What Is This World Coming To?

From US News And World Report:

New polls show the public increasingly concerned about the budget deficit, amid signs that the support for White House’s economic policies may be slipping.

During NBC Nightly News’ lead story, Chuck Todd said an NBC/Walls Street Journal poll suggests “the honeymoon is coming to an end for President Obama, but it’s not personal, it’s professional, as now the public appears to be judging the President on some of his actions. And right now, there’s a growing concern about the budget deficit, and some of this government interaction into the economy on things like GM.”

The Wall Street Journal says that the public’s “rising doubts threaten to overshadow the president’s personal popularity and his agenda, in what may be a new phase of the Obama presidency.”

While “there’s good news for the administration, too, including tentative support for Mr. Obama’s health-care plan and approval of his nominee for the Supreme Court,” the poll “suggests Mr. Obama faces challenges on multiple fronts, including growing concerns about government spending and the bailout of auto companies.”

Nearly seven in 10 “respondents said they had concerns about federal interventions into the economy.” However, The Politico reports, “46 percent think the economy will get better in the next year the highest level of optimism in four years.”

AFP reports the President’s 56% overall approval rating in the NBC poll, but reports that “among independent voters, Obama fell from 60 percent approval versus 31 percent to 46 approving against 44 disapproving.”

Meanwhile, the New York Times analyzes its own poll, reporting that “a substantial majority of Americans say…Obama has not developed a strategy to deal with the budget deficit.” The poll “found a distinct gulf between Mr. Obama’s overall standing and how some of his key initiatives are viewed, with fewer than half of Americans saying they approve of how he has handled health care and the effort to save General Motors and Chrysler.”

Brazil and China will work towards using their own currencies in trade transactions rather than the US dollar, according to Brazil’s central bank and aides to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president.

The move follows recent Chinese challenges to the status of the dollar as the world’s leading international currency.

Mr Lula da Silva, who is visiting Beijing this week, and Hu Jintao, China’s president, first discussed the idea of replacing the dollar with the renminbi and the real as trade currencies when they met at the G20 summit in London last month.

An official at Brazil’s central bank stressed that talks were at an early stage. He also said that what was under discussion was not a currency swap of the kind China recently agreed with Argentina and which the US had agreed with several countries, including Brazil.

“Currency swaps are not necessarily trade related,” the official said. “The funds can be drawn down for any use. What we are talking about now is Brazil paying for Chinese goods with reals and China paying for Brazilian goods with renminbi.”

More from Financial Times

According to Breitbart.com,  the worst recession in 80 years,  perhaps the worst economic downturn in human history, and certainly the worst recession ever, (depending on who you ask) is almost over — already.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress Tuesday that the economy should pull out of a recession and start growing again later this year. But in testimony to Congress’ Joint Economic Committee, Bernanke warned that even after a recovery gets under way, economic activity is likely to be subpar. That means businesses will stay cautious about hiring, driving up the nation’s unemployment rate and causing “further sizable job losses” in the coming months, he said. Read the rest of this entry »

Whites and blacks, Christians and Jews, Cubans and Mexicans, along with tax-hating Americans were among several political leanings listed in the “Domestic Extremism Lexicon” that came out of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) in late March.

The lexicon lists definitions for key terms and phrases used by Homeland Security analysts “that addresses the nature and scope of the threat that domestic, non-Islamic extremism poses to the United States,” the report said.

A copy of the Homeland Security draft memo in PDF format can be downloaded here.  Be the first on your block to know the secret handshake!

Dick Morris was on Greta Van Susteren’s program last night critiquing the G-20’s solution to world problems.   Scary.

Let me read you from the communique, Greta. “We agree to a framework of internationally agreed upon high standards. We will set up a financial stability board with a strengthened mandate to extend regulation and oversight to all systemically important financial institutions, instruments and markets” — including hedge funds, all — anything that they decide is important to the system — “to endorse and implement tough new principles on paying (ph) compensation and to support sustainable compensation schemes and the corporate social responsibility of all firms.”

“That no man might buy or sell, save he that hath the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Revelation 13:17

Full Transcript:  On The Record With Greta.

America's New Leaders

World leaders on Thursday heralded the G20 summit as the day the world “fought back against the recession” as they put on a show of unity that lifted global markets and mapped out a new future for financial regulation, reported the London Financial Times with a straight face.

Gordon Brown, UK prime minister, host of the summit, said the meeting marked the emergence of a “new world order”, as he unveiled what leaders claimed was a $1,100 billion package aimed at tackling the global economic downturn.

The FT reported that the leaders ‘papered over’ differences between the US and Europe about whether the world could afford it.  (Guess what they used for ‘paper’?)

Obama described the summit’s measures as “bolder and more rapid than any international response that we’ve seen to a financial crisis in memory,” and for once, I’d have to agree with him.

Had it been any slower or had there been any deliberation,  none of them would have been able to pull it off without a popular revolt at home.   Americans, say goodbye to the greenback.

And to your sovereignty.

President Obama’s climate plan could cost industry close to $2 trillion, nearly three times the White House’s initial estimate of the so-called “cap-and-trade” legislation, according to Senate staffers who were briefed by the White House.

via Washington Times - Obama climate plan could cost $2 trillion.

Ali Al-Kurd, son of a wealthy businessman, began paying between 21 and 26 percent annual interest rates, in regular monthly payments, on investment sums that reached as high as $1.2 million. He held lavish meetings with potential investors, spoke vaguely of various opportunities in Israel and elsewhere, but “when you left the meeting with him, even though at first you thought you knew what he was saying, at the end you realized that you really have no idea what he planned to do with your money,” one broken investor said.

Lending money to receive interest is a grave sin, according to both Judaism and Islam. Among the investors who fell victim to the Arab eastern Jerusalem Ponzi scheme – violating religious law in the process – were leading Islamic figures in eastern Jerusalem, Hamas members, former Orient House officials, Fatah leaders, and top personnel in the Islamic organizations on the Temple Mount.

Nearly 500 people are said to have lost money with Al-Kurd.  It is assumed that some 50 people lost between $400,000 and $1.2 million each, another 200 lost between $50,000 and $300,000, while many others lost smaller sums. It is assumed that many others who lost money do not want to come forward, as they do not want their interest-bearing activities to become known.

Al-Kurd, on the other hand, is in hiding, in fear for his life, according to reports.

It isn’t just the far right nut-bars that think Obama is actually targeting American wealth for destruction.  The far left nut bars think so too.

YouTube - Jim Cramer: Obama is causing the greatest destruction of wealth I have ever seen by a president.