"I think it's important to recognize, given historic suspicions, that the United States' policy should not be interference in other countries, but that also means that we can't blame the United States for every problem that arises in the hemisphere."

Website author's standard disclaimer - this is NOT to be taken as a market recommendation, just an observation.  Keep in mind the US economy is roughly 13 to 15 trillion dollars in GDP per year while the world's derivatives market is now anywhere between 300 to 500 trillion dollars 1.2 quadrillion dollars (10¹⁵ )  ---  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrillion  ---  notational value,  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=6913  ---  [updated 061808] possibly even more. Most of it controlled by the centralized financial institutions and elites that currently run our government.  With such vast leverage they could mask, manipulate, or resist market forces for years.

The Virtual Economy
05-01-09
mpg

[The Real] Economy On The Ropes  ---  http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22531.htm
Must Read - While Bernanke may have avoided a global bank-run, the bleeding continues in housing, business investment, manufacturing, industrial capacity, and global trade. Every sector is falling precipitously with no end in sight. Even worse, nothing has been done to remove the trillion dollars of toxic assets from the banks balance sheets which is causing credit to tighten even more. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has failed to take advantage of the uptick in investor confidence to resolve the problem of underwater banks. Instead, he has stubbornly stuck with his Public Private Investment Program (PPIP) which has made less than $6 billion in transactions so far. Unless the banks are restored to health and their balance sheets repaired, a sustainable recovery will not be possible. According to Bloomberg, 6 of the 19 largest banks (which contain 75% of the system's total assets) are insufficiently capitalized:"

The author’s basic conclusion is that Bernanke has kept the financial sector from imminent collapse....for the moment.  That's it.  That's all they've done so far.  Despite spending trillions of dollars for their various and ingenious transfer programs to the wealthy while also backstopping and guaranteeing trillions more in toxic waste, the author is still very dubious about the prospects for a sustained economic recovery anytime soon.

And that certainly would seem to be the case. From this website's editor's perspective the banks aren't solvent using any normal bookkeeping standards and are highly unlikely to become solvent for at least the next decade.  In addition to the prospect of having to deal with these zombie banks for years, everyone can also look forward to at least another twelve to eighteen months of ongoing economic deterioration, followed by years of continued stagnation.  During which the Fed will continue its ineffective quest to inflate the economy by printing and giving away trillions more....to the Banksters of course.

Despite all these efforts, or more properly because of them, the situation in eighteen months will be exactly the same as it was a year ago, or for that matter ten years ago.  Assets will still be "over-valued" relative to those that could be purchased just about anywhere else in the world.  There will still be no disclosure on what the banks are actually holding, the Fed will be on the hook for an additional five to ten trillion dollars, manufacturing will be decimated and will remain so because it will still be cheaper to manufacture in most other parts of the world, unless of course the dollar collapses completely.  The housing market will stay depressed for a decade. Real earnings of the American worker will continue to stagnate as they have for the last thirty years, and for the same reasons. The US-NRE will by that time be mired in at least three, possibly four, ongoing wars of occupation. And finally, we as a nation have yet to experience the predicted "credit card default crisis" and "commercial real estate crisis".

However the financial sector by then, flush with about fifteen to twenty trillion dollars worth of paper promises from the Fed, will be sitting pretty and looking good.  It will probably occupy forty percent of the US-NRE’s economy producing about that much of its GDP.  All of it by "manufacturing" additional bits and pieces of paper and "shuffling" this blizzard of "financial products" (new versions of toxic waste) from millions of accounts to millions of other accounts with the usual staggering mark-up and interest rate charges.

It's become obvious by all this frantic activity for the last two years that most of the economists currently employed by the Government, and almost all of the elites in this nation, have developed a firm and abiding belief in the new, improved, "Virtual Economy™".

The fervent belief the if you counter-act a massive wave of economic contraction, which they of course created by their first attempt at creating a virtual economy, with an equally massive wave of engineered inflation (a version of the Black-Scholes formula perhaps?) you'll achieve a "balance" of some sort and be able to maintain their "sacred system” of "wealth accumulation", now known as paper production.

More importantly from their prospective they'll get to continue the "status quo".  They believe this approach will enable them to keep their privileged position on top of the economic pyramid for a long time to come, no matter how much destruction the implementation of this perverted economic doctrine may cause to the "base" of the pyramid.  The elites therefore appear willing, for the moment only, to settle for becoming larger frogs in a possibly much smaller pond, or to put it another way, they're willing to settle for continuing to occupy the top of a possibly much smaller - and much shorter - economic pyramid.

However something has got to give in this arranged, titanic struggle, of economic forces and like the incredibly shrinking GM Corporation, what's going to give is the "base" of the US-NRE's entire "real" economy.  What the new financial aristocracy have successfully achieved by all these shenanigans is a massive, and permanent, decline in the standard of living for just about everyone else in the country.  A decline that will become apparent as soon as the value of the dollar begins to reflect the permanently shrunken state of this nation's "real" economy, just exactly as GM's stock has already reflected the shrunken state of that company's "real" future income, assets and prospects

At best given these factors it looks like the US-NRE will undergo the equivalent of Japan's "lost decade" followed by a massive increase in inflation around 2020.  Essentially a more destructive variant of what occurred in this country during the '72 to '82 "ten year cycle".
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/fedfundschart-photopg-cached-032407  ---  That's at best of course.  At worst, given the deflation that's occurring, there still exists a significant chance, although it looks to be somewhat diminished to the great surprise of this website editor, that the US-NRE will experience an old fashioned, long term, Depression.

The conversion of bigger and bigger chunks of the US-NRE's "real" economy into a "virtual economy" every ten years however does not bode well for this nation's future prospects.  Obviously at the end of the next eighteen months, (assuming the elites are able to get away with their little cock-eyed scheme), the elites intent will be to make every employee (that includes the self-employed) in this country work twice as hard for even less benefits for the next ten years while taxing them as much as they can to reduce the "virtual portion" of this economy to something a little more manageable. 

Since in the end they'll be forced to increase that portion of the virtual economy by another ten or twenty trillion dollars in just four short years, (that figure does not include the Federal deficit -- yet) they'll probably run out of any economic maneuvering room to do so.

In other words they could lose the race to deflation-depression and/or crash the currency.

Only time will tell. – mpg

For more on this issue see....Enforcing the Rules -- Too Little, Too Late - 02-27-09
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/enforcingtherulestoolittletoolate-mpg-reficultnias-022709
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Mortgaging the White House  ---  http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/050109c.html
posted at Consortium News  ---  https://secure.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/consortiumnews/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=2043
Must Read - Obama™ Update - A quote...."President Obama's been busy, but contrary to many of the pundits, he's no FDR. Our new president got his political education in the world of Chicago ward politics, and seems to have adopted a strategy from the machine of that city's longtime boss, the late Richard J. Daley, father of the current mayor there. - "Don't make no waves," one of Daley's henchmen advised, "don't back no losers." - Your opinion of Obama's first 100 days depends of course on your own vantage point. But we'd argue that as part of his bending over backwards to support the banks and avoid the losers, he has blundered mightily in his choice of economic advisers."
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Causes of the Crisis  ---  http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=3031
Must Read - A quote...."James K. Galbraith | May 01, 2009 | Commentary -- Editor’s note: These remarks were delivered to a meeting of the Texas Lyceum in Austin on April 3, at a debate between University of Texas professor James Galbraith, an Observer contributing writer, and former Majority Leader Richard Armey, chief instigator of the recent Astroturf “tea party" protests. Armey had begun his remarks by noting that his rule in life was “never trust anyone from Austin or Boston,” and proceeded to declare his allegiance to the “Austrian School” of economics, a libertarian view that regards public intervention in private markets as socialism." -- also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/01-3

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Brits Sound Final Retreat From Iraq -- But the U.S. Beat Goes On
  ---  http://chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1753-brits-sound-final-retreat-from-iraq-but-the-us-beat-goes-on.html
Must Read - A quote...."This week we saw a huge milestone reached in the greatest conflict of our day: yet it passed with scarcely more than a murmur in the American press -- and with deathly silence on the part of the primary architects of the occasion. - We speak of course of the final bug-out of British forces from Iraq, where this week, after six years of slavish service to America's war of aggression, Her Majesty's military gave up their last remaining  base in the conquered land. But as the Guardian astutely points out, the Brits did not turn the base over to the completey liberated totally sovereign Iraqi goverment, but to the tender care of Pentagon, which is pouring thousands of American troops into Basra to guard the occupation's supply lines out of Kuwait -- and keep a watchful eye over the oil-rich region."
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The Kingdom of Lies - posted at the Palestine Chronicle  ---  http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14974
  ---  http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15062
Must Read - A quote...."Racism is common to most and probably all societies. Laws never seem entirely to eliminate it. It was the essential tool in the creation of modern settler states. The United States could not have come into existence without the obliteration of North American Indian cultures and of large numbers of the people themselves. They had to die so the US could be born. In Australia the indigenous people of Tasmania were wiped out to the last man, woman and child, while on the mainland the tribes were massacred, confined, stripped of their ancestral land and eventually turned into fringe dwellers. Until recently Australia had a prime minister who could deny that aboriginal children of mixed ‘blood’ were taken from their parents up to the 1930s and refused to issue any expression of remorse for their mistreatment. More recent targets of racism have been Lebanese and Vietnamese immigrants, while the Howard federal government’s racist treatment of Iraqi and Afghan refugees and asylum seekers remains one of the most shameful chapters of Australia’s history."
also posted at ICH  ---  http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22527.htm
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The Dark Core of the Empire  ---  http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2009-04-28.asp
Must Read - A quote...."Among the major obstacles to both criminal prosecutions and a truth commission regarding the CIA’s torture program is the underlying reluctance of U.S. officials to focus attention on the super-secret operations of the CIA. - A criminal prosecution, after all, could get out of control, especially one that is being prosecuted by a genuinely honest, independent prosecutor. Prospective defendants might threaten to reveal things that everyone would want to keep quiet."
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Children as Unlamented Victims of Bush’s War Crimes  ---  http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22529.htm
A quote...."May 01, 2009  -- -- Torture has received the most attention among the many war crimes of the Bush administration. But those who support Bush’s pursuit of the “war on terror” have not been impressed by recriminations over torture. Worse than torture are the murders of at least 50 prisoners in Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo, but again the hard-hearted are unimpressed when those whom they perceive as terrorists receive illegal extrajudicial capital punishment."
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WPost: All the Ex-President's Excuses  ---  http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/050109b.html
posted at Consortium News  ---  https://secure.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/consortiumnews/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=2043
Hey, WaPo doesn't care about "all them there little kiddies"....just rack'em and bag'em is their motto. - mpg -- A quote...."Under the stewardship of Fred Hiatt, the editorial and op-ed pages of the Washington Post have gradually moved to the right. -- Post editorials and op-eds have defended the decision to go to war in Iraq; opposed any improvement in bilateral relations with Russia; refused to acknowledge Israel’s misuse of military power in the Middle East; and lobbied against the need for investigation of the detention and interrogation programs of the Bush administration. -- As part of the campaign to prevent a rigorous examination of “enhanced interrogation techniques” (read: “torture and abuse”), the Washington Post's editorial pages have been particularly protective of the Central Intelligence Agency and its senior leaders – the ideological drivers for torture and extraordinary renditions policies."
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New UN Report Shows the US Combo of Torture and Impunity Thrives in Iraqi Prisons
  ---  http://rebelreports.com/post/101946080/new-un-report-shows-the-us-combo-of-torture-and
A quote...."Iraqi authorities widely use torture to interrogate prisoners and extract confessions without fear of consequence. Sadly, the US doesn’t have the credibility to confront these crimes." - also posted at CommonDreams   ---  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/01-12  ---  Confront them!?!?  We've got guys over there egging them on, saying "drill harder"! - mpg
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ACLU Director Favors Prosecution, Not Impeachment, Not Committee Hearings  ---  http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/42223
A quote...."I heard Anthony Romero, ExDir of ACLU, speak tonight: "Moral hazard" is the term used in the stock market (and insurance) when a party insulated from risk may behave differently from the way it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk. He applied it to BushCo's abuse of power; that they behaved immorally because they believed they could get away with it. That is, to deter future abuses we must hold them accountable. -- Torture memos: "their medieval legal reasoning is exceeded only by their moral depravity."-- Ah, ah, ahhhhh!!  (finger wagging back and forth in the air) First you must establish a commission to generate the necessary political consensus. Just keep showing the murders, snuff movies, killings, rapes, tortures until most Americans scream "enough of this sh-t, we can't take it anymore".....this suggestion assumes of course that most Americans don't actually enjoy this stuff.  Than you give the perpetrators a fair and quick trial, and even swifter punishment. – mpg
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US may revive military commissions: report  ---  http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iykjbzUd3ibKH6Bj7aQdpVAbKdQw
Obama™ Update - A quote...."WASHINGTON (AFP) — The administration of US President Barack Obama is moving toward reviving the military commission system for prosecuting terrorism suspect held at a detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, The New York Times reported. - The military commissions have been criticized by Obama in the past." - bold by website editor - Well than, we'll just call this one...."Back to the Medieval" - mpg
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Scott Horton Interviews Philip Weiss  ---  http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/04/30/philip-weiss-3/
Must Listen Audio Interview - A quote...."Investigative journalist Philip Weiss discusses all the implications of the Jane Harman wiretap story the MSM hasn’t run with yet, the evidence of Israeli attempts to dominate U.S. policy decisions on Iran to start a war, the J Street lobby’s moderating influence and how Israeli leaders are oblivious of the political re-evaluation of Israel by American Jews."
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The heft that dares not speak its name
  ---  http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/san_fernando_curt/2009/05/the-heft-that-dare-not-speak-i.php?ref=reccafe
A quote...."A telling sentence in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency's report (of sources' claims) that the government finally has killed off the moribund espionage case against two AIPAC staffers:"
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AIPAC Verdict Sure to Fuel More Harman Conspiracy Theories  ---  http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/2009/05/aipac-verdict-sure-to-fuel-mor.html
A quote...."The Justice Department's decision to drop espionage charges against two pro-Israel lobbyists will certainly pour jet fuel on conspiracy theories burning up the blogosphere over the Jane Harman wiretap controversy.
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Lawyers credit Obama team for dismissing AIPAC case
  ---  http://jta.org/news/article/2009/05/01/1004853/lawyers-credit-obama-team-for-dismissing-aipac-case
Obama™ Update - A quote...."WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Lawyers for the two former AIPAC staffers charged four years ago with dealing in government secrets credited the Obama administration for dropping the case."
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Killin the Story with a Friday release: Obama’s Justice Department Drops Charges Against AIPAC Spies.
  ---  http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/killin-the-story-with-a-friday-release-obamas-justice-department-drops-charges-against-aipac-spies/
Warning - Harsh langauge - A quote...."The Obama Justice Department moved Friday to drop all charges against two former pro-Israel lobbyists who had been charged under the Espionage Act with improperly disseminating sensitive information. - The move by the government came in a motion filed with the federal court in Alexandria, Va. which was to be the site of the trial that was scheduled to begin June 2." -- For more on this issue see....Judeo-Christian C/C & US - Jane Harman  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/judeochristianconflictcontrolwithinus-weblist-mpg-010409#JANEHARMAN
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U.S. says troops will not face trial over Iraq raid  ---  http://uk.reuters.com/article/usTopNews/idUKTRE53P18C20090501
A quote...."BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. soldiers will not appear in Iraqi courts to answer any charges relating to a raid this week that killed two people in Iraq and triggered condemnation from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the U.S. military has said."
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Occupation Pulls Rank On Iraq Puppet  ---  http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/42214
A quote...."When Bush's "security pact" was implemented, we dismissed its provision that US occupation troops could be tried in Iraqi courts as phoney since it allowed the occupation to decide any request from the Iraqis. -- This proves we were correct."
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Pakistan: Tens of thousands displaced by US-ordered offensive  ---  http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/apr2009/paki-a30.shtml
A quote...."Tens of thousands of Pashtun-speaking villagers have been forced to flee from their homes in recent days as the result of the punishing offensive the Pakistani military has mounted against pro-Taliban militants in the country’s North-West Frontier Province."
also posted at CounterCurrents  ---  http://www.countercurrents.org/jones300409.htm
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What "Sweeping Overhaul" of the Pentagon? - Putting Lipstick on the F-35 Fighter  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/wheeler05012009.html
A quote...."On April 6, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced a number of decisions on major weapons programmes in the Pentagon’s next budget. - Hyperventilating, the New York Times termed the decisions a “sweeping overhaul” of the Pentagon. Indeed, Gates’ decision to cut off F-22 fighter production at 187 fighters is an essential step in any real reform plan. - However, his complementary decision to rely on the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to modernise US Air Force (USAF) undoes everything constructive that he accomplished – more so than he might ever imagine. Quite justifiably, Gates said the decision to stop F-22 production was not even a “close call”."
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Belarus 'selling Iran Iskander-M missiles'  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=93244&sectionid=351020101
A quote...."Amid speedy relationship developments between Belarus and Iran, a report says the former Soviet state is selling Tehran the Russian-made Iskander-M tactical missile systems."
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ACLU claims U.S. supported PMOI  ---  http://www.metimes.com/Security/2009/05/01/aclu_claims_us_supported_pmoi/dffb/
Special Note - A quote...."LOS ANGELES, May 1 (UPI) -- Charges filed against Iranian dissidents for supporting a terrorist group based in Iraq are complicated by alleged U.S. military cooperation with that group. The U.S. Justice Department accepted guilty pleas Wednesday from six men and one woman for collecting funds for the People's Mujahedin of Iran, a group listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization. The American Civil Liberties Union in Southern California, which is representing some of the suspects, says it will challenge the claims on the grounds the PMOI poses no threat to U.S. national security. The ACLU also claims court documents show the U.S. government provided material support to the PMOI as well. "It boggles the mind that these seven refugees would be charged with providing material support for a so-called terrorist organization, when the U.S. government has supported the same organization for years," said Ahilan Arulanantham with the ACLU. There is widespread speculation the U.S. military had used the group to carry out attacks on Iran." -- For more on this issue see....US Support of Terror - MEK-PKK-OTHERS
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/ussupportofterror-weblist-mpg-090306#MEK-PKK-OTHERS
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Ahmadinejad's Brazil visit startles Washington  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=93300&sectionid=351020101
A quote...."Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's upcoming visit to the Latin American county of Brazil has reportedly alarmed the Obama White House. -- A day after Iran's ambassador to Brazil announced that Ahmadinejad and a large entourage of 110 representatives from 65 companies are to visit Brasilia on Wednesday, US Secretary of State [Clinton] dubbed the development as "quite disturbing." -- OH MY GAWD!!  She's absolutely right, it's terrible that any nation state in the world could actually be allowed to develop commercial relationships with another nation state without the US-NRE's, and especially (gasp! shock! horror!), Israel's permission.  How dare they!!!  Let's go bomb Brazil right now! – mpg
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Israel warns EU to tone down its criticism  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090430/ap_on_re_us/ml_israel_eu_2
A quote...."JERUSALEM – Israel warned the European Union on Thursday to tone down its criticism of the new Israeli government or risk forfeiting the bloc's role as broker in Mideast peace efforts. - The warning came after EU's commissioner for external relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, this week criticized Israel's refusal to endorse a Palestinian state. She said an upgrade in Israeli-EU relations would depend on Israel's commitment to the "two-state solution." -- Oh, oh.  Europe better be careful, else they might get nuked.  For more on this issue see....A Mortal Threat – Europe’s New Frankenstein Monster - 01-26-09 - mpg
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/amortalthreat-europesnewfrankenstein-mpg-reficultnias-012609
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On eve of papal visit, Israeli police attack Palestinian Christian  ---  http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m53889&hd=&size=1&l=e
A quote...."Jerusalem Ma'an -- A Palestinian Christian was hospitalized after being severely beaten by Israeli police in East Jerusalem's Old City on Friday. -- The Palestinian who lives on Latin Patriarch Street in East Jerusalem, Samer Andrea Karkar, was assaulted near an Italian restaurant and store, both of which he owns, on the same street. -- The pope is scheduled to visit the area during his upcoming visit to Jerusalem next Thursday."
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Expansion of settlements and Eco-Terrorism in Salfit  ---  http://palestinevideo.blogspot.com/2009/05/expansion-of-settlements-and-eco.html
Alt - (YouTube - 4 min 01 sec - May 01, 2009)  ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP76VCcKDuI
Video - A quote...."Israeli settlers and factories pumping polluted water onto farmland."
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Israel Bombs Tunnels, Cuts Gaza Feeding Tubes - posted at the Palestine Chronicle  ---  http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15068
  ---  http://www.palestinechronicle.com/news.php?id=3a281e81898f26acd609b49c483fe094&mode=details#3a281e81898f26acd609b49c483fe094
A quote...."Israeli fighter jets strike tunnels across the Gaza Strip's border with Egypt to further tighten the noose of hunger around the blockaded enclave. - The air strike on the first of day of the new month came as the international community's silence drowns out its calls on Tel Aviv to lift the almost two-year siege on Gaza."
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"When Companies Begin to Lose Money, They Start to Listen" - The Israel Boycott is Biting  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/hijab05012009.html
A quote...."On May 4, protesters will greet Motorola shareholders, already disgruntled by the company's losses, as they arrive for their annual meeting at the Rosemont Theater in Chicago, Illinois. - The protest, organized by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, is part of a drive to "Hang Up On Motorola" until it ends sales of communications and other products that support Israel's military occupation of Palestinian land." -- For more on the Boycotts see the upper-left-corner of the "Front Page"  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/ ---  on this website. - mpg
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The Vogon Constructor Fleet
05-01-09
mpg

Demolition by Israel for lacking permits: ‘60,000 Palestinians at risk of losing homes’
A quote...."JERUSALEM: At least 60,000 of the 225,000 Palestinians in Israeli-occupied Jerusalem risk having their homes demolished by the Israeli authorities because they were built without permits, a UN agency said on Friday."

Yes, no doubt back in the Twelfth to Fifteenth centuries the Palestinians didn't realize they needed to obtain blessed permission in triplicate from the non-existent Israeli government to build their own homes on their own lands.

It makes this website editor think of the novel and TV series (don't see the movie) called “Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy”.

It would be really nice - a joy in fact - if someone just like the Vogons, as hilariously depicted as they are in the story, would one day descend upon the Jews of Israel in their "Constructor Fleet"

Appearing suddenly overhead, darkening the sky with their huge fleet of ships, blasting and booming their messages with their atmospheric-vibrating, force-field-generated, mega-phones, they would brusquely inform the Israelis....

"Per notice 27836-slash-270-zed-stoke-DED....The lands you are currently living on have been condemned and were slated for demolition several months ago by the Galactic planning board for the construction of the new, much needed, long planned for, Glaxo-Trans™,  hyper-spatial link through the Middle East."

They would than inform the Israelis that "This construction is being carried out under Statute 276-B-slash-726-DENY because you made no attempt to follow your appeals rights."

After perhaps hearing something broadcast from a radio below, no doubt in complete panic, the Vogon announcer would than squawk back in irritation, "It's simply too bad you primitive peoples didn’t avail yourselves of the opportunity to appeal this entire process by reviewing the standard 24435-OPS notice we had quite helpfully", and he would add with a certain heavy emphasis...."and quite legally"....then resume in his normal gravelly voice,” posted back at our main office on the Vogon home world"

....which, to let all you readers know, was about one hundred and fifty light years from Earth.

"If you primitive peoples can't even bother yourselves....", he would than add in a disgusted, bored and contemptuous tone of voice while the Vogons prepared their massive, mile long, Constructor Ships for the task ahead, "....and take the time to review our proposals when we post them, well....you have absolutely no right to complain and only yourselves to blame".

He'd than state with utter finality, "You have five minutes to vacate the premises.”

Than grumbling and complaining loudly to each other saying things like, "What a bunch of stupid, lazy, good-for-nothing, ungrateful savages", and not even waiting the required five minutes because they all had a lunch break coming up, they would begin the demolition process with their blindingly bright, incandescent, disintegration rays.

 It really would be quite enjoyable. – mpg
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Mr. Rat Goes to Washington  ---  http://lewrockwell.com/orig10/taki1.html
Obama™ Update - A quote...."A recent profile in a New York glossy described him as a member of Wall Street aristocracy, a man to whose parties the rich and powerful trip over themselves to attend, a networker nonpareil, in short, the greatest big hitter who has ever graced this poor earth of ours. Leave it to a celebrity-obsessed rag to get it so wrong. His name is Steve Rattner, and he looks like a rodent, except that he wears glasses. He is to Wall Street aristocracy what Paris Hilton is to discretion, a shifty little balding man whose business moves are even shiftier. He is Obama’s chief adviser in dealing with Detroit, the “Car Tsar,” in fact."
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UK bankruptcies hit 50-year high  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=93295&sectionid=3510213
A quote...."The number of Britons going bankrupt jumped to its highest level in nearly 50 years in the first quarter, the Insolvency Service has announced. - Individual insolvencies in Britain climbed to 29,774 in the three months to the end of March -- a 19 percent rise compared to the same period last year."
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International Monetary Fund Slowly Taking Over as Global Economic Regulator and Banker
  ---  http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/05/international-monetary-fund-imf-is.html
A quote...."So the IMF appears to have become the world's global financial cop. -- The IMF will also, apparently, sell treasury-like bonds to raise money for loans it makes to ailing countries. This ties into statements some time ago by an economist that investors would eventually buy IMF bonds as a safe-haven investment, thus quickening the shift away from the dollar and American treasuries as reserve currency and safe-haven investments."

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