A Wicked Financial Storm Descends On America

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton – The NoisyRoom

Ever since 2008, this blog has been warning about economic devastation heading our way. You see it everywhere you look today, if you bother to look that is… Gas prices are at close to an average of $4 a gallon and in parts of California, it is now hitting $7, with no end in sight. Food inflation that is rising so precipitously, it takes your breath away – but the government says there is no inflation.

In the world that is America now, all things seem to be upside down and sliding full-blown out of control. This includes the Communist who is our current Commander-in-Chief. He claims he is drilling for oil, when the opposite is true. He is blocking all of it and piling so many regulations on our coal plants in lockstep with his bud, Cass Sunstein, that they are shutting down as well. Lie after lie after infernal lie.

As for unemployment, the government is manipulating the hell out of those numbers in an attempt to calm the sheep before the slaughter. They claim it has fallen to 8.2%. Take a long look at the U6 rate, which tracks not only those out of work, but those who’ve essentially given up looking for work. It currently sits at 14.5% – close to double what is being claimed by our ‘progressive’ leadership. Real unemployment stands at closer to 19.1% and is perhaps substantially higher than that.

People are giving up on finding work. A second, even more brutal wave of foreclosures is also on the horizon. Real hunger is coming to the US and hard times that will make the Great Depression seem like the good ole days are pounding on our door. A majority of states are now close to being unable to cover pensions and other entitlements as well as expenses. Bankruptcy is an understatement for what these states are facing. So, to “solve” the problem, a number of them are taxing more which makes it worse and worse. All the while, the rising flood of fuel prices surges against the levee.

When truckers cannot fill their tanks anymore because of the cost, store shelves will become barren wastelands. Real food deserts. When people get hungry, especially when their children are hungry, they get mean and desperate. Just what the Progressives had in mind. Violence, chaos and mayhem in the streets.

So, you say… the election is not far off and we can get rid of Obama then. Maybe, maybe not… I understand a company owned at least in part by Soros will be handling voting results. It doesn’t take a genius to see how that would be manipulated. Then there is a potential war with Iran. If Obama feels his reelection is in jeopardy, war with Iran will look like just the right emergency. Or, there could be any other number of emergencies, real or ginned up like the Trayvon Martin murder that is sparking racial unrest.

If nothing else, the debt we owe will literally drag us into hell all by itself. We’re broke and we aren’t going back to yesteryear anytime soon. That would take massive cuts and pain and no one with that kind of spine exists today in our government. But until the last penny is stolen and the last party is thrown by the Progressives, they will keep spending until there is nothing left but death, war, famine and blood. And they are okay with that, trust me. We face the abyss and our leaders are embracing the gulf.

From The Economic Collapse Blog:

#1 According to one new survey, approximately one-third of all Americans are not paying their bills on time at this point.

#2 The U.S. housing industry is bracing for another huge wave of foreclosures in 2012. The following is from a recent Reuters article….

“We are right back where we were two years ago. I would put money on 2012 being a bigger year for foreclosures than 2010,” said Mark Seifert, executive director of Empowering & Strengthening Ohio’s People (ESOP), a counseling group with 10 offices in Ohio.

#3 The Citigroup Economic Surprise Index, a key indicator watched by many economists, is on the verge of heading into negative territory.

#4 We are supposed to be in the middle of an economic recovery in the United States, but bad news just keeps pouring in from major companies. For example, Yahoo is firing thousands of workers and Best Buy is closing dozens of stores.

#5 Richard Russell says that the “big money” is starting to quietly exit from the financial markets….

“My guess is that this is the big money that has been holding off as long as it decently can — and then dumping their goods just before the close. I don’t think the big money likes this market, and I think they have been slowly exiting this market, as quietly as they can.”

#6 Goldman Sachs is projecting that the S&P 500 will fall by about 11 percent by the end of 2012.

#7 All over the country, local governments are going into default and we have not even entered the next recession yet.

#8 The U.S. government will add more to the national debt in 2012 than it did from the time that George Washington became president to the time that Ronald Reagan became president.

#9 The Federal Reserve is desperately trying to control interest rates. The Fed purchased approximately 61 percent of all government debt issued by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2011. This is the only thing that is keeping interest rates in the United States from soaring dramatically.

#10 German industrial production is falling at a pace that is far faster then expected.

#11 Italy’s debt-to-GDP ratio is now up to 120 percent.

#12 The Spanish government admitted on Tuesday that Spain’s debt-to-GDP ratio will rise by more than 11 percent this year alone.

#13 Yields on Spanish bonds are rising to dangerous levels.

#14 The Spanish government is projecting that the unemployment rate in Spain will exceed 24 percent by the end of the year.

#15 Unemployment in the eurozone as a whole has risen for 10 months in a row and is now at a 15 year high.

#16 In the aftermath of a 77-year-old retiree killing himself in front of the Greek parliament in protest over pension cuts, the economic rioting in Greece has flared back up dramatically.

#17 At this point, Greece is experiencing an economic depression with no end in sight. Some of the statistics coming out of Greece are really hard to believe. For example, one port town in Greece now has an unemployment rate of approximately 60 percent.

#18 The IMF is asking the United States to contribute more money for European bailouts.

#19 At this point, even some of our top scientists are projecting economic trouble. For example, researchers at MIT are projecting a “global economic collapse” by the year 2030 if current trends continue.

We don’t have till 2030… I personally don’t think we have until 2013. As the stock market (which is hideously manipulated) teeters on the edge of Armageddon and those with any money at all are running for the exits, the warnings of a wicked financial storm descending on America are blaring for all they are worth. And it would seem America is still asleep. Prepare to reap the whirlwind of an economic collapse – we are at its door.

Breitbart.com: As mention above:  Record 87,897,000 Americans Not in the Labor Force amid  disappointing unemployment numbers that fell 80,000 jobs short of projections, another number is raising eyebrows: the number of Americans not in the labor force has hit a record high 87,897,000.

This figure explains why overall unemployment dropped from 8.3% to 8.2%, as the Department of Labor's unemployment figure does not include people who have given up hope and are not actively seeking employment.

When the number of individuals who have stopped looking for a job and/or who are working part-time but desire full-time employment is included--a figure known as the "underemployment rate"--real unemployment stands at 19.1%.

Rioting Across America – The Great Depression and Beyond

Video:  Rioting Across America -  The Great Depression

These clips are not just of the Great Depression, but time frames surrounding that period. Do you have any doubts that the Communists and Progressives have been with us for 100 years or better? Well, they have been under many guises. Many times it is in the form of unions and organizers who claim they want to help the worker, when in reality, the ultimate goal is bringing ‘change’ to our form of government. When you were growing up, did you ever hear of these riots and this violence that eventually led up to WWII and afterwards? I didn’t. This is a first for me.

From a comment on the thread:

Those workers who were rioting were damn serious!

60,000 showed up for some of the riots at that time!

Governors of multiple states had to call out their National Guard.

The Guard showed up with their side arms, machine guns, and gattling guns, ready to use them as needed.

The workers made alot of use of homemade bombs and molotov cocktails.

The police used shot guns and alot of tear gas and “naseous” gas (that made you feel sick to your stomach).

Someone was reported dead and several were wounded at every riot that was covered in that footage.

Policemen were killed or injured.

Rioters overturned cars, attacked cab drivers and their passengers, and smashed all of the windows out of businesses.

There were alot of clubs, bats, and billy clubs used left and righ by law enforcement personnel and rioters alike.

I guess this is what we have to look forward to – a whole lot of death, injury, and destruction of personal property.

Two quotes are worth repeating from that video clip:

“American will never allow a dictator in this country.”

“Americans must remember that rioting is only a short step away from Civil War.”

Another very interesting comment on the thread:

Actually much of that film footage was from the late 1940s and even early 1950s rather than the classic Great Depression.

One of my uncles was a professional “strike breaker” during that time and throughout the 50s and 60s — what the commies called a “scab”.

He was something of a mechanical genius, and with only the most basic briefing on any sort of machine (examples — sheet metal press, printing press, textile loom, wire and cable production machinery) he could both man and maintain an industrial operation almost singlehandedly.

Whatever needed done — he found a way or made a way to make it happen!

My uncle and men like him kept whole industries in operation during the likes of these riots and maintained America as an industrial power.

Many, many of his bones were broken as he crossed picket lines — he called it the cost of doing business.

A small-framed wiry man, and a WWII veteran, my uncle had grown up working the migrant wheat harvest and knew the intrinsic value and dignity of both hard work and ingenuity.

It would not be proper to call him a fearless man. He knew fear very, very well.

But he never let union goons and the violence they did him prevent him from going in to do whatever it took to feed his family.

His body was found in a California desert.

In September of 1997, Sweeney who led the AFL-CIO, made it possible for Communists to once again lead the unions here in the US. See Aaron Klein’s excellent book, Red Army, on page 15.

History is repeating itself and the Progressives/Communists will use violence, hatred, fear, hunger and class warfare to achieve their agenda using whatever means are necessary. This path ALWAYS leads to death, bloodshed and war.

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton – The NoisyRoom

12 Months of Prepping, One Month at a Time

Last week Glenn Beck had wealth coach, author and investor Robert Kiyosaki of Rich Dad Poor Dad fame as a guest on his new network GBTV show. It was enlightening, frightening and a call to action. Robert Kiyosaki and Donald Trump just wrote a new book called the Midas Touch and in a recent Newsweek article they warned that real unemployment is near depression era levels.

The interview with Beck, left even Glenn a bit speechless. Robert Kiyosaki admitted that he is a huge fan of Glenn Beck’s and not only agrees with him on just about everything, but was even more gloom and doom than Beck on America’s future.  It really was the first time I’d seen Beck a bit speechless.

Kiyosaki is an absolute believer in preparedness and the 5-Gs:  Grub and Water, Gas, Gold and Silver (or things you can trade for), Guns and Ammo, Ground (Property) and of course Beck would add God, making it the 6-Gs.  When Glenn asked him if you had nothing in place where should someone start he responded, “With the Grub, Food!”

Kiyosaki and Beck both said they hoped they were wrong, but Kiyosaki said he thought this was going to be the greatest depression ever, it could be worldwide and predicted there would be violence.

Beck is doing a special on this Thursday 10.13.11 at 5p.m. on GBTV (also available afterward on Demand) on his solution.  He urges everyone to sign up at GBTV.com so you can watch the show… the first two weeks are free so you can cancel before having to pay if you decide it is not for you.

Gaye Levy, Contributing Writer  -  Activist Post

Once the prepping bug hits, it is easy to want to go for it.  You know what I mean:  Let’s do it and let’s do it all Right Now!

There are some problems with this.  First there are time constraints, and second there are money and budget issues.  But the biggest problem and undoubtedly the one that is overlooked in the initial flurry of readiness preparations, is that without reasonable care and thought given to the process, the tasks and the actual products involved, you can make some costly mistakes.  I say this from experience.  In my haste to get “stocked up” I bought gear that I don’t like and will never use.  I purchased foodstuffs I will never eat.  Stupid stupid stupid of me.  I should have taken my time, done my research, and made a well thought out and educated decision before I even got started.

Today I would like to help you break down the overwhelming task of emergency preparation by providing you with a month-by-month calendar of things to do, tasks to complete and items to purchase.  For the newbies, this gives you a manageable number of things to do in a short period of time.  Instead of looking at a task list 10 pages long, you have a short list that is eminently doable in 30 days or less.

And for the more experienced prepper?  You can start with month #1, look at the activities and tasks involved and fill in any gaps you may have in your own preparation.  In some cases you may see a need to update or rotate what you have on hand and in others, you may find the need to practice a particular skill.

I love lists.  So bear with me as I present a readiness calendar to guide your through twelve months of prepping.  Hopefully you will find that one month’s work is not too costly, not too time-consuming and not too difficult.  The most difficult part as I see it will be getting off your bum and starting.  So let’s do it!

MONTH 1

SUPPLIES & GEAR:

• Water-3 gallons per person and per pet
• Hand-operated can opener and bottle opener
• Canned meat, stew, or pasta meals – 5 per person
• 2 flashlights with batteries

TASKS:

• Inventory the disaster supplies you already have on hand, including your camping gear
• If you fill your own water containers, mark them with the date they were filled
• Date cans of food and food containers if you have not already done so

MONTH 2

SUPPLIES & GEAR:

• Canned vegetables – 4 per person
• Toilet paper – 3 rolls per person
• Sanitary napkins – 2 months’ supply
• Instant drinks (coffee, tea, powdered soft drinks)
• Family sized first aid kit

TASKS:

• Change the batteries  and test your smoke detectors.  Purchase and install smoke detectors if you don’t have them
• Make an inventory of home contents for insurance purposes. Take photographs (digital are easiest) of your house and contents. Store a copy away from your home.

We will protect your privacy...guaranteed!

MONTH 3

SUPPLIES & GEAR:

• Canned fruits – 3 cans per person
• Any foods for special dietary needs (enough for 3 days)
• A large plastic tub or bin for storage of food and other emergency supplies.

TASKS:

• Conduct a home fire drill
• Locate the gas meter and water shutoff points and attach/store a wrench or shutoff tool near them.  Also store special shutoff instruction, if any.
• Establish and out-of-state contact to call in case of an emergency
• Identify a location for your storage of plastic bin or tub.

MONTH 4

SUPPLIES & GEAR:

• Extra baby bottles, formula and diapers if needed
• Extra pet supplies; food, collar, leash, etc.
• A stash of at least $100 in small bills – more if  you can afford it
• Begin to stockpile extra supplies of critical prescription medications. Talk to your pharmacist for help in making this happen.

TASKS:

• Place a supply of prescription medicine(s) in a storage container and date the medicine(s) if not already indicated on its label
• Start putting supplies in storage container(s) and include blankets or sleeping bags for each family member

MONTH 5

SUPPLIES & GEAR:

• Canned, ready-to-eat soup – 4 per person
• Liquid dish soap
• Plain liquid bleach
• Portable am/FM radio with batteries
• Liquid hand soap and hand sanitizer
• Disposable hand wipes
• Disposable latex or nutile gloves

TASKS:

• Make two photocopies of important papers and put one in the storage container, and one away from your home.
• Talk with neighbors about organizing a neighborhood preparedness group.

MONTH 6

SUPPLIES & GEAR:

• Box of granola or power bars – 1 per person
• 6 rolls of paper towels
• Box of N-95 or N-100 face masks – 1 per person.

TASKS:

• Check to see if stored water has expired and needs to be replaced
• Put an extra pair of eyeglasses in the supply container
• Find out about your workplace disaster plans and the disaster plans at your children’s schools

Food Storage
Freeze Dried Food
Dehydrated Food
MRE
Survival Kits
Water Storage
Mountain House Food
MRE Meals
Emergency Supplies
Emergency Preparedness

MONTH 7

SUPPLIES & GEAR:

• NOAA Alert Weather Radio
• ABC fire extinguisher
• Jug of juice – 1 per person
• Adult and children’s vitamins
• A pair of pliers and/or vise grip
• 100 feet of rope or paracord

TASKS:

• Take a first aid/CPR class
• Show family members where and how to shut off utilities

MONTH 8

SUPPLIES & GEAR:

• Box of crackers or graham crackers – 1 per person
• Dry cereal or instant oatmeal – 1 weeks’ worth per person
• 1 box of large, heavy-duty garbage bags

TASKS:

• Make a small preparedness kit for your car. Include food, water, blanket, small first aid kit, a list of important phone numbers
• Secure water heaters to wall studs (if not already done)

MONTH 9

SUPPLIES & GEAR:

• Extra batteries for flashlights, radio and hearing aids (if needed)
• Duct tape
• Add an additional 3 days of water to your supply per person and per pet

TASKS:

• Follow up on efforts to organize your neighborhood
• Conduct an earthquake drill at home: stop, drop and hold, then go outside. (Remember, and earthquake can happen anywhere as recent events have demonstrated.)
• Replace prescription medicines as required by expiration dates

MONTH 10

SUPPLIES & GEAR:

• Take the month off from purchases. Yay!

TASKS:

• Secure shelves, cabinets and drawers to prevent them from falling and/or opening during earthquakes
• Imagine your house with no electricity. What more do you need?

MONTH 11

SUPPLIES & GEAR:

• Package of paper plates
• Package of napkins
• Package of eating utensils
• Package of paper cups

TASKS:

• Exchange work, home and emergency contact phone numbers with neighbors for use during an emergency

MONTH 12

SUPPLIES & GEAR:

• Heavy work gloves
• Begin to try to expand your food supply to twice of what you have on hand right now. Continue with this effort into coming 12 months.

TASKS:

• Check to see if your stored food and water needs to be replaced.

MONTH 13

Congratulations.  You have completed your year of preparations.  Now is a good time to go back to month 1 and review, replenish, rotate and drill.  Good job!

The Final Word

Once a month for the next twelve months I will feature an article devoted exclusively to the monthly tasks at hand, including suggested activities, recommended purchases, viable alternatives, budget saving strategies and references to more reading material.  Sometime I may deviate from the list a bit and other times I may enhance it.
The final word for today is this:

Emergency preparation is your journey and should be unique to your circumstances, your family, your geographical location and your financial resources.  Yes, it can be a chore.  But as I have said before, it should be a chore with a happy ending.

Enjoy your next adventure through common sense and thoughtful preparation!

Gaye Levy, the SurvivalWoman, grew up and attended school in the Greater Seattle area. After spending many years as an executive in the software industry, she started a specialized accounting practice offering contract CFO work to emerging high tech and service industries. She has now abandoned city life and moved to a serenely beautiful rural area on an island in NW Washington State. She lives and teaches the principles of a sustainable, self-reliant and stylish lifestyle through emergency preparation and disaster planning through her website at BackdoorSurvival.com. SurvivalWoman speaks her mind and delivers her message with optimism and grace, regardless of mayhem swirling around us. Enjoy your next adventure through common sense and thoughtful preparation!

Ask Marion~

Related:

Personal Preparedness, The Leibowitz Society, Coming Collapse and how long things will last…

Bartering

FEMA: Include Pets in Your Preparedness

Handwriting on Wall: Texas Walmart Posts Food Shortage Signs in Store Window

Survival and Self-Sufficiency Tips

Collapse: “It Will Be Sudden and Very Painful”

Ruins of houses in Fredericksburg, Virginia Circa Civil War. Are we preparing for another?

While it’s too early to tell whether or not the destruction in stock markets will continue as it did in 2008, one thing is for sure – when the bottom finally falls out of this economy it’s going to come as a surprise to tens of millions of people who have been bamboozled by their trusted politicians and corporate elite.

Today’s Dow Jones collapse of 350 points is but an indicator of the severe volatility and unmitigated destruction we can expect as this crisis enters the next phase. Former comptroller general of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) David Walker warns that it’s going to hurt:

“Here’s the bottom line. If you take the total liabilities of the United States – public debt, unfunded pensions, retiree health care, under funding with regard to social security, with regard to Medicare, a range of commitments and contingencies – as of September 30 2010 we would have had to have had $61.6 trillion dollars in the bank in order to be able to cover those obligations.” Walker explained.

“The fact of the matter is that government has grown too big, promised too much and waited too long to restructure. Our problem is overwhelmingly a spending problem.” Walker, now the head of the fiscal advocacy group the Comeback America Initiative, told viewers.

“Lets understand something very simple. If you have escalating deficits and mounting debt, that means you have to increase the debt ceiling limit at some point and it means absent structural reforms in entitlement programs, defense and other spending, those represent deferred tax increases.”

“We are not exempt from a debt crisis,” he said. “We’re never going to default, because we can print money. At the same point in time, we have serious interest rate risk, we have serious currency risk, we have serious inflation risk over time. If it happens, it will be sudden and it will be very painful.”

It’s not a matter of if, but when. The course is mathematically unsustainable, and a few hundred billion in cuts, as ridiculous as it sounds, is simply not going to be enough.

As Charlie McGrath pointed out in his August 3 video report, the US government will have to take extreme measures, like Greece is being forced to take now, to keep the system alive, albeit on life support:

We are in the leagues of nations such as Greece and Italy, these other nations who their national debt far outpaces their GDP, and reality is these nations are going through austerity.

And, here comes your crisis of reality.

The austerity measures that are about to come our way are going to be like nothing we’ve ever seen or even dreamt about in this country – certainly worse than any of the politicians getting before the cameras will tell you is coming. They’re telling you if you go further into debt everything’s going to be OK.

…President Obama and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke are out of bullets. They have nothing left…they’ve tried everything: QE1, QE2, Stimulus 1, Stimulus 2, there’s just nothing left that can be done to help create jobs in this country.

Video:  WARNING ...Real Crisis Ahead

Many don’t believe it will happen here. But make no mistake, it’s coming (in fact, it’s happening right here and now!).

They’re going to print more money and erode your savings. They’re going to borrow more money from foreign creditors, until such time that they won’t lend to us anymore. Prices for essentials like food, energy and clothing are going to increase exponentially over the next few years. At the same time we will see forced cuts to programs like social security, Medicaid, Medicare and a host of other entitlement programs. Millions of Americans are going to feel like they’ve been hit with a sledgehammer.

The United States of America is embroiled in the next Great Depression – and there is no way out. The economy will not, contrary to the opinion of our government and the presstitutes who promote their agendas, recover in a few months. We’re in this for the long haul, as in years and decades not weeks or months, and all of us will soon learn what TEOTWAWKI means.

Source:  ShiftPlan - Mac Slavo - August 4th, 2011

Obama says we're only "halfway" to where he wants to take us as Dow drops 512 Points!

Obama says we're only "halfway" to where he wants to take us as Dow drops 512 Points!

Money/CNN is reporting it is the worst financial crisis since 2008.

"The conventional wisdom on Wall Street was that the economy was growing -- that the worst was behind us," said Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital. "Now what people are realizing is the stimulus didn't work, and we may be headed back to recession."

There's "total fear" in the market, said Bob Doll, chief equity strategist at the world's largest money manager, BlackRock.

"In the last two weeks, we've been through the ringer," said Rich Ilczyszyn, market strategist with futures broker Lind-Waldock. "When we start looking at the recovery, there's nothing to hang our hats on anymore."

Earlier today, I read a transcript from Obama's fundraiser on Real Clear Politics where he said we weren't even "halfway there" to where he wants us to be.

When I said 'change we can believe in' I didn't say 'change we can believe in tomorrow.' Not change we can believe in next week. We knew this was going to take time because we've got this big, messy, tough democracy," President Obama said at a campaign fundraiser in Chicago on Wednesday night.

Sounds like this darned democracy thing is impeding Obama's progress. If we are only "halfway" to wherever it is he's trying to take us, all I can do is pray God helps us survive until January 2013.

Sherry Phillips at Tea Party Nation - August 4, 2011 at 5:43pm

Related:

Drunken Ben Bernanke Tells Everyone How Screwed U.S. Economy Really Is

Romney Video: Obama Isn’t Working: Chicago

Globalist Imperial Network

The Smoking Gun:  Preparation for War on the People

Wall Street's Stranglehold on the Economy Is Choking Americans

BY SHAH GILANI, Contributing Editor, Money Morning

America's Founding Fathers were afraid of any concentration of power in the republic. They were particularly afraid that banking interests could hijack our fledgling democracy. And yet today, 234 years later, our Founding Fathers' worst fears have come true. Wall Street's stranglehold on the economy threatens our very prosperity, and the future of a truly democratic republic. It's high time we address the truth about Wall Street's tyranny and set a course for a more secure economic future - one that's anchored by a safe banking system, not a system rigged by banks.

Banks Are the Gamblers ... But You're Taking the Risks

The credit crisis and Great Recession are the unintended consequences of Wall Street's greed. I say "unintended consequences" because - let's face it - Wall Street institutions tipped over their own money pot and bankrupted the public casino they had created to leverage bets with house money. It all started with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA). This piece of legislation was designed to prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or other characteristics in the credit and housing markets. Of course, this eventually led to lax mortgage underwriting standards in later decades. But it wasn't just the Democrats or President Bill Clinton who pushed for an expansion of and greater reach for the CRA in 1999. It wasn't just the Republicans or President George W. Bush who advocated easier documentation terms for homebuyers in a 2002 speech. It wasn't just all the Democrats and Republicans who pushed for Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE) to package and buy trillions of dollars of low-quality, mortgage-backed securities. However misguided they might have been, these policies were all well intentioned. But each of these policies had unintended consequences. It was Wall Street that made sure these "consequences" could be shaped into a giant moneymaking scheme. Consider, for example, the truth about the subprime mortgage mess. Default rates on CRA-predicated mortgage loans were a lot lower than bankers had provisioned for.

What the bankers realized was that even though they were pushed to make more of these types of loans than they wanted to, they actually made a good profit on them. As long as housing markets were appreciating, CRA homeowners in distress could actually sell their properties and pay off their loans. Bankers sure weren't complaining then. After Wall Street pumped and dumped tech stocks on an unsuspecting American public - resulting in the "tech wreck" of 2000 ... and after the horrific terrorist events of 9/11 ... the U.S. Federal Reserve sliced interest rates to record lows and kept them there, much too long. That's when the subprime-mortgage and easy-credit games took off. Looking at the low default rates on CRA mortgages, bankers figured maybe loan standards were too high and there was room to lower them and still get paid in full. Standards were lowered across the board.

No Intention of Holding onto "Garbage"

Behind the scenes, the big public casino had been readied and the dice were starting to roll. Because Wall Street and its lobbying armies had gutted existing regulations and stifled all efforts to safeguard the public from new exotic derivatives products, there was nothing to stop the juggernaut. Banks had no intention of holding on to the garbage they were manufacturing. Wall Street securitized all the junk that it gathered together - and then sold it off to anyone who would buy it. And because not everyone who would buy Wall Street's junk was stupid, the institutions reformulated new products from that junk. The new "collateralized" products were just reconstituted, repackaged loans that redirected internal cash flows from mortgage payers so that some "tranches" of the new collateralized pools looked safe and could get the top "AAA" ratings from rating agencies. It didn't matter that rating agencies didn't understand the new math; they were in on the game and got rich, too. To add insult to injury, Wall Street employed another newfangled product. These "credit default swaps" were insurance-type contracts that anyone could offer on anything. But the real beauty of credit default swaps is that these contracts let Wall Street play on every side of every deal: Wall Street profited once when it sold the junk, again when it sold "insurance" on those subprime securities, and over and over again as it traded both the junk pools and credit default swaps. The best part about the whole scheme (which all the institutions were playing) was that the game was self-perpetuating. As long as finance companies, mortgage originators and banks were able to package and sell their pools of mortgages and other "leveraged loans," the money from the sale of them went back to the folks who originated the individual loans in the first place. The upshot: Those folks could make more loans and start the entire process all over again. The more money that was available, the lower rates went. The lower interest rates went, the cheaper it was to finance and hold a portfolio of assets. But because rates were so low, and the return on quality loans was correspondingly low, bankers needed higher-yielding assets to maximize the spread on their "cost of carrying" pools of assets. So what happened? It became necessary to offer mortgages to lower-quality borrowers in order to charge a higher (and more-profitable) interest rate. That's how the game snowballed. That's how it became a feeding frenzy.

Where Greed Takes Control

The idea for Wall Street's institutions was to "dance until the music stopped." They all knew they had engineered a housing bubble and that the insane appreciation rates on anything with a roof would eventually fall back to earth. By then, the big players expected they would have found a seat, leaving them to watch the other, less-nimble players stumble and take their lumps. There was one problem. Wall Street institutions were way too greedy and far too cocky. They believed that they were safe: In their view, they'd either be able to unload their holdings of the junk they'd created, or they had been clever enough to hedge away their risk with their own credit-default-swap-insurance schemes. Because Wall Street believed it was safe, the institutions didn't see what was really happening. They were all in the same boat ... and that boat was sinking. That boat happened to be the U.S. economy - and other top economies around the world. Because of their greed, banks actually made the boat and forced us into it. They sunk, along with us, but got bailed out while we were left to drown.

Here's Where Things Get Good

At this point, you might find yourself asking: So what? Most of the banks have repaid the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money that they so desperately needed. Most are returning to profitability, and some are even reporting record profits and paying out record bonuses to executives. Yes, some banks have gotten bigger, a lot bigger. Yes, there are more profits to be shared, because a couple of swaggering laggards of the old investment-banking mold - namely The Bear Stearns Cos. and Lehman Brothers Holdings (OTC: LEHMQ) - are gone. Is that so wrong? Isn't that part of financial Darwinism in our capitalist democracy? The truth is not what it appears to be. Bear and Lehman were ruthlessly crushed by their competition so there would be more business to be had by fewer players.

It wasn't evolution. It was execution

The bigger banks get, the more they rely on a de facto government guarantee. "Too big to fail" is a doctrine pushed by banks that want to be so big that they crush - or at least absorb - their smaller rivals.

Banks want to be a cartel and to be able to raise fees and the cost of money for their greater profitability, at will. Big banks are making money because the government is keeping interest rates low. Big banks are buying a huge portion of the U.S. Treasuries the government needs to sell to finance the deficit. And that deficit has reached its current size because the money was used to bail out the banks and to mitigate the collateral economic damage that Wall Street caused. It's a financing game, another bubble to re-inflate bank balance sheets by allowing them to generate a virtually risk-free, high-net-interest margin. We need to be afraid of what our Founding Fathers were afraid of, too much power concentrated in too few hands - especially banking-interest hands. We need to break up all the big banks. And then we need to spread their pieces around the country, placing credit closer to Main Street. We need to end all proprietary bank trading ... to eliminate credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations... and to instill transparency in all capital markets products, trading platforms, and risk-taking businesses that have any systemic impact.

We need a free market, not a free for all

Competition and free enterprise are the hallmarks of our economic miracle. I'm for less government, less taxation and more power to the people. But this enormous concentration of power that Wall Street and the U.S. banking system have amassed is tantamount to an assault on our very freedom.

It's time to end the tyranny of the banks. And to once again enjoy the financial freedoms that the end of this tyranny will bring.