Based on the research I constantly conduct, all of the facts point to this "recession"- turning into another "Great Depression"- - and this one could effectively destroy any semblance of the Democratic Republic many of us whom are older remember and cherish. Unlike the Depression we experienced in the 1930's - this one has the potential to be far worse; millions of Americans are housed in large cities where people are unable to grow any of their own food, and as America suffers, violence and political unrest could easily result in riots and anarchy - which is a guarantee of Martial Law being declared in an effort to control a population that is likely to express their rage and frustration in ways that will drive us deeper into despair. If you're the head of a household, it's time to begin stocking-up on food, slowly, and avoid panic buying that could accelerate our downward spiral into the abyss of poverty.

This recession/depression was forecast by lay people (including myself) as well as professional economists, all of whom were ignored by the Bush administration that could have acted quickly to stave-off what now seems to be inevitable. I subscribe to multiple publications and constantly re-evaluate the symptoms that precede such an event, and as the final nails are being driven into our collective coffins by GOP obstructionism and Blue-Dog Democrats - all of whom are unable to act decisively and in the best interests of the "people."- It's a sad state of affairs when the GOP is playing political games in an effort to sabotage the Obama administration when our nation faces the worst crisis most of have witnessed in our life - and when all hell breaks loose, we will all be in the same canoe, without a paddle while attempting to navigate uncharted rapids that will cause the starvation and demise of the entire country - not just the poor and disadvantaged. I sincerely believe the "elite"- and corrupt politicians that have brought this disaster upon the people of the United States will find themselves in the cross-hairs of an enraged population, and even now, the symptoms of that anger and rage are beginning to manifest itself:

Populism Arising""but Will It Be the Killer Kind?

By Chris Hedges

The old assumptions and paradigms about capitalism and free markets are dead. A new, virulent populism, still inchoate, is slowly and painfully rising to take their place. This populism will determine the future of the country. It is as likely to be right-wing as left-wing.

I watched these competing populisms flicker Thursday night at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., when I moderated a debate between independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader and Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin. The two candidates come from opposite ends of the political spectrum. Nader, in essence, is a democratic socialist in the mold of Eugene Debs or Norman Thomas. Baldwin, a founder and minister at the Crossroad Baptist Church in Pensacola, Fla., is an evangelical, right-wing populist.

Baldwin, like Nader, rails against corporatism and our involvement in foreign wars, wants to repeal NAFTA and denounces the curtailment of civil liberties. But Baldwin goes on to support the abolishment of whole departments of the federal government, such as the Department of Education. He calls for U.S. withdrawal from the United Nations and NATO, the elimination of the Food and Drug Administration, the outlawing of abortion and removing all restrictions on the purchasing of firearms. One of his catchier campaign slogans is: "To help keep your family safe and your country free, go buy a gun."- He wants to seal our borders, deny amnesty and social services to illegal immigrants and end birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants. He calls for dismantling the Federal Reserve and the Internal Revenue Service, overturning the 16th Amendment and the personal income tax, and returning the American monetary system to hard assets: gold and silver.

The ideological foundations of free-market economics and a consumer society have collapsed. This collapse is hard for us to fathom. We are still in shock and denial. We cling to old structures of meaning and outdated words to describe them. We have yet to realize that all our political science and economic textbooks have become junk. We have yet to formulate a vocabulary to describe our altered reality. We grasp, on a subliminal level, that laissez-faire capitalism is gone, but we have not viewed the corpse, scheduled the funeral and read the last rites.

"People get very clearly that Washington found hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out rich people in a way the government does not usually intervene,"- said Anthony Pollina, The Progressive Party candidate for governor in Vermont. "They understand that the government came up with all this money to support the wrong group of people. People get that in their gut. There is anger. It is not rage yet. There is still a little bit of disbelief. I may be running for governor, but all people want to talk about is how did we come up with all this money to give to rich people on Wall Street and why didn't they let them pay their mortgage off."-

MUCH MORE

The anger at America's CEO's is already beginning to manifest itself, which thankfully, has so far has been peaceful:

Homeowner group protests "-predator' CEOs outside their mansions

by Stephen C. Webster - RAW Story

If these activists are as dedicated as they are desperate, expect this to become a trend.

Monday, a group of 350 to 400 at-risk homeowners, organized by the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, staged a series of protests outside the mansions of wealthy bankers in a moneyed Connecticut neighborhood.

"Called the "-Predators Tour' these actions were the start of NACA's "-accountability campaign,' an aggressive, confrontational protest aimed at several top executives of companies that refuse to allow NACA to renegotiate the terms of loans on behalf of members, according to NACA CEO Bruce Marks,"- reported the Stamford Times.

"Sporting bright yellow shirts that read, "-Stop Loan Sharks,' protesters demanded more accountability from the CEOs of the financial institutions responsible for the millions of unaffordable mortgages in the state and across America,"- reported NBC New York in an article titled, "Grab Your Torch and Pitchfork."- MORE

In an Op-Ed that was written by Paul Craig Roberts - there are four paragraphs that stand-out and describe our peril in words that anyone should be able to understand:

Astonishing Incongruities: Is It Time to Bail Out of the US?

by Paul Craig Roberts

Except for the superrich and those banksters and CEOs who stole wealth from investors and shareholders, Americans have suffered enormous losses in wealth and income"-. The stock market decline has destroyed about 45% of their IRAs, 401Ks, and other equity investments. On top of this comes the decline in home prices, lost jobs and health care, lost customers"-.

"-Americans "- have seen their retirement savings devastated by complicity of government regulators and lawmakers with financial gangsters"- The financial damage inflicted on Americans by their own government is as great as would be expected from foreign conquest"-

"-The banksters robbed us twice. First it was our home and stock values. Then the government rewarded the banksters for their misdeeds by bailing out the banksters, not their victims, and putting the cost on the taxpayers' books"-The government has also robbed the taxpayers of $3 trillion dollars to fight its wars.

"-Washington is so accustomed to ripping off the taxpayers for the benefit of special interests that the practice is now in the DNA"- Much MORE

Unfortunately, President Obama's Stimulus Package is doomed to failure and will result in injecting even more money into the nation's failed banking and financial sector. The rapid rise in unemployment - which is now becoming a flash-flood of job losses, is creating the next round of billions of dollars of losses in the financial sector. When people lose their jobs, or accept employment at substantially reduced salaries than they were accustomed to, they become unable to pay on their credit cards and automobile loans - thus another round of "bailouts"- will be necessary to prop-up the financial sector. The credit crisis is becoming self-perpetuating; millions of Americans who once had good credit are witnessing their credit ratings plummet as they become unable to pay their bills, thereby disqualifying themselves to be eligible to receive credit from anyone. Banks and financial institutions do not lend money to people who are unemployed or who have bad credit - so "credit"- will only be available to those who have been fortunate enough to stay employed. It's a vicious cycle, it grows worse every day, and is creating a huge swath of second-class citizens that will not qualify for credit even when the markets begin to recover!

An economist, Dean Baker, who is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC, wrote this revealing Op-Ed on February the 8th:

Dealing With BANKRUPT Banks: Nationalization or Welfare

The media continue to do more to misinform the public than to inform them when it comes to plans for fixing the financial system. Following the absolute worst in journalistic practices, a front page Washington Post article explains the Obama administration's policy by telling readers that the "approach reflects Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner's philosophy of how governments should respond to financial crises."-

The excursion into philosophy deflects readers from the real issue. Mr. Geithner wants to use taxpayer dollars to keep bankrupt banks in business. In effect, he wants to tax teachers, fire fighters, and Joe the Plumber to protect the wealth of the banks' shareholders and to pay high salaries to their top executives. No readers of this piece would understand that this is the process being described.

The Post editorial page carried on with this deception. An editorial on saving the banks dismissed nationalization because it would involve the government in running the banks. Then it discusses the idea of buying bad assets and warns, "but there is a huge risk that the government would badly overpay in the first place."-

It would be nice if the Post and the rest of the media would report honestly on the bank bailout and stop trying to conceal plans for a massive redistribution of wealth to the bank shareholders and their top executives.

""Dean Baker LINK

There is nothing in President Obama's economic stimulus package that will ward off the next round of billions of dollars of losses in the financial sectors due to credit card and auto loan defaults which are now coming to fruition; this nation needs an immediate short-tern solution to stave off these loses that are a certainty to occur in the coming months, and the administration's refusal to address this issue will undoubtedly result in more taxpayer money being needed to bailout more losses predicted to happen early this year.

Now that the "Stimulus"- has been passed by the Senate, and we know what is contained in the package, it is obvious that the next round of this financial meltdown is guaranteed to cause the financial community to request more taxpayer money to "bailout"- themselves from the billions in credit card and auto loan defaults that are already beginning to occur; for those of you that have the means, it's now time to prepare your families to withstand another "great Depression"- - and I believe that it's right around the corner, as nothing in the stimulus package was enacted to stop the next round of huge losses in the financial sector. After reading an excellent synopsis of what is included in the Stimulus Package, "Summary of the Stimulus bill - Don't look half bad to me"- , I am even more convinced that the worst it yet to come.

After reading the "World's richest countries pledge to fix economy"- and the G-7 attempts to impose its plan of a "global economy"- upon a gullible populace, the "New World Order"- that so-called "conspiracy theorists"- have been warning us of for years is about the be set in motion - and in this writer's opinion, their actions spell doom for any country that attempts to get their own house of cards in order, which is why I opined that "Free Trade Is A Misnomer; So-Called Protectionism Is A Matter of Self Survival."- One comment made on Op-Ed News sums-up my belief on this issue - and if the United States plans on coming out of this upcoming Depression intact, our leadership should take heed to this insightful comment that could make or break our entire nation, literally and figuratively speaking:

Free trade is a massive boondoggle!

Buy American provisions are intended to strengthen a moribund American manufacturing base. The reason that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposes them is because they represent U.S. corporations who have moved their production overseas. They have no intention of bringing that production back onshore until the work force of the United States has been made vulnerable to the cesspool of labor abuse that they apply freely in third world countries.

Put the protectionist measures in place now. Will it start a trade war? It won't if it is done reasonably, say, returning to the pre-Reagan levels that kept Americans working.

Even if it does result in a trade war, so what? We are better positioned than any other "industrialized"- country to withstand its effects. The rest of the world isn't buying our goods now, since they can't compete with the undercutting of Chinese made goods. Much of what is billed as American is manufactured by American based transnational corporations in other countries.

I suppose they could refuse the minerals, timber and foodstuffs that we export, but that would hurt them more than us by making those commodities scarcer and more expensive on world markets.

Who would be hurt? American based transnational corporations would be, as they should be. For every one of those overfed leviathans that went belly up, American entrepreneurs would step in to fill the domestic gap.

Perhaps the world would stop dealing with the American based transnational financial apparatus. That would be good for everyone except those bankers who might finally be induced to hurl themselves from their office windows.

Trade war? We can afford it.

by John Sanchez Jr. (7 articles, 0 quicklinks, 14 diaries, 1471 comments) on Friday, February 13, 2009 at 11:09:23 AM

There has been a lively debate at this LINK, and some of the comments are extremely insightful - which I would suggest that everyone read to attempt to understand the difference between "protectionism"- and "survival."- Right now, we in the United States need to survive, and allowing the "New World Order"- to reduce this nation to "Third World"- status is not what I call survival. Based on what the stimulus package lacks, and how GOP obstructionism has cut the stimulus, it now contains nothing that are short-term solutions that will prevent this "recession"- from turning into another Great Depression - and those who are knowledgeable enough to see-through this issue need to brace for what I believe is going to become far worse before it has the chance to get better. Self-survival is a matter of preparedness and seeing the forest through the trees. I may be wrong, but based on every honest economic indicator that exists, we need to hope for the best and brace for the worst - which appears to be directly on the horizon.

Author's Website: http://justanothercoverup.com/

Author's Bio: I am nothing more than a patriotic American that is doing whatever I can to further the cause of democracy, the rule of law, and am absolutely outraged on how the Bush administration is defying our Congress, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights! Footnote: I write in a style that I believe is appropriate in today's world where we can't trust the Mainstream News Media, and rather than concentrating on one article alone, which may or may not receive the exposure and emphasis it should, I prefer to meld several relevant stories together, that each taken alone may not expose the entire situation, but when taken-in as a whole, tend to give the reader a better understanding of the subject. One article or story alone does not represent the "Big Picture" - but when several are effectively tied-together it often reveals a trend or broader view of the subject matter that is important to completely understand any given situation. http://justanothercoverup.com/

www.opednews.com/articles/Tighten-Your-Seat-Belts--by-William-Cormier-090215-311.html