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Why Has Barack Obama Refused To Accept International Help To Clean Up The Oil Spill In The Gulf Of Mexico?

June 22, 2010 by Michael

As the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico enters a third month, many are now asking how in the world Barack Obama can keep refusing offers from other countries to help clean up the oil spill. The truth is that cleaning up oil spills is not rocket science. There have been massive oil spills in other areas of the world before and there are some folks that have some real expertise when it comes to cleaning them up. But Barack Obama and BP have been stumbling around as if they are trying to reinvent the wheel. So exactly what in the world is going on here? When it comes to Obama’s approach to this crisis, there are really two options. Either this is one of the most extreme examples of presidential incompetence in modern American history, or Barack Obama is using this crisis for a particular purpose (such as advancing a particular agenda). In either event, Obama’s actions during this crisis have been completely and totally unconscionable.

The truth is that 13 different countries have offered to help clean up the oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

Barack Obama turned all 13 of them down.

So let’s get this straight….

We are dealing with the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history by far, and yet we completely refuse any assistance?

What kind of insanity is that?

In fact, it is being reported that just three days after the Deepwater Horizon sank to the floor of the Gulf of Mexico the Dutch government contacted Barack Obama and offered to loan BP ships outfitted with special oil-skimming booms. In addition, the Dutch had a plan to quickly build sand barriers to protect the vulnerable marshlands along the Louisiana coast.

Needless to say, those plans were not implemented.

According to one Dutch newspaper, the European oil companies that offered to help said that they could have completely cleaned all of the oil from the Gulf of Mexico in just four months.

But now Obama is telling us that the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico could last for years.

So what would keep Barack Obama from accepting international offers of help?

Well, Obama is using something called “the Jones Act” as an excuse.

Howard Portnoy recently described what is going on this way….

In order to accept the offers, which have come from Belgian, Dutch, and Norwegian firms that claim to possess some of the world’s most advanced oil skimming ships, Obama would need to waive the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (P.L. 66-261). Also known as the Jones Act, the law requires essentially that all commercial acts conducted in U.S.-controlled waters be performed by “U.S.-flag ships, constructed in the United States, owned by U.S. citizens, and crewed by U.S. citizens and U.S. permanent residents.”

So why not simply waive the act? Other presidents have under similar circumstances. George W. Bush waived the Jones Act following Hurricane Katrina, allowing foreign ships into Gulf waters to aid in the relief effort.

The truth is that the Jones Act is not a barrier to receiving assistance at all and Barack Obama knows this.

There would be absolutely no problem with waiving the Jones Act in these circumstances.

So Barack Obama has no excuse.

Either he is completely and totally incompetent or he has been trying to make this crisis worse than it should be.

You see, this is not the first catastrophic oil spill in the history of the world. There have been others, and we have learned quite a bit about cleaning up oil from those events. Anthony G. Martin recently described what happened during one particularly brutal oil spill in 1993 and 1994….

In 1993 and ’94 the Saudis faced an oil spill of historic proportions in the Arabian Gulf as four leaking tankers and two oil gushers threatened to spur a catastrophic event that was 65 times worse than the Exxon-Valdez spill.

An American engineer, Nick Pozzi, was part of a task force charged with developing a solution to the looming disaster.

Pozzi had used various methods to clean up oil spills prior to this event. However, the time was short, and an effective solution was needed post-haste.

That’s when Pozzi decided that the huge, empty oil tankers, sitting in the dock, could be used to simply vacuum up the oil right off of the top of the water.

The result was that 85% of the oil was recovered.

In a recent interview with Esquire, Pozzi explained that cleaning up the oil in the Gulf of Mexico should not be that complicated….

Keep in mind that what supertankers typically do is they sit in the middle of the ocean waiting for all the traders to come up with the right price. When they feel that the price is right, the tankers that are full, they take off, and they can be anywhere in the world in a few days. Right now there are probably 25 supertankers, waiting for orders, full of oil. So all they got to do is come to Texas, in the Gulf, unload the oil, and then turn around and suck up all this other stuff and pump it onto shore into on-shore storage. It’s not rocket science. It’s so simple.

So why won’t Barack Obama and BP implement the “supertanker method”?

When asked about it they just brush it off.

Are they that incompetent?

Or is something else going on?

If this crisis had been handled properly, oil would not currently be blanketing our pristine Gulf coast beaches.

An increasing number of Gulf coast residents have become so frustrated that they have decided to take it upon themselves to stop the oil that is headed towards their homes and businesses.

But BP and the Obama administration have been running around trying to keep anyone else other than themselves from doing anything about this oil spill. In fact, Barack Obama has authorized the deployment of more than 17,000 National Guard members along the Gulf coast to be used “as needed” by state governors, and BP is being allowed to use private security contractors to keep the American people away from the oil cleanup sites.

If they used as much energy cleaning up the oil as they are in keeping the American people away from the spill they might actually be accomplishing something.

Meanwhile, CBS News is reporting that there could be as much as 1 billion barrels of oil under the damaged BP oil well in the Gulf of Mexico and that it could keep flowing for more than a decade.

Apparently BP made one of the biggest oil discoveries in history, but the problem is that oil is now coming out of there at such high pressure that we simply do not have the technology to control it.

In addition, experts have discovered a massive gas bubble which is estimated to be 15 to 20 miles across and “tens of feet high” under the floor of the Gulf of Mexico.

So what in the world is going to happen if that thing blows?

Also, there are reports of fissures and cracks appearing on the ocean floor around the damaged wellhead.

If this thing goes from a “leak” to an “eruption” it could be a catastrophe beyond anything any of us could even imagine.

So let’s hope that nothing like that happens.

But there is another very serious threat that we need to keep an eye on.

Some environmentalists are now warning that North America could be facing years of toxic rain because of the highly toxic chemical dispersants that BP is using to control the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Because it is so poisonous, the UK’s Marine Management Organization has completely banned Corexit 9500, so if there was a major oil spill in the UK’s North Sea, BP would not be able to use it. So BP really needs to start explaining why they are dumping so much of it into the Gulf of Mexico – especially since so much of it could end up raining down on us.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama and Joe Biden are busy playing golf and BP chief executive Tony Hayward has been busy watching his yacht race.

Well, considering the fact that Tony Hayward is set for a massive 10.8 million pound ($16 million) payout if he chooses to step down, perhaps he is not too concerned about exactly how things turn out.

As for Barack Obama, his main concern in all this seems to be advancing his climate agenda. During a recent interview, Obama directly compared the current crisis in the Gulf to 9/11, and indicated that he believed that it would fundamentally change the way that we all look at energy issues from now on. But the truth is that cleaning up the oil in the Gulf has nothing to do with the “cap and trade” carbon tax scheme that Obama is trying to foist on all of us.

What Obama needs to do is to accept all the help that is being offered, get everybody working together on cleaning up this mess, and find a way to stop all that oil from coming out of the ground.

Until he makes some progress on those things, the American people are not likely to want to hear the first thing about all of the new taxes, rules and regulations that he is so eager to impose on all of us.

The Gulf of Mexico is literally being destroyed, and already this disaster has been so horrific that the effects will be felt for decades. If Barack Obama cares one ounce about the American people he needs to start doing his job instead of playing politics with this crisis.

Will Genetic Modification Usher In A New Age Of Prosperity Or Will It Unleash Health, Environmental And Economic Nightmares Of Unprecedented Magnitude?

June 19, 2010June 19, 2010 by Michael

In recent years, scientists around the globe have made absolutely stunning advances in the field of genetic modification. For decades, researchers have been decoding DNA and transplanting genes from one organism into another, but over the past decade things have been taken to a completely new level. We now have “monster salmon” which grow three times as fast as normal salmon, corn that has been genetically modified to have a pesticide grow inside the corn kernel, cats that glow in the dark and goats that produce spider silk. Those in favor of genetic engineering believe that such advances will help us feed billions more people, enable us to cure a vast array of diseases and will usher in a new age of unprecedented prosperity. Those against genetic engineering warn that messing with nature could unleash health, environmental and economic nightmares beyond our wildest dreams. So who is right?

Most Americans spend very little time thinking about genetic modification, but the truth is that this debate if of the utmost importance. Some believe that improving upon nature is the number one key to a bright economic future, while others warn that messing with nature could not only destroy our economy but also literally destroy the earth.

But right now there are very, very few limits on what scientists can do when it comes to genetic modification, and many of them are running around like “kids is a candy store” modifying anything and everything that they can get their hands on.

The goal for many of these scientists is to produce plants and animals that are bigger, stronger, grow faster, produce more food and generally make life “better” for humanity.

Most people don’t realize it, but genetic engineering technology is everywhere now. In fact, you have probably eaten some genetically modified food recently without even knowing it.

Today approximately 93 percent of all soybeans and approximately 80 percent of all corn in the United States grow from seeds genetically altered according to Monsanto company patents.

The population of the world is projected to hit 9 billion around the middle of this century, and scientists are hoping that further advances in genetic engineering will enable us to feed all those people.

So many researchers are “pushing the envelope” in an effort to create new creatures that can feed as many people as possible. For example, one team of scientists recently created a genetically modified “monster salmon” which grows three times as fast as normal salmon.

Three times as fast?

That is impressive by any standard.

But are there dangers?

Well, yes.

For example, a stunning new study that was recently published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences has conclusively demonstrated the extreme toxicity of three genetically modified corn varieties produced by Monsanto.

According to the study, each of the three strains of corn tested cause serious problems in the kidneys and the liver.

Perhaps that could help to explain the absolute explosion of kidney disease in the United States.

Not only that, but prison inmates in Illinois are becoming seriously ill from all of the genetically modified soy that they are constantly being fed.

In fact, there are entire websites devoted to documenting the dangers that genetically modified foods pose.

Despite the potential dangers, the U.S. government continues to promote genetically modified crops as the solution to the global food shortage problem.

For example, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is attempting to downplay the risks of genetically modified alfalfa, a crop previously banned by numerous federal courts.

The truth is that the U.S. government is being completely reckless in promoting these genetically modified crops before sufficient research can be performed on them.

You see, once these genetically modified crops get out into the environment they can never be contained. You can’t put the genie back into the bottle.

A perfect example of this occurred in Europe recently. A genetically modified variety of maize banned in the EU was accidentally sown all across Germany. But now that it has gotten out there and started spreading there is no way that it can ever be fully eliminated.

The reality is that we are monkeying around with life itself, and that is a power that we simply do not fully understand.

But as frightening as the genetic modification of our food supply is, what scientists are now doing with animals is even more alarming.

How so?

Well, the Canadian government recently approved the introduction of extremely bizarre genetically modified pigs into the Canadian food supply. These new mouse/pig cross-species hybrids have been nicknamed “enviropigs” and are being touted as being much better for the environment. This new “breed” of Yorkshire pigs was created by scientists in Ontario at the University of Guelph, who spliced in genes from mice to decrease the amount of phosphorus produced in their poop.

It all sounds very noble. After all, who wouldn’t want to do something good for the environment?

But will eating mouse/pig hybrids be good for us?

Millions of Canadians will soon be eating them, and it is anticipated that approval for these “enviropigs” will be sought in the United States as well.

Are you starting to get the picture?

And sometimes scientists genetically modify animals for no particular good reason at all.

For example, scientists have now created a cat that actually glows in the dark.

Yes, seriously.

A genetically modified cat created by scientists named Mr. Green Genes was the very first fluorescent cat in the United States.

So does such a “creation” have any legitimate purpose?

Well, perhaps it could serve as a “night light”, but other than that there is no good reason for abusing cats like that.

What in the world are our scientists thinking?

They are pretty much running around doing whatever they want these days.

In fact, creatures that are a lot more frightening than fluorescent cats have already been created.

Have you heard of “spider goats”?

A Canadian company named Nexia is actually producing goats that are genetically modified to be part spider.

The genetic modification causes these “spider goats” to produce spider silk protein in their milk that is collected, purified and spun into incredibly strong fibers.

These fibers are reportedly more durable than Kevlar, more flexible than nylon, and much stronger than steel.

Apparently these fibers have some very valuable industrial and military applications.

Perhaps you have never heard of these spider goats.

Perhaps you are skeptical.

The YouTube video posted below contains a television news report that discusses these “spider goats” and features scientists describing exactly how they create these spider goats and what they are doing with them….

Okay, so they are recklessly genetically modifying plants and animals, but they would never do that to humans, right?

Wrong.

Scientists have begun breeding genetically modified pigs with a goal of providing organs for transplant to humans. These genetically modified pigs actually have human genes in them.

So these pigs are actually part human.

Does the idea of a pig/human hybrid bother you?

Well, perhaps they are being grown in your backyard. These pig/human hybrids are actually being produced in the state of Missouri.

So could these pig/human cross-species hybrids ever end up in our food supply?

No?

You don’t think that they would ever do that to us?

Don’t be so certain.

The truth is that the FDA has already announced that the offspring of cloned animals could be in our food supply right now and that there is nothing that they can do about it.

Isn’t that comforting?

Science is not just crossing new barriers – they are obliterating them.

Our world is rapidly changing, and new species, new lifeforms and even new diseases are being created at a staggering pace.

Once upon a time, only the most highly advanced scientists in the field of genetic engineering would dare do this type of work, but now even college students are transplanting genes and creating new lifeforms. In fact, a lot of “synthetic biology” startup companies are “developing” new plants, new animals and even new microorganisms in garages and basements.

So what will the result of all this genetic chaos be?

Will devastating new diseases be unleashed upon the world?

Will creatures that are incredibly dangerous to humanity be created?

Will we destroy entire ecosystems?

Could all of this genetic engineering actually cause massive crop failures and bring about a major worldwide food crisis?

Will we soon have creatures that are part human/part animal running around all over the place?

The truth is that we have entered into unknown territory, and the consequences of our actions could end up being much more severe than we ever thought possible.

So what do you think?

Do you think that genetic engineering will enable us to feed the starving masses, cure cancer and bring in an unprecedented era of economic prosperity?

Or do you think that genetic engineering will devastate our economy, our health and our environment?

Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion….

Who Died And Made BP King Of The Gulf Of Mexico?

June 18, 2010 by Michael

There is one question that I would really like an answer to. Who died and made BP king of the Gulf of Mexico? In recent weeks, BP has almost seemed more interested in keeping the American people away from the oil spill than in actually cleaning it up. Journalists are being pushed around and denied access, disaster workers are being intimidated and abused and now BP has even go so far as to hire an army of private mercenaries to enforce their will along the Gulf coast. Are we suddenly living in occupied Iraq? How in the world did a foreign oil company get the right to start pointing guns at the American people? The last time I checked, BP did not own the Gulf of Mexico and did not have the right to tell the American people where they can and cannot go. The truth is that BP could have avoided all of this by running an open, honest and transparent operation from the start. They could have welcomed help from all sources, they could have tried to be open with the media, and they could have tried to be fair with the volunteers and rescue workers. But instead BP has been conducting this whole thing as if we are living in a totalitarian dictatorship and they are the dictators.

Over the last several weeks, members of the mainstream media attempting to cover the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have been yelled at, harassed, kicked off public beaches and threatened with arrest. The Obama administration keeps promising “to improve media access”, but so far their promises haven’t seemed to make much difference. In fact, a recent AP report detailed several recent highly disturbing incidents of journalist intimidation….

On June 5, sheriff’s deputies in Grand Isle threatened an AP photographer with arrest for criminal trespassing after he spoke to BP employees and took pictures of cleanup workers on a public beach.

On June 6, an AP reporter was in a boat near an island in Barataria Bay when a man in another boat identifying himself as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife employee ordered the reporter to leave the area. When the reporter asked to see identification, the man refused, saying “My name doesn’t matter, you need to go.”

According to a June 10 CNN video, one of the network’s news crews was told by a bird rescue worker that he signed a contract with BP stating that he would not talk to the media. The crew was also turned away by BP contractors working at a bird triage area — despite having permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to enter the facility.

On June 11 and 12, private security guards patrolling in the Grand Isle area attempted repeatedly to prevent a crew from New Orleans television station WDSU from walking on a public beach and speaking with cleanup workers.

But it is not just the media that are being pushed around. The Louisiana Environmental Action Network is reporting that BP is actually threatening to fire fishermen hired to help with the oil spill cleanup for using respirators and other safety equipment that wasn’t provided by the company.

Seriously.

The workers say that they are only using their own safety equipment because BP has not provided what they need. It is a fact that a large number of rescue workers have already gotten sick enough to be admitted to the hospital, so it certainly makes sense that those working to clean up the oil would want to do whatever they can to stay safe.

But no, BP has to be a bunch of jerks about the whole thing.

Even the EPA says that workers need to be careful. Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at the EPA’s office of solid waste and emergency response, made the following statement during an interview on Thursday….

“There’s no way you can be working in that toxic soup without getting exposures.”

It’s not just the oil that is the problem. The chemical dispersants that BP is using in the Gulf are even more toxic than the oil. In fact, because it is so extremely toxic, the UK’s Marine Management Organization has completely banned Corexit 9500, so if there was a major oil spill in the North Sea, BP would not be able to use it.

But the Obama administration has allowed BP to dump over a million gallons of Corexit 9500, Corexit 9527 and other highly toxic dispersants into the Gulf of Mexico.

Apparently the truth is that BP would rather disperse the oil so that the spill doesn’t look so bad even if it means creating an ecological disaster of nightmarish proportions.

You see, these days BP does what it wants, and anyone who doesn’t like it gets pushed out of the way.

Monique Harden, the co-director and attorney at the New Orleans-based Advocates for Environmental Human Rights, is so outraged over BP’s behavior that she recently made the following statement….

“BP should not be running the Gulf region like a prison warden, and we’ve got to stop that.”

But rather than becoming more open and taking responsibility for their actions, BP has now hired private security contractors to keep the American people away from the oil cleanup sites.

In other words, BP has brought in a horde of private mercenaries (just like the U.S. uses in Iraq and Afghanistan) to muscle the American people around.

Yeah, we are really going to appreciate that.

Doesn’t BP understand that the American people do not respond well to this kind of nonsense?

In fact, it is being alleged that BP has actually attempted to manipulate the search results on sites like Google and Yahoo.

They seem absolutely obsessed with controlling what we see and think.

Perhaps what BP should be obsessed with is stopping the oil from shooting out of the ground.

Meanwhile, BP execs are busy testifying in front of Congress and making half-hearted apologies.

Carl-Henric Svanberg, the BP chairman, has even apologized for referring to those affected by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill as “small people”.

Isn’t that nice of him?

While all of this is going on, BP is already trying to ensure that things go their way legally. Back in May, BP requested that one particular judge be assigned to preside over all lawsuits related to the spill. Well, it turns out that this particular judge gets tens of thousands of dollars a year in oil royalties and is paid travel expenses to attend oil industry conferences.

Isn’t that convenient?

But that is how the game is played these days.

Meanwhile, the “oil volcano” on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico continues to pump out a nightmarish amount of oil every single day. BP is even admitting that oil is escaping from the leak at such high pressure that if they try to cap it the entire well may blow.

So this crisis may keep getting worse for months.

By the time this is over, will anything in the Gulf be left alive?

Even now, hordes of dolphins, fish, sharks, crabs, rays and other sea creatures find themselves trapped between the rapidly advancing oil and the shore. Unprecedented numbers are showing up just off the Gulf coast in an attempt to escape certain death, but once the oil reaches shore there will be nowhere else for them to go. The tragedy will be unspeakable.

Things did not have to turn out this way. BP and the Obama administration could have done things much differently. But they didn’t.

Now we all have to live with the results.

16 Burning Questions About The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill That We Deserve Some Answers To

June 16, 2010June 16, 2010 by Michael

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill is a national nightmare that seems to have no ending. Every day new details come out that are even more shocking than what we learned the day before. The truth is that life will never be the same in the Gulf of Mexico or for those who live along the Gulf coast. Now Barack Obama has made a big Oval Office speech and has tried to convince all of us that he is in charge of the crisis. Well, perhaps if he had tried to take decisive action a month ago the American people may have rallied around him. But right now the BP/government response to this disaster remains completely and totally chaotic. Nobody seems to be able to stop the leak, and BP has made the environmental nightmare far worse by dumping over a million gallons of highly toxic dispersants into the Gulf. U.S. government officials are running around holding press conferences and waiting for BP to do something. Meanwhile oil is pouring ashore and toxic gases are being detected at very alarming levels. The biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history is also quickly becoming one of the biggest economic disasters and potentially one of the biggest public health disasters.

The truth is that the American people deserve some answers about what in the world is going on down there in the Gulf. BP does not own the Gulf of Mexico and they have no right to keep the American people from seeing what is happening. There are some very serious health and environmental questions that have been raised in the media recently, but both BP and the U.S. government are not giving us any answers.

But we need some answers. People are getting sick. Crops are dying. Wildlife is being devastated. Birds are flocking north by the thousands.

But BP and the U.S. government continue to treat us as though we are on a “need to know” basis and that what we “need to know” is not much.

Actually, much of what they have decided to tell us throughout this crisis has turned out to be lies anyway.

The truth is that it is about darn time that someone started telling it to us straight.

The following are 16 questions about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill that we really need some answers to….

#1) Barack Obama has authorized the deployment of more than 17,000 National Guard members along the Gulf coast to be used “as needed” by state governors. So what are all of these National Guard troops going to be doing exactly? Are the troops going to be used to stop the oil or to control the public?

#2) Barack Obama has also announced the creation of a “Gulf recovery czar” who will be in charge of overseeing the restoration of the Gulf of Mexico region following the oil spill. So is appointing a “czar” Obama’s idea of taking charge of a situation?

#3) Because it is so incredibly toxic, the UK’s Marine Management Organization has completely banned Corexit 9500, so if there was a major oil spill in the UK’s North Sea, BP would not be able to use it. So why is BP being allowed to use Corexit 9500 in the Gulf of Mexico?

#4) It is being reported that 2.61 parts per million of Corexit 9500 (mixed with oil at a ratio of 1:1o) is lethal to 50% of fish exposed to it within 96 hours. That means that 1 gallon of Corexit 9500/oil mixture is capable of rendering 383,141 gallons of water highly toxic to fish. So why was BP allowed to dump 1,021,000 gallons of Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527 into the Gulf of Mexico, and why aren’t they being stopped from dumping another 805,000 gallons of these dispersants that they have on order into the Gulf?

#5) If these dispersants are so incredibly toxic to fish, what are they going to do to crops? What are they going to do to people?

#6) If the smell of the oil on some Gulf beaches is already so strong that it burns your nostrils, then what in the world is this oil doing to to wildlife that encounter it?

#7) Is it a bad sign that birds from the Gulf region are flocking north by the thousands?

#8) Why is BP being allowed to use private security contractors to keep the American people away from the oil cleanup sites?

#9) Why is BP openly attempting to manipulate the search results on sites like Google and Yahoo?

#10) Why has the FAA shut down the airspace above the Gulf of Mexico oil spill? What don’t they want the American people to see?

#11) Senator Bill Nelson of Florida says that there are reports that there are additional ruptures in the sea floor from which oil is leaking. If there are quite a few of these additional ruptures, then how in the world does BP expect to completely stop this oil leak?

#12) Why are scientists finding concentrations of methane at up to 10,000 times normal background levels in Gulf waters?

#13) At some testing stations in the Gulf of Mexico, levels of benzene have been detected at over 3000 parts per billion, and levels of hydrogen sulfide have been detected as high as 1192 parts per billion. Considering that these levels would be highly toxic to humans, why hasn’t the general public been warned?

#14) Why are so many Gulf oil spill disaster workers showing up at local hospitals complaining of a “mysterious illness”?

#15) If “70% or 80%” of the protective booms are doing absolutely nothing at all to stop the oil, then what is going to stop the millions of gallons of oil in the Gulf from eventually reaching shore?

#16) It is being reported that the deepsea oil plumes are creating huge “dead zones” where all creatures are dying as they are deprived of oxygen. If this oil spill continues to grow could the vast majority of the Gulf of Mexico become one gigantic “dead zone”?

***UPDATE***

A reader named Stacy has posted a very alarming comment regarding what is happening in her area down in Florida that we wanted to share with everyone….

We live in the navarre, florida area and in the past week almost every family we know has had vomiting and diarreha. This could just be anecdotal – maybe we just have a stomach bug circulating, but it is strange. We had a huge storm the week before it happened that blew in from the gulf so who knows.

Also, the city of destin, florida has taken it upon themselves to close the destin pass with their own purchased boom and barges. This is an elite destination and they are not waiting around for bp and their hired prison workers to clean the beaches. Apparently, the coast guard was at the meeting and told the locals that they will face criminal prosecution, but they don’t care. They are protecting their million dollar properties.

9 Reasons Why Spain Is A Dead Economy Walking

January 3, 2012June 15, 2010 by Michael

Barring an economic bailout of mammoth proportions, the economy of Spain is completely and totally doomed. The socialist government of Spain is drowning in debt, unemployment is running rampant and everywhere you turn there are major economic problems. So will Spain be the next Greece? No. When the economy of Spain implodes it is going to be a whole lot worse for the world economy. The economy of Spain is more than four times the size of the economy of Greece. Spain accounts for 11.5 percent of eurozone GDP while Greece only accounts for approximately 2.5 percent. Spain is the 4th largest economy in the 16 nation eurozone and it is the 10th largest economy in the world. If the economy of Spain fails it will cause a shockwave that will be felt in every corner of the globe. In fact, there are quite a few analysts that believe if Spain defaults it would ultimately lead to the breakup of the eurozone.

So will the EU step up and bail out Spain? Well, there are rumors that EU officials have begun work on a bailout package for Spain which is likely to run into the hundreds of billions of dollars, but on Monday the European Commission, the Spanish government and the German government all denied that the European Union was preparing a bailout for the Spanish economy.

Of course we all know that politicians don’t always tell us the truth.

So who knows what is going on over there right now.

But the reality is that the economy of Spain is not going to make it much longer without serious help, and some EU officials are already using apocalyptic language to describe what an economic collapse in Spain would mean.

For example, EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso recently warned that democracy could completely collapse in Greece, Spain and Portugal unless urgent action is taken to tackle the burgeoning European debt crisis.

So could democracy actually fail in those nations?

Well, considering the fact that Greece, Spain and Portugal only became democracies in the 1970s, and that all three of those countries have a history of military coups, such a scenario is not that far-fetched.

Without a doubt there would be serious public unrest in those nations if public services collapsed because their governments ran out of money.

So are there signs that the economy of Spain is about to collapse?

Well, yes, there are quite a few of them.

The following are 9 reasons why Spain is a dead economy walking….

#1) Even before this most recent crisis, unemployment in Spain was approaching Great Depression levels. Spain now has the highest unemployment rate in the entire European Union. More than 20 percent of working age Spaniards were unemployed during the first quarter of 2010. If people aren’t working they can’t pay taxes and they can’t provide for their families.

#2) In an effort to stimulate the economy, Spain’s socialist government has been spending unprecedented amounts of money and that skyrocketed the government budget deficit to a stunning 11.4 percent of GDP in 2009. That is completely unsustainable by any definition.

#3) The total of all public and private debt in Spain has now reached 270 percent of GDP.

#4) The Spanish government has accumulated way more debt than it can possibly handle, and this has forced two international ratings agencies, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s, to lower Spain’s long-term sovereign credit rating. These downgrades are making it much more expensive for Spain to finance its debt at a time when they simply can’t afford to pay more interest on their debt.

#5) There are 1.6 million unsold properties in Spain. That is six times the level per capita in the United States. Considering how bad the U.S. real estate market is, that statistic is incredibly alarming.

#6) The new “green economy” in Spain has been a total flop. Socialist leaders promised that implementing hardcore restrictions on carbon emissions and forcing the nation over to a “green economy” would result in a flood of “green jobs”. But that simply did not happen. In fact, a leaked internal assessment produced by the government of Spain reveals that the “green economy” has been an absolute economic nightmare for that nation. Energy prices have skyrocketed in Spain and the new “green economy” in that nation has actually lost more than two jobs for every job that it has created. But Spain so far seems unwilling to undo all of the crazy regulations that they have implemented.

#7) Spain’s national debt is so onerous that they are now caught in a debt spiral where anything they do will harm the economy. If they cut government expenditures in an effort to get debt under control it will devastate economic growth and crush badly needed tax revenues. But if the Spanish government keeps borrowing money their credit rating will continue to decline and they will almost certainly default. The truth is that the Spanish government is caught in a “no win” situation.

#8) But even now the IMF is projecting that the Spanish economy is going nowhere fast. The International Monetary Fund says there will be no positive GDP growth in Spain until 2011, at which point it will still be below one percent. As bleak as that forecast is, many analysts believe that it is way too optimistic considering the fact that Spain’s economy declined by about 3.6 percent in 2009 and things are rapidly getting worse.

#9) The Spanish population has gotten used to socialist handouts and they are not going to accept public sector pay cuts, budget cuts to social programs and hefty tax increases easily. In fact, there is likely to be some very serious social unrest before all of this is said and done. On May 21st, thousands of public sector workers took to the streets of Spain to protest the government’s austerity plan. But that was only an appetizer. Spain’s two main unions are calling for a major one day general strike to protest the government’s planned reforms of the country’s labor market. The truth is that financial shock therapy does not go down very well in highly socialized nations such as Greece and Spain. In fact, the austerity measures that Spain has been pressured to implement by the IMF have proven so unpopular that many are now projecting that Spain’s socialist government will be forced to call early elections.

So what is going to happen in Spain?

The truth is that nobody can predict for sure how things are going to play out over the coming weeks and months.

But what everyone can agree on is that the stakes are incredibly high.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, world famous economist Nouriel Roubini put it this way: “If Greece goes under, that’s a problem for the eurozone. If Spain goes under, it’s a disaster.”

But right now the entire population of Spain (along with much of the rest of the world) is completely distracted by the World Cup. As long as the Spanish team does well, that is likely to keep the Spanish population sedated. But if the Spanish team gets knocked out of the tournament early that will put the entire Spanish population in a really, really bad mood and that could mean a really chaotic summer for the nation of Spain.

Obama To Use BP Oil Spill As An Opportunity To Push His Economy Killing Climate Change Bill

May 14, 2013June 14, 2010 by Michael

Never one to to allow a “good crisis” to go to waste, Barack Obama is pledging to use the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico as an opportunity to push the U.S. Congress to pass his controversial climate bill. In fact, during a recent interview Obama directly compared the current crisis in the Gulf to 9/11, and indicated that he believed that it would fundamentally change the way that we all look at energy issues from now on. But the truth is that Obama’s climate bill is the same economy killing legislation that it was before the BP oil spill. It would still drive gas and electricity prices through the roof, it would still cause large numbers of U.S. businesses to flee overseas, it would still be one of the biggest tax increases in U.S. history and it would still usher in an unprecedented era of climate fascism. But now thanks to the BP oil spill there is suddenly a lot more momentum in Congress for doing something about energy and about “climate change”.

Of course the truth is that carbon dioxide is not causing climate change and high levels of carbon dioxide are actually very good for the environment, but reducing carbon emissions has almost become a religion for radical environmentalists, and Barack Obama is absolutely determined to push through his “cap and trade” carbon trading scheme. In fact, just as 9/11 completely changed the war that Americans viewed the fight against terrorism, Barack Obama sees the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico fundamentally changing the way that Americans see energy issues. During a recent interview, Obama told Politico columnist Roger Simon the following….

“In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come.”

Not only that, but Obama considers it one of his greatest “leadership challenges” to make sure that we all “draw the right lessons” from the BP oil spill….

“One of the biggest leadership challenges for me going forward is going to be to make sure that we draw the right lessons from this disaster.”

So what are those “right lessons”?

Well, apparently what we are all supposed to get out of this disaster are the lessons that Obama has been trying to “teach” us all along – that carbon taxes and cap and trade schemes are good for us.

But Barack Obama is not the only one urging us to learn the “right lessons” from the BP oil spill.

In a recent interview with ABC News, Microsoft’s Bill Gates also linked the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico with “climate change”. Gates warned that if we don’t make the necessary changes soon that we will suffer severe consequences….

“We’ll have more crises like the oil spill and we’ll have the supply disruption. We’ll start to see more and more effects of the climate problem.”

But would the climate bill that Obama is pushing really save us from “climate change”?

Of course not.

But Barack Obama’s climate change bill would do the following things….

*It would drive gas and electricity prices through the roof.

*It would crush the already fragile U.S. economy by piling a bunch of new taxes and regulations on U.S. businesses. Needless to say, large numbers of them would begin looking for greener pastures.

*It would increase worldwide pollution by forcing companies out of the U.S. and into nations that have no restrictions on pollution whatsoever.

*When you add up all of the overt and hidden taxes in the bill, it would represent one of the biggest tax increases in U.S. history.

*Since every action we take involves the production of carbon emissions (including every breath that we take), it would open the door for an era of tyrannical climate fascism where the U.S. government literally monitors every aspect of our lives to make sure that we are being “eco-friendly”.

But Barack Obama makes this climate bill sound like it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. In fact, he continues to promise that the number of “green jobs” gained by this bill will far outweigh the number of other jobs lost.

But is this true?

Of course not.

In fact, other countries that have tried a “cap and trade” scheme have experienced disastrous results. For example, a leaked internal assessment produced by the government of Spain reveals that the “green economy” there has been an absolute economic nightmare for that nation. Energy prices have skyrocketed in Spain and the new “green economy” in that nation has actually lost more than two jobs for every job that it has created.

The unemployment rate in Spain is now hovering around 20 percent and the economy there is on the verge of complete and total collapse. In fact, if the government of Spain does end up defaulting on their debts, it could make the financial crisis that has been unfolding in Greece look like a Sunday picnic.

It should be obvious to anyone with a brain that a climate bill like the one Spain implemented will devastate the U.S. economy. But facts haven’t gotten in the way of Barack Obama pushing his agenda before, so why should they now?

However, it is not just Barack Obama that is pushing an agenda of trying to radically reduce carbon emissions. All over the world, many of the global elite have joined forces with the radical environmentalists in an effort to “save the world” from the growing “threat” of carbon dioxide.

And since each person on this planet is a source of constant carbon emissions, many of those who truly believe in this radical environmental agenda consider the rapidly growing population of the earth to be the number one cause of climate change.

You see, to those obsessed with “climate change”, just getting corporations around the globe to radically cut carbon emissions is not nearly going to be good enough. The truth is that they know that in order to get carbon emissions down to where they want them to be, they are going to have to do something about the growing world population.

To them, in the “war against climate change” anyone who breathes is the enemy. In fact, according to an official UN report, no human can ever truly be “carbon neutral”.

So please understand that for those obsessed with climate change, “carbon taxes” and “cap and trade” are just the beginning. To truly achieve their goals, “one child policies” and “forced abortions” will also be necessary.

So if Barack Obama does get his climate bill pushed through Congress and it does kill the U.S. economy, that would only be a “first step” for those truly dedicated to the radical environmental agenda. What they have planned down the road is a whole lot more horrific.

The Dominant Force In World Financial Markets In 2010 Is Fear

July 18, 2012June 8, 2010 by Michael

Extreme volatility is not a sign of health for financial markets. But in 2010 financial markets around the globe are experiencing unprecented volatility. Why? It is because the entire world financial system has been gripped by fear. In today’s crazed environment, it seems like just about anything can set off a major panic. In fact, these days politicians have to be extremely careful about what they say about their national finances, because saying the wrong thing can literally send world markets into violent convulsions. For instance, when a senior Hungarian official said that the Hungarian economy was in a “very grave situation” last week it sent world financial markets into a tailspin. Panic was everywhere and everyone was talking about how Hungary could be the “next Greece”. Of course on Monday Hungarian officials backed away from that comment and tried to reassure world markets that everything was fine, but the damage had been done.

It was a perfect example of the spirit of irrational fear that has gripped the financial world.

After all, even if Hungary did fall apart financially, it wouldn’t plunge the rest of the world into a depression.

And the truth is that Hungary is not really in that bad shape financially. Hungary’s budget deficit is about half the size of the Greek budget deficit and Hungary doesn’t even use the euro.

But now investors all over the world are constantly scanning the news for the latest piece of information that will send waves of panic through the markets.

In the current environment, fear is what moves the markets.

The reality is that fear is the reason why the euro is plunging at breathtaking speed.

Are many of the economies in Europe truly in really bad shape?

Of course.

However, it could be argued that the economies of the U.S. and Japan are in even worse shape in many ways. Japan’s gross public debt has reached 201 percent of GDP and the United States has piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world.

But because of the extreme fear that has been generated, people are moving out of the euro and into dollars and yen.

In fact, the euro is probably headed even lower.

GFT Forex’s Boris Schlossberg believes that the euro could fall down to the 1.16/1.17 range before this current panic is over….

“I think we run the risk of seeing 1.16/1.17 before the next selling phase dies down. The euro is just absolutely hated here. The European rescue package still faces some regional opposition. There were rumors the German high court could rule it was unconstitutional. They don’t have a federal mechanism to put it in place, and there’s worries that at any point in time, the rescue package could be sabotaged.”

But all of this fear and panic is actually good for investors in gold and silver.

Why?

Because during times of fear and panic investors look to move their money into something that is secure, and gold and silver have been secure investments for thousands of years.

So in this environment of fear, gold is absolutely soaring. On Monday, the price of gold climbed 1.9 percent to $1239.30 per ounce. That was the largest one day rise in the price of gold since February 16th.

So how high will gold go?

Well, the truth is that nobody knows.

But if fear and panic continue to grip world financial markets in the months ahead, there is really no telling how high it could go.

In fact, even many mainstream financial analysts are becoming extremely bullish on gold.

As Dan Burrows of Daily Finance recently commented, “you don’t have to be a member of the build-a-bunker-in-Montana crowd to believe gold could hit $2,500 in the next couple of years.”

But these days no investment is truly safe. One really bad rumor these days can send any stock, any currency or any commodity into a tailspin.

Fear is everywhere. Governments and central banks are intervening in the markets in unprecedented ways, but it is still not enough to keep the markets from flopping around like a dying fish.

So for those who are waiting for the financial markets to get back to “normal”, you are likely to be waiting for quite a long time. The world economic situation is not going to be getting any better in the long-term. So if financial markets are flipping out this much even now, just wait and see what happens when things really start falling apart.

The U.S. Economic Collapse Top 20 Countdown

May 5, 2013May 31, 2010 by Michael

So just how bad is the U.S. economy? Well, the truth is that sometimes it is hard to put into words. We have squandered the great wealth left to us by our forefathers, we have almost totally dismantled the world’s greatest manufacturing base, we have shipped millions of good jobs overseas and we have piled up the biggest mountain of debt in the history of mankind. We have taken the greatest free enterprise economy that was ever created and have turned it into a gigantic house of cards delicately balanced on a never-ending spiral of paper money and debt. For decades, all of this paper money and debt has enabled us to enjoy the greatest party in the history of the world, but now the bills are coming due and the party is nearly over.

In fact, things are already so bad that you can pick almost every number and find a corresponding statistic that shows just how bad the economy is getting.

You doubt it?

Well, check this out….

20 – Gallup’s measure of underemployment hit 20.0% on March 15th. That was up from 19.7% two weeks earlier and 19.5% at the start of the year.

19 – According to RealtyTrac, foreclosure filings were reported on 367,056 properties in the month of March. This was an increase of almost 19 percent from February, and it was the highest monthly total since RealtyTrac began issuing its report back in January 2005.

18 – According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in March the national rate of unemployment in the United States was 9.7%, but for Americans younger than 25 it was well above 18 percent.

17 – The FDIC’s list of problem banks recently hit a 17-year high.

16 – During the first quarter of 2010, the total number of loans that are at least three months past due in the United States increased for the 16th consecutive quarter.

15 – The Spanish government has just approved a 15 billion euro austerity plan.

14 – The U.S. Congress recently approved an increase in the debt cap of the U.S. government to over 14 trillion dollars.

13 – The FDIC is backing 8,000 banks that have a total of $13 trillion in assets with a deposit insurance fund that is basically flat broke. In fact, the FDIC’s deposit insurance fund now has negative 20.7 billion dollars in it, which actually represents a slight improvement from the end of 2009.

12 – The U.S. national debt soared from the $12 trillion mark to the $13 trillion mark in a frighteningly short period of time.

11– It is being reported that a massive network of big banks and financial institutions have been involved in blatant bid-rigging fraud that cost taxpayers across the U.S. billions of dollars. The U.S. Justice Department is charging that financial advisers to municipalities colluded with Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Lehman Brothers, Wachovia and 11 other banks in a conspiracy to rig bids on municipal financial instruments.

10 – The Mortgage Bankers Association recently announced that more than 10 percent of all U.S. homeowners with a mortgage had missed at least one payment during the January-March time period. That was a record high and up from 9.1 percent a year ago.

9 – The official U.S. unemployment number is 9.9%, although the truth is that many economists consider the true unemployment rate to be much, much higher than that.

8 – The French government says that its deficit will increase to 8 percent of GDP in 2010, but by implementing substantial budget cuts they hope that they can get it to within the European Union’s 3 percent limit by the year 2013.

7 – The biggest banks in the U.S. cut their collective small business lending balance by another $1 billion in November. That drop was the seventh monthly decline in a row.

6 – The six biggest banks in the United States now possess assets equivalent to 60 percent of America’s gross national product.

5 – That is the number of U.S. banks that federal regulators closed on Friday. That brings that total number of banks that have been shut down this year in the United States to a total of 78.

4 – According to a study published by Texas A&M University Press, the four biggest industries in the Gulf of Mexico region are oil, tourism, fishing and shipping. Together, those four industries account for approximately $234 billion in economic activity each year. Now those four industries have been absolutely decimated by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and will probably not fully recover for years, if not decades.

3 – Decent three bedroom homes in the city of Detroit can be bought for $10,000, but no one wants to buy them.

2 – A massive “second wave” of adjustable rate mortgages is scheduled to reset over the next two to three years. If this second wave is anything like the first wave, the U.S. housing market is about to be absolutely crushed.

1 – The bottom 40 percent of all income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth. But of course many on Wall Street and in the government would argue that there is nothing wrong with an economy where nearly half the people are dividing up 1 percent of the benefits.

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