Qualifications for Public Service

Ronald Reagan once said,"The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away."
Let me go even further. "The most stalwart of character are not in government. In fact, we elect the most corrupt, or most apt to do so."
Moses, acting upon the Godly advice of his father-in-law, Jethro, set forth the qualifications & appointment of those who would sit in authority over us, or as some would say, be in public service. Actually, it should be more completely stated, 'those who would be in Godly service to the public.' It doesn't require a lot of extrapolation to understand that the majority of "public servants", i.e., government officials, are/were attorneys. Judges are attorneys, ergo, all are supposedly servants to the public, whether elected or appointed.
Let us examine Exodus 18:21-26,
'And you, Moses, shall seek out men of ability out of all the people, who fear God, men of truth, haters of unjust gain. And you place these over them as rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And let them judge the people at all times. And it shall be that every great matter they shall bring to you, and every small matter they shall judge. And you make it easy on yourself, and let them bear this burden with you. If you do this thing, and God command you, you will be able to stand; and also this people will go in peace to their place.' And Moses listened to the voice of his father-in-law, and he did all that he had said. And Moses chose men of ability from all Israel and made them heads over the people; rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens. And they judged the people at all times; the hard matters they brought to Moses, and every small matter they judged themselves."
Since our nation's democratic republic and Constitution are (were) most decidedly based on "Judeo- Christian" civil law tenets, it would be most beneficial if we really & truly knew what they are & mean:
"Seek out men of ability" - capable men, able to carry out the task. Men of steadfastness,
longevity, with a history of consistency, character, honor & duty.
"Men who fear GOD" - men who have a spiritual sense of our Creator. Who respect, love, give honor & praise to the Almighty for who He is. Men who pray & seek His Counsel, and submit to His Supreme authority above all else.
"Men of truth" - men who choose truth over expediency & comfort. Men who know YHVH
is truth. Men who know the Scriptures and discern accordingly. Men who know & show mercy and justice as our Heavenly Father does unto us.
"Haters of unjust gain" - those who hate & despise greed & covetousness, both in themselves and others, and strive to keep sin & the Adversary away from the doorstep. Men who know the difference between profit and undue advantage, selfishness versus service, Godliness versus carnality.

How many "public servants" in any government capacity, who fit this profile, can you name?
Hardly any.
Yet, here's some examples of our current most prominent "public servants":
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Dodd's Troubles Open Debate on Congress' Ties With Special Interests

With his political career on the rocks after numerous controversies, Connecticut Sen. Christopher Dodd has become the poster boy for critics who say the inevitable ties between longtime members of Congress and special interests are undermining efforts to revive the economy.

Just two years ago, Christopher Dodd was a popular U.S. senator from Connecticut doing what ambitious lawmakers with long and distinguished careers in Congress have always done -- run for president.

But now, with his political career on the rocks after numerous controversies, Dodd has become the poster boy for critics who say the inevitable ties between longtime members of Congress and special interests are undermining efforts to revive the economy.

"He literally thinks he's going to play a critical role from saving us from ourselves," Christopher Healy, the Republican Party chairman in Connecticut, said of the Democratic senator.

"It's like putting the arsonist in charge of the volunteer fire department. He knows where the fire is because he set it. But beyond that, he can't offer much help."

Dodd is now flailing to save his 35-year congressional career in the swirling wake of an amendment he authored in the $787 billion stimulus package. That amendment, signed into law by President Obama, grandfathered in bonuses that would have been cut off by the bill but had already been promised to employees of companies that received government bailout money.

The issue exploded when it became known that the American International Group had given $165 million in bonuses to its executives after being bailed out by the U.S. government.

Dodd initially denied last week that he had any role in crafting the exemption language, then changed his tune a day later, saying that Treasury officials pressured him to make the change to protect the government from potential lawsuits.

Dodd is closely linked with AIG, whose employees and political funds have donated $300,000 to his campaign fund over the last decade, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Julian Zelizer, a professor of history at Princeton University and an expert on congressional matters, said most politicians are entangled with conflicts of interest -- and they look bad when they're revealed.

"In terms of the financial bailout, this can bite," he said.

Healy acknowledged that conflicts of interest are not the domain of any one party. But he believes Dodd, who is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, should step aside because of his position.

"It wouldn't be so bad if he was in a harmless position," Healy said. "But now he's been thrust into the middle of the debate on the future of our economy."

But Zelizer said Dodd should not have to sideline himself unless there is clear evidence of wrongdoing.

"You have to penalize all of Congress if you started doing this," he said, adding that long-term reform is needed for a more efficient system.

Ross Baker, a politics professor at Rutgers University and a congressional scholar, said the ties between lawmakers and special interest groups have bothered him for a long time.

"No one leaves Congress living at the same level they came in," he told FOXNews.com.

"More than anything else, it's getting insider information, getting special deals that on the face are not illegal. But they're in a privileged position."

Baker said most lawmakers who have served as long as Dodd have had these carrots dangled in front of them.

"And most take advantage of it," he said. "It makes you wish more independently wealthy people ran" for office.

Republicans are turning a spotlight on Dodd's longtime friendship with Edward Downe Jr., a former director of the Bear Stearns investment firm who was snared in an insider trading scandal. Dodd owned a condo with Downe in a fashionable Washington neighborhood but bought out Downe's share in 1990 after learning Downe was under investigation. Downe eventually pleaded guilty to trading inside information.

During the final days of the Clinton administration, Dodd wrote a letter supporting a pardon for Downe.

"Mr. President, Ed Downe is a good person, who is truly sorry for the hurt he caused others," Dodd wrote. The pardon was granted.

Dodd, who spent six years in the House of Representatives before being elected to the Senate in 1980, complained last week that the GOP is repackaging old stories.

"They're trying to weave things together that have been reported on widely over the years," Dodd said. "They are taking some items that are frankly, old news, routine transactions, and trying to make more out of it."

Dodd has acknowledged participating in a VIP program run by Countrywide Financial Corp., which was the nation's largest mortgage lender before its risky involvement in the subprime mortgage scandal forced it into the arms of Bank of America last year.

Dodd said he thought the VIP program referred to upgraded customer service. He denied asking for or receiving any special treatment when he refinanced his homes in Washington and East Haddam, Conn., with Countrywide in 2003.

"There was no sweetheart deal," he said.

Dodd faced criticism in his home state for not releasing details of his mortgages until several months after the controversy surfaced last summer.

He concedes his sluggish response was a mistake, but his critics have not been forgiving.

"He's a walking, talking ad for term limits," state GOP chairman Healy told FOXNews.com. "Thirty years is a long time.... If you hang around too long in sports, theater and politics, the customers speak. They either stop coming to the theater, the ballpark or showing up on Election Day."

The Countrywide controversy came after a failed presidential bid by Dodd that soured many Connecticut voters because he was out of state campaigning so much.

Dodd moved his family to Iowa for several weeks before the caucuses, adding to the home-state backlash.

Critics are seizing on that now, saying Dodd should have been paying more attention to red flags in the economy.

"He wasn't asleep at the switch," Baker said. "He wasn't even at the switch."

But Dodd is not ready to call it a career. He has hired a prominent campaign manager to run his 2010 re-election bid, a sign that he recognizes the challenge he faces against whoever the Republicans pick to run against him.

Baker said he respects Dodd for his intelligence and shrewdness, but he believes Dodd, like many longtime lawmakers, has lost touch with reality.

"I think what happens, when you're in the Senate a long time, you start to feel a presidential run is in the stars and you reach a point where age and experience almost ordains you to get the presidential nomination," he said, explaining that bubbles form around lawmakers who are surrounded by acolytes paid to adore them.

"Sometimes that leads senators to do things that are foolhardy," he added. "Not just the decision to seek the nomination but to move lock, stock and barrel to Iowa."

Chris Dodd, Kent Conrad Tied To Countrywide Scandal

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Hardly enough can be said or quoted about this despicable man. His lack of character & judgment make the nightly news nearly every day:

Barney Frank and the Male Prostitute – 1989

The era of sour feelings on Capitol Hill continued after House Speaker James. C. Wright's resignation and the smear campaign against his successor, Thomas S. Foley. In a third blockbuster scandal, Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Barney Frank admitted a lengthy relationship with a male hooker who ran a bisexual prostitution service out of Frank's apartment.

The story was broken by the conservative Washington Times newspaper, which trumpeted every juicy morsel with front-page hype. Though Frank was apparently ignorant of some of the prostitute's activities, his indiscretion was so great that his standing in Congress was greatly damaged and a House reprimand passed overwhelmingly in July 1990. His home district in Massachusetts was more forgiving, reelecting him easily the following November.

Media Mum on Barney Frank's Fannie Mae Love Connection
Democratic House Financial Services Committee Chair promoted GSEs while former 'spouse' was Fannie Mae executive.

By Jeff Poor, Business & Media Institute, 9/24/2008 4:00:57 PM

Prominent Democrats ran Fannie Mae, the same government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) that donated campaign cash to top Democrats. And one of Fannie Mae’s main defenders in the House – Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., a recipient of more than $40,000 in campaign donations from Fannie since 1989 – was once romantically involved with a Fannie Mae executive.

Frank has argued that family life “should be fair game for campaign discussion,” wrote the Associated Press on Sept. 2. The comment was in reference to GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and her pregnant daughter. “They’re the ones that made an issue of her family,” the Massachusetts Democrat said to the AP.

The news media have covered the relationship in the past, but there have been no mentions since 2005, according to Nexis and despite the collapse of Fannie Mae. The July 3, 1998, Reliable Source column in The Washington Post reported Frank, who is openly gay, had a relationship with Herb Moses, an executive for the now-government controlled Fannie Mae. The column revealed the two had split up at the time but also said Frank was referring to Moses as his “spouse.” Another Washington Post report said Frank called Moses his “lover” and that the two were “still friends” after the breakup.

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Taking stock of Nancy Pelosi's Conflicts of Interest

By Michelle Malkin • August 18, 2008 09:24 AM

When the Neil Cavuto show called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week to respond to my column on her financial investments in T. Boone Pickens’ company, the Speaker’s office failed to respond. The Examiner has also asked her for comment and can’t get a comment either:

A search of Pelosi’s official web site found no announcement of the investment in the Pickens operation. A request to the Speaker’s official spokesman yesterday for information about the investment went unanswered. Coincidentally, Pelosi’s investment came the same month as the House passed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, which she hailed as making the Congress over which she helps preside “the most open and honest in history.” There are numerous ways Pelosi could provide assistance to CLNE and Pickens, including helping secure federal tax advantages. Pickens expects at least 15 percent profits on the wind farm and associated initiatives. At CLNE’s $14 per share value, Pelosi appears to own between 7,000 and 17,000 shares.

How did it happen that the only exemption offered in a bill to raise the minimum wage benefited Del Monte foods corporation tuna canning operation on American Samoa? Del Monte, whose corporate home is in the new House Speaker's San Francisco district?

Then, how about Pelosi’s role as an investor in a real estate investment entity called Presidio Partners. “The Presidio Trust, a group of well-connected citizens, was charged with stewardship of the new national park. The Trust made a big show of gathering public input, which it then ignored in favor of building the absurdly gargantuan Letterman Digital Arts Center.”
Source: http://www.fogcityjournal.com/news_in_brief/kirshenbaum_061029.shtml
The $100-million Digital Arts Center celebrated its official opening on June 26, 2005 with a smiling Pelosi, Senator Barbara Boxer and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in attendance.
Then came Pelosi’s role in the 500-acre Hunters Point Shipyard.
“The Hunters Point Shipyard redevelopment measures have been called the most corrupt legislative initiatives to pass successfully through San Francisco.” (www.seanhannity.com).
In order to speed up the process to have the lagging US Navy turn the property over to San Francisco, Pelosi used John Murtha, the powerful ranking Democrat on the House military appropriations subcommittee, who did her bidding to press to have the Navy sign a binding agreement for the deal on a specific date.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom met on March 31 in the Capitol offices of Pelosi. Pelosi is the aunt of Laurence Pelosi, Newsom’s cousin and campaign treasurer.

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Harry Reid's Dirty Little Land Deal

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn't personally owned the property for three years, property deeds show.

In the process, Reid did not disclose to Congress an earlier sale in which he transferred his land to a company created by a friend and took a financial stake in that company, according to records and interviews.

The Nevada Democrat's deal was engineered by Jay Brown, a longtime friend and former casino lawyer whose name surfaced in a major political bribery trial this summer and in other prior organized crime investigations. He's never been charged with wrongdoing _ except for a 1981 federal securities complaint that was settled out of court.

Land deeds obtained by The Associated Press during a review of Reid's business dealings show:

_The deal began in 1998 when Reid bought undeveloped residential property on Las Vegas' booming outskirts for about $400,000. Reid bought one lot outright, and a second parcel jointly with Brown. One of the sellers was a developer who was benefiting from a government land swap that Reid supported. The seller never talked to Reid.

_In 2001, Reid sold the land for the same price to a limited liability corporation created by Brown. The senator didn't disclose the sale on his annual public ethics report or tell Congress he had any stake in Brown's company. He continued to report to Congress that he personally owned the land.

_After getting local officials to rezone the property for a shopping center, Brown's company sold the land in 2004 to other developers and Reid took $1.1 million of the proceeds, nearly tripling the senator's investment. Reid reported it to Congress as a personal land sale.

The complex dealings allowed Reid to transfer ownership, legal liability and some tax consequences to Brown's company without public knowledge, but still collect a seven-figure payoff nearly three years later.

Reid hung up the phone when questioned about the deal during an AP interview last week.

Condo gifts
On October 17, 2006, John Solomon of the Associated Press reported that Reid had used campaign donations to pay for $3,300 in Christmas gifts to the staff at the condominium where he resides. Federal election law prohibits candidates from using political donations for personal use. Reid's staff stated that his attorneys had approved use of the funds in this manner but that he nonetheless would personally reimburse his campaign for the expenses. That action notwithstanding, the conservative group Citizens United announced it had filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission to investigate the matter.

Laughlin, Nevada, bridge project
Reid earmarked a spending bill to provide for building a bridge between Nevada & Arizona that would make land he owned more valuable. Reid called funding for construction of a bridge over the Colorado River, among other projects, 'incredibly good news for Nevada' in a news release after passage of the 2005 transportation bill. He owned 160 acres of land several miles from the proposed bridge site in Arizona. The bridge could add value to his real estate investment.

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US: 'Perfect Storm' Still Brewing & Growing

Dear Readers,
Please allow, and indulge me to recap everything this blog is about: First, and foremost, to present the Good News of Yashua the Messiah, and 2) defend the Faith, and 3) call sin for what it is, rebellion against YHVH and His Word.
Since the horrible catastrophic tsunami of 2005 in the Indian Ocean, I have used this event in conversation to portray & parallel exactly the peril we find ourselves in here in America. Would the people in the path of that tsunami have been better off knowing, or not knowing in advance of its coming? For one to decide which is in their better interests is tantamount to putting one's self in GOD's place. The only correct decision is to tell them, and let them decide what to do with the information. Such as it is with the Word of YHVH, the Gospel of Yashua, and the wages of sin.
Pure & simple, America has been on the road to destruction for decades. Our 'Perfect Storm' has been building all this time, with most of our inhabitants scurrying about like ants, unaware of the rising tide. Each of us erecting, accumulating our own little kingdoms while oblivious to the signs around us. The signs of decline have been all encompassing; spiritual, moral, social, economic, educational, governmental, financial, you name it.
I wrote a college thesis in the early 80's on the decline of education in America since the ban of Christian prayer & Bible reading in public schools. It's only gotten worse and more pervasive in our society at large ever since. I've observed & commented on the erosion of America's manufacturing & essential services foundation for over 25 years; mining & steel mills, medical & hospitals, textile, automobile & airline industries, private farming, durable goods, etc. THERE IS NOT ONE SUSTAINABLE MAJOR MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY LEFT IN OUR NATION.
Everything is made elsewhere, and MAYBE, assembled here. Nothing is made to last, everything is expendable, including marriage & relationships. Economically, we have become a nation of servicers, assemblers & debtors, instead of producers & aggregators (savers), an unsustainable imbalance in all the annals of history.
Our Creator's (Yashua's) longsuffering and patience with us & toward us is well documented and beyond human comprehension. Lest we forget, YHVH warned & waited for 100 years before flooding the Earth, with Noah(Noe) preaching salvation only in the Ark of Yashua the whole time.
Also remember, the causes & effects of our sins are accumulative and generational.
"for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, while shewing mercy to untold thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments(My Word)." Deut 5:9-10
America has turned her back on YHVH, with each new generation worse than the last. Our nation's woes cannot be healed unless we return to the Great Healer, period.
"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." II Chron 7:14
Do not be fooled by secular news & media, government propaganda & statistics, prosperity preachers, or false teachers. YHVH emphatically states,"Do not be deceived; I will not be mocked: for whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap." Gal 6:7
We have been planting the seeds of rebellion & wickedness far, deep & wide for a very long time, and our bounty is coming into its fullness, ready for harvest. No human endeavor will or can prevent the outcome:
"For we speak wisdom to the mature believer, not according to the wisdom of this age, nor from the rulers (of nations) of this age, for all is being (and will be) brought to nothing...people in their unregenerate(natural) state cannot receive or accept the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness to them: neither can they know them, because the things of the Spirit of God are spiritually discerned." I Cor 2:6,14


________________NEWS_________________
'Perfect storm' puts all types in financial peril

By Christine Dugas, USA TODAY
Howard Zynkian, 89, filed for bankruptcy to save his home in El Cajon, Calif. He refinanced five years ago and didn't know he was getting into a risky mortgage. His monthly mortgage payment jumped from $1,500 to $2,700.

The current financial crisis is all-inclusive; our path to prosperity or even simple financial stability seemingly obliterated.

With every furlough, layoff or stock market drop, Americans of all ages and backgrounds are seeing their incomes dwindle, bills pile up and financial options disappear.

The number who are suffering has increased by 3 million the past year, according to a recent Gallup-Healthways survey. Some 37% of us said we were worried about money last week. Last year, 3.2 million consumers contacted the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, up from 2.2 million in 2007 and 1.4 million in 2006.

"What's happening to families is a perfect storm," says Bob Manning, a finance professor at Rochester Institute of Technology.

The personal stories illustrate how unemployment, health problems, shrinking retirement savings, unaffordable mortgages and other financial stressors lead to unprecedented challenges, worry and consequences. Recent history has shown periods when one area of concern consumed a family — a lost job for six weeks, for example — but nothing like this. And while people once could piece together solutions to recover financially or prevent outright financial ruin, fewer options exist today.

"Some people will never get out of debt," Manning says.

Whether you're in a financial crisis depends on your debt problem, says Steve Bucci, president of the Money Management International Financial Education Foundation, a non-profit organization. If you are less than 90 days late on a credit card bill, that's not a crisis. But if you are 90 days late on your mortgage, that's an earthquake, and if you are one month late on your car loan you might lose the car, Bucci says.

"For many, it's not one particular event, as much as it is life events starting to pile up," says Gerri Detweiler, co-author of Reduce Debt, Reduce Stress. "And it's compounded by the economy and the lack of credit options that are available."

Retirement on the line

The elderly have been harder hit than most. Personal bankruptcy filings among those 65 and older jumped 150% from 1991 through 2007, according to a study released last year by AARP. Although they have been known as the most frugal savers, today, many of them are deep in debt and without a safety net.

Howard Zynkian, 89, filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy more than a year ago to help him save his home. Unlike Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which allows people to have most unsecured debts discharged, Chapter 13 sets up a plan for the filer to repay most debts over several years.

But Zynkian, who lives in El Cajon, Calif., refinanced his home five years ago and didn't understand that he was getting into a risky, alternative mortgage. After his monthly mortgage payment had jumped from $1,500 to $2,700, he was facing foreclosure.

The retired dentist had used up all of his retirement savings to pay his rising mortgage bills. He cares for his daughter, who has severe back problems, and together they receive about $2,900 a month in Social Security.

This week, after much effort, he was able to get a loan modification from his lender. Now he will pay $1,269 a month on a 3% loan rate. After five years it will go up to 4% and then six years later, it will move to 5% for the rest of the term.

"I can just barely manage it," he says.

Zynkian's story is an example of how critical events are coming together for people in every life stage, from the youngest to the oldest, says Melissa Jacoby, a law professor at the University of North Carolina.

"And we used to assume that the elderly had already built wealth in their homes, and that was part of their retirement plan," she says.

Even those who are still working often have less money available to contribute to their retirement plans. Those who are retired and kept most of their 401(k) plans or IRAs invested in stocks have in many cases watched the funds lose half their values.

"The rules seem to have changed, and so they do many silly things," Bucci says.

For example, retirement savings are being used now for paying bills. The golden rule for retirement planning and funds: People still need to continue to save for the long term, and their 401(k) will be a fundamental part of their retirement, says Brent Neiser, director of Strategic Programs and Alliances for the National Endowment for Financial Education. And when stocks and other investments go down, one could consider them a blue-light special and buy more.

But those close to retirement should keep adding to savings, try to work longer and claim Social Security later, so that the monthly check is larger.

Especially if your retirement savings can provide only temporary financial help, you shouldn't rely on it now.

What to do before layoffs

Few life changes affect finances as much as a lost job.

Last year, Amy and Mike Dew, from Sanford, N.C., both were laid off from jobs. It took Mike about nine months to find a new job. Amy, who lost her job in November, just started working again this month.

They are earning much less.

"We literally went from almost a $100,000 salary to probably $50,000 for the two of us," Amy says.

Recently the Dews, who have two teenage daughters, filed for bankruptcy. They gave up one car and their home.

Last month, the national jobless rate was 8.1%, the highest in more than 25 years.

If you expect to lose your job or have your salary slashed, get prepared. Try now to implement a very bare-bones budget and prioritize expenses. "It gives you a better sense of what you can and cannot handle if you lose your job," Detweiler says.

If you are without a job, consider making only minimum payments, using a line of credit as long as it's available, and keeping your money in a safe place, such as an FDIC-insured bank account. "You need to save your cash because when your cash is gone you're out of luck," Bucci says.

Medical bills can be a problem

Health problems and taking care of family members add up to a double whammy of costs: financial and emotional.

Ardella Mitchell, 44, who is raising her 16-year-old son and two grandchildren, has lupus and fibromyalgia. "I get sick a lot, and I'll always have it."

Mitchell, who lives in Cleveland, works as a nursing assistant and schedules her hours based on how well she feels. She recently filed for bankruptcy because her husband is unemployed.

"I had a lot of medical bills that I couldn't pay because I don't have insurance," she says.

Health problems often trigger bankruptcy filing, Jacoby says. And even people with health insurance sometimes become overwhelmed with medical debt.

When families are hit by a combination of serious illness and debt, they should quickly seek help from a credit counselor and a bankruptcy lawyer.

If you don't have health insurance, negotiate the best cost for treatment. If you do have insurance, try to renegotiate the payment dates on bills not covered.

Trying to keep your home

The biggest debt for most of us — our mortgages — has been at the center of the economic collapse.

Sandra Barker and her husband chased the American dream from South Florida to Houston in 2005 hoping for better career options. Sandra is an executive search consultant, and her husband worked in sales.

But their jobs didn't pan out as they thought, and they returned to Florida about eight months later.

"When we came back, it was really painful because the (housing) prices were at their peak," she says.

They bought a home with a hefty mortgage. Last December, they filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy because her husband had lost his job and was in an accident. Debts were mounting, but they wanted to keep their home.

Home foreclosures are still rising in many markets, and that is causing prices to continue to fall. At least in some cities, home sales are starting to improve. And there are more options to help homeowners reduce their mortgages.

The House has approved a plan to give debt-strapped homeowners a chance to lower mortgage payments via bankruptcy courts. And the Senate is considering loan modification legislation.

For most families, the traditional wisdom is to always pay for your mortgage when debt mounts, Jacoby says.

"When people have so many competing bills to pay, it is difficult to decide what to do," she says. "But if you want to keep your home you're going to have to pay for your mortgage, even if you file for bankruptcy."

Credit counseling can help

Oscar Garcia, 57, filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy two years ago to cope with rising credit card debt. He kept up with his mortgage payments and wanted to keep his home.

But then last year, his job in New Jersey was eliminated, and the company closed. His wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and had surgery followed by chemotherapy.

He doesn't have health care, and COBRA coverage for unemployed workers proved too costly. He is up to date with his mortgage but is worried that if he doesn't get a job he'll lose the home.

"He is a typical immigrant story who came here and picked himself up, doing well, raising a family," says his bankruptcy lawyer, Mark Goldman. "But now 20 years later he loses his job, and he won't be able to retire."

Home equity loans and credit cards can't cover for debt anymore.

"Many of the safety nets are drying up," Jacoby says. "So we see people engaging in more informal borrowing from friends and family, who are also in difficult financial trouble."

When the typical solutions disappear and problems mushroom, many people panic. Some respond by ignoring their plight as long as they can, while others make sudden choices without seeking the advice of experts.

Several initiatives are being launched by the government, organizations and the private sector to help financially strapped people survive. But just comprehending the programs and finding out if you qualify is challenging, Neiser says. And that is where a non-profit credit-counseling organization, which is not selling anything, can help.

"Finances are so personal that we're almost suggesting that people hold up a mirror to look at themselves and their money and what's going on there," Neiser says. "But then they should look outside of themselves to find out what are some of the smart things they should be doing as they move forward."

___________More News______________

Deflation stalks Japan, inflation slides in Europe

Japan readies defences for North Korea rocket launch

Finally: NY Inquiry Asks Why AIG Paid Foreign Banks

The Short Sale of America

Amidst all the daily hoopla of political positioning, Wall St. gyrations and economic misery, one thing becomes abundantly & overwhelmingly clear: We are being shortsold.
Short selling has become the method de jour of taking (or printing) the money & running like he**, whether you're in Washington or Wall St.. Congressional & financial power brokers are raping, pillaging & plundering the American public with such brazenness, you wonder if any scruples really ever existed.
Barney Frank makes such a grandstand while grilling AIG executives, yet no mention is made of the millions he and others secretly got from them. What a farce is being played out before us to distract from the massacre that's really going on. All our futures, and America's future are being slaughtered wholesale in the halls of Congress & Pennsylvania Ave. under the guise of "fixing" our economic crisis. Life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness are bygone ideals of an outdated & irrelevant document in lieu of the new mandate of power to the State, control & management of the people, and redistribution of wealth, as dictated by the State.
Currently, Wall St. traders are spiking the market up on every false rumor and no good reason at all, then they wait to short sell to send it back down. No one with any sense would invest their retirement playing against the "house" stacking the roller coaster.
Meanwhile, Congress, the Fed & the US Treasury are stacking their own deck...of your dollars.
They've worked out the next great "Ponzi" scheme to undermine our currency, and our nation: Print more dollars to pay debt. What a concept!!! Wish I could do that!!!
Hold onto your seats!! We're just entering the eye of the storm, but the backwall is more powerful than the front!!!

_______________NEWS_______________

Fed begins move that could sink dollar
Economists warn government subsidizing purchase of its own debt

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Posted: March 25, 2009
4:04 pm Eastern

By Jerome R. Corsi, WorldNetDaily

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NEW YORK – The Federal Reserve began today to buy longer-term U.S. Treasury securities in a move some economists believe will end up "monetizing" the dollar, a process that could inflate the amount of money in circulation and cause serious devaluation of the currency on world markets.

The move comes the same day U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told the Council on Foreign Relations that the U.S. is "open" to a proposal by China to replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency with a "super-currency" to be created by the International Monetary Fund, or IMF.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York released yesterday a statement specifying that the Federal Open Market Trading Desk within the Fed will purchase up to $300 billion of longer-term U.S. Treasury securities over the next six months in what amounts to the a government-subsidized purchase of U.S. government debt.

To many Americans, the move appears equivalent to a retail consumer in debt using a Master Card to pay a Visa credit card bill.

"The Fed is monetizing U.S. Treasury debt in order to debase the dollar – to create inflation – in hopes of avoiding deflation," economist John Williams, author of the Internet newsletter Shadow Government Statistics, told WND in an e-mail.

"This move also sets the precedent for the Fed acting as lender of last resort to the U.S. Treasury, if foreign and other investors in U.S. treasuries balk at upcoming auctions or look to dump existing holdings," Williams said.

"The record federal deficits ahead mean record Treasury borrowings," he explained. "Fed monetization of the debt eventually means surging money supply growth and much higher inflation."

WND previously reported Williams' analysis of the U.S. Treasury's GAAP accounting of the federal budget deficit, which indicated the negative net worth of the U.S. government last year was $65.5 trillion in total obligations, a sum that exceeds the gross domestic product of the world.

"Because of the U.S. government's effective insolvency with $65 trillion in obligations, even before the Obama administration deficits, the higher inflation caused by the Fed buying Treasury debt has the early potential of evolving into an uncontrolled hyperinflation in which the U.S. dollar becomes totally worthless."

Williams' comments were especially pertinent after Britain announced earlier today that for the first time in almost seven years the country failed to find enough buyers of £1.75 billion ($2.55 billion) of bonds as debt investors rejected Prime Minister Gordon Brown's plan to stimulate England's economy with deficit-financed government spending, according to Bloomberg.

International economist Bob Chapman, author of the Internet newsletter International Forecaster, agrees.

"This is just the beginning," Chapman told WND in an e-mail. "The Obama administration expects to run annual deficits between $1-$2 trillion a year for the next decade, and we estimate that foreign buyers might only buy one-third to half that amount of debt. The Fed will have to monetize $3.75 trillion to $5.25 trillion over the next few years, just to buy the U.S. government debt."

The move by the Fed to buy Treasury debt comes as China proposes to replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency.

As the Financial Times in London reported today, China's central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan has proposed to utilize Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs, issued by the IMF as a world reserve currency.

Red Alert explained in an article in this week's issue that the IMF, with the support of the United States and Russia, appears positioned to launch a one-world currency at the G-20 meeting scheduled for London April 2, with the move intended as a last ditch effort to prevent massive bank failures throughout the European Union.

The idea is for the IMF to issue at least $250 billion in Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs, to IMF member states, as a method of placing a safety net under developing countries that might otherwise have to declare bankruptcy.

The idea gained momentum last week when the Moscow Times published an article revealing that the Kremlin intended to use the G-20- meeting to push for the IMF to utilize SDRs as "a super-reserve currency widely accepted by the whole of the international community."

U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is on the record calling for the G-20 to support "substantially increasing emergency IMF resources" by up to $500 billion to deal with the global economic crisis.

SDRs are international reserve assets calculated by the IMF in a basket of major currencies allocated to its 185 member nation-states in relation to the capital, largely in gold or widely accepted foreign currencies that the members have on deposit with the IMF.

China's proposal would require the IMF to issue SDRs to central banks of IMF member states far in excess of any gold or currency reserves the states have on deposit with the IMF.

The idea to utilize the little-understood and largely ignored SDR's in this new capacity, as a sort of an international overdraft facility made available to bankrupt or financially failing IMF member nation-states, originated with Ted Truman, formerly a senior official at both the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury.

According to Reuters, Truman has returned to the U.S. Treasury for the past six weeks to explain his proposal to revitalize the IMF Special Drawing Rights facility with at least a $250 billion commitment from the Obama administration.

This year, China's holdings of U.S. Treasury securities have jumped to $739 billion, up dramatically in less than a year, from $535 billion in June 2008.

China is clearly worried that its massive holdings of U.S. dollars are at risk of devaluation because of the massive deficit financing required by the Obama administration's proposed $3.7 trillion budget, on top of the administration's deficit-financed $787 billion economic stimulus plan and $410 billion omnibus funding bill passed by Congress in the last two months.

China currently holds approximately $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, the most any nation has ever held in the history of the world. The reserves have been gained largely by the positive balance of trade China has enjoyed exporting cheap goods to the U.S. since 2000, when President Bill Clinton signed a landmark bill granting permanent normalized trade relations status to China to accommodate the communist nation's entrance into the World Trade Organization.

_________More NEWS__________

China calls for new World Reserve Currency

Geithner Backtracks: Dollar will remain #1

Treasury readying proposal on non-bank firms takeover.

EU presidency: US stimulus is 'the road to hell'

Dear Readers,
Your interest & feedback in this blog is priceless. Whether by blog comment, email or phone call, every ounce of your input is well received. It tells me the ice is beginning to crack, and the Spirit is making strides to reach your heart & soul...you're beginning to think.
If you've never questioned what you think you know & believe, then you're not much different than a well programmed robot. If you cannot justify, wholly & completely, WHY you believe what you WHAT believe, then maybe it's way past time to start questioning those long held tenets.
I have questioned everything...and still do. And, I've made my choice.
Nearly everything we as humans absorb into our hearts, minds & souls is the result of:
a) personal experience
b) heredity
c) environment
and most often, d) what we've heard, read or been taught by someone else.
Thus, in the grand scheme of things, it's not WHAT we believe, but WHO we believe.
For those who consider me a fairly intelligent individual..........thank you.
For those who consider me a nut, I thank you too :)
I do not ask that you agree with me. My mission is to challenge you, provoke you, inspire you, but overall, to make you think.
Then, when all the flotsam is scraped away, and we get down to the nitty gritty of LIFE, one fact stands paramount above all else: NO ONE GETS OUT OF THIS WORLD ALIVE! WE ALL DIE, PHYSICALLY
Our mortality is inevitable and unavoidable, - so we must face it if we have the opportunity. Death's arrival catches all too many completely unawares, but it doesn't change the BIG PICTURE.
The world & mankind have spawned and perpetuated many a rumor, speculation, philosophy, and religion in their histories, even to this day.
So, whether you're atheist, agnostic, religious, or just plain clueless, YHVH (GOD) says you're a FOOL. Not me, that Book which declares it is the work of our Creator, the HOLY BIBLE states:
"The fool says in his heart, There is no GOD." Ps 53:1
Scripture, that Word of YHVH from Genesis to Revelation, has always been consistent and emphatic in what it teaches:
"It is appointed unto all people once to die, but after this the judgment." Heb 9:27
ALL people are sinners (rebellious against YHVH), by nature and by practice:
"For all sin, and continually fail to measure up to the glory of YHVH." Rom 3:23
And there is a price, a wage, a result for this (mankind's) failure:
"For the wages of sin is eternal death (separation from all YHVH is and provides); Rom 6:23a
Thankfully, there is a way out, and it costs us nothing:
"but the free gift of God is life eternal, through our Lord YASHUA the Messiah." Rom 6:23b
When we (you and I) receive the Person and work of Yashua the Messiah (the Gospel) on our behalf, the gift is ours completely and unreservedly.
"...to all who receive him, even to those believing in (trusting, relying upon) his name, he gives the authority to be children of YHVH." Jn 1:12

I cannot make the meaning of LIFE any simpler than this. All I write in a spiritual & Scriptural context, is solely based on the above premise. GOD cannot make it any simpler.
I stand in line behind the multitude of saints of all the ages, and echo the words of the Apostle Paul, and King David:
"Yashua the Messiah died for our sins according to the Scriptures; He was buried, and He rose from the dead on the third day according to the Scriptures." I Cor 15:3-4
"for I KNOW WHOM I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." II Tim 1:12
"Looking unto Yashua, our Salvation, our God & Lord, the author & finisher of our faith." Heb 12:2
"For you (YHVH) will not leave my (David's) soul in hell; neither will you allow your Holy One (Yashua the Messiah) to see corruption." Ps 16:10
"YHVH said unto my Lord (Yashua our Master, Messiah), Sit at my right hand, until I place Your enemies as Your footstool." Ps 110:1

Who is your God? Your Salvation? Who rules your life? Are you the fool YHVH speaks of?
I rest my case. The evidence is submitted. You, the jury, decide. What say you?

_____________NEWS________________

Closure Friday Continues: Feds shut banks in Georgia, Colorado, Kansas; Credit Unions

GA Rep. Lewis: Bailed-out firms owe millions in taxes

Judge Blocks Rule Permitting Concealed Guns In U.S. Parks

Federal Budget outlook sees slow growth, few jobs, more red ink

And, you thought we were just kidding...

Breaking News

U.N. panel says world should ditch dollar

Wed Mar 18, 2009 11:16am EDT

By Jeremy Gaunt, European Investment Correspondent

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - A U.N. panel will next week recommend that the world ditch the dollar as its reserve currency in favor of a shared basket of currencies, a member of the panel said on Wednesday, adding to pressure on the dollar.

Currency specialist Avinash Persaud, a member of the panel of experts, told a Reuters Funds Summit in Luxembourg that the proposal was to create something like the old Ecu, or European currency unit, that was a hard-traded, weighted basket.

Persaud, chairman of consultants Intelligence Capital and a former currency chief at JPMorgan, said the recommendation would be one of a number delivered to the United Nations on March 25 by the U.N. Commission of Experts on International Financial Reform.

"It is a good moment to move to a shared reserve currency," he said.

Central banks hold their reserves in a variety of currencies and gold, but the dollar has dominated as the most convincing store of value -- though its rate has wavered in recent years as the United States ran up huge twin budget and external deficits.

Some analysts said news of the U.N. panel's recommendation extended dollar losses because it fed into concerns about the future of the greenback as the main global reserve currency, raising the chances of central bank sales of dollar holdings.

"Speculation that major central banks would begin rebalancing their FX reserves has risen since the intensification of the dollar's slide between 2002 and mid-2008," CMC Markets said in a note.

Russia is also planning to propose the creation of a new reserve currency, to be issued by international financial institutions, at the April G20 meeting, according to the text of its proposals published on Monday.

It has significantly reduced the dollar's share in its own reserves in recent years.

GOOD TIME

Persaud said that the United States was concerned that holding the reserve currency made it impossible to run policy, while the rest of world was also unhappy with the generally declining dollar.

"There is a moment that can be grasped for change," he said.

"Today the Americans complain that when the world wants to save, it means a deficit. A shared (reserve) would reduce the possibility of global imbalances."

Persaud said the panel had been looking at using something like an expanded Special Drawing Right, originally created by the International Monetary Fund in 1969 but now used mainly as an accounting unit within similar organizations.

The SDR and the old Ecu are essentially combinations of currencies, weighted to a constituent's economic clout, which can be valued against other currencies and indeed against those inside the basket.

Persaud said there were two main reasons why policymakers might consider such a move, one being the current desire for a change from the dollar.

The other reason, he said, was the success of the euro, which incorporated a number of currencies but roughly speaking held on to the stability of the old German deutschemark compared with, say, the Greek drachma.

Persaud has long argued that the dollar would give way to the Chinese yuan as a global reserve currency within decades.

A shared reserve currency might negate this move, he said, but he believed that China would still like to take on the role.

The United States Of Ponzi - Nouriel Roubini

Nouriel Roubini is one of the few US economists that truly sees the "Big Picture". He has been dead on track with his insight to our current plight, and one whom echos my sentiments on our nation's future. If you thought my rants wholly unfounded, then take a look at his viewpoint.
Here is Nouriel's take:

The United States Of Ponzi
Nouriel Roubini, 03.19.09, 12:01 AM ET

Nouriel Roubini, a professor at the Stern Business School at New York University and chairman of Roubini Global Economics, is a weekly columnist for Forbes.com.

A reporter contacted me recently with the following question:

"I am a reporter, and I am doing a story on Bernard Madoff's life after pleading guilty. As part of this, I was wondering if you could comment on what significance he will have in the history of this period. Will he represent more than a scamster who stole a lot of money from a lot of people? As Bernie Ebbers and Ken Lay came to embody corporate greed and deceit, what will Madoff symbolize?"

Here is my answer fleshed out in full:

Americans lived in a "Made-off" and Ponzi bubble economy for a decade or even longer. Madoff is the mirror of the American economy and of its over-leveraged agents: a house of cards of leverage over leverage by households, financial firms and corporations that has now collapsed in a heap.

When you put zero down on your home, and you thus have no equity in your home, your leverage is literally infinite and you are playing a Ponzi game.

And the bank that lent you, with zero down, a NINJA (no income, no jobs and assets) liar loan that was interest-only for a while, with negative amortization and an initial teaser rate, was also playing a Ponzi game.

And private equity firms that did over a $1 trillion of leveraged buyouts (LBOs) in the last few years with a debt-to-earnings ratio of 10 or above were also Ponzi firms playing a Ponzi game.

A government that will issue trillions of dollars of new debt to pay for this severe recession and socialize private losses may risk becoming a Ponzi government if--in the medium term--it does not return to fiscal discipline and debt sustainability.

A country that has--for over 25 years--spent more than income and thus run an endless string of current account deficit--and has thus become the largest net foreign debtor in the world (with net foreign liabilities that are likely to be over $3 trillion by the end of this year)--is also a Ponzi country that may eventually default on its foreign debt if it does not, over time, tighten its belt and start running smaller current account deficits and actual trade surpluses.

Whenever you persistently consume more than your income year after year (a household with negative savings, a government with budget deficit, a firm or financial institution with persistent losses, a country with a current account deficit) you are playing a Ponzi game. In the jargon of formal economics, you are not satisfying your long-run inter-temporal budget constraint as you borrow to finance the interest rate on your previous debt, and are thus following an unsustainable debt dynamics that eventually leads to outright insolvency.

According to Hyman Minsky and economic theory, Ponzi agents (households, firms, banks) are those who need to borrow more to repay both principal and interest on their previous debt; i.e., Minsky's "Ponzi borrowers" cannot service either interest or principal payments on their debts. They are called "Ponzi borrowers" as they need persistently increasing prices of the assets they invested in to keep on refinancing their debt obligations.

By this standard, U.S. households whose debt relative to income went from 65% 15 years ago, to 100% in 2000, to 135% today were playing a Ponzi game.

And an economy where the total debt to GDP ratio (of households, financial firms and corporations) is now 350% is a Made-Off Ponzi economy. And now that home values have fallen 20% (and they will fall another 20% before they bottom out) and equity prices have fallen over 50% (and may fall further), using homes as an ATM to finance Ponzi consumption is not feasible any more. The party is over for households, banks and non-bank highly leveraged corporations.

The bursting of the housing bubble, the equity bubble, the hedge funds bubble and the private equity bubble showed that most of the "wealth" that supported the massive leverage and overspending of agents in the economy was a fake bubble-driven wealth. Now that these bubble have burst, it is clear that the emperor had no clothes, and that we are the naked emperor. A rising bubble tide was hiding the fact that most Americans and their banks were swimming naked; and the bursting of the bubble is the low tide that shows who was naked.

Madoff may now spend the rest of his life in prison. U.S. households, financial and non-financial firms, and government may spend the next generation in debtor's prison having to tighten their belts to pay for the losses inflicted by a decade or more of reckless leverage, over-consumption and risk-taking.

Americans, let us look at ourselves in the mirror: Madoff is us and Mr. Ponzi is us!

_____________NEWS_______________

Feds Reverse Undercutting Ammo Supply Policy

Obama Eligibility: The Issue that Won't Die

National petition now over 335,000 strong, with 20 states lawsuits pending

Ready for a Freefall?

How many of us realize what just happened with this Federal Reserve action? The Fed does NOT have $1.2Trillion of its own money. The Fed prints money, period. They just deflated our currency by $1.2Trillion, and inflated our economy. Which really means they just skyrocketed prices on just about everything we buy. Our dollar fell precipitously around the world with this announcement.
Lower home mortgage interest rates are the target, but the prices will climb along with everything else. This sounds good until you go to the grocery and retail stores. We're not Zimbabwe...yet, but we're on the same path & headed for the freefall.
Listen, people, everything our gov't has done seems good in their own eyes, but it is a time proven recipe for disaster. We (they) are propping up our nation with matchsticks and paper mache'. Until we seek YHVH and address our spiritual crisis nationally, all else we do is for naught. One act of desperation after another.
"Is it a small thing to you to have fed on the good pasture, but you must trample the rest of your pastures with your feet? And have you drunk of the clear waters, but the rest you must foul with your feet?" Ezek 34:18
"Come now, and let us reason together, said the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Is 1:18

_______________NEWS__________________
Breaking News:
Unemployment Highest in 26 Years

Fed to Buy $1.2 Trillion in Securities to Aid Economy
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
The Fed dramatically increased the amount of money it will create out of thin air to thaw frozen credit markets.
The announcement put the dollar under severe pressure, sharply lowered U.S. Treasury yields and tightened European credit spreads, while crude oil and metal prices gained on hopes that there would be a pick up in global industrial activity.
__________________

Fed launches bold $1.2T effort to revive economy

WASHINGTON – With the country sinking deeper into recession, the Federal Reserve launched a bold $1.2 trillion effort Wednesday to lower rates on mortgages and other consumer debt, spur spending and revive the economy.

To do so, the Fed will spend up to $300 billion to buy long-term government bonds and an additional $750 billion in mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues wrapped a two-day meeting by leaving a key short-term bank lending rate at a record low of between zero and 0.25 percent. Economists predict the Fed will hold the rate in that zone for the rest of this year and for most — if not all — of next year.

The decision to hold rates near zero was widely expected. But the Fed's plan to buy government bonds and the sheer amount — $1.2 trillion — of the extra money to be pumped into the U.S. economy was a surprise.

"The Fed is clearly ready, willing and able to be the ATM for the credit markets," said Terry Connelly, dean of Golden Gate University's Ageno School of Business in San Francisco.

Wall Street was buoyed. The Dow Jones industrial average, which had been down earlier in the day, rose 90.88, or 1.2 percent, to 7,486.58. Broader indicators also gained.

And government bond prices soared. Heralding a coming drop in mortgage rates, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note dropped to 2.50 percent from 3.01 percent — the biggest daily drop in percentage points since 1981.

The dollar, meanwhile, fell against other major currencies. In part, that signaled concern that the Fed's intervention might spur inflation over the long run.

If the credit and financial markets can be stabilized, the recession could end this year, setting the stage for a recovery next year, Bernanke has said in recent weeks. The Fed chief and his colleagues again pledged to use all available tools to make that happen, and economists expect further steps in the months ahead.

Since the Fed last met in late January, "the economy continues to contract," Fed policymakers observed in a statement they issued Wednesday.

"Job losses, declining equity and housing wealth and tight credit conditions have weighed on consumer sentiment and spending," they said.

The Fed's announcement that it will spend up to $300 billion over the next six months to buy long-term government bonds was something that in January it had hinted it would do. But some officials had seemed to back off from the idea in recent weeks.

Such action is designed to boost Treasury prices and drive down their rates, as it did Wednesday. Rates on other kinds of debt are likely to fall as well.

"This is going to help everybody," said Sung Won Sohn, economist at the Martin Smith School of Business at California State University. "This might help the Fed put Humpty Dumpty back together again."

The last time the Fed set out to influence long-term interest rates was during the 1960s.

The Fed's decision to buy an additional $750 billion in mortgage-backed securities guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie comes on top of $500 billion in such securities it's already buying. It also will double its purchases of Fannie and Freddie debt to $200 billion.

Since the initial Fannie-Freddie program was announced late last year, mortgage rates have fallen. Rates on 30-year mortgages now average 5.03 percent, down from 6.13 percent a year ago, according to Freddie Mac. The Fed's decision to expand the program could further reduce rates, analysts said.

"This is not only going to keep mortgage rates low for a long period of time," said Greg McBride, a senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com. "The mere announcement may produce a honeymoon effect and bring mortgage rates down to even lower levels in the coming days."

The goal behind all the Fed's moves is to spur lending. More lending would boost spending by consumers and businesses, which would revive the economy.

The Fed also said it would consider expanding another $1 trillion program that's being rolled out this week. That program aims to boost the availability of consumer loans for autos, education and credit cards, as well as for small businesses.

Where does the Fed get all the money? It prints it.

The Fed's series of radical programs to lend or buy debt has swollen its balance sheet to nearly $2 trillion — from just under $900 billion in September. Sohn believes the Fed's balance sheet could grow to $5 trillion over the next two years.

The Fed has said it's mindful of the risks of pumping more money into the economy, bailing out financial institutions and leaving a key rate near zero for too long. There's the potential to plant the seeds for higher inflation, put ever-more taxpayer money at risk and encourage "moral hazard." That's when companies make high-stakes gambles knowing the government stands ready to rescue them.

Across the Atlantic, the Bank of England last week began buying government bonds from financial institutions as it turned to new ways to help revive Britain's moribund economy. The Bank of England, like the Fed, already had lowered its key interest rate to a record low of 0.5 percent.

Finance leaders from top economies have discussed coordinating actions from their governments and central banks to provide a more potent punch against the global financial crisis.

The Fed is taking the new steps as the U.S. economy sinks deeper into recession. Businesses are facing weaker sales prospects as customers in the United States and abroad cut back, the policymakers said.

Still, the Fed said it hoped its actions, the government's bank rescue effort and President Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus of increased government spending and tax cuts eventually will help revive the economy.

"Although the near-term economic outlook is weak, the committee anticipates that policy actions .... will contribute to a gradual resumption of sustainable economic growth," the Fed said.

But even in this best-case scenario, the nation's unemployment rate — now at quarter-century peak of 8.1 percent — will keep climbing. Some economists think it will hit 10 percent by the end of this year.

The recession, which began in December 2007, already has snatched a net total of 4.4 million jobs and has left 12.5 million searching for work.

As America Goes, So Goes the Rest...

As a proud owner of an assortment of firearms, I had heard of the Obamaphobia over gun control after his election. The rush & rise of gun sales & permits has been head-spinning. But, the real crisis for gun owners was understated; the absence of available ammunition. Starting before last Christmas, the ammo shortage has become sorely acute. Nothing but empty shelves stare back at every ammo dealer across America, with no restock in sight.
Face it, a firearm without ammo is useless...and again, our gov't is abetting the crisis, just like everything else. (See News below - Ammo Supply)
America's rapid goosestep to socialism affects the rest of the world as well. Every continent & country is facing dire circumstances in tandem with our own. We are bringing about a global "change", and we won't like the outcome...


________________NEWS_________________
Is Obama manipulating the stock market?
Economist claims president 'jawboning' economy to boost Dow

British unemployment rises to 2MIL; outlook darkens

Israeli banks will not collapse, Fischer vows

World Bank cuts China 2009 GDP forecast

US Gov't Cuts Ammo Supply

Continuing - No Faith in America; Obama & Reprobates

Dear Readers,
In perusing the headlines each morning, I come across articles which just scream for rebuttal. While I'm sure the writers dismiss most negative criticism, the Spirit in me won't let the truth be silent. If we do not take our stand for Yashua and His Word, the prince of the power of darkness will have his way in America, moreso than he already has. I want a Godly America again, a Godly America for my children & grandchildren, and I'm more than willing to speak my mind against ALL unrighteousness, and "Cast down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." II Cor 10:5
Here's my rebuttal to NYTimes Op-Ed Frank Rich's 'The Culture (Spiritual) Warriors Get Laid Off':
Mr Rich,
Boy, it sure is amazing how someone can spin moral decadence & depravity in America as a good thing. How does anyone confuse the war for righteousness as a "Culture War"? Moreover, you show how little you know of human history & nature. Without a Spirit-honed conscience & moral restraint, civilizations have always sunk to their baser levels. Whether its moral/ethical corruption in government & Wall St., or muggers & rapists in a back alley, the depravity is the same.
Granted, the former spotlighters of the religious right have either passed on, or been disgraced, and their successors are of lesser spine, but that doesn't disqualify the message. It becomes more apparent each day that what we used to deem bad is now good and vice versa.
Just because our President sees embryonic stem cell harvesting as a positive and "good" thing, and surrounds himself with like minded reprobate pastors, does not make him a saint, or Christian by true Biblical definition. Many who say, 'Lord, Lord, have we not cast out demons & performed miracles in your name?' will hear, "Be cast out, I never knew you."
Just as it is nearly impossible to define colors to a blind man, for me to explain spiritual things to one dead in spirit is just as hopeless.
Now, here's his spin. If this doesn't make your spirit groan, nothing will. The red italics are made for emphasis.
_____________________

The Culture Warriors Get Laid Off

By FRANK RICH

SOMEDAY we’ll learn the whole story of why George W. Bush brushed off that intelligence briefing of Aug. 6, 2001, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” But surely a big distraction was the major speech he was readying for delivery on Aug. 9, his first prime-time address to the nation. The subject — which Bush hyped as “one of the most profound of our time” — was stem cells. For a presidency in thrall to a thriving religious right (and a presidency incapable of multi-tasking), nothing, not even terrorism, could be more urgent.

When Barack Obama ended the Bush stem-cell policy last week, there were no such overheated theatrics. No oversold prime-time address. No hysteria from politicians, the news media or the public. The family-values dinosaurs that once stalked the earth — Falwell, Robertson, Dobson and Reed — are now either dead, retired or disgraced. Their less-famous successors pumped out their pro forma e-mail blasts, but to little avail. The Republican National Committee said nothing whatsoever about Obama’s reversal of Bush stem-cell policy. That’s quite a contrast to 2006, when the party’s wild and crazy (and perhaps transitory) new chairman, Michael Steele, likened embryonic stem-cell research to Nazi medical experiments during his failed Senate campaign.

What has happened between 2001 and 2009 to so radically change the cultural climate? Here, at last, is one piece of good news in our global economic meltdown: Americans have less and less patience for the intrusive and divisive moral scolds who thrived in the bubbles of the Clinton and Bush years. Culture wars are a luxury the country — the G.O.P. included — can no longer afford.

Not only was Obama’s stem-cell decree an anticlimactic blip in the news, but so was his earlier reversal of Bush restrictions on the use of federal money by organizations offering abortions overseas. When the administration tardily ends “don’t ask, don’t tell,” you can bet that this action, too, will be greeted by more yawns than howls.

Once again, both the president and the country are following New Deal-era precedent. In the 1920s boom, the reigning moral crusade was Prohibition, and it packed so much political muscle that F.D.R. didn’t oppose it. The Anti-Saloon League was the Moral Majority of its day, the vanguard of a powerful fundamentalist movement that pushed anti-evolution legislation as vehemently as it did its war on booze. (The Scopes “monkey trial” was in 1925.) But the political standing of this crowd crashed along with the stock market. Roosevelt shrewdly came down on the side of “the wets” in his presidential campaign, leaving Hoover to drown with “the dries.”

Much as Obama repealed the Bush restrictions on abortion and stem-cell research shortly after pushing through his stimulus package, so F.D.R. jump-started the repeal of Prohibition by asking Congress to legalize beer and wine just days after his March 1933 inauguration and declaration of a bank holiday. As Michael A. Lerner writes in his fascinating 2007 book “Dry Manhattan,” Roosevelt’s stance reassured many Americans that they would have a president “who not only cared about their economic well-being” but who also understood their desire to be liberated from “the intrusion of the state into their private lives.” Having lost plenty in the Depression, the public did not want to surrender any more freedoms to the noisy minority that had shut down the nation’s saloons.

In our own hard times, the former moral “majority” has been downsized to more of a minority than ever. Polling shows that nearly 60 percent of Americans agree with ending Bush restrictions on stem-cell research (a Washington Post/ABC News survey in January); that 55 percent endorse either gay civil unions or same-sex marriage (Newsweek, December 2008); and that 75 percent believe openly gay Americans should serve in the military (Post/ABC, July 2008). Even the old indecency wars have subsided. When a federal court last year struck down the F.C.C. fine against CBS for Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” at the 2004 Super Bowl, few Americans either noticed or cared about the latest twist in what had once been a national cause célèbre.

It’s not hard to see why Eric Cantor, the conservative House firebrand who is vehemently opposed to stem-cell research, was disinclined to linger on the subject when asked about it on CNN last Sunday. He instead accused the White House of acting on stem cells as a ploy to distract from the economy. “Let’s take care of business first,” he said. “People are out of jobs.” (On this, he’s joining us late, but better late than never.)

Even were the public still in the mood for fiery invective about family values, the G.O.P. has long since lost any authority to lead the charge. The current Democratic president and his family are exemplars of precisely the Eisenhower-era squareness — albeit refurbished by feminism — that the Republicans often preached but rarely practiced. Obama actually walks the walk. As the former Bush speechwriter David Frum recently wrote, the new president is an “apparently devoted husband and father” whose worst vice is “an occasional cigarette.”

Frum was contrasting Obama to his own party’s star attraction, Rush Limbaugh, whose “history of drug dependency” and “tangled marital history” make him “a walking stereotype of self-indulgence.” Indeed, the two top candidates for leader of the post-Bush G.O.P, Rush and Newt, have six marriages between them. The party that once declared war on unmarried welfare moms, homosexual “recruiters” and Bill Clinton’s private life has been rebranded by Mark Foley, Larry Craig, David Vitter and the irrepressible Palins. Even before the economy tanked, Americans had more faith in medical researchers using discarded embryos to battle Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s than in Washington politicians making ad hoc medical decisions for Terri Schiavo.

What’s been revealing about watching conservatives debate their fate since their Election Day Waterloo is how, the occasional Frum excepted, so many of them don’t want to confront the obsolescence of culture wars as a political crutch. They’d rather, like Cantor, just change the subject — much as they avoid talking about Bush and avoid reckoning with the doomed demographics of the G.O.P.’s old white male base. To recognize all these failings would be to confront why a once-national party can now be tucked into the Bible Belt.

The religious right is even more in denial than the Republicans. When Obama nominatedKathleen Sebelius, the Roman Catholic Kansas governor who supports abortion rights, as his secretary of health and human services, Tony Perkins, the leader of the Family Research Council, became nearly as apoplectic as the other Tony Perkins playing Norman Bates. “If Republicans won’t take a stand now, when will they?” the godly Perkins thundered online. But Congressional Republicans ignored him, sending out (at most) tepid press releases of complaint, much as they did in response to Obama’s stem-cell order. The two anti-abortion Kansas Republicans in the Senate, Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts, both endorsed Sebelius.

Perkins is now praying that economic failure will be a stimulus for his family-values business. “As the economy goes downward,” he has theorized, “I think people are going to be driven to religion.” Wrong again. The latest American Religious Identification Survey, published last week, found that most faiths have lost ground since 1990 and that the fastest-growing religious choice is “None,” up from 8 percent to 15 percent (which makes it larger than all denominations except Roman Catholics and Baptists). Another highly regarded poll, the General Social Survey, had an even more startling finding in its preliminary 2008 data released this month: Twice as many Americans have a “great deal” of confidence in the scientific community as do in organized religion. How the almighty has fallen: organized religion is in a dead heat with banks and financial institutions on the confidence scale.

This, too, is a replay of the Great Depression. “One might have expected that in such a crisis great numbers of these people would have turned to the consolations of and inspirations of religion,” wrote Frederick Lewis Allen in “Since Yesterday,” his history of the 1930s published in 1940. But that did not happen: “The long slow retreat of the churches into less and less significance in the life of the country, and even in the lives of the majority of their members, continued almost unabated.”

The new American faith, Allen wrote, was the “secular religion of social consciousness.” It took the form of campaigns for economic and social justice — as exemplified by the New Deal and those movements that challenged it from both the left and the right. It’s too early in our crisis and too early in the new administration to know whether this decade will so closely replicate the 1930s, but so far Obama has far more moral authority than any religious leader in America with the possible exception of his sometime ally, the Rev. Rick Warren.

History is cyclical, and it would be foolhardy to assume that the culture wars will never return. But after the humiliations of the Scopes trial and the repeal of Prohibition, it did take a good four decades for the religious right to begin its comeback in the 1970s. In our tough times, when any happy news can be counted as a miracle, a 40-year exodus for these ayatollahs can pass for an answer to America’s prayers.
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Without a Pastor of His Own, Obama Turns to Five

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN, NYTimes

President Obama has been without a pastor or a home church ever since he cut his ties to the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. in the heat of the presidential campaign. But he has quietly cultivated a handful of evangelical pastors for private prayer sessions on the telephone and for discussions on the role of religion in politics.

All are men, two of them white and three black — including the Rev. Otis Moss Jr., a graying lion of the civil rights movement. Two, the entrepreneurial dynamos Bishop T. D. Jakes and the Rev. Kirbyjon H. Caldwell, also served as occasional spiritual advisers to President George W. Bush. Another, the Rev. Jim Wallis, leans left on some issues, like military intervention and poverty programs, but opposes abortion.

None of these pastors are affiliated with the religious right, though several are quite conservative theologically. One of them, the Rev. Joel C. Hunter, the pastor of a conservative megachurch in Florida, was branded a turncoat by some leaders of the Christian right when he began to speak out on the need to stop global warming.

But as a group they can hardly be characterized as part of the religious left either. Most, like Mr. Wallis, do not take traditionally liberal positions on abortion or homosexuality. What most say they share with the president is the conviction that faith is the foundation in the fight against economic inequality and social injustice. (What faith? Certainly not Biblical)

“These are all centrist, social justice guys,” said the Rev. Eugene F. Rivers, a politically active pastor of Azusa Community Church in Boston, who knows all of them but is not part of the president’s prayer caucus. “Obama genuinely comes out of the social justice wing of the church. That’s real. The community organizing stuff is real.”

The pastors say Mr. Obama appears to rely on his faith for intellectual and spiritual succor.

“While he may not put ‘Honk if You Love Jesus’ bumper stickers on the back of his car, he is the kind of guy who practices what he preaches,” said Mr. Caldwell, the senior pastor of Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston. “He has a desire to keep in touch with folk outside the Beltway, and to stay in touch with God. He seems to see those as necessary conditions for maintaining his internal compass.”

Bishop Jakes said he had been tapped for several prayer phone calls — the most recent being when Mr. Obama’s grandmother died in November, two days before the election. “You take turns praying,” said Bishop Jakes, who like the other ministers did not want to divulge details of the calls. “It’s really more about contacting God than each other.”

Mr. Hunter said of the phone calls: “The times I have prayed with him, he’s always initiated it.”

The Obama administration has reached out to hundreds of religious leaders across the country to mobilize support and to seek advice on policy. These five pastors, however, have been brought into a more intimate inner circle. Their names were gleaned from interviews with people who know the president and religious leaders who work in Washington. Their role could change if Mr. Obama joins a church in Washington, but that could take some time because of the logistical challenges in finding a church that can accommodate the kind of crowd the Obamas would attract.

The White House refused to comment for this article.

The pastor in the circle who has known Mr. Obama the longest is Mr. Wallis, president and chief executive of Sojourners, a liberal magazine and movement based in Washington. In contrast to the other four, his contact with the president has been focused more on policy than prayer. Mr. Wallis has recently joined conservatives in pressing the president’s office of faith-based initiatives to continue to allow government financing for religious social service groups that hire only employees of their own faith.

Mr. Wallis said he got to know Mr. Obama in the late 1990s when they participated in a traveling seminar that took bus trips to community programs across the country. Mr. Wallis said they “hit it off” because they were both Christians serious about their faith, fathers of young children the same age and believers in “transcending left and right” to find solutions to social problems.

“He and I were what we called back then ‘progressive Christians,’ as opposed to the dominant religious-right era we were in then,” Mr. Wallis said. “We didn’t think Jesus’ top priorities would be capital gains tax cuts and supporting the next war.”

Presidents through the ages have leaned on pastors for spiritual support, policy advice and political cover. The Rev. Billy Graham was a counselor to at least five (Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush), and tapes from the Nixon White House reveal that their talks veered beyond religion to political and social topics that later proved regretful.

Some presidents, like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, regularly attended a local church. George W. Bush never joined a local church, but courted ministers on the religious right, which gained him favor with a major constituency for most of his two terms.

Pinning down Mr. Obama’s theological leanings is not easy, the ministers said in interviews. They said he is well read in the Bible, but has not articulated views consistent with the racially inflected interpretation of his former pastor, Mr. Wright.

Mr. Moss, who once worked alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and who only recently retired from his pulpit at Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland, said of the president, “I would simply say that he is a person of great faith, and I think that faith has sustained him.”

Mr. Moss’s son is the Rev. Otis Moss III, who succeeded Mr. Wright as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, Mr. Obama’s former church. Mr. Wright and the president are no longer in contact, said several people who know both men.

Bishop Jakes said he sought out Mr. Obama in Chicago because of their common interest in Kenya and because he was impressed with the speech Mr. Obama delivered at the Democratic National Convention in 2004.

Bishop Jakes is himself a nationally known preaching powerhouse who fills sports stadiums and draws 30,000 worshipers to his church in Dallas, the Potter’s House. He also produces movies, writes books and runs antipoverty programs in Dallas and Kenya, where Mr. Obama has ties through his Kenyan father.

Three of the ministers said their introduction to the president was through Joshua DuBois, who led religious outreach for the Obama presidential campaign and now heads the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Mr. DuBois, who declined to comment, is himself a Pentecostal pastor.

Mr. Hunter, who leads a church in Longwood, Fla., said he was approached by Mr. DuBois in 2007 — a few months after he left his new post as head of the Christian Coalition, the conservative advocacy group, because the board did not want to enlarge its agenda to include environmental issues like global warming.

He has since written a book, “A New Kind of Conservative: Cooperation Without Compromise,” and gave an invocation at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last year.

Bishop Jakes, Mr. Wallis and Mr. Hunter said they were political independents. Mr. Moss and Mr. Caldwell publicly endorsed Mr. Obama, and Mr. Caldwell donated money to his campaign.

On the morning of the inauguration, Bishop Jakes delivered the sermon at a private service at St. John’s Episcopal Church. He likened Mr. Obama to the boys in the Book of Daniel who are thrown into a fiery furnace that is seven times hotter than it should be — and survive. “God is with you in the furnace,” Bishop Jakes preached to Mr. Obama.

Make Note: The name of Jesus (Yashua) was not mentioned once by any of these pastors. They're mixing and confusing their "god" with the GOD of Scripture, Adonai Yashua ha' Mashiach, Lord Jesus the Christ.