Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Monsanto strikes again...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/31/low-fat-gmo-soybean_n_943149.html?ir=Green



The reason their shares went down is that people do NOT want GMO foods.  How about growing some real food GMO farmers?  By the way if you didnt know almost all of the soybeans out there are GMO now.  One reason we stopped drinking soymilk and eating all soy products in our household.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Gross just gross...

I think I found the grossest thing.  I couldnt understand why our garbage can was smelling soooo bad.  It is stainless steel with a plastic liner and I use garbage  bags in it all the time.  So yesterday I decided to get to the bottom of the smell.  I pulled out the garbage bag and took that liner over to wear I could see it (it's black and hard to see to the bottom of it).  I dont know what was there but it STUNK bad.  So I took it outside and sprayed it out.  All that stink was from...wait for it...an old chicken wing bone...ewww.  It looked kind of like an old mummy, a stinky wet old mummy.  I let the liner sit with water in it to soak overnight and this morning it smelled so good.  Course anything would smell good after that. 

The things you find when you look...LOL. 

I need to put the garbage can on a regular cleaning schedule...

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Giveaway!

http://faithfulnessfarm.blogspot.com/2011/08/old-fashioned-bake-sale-grandmas-apple.html

And a wonderful apple butter cake recipe.  Cant beat that with a stick!  Head on over and sign up for the giveaway.  She has a list of what she is giving away at the bottom of the post.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

NIA New Email - 08/20/11

National Inflation Association
 
Facts and Truth About U.S. Inflation, Debt, and Political Crisis
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) yesterday released their consumer price index (CPI) data for the month of July. The BLS reported an increase in year-over-year CPI growth to 3.63%, the highest rate of U.S. price inflation since October of 2008. July's official government reported year-over-year U.S. price inflation rate of 3.63% was up from 3.56% in June, 3.57% in May, 3.16% in April, 2.68% in March, 2.11% in February, 1.63% in January, 1.5% in December, and 1.1% in November.
The official rate of U.S. price inflation has increased by 230% over the last eight months. NIA conservatively projects the official rate of U.S. price inflation to surpass 4% by year-end and 5% in early 2012. NIA estimates the real rate of U.S. price inflation, without geometric weighting and hedonics, to currently be approaching 8%. NIA projects the real rate of U.S. price inflation to reach double-digit territory by mid-2012, if not much sooner.
Gold prices today reached a new all time high of $1,877 per ounce. Gold is the best gauge of inflation, not the CPI. On June 15th when the BLS reported May CPI data, gold was trading for only $1,520 per ounce. Even though the BLS reported a year-over-year CPI increase for the month of May of 3.16%, the mainstream media reported that inflation was slowing down and not a problem because gas prices were declining. Although seasonal adjusted gas prices in the month of May were down 2%, NIA reported to you that non-adjusted gas prices actually rose 3.6%. NIA then warned you that the BLS's seasonal adjustments will reverse beginning in the month of July and start boosting reported gas prices.
NIA was right, seasonal adjusted gas prices in the month of July increased 4.7%. The mainstream media intentionally misled Americans about price inflation during the month of June, but the world is now recognizing the truth about how U.S. price inflation is spiraling out of control with the price of gold having risen 23% since mid-June. The investment community is also finally realizing what NIA has been saying for years, inflation does not create real economic growth.
The Dow Jones declined today by 172.93 points to 10,817.65 and the Dow Jones/Gold ratio fell to 5.84. The Dow Jones/Gold ratio is declining at a faster rate than even we expected. NIA was one of the only organizations in the world to accurately predict that the Dow Jones/Gold ratio would decline to 6.5 in 2011. NIA continues to believe that the Dow Jones/Gold ratio will decline to 1 this decade, which will mean another 83% loss for Dow Jones stocks in terms of real money.
The lower the stock market declines in the near-term, the greater the chances are that the Federal Reserve will soon unleash QE3 in disguise under a new name. Despite gold reaching a new all time high, the core-CPI, which the Federal Reserve likes to use to gauge inflation because it excludes food and energy prices, is currently up 1.77% on a year-over-year basis, compared to an annual gain of 0.61% in October of last year. Even though core-CPI growth appears to still be low, year-over-year core-CPI growth has increased by 290% since October of last year, a larger gain on a percentage basis than the official CPI. Ever since the Federal Reserve announced QE2 in November of last year, core-CPI has increased for nine straight months.
By the time the 2012 Presidential election comes around, inflation will be the top concern on the minds of all Americans. Inflation will be an even bigger concern than unemployment, because nobody will want to have a job that pays them a salary in U.S. dollars. The only Presidential candidate who has the knowledge and courage necessary to preserve what little purchasing power the U.S. dollar still has left is Ron Paul. NIA supports Ron Paul to become the Republican nominee in the 2012 U.S. Presidential election. To become the Republican nominee, Ron Paul will need to win the Republican presidential primaries. Unlike the general election to be held on November 6th, 2012, the Republican primaries are a series of primary elections and caucuses that are spread out over five months beginning in February.
Iowa is always the first state to vote and will have their caucuses on February 6th, followed by New Hampshire on February 14th, Nevada on February 18th, and South Carolina on February 28th. The results of the first few primaries/caucuses usually influence how people will vote in the following primaries/caucuses. It is important for a candidate to build momentum early on. If a candidate doesn't have a strong showing in early primary states, they frequently drop out of the race before all of the primaries/caucuses are completed.
The way the primaries are structured gives voters in early primary states, especially voters in Iowa, a lot of power compared to voters in states like New York who very often don't vote until the nominee has already been determined. About six months before every Iowa Republican primary is the Ames Straw Poll, an unofficial Presidential straw poll that takes place in Ames, Iowa, of who Iowa voters are planning to support in their caucuses. The 2011 Ames Straw Poll just took place on August 13th with Michele Bachmann finishing first place with 4,823 votes and Ron Paul coming in second with 4,671 votes, only 152 votes behind Bachmann.
To attend the Ames Straw Poll and have the opportunity to vote in the poll, attendees were required to purchase a ticket priced at $30. Bachmann gave her supporters 6,000 free tickets at a cost to her campaign of $180,000. Only 80% of the people she gave free tickets to actually voted for her and that's assuming none of the people who bought tickets voted for her. Bachmann didn't just pay for the entrance of 6,000 people who she thought supported her, but she paid a small fortune to have Grammy Award winning country singer Randy Travis perform in a special air-conditioned tent. Bachmann even paid to transport forty bus loads of Randy Travis fans to the event, who were required to register at the Bachmann table and vote before seeing the entertainment.
With Bachmann spending a total of nearly $1 million on this event, she should have won the straw poll in a blow out. Click on the link below to see a shocking video we just posted to the NIA blog of the never ending line of Bachmann "supporters" registering at her table so that they could vote without paying the $30 fee. NIA believes that many of these people pretended to support her in order to get free tickets, but actually voted for Ron Paul: http://inflation.us/blog/2011/08/crazy-video-of-bachmann-ames-straw-poll-line/
The morning after Bachmann's phony victory, she appeared on five different nationwide talk shows. Ron Paul wasn't allowed to appear on any, with both 'Meet the Press' and 'Fox News Sunday' canceling interviews they had scheduled with him. Meet the Press spent the morning talking about Bachmann's win and Tim Pawlenty dropping out of the race after finishing third with less than half of the votes of Bachmann and Ron Paul. They barely mentioned Ron Paul even when he finished in a statistical dead heat with Bachmann.
Even more frustrating and disturbing, the Wall Street Journal published a long article Sunday morning about the race and it focused almost entirely on Bachmann's straw poll win and Rick Perry's entry into the race. The article only had one sentence about Ron Paul that read, “Libertarian Ron Paul, who has no chance to win the nomination, finished a close second.” On Monday morning, Ron Paul was scheduled to appear on NBC’s 'Today' show, but that interview was canceled as well with an NBC official saying it was due to "logistics and timing reasons with the news in Indiana and Somalia."
The mainstream media believes that if they repeat "Ron Paul has no chance of winning" enough times, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The same applies to the media constantly referring to Mitt Romney as the front-runner. The media supports Romney because they like how he is a part of the Republican establishment and if elected would stick with the status quo in Washington.
Four years ago when Ron Paul was relatively unknown, Romney was the winner of the 2007 Ames Straw Poll. Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, who were both also seeking the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, chose not to participate in the 2007 Ames Straw Poll. Romney at the time in his own words called Giuliani and McCain cowards. Romney said, "I think if they thought they could have won, they would have been here," and "If you can't compete in the heartland, if you can't compete in Iowa in August, how are you going to compete in January when the caucuses are held, and how are you going to compete in November of '08?"
NIA believes that if Romney thought that he could have won the 2011 Ames Straw Poll, he would have been there. Romney knows that he lost all of his grassroots supporters when he spoke out in favor of the Federal Reserve's destructive monetary policies and said Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was doing a good job. Romney showed his true colors when he said that the Federal Reserve is a non-issue and that he won't be discussing it during his campaign. He has now proven himself to be a hypocrite who was scared of looking bad by losing to Ron Paul in the straw poll and losing his "front-runner" status that was handed to him by the mainstream media. If Romney was afraid to compete in Iowa this month, NIA sees no chance of him winning in Iowa this February and no chance of him winning the Republican nomination.
With Iowa voters having a lot of power being in the first primary state, Iowa residents have spent more time researching the candidates than residents of most other states. Because Iowa voters are educated on the issues, especially issues affecting the economy, the media knew Ron Paul would have a strong showing in the Ames Straw Poll and for weeks leading up to it ran countless stories designed to downplay the poll and make it seem irrelevant. One Fox News reporter even went as far as saying that winning the straw poll is a negative and makes it nearly impossible to win the nomination. None of these things were said before the poll in 2007 because the media knew their darling Romney would win.
All educated Americans who understand the facts and truth about the U.S. economy and inflation are in strong support of Ron Paul because of his 24 year record in Congress of voting against increases in government spending and taxes, and voting for measures to strengthen our currency and reduce monetary inflation. Ron Paul stands for everything that NIA believes in such as liberty, freedom, and sound money. He has done more to protect the U.S. Constitution than any other person in Washington. Our founding fathers had the foresight 224 years ago to see the economic problems we have today. Even back then, rulers of nations had a history of coin clipping, replacing the silver in coins with base metals, and implementing other measures that stole from the purchasing power of ordinary citizens. Our founding fathers never would have imagined just how easy it has become to create inflation, where now the Federal Reserve with the click of a mouse can credit trillions of dollars to any banking institution worldwide.
For years, the media has dismissed Ron Paul's fight against the Federal Reserve and its destruction of the U.S. dollar. The media calls Ron Paul's ideas radical, but NIA believes Ron Paul is the most sane person in Washington. NIA believes balancing the budget, auditing the Federal Reserve, returning to a gold standard, and bringing our troops home from the Middle East, are all sane ideas that must be implemented if we want to have any hope of avoiding hyperinflation.
Rick Perry, the governor of Texas who just entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination, was recently asked about the Federal Reserve and in response he called Bernanke's acts of printing money "treasonous". NIA was the first to call Bernanke's actions treasonous. Back on December 9th of last year, NIA released an article entitled "WikiLeaks, Bernanke, and Hyperinflation" in which NIA said that it was "deeply disturbed by how U.S. politicians and the mainstream media have been calling for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be charged with treason." Although in no way does NIA support Assange or his actions, we expressed in our article how we don't believe it is a treasonous act to help spread the truth about our country's foreign policy and other sensitive topics when the information he posted was given to him and in no way did he hack any government systems to obtain it.
NIA went on to state in its December 9th article, "If there is one American who deserves to be charged with treason, it is Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke." It is not humanly possible to betray ones country in a way that is more egregious than Bernanke's despicable acts. NIA is currently in the process of producing a sequel to its critically acclaimed documentary 'Meltup', which has received over 1.1 million views with 96% of its viewers "liking" the movie and only 4% "disliking" it, a record for YouTube documentaries at least 50 minutes in length with over 1 million views. NIA's sequel to 'Meltup' will expose the latest updated facts and truth about the U.S. economy, Federal Reserve, and inflation. It will set a whole new standard as the most in-depth, informative, educational, and entertaining economic documentary ever produced. Most importantly, it will expose why Bernanke's actions are indeed treasonous.
As far as Rick Perry is concerned, he is really no different than Romney. Perry like Romney is a governor who was elected to office due to his strong ties to the Republican establishment. Both Perry and Romney according to many media pundits look very Presidential. You will never hear Perry or Romney speak a word about bringing our troops home, repealing legislation that invades Americans' privacy rights without making us any safer here at home, and eliminating entire departments of government including the Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Commerce, Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Homeland Security. These unnecessary bureaucracies have done nothing but add to our budget deficits, without a single success story to justify their existence.
Perry is not a true fiscal conservative. He and his wife complained that the Texas governor's mansion was too small and is now spending $11 million of President Obama's stimulus money to renovate and expand its size. With the construction now taking place at the governor's mansion and Perry unable to live there, Texas taxpayers have so far spent $700,000 to rent him an even bigger Texas mansion and to cover expenses at the mansion including Neiman Marcus window coverings and a subscription to Food & Wine Magazine.
What is unbelievable to us is that Perry for the most part has been a career politician, yet he has somehow managed to become a multi-millionaire while spending nearly all of his time in public office earning a relatively modest salary. Of course, if Perry was elected President, nothing much will change from the Obama administration and within a few years, he might become a multi-billionaire because a billionaire will be the new millionaire. Make no mistake about it, Perry may be trying to differentiate himself from Romney by speaking out against the Fed, but as President of the United States of America, NIA guarantees that Perry wouldn't do a damn thing to limit the Fed's powers and stop it from wiping out both the savings of senior citizens and the purchasing power of their Social Security checks. Perry is already in the pocket of the big banks and we just posted an 11 second video on the NIA blog that proves it: http://inflation.us/blog/2011/08/shocking-video-bank-of-america-executive-offers-to-help-out-rick-perry/
Tomorrow, Saturday, August 20th, is Ron Paul's birthday. To celebrate his birthday and help build momentum for his Presidential campaign, Ron Paul supporters have organized a huge "moneybomb" that starts at midnight tonight. If you would like to give Ron Paul the best possible birthday President and help increase the chances of our nation's survival, please make a donation beginning at midnight tonight by going to: http://www.ronpaul2012.com/
It is important to spread the word about NIA to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, if you want America to survive hyperinflation. Please tell everybody you know to become members of NIA for free immediately at: http://inflation.us

Thursday, August 18, 2011

T-shirt rug

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtKihiq013w&feature=player_embedded

Another way to make a rug using old T-shirts!

How to make a rag rug tutorial

Gather some cloth.  I used up some fat quarters and yards of fabric I wasnt too crazy about and used them for this rug.  Cut (or rip) 2 1/2 inch strips.  I tried to use the length of the fabric for my strips.  When I used the width of the fabric (from selvedge to selvedge) I left the selvedge on as you can see in the following pics.  It's a rag rug after all so no need to be too picky.  If you wanted to you could iron your strips and even hide the raggedy edges depending on the look you are going for.



Take your the first strip and cut about a one inch slit about 1/2 to 1 inch in from the end.  If you goof and cut too near to the end, just lop off that section and start again.

With the right side of the first strip facing you, pull your second strip through that slit with the wrong side facing you (of the second strip).  Cut a slit in the second strip the same way you did the first strip.

Now you are going to take the second strip's other end (without a slit) and pull it through the slit you just made in the second strip.  It's like a slip knot sorta.

Pull on that second strip until a knot forms but not so much that you hear cloth tearing (not so good to hear that :))  Continue adding strips this way until you get a length that you are comfortable with to start the rug.  I made my rug rectangular.  I used a big crochet hook (I think it was a L size) and started the rug with a chain of about 12-15 stitches (of course I did this tutorial after I crocheted the rug and didnt write anything down before).  You will crochet around that chain on both sides using a single crochet and making 3 single crochets in each end of the piece.  I did not join on any round, just kept going around in circles, kind of like my life LOL. 

Here is a pic of me doing the single crochet.  I just did each stitch in the back of the loops to form a ridge on the top of the rug.  There are tutorials on the internet for doing single crochet.  I'm afraid I'm not very good explaining it on here but just google it and you'll find a tutorial on it.  It is an easy stitch to do.  One tip, when you pull your loop through the two loops on your needle pull it a little bit looser than you would normally.  This will help keep the rug flatter I found. 



  When you get to the 3 stitches you made in the ends make 3 stitches in the first stitch and 3 stitches in the third stitch.  This will make your corners for the rectangle.  Every round make three stitches in the middle stitch of those three stitches.  Hope that is clear as mud ;)

Here is my completed rug.  It isnt too big just big enough for the bathroom.  You will have a lot of threads come off or at least I did and I just cut those off when they got in my way.  If you are going to use this with children or older people, you might want to use one of those rug backers on the back as it can be slippery underfoot.  I found that this is a cat magnet!  Yes my cats were sleeping on it every chance they got as I was making it cause I would put it down on the floor when I stopped working on it for a while.  It is a great use for all those odds and ends and you could even use some old tablecloths or sheets as if they are stained you wont notice that once it is crocheted up.  The 2 1/2 inch strips make for a very cushy rug but you could also do thinner strips too.  I didnt work nonstop on this because I found that my hands hurt from crocheting and tugging the loops through especially when I came to a knot but then I do have carpal tunnel so you may have no problems at all.

Oh I almost forgot - to end the rug just pull the end of the last strip through and pull tight.  I wove the end into the back side of the rug under some of the previous stitches.  Cut the remainder and you are ready to use your rug!
If you have any questions or problems with this tutorial, just let me know and I'll address them in an another blog entry.

Talk to ya later!

Denise

I have linked this (I think) to:
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DH socks completed!

Quilting...

Well here are a few pics of the quilt tops I have been working on...
I havent sewn the blocks together yet on this one but the one below is ready to be backed and quilted.  The border on the one below is actually chikens.  Too cute!

Now if anyone knows how I can flip them so they are the right side up I would appreciate it! 

Friday, August 5, 2011

NIA New Email - 8/4/11

NIA would like to wish President Obama a Happy Birthday and we hope that he enjoys his birthday present, a more than 500 point drop in the Dow Jones, its largest single day point drop since October of 2008.
The Dow Jones fell today by 512.76 points to 11,383.68, a percentage decline of 4.3%. The Nasdaq declined 5.1% today with the S&P down 4.8%.
The Dow Jones/Gold ratio is now down to 6.9 and is rapidly approaching NIA's prediction for the Dow Jones/Gold ratio to decline this year to 6.5. NIA made this prediction in its top 10 predictions for 2011 on January 4th when the ratio was 8.1.
From an economic standpoint, NIA considers this decline to be a sharp correction due to the world waking up and realizing that the U.S. economic recovery is phony. 1Q GDP growth was recently revised downward by 81% from 1.91% to 0.36%. There is now a strong likelihood of U.S. GDP going negative by the end of 2011, which means the U.S. economy will officially enter a double-dip recession. It is NIA's belief that the recession never ended and we are headed towards a hyperinflationary depression.
From a technical standpoint, NIA believes that today's huge drop was triggered by margin calls. Before yesterday, the market had declined eight days in a row for a total point drop of 857.79. Many investors who didn't have cash to cover these margin calls were forced to liquidate their stock holdings. With all of the U.S. economic uncertainties today, there is a lack of buying in U.S. stocks. Margin call sellers had to take anything they could get for their shares. Some investors were even forced to liquidate their gold and silver in order to cover margin calls, which drove the U.S. dollar and U.S. treasury prices temporarily higher.
If this was late-2008/early-2009, gold would have dropped a lot more than the $7.40 it sold off today. The fact that gold fell so little during a major margin call forced liquidation situation is extremely bullish for where gold is headed by the end of this year.
Today did highlight why for some people gold is better than silver. NIA has always stressed that in order to triple or quadruple your purchasing power this decade by owning silver as opposed to gold, you need to be ready for silver's volatility. Silver's percentage decline today was 13 times larger than gold's percentage decline. For some people, this volatility is simply too much to stomach and they rather just own gold, the safest and most stable asset in the world.
Yesterday evening with the Gold/Silver ratio at 40, we said silver would only slightly outperform gold over the next five months. After today's dip in silver to $38.92 per ounce and rise in the Gold/Silver ratio to 42.4, silver is now a lot more attractive for the short-term than it was yesterday evening.
This stock market correction will not turn into a crash like in late-2008/early-2009. Back then we had a liquidity crisis, but with interest rates today near zero and having been there for over two years, the world is now flooded with excess liquidity of U.S. dollars. Stocks became overvalued in recent months with the Dow Jones/Gold ratio reaching a high on May 5th of 8.36 and were overdue for a large correction. If the stock market continues to fall, we will soon hear from the Federal Reserve who will either unleash QE3 in disguise or act to push the $1.6 trillion in excess reserves of banks into the economy. By the end of 2011, we expect gold and silver stocks to decouple from the rest of the market and for many of them to reach new highs.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Hot, hot, hot

Yes it officially (by our thermometer) hit 101 today at 5:30 pm.  When it dropped 4 degrees, hubby said to break out the coats it's cooling down!

Laugh for over the hump day!

If you need a laugh to get through today, head over to this blog.  I laughed so hard I was crying!

http://grannymountain.blogspot.com/2011/08/pice-of-poo.html

Sign Giveaway!

http://2vintagesisters.blogspot.com/2011/08/giveaway-by-ramsign.html

Look at the wonderful house signs that you could win!  They are very easy to read and who doesnt love signs!  You'll love their blog as well.  They have a lot of beautiful things that they sell at flea and antique markets so head on over and sign up for the giveaway, you wont be disappointed. :)

Monday, August 1, 2011

Another GO Baby giveaway

http://littlecottagecomforts.blogspot.com/2011/07/on-go-baby-again-giveaway-and-some-free.html

And free patterns!

NIA New Email - 7/31/11

Important Debt Ceiling Update

President Obama just announced late this evening that a deal has been reached to cut government spending and raise the debt ceiling in order to avoid a debt default. If the deal is approved on Monday, it will raise the debt ceiling by between $2.1 and $2.4 trillion in three installments: $400 billion immediately, $500 billion this fall subject to a disapproval vote by Congress, and $1.2 to $1.5 trillion more after a special committee agrees on a matching amount of spending cuts that will be in addition to $900 billion in spending cuts proposed in the bill. With no tax increases included in this plan, all of this additional debt will eventually be monetized and paid for through monetary inflation.
Although the deal is supposed to cut as much as $2.4 trillion in spending over the next decade, Obama said that none of the spending cuts will occur anytime soon so that not to derail the phony economic recovery. That's right, none of the cuts will come until early 2013 and by then we will need to once again raise the debt ceiling to north of $20 trillion. If our elected representatives were serious about cutting spending, they would have the bulk of the spending cuts now and not in the future when many of them will be out of office.
This deal is a complete and total sham, and will do nothing to prevent hyperinflation. In no way will these spending cuts be mandated and nothing will force future Congresses to abide by them. Even with these cuts, government spending is going to increase every single year for the next decade. As price inflation spirals out of control in the years ahead causing the purchasing power of the dollar to plummet, all government employees will demand higher salaries and it will cost more to run all parts of the government. Future Congresses will raise spending and make the spending cuts proposed in this deal meaningless.
NIA believes that all of the events that took place in Washington this weekend were scripted in advance. It is likely that both parties knew from the beginning what deal they would ultimately agree to, but came out with these other proposed bills in order to satisfy tea party supporters and make them think that their efforts are making a difference. The reality is, although the tea party movement helped Republicans take over the House of Representatives so that Democrats didn't have free rein in Washington, most of the new Republicans elected to Congress haven't followed through with their promises and have failed to make any kind of a positive difference.
Everybody in Washington assumes that interest rates will remain at artificially low levels for the rest of this decade. The interest rate that the U.S. paid on its total marketable debt in the month of June was only 2.38%. Exactly one decade earlier, in June of 2001, we paid 6.162% interest on our total marketable debt or 159% higher than current average interest rates. On August 15th we owe our next interest payment of approximately $30 billion. Imagine if that payment rises 159% higher to $77.7 billion or $932.4 billion annualized. Later this decade, interest rates will not only rise back to normal levels like we had in 2001, but will likely rise to artificially high levels to balance out the damage being created today from artificially low interest rates.
If this bill is approved by Congress and the President on Monday, it will avoid a short-term honest debt default but just about guarantee a default by inflation later this decade. There is about a 1 in 1,000 chance that future Congresses will stick with the spending cuts in this bill, but even if they do, rising interest payments will not only wipe out the $2.4 trillion in spending cuts, but they will add trillions more to future deficits and the national debt. A new Gallup Poll shows that 53% of Americans oppose raising the debt ceiling compared to only 37% who favor an increase. We pray that millions of Americans march to Washington tomorrow in protest of this bill and that millions more call, email, and fax their elected representatives in the morning demanding that they vote no.
It is important to spread the word about NIA to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, if you want America to survive hyperinflation. Please tell everybody you know to become members of NIA for free immediately at: http://inflation.us

NIA New Email - 7/30/11

NIA Exposes Debt Ceiling Truth
NIA hasn't written about the whole debt ceiling issue over the past few weeks because in our minds it is completely irrelevant. Our elected representatives in Washington along with the mainstream media have been wasting thousands of hours of time and hundreds of millions of dollars debating a topic that has no meaning at all. The President, Senate, and House of Representatives are putting on a show to make it look like they care about cutting spending and balancing the budget. Except for a select few elected representatives like Ron Paul who care about protecting the U.S. Constitution and preserving what little purchasing power the U.S. dollar still has left, every other politician in Washington is putting on a complete charade in order to trick their constituents into believing there is a difference between the proposals from the Republicans and Democrats.
While our incompetent and corrupt mainstream media has been proclaiming there are major differences between the two bills proposed by House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, NIA believes John Boehner might as well be a Democrat and Harry Reid could easily pass himself off as a Republican. There are absolutely no meaningful fundamental differences between Boehner's plan that was approved by the House of Representatives yesterday evening, before being killed by the Senate two short hours later, and Reid's bill, which was just rejected by the House today in a pre-emptive vote before the Senate even had a chance to vote on it.
Both bills are estimated to reduce the U.S. budget deficit by approximately $900 billion over the next 10 years. Of the $900 billion only about $750 billion are actual discretionary spending cuts with the rest being an expected reduction in interest payments on the national debt as a result of either bill passing. When you have an unstable fiat currency that is rapidly losing its purchasing power and could collapse at any time, it is impossible to accurately project what our budget deficits will be 5 or 6 years from now, let alone 9 or 10 years from today. As far as the next two fiscal years are concerned, both proposed bills from Boehner and Reid are estimated to only cut spending by a total of about $70 billion in fiscal years 2012 and 2013 combined.
The budget that former President Bush submitted to Congress in early-2007, projected the deficit to decline in each of the following four fiscal years. Not only did the deficit not decline the next four years in a row, but it nearly tripled in 2008 and from there more than tripled in 2009. Shockingly, Bush's budget actually projected a $61 billion surplus in fiscal year 2012, but instead we will have a budget deficit of $1.1 trillion based on President Obama's latest budget, which takes into account unrealistic GDP growth next year of 4.86%.
U.S. GDP growth for the first quarter of 2011 was just revised down yesterday by 81% from 1.91% to 0.36%. The advance estimate of second quarter GDP growth came in at 1.28%, well below the consensus estimate of 1.8%. NIA is going to really go out on a limb and predict that second quarter GDP growth will soon be revised downward as well. If this is the highest GDP growth the U.S. could muster after the Federal Reserve's $600 billion in QE2 money printing, this should prove once and for all that monetary inflation does not create real economic growth and employment.
The U.S. Treasury as of Thursday night had $51.6 billion in cash, with its cash position declining by $15.2 billion during the previous 24 hours. It expects to bring in $172.4 billion from August 3rd through August 31st in tax receipts, but is scheduled to pay out $306.7 billion during this time period for an estimated deficit of $134.3 billion. The U.S. is scheduled to make its next interest payment on the national debt on August 15th and it will equal approximately $30 billion. Over the last 9 months the U.S. has spent a total of $385.9 billion on interest payments on the national debt, which means it is on track to spend a record $514.5 billion this year on interest payments alone. Just a tiny 30 basis point increase in the interest rate on the national debt would totally wipe out the deficit reductions proposed by both Boehner and Reid.
The U.S. Treasury has been able to pay its bills in recent weeks by using many different accounting gimmicks. However, come Tuesday, there will be no more accounting tricks left to play and the U.S. won't be able to meet all of its obligations. Without a raise in the debt ceiling, the U.S. government will have to prioritize who it pays using the tax receipts coming in, which will probably include the $30 billion interest payment on the national debt (to avoid a default), $49.2 billion in Social Security payments, $50 billion in Medicare/Medicaid payments, $31.7 billion in defense payments, and $12.8 billion in unemployment benefits. With $23 billion of the $49.2 billion in Social Security payments due to be paid on August 3rd and $59 billion in t-bills due on August 4th, the U.S. Treasury's remaining cash balance could dissipate very quickly.
The 10-year bond yield reached a new 2011 low yesterday of 2.785%, its lowest level since November 30th of last year. It is approaching its record low of 2.08% from December of 2008 during the middle of the financial crisis. With threats of a U.S. debt default making headlines across the world, investors are once again rushing into U.S. bonds as a safe haven. It is almost as if the whole world has gone insane. The world is fearful of the U.S. government defaulting on its debt and not being able to pay off maturing bonds, so as a safe haven let's just all rush into the very asset that will soon be worthless due to either an honest default or default by inflation. The U.S. dollar bubble is the largest and longest running bubble in world history and U.S. bonds are currently mispriced big time.
U.S. dollar-denominated bonds should be the last asset in the world to benefit from fears of a U.S. debt default. One positive sign that NIA members are having success at spreading our message to the world is that gold reached a new all time high yesterday, rising $15 to $1,631 per ounce, with silver rising $0.31 to $40.10 per ounce. Thanks to the efforts of NIA members who worked tirelessly to spread the word about NIA's economic documentaries including 'Meltup', 'The Dollar Bubble', and 'Hyperinflation Nation', a larger percentage of the global population than ever before is educated about the global currency crisis that is ahead.
During the financial crisis of late-2008/early-2009, gold and silver prices declined along with all other assets. Today, NIA estimates that half of the world's investors seeking a safe haven are buying dollar-denominated assets like U.S. Treasuries and the other half are seeking safety in precious metals. By mid-2012, investors will most likely no longer look at U.S. bonds and other dollar-denominated assets as a safe haven. During future times of uncertainty, NIA believes that precious metals will receive nearly 100% of safe haven buying, just like the U.S. dollar received 100% of safe haven buying in late-2008/early-2009.
Once the debt ceiling is inevitably raised, the U.S. Treasury will have a lot of catching up to do in order to get its house in order, and we will likely see the largest amount of debt ever sold by the U.S. government in a single month. With QE2 having finished at the end of June, the U.S. will be relying on foreigners in these upcoming record Treasury auctions. In our opinion, we are likely going to see interest rates rise at an unprecedented rate that will shock the world.
Don't believe the mainstream media's laughable claim that there is a shortage of U.S. Treasuries. It was just reported yesterday that Cambodia, one of the most rapidly growing emerging market economies with GDP growth this year of 6.5%, is moving away from the U.S. dollar, which currently accounts for 90% of their currency in circulation, in favor of its own currency the riel. NIA believes it is only a matter of time until China ends its currency peg with the U.S. dollar. The world is flooded with trillions of dollars in U.S. Treasuries that will soon have no buyers except the Federal Reserve. There is no chance of yields falling below record lows from December of 2008.
The mainstream media has been reporting all week that if the U.S. defaults on its debt as a result of a failure to raise the debt ceiling, it will be the first time that our nation has defaulted on its debt obligations. Most NIA members know that the real U.S. debt default already occurred in 1971 when President Nixon closed the gold window and stopped allowing foreign governments to convert their U.S. dollar holdings into gold. Since then, the U.S. currency system has been completely fiat and the national debt has increased by 3,400%.
For the past 40 years, the U.S. government has been running on fumes left over from when countries were able to convert their paper U.S. dollars into gold. The price of gold has increased by 3,900% during this time period, meaning the U.S. dollar has lost 97.5% of its purchasing power. Meanwhile, the median household income has only increased by 384%. In terms of gold, the median U.S. household is earning 87.9% less income today than they did in 1971. The U.S. debt default of 1971 was many times more significant than the pending debt default, because back then our foreign creditors expected to receive real money and not a piece of paper with no real value that we print. The average American family has experienced a dramatic decline in its standard of living since 1971. The U.S. dollar and its reserve currency status is currently serving as the last thread that is keeping our "house of cards" economy propped up.
The U.S. debt ceiling is very similar to a publicly traded company's authorized shares. When a public company consistently loses money like the U.S. government does, they print new shares just like the Federal Reserve prints dollars and when its total outstanding shares reach the shares authorized, the company's Board of Directors simply raises the shares authorized, which allows it to continue issuing shares and diluting shareholders. Since 1962, the U.S. has raised its debt ceiling 74 times. Any public company that needed to raise its authorized shares 74 times would likely have seen its stock price decline by 99.99% from above $10 to below 1 penny.
NIA is strongly against an increase in the debt ceiling because there are ways for our country to stay afloat and continue operating without getting deeper into debt. The U.S. is currently supposed to have 8,133.5 tonnes of gold reserves at Fort Knox. We don't know for sure if these gold reserves still exist because the last audit of our gold reserves took place in 1954 and we had the little minor issue of our real debt default in 1971. Assuming that all of our gold is still there, this gold is worth $426.5 billion at the present time, enough to cover our U.S. government's deficit spending for almost four whole months. The U.S. government also owns valuable land, buildings, monuments, and other types of Real Estate, that could also be worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Although we don't support selling all of our gold and Real Estate, if the U.S. government isn't going to implement real spending cuts that will lead to a balanced budget, we rather sell our assets than see the dollar-denominated savings and incomes of all Americans lose its purchasing power.
If we continue raising the debt ceiling and getting deeper into debt in order to pay back the debts we already have, we are defaulting on our debts through inflation. With gold at a record high of $1,631 per ounce, the market is clearly telling us that a default through inflation is coming. As the Chinese, Japanese, and our other creditors are paid back in U.S. dollars that are rapidly losing their purchasing power, they will be reluctant to increase their purchases of U.S. Treasuries in the future, which we desperately need them to do in order to fund our spending increases. With the Federal Reserve likely to become the Treasury buyer of last resort, the world will lose their confidence in the U.S. dollar and hyperinflation could potentially break out as soon as 2013.
NIA believes it is very likely that U.S. GDP will begin declining again in late-2011, which will officially put the U.S. in double-dip recession territory. In our opinion, the U.S. is still in the early stages of a hyperinflationary depression and the so-called economic recovery reported by the government and mainstream media has been completely phony and only due to misleading and manipulated economic statistics that don't factor in the real rate of U.S. price inflation. We expect Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to do everything in his power to avoid a double-dip recession at all costs.
By the end of 2011, we are confident that not only will we see QE3 under a new name, but the Fed will act to force banks to lend their $1.6 trillion in excess reserves. It is a joke that we are debating spending cuts of $70 billion over the next two years, when only very dramatic across the board spending cuts of 50% or more of the total budget will give the U.S. any hope of balancing the budget and avoiding hyperinflation. Best case scenario, if the U.S. government cuts spending by 50% or more in all areas of the budget including entitlement programs and is able to prevent hyperinflation, NIA still believes we will see the U.S. dollar lose 90% of its purchasing power this decade with the price of gold rising to above $16,000 per ounce.