http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20071005_1
October 5-7, 2007 -- Comptroller General Walker: Financial tsunami coming publication date: Oct 5, 2007 October 5-7, 2007 -- Comptroller General Walker: Financial tsunami coming David Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States, urged journalists gathered in Washington for the annual meeting of the Society of Professional Journalists to start covering with more honestly the impending financial crisis facing the United States. Walker is the head of Congress' Government Accountability Office (GAO), a non-partisan oversight and chief accountant position with a 15-year term. Walker warned that with the first "baby boomer" retiring on January 1, 2008, a tsunami of increased non-discretionary spending for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will bankrupt the United States government and may force U.S. bonds into "junk" status in 20 years. The Comptroller General also warned that the U.S. work force is decreasing and, as a result, so will the tax base. He also said that the United States currently ranks 16 out of 28 among industrialized nations in leading quality of life indicators, including health care, the environment, personal savings, and education. This situation is not likely to improve, especially as the work force will be required to postpone retirement in the early 60s age group and work longer. Walker sounded another alarm. He said if other countries decide to stop buying America's debt, interest rates will skyrocket resulting in massive unemployment, inflation, and a steep rise in taxes. Walker declared that the U.S. dollar "is tanking" and the administration's rhetoric about that making U.S. products less expensive is not borne out by the current trade imbalance statistics. Comments Arthur T. Murray (Seattle, WA) After thirty years of slowly sinking, the Canadian dollar has made a surprise comeback and was most recently worth US $1.01 in American dollars. Is that situation an indicator of American financial collapse? And why blame it on the baby boomers? They work; they contribute. It reminds me of a time a few years ago when some Eastern mall told the mall-walker retirees that they were suddenly forbidden to "mall-walk" -- to get their indoor exercise without shopping or buying anything. So the disenfranchised mall-walkers said, OK, we've been giving money to our grandkids to spend at your mall, and we will no longer do so. Pretty soon, the mall reversed its policy against mall-walking. In general, though, the U.S. economy must be pretty precarious right now. The substandard home loan thing is still reverberating through the markets. The Fed dropped the prime rate by half a point -- probably not enough to prevent at least a recession. Just how bad will the U.S. economy tank? Verda Ingle (Boone) Greenspan and company did this to us on purpose. It was with a sense of great alarm that they saw a budget surplus looming in the year 2000, just 8 years before the boomer wave started retiring. Heaven forbid that the US treasury might actually be able to handle the retirement benefits of the Vietnam generation, and vindicate the virtues of the welfare state. And if Al Gore had gotten into the White House as he should, that would have happened. But it's been the fondest wish of the neocons to starve government, to create crisis where there was none, to prove to Americans that government can't take care of us and we should instead rely on the private sector. Grover Norquist is famous for his impolitic remark about drowning government in the bathtub, but they've all been scheming on this for years. No administration before Bush/Cheney had the chutzpah to unleash the neocons and bear the criticism for it. When they talk about "legacy", that's what they mean---driving America over a cliff to the point where we can never go back to what was before. These men think they are heroes for their courage. It took some doing to drain the enormous US treasury, and destroy our industrial base, and disenfranchise the powerful middle class. It took wild, unheard-of spending---opening flood gates of cash---and 24/7 media manipulation to stem the tide of public fury and resistance. But they persevered, and they didn't care what we thought of them, and they didn't care about elections or parties because they had figured out how to handle those. They made up their own "new rules" and new reality, where the strong will rule the weak. Those who are late to catch on to the new plan will be devoured in the Darwinian struggle. liberty antigone (?) I hate to show this to you, but you probably should know about it. Webster Tarpley, on Guns & Butter, on the coming economy. Turn on your speakers http://kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=22000 The U.S. Banking System: Too Big To Bail Out Interview with economic historian and author, Webster Tarpley, on the global financial crisis. We discuss his new 17-page article, Helicopter Ben Unleashes Hyper-Inflation, including the bailout of Wall Street, inflation, demise of the dollar, derivatives, hedge funds, the plunge protection team, commodities as the next "bubble", and what we should do. Tarpley is author of Surviving the Cataclysm, A Study of the World Financial Crisis (Your Guide Through the Greatest Financial Crisis in Human History). He is also author of 9/11 Synthetic Terror, Made in the U.S.A.; Against Oligarchy; and co- author of George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography. Visit his website at www.tarpley.net. liberty antigone (?) In the recent discussion by Naomi Klein in her tour for book THE SHOCK DOCTRINE with this 6 minute video as introduction, we heard Klein discusses the way the shock of a false flag or crises sets up the way for the government to go in an restructure the economic scene, and reduce freedoms and economic-political power of the people. It was a powerful speech, indeed. (I am secretly convinced Hurricaines, Tsunamis, forrest fires and earthquakes are set up by the powers of fascism to restructure the economy. Just prior to the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco, many new waterfront developers in the middle of construction were rewarded with waterfront views on the Embarcadero, where freeways previously blocked the view. Just like in SUPERMAN where Lex Luther (Gene Hackman) plans to buy up the real estate along the San Andreas fault, and then nuke it, so he has waterfront property in California in the 1980 movie, so to the real estate developers managed to go in an buy property wherever the earthquakes and tsunamis have been. See New Orleans real estate before and after the bombing of the levees.) http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine 6 minute video: http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/short-film liberty antigone (?) PPS. The timing of the earthquake was in the opening minutes of the baseball finals between Oakland A's and San Francisco Giants. Hmm. The world was watching. JM (Pine Ridge) Liberty- similarly to 9/11 in NYC, there should be seismograph readings before the earthquake occured to determine if there was an underground explosion to set it off. It was clear at least on 9/11 that there were explosions occuring before the collapse of the towers. How unfortunate this info hasn't really been released by MSM, but how typical, too. Verda Ingle (Boone) lib antig- I think you're the real deal. spoonful (Boston) Nowhere is Bush's squidlike backbone more evident than in the decline of our once proud and mighty greenback. There is no doubt that a strong greenback is directly tied to lower budget defecits, lower interest rates, higher world trade volumes and an overall increase in economic efficiency. If the bleeding of our national treasure were shifted from the absolute lunacy of the middle east to a "Manhattan Project" type investment in renewable energy, we would see our currency would rise from the junk heap. Kait (Michigan) They are ever vigilant in their assault on the enconomy. They are now trying to push through NAFTA expansion to Peru. Go to Public Citizen Action Network at http://action.citizen.org/campaign.jsp? campaign_KEY=12561 There you can fill out the form to send a letter to your Representative and to both of your Senators. For those that don't know and don't want to trust a click on a link in a blog, remember to copy and paste into address bar instead. Kait (Michigan) Here is a site for those who want keep tabs on bank failures. http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html Kait (Michigan) If you can stomach it here is a site with charts to watch the US Dollar index. http://stockcharts.com/charts/gallery.html?$USD Kait (Michigan) Leading Americans Ask Military to Refuse to Attack Iran and Start a Global Catastrophe Global Research, October 5, 2007 I know this is off topic but it is very important. Please go to http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6982 and sign the petition Susan Modikoane (Houston/TX) That's funny because I thought they were seeding the storms in the Gulf last year. It was just a feeling I had. Anyhow, the real problem with the economy according to http://www.energybulletin.net/7707.html (EXCELLENT article) and http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.com the current collapse of the dollar stems from the fact the oil and gas used to be traded in US Dollars. This forced all governments to keep US Dollars in their treasuries in bonds, so they could purchase oil for their countries. Iraq started selling oil in Euros the year before the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Last year, Iran opened the oil bourse, an oil trading floor, similar to the one in London, selling oil in Euros. Then Venezuela started selling oil in non-PetroDollars. The effect of this is to lower the demand for the dollar and therefore it's value. Another problematic and related issue is Peak Oil. Many people believe that the world oil supply is a bell curve that has peaked and is going down quickly. We've used oil for the last 100 years. In that time, the population and industrialization have exploded, creating a greater demand for oil. That means that we will go down the bell curve a lot quicker than we went up it. Next year, Mexico, our second largest supplier of oil, will stop exporting oil, because their Cantarell field is going dry. They also supply oil to Israel. The recommendations are that you buy an electric bicycle or car, learn organic gardening or support local organic gardeners, and try to learn as much as you can about renewable energy and switch over to it.