(InternationalBusinessTimes) – The production of the RFID chips, an integral element of the new generation of German identity cards, has started after the government gave a 10 year contract to the chipmaker NXP in the Netherlands. Citizens will receive the mandatory new ID cards from the first of November.

Various German authorities will be able to identify persons fast and reliable by scanning the RFID citizen card. These will be the police, customs and tax authorities and of course the local registration and passport granting authorities.

The new ID card will contain all personal data on the security chip that can be accessed over a wireless connection. Read the rest of this entry »

(MyFoxNY) – Your thumbprint might soon be the key to an afternoon candy bar. A Massachusetts based vending machine company is joinng the growing ranks of companies that are field-testing new technologies.

Next Generation Vending and Food Service is experimenting with biometric vending machines that would allow a user to tie a credit card to their thumbprint.

“For a certain demographic that is pretty cool,” says company president John S. Ioannou.

Next Generation is currently testing about 60 of the biometric machines in various locations in the northeast. Read More Here

(RollingStone) – This note comes courtesy of my friend David Sirota out in Colorado. This is a classic example of how the Senate works. If the public understood better how rigged this game is, and how few issues are actually left to an honest vote in the legislature, I’m pretty sure the pitchfork factor would be twice even what it is now.

The short version of this story: Bernie Sanders had put forth a proposal in the Senate to put a 15 percent cap on credit-card interest. Who isn’t in favor of this kind of legislation? The only difference between credit card companies and loan sharks at this point is that you can choose to not patronize a loan shark. As an adult professional in this country one has to have a credit card – it’s impossible to rent a car, buy a hotel room, shop online or do countless other things without one.

But all the credit card companies use the same insane formulae based on FICO scores to charge exorbitant interest rates for anyone who slips up – and they don’t exactly make it easy to not slip up. (I’m doing research on this subject so anyone who has a particularly egregious story about being ripped off by credit card companies, please write in). Almost everyone has horror stories about consumer credit and my guess is that if put to a national referendum, something like the Sanders 15% cap would pass pretty easily. Read the rest of this entry »

(KurtNimmo) – Before Obama was selected to be the next front man for the ruling elite, we said race would be used to shut down any opposition to government. During the NAACP convention this week, that is precisely what is happening. Read the rest of this entry »

(SmirkingChimp) – Is the Depression Coming? Or Is It Here?

The FBI arrests 1,200 Americans for mortgage fraud in the largest crackdown of its kind in history. There is no media focus on the companies that securitized and insured their toxic loans. This white-collar crime sweep is, at best, a one-day story with most of the reports carried by local outlets. Read More Here

(MyBudget360) – Commercial real estate transactions collapse 90 percent from 2007 to 2009. The next taxpayer bailout in the $3.5 trillion CRE market. From $522 billion in sales to $52 billion. CRE market over 4 times the size of the entire credit card market

The massive commercial real estate market is already plaguing the weak balance sheets of banks. It is the case that each Friday, we are likely to see one U.S. bank fail because due to high levels of commercial real estate (CRE) debt on their books. This market is likely to cause the failure of hundreds of banks and put the economy down into another real estate funk. Read More Here

(July 2) – Video: Bill Still – The Secret of OZ / Solutions For a Broken Economy – Alex Jones Tv

Alex talks with Bill Still, the man behind the monetary reform documentary The Secret of Oz(available at the Infowars Store). Still’s previous films include the popular The Money Masters and Capital Crimes. The Secret of Oz won best documentary of 2010 at the Beloit International Film Festival, the Silver Sierra Award for Excellence in Filmmaking at the Yosemite Film Festival, and other prestigious awards. Part 1 Here

(PeopleManagement) – Graduate unemployment rate ‘set to hit 25 per cent’

The UK’s graduate unemployment rate could soar to nearly 25 per cent due to public-sector budget cuts, with newly qualified jobseekers outside of London the worst hit, new forecasts have predicted. Read More Here

(SacBee) – Schwarzenegger orders minimum wage for state workers

The Schwarzenegger administration today ordered State Controller John Chiang to reduce state worker pay for July to the federal minimum allowed by law — $7.25 an hour for most state workers. Read More Here

(LATimes) – Unemployment rate dips as more workers leave labor force

Employment-seekers decline by 652,000 June, which may reflect people giving up on job-hunting and a reluctance to hire. Overall, the jobless rate falls to 9.5% from 9.7%, the Labor Department reports. Read More Here

(DocumentingReality) – Starting in 2011—next year—the W-2 tax form sent by your employer will be increased to show the value of whatever health insurance you are provided – Read More Here

(ElliotWave) – Banks Continued Failure To Realise Commercial Real Estate Losses…

The massive commercial real estate market is already plaguing the weak balance sheets of banks. It is the case that each Friday, we are likely to see one U.S. bank fail because due to high levels of commercial real estate (CRE) debt on their books. This market is likely to cause the failure of hundreds of banks and put the economy down into another real estate funk. Read More Here

(AsiaTimes) – Smell of economic death

I know, alas, that there is nothing that can be done to prevent unimaginable suffering and the collapse of the economy, now that the US Federal Reserve has created so much excess money and credit, and, to make matters infinitely worse, are still doing it, more than ever! Read More Here

(Prairie2) – The Depression with no name

If Europe is serious about austerity this would be bad news for the US in several ways. Read More Here

(Money&Markets) – Double-Dip Recession Warning Signs Everywhere! Batten Down the Hatches!

The bright red warning signs of a double-dip recession are flashing everywhere. And I do mean EVERYWHERE. Read More Here

(BuzzFlash) – Wall Street is a Crime Scene, Not a Financial “Cyclical Aberration”

It’s shocking that more than 20 years after the movies “Wall Street” revealed the underlying corruption of America’s financial center, it is still difficult to get the corporate mainstream media to understand that the economic “collapse” of the last two years was a swindle and not a cyclic aberration. Read More Here

(BeforeItsNews) – House Refuses to Look At the Books – What’s Wrong With You and I Looking At The Fed and how it uses our money?

Since 1913 the actual buying power of the dollar has gone down by 95.6% – You can’t buy a gallon of gas for 8c any more. Read More Here

Climategate

(NYTimes) – Climate Scientist Cleared of Altering Data – Read More Here

(ForeignPolicy) – Whatever It Takes – Why I won’t back down on climate change – John Kerry – Read More Here

(EconomicCollapseBlog) – 50 Random Facts That Make You Wonder What In The World Has Happened To America

Our world is changing at a pace that is so staggering these days that it can be really hard to fully grasp the significance of what we are witnessing.  Hopefully the collection of random facts below will help you to “connect the dots” just a little bit.  On one level, the facts below may not seem related.  However, what they all do have in common is that they show just how much the United States has fundamentally changed.  Do you ever just sit back and wonder what in the world has happened to America?  The truth is that the America that so many of us once loved so much has been shattered into a thousand pieces.  The “land of the free and the home of the brave” has been transformed into a socialized Big Brother nanny state that is oozing with corruption and has accumulated the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world.  The greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen is falling apart before our very eyes, and even when our politicians actually try to do something right (which is quite rare) the end result is still a bunch of garbage.  For those who still love this land (and there are a lot of us) it is heartbreaking to watch America slowly die.

The following are 50 random facts that show just how dramatically America has changed…. Read the rest of this entry »

(IllinoisGun) – The Illinois General Assembly has passed HB 5832 a Bill that makes carrying a firearm in Illinois without a valid FOID card a mandatory 1-3 years in prison.

Under current law, carrying a weapon without a valid FOID card allowed for probation but once enacted the new law removes any and all chances of probation even for a first time offense. The Bill has yet to be signed by the Governor but it appears to be a done deal unless a grassroots effort is made to stop it. Read the rest of this entry »

Why the federal government’s policy of open borders is perhaps the greatest threat to our civil liberties. Read the rest of this entry »

(CapitolConfidential) – It’s amazing to watch the civil libertarians hide when Democrats propose the most sweeping intrusions of privacy in generations. In addition to the litany of bad policies contained in the Dodd Financial Reform bill is this nugget on pages 1039-1040. In short, it extends government reach to every deposit account of every citizen. Read the rest of this entry »

(HuffingtonPost) – The Democratic proposal includes increased money for border patrol and drug war agents, equipment, helicopters and unmanned drones. It would create a national ID — which is dubbed a “biometric social security card.” Though Democrats insist that it is not an ID card and can only be used for employment purposes.

The proposal would also include a crackdown on employers who hire undocumented workers. It works to deport some immigrants
who are not in the country legally and creates a limited …. Read More Here

Health care spending accounts for approximately 17% of GDP in the USA. Until last week about 50 cents of every health care dollar was being spent by the government with the remaining 50 cents so being spent in the private sector. Until last week about 11% of the healthcare industry was controlled by government monopoly in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, Indian Health Care, Veterans Health Care, and other entities (all failing with trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities). The 6% remaining in the private sector is subject to heavy government intervention (i.e. largely a political capitalism, not free market capitalism). With the passage of Obamacare the remaining 6% of the health care industry will soon fall under the complete control of the federal government. Experience and the laws of economics tell us that a government monopoly on health care means costs will spiral out of control, taxes will skyrocket, innovation will be curtailed, the brightest minds will flee the health care industry, shortages, waiting lines, and unnecessary mortality will result. Welcome to the tyranny of socialized medicine. Read the rest of this entry »

(NeithercorpPress) – Winter is slowly melting away here in the U.S., and Spring will soon be upon us. Wall Street is currently flush with delight at the year long run of the stock market (driven by fiat bailouts), which at first glance appears to be doing quite well, though international incidences such as those in Dubai and Greece have revealed how shaky the market actually is in the face of any unhealthy news. In the meantime, the dollar, recently on the edge of detrimental value loss, has made a semi-miraculous recovery in the span of a few months, especially as the Euro suffers. Official employment numbers, despite the continuous loss of jobs monthly, have somehow fallen and are for the moment stabilized. Is it time for America to dust off the old credit cards and return to the wild and rollicking carefree spending days of pre-2007? Perhaps not… Read the rest of this entry »

(Fox) – March 12, 2010 Read the rest of this entry »

(Fox) – The US House of Representatives passed a spending bill last week that contains provisions establishing a national ID card, and the Senate is poised to approve the measure in the next few days. This week marks the American public’s last chance to convince their Senators they don’t want to live in a nation that demands papers from its citizens as they go about their lives. Read the rest of this entry »

(MigrationExpert) – President Obama is scheduled to meet with Senators Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C. later this week to discuss a Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) bill. At controversy is a proposed national worker ID which would be at the center of the Senators’ proposed immigration bill currently being worked on in the U.S. Senate. Read the rest of this entry »

(WSJ) – Lawmakers working to craft a new comprehensive immigration bill have settled on a way to prevent employers from hiring illegal immigrants: a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain. Read the rest of this entry »

(KurtNimmo) – Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican Lindsey Graham have joined forces in an effort to force a biometric ID on the American people. The new national ID scheme is part of a comprehensive immigration bill now in the Senate. Read the rest of this entry »

Wyatt Cenac examines Bank of America’s hidden credit card fees with a former employee and a mafia loan shark. View Video Here

(AntiWar) – Republicans already counting the seats they will pick up this fall should keep in mind Obama has a big card yet to play. Read More Here

(Uruknet) – The response to Obama’s first State of the Union address was predictable. Democrats loved it. Republicans were skeptical to critical, while the media tried to have it both ways. Read the rest of this entry »

Every week Max Keiser looks at all the scandal behind the financial news headlines. On todays show Max Keiser and co-host Stacy Herbert look into the scandals of the inexplicable Timothy Geithner, the crisis levy planned by Obama, and luxury cruise liners in Haiti. Keiser also talks to Ann Minch, who started a Debtors’ Revolt in the US by refusing to pay her credit card bill unless her bank lowered their rate. Read the rest of this entry »

Review of Markets – Americans borrowed less for a 10th consecutive month in November with total credit and borrowing on credit cards falling by the largest amounts on records going back nearly seven decades. Read the rest of this entry »

(DailyMail) – The move by Capital One means some customers will be paying almost 40 per cent interest on their Christmas gifts and January sale purchases unless they clear the balance on their cards. Read the rest of this entry »

I was sent the now notorious “police spotter card” through the post. It’s an official laminated card for “police eyes only” and labelled as coming from “CO11 Public Order Intelligence Unit”. The card contained the photographs of 24 anti-arms trade protesters, unnamed but lettered A to X. My picture appeared as photo H. You can imagine my reaction at finding I was the subject of a secret police surveillance process … Read the rest of this entry »

(BobChapman) – Some of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s closest aides, none of whom faced Senate confirmation, earned millions of dollars a year working for Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and other Wall Street firms, according to financial disclosure forms. Read the rest of this entry »

To mark Columbus Day In 2004, the Medieval and Renaissance Center in UCLA published the final volume of a compendium of Columbus-era documents. Its general editor, Geoffrey Symcox, leaves little room for ambivalence when he says, “This is not your grandfather’s Columbus…. While giving the brilliant mariner his due, the collection portrays Columbus as an unrelenting social climber and self-promoter who stopped at nothing – not even exploitation, slavery, or twisting biblical scripture – to advance his ambitions…. Read the rest of this entry »

To mark Columbus Day In 2004, the Medieval and Renaissance Center in UCLA published the final volume of a compendium of Columbus-era documents. Its general editor, Geoffrey Symcox, leaves little room for ambivalence when he says, “This is not your grandfather’s Columbus…. While giving the brilliant mariner his due, the collection portrays Columbus as an unrelenting social climber and self-promoter who stopped at nothing – not even exploitation, slavery, or twisting biblical scripture – to advance his ambitions…. Read the rest of this entry »

Consumer credit is falling fast. In July, consumer credit plunged by $19 billion, followed by an August drop of $12 billion, a 5.8 percent annual rate. Credit card spending decreased by nearly $10 billion in August, while non-revolving debt, including auto loans, fell by $2 billion. Credit has shrunk for 7 consecutive months, the longest period of decline since 1991. Read the rest of this entry »

The Washington Post reports the Justice Department “recommended that Congress move swiftly with legislation that would protect the government’s ability to collect a variety of business and credit card records and to monitor terrorism suspects with roving wiretaps” set to expire 31 December 09. Read the rest of this entry »

We keep hearing that “The worst is behind us”, but the spin doesn’t square with the facts. Sure the stock market has done well, but scratch the surface and you’ll find that things are not as what they seem. Read the rest of this entry »

This is one of two Global Research articles exploring the reasons for the introduction of electronic ID cards, worldwide. Already, over 2.2 billion people, or 33% of the world’s population, have been issued with ‘smart’ ID cards. By 2012, the figure will be over 85%. Read the rest of this entry »

Webster describes what the meaning of Jingle Mail as the retail – commercial and real estate market is on the verge of collapse.. Read the rest of this entry »

The banking system has taken the country to the financial edge of the greatest recession since the depression.  The enormous number of bad loans floating out in the economy only complicates the unemployment situation.  When we look into the latest banking data, we realize that over 1,000 of current banks will fail or merge with a too big too fail bank.  In fact, the total number will be over 1,000 simply because the “not too big” to fail banks heavily bet on commercial real estate loans that amount to $3 trillion. Read the rest of this entry »

“In a little time [there will be] no middling sort. We shall have a few, and but a very few Lords, and all the rest beggars.” R.L. Bushman
“Rapidly you are dividing into two classes–extreme rich and extreme poor.” “Brutus”
Americans think that they have “freedom and democracy” and that politicians are held accountable by elections. The fact of the matter is that the US is ruled by powerful interest groups who control politicians with campaign contributions. Our real rulers are an oligarchy of financial and military/security interests and AIPAC, which influences US foreign policy for the benefit of Israel. Read the rest of this entry »

(Dprogram Exclusive) – Maybe it’s the smoke from Mt. Vesuvius that keeps Arianna Huffington and the financial community from seeing that the economic collapse has nothing to do with the Fed “missing” the warning signs leading up to the October meltdown. Read the rest of this entry »

(DailyMail) – Returning to Britain from a summer holiday abroad, you begin to notice things that perhaps escaped your attention before – the huge number of CCTV cameras that infest our public spaces and, much less obviously, the atmosphere of watchfulness and control that has now become a way of life. Read the rest of this entry »

(WebsterTarpley) – The second wave of the world economic depression is coming soon. Larry Summers, the economics czar of the Wall Street puppet regime currently in power in Washington, recently confessed to the Financial Times in an unguarded moment: “I don’t think the worst is over ….” A few weeks earlier, Jacques Attali, who served in the 1980s as the main economics adviser to French President Mitterrand, told an audience at the International Economic and Financial Forum (FIEF) in Paris that the world might well soon face a “planetary Weimar” in the form of a hyperinflationary depression similar to the German events of 1922 to 1923. Read the rest of this entry »

There is no economy left to recover. The US manufacturing economy was lost to offshoring and free trade ideology. It was replaced by a mythical “New Economy.” Read the rest of this entry »

It is not always about overt political displays when it comes to what defines our conflict with the Israelis. It is easy to become wrapped up in the grandiose issues such as borders, settlements, the separation wall, refugees, Jerusalem, water and so on and so forth. After all, these are the disputes that must ultimately be resolved in order for this conflict to end justly and permanently. But let us put such matters aside for the purpose of this article. Read the rest of this entry »

Former Republican Congressman Tom Davis, reportedly President Barack Obama’s top candidate for cyber security czar, voted repeatedly to expand the government’s internet wiretapping powers, and helped author the now-troubled national identification law known as REAL ID. Read the rest of this entry »

You would think that causing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression might have repercussions. You would think being a major factor in the destruction of around 40 percent of the world’s wealth might get you in trouble. You would think being the cause of the worst housing crisis in history — with millions of people losing their homes because of you — might force a restructuring of how Wall Street does things. Read the rest of this entry »

(Reuters) – U.S. credit card defaults rose to record highs in May, with a steep deterioration of Bank of America Corp’s (BAC.N) lending portfolio, in another sign that consumers remain under severe stress. Read the rest of this entry »

Even as US unemployment rolls soar to their highest levels in post-war history, employed workers face the worst conditions since the Great Depression, according to a front-page article in Friday’s USA Today. Read the rest of this entry »

“No more fine print; no more confusing terms and conditions.” This is what Barack Obama told a White House gathering of leading credit card issuers this week. Read the rest of this entry »

“No more fine print; no more confusing terms and conditions.” This is what Barack Obama told a White House gathering of leading credit card issuers this week. Read the rest of this entry »

Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, has accused the Government of exploiting people’s fear of terrorism to restrict civil rights. Read the rest of this entry »