April 10, 2010 journal, is there anything left to be said now that the economic crisis is over if you believe what those Wall Street spin doctors tell us every few minutes on T.V. Even though it flies in the face of a declining jobs market and the 35% accelerated foreclosures. Perhaps they are using a different indicator than what people can see and hear happening. I am proud to quote an article written by Stephen Yates in The Times Examiner weekly news paper April 7, 10 "One of my favorite columnist, Paul Craig Roberts, saying he has hung up his word processor, in what he said would be his last column, "Truth has fallen and taken liberty with it", out on the usual sights a couple weeks ago counterpunch.com onlinejournal.com etc., he bemoans the loss of any sense of need for truth in this society, whether it be from the federal government or mainstream media corporations or econo-mists. Of the latter, he says "there is no intelligence or integrity in economics profession". Roberts worked in the Reagan administration. He was Reagan's assistant secretary of the Treasury, and a co-founder of Reaganomics. As an economic economist he has authored or coauthored eight books, published scholarly articles, and written columns for The N.Y. Times, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, and others. For a while his column was syndicated by Scripps Howard News Service; later, he switched to Creators Syndicate. As the 1990s passed away and the 2000 decade arrived, he became increasingly critical of both Democrats and Republicans, U.S. foreign policy, U.S. trade policy, and specifics as economists methodology for determining unemployment. He be-came a blistering critic of the B*ush II regime. The road he was traveling lead straight to the global bankster cartel, of course. Finally he was blackballed by the mainstream media, where he had not appeared for 6 years. His last column in a mainstream publication, co- written with Charles Schumer Democrat New York, was entitled "Second Thoughts on Free Trade", New York Times, January 6, 2004. The article criticized one of the chief dogmas in today's free market absolutists, which is that Ricardo's concept of comparable advantage justifies so-called free trade. On the contrary, he and Schiller argued, that level of technology enables many jobs to be done from anywhere in the world plus the willing-ness of educated people in e.g. India, to work far more cheaply than the Americans, have brought us to an era of absolute advantage for those nations with abundant cheap labor: These nations win while America lose. So-called free trade agreements are therefore labor arbitrage agreements enabling corporations to outsource their operations, rendering large numbers of American effectively employable. In this way, Roberts has argued in many columns, our middle class is being destroyed in the U.S. outside the elite enclaves of Wall Street is on the way to a third-world status. Free-market absolutist were livid. (It is over) Amidst the separate sense of a need for rebuttal, the article prompted several conferences. I was at a Mises Institute event which featured a panel discussion of the Robert Schumer thesis. Roberts appeared late and already frazzled from a typical post 9*1*1 travel exper-ience. He grewvisibly flustered at the surprisingly personal attacks by people whom I now realize, given the prospective 6 years makes possible, were clearly locked into an ideology with all 4 claws. At least discussion was possible in 2004. Today, the B*us*h-Greenspan-Bernanke style Bankster capitalism with its unscrupulous sub prime lending, credit default swaps, etc., having led to the worst economic train wreck since the Great Depression, things are much worse. Deception is, Roberts notes, are so routine and repeated so much by corporate media shills, that few question them even when obvious. These include nearly everything those in government in the Federal Reserve say about the U.S. economy. The media repeat the mantra of mainstream economics, that the economy is "recovering", even though unemployment remains stubbornly at about 9.7%. The truth, if we count the discouraged workers who have stopped looking for a job, those whose benefits have run out, part-timer seeking full-time work, former workers back in school, is that unemploy-ment in America is closer to 21.7%. Source: John Williams Shadow Government Stati-stics site. The economy is not "recovering" in any meaningful sense. Job creation, as the Government's own fleet numbers clearly shows continued to favor domestic services "leisure and hospitality", temporary work and federal jobs, e.g. census workers. Only 10.5% of jobs created during March were in manufacturing. Government also, routinely underreport inflation by serving up a "core inflation" rate excluding food and fuel costs. You simply can't trust government numbers! Roberts tells the truth in his latest book How the Economy Was Lost marshals the evidence: The U.S. economy is on life-support. America based multi international corporations do not make anything here in America these days, after all; they import it from China. They go out of their way to avoid hiring Americans. They bleat cynically about an "absence of qualified American workers" while Americans being let go are forced to train the hires from India as a condition of receiving severance packages. Engineers & computer programmers from India are willing to work dirt cheap, after all. Among the unemployed, therefore our American engineers some of those once commanded top salaries. This is what globalization combined with the greed, (yes, greed!) of the multinational corporations has done to this country and it workforce. Meanwhile, federal spending continues unabated. The money printing machine is going full blast: well around 1.7 trillion dollars has been conjured out of thin air to stave off the collapse of the country's financial system. From Sep. 10, 2008-March 10, 2010, Bernan-ke's Federal Reserve increased the nation's monetary base from 850 billion to 2.1 trillion-a 250 percent increase in just 18 months. Because of this massive money printing, the dollar has lost 10 % of its value in just the past year! The national debt is at $12.68 Tillion and climbing rapidly. Total federal, state & local indebtedness is estimated at $123.6 trillion dollars and also climbing rapidly. So while the Dow is slowly rising as are gold and silver, all this means is that another bubble is being inflated. How long this can continue depends on multiple factors-another major war or another move overseas toward ending the reign of the dollar as the world's reserve currency could end it. The next fall might make 2008-09 look like a pony ride by comparison. (This is the halfway mark of this article) (Imagine a total combined debt now of $123.6 trillion.) The micromanagers and control freaks in Washington & New York will not face the reality that their policies are unsustainable. Those who have faced that reality and try to write about it (Roberts is the example closest at hand) are refused publication in "reputable" (i.e., elite-controlled) newspapers and news magazines. Prospects for federal control over the American public have just taken a quantum leap. No one really believes the "health care reform" bill, will contain health care cost-but it will force Americans not covered by employers, which is more and more of us, to buy private health insurance. One current Congressman John Dingell Democrat of Michigan let the cat out of the bag on a talk radio show late March "The harsh fact of the matter is when you are going to pass legislation that will cover 300 million American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people". This, straight from the mouth of one of Rome on the Potomac's dominant voices having served in the House for a record 55 years, makes the case for what our elites really want far better than I ever could on my own. In a follow up inter- view Dingell backpedaled by saying that he's been referring to controlling the people in insurance companies. I have oceanfront property in Nebraska to sell anyone believing that. Last week a friend in another state e-mailed me a diagram explaining how "health care reform" will develop over the next decade. Source is: The Congressional Budget Office, the House Committee on Ways & Means, Energy & Commerce, and the departments of Education & Labor. This year, the federal govern-ment will set up a temporary insurance pool to cover people with pre-existing conditions; insurance companies will be banned from refusing coverage based on pre-existing condit-ions beginning in 2014. This will drive smaller private insurance firms out of business, leaving the big guys & government running the show together in true corporatist fashion. Also beginning in 2014, the millions who do not have health insurance will have to buy private coverage or pay fines which increases in 2015 and in subsequent years. The "health care reform" bill also has a provision for hiring 16,500 new I*R*S agents to pursue delinquents. Naturally, the federal government proposes to subsidize those who can't afford private coverage, imagine the level of disclosure not to mention the paperwork it will involve! Business aren't required by law to provide coverage for employees, but those with 50 or more employees will have to pay the federal government $2,000 for every full-time worker they don't cover to part-time workers counting the same as what full-time workers. This of course, will kill jobs; business will not hire if the price tag of hiring without benefits is 2 thousand dollars; this will mean pink slips for a lot of employees who will no longer be affordable. Premiums are likely to keep going up. If cost controls work, price increases will level off in time but not go back down. Those who can take advantage of new government tax credits will find that their cost go down only if they keep their same level of coverage-locking them in. A new tax will take affect in 2018 on employer-sponsored healthcare policies that cost more than $10,200 for individuals and 27,500 for families. An 0.9% point increase in the Medicare payroll tax will be placed on those earning $200,000 or on married couples earning 250,000 or more. For those making more than these levels, the tax will also apply to investment income. Were O-B-Pelosi "health care reform" really about public health, it would include funding for education for primary prevention in public schools-primary prevent-ion meaning building up your body's systems through proper nutrition, exercise, avoiding risky behaviors, etc. There is nothing about such in the "health care reform" bill, not any- thing to suggest rewards for healthy practices. However-for some time now we have not had a health care system in America, we have had a sick care system. Sick people spend money on doctors and hospitals, and we keep the pharmacy cash registers jingling. Real health is not promoted because it doesn't lead to an immediate and sufficient monetary profit; population, moreover, a sick population is easier to control. All this is why three weeks ago, I described the U.S. as an empire in decline. Lately I have had a difficulty motivating myself to continue writing these columns. A week ago I even told Bob Dill in e-mail, "I'm not sure what is left to be said, anyway. The country I grew up in is gone". Is there anything left to be said? Yes. We must not fall into paralyzing pessimism. Things are bad, but not hopeless in a universe in the hands of a God who probably knows what he is doing more than we do. There are people who are awake or waking up-the much maligned Tea Party Movement proves this if it can avoid being hijacked. Who knows? Paul Craig Roberts may even return to his computer, convinced by the volley of e-mail's he has doubtless received begging him to continue work far too important to be left to the economics profession. Were I to send him anything, it would be a link to "Isaiah's Job". This is the essay by Albert J. Mock that saved my writing career-not once, but twice in 1996-97, then again in 2004. There is a Remnant out there, argues Nock, interested in reading or hearing truth. Its members are probably busy right now learning what they will need to know in a worst case scenario, which would be the collapse of our civilization and hyperinflationary spiral. I'm not predicting; I don't have a crystal ball. There are 2 ranges of predictions, though. One, we will see rapid, sudden decline, 2, we see slowly declined. I would choose slow decline over rapid decline anytime; but we may not have that choice. A currency collapse is not impossible. The Remnant will know what to do when gas prices suddenly rise not to $4 a gallon but $10/and then to $12 a gallon and higher-which will bring our fossil fuels independent economy to a screeching halt when truckers park their vehicles unable to afford the fuel to keep them going. What would you do if you tried to obtain groceries and encountered a panic mob sweeping up the last goods from rapidly emptying shelves and freezers-or be told by the clerk that the last loaf of bread you found now cost $40! To control the people, you have to crash the truth-making it inaccessible, unentertaining, and most of all unprofitable. But those who want to know the truth will seek it out. One of the out of the box truths of our disturbing times is that the collapse of our pseudo free markets, of globalized, false-prosperity capitalism might not even be a bad thing in the long run (see Dmitry Orlov's reinventing collapse). It would initially cause a "wrenching transformation" beyond anything Al Gore envision-ed as the false prosperity of the past 40 years simply evaporated. And speaking of Gore, and through this is another column, does our predicament have anything to do with the alleged climate change? While to most conservatives, the idea has all the attraction" cont. See The Times Examiner online. State and federal governments now are attempting to privatize education the same as they did the hospital healthcare. Students will need to pay for their education same as college. When private money was buying out hospitals one report of a Catholic Nun had millions of dollars hidden under her bed. Privatizing hospitals has not been in favor of America. Saturday Night Live came on with the imitation president explaining the US census form. Some of the questions they were mockingly presuming to be on the form asked personal questions should have been x-rated but one of the questions presumably ask was "do you think the J-e-ws have too much to do with Washington & Wall Street? These people will make fun of themselves for money, besides it lessens the seriousness of people's concern. Washington & Wall Street is totally in the hands of the Zionist Jewish Russian Khazar's of the House of Esau going back to Old Testament times and that is no laughing matter. On the surface it would appear that Modern Israel is a satellite of the U.S., but actually, The United States is in fact a satellite of Israel and ownership of the F*e*d is by Israeli's. Evangelist John Hagee may not have won his Israeli jet yet but he's not far from it as did Jerry Falwell and he may need it considering they are charging for 2 seats now if fat fits. That 1913 Federal Reserve Act gave our currency away free to the Jewish Rothschild family of bankers masquerading as British citizens when in fact they are of the Russian Khazar line of Jewish impostors falsely claiming to be the favorite chosen people of God. What a joke, how long will it take to educate people as to how The Church has been had. The new Gospel of the Protestant Christian church is to save Israel, it is not to save souls.