13 Companies Hiring

2008 saw a loss of over 1.2 million jobs in the United States and forecasters are predicting a conservative 2 million job will disappear in 2009. Career Builders had an interesting article today about 13 companies that will be hiring next year. What I find interesting are the types of companies that are experiencing growth and the possible ramifications to our society at large.

General Corporation Growth (2)

7-Eleven

Chain of convenience stores with locations throughout the United States and Canada.

When people are broke and living day to day they tend to shop at places like 7-Eleven rather than buying groceries every week. If 7-Eleven is expanding then you can expect the downturn to continue.

Banfield (corporate veterinary services)

The world's largest private veterinary practice. We have a longstanding reputation for attracting highly-skilled, compassionate veterinarians who possess extensive knowledge regarding the most current advancements in Pet health care.

Veterinary care is one of the few areas left that has not been raped by corporate advances. That is changing expect fewer vets and diminished care for your pets.

Insurance/Health Care (5)

Farmers Insurance (insurance)
HealthMarkets (insurance)
State Farm (insurance)

Universal Health Care promised by the government is really Mandatory Health Insurance. So higher heath care cost for the American citizen and more profits for Insurance companies.

Gentiva Health Services (inhome heath care)

Gentiva is the nation's largest home health care services firm. The company provides home nursing care through a network of more than 300 locations in 38 states. Gentiva's home care nurses provide services ranging from acute care treatment to housekeeping for the elderly or disabled.

Hospital closures and people being turned away from nursing homes.

Sutter Health (health care)

Sutter Health serves as your partner in facilitating employee lifestyle behavior change towards better health. At Sutter Health Partners, our primary focus is on keeping your employees and your business healthy. Sutter Health Partners provides advice on overall health promotion design and management but our greatest asset is our high-touch Wellness Coaching team. In a time when health care costs are spiraling out of control, prevention is a sound investment.

Wellness coaching will probably be part of any Mandatory Health Insurance Scheme.

Defense Contractors (2)

ITT Corporation (defense contractors)

ITT Corporation provides critical support in the following areas Electronic Warfare, Sensing and Surveillance, Intelligence and Information Warfare, Command and Control Systems, Undersea Warfare, Space Warfare and Surveillance

URS Corporation (defense contractors)

URS provides critical support to the Departments of Defense (DoD), Homeland Security (DHS) and Energy (DOE), as well as to National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA), Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and other federal agencies.

Expect continued and escalating wars as well as increased domestic surveillance of American citizens.

Auto Reconditioning (1)

M.A.R.S. International (auto reconditioning - franchise based)

MARS International specializes in TOTAL automotive appearance reconditioning. Our technicians make pre-owned vehicles look and feel new by repairing bumpers, removing scratches, and providing a number of services that go beyond typical detailing capabilities such as stain and odor removal.

Recondition used cars. The Big Three are gone and used cars will be the predominate market.

Lawn/Garden Care (2)

ServiceMaster/TruGreen (cleaning and lawn care)

TruGreen® is the world's largest lawn and landscape company. It started as a small private company in 1974 and now serves more than 3.5 million residential and commercial customers across the U.S. with lawn care, tree and shrub care, and landscaping services.

Scotts Miracle-Gro Company (lawn care)

ScottsMiracle-Gro is dedicated to a beautiful world with industry-leading lawn, garden and outdoor living products and services. Through our innovation focus, strong retailer relationships and drive to improve the consumer experience, we have been instrumental in growing the $8 billion global consumer lawn and garden market and enhancing our leadership position.

Fertilizers and support for the massive upswing in home vegetable gardens.

Accounting/Auditing (1)

PricewaterhouseCoopers (Accounting/Auditing)

PricewaterhouseCoopers provides industry-focused services for public and private clients. Our experienced staff, combined with our global network, allow us to provide the support you

need—wherever you need it, at home and abroad, whatever the size of your organization.

Giant accounting firm set to clean up untangling the accounting voodoo of the past eight years. Many mergers and bankruptcies in 2009. New regulations to be implemented.

Auto Industry Collapse

I normally do not post videos on this site but here is a great one on the collapse of the auto industry. One point, I don't believe that a bailout is the answer unless the Big 3 guarantee that all money would be used for retooling the manufacturing facilities for next generation transportation and that all jobs created and supplies purchased are American. Otherwise our taxes will be used to update Mexican plants and pad the GM executive bonuses. Unless jobs are created here in this country the money is wasted, the Big 3 can only survive if Americans start buying again and we will only buy again if secure jobs are created.



Another point to make is that if the part makers go under spare parts will become difficult to acquire. That $5 fuel filter is minor until it clogs and you cannot replace it. Due to rising scrap metal prices there are very few junkyards left. We rely on the inexpensive replacement parts to keep our junk cars on the road. Without those parts every parked car becomes a gold mine for thieves looking to cash in on black market parts.

It's Trickle Down Bitches

Average person says...so what, the market is really down I am not worried my 401k is safe...you need to invest over the long term. My broker said the markets may fluctuate but always increases in value in the end.

Please remember these are the same people who said your salary would always increase over time...these are the same people who said home values only go up...these are the same people who lobbied congress for bankruptcy reform and massive bailouts so they would not lose their wealth when these promised dreams did not materialize.

Ronald Regan...may god condemn his demon soul...gave us four things. This ridiculous caricature of a swaggering hyper masculine presidential candidate who needs only guns, not brains to run the ranch. The moral majority, nuf said. The end of the cold war. And fourthly, trickle down economics.

I will just jump in real quick and say that the cold war ended and the USSR broke apart cause the Soviet Union went broke...sound familiar?

Trickle down economics basically means that you give the elite the money and it will eventually trickle down to the workers through house cleaning, limo driving and drug money. This has been our economic model from it's onset with the great Regan Revolution to our latest emanation of the $700 billions dollar bailout.

Trickle down economics does not work and unfortunately the downslope is also trickle down. The people at the top of the trickle will be effected first by economic problems and take appropriate action...$700 billion bailout...the bottom 90% are left to fend for themselves once the down flow hits their pocketbook. It takes a while for the raging flood to reach your house...but once it is there it takes everything. So don't sit there waiting for the water...move to higher ground now.

Remember happiness is holding hands with your loved one while waiting for the food bank to open. Yea gee ok, remember this and you'll do fine in Fascist America.

Stop the apocalypse, I'm out of whiskey!!!

When the historians write of this period, the Great Decline, they will credit insatiable greed and unchecked corruption as the destroyer of the most technologically advanced and bountifully blessed society in world history.

I bugged out on Thursday assuming the passage of the fake bailout bill, the elite have once again secured their future at the expense of the workers. Paulson knew the markets were set to implode so the bill had to pass Friday at the latest, he also knew it would do nothing to stop the Great Decline.

I am happily sitting in my offgrid solar powered cabin working on my sun room and thinking of all the little niceties that will no longer be available...like Dingo Bones and Charmin Care WITH Lotion.

There will be no recovery, the golden age is over. The pundits spin the Great Decline as a cycle downturn...everything will return to normal after the credit market stabilizes and people start borrowing and buying again. This will not happen...That created the problem. The future holds a massive population die off and the establishment of regional economic systems. Globalism is dead.

Buy some chickens and plant a winter garden.

Take Care Everyone
BigBear

Foreign Policy Debate

Foreign policy debates are irrelevant.

The only foreign policy issue that the next president will need to deal with is which county to ask for gas to get our troops home. We are a broke nation that has exhausted our welcome throughout the world. We are no longer a superpower...we can no longer act like one. The United States is broke neither presidential candidate should be acting like we still have influence. Shit, the Pakistanis are shooting at our troops. We are done.

They need to end this multi-trillion dollar war that has lined the pockets of the military industrial complex and bring our troops home. These wars have broken not only the financial back of this nation but stripped us of any moral authority we might have had. Let Russia police the world we can no longer afford it. They have a balanced economy and can act with some degree of restraint when it comes to gluttony and greed. Maybe the Russians are better stewards of the worlds fate
than the United States.

Get off the foreign policy...how you gonna help us Americans. We can no longer dictate how the rest of the world behaves. Our greed destroyed our ability to govern the world.

Just a note...I listened to the debate did not watch. McCain started slurring his words and sounding slightly crazy about half way through the exchange. Not saying crazy things just his tone was odd. Anyone else notice this. Maybe he is tired Obama didn't waver...agree or disagree with him his tone did not waver. McCain had this strange false teeth whistle going try listening and not watching. Very different experience.

The Great Decline

This $700 billion dollar bailout will remove bad debt from the global banks investment sheets. It will help the global banks with liquidity. It will allow them to return to business as usual. It will allow them to start reinvesting...IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES.

This $700 billion dollar bailout will not fix the housing crisis...so no new housing loans. It will not bring jobs to the country...American's will not be buying. It will not decrease inflation...in fact it will increase inflation. It will not reduce the price of oil...in fact crude prices will increase greatly.

All this $700 billion dollar bailout does is protects the elite's investments. Without jobs and a fix to the housing crisis the American economy is still on exactly the same course. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN THIS BILL TO HELP THE AMERICAN WORKERS.

Your housing values will continue to decline. Your 401k will continue to be plundered. Your standard of living will continue to decrease. All the bad things Bush dredged up in this "speech" last night will still happen.

This $700 billion dollar bailout was not designed to help the workers. It is there to unburden the elite and allow them to continue raping the workers of the world. If this was about helping the people congress would have forced the administration to allow bankruptcy judges to reevaluate mortgage contracts and helped those homeowners swindled by inflated property assessments.

Property values will never return to their fraudulent high point set a couple of years ago. There are no jobs coming into this country. Without high paying jobs property values will not increase, common sense. If this bill passes the government becomes your landlord, debt holder and slave master. You are completely under it's thumb, or rather under the thumb of the North American Union. After we have dropped to third world status and every penny is stripped The United States of America will be reborn, muted and stunted, as the North American Union embracing our brothers to the North and South.

America is in the Great Decline, a decline planned and driven by globalization and the greed of the elite. It is over.

Bail Yourself Out - I Won't

Does anybody still trust anything that comes out of George Bush's mouth. This evil administration is simply trying to secure wealth for the elite while locking the working classes into slavery for the next century. I don't expect anyone to bail me out of bad business decisions...it would be nice but I understand the risks involved and accept them. How dare this administration bail out the rich on the back of the workers we are broke as it is. There should be rioting in the streets. Any member on congress who supports this jump into fascism must be removed from office. The investment bankers made trillions off these financial schemes, let them fix their own problems.

NO COMPROMISE...NO DEAL

Everyone needs to prepare at this point. If this passes I feel that the citizens of this country have no moral obligation to support any company involved in this hijacking of capitalist principals. Stop paying your credit card bills, walk away from your mortgage. As I see it we have already paid them! NO MORE

If They Don't Listen - Bring Them Down

Massive resistance from working Americans and the continued sell off on Wall Street this morning may doom the Bush Administrations fascist agenda. Apparently the people of this country don't really like the idea of bailing out the elite on the backs of the working class. The question being asked is simple, why doesn't the American Government just give that trillion plus bailout to the American homeowners who could then pay their mortgages thus saving the system. But there would be no scam in that.

Remember most of these big investment firms and globalist banks are in large part owned by foreign investors who may not agree with the principals of democracy or capitalism...they just like making money on the backs of the workers. China and the Saudi royal family come to mind.

We are paying off the foreign elite, taking on the bad debt and still being asked to pay our bills on time. American taxpayers are being forced to pay three times over for bad corporate business decisions.

Here is my suggestion.

If the government moves forward with this obscene abuse of power and nationalizes the debt of these mismanaged companies we call for a general strike. Not a walk off the job strike...a walk away from your bills strike. If every American would stop paying their credit card bills for one month it would break the system and the government would sit up and pay attention to the will of the people...not the will of their corporate overseers. If the government still does not listen we don't pay for a second month and continue until they clean up their act and start working for the People of America.

The Achilles Heel of a government ran by greed is the greed itself. At this point voting is irrelevant both parties are fully bought. The people have the power to correct this gross imbalance and drive corrupt corporate interests out of government. Just stop paying the corporations.

These companies are sending our jobs overseas and wreaking our economy with our governments consent! Corporations lobby congress for legislative favors using lobbyists that we pay for. We enable a system actively working against our best interests. The global elite hold power because we feed their agenda, we pay for them to corrupt our government process, all we need to do is stop giving them money. Without money they loose power and go away.

This is the United States of America and our government works for the citizens of this country not global corporations. Don't boycott, Don't walk off the job, just stop paying your bills. Americans have been working backwards, we cannot vote out legislative members who take corporate handouts...they all take handouts. We can break the corporations that give handouts. If we could take down a Bank of America in a month the corporate money would leave Washington forever. This is the Peoples Nuclear Option!

I am not saying that you should stop paying all your bills. Credit card bills would give you the most bang for the buck, they are directly attached to the banking industry who is asking for this criminal bailout.

Think about it!

State Enforced Slavery

This is a dark day for every American Citizen dreaming of home ownership. Senator Charles Schumer has introduced legislation on the Senate floor today that will effectively turn any homeowner with a mortgage into an indentured slave to the government/banking complex.

The New York senator will propose offering banks a lifeline if they renegotiate mortgages for those people close to losing their homes.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Charles Schumer plans to offer a broad economic proposal for the government to offer a financial lifeline to those banks that are willing to renegotiate mortgages for those on the brink of losing their homes.

The New York Democrat is an outspoken advocate for the financial industry, since so many of those workers are in his home state. Aides said the senator plans to outline his plan on the Senate floor Thursday afternoon.

Under Schumer's model, the government would give capital infusions or loans to banks in return for an equity stake, similar to the deal struck with insurance giant American International Group (AIG, Fortune 500) earlier this week.

In return, the banks would lift objections to legislation allowing loan modification for homeowners in bankruptcy. Currently, a person in bankruptcy cannot renegotiate the terms of their mortgage, unlike other kinds of debt.

Schumer's plan is an alternative to another proposal in Congress to create a federal agency to buy up bank debt, shifting potential losses onto U.S. taxpayers. It would be similar to the Resolution Trust Corp., which lawmakers established during the 1980's savings and loan crisis.

After the first few thousand defaults under the new plan the Government/Banking partnership will enact legislation mirroring the Guaranteed Student Loan Program. Student loans can never be defaulted on. It eliminates bankruptcy protection. The homeowner under this model is stuck in their overvalued home and unless they can sell will never be able to get out from under the debt. The Government will pursue you relentlessly garnishing wages and freezing assets. You literally become a debt slave to the state, locked into your home and forced to work whatever job they throw at you.

This has been the plan all along folks, long before they nationalized Freddie and Fannie. Dump the house, buy a trailer and plant your own beans...before you are forced to plant for someone else.

Question About Banking Crisis

Today the Fed and central banks around the world pumped 180 billion dollars into the banking system to increase liquidity. I understand that this move lets the banks continue cashing your paychecks but how does this fix the underlying problem with the banking industry which is associated with defaults on overvalued assets.

If I am not mistaken (I could easily be) the problem with the banks is that they bought those pooled mortgages that have now lost most of their value. If you loan someone $100,000 you should have that much in collateral, right. So if they bought these $100,000 loans and the value of the collateral dropped to $50,000 they have lost $50,000 if the home owner defaults. Not to mention all the profit they were counting on from the pool. Quite frankly if my home's value dropped from $100,000 to $50,000 I would be handing the keys happily over to the bank, which apparently is the problem.

If the banks would not have overvalued the homes in the first place to increase their profit this would not be an issue. This is a common sense versus greed situation. I am a taxpayer who was smart enough to realize that a house that was worth $100,000 two years ago simply is not worth $500,000 today, again common sense, and stayed out of the obviously rigged housing market. I am angered that I will be paying to bail out the greedy bankers who made massive profits while perpetuating this fraud. Let them fail...I don't get bailed out when my greed overtakes my common sense.

But back to the point. How does injecting cash into the system help the banks. They are still holding lethal amounts of bad debt. Unless the housing market does a massive rebound into fraud territory again this bad debt still exists and will only get worse. Thus the problem cannot be solved without letting the greedy money handlers fail, which again I have no problem with. Or have the government use working class taxes and print more money to assume the responsibility for all the overvalued debt and bail out the elite bastards who got us into this mess. I really do have a problem with that.

Three other points.

First - Home values don't magically increase just cause the banker says it's so. A rise in home values must be associated with a tangible catalyst of some sort that increases demand. These can include a major industry locating nearby increasing the working pool or possibly a military base housing some number of returning troops. Look at the flip side. When a major manufacturing facility closes in a city home values plummet. See the rust belt as an example. If home values are rising without an associated increase in salaries or number of jobs something is wrong.

Second - This is just the beginning, the big "stable" players, Citi and Bank of America, will see their problems start when consumers run out of money and start defaulting in bulk on those high risk credit cards those banks like to issue.

Third - Funny how the government is willing to nationalize any corrupt industry to protect the profits of the elite, but ask them to nationalize the health care system, a move that would vastly help the working classes, and they scream Socialism.

Stay Calm - No Need To Panic

According to George Bush our economy is still "fundamentally sound" and technically America is not in a recession. So don't panic and pull your money out of the banks...at least until the Bush compound in Paraguay is finished and the last of the elite are through picking the remaining flesh from our bones.

Under the backdrop of a deteriorating economic picture, President Bush said Tuesday he is taking action to help people with falling home prices and high gas prices.

Bush highlighted plans to stabilize the mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and lift the ban on offshore oil drilling as two steps his administration is taking to address some of the nation's economic ills.

How can a "free market economy" continue to bail out criminally negligent corporations. The banking industry has taken profits over prudence for the past 8 years gorging themselves at the expense of the American public. Now that their little ponzi scheme has collapsed the American taxpayers are being forced into bailing them out to the tune of several TRILLION dollars. This money is of course being paid to cover the losses suffered by the Saudi royal family and China but we are globalized now so it's OK.

At least Bush admitted today during the question and answer section of his speech that many of the big oil fields, mentioning the Saudi's by name, were in a state of "production decline" and removing the remaining oil costs considerably more money...this is the definition of Peak Oil by the way. He said that worldwide consumption was at 85 million barrels per day with worldwide production at 86 millions barrels. He then stresses the need for alternative energies and in the same breath mentions that offshore drilling will solve our problems.

Bush could at least try and hide his latest love gift to big oil. The offshore oil drilling scheme will not solve our energy problems. First off there is not enough oil there to really make a difference and secondly it will take 20 years to begin exploiting these small reserves. Plus the oil will be sold to the highest bidder delivering these resources to China or India. So we lose our coastlines and don't get the oil.

As a taxpaying citizen I say let the beast fall. I don't really think it is my responsibility to prop up the global elite because they are having a bad year in the markets. It really is time to panic.

Banking Bad - Cash Good

I stopped using the corporate banking system of this country about two years ago. I decided then that the banking industry was simply another method of control for the elite, slowing stripping money from my account and giving no benefits. My paychecks are cashed at a local check cashing company at a 1% charge, which is lower than my monthly fees were when I banked at Wells Fargo. The very few bills I have are paid with a reloadable debit card which holds just enough to pay the bills. Everything else is kept in cash, originally I had planned to convert most of the cash to precious metals but they are to high now so I just keep cash.

When the government decides to declare Marshal Law and shuts down the country...it is coming soon...all they have to do is shut down the VISA network. If you do not have cash you are stranded and starving at the mercy of the government and relief agencies. At least for now people will always take cash especially if their money is held up in some bank.

I feel that we are moving quickly to massive closure of banks. Here are the two main reasons.

First, the FDIC has increased its staff greatly in the past several months. This includes bring in retired employees that have experience in bank closures.

Second, the governments talking heads have been endlessly promoting the stability of the U.S banking system today. Stressing that you should leave you money in FDIC insured accounts because they are safe. Remember Thursday and Friday of last week, the talking heads were stressing the stability of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...look where that went.

The Feds intervention in Fannie and Freddie has nothing to do with creating a sound financial environment in which commerce can thrive. Saudi Arabia and China hold over 50% of the stock in the two top tier financial institutions. My guess is that there were threats made to destroy the dollar. So, we the public are now stuck with the multi trillion dollar bailout of these corrupt financial institutions. We will be paying Saudi Arabia and China our tax dollars for the next 100 years.

How many American banks have foreign investors bought controlling interest in? What happens if they simply decide to close the bank and recoup their money? Yes, you are insured with the FDIC but that assumes the government will pay out. What if the Fed decides it is in the best interest of the country to pay the dept directly to the creditors and not the account holders. The Fed might put the money in an escrow account that collectors can directly withdraw from, having first bite at the apple, rather than giving the money to the account holder. Remember our government puts corporate interests first. It would only take a simple act of congress hidden covertly in a war funding bill to make this a law.

STOP PLAYING THEIR GAME. PULL YOUR MONEY OUT...PAY CASH.

Daily Survivalist News Source

When I started Blogging I was frustrated by the lack of organization within the Survivalist community. I love reading prepper/doomer posts but hated the daily jumping from site to site looking for interesting information. RSS feeds helped but there was no notification when new sites came up or a daily digest of crash related news.

The other day I came across the Survivalist News site. Although still in testing they appear to be moving in a useful direction. Their team grabs teaser text and link backs to the daily posts on a number of survival site as well as crash related news items. I really like this site, here is a blurb from their front page.

SurvivalistNews.com is a daily rundown of all the hot survival sites on the web. An excerpt from each article is included along with a link back to the originating site. The posts are categorized by topic and archived for easy searching and retrieval. Crash critical news will also be tagged to keep you informed about timely collapse related issues. SurvivalistNews.com is updated several time each day.

You should check them out.

Survival Car

Survival is defined as "living or continuing longer than, or beyond the existence of, another person, thing, or event; an outliving."

The new Bug Out Vehicle is a 1978 Ford Fiesta. These small tough cars were made in Germany and very much remind me of the old VW Beetles or early generation Rabbits. The car is very speedy, maneuverable and fun to drive. This ugly little orange beast has a 1.6 liter engine with a 4 speed manual transmission and gets about 44 miles to the gallon.

The Fiesta is one of several ultra fuel efficient models delivered during the oil embargos of the 70’s. Automakers quickly responded to the skyrocketing gas prices by building and delivering economical automobiles based on high fuel standards. They were small, simple vehicles built soundly and offered to the public at a reasonable price.

A survivalist does not simply prepare for the future downfall of our social/economic structure by stocking beans and bullets. They must be flexible enough to adapt to the environment as it comes apart…adjusting until a time when we remove ourselves from the ruins and zombie hordes. Stay ahead of the curve.

Staying ahead of the curve is exactly what I hope to accomplish with this small old car. By cutting my monthly fuel cost by 80% I can continue buying those beans and bullets.

Many people are considering the purchase of a new hybrid…I would recommend against this. This is unsupported debt in a time of unparalleled economic turmoil. The Prius for instance may get slightly higher gas mileage than the Fiesta…but I picked up the Fiesta for $500!

Craigslist.com is a great resource; it’s where I found the Fiesta. I called soon after the posting and went to test drive the car. Ten other people had called by the time I got there. Apparently older fuel efficient cars are in demand today.

The truck is staying but will only be used for hauling.

The auto industry really should dust off these old blue prints and start producing inexpensive fuel efficient vehicles again.

Fuel Economy

Lately I have been searching for a more fuel efficient vehicle. I love my big truck but at 8 mile to the gallon it has become difficult to afford. For instance it cost about $180 to get to the cabin and back this is roughly double from a year or so ago. This greatly cuts into my prepping budget and has stalled my move to the cabin. The same trip in an older car getting 32 mpg would cost $40. Not as glamorous or fun as the truck but a huge difference in money saving...which translates into more survival supplies.

So the hunt is on for a small, tough car that get great gas mileage. I want something four wheel drive, long lasting and easy to repair. Thinking an older model Subaru Wagon or something.

This brought me to the following website. I found this resource very valuable in looking for the best gas mileage bargain. Check it out.

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/findacar.htm

Power Company and Police Conspiracy

There appears to be a conspiracy between the local power company and city police to intimidate cash strapped citizens into paying their power bills on time or risk eviction and imprisonment.

Lately, on my evening walks, I have notice these 2x2 foot yellow notices pasted on the fronts of many houses along my route. They were announcing that the property was a public nuisance and that it was illegal to occupy the structure by order of the police department. Violators were subject to fines and possible imprisonment.

There are about a dozen check boxes under the notice stating the various reasons why the house cannot be occupied. The ones I looked at had the UTILITIES box checked and NO ELECTRICITY hand written next to the word. It appears that the police department is following around the utility company and condemning any house where the power is shut off.

"We're seeing a record number of shutoffs," says Mark Wolfe, head of the National Energy Assistance Directors' Association, which represents programs that subsidize energy bills. An NEADA survey this month shows 8% of four-member households earning $33,500 to $55,500 have had their power turned off for non-payment. "It's hitting people in the suburbs with two cars and two kids," Wolfe says.

In other words, people are broke and choosing between food and power bills. Your family must eat but for many power is now a luxury they can not afford.

American jobs continue their death spiral as inflation soars. Incomes levels have dropped dramatically in the past several years. The average family is trapped in the middle with no way out. According to a report from the Energy Information Administration, natural gas will cost a whopping 52% more this year than last year. This on top of 30% inflation for food items and record gas prices. The power companies know that your utility bill is fairly low on the priority list and want to guarantee their profit level...at the expense of your freedom if necessary.

Consider this, it is summertime, your family is broke so you decide to go a few months without power. You go to bed around 9 pm when it gets dark, eat prepackaged foods that require no refrigeration and cook on the back yard grill. Honestly no power needed, the family is happier, you get to know your neighbors, the children get some exercise and maybe everyone reads a few books. Your neighbors decide to adopt the same lifestyle.

This is a worst case scenario for the power companies and their profits. What does corporate America do when faced with declining incomes…they have the government guarantee their profit margin. We have seen this used masterfully in the insurance and banking industries. The power companies will approach local and state legislative bodies and convince them that not having power is a threat to the public safety. The elected officials will take a fat handout and pass a law requiring gas and electric services for habitation. The police enforce the laws and the punishments will become harsher as more people are forced to choose between food and power.

The implications of this disturb me greatly. Will not having power equate to child endangerment? Will not having power equate to a health hazard? Will not having power equate to imprisonment?

Many counties in Colorado do not consider off-grid electric systems a stable power supply. Will these homes now be considered uninhabitable because they are not supporting the power company profits? What about home owners who install pellet stoves for home heating and disconnect from the natural gas supply. Will they be subjected to intimidation and forcibly removal from their energy independent homes?

Apparently the job of the police department is to guarantee the profits of their corporate overseers and keep the public frightened and under control. Not to protect and serve the public that actually pays their salary. This is Fascist America.

Food relief line grows long, tense

Frustration rises, officials caught off-guard as thousands turn out for flood assistance.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinal
By ANNYSA JOHNSON, LINDA SPICE and GREG J. BOROWSKI

The chaos that erupted outside Milwaukee County's main welfare office Monday over disaster-related food aid had more to do with a weak economy and crushing poverty in parts of this community than the devastating floods that swept through the state earlier this month, local government and food relief officials said.

About 3,000 people turned out for the assistance beginning at 3 a.m. Monday, creating a line that stretched several blocks around the Marcia P. Coggs Human Services Center at 1220 W. Vliet St. At least one woman said she was trampled when a crowd rushed the doors as they opened around 7:30 a.m., and dozens of Milwaukee police officers and sheriff's deputies were called to quell the scene.

"The food crisis in Milwaukee and throughout the United States is worse than many of us have realized," said Milwaukee Common Council President Willie Hines, who with other elected officials called on the community to support local food pantries.

"We expect long lines for free food in Third World countries," Hines said. "We don't expect a line of 2,500 people waiting for food vouchers" in Milwaukee. No one was seriously injured, and there were no arrests Monday, but those in line described the scene as chaotic. Many thought they would receive vouchers immediately, and frustration mounted when some learned that was not the case.

"They just went crazy down there, just totally crazy," said Charline Britt of Milwaukee, who said she was trampled when about 200 people surged forward as the doors opened.

"They kicked me in my back, stepped over my shoes," said Britt, who'd come to the center about 4:30 a.m. because her basement flooded in the recent rains.

"I fainted when I got through the door."

Last week, Gov. Jim Doyle announced that seven Wisconsin counties, including Milwaukee, had become eligible for disaster FoodShare benefits, a federally funded program that offers a month's worth of food stamps to residents who incur damage in a declared disaster and fall below an income threshold. For example, a family of four earning $2,295 this month could get a food voucher worth up to $542. Aid is provided within about seven days, according to the county.

Federal rules do not require applicants to provide proof of either flood damage or income, according to state Department of Health and Family Services Secretary Karen Timberlake. However, residents can be prosecuted for falsifying an application.

Timberlake announced late Monday that 15 additional counties, including Waukesha, Washington, Ozaukee and Dane, have qualified for the aid.

Milwaukee County Health and Human Services Director Corey Hoze said his agency processed more than 2,000 applications between Thursday and Friday without incident but was unprepared for the crush of people Monday morning.

"I don't think anybody anticipated this kind of volume," said Hoze, who called in additional staff to try to speed the process.

"I think with last week's announcement, and Juneteenth Day, it just spread tremendously fast by word of mouth," he said. "We have just been inundated."

It didn't take long Monday for state and local officials to begin pointing fingers as they struggled to understand how the Milwaukee situation devolved.

County Supervisor Elizabeth Coggs suggested it might have gone more smoothly had Milwaukee County been given more time to prepare. But the seven-day limit on applications forced the state to work quickly, Timberlake said.

Hoze said the crowd might have been mitigated had his department stuck to its original plan to dispatch its mobile unit into affected communities to process applications. It switched gears, he said, setting up at the main food stamp application process, after the governor's office issued a fact sheet listing the Coggs Center address.

Doyle's spokesman rejected the notion that its announcement might have been a factor.

"I don't want to get to the point where we're pointing fingers and placing blame," said Hoze, noting that the state and county have both beefed up staffing to speed the process the rest of the week.

Don Walker and Alex Lundy of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

This is where we are heading, read the story here.

Inflation for Dummies

The Federal government is claiming an inflationary rate of between 2 and 3 percent. This is a manipulated number whose sole purpose is to keep the stock market stable and not cause a panic in the general population. Everyday items such as food and gas are considered volatile and not included in the math even though they are by far the most impacting expenses on the average household.

Let’s propose a new way, an honest way of looking at inflation. The Survival Inflationary Index will be based on two items every family must have to survive, gasoline and food. A family can exist living in a tent in the woods but you still must eat and get to work. We will pick a handful of grocery items and track the cost from May of one year to May of the next, average it and come up with a number. Factor in gas increases and you have it. Real Simple, Real Honest.

Here are a few examples of inflation that have directly affected me.

My youngest boy Conway loves green beans so I usually pick up a few small easy open cans on the trips to WalMart. Over the past year they have gone from $.45 a can last summer to $.58 currently. This represents a jump of 28 percent in one year.

Driving that giant truck is costing me a fortune. Last summer I was taking weekly trips to the cabin, yes it was costly but affordable. This year is a different story, gas has gone from $3.02 per gallon to $3.94, a one year increase of 30 percent. Needless to say I have greatly cut back on my trips this summer.

Cream Cheese Jalapeno Taquitos at 7-11 are one of my favorite junk foods. (yes I know they are bad for me) The past year has seen the price go from $1.79 to $2.22 for two of the delicious cream filled tubes. This is a 24 percent jump.

I am no economist but it appears to me that inflation is closer to 27 percent on the items necessary for survival. My grocery bills have increased at least 27 percent over last year so I feel that this is an honest and reasonable number.

WE ARE ALL IN GRAVE DANGER

Democrats Enable Bush's Crimes

Bush broke the law on a never before seen scale. He ordered warrant-less spying on every American. All of our email communications, financial transactions and voice calls are being intercepted and stored at the big telecommunication hubs. If the forty some lawsuits against the telecommunications companies were allowed to proceed Bush would go to jail and the full extent of the spying would be revealed. Plain and simple.

All the Democrats had to do was allow the courts to review the cases and insulate the phone companies against financial recourse. If no laws were broken what would be the harm. The Democrats apparently think we need to have unlimited spying on American citizens. What do they know that we don't? Did Bush threaten them with another "terrorist attack"? Are we that close to collapse?

This has always been a trigger event for me, the end of freedom. If they know what you buy, what you think and who you speak with it makes the round up real easy.

I have never been more ashamed of our congress. SHAME ON YOU DEMOCRATS. I will actively work to remove anyone who voted for the shameless legislation from office. Basically it says corporations are above the law and laws can be changed at the whim of the executive branch...THAT IS A DICTATORSHIP.

WE ARE ALL IN GRAVE DANGER

Constitution Gone - Democrats Complicit

House votes to expand Bush wiretap powers, telecom immunity

Nick Juliano
Published: Friday June 20, 2008

Less than 24 hours after introducing a controversial measure to expand President Bush's authority to spy on Americans, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives on Friday voted to approve the administration- and Republican-supported bill, sending it to the Senate where it will likely be adopted.

Civil liberties and privacy advocates forcefully panned the measure, which was crafted behind closed doors in negotiations among moderate Democrats, Republicans, the White House and telecommunications lobbyists.

"It’s Christmas morning at the White House thanks to this vote," Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office, said in a news release. "The House just wrapped up some expensive gifts for the administration and their buddies at the phone companies."

Friday's vote represented the beginning of the end in a legislative battle aimed at reining in the warrantless surveillance program Bush acknowledged instituting after 9/11.

"Immunity for telecom giants that secretly assisted in the NSA's warrantless surveillance undermines the rule of law and the privacy of every American," said Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "Congress should let the courts do their job instead of helping the administration and the phone companies avoid accountability for a half decade of illegal domestic spying. If this legislation passes the Senate and is signed into law, the American people will have lost their last best chance to discover the true scope of the president's wiretapping program and to determine whether or not the law was broken."

EFF is representing plaintiffs in more than 40 lawsuits alleging the telecoms broke the law and violated their customers' privacy by facilitating the warrantless wiretaps.

The House had earlier proved to be a bulwark in the way of the president's attempt to retroactively legalize his conduct and excuse from legal oversight the telecommunications companies that assisted him. That wall fell Friday.

Pressure mounts on Obama to oppose

Now activists are turning their attention to the Senate, and pressure is mounting on Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to step up and lead an effort to block the latest FISA bill.

"We look to leaders in the Senate who value the rule of law to stand up and strongly oppose this blanket immunity for telecom lawbreakers," Bankston said, "and in particular urge Senator Barack Obama to lead his party in rejecting this false compromise."

Obama has said nothing about the recently announced FISA compromise. Robert Gibbs, his presidential campaign's communications director, said he was unsure whether Obama would participate in debate on the FISA bill, which is expected next week in the Senate. Gibbs promised to provide more information later after he was asked about Obama and FISA by RAW STORY and other reporters during a conference call Friday.

The Democratic candidate was criticized earlier this week for endorsing Rep. John Barrow, a pro-immunity Georgia Democrat, who is in the middle of a primary campaign against a progressive State Senator.

When the Senate passed an earlier FISA bill in February, Obama supported amendments to strip immunity from it. He supported a filibuster after that amendment fail, although the Illinois senator did not vote on the final bill itself.

Pelosi, Hoyer lead effort in opposition to majority of Dems

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer shepherded through a surveillance bill opposed by the majority of their caucus.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act update passed 293-129, with support from just 107 Democrats. Opposing the measure were 128 Democrats and one Republican, Rep. Timothy Johnson of Illinois.

"Watching the House fall to scare tactics and political maneuvering is especially infuriating given the way it stood up to pressure from the president on this same issue just months ago," Fredrickson said. "In March we thought the House leadership had finally grown a backbone by rejecting the Senate’s FISA bill. Now we know they will not stand up for the Constitution."

Pelosi said the only choice the House had was between the FISA update it considered Friday and a worse version passed by the Senate earlier this year. A FISA update the House approved in March, that did not include immunity and earned praise from civil libertarians, was apparently no longer an option because Democrats decided it could not pass the Senate.

She said she was unsatisfied with the immunity provision, which leaves telecommunications companies "with a taint," but she said the overall bill was acceptable because it improved on the Senate version. The House compromise requires intelligence agencies' Inspectors General to review the warrantless wiretapping program, instead of the independent judicial review that would have come from the lawsuits moving forward.

Acknowledging the controversy in the bill, Pelosi didn't attempt to prevent the defection of a majority of the Democratic caucus. (This, by the way, stands in stark contrast to the way in which Republicans ran the House; they would not even bring a measure to the floor if it did not have majority GOP support.)

"I'm not asking anybody to vote for this bill," Pelosi said at the end of her floor speech. "I just wanted to let you know why I am."

Original Story