End Legalized Fraud and Debt-Based Money

2011 Will Begin With Hope and End With Despair

Exactly one year ago, I predicted that the housing market would seemingly start to pick up, only to have those hopes dashed after a spring peak. I suggested that the year would stagnate, that each time unemployment seemed to go down, it would rear its ugly head again.

The Ignorance Is Worse Than I Thought; The Opportunity Is Better Than I Thought

As part of my efforts to publicize the release in paperback of my novel, The Money Suckers, I arranged to speak to a local 912 tea party group in Oakton, VA, just outside of Washington, DC. I attended their meeting yesterday afternoon. After sitting patiently through their planning session about how they were going to carry their message to the politicians and the public, suddenly, it was my turn to speak.

The Credit Union Trap

Like many people, I periodically comment on articles I read by other readers at popular websites. Lately, I've seen more and more comments by angry citizens, calling for people to pull their money out of the commercial banks and put it into credit unions instead. In essence, they're claiming that your money will be safer and that it will punish the commercial banks.

An example of such a discussion was initiated at cnn.com this week. One particularly angry poster wrote, in reply to another poster with whom he disagreed:

Thinking about moving your money to safer, smaller banks? Think again!

There's a small, grassroots effort underway attempting to urge Americans with bank accounts at the "too big to fail" banks to move their accounts to smaller, community-based banks. The idea is that these banks behaved more responsibly during the mortgage boom, so therefore it's safer to put your money there.

From moveyourmoney.info:

What's ahead for 2010?

The completion of a full year in financial crisis sees America's financial and political leaders declaring that the end of the recession is near, that prosperity is coming, and that the whole financial nightmare will begin to draw to a close in 2010. If only it were true.

Mortgage resets worrying more people

Apparently, the anticipated increase in the number of mortgage resets in 2010 has a number of people worried, although none of them seem to be named Bernanke, Geithner, or Summers. I did a little searching on Google News today and found lots of people are noticing. Too bad the major media haven't noticed.

Fraud of the year

The news that Time magazine has named Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke Person of the Year today made me sick to my stomach. He should be named Fraud of the Year.

Bankers' and politicians' message to the world: focus on any issue except legalized fraud

The ability of the power elite to use sleight-of-hand in order to perpetuate their control over the rest of us is truly remarkable. What's worse is that we all help them out at every opportunity.

The only weakness, the only vulnerability that the bankers and politicians who have achieved world conquest possess is the very, very slight risk that people will notice what they're doing. Their #1 priority is to make sure we don't focus on that weakness, that vulnerability, because they know if we ever do focus on it, their game is up.

Credit card interest rate hikes ˗̶ how the banks plan to pay for their own foolish lending practices

One of the biggest challenges facing banks today is how to cover the losses from all the foolish mortgage loans they made over the past few years to buyers who really couldn't afford them. Part of the answer is now apparent. They plan to make credit card holders pay for them.

Over the past year, millions of credit card customers have received notifications of coming interest rate hikes on their existing credit card balances. In some cases, credit card interest rates now top 20%, 30%, and even 40% annually. Wow!

How the financial crisis was predicted in 2007

Most people don't realize it, but the banking crisis was actually predicted in 2007, one full year before it happened. The predictors weren't some amateur bloggers or self-described investment gurus selling newsletters. They weren't gold bugs or conspiracy theorists. No, the prediction I'm referring to came from one of the largest banks in the world: Credit Suisse.