Ready or not, QE3 is here, and the long-term effects of this reckless money printing by the Federal Reserve are going to be absolutely nightmarish. The Federal Reserve is hoping that buying $40 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities per month will spur more lending and more economic activity. But that didn’t happen with either QE1 or QE2. Both times the banks just sat on most of the extra money. As I pointed out the other day, U.S. banks are already sitting on $1.6 trillion in excess reserves. So will pumping them up with more cash suddenly make them decide to start lending? Of course not. In addition, QE3 is not likely to produce many additional jobs. As I showed in a previous article, the employment level did not jump up as a result of either QE1 or QE2. So why will this time be different? But what did happen under both QE1 and QE2 is that a lot of the money ended up pumping up the financial markets. So once again we should see stock prices go up (at least in the short-term) and commodities such as gold, silver, food and oil should also rise. But that also means that average American families will be paying more for the basic necessities that they buy on a regular basis. The most dangerous aspect of QE3, however, is what it is going to do to the U.S. dollar. Most of the rest of the world uses the U.S. dollar to conduct international trade, and by choosing to recklessly print money Ben Bernanke is severely damaging international confidence in our currency. If at some point the rest of the world rejects the dollar and no longer wants to use it as a reserve currency we are going to be facing a crisis unlike anything we have ever seen before. The real debate about QE3 should not be about whether or not it will help the economy a little bit in the short-term. Rather, everyone should be talking about the long-term implications and about how QE3 is going to accelerate the destruction of the dollar. (Read More...)
Buying
Brutal Gestapo Tactics Are Being Used Against Homeowners All Over America
Property rights are being absolutely shredded all over America. Buying a piece of land and enjoying it with your family has always been a big part of the American Dream. Unfortunately, in the United States today you don’t actually own your own home. If you don’t pay your rent (property taxes) your home will be taken away from you, and you are only allowed to use your property in very narrowly defined ways. The control freaks that run things tell us what we can build on our own property, what we can grow on our own property, what types of gatherings we can have on our own property, how many visitors we can have on our own property and they have imposed very strict rules about how our property must be maintained. If we get “out of line”, they will use “zoning ordinances” and “code violations” to make our lives a living hell. All over America today, brutal Gestapo tactics are being used against homeowners that just want to be left alone. Anyone that has ever dealt with a “compliance officer” or a “nuisance abatement team” knows what I am talking about. But if we have so very little “freedom” on our own properties, then how in the world can we continue to call this country “the land of the free”? (Read More...)
A Chinese Group Plans To Construct A 200 Acre “China City” In Michigan
A Chinese group known as “Sino-Michigan Properties LLC” has bought up 200 acres of land near the town of Milan, Michigan. Their plan is to construct a “China City” with artificial lakes, a Chinese cultural center and hundreds of housing units for Chinese citizens. Essentially, it would be a little slice of communist China dropped right into the heartland of America. This “China City” would be located about 40 minutes from both Detroit and Toledo, and it would be marketed to Chinese business people that want to start businesses in the United States. Unfortunately, this is not just an isolated incident. In fact, Chinese companies have been buying up land and businesses all over the country in recent years. There has even been talk of establishing “special economic zones” inside the United States modeled after the Chinese city of Shenzhen. It was inevitable that the Chinese were going to do something with the trillions of dollars that they have made flooding our shores with cheap products. Now they are rapidly buying up pieces of America, and many of our politicians are welcoming them with open arms. (Read More...)
Buying The Vote: 12 Facts About Super PACs That Will Blow Your Mind
In American politics, it takes an enormous amount of money to win campaigns, and the rise of the “Super PACs” is allowing the wealthy to exert even more influence over the political process than they did before. When you examine the results of federal elections over the past several decades, you quickly discover that the candidate that raises the most money almost always wins. Wealthy individuals are limited by law as to how much money they can give directly to a political campaign, but there are no limits on how much money they can give to Super PACs. During the 2012 election season, some of these Super PACs actually have more money than the campaigns of the candidates that they support do. Buying the vote is not illegal in America, and these Super PACs are buying huge amounts of advertising in key states. Unfortunately, most Americans have never learned to think for themselves. Instead, they let the television do much of their thinking for them. If their trusted friend, the television, tells them to vote a certain way, then that is what they are likely to do. Super PACs are much more likely to run negative ads than the actual candidates are, and we have already seen very negative ads dramatically move the poll numbers in some of the states. Sadly, as long as very negative ads keep working people are going to keep using them. (Read More...)