Do not underestimate the psychological shock currently being processed by many members of the mainstream media and the low-to-medium information voters who rely on them for political analysis. To them, the election and re-election of Barack Obama, the first African American to hold the office of President of the United States, was a cause, a fulfillment of heartfelt dreams.

With his Ivy League pedigree and ability to deliver a speech, Obama charmed the liberal media folk into believing that he was the one they had been waiting for, an inspiring black man on a white horse who could heal our lingering racial wounds, if only given the chance.  They hoped he could change an America their progressive belief system held to be flawed by racism, history, and greedy businessmen, and by helping him do so, they too could nudge history along in a positive direction.  Perhaps in their own minds making up for whatever personal flaws or unfair advantages they might have possessed along their way to the top of the media food chain.  Everyone wants to believe he or she is a good person, doing good things in the overall scheme of things, after all.

So they invested themselves in making the dream come true, attaching their self-concept to his cause. This is why information that was dissonant tended to evoke a rather widespread hostile reaction. Only racists and birthers could doubt any of the official Obama narrative. The Tea Party became an object of hatred, slander, and even physical attacks when it first appeared and threatened the Great Obama Project. When the tea partiers inflicted a serious blow to the political standing of Obama and the Democrats in the 2010 election, taking over the House, they became an obstacle to be removed.

People react with discomfort and hostility when their self-concept, their source of self-esteem, is threatened.  It is subconsciously received as a challenge to one’s status as a good person.

Three serial shocks (and their continuing aftershocks) are sufficiently grave to produce a form of trauma in those who hitched their hearts to Obama:

1. Facing proof from one of their own that Obama and his administration lied and then continued to lie to the faces of the White House Press Corps through Jay Carney about Benghazi casts serious doubt on other claims of his they have supported and defended;
2. Continuing revelations of the IRS’s misbehavior toward the hated tea partiers and conservatives calls into question which side are the good guys (see point 1);
3. And finally the revelation that all their loyalty bought them no consideration at all when it came to secretly grabbing records of their communications in AP, tells them loyalty is one way street with this guy and his crowd.

The big question now is how many of the liberal media will return to form as this process unfolds itself with more whistleblowers emerging, and with documents subpoenaed and witnesses put under oath over the coming months. To be sure some already have reverted to their default position of excuse-making support, floating rationalizations  to minimize the damage:  Obama is too remote and disconnected (even, it may even be intimated as a fallback concession, a bit lazy what with all that golf and partying) to have actively instigated these shocks.

This would be the face-saving option for both Obama and the journalists who wish to remain invested in his cause, albeit at lower intensity now that they have conceded incompetence and perhaps sloth. He has disappointed them a little, but any overestimation they may have engaged in was out of the best of motives.

But others will take a different tack. Having devoted five plus years to the narrative of Obama the good, they will be ready to follow a new story line now, because it has the ultimate virtue in the news business: it is new. If the special committees which will investigate the scandals do their job, there will many veins to mine in uncovering and telling the stories of wrongdoing.  In the 1970s, nobody made a good career move defending the Nixon administration’s use of the IRS against its opponents, after all.

Professor Charles Lipson of the University of Chicago shared with me his thoughts on how those in the journalistic world who think in terms of institutional survival might understand the situation they face:

Mafia organization.  That implicit threat kept How did the reporters keep from getting killed when they did stories on the Mafia in the bad old days?  Answer: They had what international-relations specialists call “Second-strike capability,” which served as an effective deterrent.  Concretely, the Mafia knew that any strike against a reporter would lead to a devastating response, namely a whole slew of stories by newspapers on all aspects of the Mafia’s local business.  If a reporter was killed, all the newspapers would assign a slew of reporters to investigate and publish everything they could about the whole Mafia organization.  That implicit threat kept reporters reporters safe.  In Chicago, Jake Lingle was the only reporter ever killed by the Outfit, as our Mafia is called, but it turned out that he was a Mafioso himself.  (It happened in 1930, during the Capone era.)

Following this line of reasoning, the AP’s best response to the DOJ’s intrusion is to assign as many investigative reporters as they can to all aspects of DOJ’s activities, including Fast and Furious, the Minnesota scandal involving Tom Perez, Eric Holder’s life history (including an armed take-over at Columbia during his college years), and everything else they can think of.  That should even-up the scales the next time the DOJ or other government agencies think about overstepping their bounds.

It might also get the AP back in the habit of actually investigating an incumbent administration that is not Republican.

The mainstream media psychodrama that is about to unfold before us promises to be amusing and even gratifying or those of us who have been frustrated for years by the ability of the Obama organization to make its storylines stick in the face of contrary data. No doubt there will be a certain amount of “I told you so” gloating. But we should also be prepared to welcome and encourage those former inhabitants of the media plantation who venture out into the intoxicating realm of uncovering the deceptions that enabled a program to fundamentally change America to get as far as it has.

If enough members of the media see the light and join in the discovery of all the deceptions proffered over the last few years, we may see the partisan divide actually diminish, as common revulsion at the dishonesty and abuses brings people together. In a way that he never anticipated, Barack Obama finally may become what he promised to be: a uniter not a divider.    (my emphasis)

By Thomas Lifson for American Thinker

By permission American Thinker

www.americanthinker.com

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/05/the_mainstream_media_obama_psychodrama.html

By Jack Kneafsey

Here are some very thoughtful editorial comments from Kim Strassel and the Wall Street Journal from earlier today, in which the argument is made that President Obama certainly played a large role in the current IRS scandal. And, he did this not by instructing or ordering his bureaucrats to follow a specific plan, but by publicly attacking the various conservative political groups at every opportunity. He and Vice President Biden, on many occasions, strongly suggested that these groups bordered on being ‘terrorists’ and were actually harmful to our country.

The president sets the tone and the atmosphere for the rest of the bureaucrats to follow. So, none should really be surprised that some of his fellow liberal bureaucrats decided to follow his lead, even if it meant breaking a federal law. Of course, on the other hand, it is still possible, maybe even probable, that President Obama and his advisors were direct active participants in this deliberate and clearly targeted harassment of conservative groups and individuals. We’ll have to wait for further information.

In the meantime, here are some of the Wall Street Journal’s comments;

Was the White House involved in the IRS’s targeting of conservatives? No investigation needed to answer that one. Of course it was. President Obama and Co. are in full deniability mode, noting that the IRS is an “independent” agency and that they knew nothing about its abuse. The media and Congress are sleuthing for some hint that Mr. Obama picked up the phone and sicced the tax dogs on his enemies.

But that’s not how things work in post-Watergate Washington. Mr. Obama didn’t need to pick up the phone. All he needed to do was exactly what he did do, in full view, for three years: Publicly suggest that conservative political groups were engaged in nefarious deeds; publicly call out by name political opponents whom he’d like to see harassed; and publicly have his party pressure the IRS to take action.

Mr. Obama now professes shock and outrage that bureaucrats at the IRS did exactly what the president of the United States said was the right and honorable thing to do.

… Mr. Obama raised the specter that these groups represented nefarious interests that were perverting elections. “Nobody knows who’s paying for these ads,” he warned. “We don’t know where this money is coming from,” he intoned.

The IRS is easy to demonize, but it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It got its heading from a president, and his party, who did in fact send it orders—openly, for the world to see.

You can read the entire Wall Street Journal editorial here.

The legal claims on physical gold far exceed the amount of physical gold that the banks actually have by a very, very wide margin.  And right now the bankers are scared out of their wits because their warehouses are being drained of physical gold at a frightening rate.  So what happens when their physical gold is gone but they still have lots and lots of people with legal claims to gold?  When that moment arrives, it will represent the end of the paper gold scam.

Many believe that the recent takedown of the price of paper gold was a desperate attempt by the bankers to put off that day of reckoning, but it appears to have greatly backfired on them.  Instead of cooling off demand for precious metals, it has unleashed a massive “gold rush” all over the globe.  Meanwhile, word has been spreading among wealthy families in both North America and Europe that they had better grab their physical gold out of the banks while they still can.  This is creating havoc in the financial community, and at least one major international bank has already declared that it will only be settling those accounts in cash from now on.  The paper gold scam is starting to unravel, and by the time this is all over it is going to be a complete and total nightmare for global financial markets.

For years it has been widely known that the promises that banks have made regarding their gold far exceed their actual ability to deliver, but we have never reached a moment of such crisis before.

Posted below are quotes from people that know precious metals far better than I do.  What these experts are saying is more than a little bit disturbing…

-CME President Terry Duffy: What’s interesting about gold, when we had that big break two weeks ago we saw all the gold stocks trade down significantly, we saw all the gold products trade down significantly, but one thing that did not trade down, was gold coins, tangible real gold. That’s going to show you, people don’t want certificates, they don’t want anything else. They want the real product.

-Billionaire Eric Sprott: So we see all of these paper (trading) volumes going through that bear absolutely no relationship to what’s going on in the physical markets. As you know I have always been a proponent of the fact that supply in the gold market was way less than demand, and by a very large factor. I think demand exceeds supply by at least 60%. The central banks are surreptitiously supplying that gold, and ultimately they will be running on fumes.

When we hear about the LBMA not willing to deliver gold, and JP Morgan’s inventories at the COMEX have gone from 2.4 million (ounces) down to 160,000 ounces, it just makes you realize that all of this paper trading means nothing. It’s the real physical market that you have to rely on.

-JS Kim: FACT #1: COMEX gold vaults were recently drained of 2 million ounces of physical gold in one quarter, the largest withdrawal of physical gold bullion from COMEX vaults in one quarter during this entire 12-year gold and silver bull. There has been speculation about the reasons that spurred these massive withdrawals of gold from COMEX vaults, but the most reasonable speculation is that no one trusts the bankers to hold on to their physical gold anymore, especially in light of Fact #2. Note below, that both registered AND eligible stocks of gold had heavily declined in recent months. Such an event signals a general distrust of the banking system from everyone holding gold in registered COMEX vaults.

FACT #2: One of the largest European banks, ABN Amro, defaulted on their gold contracts and informed their clients that they would only settle their gold bullion contracts in cash and not in physical. So much for the supposed legality of financial contracts as a “binding” contract. So whether Fact #1 caused Fact #2 or vice versa is irrelevant. What IS apparent is that the level of trust in bankers to safekeep physical gold and physical silver is disappearing, as it should be, and as it should have already been for years now. But truth always takes some time to catch up to banker spread lies and that is what is happening now. I have been warning people never to trust bankers in deals involving gold and silver for years now, as in this article I wrote nearly four years ago informing the public that the SLV and GLD are likely a banker invented scam as well.

FACT #3: Silver fraud whistleblower and London trader Andrew Maguire stated that the LBMA was having trouble settling gold contracts in bullion as well and stated that institutions that asked for physical settlement “were told they would be cash settled instead by a bullion bank.” In plain English, this is a default. So Andrew Maguire reported that the LBMA had already gone into default. In light of Fact #1 and Fact #2, the dominoes were starting to tumble and the house of cards that the bankers had built in gold and silver paper derivatives to deceive and hide the true fundamentals of the physical gold and physical markets from the entire world was rapidly starting to crumble. A financial earthquake of magnitude 2.5 was quickly threatening to evolve into one of the biggest financial earthquakes of all time in which the world’s confidence in all global fiat currencies would effectively have a well-deserved funeral.

-Jim Sinclair: I think the reality is the supply situation is extremely volatile at this point, and even discussing it is like rubbing a raw nerve to the people who are in charge. The amount of discussion on the subject of warehouse supply, supply that is represented by the gold leases, indicated to the central planners that the demand for physical was going to continue to effect the exchanges.

Although they did not expect any grandstand delivery, the mere continued draining of physical inventories was threatening the very functioning of the paper exchange. That threatening of the paper exchange and its ability to continue functioning is really taking off the blinders and revealing the truth behind the critical question, ‘Where is the gold?’

The question now is, ‘Where has the gold gone?’ Who has all of this gold? Because of the nature of gold leasing, all of this gold has been purchased and it has gone somewhere. The reality of the empty vaults reveal that the gold has gone missing.

-Ronald Stoeferle: We’re seeing this rush to physical gold not only in the retail market, but also for the institutional players…[it's] just overwhelming…I [estimate] a 130-to-1 [ratio of paper to physical gold]…and I think in the last week we were really close to [triggering] a default of the paper market.

-Gerhard Schubert, head of Precious Metals at Emirates NBD: I have not seen in my 35 years in precious metals such a determined and strong global physical demand for gold. The UAE physical markets have been cleared out by buyers from all walks of life. The premiums, which have been asked for and which have been paid have been the cornerstone of the gold price recovery. It is very rare that physical markets can have a serious impact on market prices, which are normally driven solely by derivatives and futures contracts…

I did speak during the week with several refineries in the world, of course including the UAE refineries, and the waiting period for 995 kilo bars is easily 2-3 weeks and goes into June in some cases. A large portion of the 995 kilo bars in the UAE goes normally into the Indian market, but a lot of the available 995 kilo bars are destined for Turkey, at this time. We heard that premiums paid in Turkey have reached anything between US $ 20 and US $ 35 per ounce.

-James Turk: Another indication of the demand for large bars is the huge drawdown in the gold stock in COMEX warehouses. It is noteworthy that COMEX reports show the drawdown is largely the result of dealers removing their inventory, their working stock. When that happens, you know the availability of supply is constrained.

What all of this means, Eric, is one thing. If the central planners want to keep the precious metals at these low prices, to meet the demand for physical metal they will need to empty more metal from central bank vaults, or borrow metal from the ETFs as some have suggested is happening. Otherwise, the central planners will have to step back and stop their intervention, thereby letting the price of gold and silver rise so that demand tapers off, bringing demand and supply of physical metal back toward some kind of balance.

We’ve seen this same situation several times over the last twelve years. It is what I have been calling a “managed retreat.” Despite the current weakness, I firmly believe we have again entered a critical period where the central planners will need to retreat once again in order to let the gold and silver prices climb higher.

-The Golden Truth: And then I get a call from a close friend in NYC last Friday.   His career has been in private wealth management in the private bank department of the Too Big To Fail banks.  He’s been looking for work and chats with old colleagues all the time.  He called my Friday and told me he just got off the phone with a very high level private banker from a big Euro-based TBTF bullion bank, but who was at JP Morgan until about six months ago.

This guy told my friend that there is a scramble by many very wealthy European families/entities to get their 400 oz bars out of the big bank vaults. He knows this personally, for a fact.  He said the private banker community is small over there and the big wealthy families all talk to each other and act on the same rumors/sentiment.  The Bundesbank/Fed and the ABN/Amro situations triggered this move.  He knows for a fact JPM tried to calm fears about 3 months ago by sending a letter to it’s very wealthy clients assuring them their bars were safe, in allocated accounts.  He said right now those same families are walking into the big banks like JPM and demanding delivery of their bars or threatening to take their $100′s of millions in investment portfolios to competitors.  His wording was “these people are putting a gun to the heads of private banks and demanding their gold.”

I know this information is good because I know my friend’s background and when he tells me his source is plugged in, the guy is plugged in. Not only that, my friend’s source said that there’s no doubt that someone like a John Paulson, not necessarily specifically him, but entities like him or it may include him, have held a gun to GLD and demanded delivery of physical in exchange for their shares.

Regarding the Bundesbank/Fed situation, recall that the Bundesbank asked to have some portion of its gold sitting – supposedly – in the NY Fed vault in NYC sent back Germany. The total amount is 1800 tonnes.  After behind the scenes negotiations, the Fed agreed to ship 300 tonnes back over seven years.  To this day, the time required for that shipment has never been explained.  Venezuela demanded the return of its 200 tonnes held in London, NYC and Switzerland and received it all within about four months.

And regarding the ABN/Amro situation.  ABN/Amro offered a gold investment account product that offered physical delivery of the gold in the investment account when the investor cashes out.  About a week before the gold price smash, ABN sent a letter to its clients informing that the physical delivery of the bullion was no longer available and that all accounts would be settled with cash at redemption.

I believe it was these two events that triggered the big scramble for physical gold by wealthy families/entities who were suspicious of the integrity of their bank vault custodial arrangement anyway.

*****

So what does all of this mean?

It means that we are entering a period when there will be unprecedented volatility for precious metals.  There will be tremendous ups and downs as this crisis plays out and the bankers try to keep the paper gold scam from completely unraveling.

Meanwhile, nations such as China continue to stockpile gold as if the end of the world was coming.

According to Zero Hedge, Chinese gold imports set a brand new all-time record high in March…

Quite the contrary: as export data released by the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department overnight showed, Chinese gold imports in March exploded to an all time record high of 223.5 tons.

And the number for April is expected to be even higher.

Does China know something that the rest of us do not?

We are also seeing a rapid decoupling between spot prices and physical prices.  In fact, it is quickly getting to the point where the spot price of gold and the spot price of silver are becoming irrelevant.

For example, demand for silver coins has become so intense that some dealers are charging premiums of up to 30 percent over spot price for silver eagles.

That would have been regarded as insane a few years ago, but people are now willing to pay these kinds of premiums.  People are recognizing the importance of actually having physical gold and silver in their possession and they are willing to pay a significant premium in order to get it.

We are moving into uncharted territory.  The paper gold scam is rapidly coming to an end.  In the long-term, this will greatly benefit those that are holding significant amounts of physical gold and silver.    (my emphasis)

By Michael Snyder for Economic Collapse

By permission The Economic Collapse

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/are-we-on-the-verge-of-witnessing-the-death-of-the-paper-gold-scam

“As striking as what appears in the email traffic is what does not. There is no mention of the YouTube video that would become a central part of the administration’s explanation of the attacks to the American people until a brief mention in the subject line of emails coming out of an important meeting where further revisions were made…. Carney and other top Obama administration officials have long maintained that CIA officials revised the talking points with minimal input from Obama administration officials. The claim made little sense when they made it – why would CIA officials revise on their own a set of talking points they’d already finalized? The emails demonstrate clearly that it isn’t true.”

IRS Official in Charge during Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office – ABC News    “The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation. Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.”

“‘Now more than ever, we need to prevent the IRS from having any role in Americans’ health care,’ Cornyn, R-Texas, stated. ‘I do not support Obamacare, and after the events of last week, I cannot support giving the IRS any more responsibility or taxpayer dollars to implement a broken law.’”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also reacted to the revelation late Thursday, stating the news was ‘stunning, just stunning.’”

Obama Struggles to Get Beyond a Scandal Trifecta – Washington Post   “The most corrosive political scandals are the ones that feed a pre­existing story line — which is why the White House could have difficulty putting the current ones behind it any time soon. In the view of President Obama’s adversaries, recent revelations add evidence to arguments that they have been making about the president all along: that he would do or say whatever it took to get reelected; that his is a philosophy of rampant, invasive big government; that he has not acted within the constraints of the Constitution; that he regards those who oppose him with contempt.”

“…’The news has, I think, awakened the public, beginning to raise questions in their minds as to the direction of this government. And really, to whom is this government accountable?’ House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Wednesday.”

“…This attempt to mislead the electorate worked. It seems a stretch to say that it determined the outcome of the election. But it certainly helped the Obama campaign. … But in 2009 at Arizona State University’s commencement, he noted that he had not been given an honorary degree and added that the school’s president and board of regents ‘will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS.’ That doesn’t sound so funny now.”

Chris Matthews Sours on Obama – Politico   “President Obama ‘obviously likes giving speeches more than he does running the executive branch,’ Chris Matthews said tonight. Yes, you read that right: The MSNBC host who in 2008 felt a ‘thrill going up my leg‘ after hearing Obama speak has grown disenchanted. Tonight’s episode of Hardball saw Matthews delivering a rare, unforgiving grilling of the president as severe as anything that might appear on Fox News.”

Is This the End of Eric Holder’s Tenure at the Justice Department? – The Atlantic   “Benghazi, the IRS, and now the AP phone-records bombshell: If Obama wants a symbol of accountability in a time of scandal, the attorney general is the only one left to fire. The bombshell disclosure that the Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of Associated Press reporters and editors could be dramatic enough to move even the phlegmatic Obama administration to action. Three concurrent scandals or controversies are just too many.”

“It is unclear how Holder fits into the latest firestorm, but he’s a battered survivor of many controversies and this could be the one that finally convinces him or Obama that it’s time to go.”

By Wayne Allyn Root

We are dealing with a modern-day Nixon.

The IRS just admitted to targeting and intimidating conservative and Tea Party groups. But why? The answer- the IRS thought a quick apology and throwing a few “low level employees” under the bus could nip it in the bud and make it all go away. They’re wrong. This will be one of the biggest scandals in U.S. political history- if the media does their job.

This IRS scandal is a threat to everything America stands for. It’s why we fought a revolution against King George. It’s one of the main ways the left brought down Richard Nixon- they accused Nixon of targeting political opponents with IRS attacks to intimidate and silence them. These attacks were prominently included in Nixon’s “Articles of Impeachment” and should be in Obama’s too- if the media does their job. 

How do I know?

Because I am the face of Obama’s IRS attacks. I am proof of how bad it is, when it started, that it was directed at individuals as well as groups, and that it did not involve only “low level IRS employees.” 

It did not involve only “low level IRS employees.” It did not happen in only one year (2012). It does not involve one office in Cincinnati. It was a widespread attack (mine emanated from the Las Vegas IRS office). It goes to the top of the IRS, it started early in Obama’s Presidency, and you can bet your last dollar that it was all conducted upon direct orders of the Obama White House. 

Most importantly, I’m living proof it was directed at individuals- with the intent of ruining our lives. It almost ruined mine.

Here is my personal story. I’m a small businessman, but also a national media personality with a megaphone. I’m an outspoken critic of Obama. My views are seen by millions on Fox News Channel, and read at conservative web sites like FoxNews.com.

The result? In January, 2011 an unprecedented IRS attack was launched against me. My personal story of IRS attack was covered extensively by conservative media. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/10/08/outspoken-obama-classmate-the-president-used-the-irs-to-punish-me-through-18-month-witch-hunt

In 30 years of doing business, I’ve had a spotless tax record. And I had never heard a peep from the IRS. The attack was so over-zealous and out of bounds, I was forced to hire one of this nation’s top tax attorneys, who took my case to court where we won a 100% victory. My relief at being vindicated lasted FIVE DAYS. Then the IRS announced a new tax audit against me.

My attorney had never heard of such a thing and, before me, assumed it wasn’t possible. The many legal and accounting experts (who drained my savings) all agreed this could only happen if I was on “Obama Enemies List.”

The attack was chilling and intimidating, affecting every aspect of my life. It was meant to bleed me dry, and teach me a lesson- if you dare to criticize Obama, get ready to lose everything. 

If you think it was just myself or a few Tea Party groups targeted, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. I’ve done the research. The IRS targeted more than just groups- they targeted outspoken opponents of Obama and large GOP donors. And you can bet neither IRS agents, nor their IRS bosses, would take such actions without specific directions from Obama’s White House.

This is all a pattern. See what Obama and Hillary (his Secretary of State) have done to the whistleblowers and members of the CIA and military who know what truly happened in Benghazi. See General Petraeus and his affair.  Given his continued silence, I can only imagine what other threats Obama is holding over his head.

Or take the rating agencies who downgraded the credit of America. Both were indicted by the federal government soon after daring to confirm America’s economic decline under Obama.

In my new bestselling book, “The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide,” I disclose how Obama is purposely implementing the plan of two Columbia University professors to overwhelm America’s economic system with massive spending, entitlements and debt, in order to destroy capitalism, bankrupt business owners (ie conservative donors) and incite crisis (that always leads to bigger government). It is a plan Obama learned at Columbia using the tactics from Saul Alinsky’s book “Rules for Radicals.” That book encourages distortion, lies, and intimidation- because “the ends justify the means.” 

How do I know this is a purposeful plan? Because I was Obama’s Columbia University Class of ’83 classmate, while we were being taught this specific plan. Now you know why he was so interested in intimidating and silencing me.

This IRS scandal gets bigger by the day. The latest development is that top IRS officials and lawyers were in fact aware of this scandal since 2011 (the very year I was targeted).

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/11/breaking-senior-irs-officials-knew-of-targeting-conservative-groups-in-2011/

It gets worse. It turns out the IRS was targeting Pro-Israel Jewish groups. It’s now gone from political targeting to racism and anti-semitism.

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/348013/irs-inquisition-update

“Enough is Enough.” It’s time our elected representatives in Congress find the courage to face up to Obama’s culture of lies, cover-ups and criminal intimidation. Nixon was forced from office for a combination of Watergate and IRS attacks on opponents. It’s time for Congress to act against a President who has the exact same combination- Benghazi (which involves murder, not burglary) and unconstitutional IRS attacks.

Obama deserves the same fate– IMPEACHMENT!    (my emphasis)

By Wayne Allyn Root for Root for America

By permission Wayne Allyn Root

www.rootforamerica.com

http://www.rootforamerica.com/webroot/blog/

Wayne Allyn Root is a Capitalist Evangelist, serial entrepreneur, and Libertarian-conservative media commentator. He is a former Libertarian vice presidential nominee. He serves as Executive Vice Chairman of the Conservative Caucus in Washington DC. Wayne’s latest book is the National Bestseller: The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide: How to Survive, Thrive and Prosper During Obamageddon.

Sometimes, with all the misinformation, propaganda, and even lies that are constantly being provided by the Obama administration, we forget to focus on some of President Obama’s earlier promises.

Almost all of which have turned out to be based upon totally, unrealistic, ‘pie-in-the-sky’ projections. And, of course, almost none of these promises ever came close to be fulfilled.

Fortunately, the Investor’s Business Daily had some comments yesterday that reminded us of just one aspect of President Obama’s unrealistic pronouncements: the number of ‘green’ jobs that would be created by his ‘investments’ in ‘green energy’:

Wasn’t Barack Obama supposed to be our first green president? After all, it was candidate Obama who promised his administration would create 5 million alternative energy jobs. Maybe he meant in-the-red jobs.

During his acceptance speech in 2008, Obama said he would “invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy — wind power, and solar power, and the next generation of biofuels — an investment that will lead to new industries and 5 million new jobs that pay well.”

As has been documented several times over, Obama is more than a few windmill blade lengths short of his goal. The most recent analysis shows that his administration has created only 2,298 permanent green jobs, according to the Institute for Energy Research, which used data from the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office to reach this conclusion.

And that scattering of jobs has cost dearly. IER says Washington has spent $26.32 billion to create those few positions. That means each job has cost taxpayers $11.45 million. And the Democrats complain that corporate executives are overpaid.

And then there was the 2012 testimony of Molly Sherlock of the Congressional Research Services.

Marita Noon, executive Director of Energy Makes America Great, wrote in townhall.com that Sherlock admitted that only 355 green jobs had been created, “which comes out to about $28 million per job.”

Incompetence? It’s more like green corruption, a result of blind dedication to an irrational ideology.   (my emphasis)

You can read all of Investor’s Business Daily’s comments here.

Regular readers will know I am in the inflation, possibly hyperinflation camp; but there are those that think the future is more likely to be deflationary. In the main this is the view of neoclassical economists, Keynesians and monetarists, who generally foresee a 1930s-style slump unless the economy is stimulated out of it.

Rather than repeatedly go into the errors of their ways, we must accept that they are in charge. They have decided that prices must not fall, and they see moderate price inflation as a necessary stimulant to business: this is the reasoning behind Helicopter Ben Bernanke’s defining statement, when he made it clear that central banks could spray the economy with endless fiat money if need be.

Given this determination to stop prices falling, worries that the outlook is deflationary are unlikely to be realised. But there is a second group of commentators which believes that in a slump there will be an unstoppable credit contraction as banks are forced to foreclose on failing businesses. This, they say, will lead to a mad dash for cash to pay off debt, leading to fire-sales of assets as credit contraction spreads to otherwise sound businesses. The imperative to pay down debt will overwhelm central banks’ attempts to replace it with cash.

The error here is to misunderstand where we are in this sorry tale. The belief common to all deflationists, that the developed world has so far avoided a severe economic contraction, is wrong. The fact that this is not often recognised must be blamed on the irrelevance of nearly all government statistics. Not only are they self-serving, but they do not allow for the increasing meaninglessness of government money. The only hard statistics are unemployment, which despite official attempts to water them down, cannot conceal the fact that there has been a slump since the banking crisis.

The banking crisis marked a sudden increase in consumer preferences in favour of money, assuredly egged on by banks who switched almost overnight from risk-tolerant to risk-averse. This is why GDP numbers in most major countries took such a heavy knock, reflecting money being withdrawn from economic activity. That was the event deflationists are worrying about today.

So deflationists are forecasting an event that happened five years ago and their fears have already been disproved by massive monetary intervention. That is not to say the slump is over: far from it. Current indications are that things are about to get worse everywhere. But the nightmare cycle of falling asset prices becoming self-feeding and a dash for cash has already been prevented.

So successful was the Fed leading other central banks to save the world in 2009 that the precedent is established: if things take a turn for the worse or a systemically important financial institution looks like failing, Superman Ben and his cohort of central bankers will save us all again.

Call it kryptonite, or failing animal spirits if you like. It is closer to the truth to understand we are witnessing the early stages of erosion of confidence in government and ultimately its paper money. Ordinary people are finally beginning to suspect this, signalled by the world-wide rush into precious metals last month.    (my emphasis)

By Alasdair Macleod for Gold Money

By permission Alasdair Macleod and Gold Money

www.goldmoney.com and www.financeandeconomics.org

Alasdair Macleod runs FinanceAndEconomics.org, a website dedicated to sound money and demystifying finance and economics. Alasdair has a background as a stockbroker, banker and economist. He is also a contributor to GoldMoney – The best way to buy gold online.

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