the IPO, to sell up to an additional 20 million shares to prevent too much of a run-up in the stock on the first day. Why is that done? Because when the Joe Six-Pack Investors see that, they think -- Oh, boy. They’re going to run this stock to $43, (the whisper number around the floor) as extensively reported in financial media. This how you how Financial Media conspires with certain IPOs in order to hype them and get more Joe Six-Pack Investors in there. Then to augment that contention, Blackstone came out (and they waited until Friday morning, about an hour before the stock was going to start to trade) and told their broker dealers that they could actually sell an additional 20 million shares to prevent severe gyrations in the stock. So is the Blackstone Group IPO, the usual Republican pump and dump stock fraud scheme like they were back in the 1980's? The Bond Market “Scare”: What Does It Mean? (6-18-07) Last week’s sell-off in U.S. Treasury bonds was certainly dramatic. The interest rate on the benchmark bonds of other countries has been steadily rising in recent months, while rates on U.S. Treasuries have only really been rising in the last 30 days. What does this mean? Bond yields begin to rise, and conversely the value of bonds fall on the expectation of future inflation. That is still widely believed as the “acceptable” answer in the marketplace. Yet what we see in the United States is consistently falling rates of inflation. Thus it has become to use former Fed Chairman Sir Alan Greenspan’s word a “conundrum” in the marketplace. Google and Wikipedia Continue the Dumbing Down of America (6-11-07) The latest evidence of the dumbing down of America is the recent 24/7 media coverage of the Paris Hilton “controversy,” which supposedly exceeded the media ratings of 9/11. The American people are more interested in celebrities behind bars than they are in falling buildings. So whose agendas are being served? CNBC: Fake Financial News-Analysis as ‘Entertainment’ (6-4-07) CNBC is the best in presenting fake financial news and stock market investing information as entertainment. In fact, CNBC has become the American Empire version of Roman bread and circuses for the Latter Day USA. Stock Fraud Goes Global: Beijing Buys into Blackstone & Goldman Sachs Invents “Private” Stock Exchange (5-28-07) The announcement that Beijing is going to take a 9.9 % holding in the Blackstone IPO is unprecedented. What does this mean? American Life in a Post-Economically Collapsed World: A Contrarian View of Gold (5-21-07) In order to dispel the many myths that have been promoted by the Doom and Gloom Crowd, it’s time to describe in greater detail what Americans can expect in a post-economically collapsed world. Pop! Goes the Bubble: Why P/E Ratios Are Still Important (5-14-07) Market shills in the media tell us that the stock market is in the New New Economic Paradigm, but this is just nonsense -- just as it was in the infamous Dotcom Bubble of 1999-2000. The Yen Carry Trade: Will It Trigger Global Economic Collapse? (5-7-07) The Smart Republican Money says YES. Why Republicans Plan to Lose the 2008 Election (4-30-07) What’s the evidence? First of all there is the lack of initiative and coordination by the Republican National Committee (RNC). By this time, the RNC should have had a complete operational agenda for the 2008 election. They should have a fund-raising calendar. They should have the state party whip’s offices open. And they should be burning up the phones to get the grassroots organizers out. The RNC has done none of this. The Republican front-runners Senator John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani aren’t doing that well either. Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT): The Conspiracy of Silence Between the Democrats and Republicans (4-23-07) The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) is not a new tax, as some people believe. This tax has actually existed, in various forms, since the mid-1970s, but its original intent, of course, was to ensure that citizens with a large amount of unearned income, i.e., dividend interest, capital gain distribution income, etc., who also had substantial amounts of deductions through depreciation, amortization, interest cost, etc., would pay a minimum tax. Often by using what became increasingly exotic tax shelters, wealthy US citizens were able to shelter 100% or more of their “unearned income” and, then by the 1980s, even “earned income.” Hedge Funds: The Ultimate Scam (4-16-07) Hedge funds are like a con-man’s financial Battle of the Bands. Now former hedge fund losers are arraying themselves for the next skirmish. This one can be called “Former Amaranth Losers vs. Former Enron Losers.’ The question is -- which loser will prevail in a race to lose investors the most? The Great Junk Bond Conspiracy (4-9-07) Whatever you call it -- junk bonds or junk debt, it’s all part of a great global conspiracy now. The alarming decline in governmental and corporate credit quality that has occurred under the Bush Cheney Regime, using the fiscally reckless practice of “Bushonomics” (negative-debt-financed consumption) has now become, if you will, an “economic school of thought” that is being embraced worldwide. And this could be the sign of another global debacle… Coming Soon? New Trade War with China – Or US Market Collapse (4-2-07) On Friday, March 30th, there was a surprise announcement by US Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez, who is considered one of the Bush Cheney Regime’s ‘China hawks.’ Gutierrez announced that the United States would file a complaint with the WTO and go ahead with trade sanctions against China regarding hard-coated paper. "This Administration has aggressively enforced our anti-dumping laws to combat unfair Chinese trade," Gutierrez said. "China's economy has developed to the point that we can add another trade remedy tool, such as the countervailing duty law. The China of today is not the China of years ago. Just as China has evolved, so has the range of our tools to make sure Americans are treated fairly. By acting on the petition filed last October, the United States today is demonstrating its continued commitment to leveling the playing field for American manufacturers, workers and farmers.” In essence the United States has decided to slap anti-subsidy duties on imports of glossy paper from China. This move by the United States, which marked a reversal in policy for the first time in more than 20 years, was made to counteract alleged Chinese government subsidies to exporters. So what does this challenge to China really mean? “Private” Equity Group Blackstone Goes “Public” -- What Does This Scam Really Mean? (3-26-07) Private equity group Blackstone has publicly (and ironically) announced that it will go public through an IPO (Initial Public Offering). Even though all of the firm is owned by its partners, it will offer about 20% of the partners’ equity to the “public.” So what does this mean to the so-called small investor? PATRIOT Acts: The Conspiracy Against the Small Investor (3-19-07) Since the passage of the PATRIOT Acts, the conspiracy against the small investor has expanded to unprecedented levels because the Department of Homeland Security has become so intertwined with enforcing regulations by the SEC and CFTC, as well as many other of the nation’s securities regulators. The Hedge Fund Conspiracy: Trigger For A Global Economic Collapse? (3-12-07) So why are hedge funds poised for collapse? Recently I had a conversation with a 28-year-old hedge fund manager responsible for managing $1.2 billion of artificially created, borrowed money. And that’s what everybody should be worried about – the hedge fund industry… The Washington-Tokyo ‘Yen Carry Trade’ Conspiracy (3-5-07) The greatest conspiracy between the United States and Japan was hatched in the post-WW II environment and has become active since about 2003 or so. It is a sublime conspiracy between Washington and Tokyo, with Washington exerting the pressure, and the Bank of Japan going along with it for the same reasons Washington has wanted to flood the world with cheap Japanese money through what is called the “yen carry trade.” Understanding America’s Debt Sovereignty & Why the Bush Cheney Regime Has Sold It (2-17-07) What we mean by debt sovereignty is the ability of a nation state to control its own debt. A nation state whose population is unable to purchase all of the debt issued by that nation state, by the treasury or central bank of that nation state, must rely on foreign capital, or seek foreign capital as purchasers of said debt. The more foreign capital that buys debt, the more sovereignty of that nation is transferred to others. Surreal America and the Collapse of Empire (2-12-07) There is a growing surrealism and a widespread denial that exists in the United States regarding not only the Bush Cheney Regime, but the deteriorating fiscal and corporate financial situation. What this has done, as has happened before in the United States, is that it creates in America, Land of the Naive and Home of the Provincial, a surrealism that is the result of the American empire unraveling. Gold: Everybody’s Favorite Topic (2-5-07) Gold is the asset you want to own as a foundation for the economic instability that will flourish in the next decade. That is not just my speculation. You only need to listen to the Comptroller General of the United States, who uses those very words -- economic instability of the next decade. American Economics: How Short Selling Saved the USA (1-29-07) The United States, that “great experiment,” to use Benjamin Franklin’s words, when he spoke before Congress in Philadelphia on July 5th, 1776, has begun to fail. The United States has always been a nation conceived in debt and built on credit. PATRIOT Acts: The New De Facto Constitution (1-22-07) Last week Attorney General Alberto Gonzales appeared before Senator Arlen Specter, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to testify about the domestic spying program, which has been stalled in its implementation because of squabbles regarding who’s going to run it and who’s going to have the oversight capacity. Initially NSA was exposed by the New York Times in December 2005, as being authorized by Bush to monitor international phone calls and e-mails of citizens without first obtaining a court warrant from FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court. Referring to the right of habeas corpus which guarantees people the right of due process (being formally charged and a “fair” trial), Gonzales said -- “There is no expressed grant of habeas corpus in the Constitution; there’s a prohibition against taking it away.” Specter then said, “The Constitution says you can’t take it away except in case of rebellion or invasion. Doesn’t that mean you have the right of habeas corpus unless there’s a rebellion or invasion?” Gonzales answered, “The Constitution doesn’t say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended except in cases of rebellion or invasion.” Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution states that “the privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” Gonzales talks about the Constitution, but then says nothing about the PATRIOT Act. Why? Nobody wants to refer to the PATRIOT Act because they know it’s not politically popular. The reason why they don’t refer to the PATRIOT Act is twofold. First, it’s politically unpopular to do so. They know it’s not popular with the American people. Public opinion polls consistently show that the majority of Americans didn’t want it. That’s the reason why they don’t refer to it. The Democratic Majority: A Rich Republican’s Best Friend (1-15-07) What I predicted was going to happen is now taking place -- the Democrats are knuckling under to the Bush Cheney Regime’s demands for more corporate welfare packages and more tax cuts for those earning more than $200,000 per annum, in exchange for Republican support for the Democrats’ agenda, including minimum wage, health care and so-called ethics reform. The War on Iraq however is not an issue for anyone – despite the grumbling of some Democrats and even some Republicans. The Democrats are still afraid of being labeled ‘soft on defense” the age old fear of all Democrats. This shows how deep-seated this fear is despite the fact that 72% of Americans want out of Iraq – yesterday… Why DNI John Negroponte Is Going Back to the State Department (1-8-07) The Deputy Secretary of State is a position, that, in Bushonian Regimes, they put somebody, not to fill the position, because the position is often unfilled, but because with the Deputy Secretary of State’s position goes control of the State Department’s FNCO, or Foreign Narcotics Control Office. The Secrets Saddam Took to His Grave; Bush-Cheney Regime Attempts To Revise History (1-1-07) Why isn’t anyone asking any questions about how and why Saddam’s execution was speeded up? Saddam was on trial for the so-called second genocide charge in the bill of indictment against him. That trial's proceedings were suspended two weeks ago when the court adjourned, to allow Saddam 30 days to obtain new counsel because his most recent counsel, like four of his other counsels, had been murdered. It should be noted that it was always his most competent lawyers that died first. The trial was actually due to resume on January 14, and that was the motion before the Iraqi court, which had been granted. So what about the rest of the "anomalies" in the death of Saddam? State of the Nation: Entering 2007. More Bush Fraud. Uh Oh… (12-26-06) The reason why we have not been recently reporting about fresh Iraq related Bushonian Fraud, or fraud that had its genesis in Iraq, is because, once again, as was the case in the 1980's, Bushonian Fraud has become so complex, through such an interlocking web, and with such an enormous and covert paper trail to chase, that it is difficult it unravel and explain. This was also the case in the 1980's, through various Congressional committee hearings, mostly from 1987 to 1992, which we’ve written about in the past on AlMartinRaw.com and in my book The Conspirators, so that eventually you can’t get public support for continuing investigations of Bushonian Fraud because it becomes so obtuse and so complex that the public simply tunes it out and will not politically support, even within the ranks of the opposing party, continued investigative efforts. More False Internet Rumors: Trillion Dollars Dumped by China? Not So. (12-18-06) Internet rumors claim that China will dump $1 trillion in U.S. reserves. What’s wrong with this picture? As usual conspiracy theorists miss the timing once again. The gold bugs and hard-money people have consistently been pushing this story and once again they are wrong. Strange Bedfellows: Pat Buchanan Defends Putin in the Litvinenko Affair (12-4-06) Why is perennial losing candidate for US President, Pat Buchanan, apologizing for Putin? The conservative Pat Buchanan is being uncommonly liberal with his pal Vlad Putin, in defending him in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian security service operative. Is Pat Buchanan really naive, or just pretending? Or is Pat simply trying to protect his syndication fee for the English-language edition of Pravda, which carries his columns? Only Pat knows... Spy vs. Spy: The Strange Death of Lt. Col. Alexander Litvinenko (11-27-06) Living in London, Alexander Litvinenko was a retired Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB’s successor, the Russian Federal Security Service (RFSS). He had effectively defected to Britain, claiming that Russian president Vladimir Putin was committing wholesale murder of ex-KGB people and even some RFSS people who had been critical of him inside Russia and that, in fact, the Putin Regime had engineered assassinations of Russian dissidents outside of Russia. The people assassinated were those that had a soapbox to stand on to attack Vladimir Putin and the Putin Machine.One reason they didn’t let him in the United States was that U.S. shareholders, who were taking on enormous risks by U.S. companies, principally oil and mining companies, investing in Russia and the Putin Regime was simply confiscating assets, on a regular basis, of U.S. oil companies that had paid out billions for a share of these Russian assets. U.S. oil companies were so anxious to get a toehold in Russia that they were willing to invest billions and then had half of that money taken from them in some fashion a year or two later by the Russian government, or by being extorted by the Putin Regime. The Yukos debacle is a prime example of the Putin Regime’s activity in this regard. How the Bush Cabal Subverted Milton Friedman’s Economics (11-20-06) Economist Milton Friedman, who died at the age of 94 on November 16, always maintained the concept that if government would adhere to the law, it would act in the best interest of the people. In other words, he had no idea that the Bush Cabal would take his work and subvert it the way it was done. He could not envision what was done to his economic theories. When Friedman got into the real world of how everything really works, he really couldn’t handle it. In the late 1980s you didn’t see him on media as much anymore. He became very reclusive. So what exactly did the Bush Cabal do to effectuate their scam? The Secret and Sordid History of Robert Gates (11-13-06) Former CIA chief Robert Gates has been nominated to replace Donald Rumsfeld as the Secretary of the Department of Defense in another commingling of the military and so-called intelligence functions, just as former NSA chief General Michael Hayden has become the head of the CIA. The Iran Contra role of Bobby Gates has been discussed in my book The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider. So what are the implications of the Bush Regime mixing military and intelligence functions in this new appointment? Once again as in the 1980s the intelligence community is riding roughshod over the decisions of military commanders. Political expediency once again dominates military decision making. “Stuck in Iraq”? The Truth Has Its Consequences; Dictatorships-R-Us: America and Europe (11-6-06) Last week Senator John Kerry told Pasadena City College students that “if you study hard do your homework and make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.” Naive flag-wavers, beware. Do you want semi-literate Appalachian trailer-park teens defending your nation? The only thing Kerry was doing was telling the truth. Naturally pro-Bush media outlets like FOX jumped all over him and said he was insulting our troops. In fact, if you saw the interviews, none of the actual troops really seemed to feel that way -- which brought out Kerry’s point that they weren’t smart enough to realize that they were being insulted. The War on Iraq: A Sordid & Tawdry Bushonian Farce (10-30-06) Bush made a national address on October 25th. He should have kept his mouth shut. The subject matter was Iraq, and he fumbled and fumbled. He was hanging on to the podium and looking around, trying to get his eyes focused. He seemed to say that he is no longer using the words, “We’ll stay the course.” Those words are out, at Karl Rove’s insistence, but “The Base,” not to be confused with al Qaeda, need not be concerned because “we will prevail,” no matter how many billions of dollars we have to borrow of other people’s money to pour into the endless sand dunes of Iraq. Now what the Bush Cheney Regime is trying to do is shift the blame. Now the War on Iraq is being described as, “the Iraqi debacle.” That is the new media term. Bush is attempting to disguise the fact that the situation in Iraq is completely destabilized. Even Tony Blair said this on the Prime Minister’s question section on BBC, that the situation in Iraq is totally destabilized. In fact, the more than $300 billion the United States has borrowed from the rest of the planet to pour into its prosecution of hostilities in Iraq has effectively been for naught. So now what? The American Gulag Bill & the Nancy Pelosi Stock Market Rally: Why the Bush Cabal Wants Democrats to Win the Election (10-23-06) On Oct. 17, in a White House ceremony, George Bush Jr. has signed the so-called Military Commissions Act of 2006. As such the construction of the American Gulag has received a major boost, with the signing of what we are calling the “American Gulag Bill.” Interestingly enough while George Bush was hanging precariously on the left side of the podium supporting himself, he said that the signing of this bill would help further prosecute the war on terrorism by terrorizing the nation. As you can imagine, this typical Bushonian gaffe was not replayed. It has also been confirmed through our sources, that, as we suspected, the portable podiums that George Bush uses to give speeches are now clamped down, so he doesn’t knock them over, when he’s leaning against them in an effort to prop himself up. When you’re three sheets to the wind, you need all the help you can get. Not George. It’s not three sheets to the wind -- if your last name is Bush. It’s three and a half sheets. But who’s counting? Bushonian Budget Deficits: The Great Lie of Bushonomics -- Why the Bush Regime Doesn’t Mind Losing the Election (10-16-06) The temerity of the Bush Cheney Regime jumped to another level last week when the regime touted the U.S. Treasury’s release of the final budget deficit for 2006. The United States fiscal year runs from September 30 to September 30. The Treasury then announced that the total Bushonian budget deficit for 2006 came in at $223 billion, and that was about $31 billion less than the most recent projections. George Bush, in a public address last Wednesday, touted the fact that the regime had met yet another one of its promises: to cut the budget deficit in half before it left office. This is so laughable because people forget that it was this regime which inherited a fiscal surplus, from which the budget deficit was created to begin with. Bush actually tried to play some revisionist history and intimated that the budget deficits were the fault of the preceding regime, despite the fact he inherited a $158-billion fiscal surplus. GOP Sexcapades in DC Babylon: The Hidden History (10-9-06) Before the Mark Foley gay sex scandal, there is a long and sordid history of the Gay Republicans in Washington DC, which includes the Cupid Club, the Capitol Club, and Capitol Escort Service Inc. There was even an incident when George Bush Sr. was allegedly caught in a completely accidental sting when the Washington police raided the wrong building. American Dictatorship: Sponsored By the Bush Regime and a Rubber Stamp Congress (10-2-06) With the complicity of a rubber-stamp Congress, which passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the Bush Regime continues its headlong rush into American Dictatorship. The Military Commissions Act has been accurately compared to Hitler’s 1933 Enabling Act, as well as the United States’ Alien and Sedition Act of 1798 and of course of 1942. The Post-Bush Regime Future: Stocks You Want To Own in an American Dictatorship (9-25-06) So what is the Post-Bush Regime Future? It is a permanent war economy, which means the continuous maintenance of a de-facto state of war, combined with increased privatization of public assets, along with a conversion of the United States from a democracy into a dictatorship. Of course, there are numerous historical parallels, since it has always been profitable for certain people who have the foresight to invest in companies that are going to see their revenues enhanced under a dictatorship. Welcome to Serf City, USA & The American Gulag: Bush Wants Torture Testimony Admissible in Court (9-18-06) The Bush-Cheney Regime was dealt a setback last week with regards to the establishment of a military tribunal system in the United States. The sticking point is not so much the establishment of such a system but the use of torture to extract information. Bush Cheney Regime Prepares More Laws for US Police State (9-11-06) The Bush-Cheney Regime is conspiring with Congress in a push to enact the remaining legislation to finalize a de facto US Police State. (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN – SUBSCRIBE NOW) Commodity Futures Trading: A Primer (9-4-06) It constantly amazes me -- the number of would-be commodity futures traders that come to InsiderIntelligence.com, eager to trade, yet who know absolutely nothing about commodity futures. More importantly, they don’t even know the very basic mechanics of the market. And that’s the purpose of this column. Before you can trade, you have to know the basics. In order to be a trader, what you need to learn before you ever start is the symbols for everything that you’re trading. You have to understand either the first or second letters of what is typically a 3-letter symbol to tell you what the commodity is. The final letter in the symbol is the contract month. So you need to learn the symbols and the months. Not only the individual items you’re trading, but you need to learn the symbol for each month. Bushonian Asset Seizure: Sanctified by US Courts; Thomas Jefferson Rolls Over in His Grave (8-28-06) The tempo of Bushonian asset seizure quickens, as currency and gold are targeted for confiscation due to the latest ruling by the 8th Circuit Court. A three-judge panel of the Federal Appeals Court in the 8th Circuit has ruled that if a motorist is carrying “large” sums of money, it is automatically subject to confiscation. In the case entitled: “United States of America v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency,” a man named Emiliano Gomez Gonzolez, who the court affirmed had a ‘lack of significant criminal history’ and was “neither accused nor convicted of any crime” had $124,700 seized which the appeals court has ruled has no recourse to recover his money. The facts of the case are that “on May 28, 2003, a Nebraska state trooper signaled Gonzolez to pull over his rented Ford Taurus on Interstate 80, after which his car was searched and his money was taken from him. The money happened to be the life savings of several people, who intended to purchase a refrigerated truck for a produce business. Gonzolez was not charged with the commission of any crime, but his money was charged with being illegal. This was done despite the fact that he was not charged with having garnered or earned that money in any unlawful capacity. Driving with money and/or gold is now a crime in Bushonian Cabalist America. Domestic Surveillance in America: Get Used to It; Pensions for Retirees: Forget About It (8-21-06) The National Security Agency’s (NSA) Spying-on-America program, also known as no-warrant wiretapping, was struck down by U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, finding the surveillance program to be unconstitutional, by violating the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution, the separation of powers principle laid out in the Constitution, and a 1978 law enacted to regulate domestic spying by the government (FISA). In her 43-page opinion, Taylor wrote that the Bush Regime “appears to argue here that ... because the president is designated commander in chief of the Army and Navy, he has been granted the inherent power to violate not only the laws of the Congress, but the First and Fourth Amendment of the Constitution itself.... There are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution… so all inherent powers must derive from that Constitution… The public interest is clear in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution.” So what’s the problem? First of all, this is not the first federal district judge to strike down, or attempt to strike down, the domestic surveillance program. This is the third time it’s happened. In the previous two cases, where district judges struck down the domestic surveillance-and warrant-less wiretapping program, these decisions were quickly reversed by the appropriate appellate circuits–once in the 9th Circuit, once in the 4th Circuit. RED ALERT: Danger Ahead for Wanna-Be Terrorists & Would-Be Pensioners (8-14-06) More wanna-be terrorists have allegedly been caught in the U.K. The whole plot unfolded at approximately 4 a.m. on Thursday August 10, when it was suddenly announced that British police had arrested 50, not suspects, but 50 wanton and hardened terrorists. They were allegedly coming to the United States on various UAL and Delta flights. Supposedly they were going to mix chemical explosives on the plane, seize the planes and then blow them up over cities or run them into buildings. The media called it “Britain says it foils mass murder plane bomb plot.” And all hell broke loose – just in time to get people scared before the November mid-term elections. Of course this wanna-be terrorist plot made great trading opportunities for the traders on Insider Intelligence.com The Bush Cheney Regime: Militarizing the Civilian Judicial System and Privatizing the Police State (8-7-06) The Bush Cheney Regime has declared open season on all Americans, by trying to circumvent the Supreme Court’s recent Hamdan decision in order to militarize the US justice system and make an end run around posse comitatus. The Washington Post noted this in an article called “White House proposal would expand authority of military courts.” (August 2, 2006). From the article, it is clear that the Bush Cheney regime wants to use special military courts that would expand the authority of the Bush administration to go after domestic so-called “enemies of the state.” This would “include trials for the first time of people who are not members of al-Qaeda, the Taliban or who are not directly involved in acts of international terrorism. The plan, which would replace the military trial system ruled [unconstitutional] by the Supreme Court, would also allow the Secretary of Defense to add crimes at will to those under the military court’s jurisdiction. The two provisions would be likely to put more individuals than previously expected before military juries.” This is the latest and most ominous move by the Regime. The first column written for the Al Martin Raw website in the winter of 2000 asked the question “What will it be like with George Bush Jr. as president?” The answer was – “It will be a return to the ‘Bushonian’ form of government -- namely a government of shadowy cliques, secret commissions and de facto star chambers.” What does this mean? (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN – SUBSCRIBE NOW) Bush-Cheney Regime Prepares U.S. for a Bleak Future (7-31-06) The Bush-Cheney Regime has been transitioning the nation from a democracy to a dictatorship, using PATRIOT Act legislation and gradually usurping the constitutional guarantees and protections of citizens. It should be noted that the Regime has also drawn up a plan to transition the nation from a First World nation into a Third World nation. These two transitions classically go hand in hand, by the way, and that shouldn’t come as any surprise to anybody, since dictatorships that used to be democracies are created when the economies of these democratic nation-states collapse. Of course, who better to draw up a master plan, as it were, for this transition from a First to a Third World nation-state than that regime whose economic policies are causing the decline of the American empire in the first place. So what does this portend for the U.S.? The Future of America? (7-24-06) Former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie is going to form a new and sinister group, using as the nucleus the mailing list from GeorgeBush.com, which was essentially the most rabid and most naive pro-Bush-faction people in the country within the grassroots Right. This new organization is going to be called Guardians of American Liberty, but it’s going beyond the political. It’s being very carefully organized to effectively coordinate a new individual citizen database with the National Security Agency and the Office of Internal Security. It will take the 3 million so-called loyalists that were put together under GeorgeBush.com and organize them to be utilized even better. By the way, this is going to cost millions to do this. The funding to do this is coming from a shadowy Netherland-Antilles registered offshore corporation called “Trilateral Communications Limited,” which we have mentioned before. It’s another Republican offshore slush fund, which was used in the Iran Contra era to finance payoffs. Geopolitics in the Middle East: What Will Happen in the Current Crisis? (7-17-06) We’ve been down this road many times before in the last 25 years, the situation in which Israel has invaded and re-occupied the so-called Northern Security Zone in Lebanon, an area that the Israeli government claims control over, and which goes about 20 miles inside or beyond the Israeli-Lebanese border just south of the city of Tyre, Lebanon. So what does the current situation between Israel and Lebanon really mean in terms of oil prices and the likely outcome of this conflict? In Defense of Enron (Defending Reality) (7-10-06) If Enron was established as a Bushonian fraud, it would be a more interesting story. But as is so often the case, Enron was a legitimate company, which originally started out life as Houston Energy. It didn’t start out life as a Bushonian fraud. And it didn’t end up as a Bushonian fraud. What happened to Enron towards the end is what frankly has happened to many corporations. The officers, principals and directors become desperate to prop it up because they had such a huge vested interest in it themselves. And therein lies part of the problem: SEC regulations that I have long pointed out. You don’t see that in other nations -- the high level of corporate fraud that exists in the United States. America: From Would-Be Empire to Wanna-Be Dictatorship (7-3-06) Using the pretense of allegedly fighting the so-called “War on Terror,” the Bush Cheney Regime has in effect declared war on the American investor. It has been using the PATRIOT II Act anti-terrorist money laundering statutes to significantly disrupt average investors, who are being harmed financially by these laws, not only in the United States, but globally because so many countries have signed onto this accord. However, the real intent of these statutes is still hidden to most US citizens. FBI Catches More Phony Terrorists; BOVOB Plot Fails (6-26-06) American citizens can sleep safely now. The Sears Tower toilets are secured, and a sinister gang of allegedly Haitian plumbers has been arrested. The would-be terrorist incident that the FBI set up is ludicrous. And it is a joke. The FBI and the Department of Justice have bungled once again in this goofy entrapment scheme. The problem is they let FBI director Robert Mueller talk last Friday at an FBI press conference. And he gave a completely different story at 10:30 a.m. Eastern than what Alberto Gonzales said at 11:30 a.m. Eastern at the Department of Justice press conference. Gonzales directly contradicted everything that Mueller had said as well as all information that has been put out by all other agencies. U.S. Supreme Court Murders the Fourth Amendment (6-19-06) The Supreme Court decision in Hudson v. Michigan effectively allows police and any law enforcement agency, including the military in a post- Posse Comitatus environment, to forcibly enter a U.S. citizen's premises, which means breaking down the door. While breaking and entering, they don't even have to identify themselves anymore as police. They have the right, granted them by the Supreme Court, to simply rush in and use whatever force is necessary, including explosives, to open the front door -- without identifying themselves, knocking on the door or ringing the bell. This is law enforcement getting its revenge. The Gold Bugs vs. Gold Bulls Conspiracy: Who’s Right? (6-12-06) Gold -- Has there been a global governmental conspiracy to depress its price? Yes. And No. Whistleblowers Beware: U.S. Supreme Court Rules You Have No Rights (6-05-06) The recent Supreme Court decision (Garcetti v. Ceballos) destroys the last vestiges of the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1986 and will effectively end any further government or corporate whistle-blowing. The decision effectively limits First Amendment protection for government whistleblowers since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protections do not extend to government employees for comments made while performing their official duties, even when the employee is acting to expose alleged government wrongdoing. In a 5-4 decision (Garcetti v. Ceballos) the court overturned a Ninth Circuit ruling, which extended free speech protection to an employee in the L.A. District Attorney’s office. The court majority wrote that: "Exposing government inefficiency and misconduct is a matter of considerable significance.... Public employees should 'as a matter of good judgment' be receptive to constructive criticism offered by employees that dictates a sound judgment, reinforced by the powerful network of legislative enactments such as whistleblower protection laws and labor codes available to those who seek to expose wrongdoing." Bush-Cheney Regime Winning Its War Against American Democracy (5-29-06) The constitutional crisis in America has been accelerated. The case of the German national Khalid el-Masri, who was kidnapped by the U.S. government and subsequently sued, was thrown out when the court ruled that this was a "state secrets" case. Meanwhile Bush has given intelligence czar John Negroponte the authority to waive SEC rules on behalf of corporations. Last week Louisiana Democrat William Jefferson's office was raided by the FBI, while House Speaker Republican Dennis Hastert is being investigated by the FBI in connection with the Jack Abramoff bribery scandal. On Friday, May 26, an alleged gunman turned the Capitol into a "lock-down," allowing a Swat team to search the Sam Rayburn Congressional Building door to door. What does it all mean? Is this a sign of a government coup d’etat that has moved from slow motion into fast mode? Conspiracies of State: Government Business As Usual (5-22-06) The hearings for Gen. Michael Hayden as the new CIA director are an example of how successful the Bush-Cheney Regime has been with its media allies in crafting confirmation hearings for sensitive posts. This was also the case with Bush Cabalist John Negroponte as the new head of intelligence as well as Bush Cabalist Porter Goss as the previous head of the CIA. The Regime has effectively sidelined news on confirmation hearings into smaller media outlets. In the Hayden confirmation hearings, the only media to provide full coverage, or so-called door-to-door coverage, was C-SPAN-2 and PBS. Only 13% of people even get PBS as part of their cable or satellite subscription. Now they have ensured that almost all of the questions that members of Congress intended to ask in open session could not be asked because the Regime had declared such questions to be matters of "National Security." Therefore, this was a hearing that was nothing more than a lot of pabulum, where nothing of any policy interest was really discussed. When Hayden was asked a question he would answer -- Well, Senator, you'll have to trust me. Hayden's attitude on everything was: You’ll have to trust me. He is saying that it's all based on personality, and that his confirmation is an issue of "character" and nothing else. This was in response to a question about whether Hayden would bring the CIA into the orbit of the DoD, which he frankly didn’t deny. Why didn't he deny it? He didn't have to, and he knew it. Who among the American public was listening? The Militarization of U.S. Intelligence: Pentagon Spying on America (5-15-06) There are at least two major Republican scandals in Washington. The Foggo-Goss Scandal at the CIA is just another typical Republican booze, sex and corruption scandal. The second scandal concerns Heinrich Himmler look-alike General Michael Hayden, the most recent former head of the NSA, who was one of the architects of the "Spying on America" program. Indeed, as head of the NSA, Hayden had a much more expansive database built, encompassing all "disloyal citizens", all citizens who had publicly criticized the leader, the Regime or its policies, or, in other words, all citizens who were potential "Enemies of the State." Hayden also has some very "peculiar" ideas about 4th Amendment. Hayden believes that 4th Amendment protections should be scrapped altogether, since "loyal citizens" do not need to hide behind constitutional guarantees. Only the "seditious" need such "protection." New Threat Looms: South America Begins Re-Nationalization of Resources -- And What It Means To You (5-8-06) The new left-wing Bolivian government of Evo Morales has moved to re-nationalize its oil and gas assets. The Morales government also said that it would act to re-nationalize its mining and agricultural industries. The word “re-nationalization” must be used in all south-of-the-border countries since all South American countries have acted at various times in the past 40 years to nationalize their assets. Why? The resurgence of the so-called Hard Left in Central and South America is a symptom of the failure of the CIA after Iran-Contra and Iraq-Gate to be able to successfully work with traditional right-wing elements (particularly in the military) in order to continuously suppress left-wing political factions -- as it has always been done. Washington has been always afraid of the far left south of the border. This is a problem of short term memory – the same symptom in South America that is also evident in the United States, since there have been enough people born in south-of-the-border countries that don’t remember the debacle that the nationalization of assets created the first time in the 1960-70s. So what happened? $3 Gas: The Bush Cabal Wins Again (5-1-06) The rise in gas prices is due to the egregious profits that the Bush Cheney Regime has allowed in refiners’ profit margins. For instance, last week, according to Platt’s, the nationwide average refiners’ profit margin was $22.76 a barrel. How did this happen? Rosneft: BushFraud Russian Style (4-26-06) The Russian state oil company Rosneft is preparing what has been called the world's largest Initial Public Offering (IPO) of stock. Rosneft, built with the assets of Yukos, which used to be Russia’s biggest oil company until it was forced into bankruptcy by Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who slapped a $28 billion back tax claim, precipitating its bankruptcy and the loss to small American investors of tens of billions of dollars. In essence the Russian government purposely bankrupted Yukos and wiped out shareholder equity by proffering up giant bogus tax liens against the company and arresting Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the principal owner of Yukos and convicting him of tax evasion. The New Frontier for US Expatriates: Russia and China (4-17-06) Lately I've been noticing that there are a lot more ads aimed at Americans on CCTV-9 (China Central Television). They run employment ads directed towards the U.S. market, the bulk of which are what I would describe as "specialty-skilled labor" -- oil field and mining engineer types, as well as certain types of advanced equipment operators. Plus, they run an endless slew of job ads for what I would describe as middle and upper middle management. Is China the new frontier for U.S. expatriates? Bushonomics: The Economic Genocide of the Middle Class (4-10-06) Bushonomics has pushed America beyond the point of no return. Citizens for Tax Justice in conjunction with the IRS issued a shocking report that verifies what we have been writing about for many years. The study puts numbers to the gross unfairness of Bushonian disproportional tax cuts, and it shows the numbers of all citizens by income bracket, how they have benefited or not, with regards to all of the tax cuts have occurred under the Bush Regime. No nation-state in the last 2,000 years has had such an enormous transfer of wealth from the bottom 50% of the population to the top 20% of the population, as has occurred in the United States under the current Regime. Never before in history has such a transfer of wealth been effectuated. And this is what it means… Insider Trading by Congressmen, Old Frauds, New Frauds & Bawag Bank Derivatives (4-3-06) Pro-Bush-faction Republicans are up in arms over Senator Charles Schumer's proposal to finally make insider trading also illegal for members of Congress. There are no specific criminal statutes that prevent members of Congress from engaging in illegal insider trading of securities using the knowledge they gain through congressional committees, particularly the House and Senate Banking, as well as Insurance and Finance Subcommittees. During hearings, Congressmen become aware of various parties testifying for a variety of reasons. Often sensitive financial documents are furnished which are not available to shareholders because it would give those who possess this information the ability to potentially purchase shares before a takeover or merger, or to sell short shares of corporations that will soon be in some sort of trouble. This illegal insider trading by Congressmen has been protected for a long time. So what's new? Post-PATRIOT America: Will Russia and China Be the Last Bastions of Freedom? (3-27-06) There are more new warning signs for U.S. would-be expatriates. Will Russia and China become the last bastions of economic freedom, capitalism, and individual asset protection? What sounds like political science fiction could become reality. The American Gulag Dictatorship: New Growth Industry and Investor Opportunity (3-20-06) Former Drug Czar General Barry McCaffrey was interviewed on Bloomberg, where it seemed like he was seen angling for the new job of American Gulag Czar, also known as ReichsMinister of Gulags. He went on and on about internal domestic security, pointing out that the new buzzword for CILF’s, or Civilian Inmate Labor Facilities, is now PDF, as in Political Detention Facilities. McCaffrey was pitching hard to be in charge of this latest growth industry under Bushonomics -- not only building these facilities, but ultimately managing them as well. PATRIOT Act & Bush-Cheney Regime Move the US Further Down the Road to Dictatorship (3-13-06) US citizens should be reminded, as the schoolteacher in Colorado quickly learned, that it is unlawful to criticize George Bush or the Bush-Cheney Regime outside of a “free speech zone.” Citizens should also be reminded of government agencies’ increased powers, slipped into the extension of the so-called USA PATRIOT Act, that include a new carte blanche the Department of Justice has to spy on businesses of any size. They can ask businesses for business records without subpoena, under the heading of expanded PATRIOT powers. Nevertheless citizens should be aware this is being billed to the American people by pro-Bush faction media, principally led by Fox, as a “victory” for civil libertarians. Who Profits from the Dubai Deals? It’s a Bush-Fraud Refi (3-6-06) There are two Dubai deals under scrutiny. The first was the Dubai Ports World buyout of P&O, a UK based company that manages ports around the world. The second is the buyout of the British defense contractor called Doncaster by the Dubai Investment Capital Group, which is a private company not a Dubai state controlled company. The Dubai Investment Capital Group has investors, which include the ruling family of Kuwait and Dubai, the Bush-family-controlled Pilgrim Investment Trust, the Dick and Lynn Cheney Trust as well as the usual Bushonian Cabal like Henry Kissinger, Paul Bremer, James Baker, George Schultz et al. By the way, the group was put together by the lead securities consultant, which is, of course, the Carlyle Investment Group. It is essentially a large investment capital group that has been formed which is very similar to a limited partnership. And this is what it all means… (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) P&O/ Dubai Deal Prompts Senior Washington Democrats To Look at Iran Contra Connections: A Blast from the Past (2-27-06) Subscribers interested in the welfare of Al Martin might want to know that Kroll Security made a concerted effort last week to locate Al Martin and to send somebody to talk to him, using the excuse of the lawsuit by Julian Robertson against Al Martin Raw. So last Saturday, we were visited by Wayne Barnes, 29-year retired FBI agent, who formerly worked in a variety of counterintelligence capacities, including CI-2, the specialty Soviet counterintelligence bureau in Washington during the 1980s. Mr. Barnes knew all the names; he knew Karpov and Shvets and he appeared to be a man well-versed in Iran Contra lore, having known all of the agency directors in Miami in the 1980s. Why the Democratic Party Should Be Dissolved 2-20-06 (WARNING: Members of the Naive Flag-Waving Crowd may find the contents of this article unsettling.) The following column explains the reasons why the Democratic Party should be dissolved -- and with it, dissolved one of the great lies of the "American political theater." The KGB’s Second Coming to America (This Time They’re Invited.) (2-13-06) In a recent interview with former KGB General Yevgeny Primakov made note of the fact that he and his erstwhile ex-KGB chums, Generals Oleg Kalugin and Alexander Karpov, along with the former East German secret police chief (Stasi) General Marcus Wolf, and, of all people, General Richard Secord had formed a new company headquartered in beautiful downtown Sophia, Bulgaria, with the name that sounds like Trans-Global Security Consulting Group Ltd. The purpose of this new outfit is going to be providing security consulting and, more specifically, training for the heads of what will be, in the post-PATRIOT III environment, the new political organization of the Neighborhood Watch Association, as well as training for the CDF (Civilian Defense Force) when it is fully funded. After their (Generals Primakov, Kalugin, Karpov and Wolf’s) service to the Department of Homeland Security as domestic security advisors, Primakov was certain that they could get the job done: the job being to provide training as a de facto secret police or, to use General Kalugin’s words, the formation of a new Gestapo in the United States. The Dawning of the New Sino-Russian Global Supremacy As the Sun Sets Over the American Empire (2-6-06) For the first time, the whole world saw the Chinese and the Russians flexing not only their new economic muscle, but their new political muscle as well. It is becoming evident that Russia and China are coming together to formulate a new Sino-Russian Middle East policy. That policy was made evident last week when Russian foreign minister Lavrov effectively attempted and embarrassed the Bush-Cheney Regime, when the Bush-Cheney Regime said it would not independently refer Iran to the United Nations for sanctions without the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) first making the recommendation. What makes this so laughable is that the Bush-Cheney Regime has consistently attacked the IEA, saying that it is just a conglomeration of weak-kneed social welfarist Europeans who have consistently coddled Iran. Yet it is this very same Bush-Cheney Regime, which now wants to hide behind the skirts of the IEA, as it were, in order to prevent having to be the power, as a member of the Security Council, which refers Iran to the United Nations for potential sanctions regarding the Iranian nuclear program. What does this portend for the future? The Real Story Behind Homeland Security’s Power to Confiscate Safe Deposit Boxes (1-30-06) Homeland Security has begun exercising its new power to 'identify' the contents of your safe deposit box. This news should be seen in the context of the many rumors floating around on the internet. The so-called temporary re-authorization of the PATRIOT I and II legislation included the power, which gives the Department of Homeland Security an unprecedented power to 'identify' assets held in citizens' private safe deposit boxes. This, by the way, was in the so-called fine print, which people didn't notice at first. This is an unprecedented power for any government to have. In fact, no so-called democratic government has had this power since Germany from 1934 to 1945... How Bushonomics Destabilizes the Global Economy (Part II: The Chinese Gambit) (1-23-06) A dangerous new trend has been developing since July 2005. Although foreign fund flows into the United States are continuing to rise, the percentage of those funds being committed to the purchase of U.S. Treasury instruments continues to decline. Of course, this is something that the Bush-Cheney Regime is quietly nervous about, although Treasury Secretary John “Snow Job” Snow consistently claims publicly that the regime is not concerned. Yet, in fact, the regime is quite concerned because, without the ability to finance Bushonian triple deficits (current account, budgetary and trade deficits) ultimately this has an effect on the regime’s political policies. What is the likely outcome of this trend? How Bushonomics Destabilizes the Global Economy (Part I): The Russian Gambit (1-16-06) What the Russians have an interest in doing is containing the Middle Eastern problem and preventing it from spreading into the former Soviet states. That’s what the Russians’ move was all about to shut down natural gas sales to Ukraine. It was meant to be a warning to the rest of the Transcaucas states, reminding them that although they themselves are rich in energy, and even richer than the Federal Republic of Russia, they do not have the capital or technical know-how to exploit those reserves. Russia and Putin in specific want to show the former Soviet nations just who is boss. What does this mean for the continuation of Bushonomics? Bushonomics, Corporate Credit Quality & the Achilles Heel of Stock Market Rallies. (1-09-06) The negative global effects of Bushonomics are seriously under-appreciated by investors, as the growing deterioration of government and corporate credit quality becomes more evident since the installation of the Bush-Cheney Regime. This is actually a twofold whammy. During the practice of Bushonomics, the planet has seen a record deterioration in corporate credit quality in the United States. For example -- and this is a stunning statistic -- since the installation of the Bush Cheney Regime, the credit (median credit quality of the S&P 1000 Index) has declined by 30%. What does this mean for investors? We're All Republicans Now. We're Either Rich Republicans. Or We Are Banana Republicans... (1-2-06) The year 2005 has been another stellar year for the top 20% of the United States of America. It can also be reported that the goal, or the "magic number" has finally been reached. That number relates to what George Bush Senior said in 1992 – the goal of having the top 1% of the nation controlling 70% of all the private wealth in the nation. That number is even a little deceptive because that private wealth also includes "public wealth" because of the concentration of holdings of U.S. Treasury and governmen't obligations by the top 1% of the nation. However Bushonomics should be lauded for accomplishing its agenda. People should be reminded of what George Bush Senior said (which we have mentioned many times before) in the famous interview of November 1992. When he was asked what Bushonomics was, Senior replied by saying -- Bushonomics is the continuous consolidation of money and power into higher, tighter and righter hands. And this is how the Bushonian agenda was advanced in 2005... Bush Family Crime Story: Iran-Contra Memories (12-26-05) The White House announced that Bush has pardoned Wendy St. Charles, currently a lawyer for the infamous MDC Holdings in Denver. St. Charles was convicted on drug charges in 1984 and sentenced to four years in prison. It was also reported that "MDC's chairman, Larry Mizel, has contributed more than half a million dollars to Republican campaigns." And this, as they say, is the rest of the story, the connection between Wendy St. Charles and Iran-Contra narcotics trafficking and the Bush Family... Homeland Security Declares Open Season on America (12-19-05) The shooting – murder of a US citizen by federal air marshals at the Miami International Airport presages a new era in the United States -- an age in which everyone is presumed to be a “terrorist” or “enemy of the state.” On Friday, Dec. 16th, the important Senate vote to extend parts of the PATRIOT Act due to sunset on December 31 of 2005 was voted down. A Senate filibuster led by Democrats and moderate Republicans was expected because they did not have sufficient votes to defeat the bill. The morning of Dec 16 was, of course, the release of the front page New York Times article, regarding thousands of telephone conversations now being monitored regularly in the United States by the NSA and a host of other federal agencies. The majority of the phone conversations were by various native-born, Caucasian U.S. citizens who are members of various anti-Bush groups, which is really a catchall that covers anyone from “anti-abortion” to “pro-environment” to literally any group or organization that disagrees with Bushonian policies. Central Bankers of the World Unite: New Mandate for Inflation, Protectionism & Gold (12-12-05) In written responses to members of the House Banking Committee last week, outgoing Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan made several interesting comments, which immediately and negatively impacted the U.S. Treasury market. People were frightened of what he was going to say, namely, that so-called "neutral policy accommodation" is not always possible, nor is it necessarily always desirable. Greenspan was referring to the fact that the Federal Reserve is currently pushing up the Fed funds rate to remove excess liquidity from the nation’s economy, or in other words, to tighten up the economic belt, as it were, in an effort to counter rising "pipeline" inflation. What does this mean? FEMA, CILFs & State Security: Shocking Updates (11-28-05) The Bush-Cheney Regime is telling US citizens their exact intent. In fact FEMA is being upgraded as a federal agency, and upon passage of PATRIOT Act III, which contains the amendment to overturn posse comitatus, FEMA will be re-militarized, which will give the agency military police powers. It should be remembered that FEMA started out in 1952 as a military agency, called Federal Emergency Military Agency (FEMA). The Gold Conundrum & the Chinese Copper Scam (11-21-05) Gold is now approaching $490/ounce, equaling its 18-year high (almost to the day) in 1987.There is much talk in financial media of the great gold conundrum. That is, we are seeing an unusual confluence of economic events, which classically cannot be accounted for. Namely, the price of gold, the dollar and interest rates are all rising at the same time. What does this mean? Gold, Silver, Platinum and Palladium Bullion Coins: The “Numismatic” Trap & Government Confiscation (11-14-05) This is the warning label. Beware of so-called “quasi-numismatic” gold bullion coins, like the French 20-franc piece, British gold sovereigns, Austrian ducat pieces, etc., coins that were minted from the mid-19th century until the 1920s. Why? Because the way these coins are sold is, to some degree, deceptive. Vendors are selling these coins as being “numismatic” items under the representation that they are exempt from the 1933 so-called “Gold Confiscation Act.” “Quasi-numismatic” means coins that were used in international trade at the time. That’s what they were minted for. Even today, they still are bought and sold based on a premium above their bullion value. (A premium can range typically from 5-10%.) But here’s the rub – these coins are nevertheless bought and sold based on their bullion value, which means that they are not truly “numismatic” items. Hedge Funds In Trouble, MacroEconomics of Global Collapse & Forced Population Reduction (11-07-05) There is an unforeseen and even unseen malaise in the global markets, and the impact of the Refco debacle is yet to be wholly felt. For example, last week there were many disturbances in a number of the planet’s largest hedge funds due to the Refco debacle. When Refco force-liquidated its non-segregated and non-regulated offshore account (its hedge fund and brokerage business), many hedge funds caught off-guard. Suddenly, complex derivative spreads were unraveled, and hedge funds were hurt because of it. This “hurt” rippled up to numerous banks, principally European and British banks, and is now being blamed for the near collapse of AHBR, one of the top mortgage banks of Germany. Domestic Markets Roiled, Depressionary Trades & News for Gold Investors (10-31-05) There is a confluence of factors coming together, which are roiling the global markets. One factor is the nomination of Ben Bernanke as Federal Reserve chairman. Readers should also be reminded of what Comptroller General David Walker, said -- Bushonian budget deficits, i.e. U.S. debt can no longer be financed beyond Q2 2009 -- and that might even be accelerated now if Bushonian budget deficits spiral out of control next year (2006). The markets are sending a message that the global economic picture is deteriorating and that the effects of Bushonomics now are becoming more telling, both domestically and globally. This has become more evident by an unusual combination of circumstances, which occurred last week (Oct. 24-28). And here’s the problem… Scooter Libby: Designated Scapegoat in the Valerie Plame Debacle. What About Bob Novak and Karl Rove? (10-24-05) The scuttlebutt in Washington is that Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, is negotiating the fee to be the scapegoat or fall guy in this Valerie Plame debacle. The Refco Hedge Fund Debacle: Another Tip of the Bushonian Fraud-berg - And Another Opportunity To Make a Profit. (10-17-05) Refco, one of the world's biggest futures and commodities trading companies, self-destructed when it was revealed that Refco CEO Phillip Bennett had attempted to hide about $500 million in losses since 1997. The loss was parked at a hedge fund called Liberty Corner Advisors of Summit, New Jersey. It was kept quiet by transferring this loss back and forth between the books of Refco when it was still both a public and private company in the past. Refco was a public company, then it went private, and then became public again recently, within the last two months. Liberty Corner, the hedge fund that hid this presumed derivatives losing transaction, was founded by Terry Pigott in 1999, who had formerly managed a $5 billion investment portfolio for Daiwa America Strategic Advisors Corp. It should be remembered that Daiwa was at the very core of the great Daiwa Securities fraud of the early 1990's. And guess who were the players in that fraud? Danger: Extreme – The Default of LA, MS & AL State Bonds; Will Defaults of Municipal Securities Spread? (10-10-05) Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, former GOP Chairman and Republican Scamscateer Extraordinaire, as well as Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, have both said that the fiscal situation of their states, which were already in severe fiscal distress prior to the hurricanes, is now extreme. They also said in no uncertain terms, in independent interviews with Bloomberg and CNBC, that if the U.S. Treasury does not provide some guarantees at the very least, or absolute bailouts, at the very most, that because of the overwhelming Louisiana and Mississippi municipal debt (not only just state bonds, but county and municipal securities as well, both general obligation and revenue bonds), it is likely that the states, and the underlying counties and municipalities therein, would have no choice but to default on the debt and on many of their obligations. Will There Be Elections in 2008? Bushonian Red Ink Says No. (10-3-05) The continued deterioration of the nation’s fiscal situation under the scourge of Bushonomics increases the likelihood that there will not be elections in 2008. For instance, Comptroller General David Walker pointed out again last week that with Bushonian triple deficits already consuming 83% of the planet’s net savings rate to finance, given the expansion in Bushonian budget deficits coming in 2006, wherein these deficits may even double, the United States could very well be consuming 100% of the planet’s net savings rate by Q4 2006. Secrets of Hedge Funds & Short Selling (9-26-05) It was reported that Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), Chairman of the Senate’s Banking Committee, has shelved a planned Senate subcommittee hearing which would “investigate” naked short selling. So why the controversy? Simply put, short-selling is selling something that you don’t own, in the hopes that the price drops, so that you can purchase it back at a lower price. The difference between what you sold it for and what you purchased it back at is your profit. This is not the first time there have been would-be investigations by Congress regarding short-selling. It is always a popular political target, particularly after a major plunge, which took place from 2000-2003. The Democrats have always made political fodder out of it, as have grass-roots Republicans. Shelby, who is much closer to the Bushonian Cabal, was brought in to put the kibosh on it. It will, of course, die a quiet death, as have all such inquiries in the past. The reason why is that short-selling is an integral and necessary part of all capital markets, and ultimately the inquiries would be fruitless. Here’s why… The Vortex of Bushonomics, The Downward Spiral & The Coming 2006 Budget Crisis (Sep 19, 2005) A 2006 budget crisis is looming, provoked by the fiscal policies of the Bush Cheney Regime. Bushonomics is poised to put the US economy into a downward spiral with no recovery in sight. The current estimate is that there will be up to $200 billion in federal expenditures on the Hurricane Katrina rebuilding as well as reimbursements of the states, counties, and municipalities affected by the disaster -- an entire panoply of spending that will, of course, have to be also deficit-financed. FEMA Sends Katrina Survivors to American Gulag; Municipal Bond Holders at Risk (9-12-05) In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, what has become apparent in New Orleans is the inability of the local, county and city law enforcement to restore the rule of law. This situation has necessitated placing about 30,000 federal troops in a de facto occupation of the city. This in turn will give ammunition to Tom DeLay in the House and Orrin Hatch in the Senate to push for the overturning of posse comitatus. 'Hot Commodities'? Market Trading After Katrina (9-5-05) Hurricane Katrina has created many new trading opportunities. Last week numerous commodity futures contracts had substantial moves on the back of Hurricane Katrina and the damage it inflicted on New Orleans. Many commodities including coffee, cocoa, and lumber contracts were all bid sharply higher. Orange juice, cotton and sugar contracts were also moved up. However, traders at InsiderIntelligence.com have sold short both the lumber and cocoa contracts because we believe they've reached unsustainable levels due to the Hurricane Katrina trade, as it's being called around the pits. Bush Family Fortunes: How a Perpetual Fraud Machine Was Created with Secret US Treasury Debt (8-29-05) If you don’t know the history of Bush Family frauds, you won’t know how the past connects with current frauds. This is a look back at how George Bush Sr., Rupert Murdoch and others committed frauds in the 1980's, and how these frauds have been transformed into the fortunes of the global kleptocracy. The Al Martin Raw.com Smart Republican Money Index. What Does It Portend for the Future? (8-22-05) People ask me, “What are the top 10% investing in?” I always say gold and TIPS bonds, but now is a good time to do an update on the Al Martin Raw.com Smart Republican Money Index to see what it portends for the future. By looking at what the top 10% of the nation is investing in, you will have an idea of what the future of this planet’s going to look like as well. (FREE ARTICLE) Failed Hedge-Fund Manager Julian Robertson Threatens Lawsuit against AlMartinRaw.com (8-15-05) Julian Robertson is a loser. But he doesn’t lose his own money. He only loses Other People’s Money (OPM). When Julian Robertson was forced to shut down his Tiger Management Group of 6 hedge funds in 2000, according to the Sunday Times of London (April 2, 2000), he readily admitted, “We are in a market I really don’t understand.” The Plots Thicken: David Margolis, Michael Chertoff (Of the Devil)& General Kevin Byrnes (8-15-05) Another Bushonian Cabalist is being recycled by the Bush-Cheney Regime. On Aug. 12, David Margolis, a Department of Justice lawyer for 40 years, was named to oversee special prosecutor Fitzgerald’s “independent” investigation of the Bush Regime, namely who revealed the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame. Margolis, Associate Deputy Attorney General, is taking the place of Deputy Attorney General James Comey, who’s going to work for Lockheed-Martin. (You have to love those revolving doors) It should be noted that Associate Deputy Attorney General is only one rank higher than that which Margolis was in 1985. This guy hasn’t fared all that well in 20 years. His real job? To control political liability for the Cabal. US Treasury 30-Year Long Bonds Are Back: How Bushonian Trickle Up Economics Works (8-8-05) It should be remembered that the Bush-Cheney Regime canceled 30 year Long Bonds in 2001. These instruments were first issued in 1977, when the Carter Regime’s budget deficits and accrued debt rose to the point that an additional, longer-term instrument was necessary in order to finance US debt. Then the Reagan Bush regime effectively did what the Bush Cheney regime did: Early on, the Reagan Bush regime, understanding that it was going to institute the practice of Bushonomics (i.e. negative debt finance consumption that would swell the nation’s budget deficits and lead to a massive new accrual of public debt) wanted to shift the ‘debt cycle,’ as it is called in Treasury parlance, increasingly from the long to the short end. Why? Because short-term rates are, obviously, less than longer-term rates. Therefore the cost of overall governmental debt service can actually fall for a period of time, even though long-term interest rates are rising. And this is the important part -- the political reason for doing this is to help disguise the actual size of budget deficits which Bushonomics produces. The Bush Cheney Regime...Failing Upwards in the Beltway (8-1-05) The history of the top members of the current regime in their capacity as private businessmen should be better known. There is a commonality they all share. They are all failures in private business. So the American people, in their capacity as taxpayers, savers, investors and consumers, have lost billions because of the actions of the various members of the Bush Cheney Regime, not only in their public capacity now, but in their previous capacity as businessmen. George Bush Jr., for example, has run 5 businesses in his lifetime, ranging from public companies, like Harken Energy, to a professional sports franchise -- all of which he has run into the ground. Now, admittedly, in Bush’s case, some of these failures were “designed” to be failures as part of the great Republican pump-and-dump stock scams of the 1980s. [See "The Conspirators: Secrets of An Iran Contra Insider" by Al Martin.] And herein lies the anomaly -- some of the businesses George Bush Jr. was put in charge of by his father were purposely designed to fail because their stocks were high when he, Junior, was put in charge. Then when Junior left the companies, their stocks were worth an average of 1/7th of what they had previously been worth, while those who shorted the stock made millions. Revaluation of the Yuan: Implications for US Economy (7-25-05) China acted to revalue its currency, the yuan, on July 20 -- by removing the dollar peg and substituting it for a basket of foreign currencies on a trade-weighted basis. Essentially, the Bank of China duplicated its own DL dollar contract that trades on the NYBOT. This means that China will substitute the U.S. dollar for other currencies belonging to countries they do business with on a weighted basis – that is, based on the amount of trade they conduct with these countries. The U.S. dollar will still be included in this peg, but will only be 1/5th of the weight ascribed to it before. What does this mean for the US economy? Bush-Cheney Paranoia: ‘Domestic Terrorism’ & the National Security Service (The New SS) (7-18-05) Talked with an FBI agent last week, someone I haven’t talked to in about ten years or so. He was with a domestic terrorism task force in the Western regional FBI office in the mid-1990's. This was at the peak of what the FBI thought was a potential crisis with “domestic terrorism,” i.e. the so-called militia groups. As everyone knows, the militia groups reached their peak of influence in the mid-1990s. The Bush Cheney Regime’s Asset Confiscation Policy: A Review (7-11-05) The machinations of the Bush Cheney Regime are becoming ever more confiscatory towards citizens’ assets. The intent of the Regime’s policies is to deny citizens the ability to hold assets discreetly -- or to even move assets outside of the United States and hold them with any sovereign immunity. Asset Protection: A Timely Update (7-4-05) It’s important for US citizens to understand that the Bush Cheney regime is becoming ever more confiscatory, regarding citizens’ offshore assets, and that, in fact, it is now impossible for US citizens, domiciled in the United States, to enjoy absolute protection of their assets offshore. The only way that can now be done is complete expatriation, i.e. you have to give up your US citizenship and take the citizenship of another nation, which would be involved in moving to that nation or some other jurisdiction. But that is the only way you can now garner complete protection of your assets. Bubble-nomics: Stupid Money and the Collapsing Pension System (6-27-05) On June 23rd, there were purposeful, or shall we say, engineered leaks out of the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Charles Grassley, which has been investigating the dramatic deterioration of corporate pension systems under the Bush Cheney regime. The leaks consisted of essentially confidential information held by the U.S. Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp., which showed that the corporate pension problem is “far larger than anyone imagined,” and that, indeed, since the change in the FASB rules in 2001 undertaken by the Bush Cheney regime, the deficits in the top thousand corporate donors to the Republican National Committee, as well as Republican interest groups, have increased by a $100 billion. Bullish Shillism: The Larry Kudlow Stock Bubble Fraud Conspiracy (6-20-05) Now we live in Fantasy Land America, Home of the New Stock Market Bubble. So, as we say at Al Martin Raw.com, the lies you get for free. The truth you have to pay for. Like many others, I have become upset about the ever increasing amount of Bullish Shillism we are seeing on CNBC and BBN. Not only does it anger me, but it angers many in the nation. I can tell by the number of people that call into my radio shows and comment about the expansion of Bullish Shillism, particularly on CNBC, led by Larry “The Dow’s Going to 50,000 under Bushonomics” Kudlow and his erstwhile gang of never-endingly bullish retail institutional shills. The Collapse of the US Pension System and the Real Estate Bubble (Part 2) (6-13-05) Last week there was a plethora of corporate chieftains marching on Capital Hill, principally to the House Banking Subcommittee, which acts as the oversight committee for the US Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. It was patently obvious to me that the crisis extends into far more industries than is commonly presumed. In fact, pension problems are not found only in the automotive, airline and steel industries, but in a wide range of corporations, spanning the spectrum from agriculture to pharmaceuticals. Understanding the Bush-Cheney Flat Tax Swindle (June 6) There is a continuing pro-Bush faction effort to sell the flat tax to the American people and the financial media is joining forces with pro-Bush faction Republicans to try to sell it. For instance, CNBC keeps running polls all the time of its own viewers: “Do you support or do you not support flat tax?” And the polls are invariably 70% support the flat tax and 30% against. Then CNBC tries to spin that by touting themselves and saying -- Well, the median income of CNBC viewers is $203,000, and therefore if smart money supports flat tax, shouldn’t you, the working class, be supporting it? After all smart money supports it. That’s the approach they’re taking. Newsweek Shills for the Bush Cabal; Fire Sale on US Treasuries? (May 23) Most people have heard the story of Newsweek, in which they buckled under pressure from the Bush Cabal and disavowed their report about how the Koran was being abused at the Guantanamo prison during the interrogation of Muslim prisoners. There’s a little cabal at Newsweek, which includes Michael Isikoff, Mark Hosenball and Steve Emory. I know these guys from the past. They control Newsweek editorially, and since the mid-1990s, they have become nothing more than shills for the Bush Cabal. The Coming Collapse of the American Pension System (May 16) Planning on your pension when you retire? You had better make other plans. The United Airline pension debacle is a clear indication of the future of pensions in America. In this case, it is the so-called “non-contributory defined pension plans.” UAL’s fixed pension plan collapsed this week by court action, when a U.S. appellate court allowed UAL to transfer its pension liabilities directly to the U.S. Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp. And this is how it works and what this debacle really means to all the citizens of the United States… New Bushonian Tax Fraud: Bush Cheney Regime Wants Consumption Tax to Stave Off Social Security Shortfalls (May 9) In a CNBC interview on May 3rd, House Speaker Dennis Hastert announced that the primary concern of the Bush-Cheney regime is to guarantee Social Security benefits for those who are currently age 55 and above. That is ALL that could be guaranteed under the current structure, he added. And this shows the increasing disconnect between the pro-Bush faction and working class Republicans. Social Security Privatization, Mortgage Bubbles and Other Debacles of Bushonomics (May 2) So what did George Bush say in his nationwide address on May 28? Once again he was trying to push Bushonian Social Security privatization. However, interesting to note, this was the first time in all the speeches he’s made on this topic, in which he did not mention the use of so-called private savings accounts, which is the linchpin of the Bushonian proposition to privatize Social Security. What does that mean? (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) The Homeland Insecurity Field Trip for Seniors (Dec 20) This is the story of my Special Alert Senior Citizens’ Field Trip. Where I live is included in the greater metropolitan area, which has in recent days been performing the special Office of Homeland Security drills or Terrorist Alert Drills, which is what they’re called. (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) Kerry’s Losing Campaign - Incompetence? Or Conspiracy? (Part I) (Sep 7) Is the fix in? Are the Democrats throwing the election? (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) Kerry’s Losing Campaign: Incompetence or Conspiracy? (Part 2); Pat Buchanan, Write-In Candidate This is the question. Is John Kerry throwing the election to his fellow Bonesman George Bush, who is also member of a secret society called the Order of Skull and Bones? The evidence suggests that he certainly is. The fact that he hasn’t hired any competent consultants like Jim Carville certainly suggests that he is not putting his all into this campaign fight. To the informed observer, it certainly appears that this so-called incompetence may be more calculated than inadvertent. (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN) Bush, Propaganda Minister O'Reilly, The P-Word and the Weiner Nation (Mar. 10) In the latest press conference, Bush looked like a wind-up talking corpse. (FREE SAMPLE COLUMN)  Adventures of Fluffy, American Dissident Cat 
Whistleblower GazetteVol. 3, No. 6 Iran/Contra and the Collapse of the USSR: Recollections by Al Martin (For Subscribers Only) Whistleblower Gazette Vol. 3, No. 5 Day of Reckoning: Protocols for Economic Collapse in America by Al Martin (For Subscribers Only) Whistleblower Gazette Vol. 3, No. 4 $100 per Barrel Oil: When? How? Why? (Part 1) by Al Martin (For Subscribers Only) Whistleblower Gazette Vol. 3, No. 2-3 High Level Global Scams: The Big Picture by Al Martin [Inside the Credit Lyonnais-Executive Life Fraud] (For Subscribers Only) ARTICLES ABOUT AL MARTIN Al Martin: The Man Who Knows Too Much Doublecrossed: Black Ops, Beltway Bandits & the US Shadow Government Websites Allow Mice to Roar
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