The U.S. will give an estimated $26 billion in foreign aid in 2008—70% more than when President George W. Bush took office (the figure doesn’t include funds related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). More than 150 countries get financial assistance from the U.S. Here are the six that received the most this year.

Natural gas rose in New York, buoyed by gains in U.S. stocks as investors speculated governments will step up efforts to revive the global economy, and as lower than normal temperatures were forecast along the East Coast.

The heating and industrial fuel increased as shares gained after General Motors Corp. received a cash infusion from the government. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported in its 6-10 day forecast yesterday that odds favor colder than normal weather in the eastern region.

“We are into a breakout for stocks. Natural gas has good fundamentals because of production destruction.”

Natural gas for February delivery rose 34 cents, or 6.2 percent, to settle at $5.971 per million British thermal units at 3:01 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

U.S. stocks advanced on the first day of trading in 2009, following the biggest annual drop for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index in 71 years, as rising fuel prices lifted energy shares. The S&P 500 rose 2.8 percent to 928.9 at 3:12 p.m. in New York.

Energy Shares source

If you thought Bernard Madoff’s $50 billion investment scheme was audacious, get ready for his alibi. Lawyers for the accused scammer are exploring an insanity defense, we hear.

The 70-year-old financier, now a prisoner of his East Side penthouse, wore a weird smile when he was photographed shortly after his Dec. 12 arrest.more

“He might try to argue that Madoff suffered from dementia or a bipolar disorder,” says the psychiatrist, who has served as an expert witness in high-profile criminal cases. “

He could argue that Madoff committed the fraud during manic, euphoric periods and that he never found the equilibrium to correct his crime. Or that he was so delusional that he convinced himself the investment returns were real. You might also plead that he was incapacitated by some character disorder, like a malignant narcissism stemming from an early-life trauma.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Connecticut lawmaker Frank Nicastro sees saving the local newspaper as his duty. But others think he and his colleagues are setting a worrisome precedent for government involvement in the U.S. press.

Nicastro represents Connecticut’s 79th assembly district, which includes Bristol, a city of about 61,000 people outside Hartford, the state capital. Its paper, The Bristol Press, may fold within days, along with The Herald in nearby New Britain.

That is because publisher Journal Register, in danger of being crushed under hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, says it cannot afford to keep them open anymore. Source>>>

California has launched a program for illegal aliens called Bank on California that would make the Matricula Consular acceptable at all banks and the program is being pushed with gusto by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. As many of you know banks across this country - Bank of America and Wells Fargo being the most notable - have been openly pushing credit cards and mortgages for illegal aliens for years. Giving loans to illegal aliens was one of the major causes of the sub-prime mortgage crisis and it has been conveniently ignored by traditional news outlets. This crisis ended up devastating millions of Americans by artificially driving up housing prices. And it devastated them more by having those same financial institutions beg and receive trillions of taxpayer dollars because these loans unsurprisingly defaulted.more

Stephen Goodson, Leader of ‘Abolition of Income Tax and Usury Party’ reveals the little known reasons behind the Japanese attack on the US Pearl Harbour Fleet on December 7th, 1941.

The establishment view that the United States of America became embroiled in World War 2 as a result of a surprise attack on Pearl Harbour on Dec 7, 1941 is no longer accepted by serious historians. According to the new understanding, the origins of this conflict have far deeper roots. During the 1930s Japan rapidly expanded her industrial production, while the rest of the world, with the exception of Germany, stagnated. By 1941 Japan had become the leading economic power in East Asia and her exports were steadily replacing those of America and England.
Japan has very few natural resources. So what was the secret of her success? In order to answer this question it is necessary to return to the year 1929, when, one of the 20th century’s foremost monetary reformers, Major Clifford Hugh Douglas, went on a lecture tour of Japan.
Douglas’ economic theory advocated the transfer of the money creation process from private banks, which create money out of nothing as an interest-bearing debt, to the state. This government-created money he termed social credit. He also favoured the payment of a basic income or national dividend to each citizen. This dividend would provide consumers with the additional buying power necessary to absorb all the current production of goods in a non-inflationary manner. Read more »

WASHINGTON — Government officials overseeing a $700 billion bailout have acknowledged difficulties tracking the money and assessing the program’s effectiveness. The information was contained in a document , released Wednesday, of a Dec. 10 meeting of the Financial Stability oversight Board. The panel, headed by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, includes Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Securities and Exchange Commission chief Christopher Cox.

The government has pledged to provide $250 billion to banks in return for partial ownership. The goal is for banks to use the money to boost lending. However, a recent review by the Associated Press found that after receiving billions in aid from U.S. taxpayers, the nation’s largest banks can’t say exactly how they’re spending the money. Some wouldn’t even talk about it.  SOURCE>>>>

The Jews are trying to portray themselves as victims by claiming that there’s one Jewish criminal but lots of Jewish victims, including Jewish ‘welfare and charity’ institutions, i.e., Jewry is not behind this alleged swindle, and that the behavior of a single Jew has led to an explosion of ‘anti-Semitism’ online. I wonder what proportion of the ‘anti-Semitic’ goyim has realized the true nature of the swindle – as documented above – rather than bought into the claim that another Jew swindler was arrested after defrauding people of billions, including many Jews. As the Madoff “investigation” proceeds, expect to see more Jews pop up in the right places…Madoff’s attorney is Dan Horwitz, the Judge that set relaxed conditions for Madoff’s bail is Gabriel Gorenstein, etc.

Zeitgeist (pronounced [ˈt͡saɪtgaɪst] (help·info)) is a German language expression literally translated: Zeit, time; Geist, spirit, meaning “the spirit of the age and its society“. The word zeitgeist describes the intellectual, cultural, ethical and political climate, ambiance and moral of an era or also a trend. In German, the word has more layers of meaning than the English translation, including the fact that Zeitgeist can only be observed for past events.

Zeitgeist: Addendum Video

note:  I don’t agree with all of this but seeing how this is from sources out of our control, I am just taking it and using it as reference and take what knowledge I can from it and I suggest you do the same as a tool for the future of Eurofolk.

A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay.

Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it.

“As lawmakers make a big show of forcing auto executives to accept just $1 a year in salary, they are quietly raiding the vault for their own personal gain,” said Daniel O’Connell, chairman of The Senior Citizens League (TSCL), a non-partisan group. “This money would be much better spent helping the millions of seniors who are living below the poverty line and struggling to keep their heat on this winter.”

However, at 2.8 percent, the automatic raise that lawmakers receive is only half as large as the 2009 cost of living adjustment of Social Security recipients.

Still, Steve Ellis, vice president of the budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense, said Congress should have taken the rare step of freezing its pay, as lawmakers did in 2000.

“Look at the way the economy is and how most people aren’t counting on a holiday bonus or a pay raise — they’re just happy to have gainful employment,” said Ellis. “But you have the lawmakers who are set up and ready to get their next installment of a pay raise and go happily along their way.”

Member raises are often characterized as examples of wasteful spending, especially when many constituents and businesses in members’ districts are in financial despair.

Rep. Harry Mitchell, a first-term Democrat from Arizona, sponsored legislation earlier this year that would have prevented the automatic pay adjustments from kicking in for members next year. But the bill, which attracted 34 cosponsors, failed to make it out of committee.

“They don’t even go through the front door. They have it set up so that it’s wired so that you actually have to undo the pay raise rather than vote for a pay raise,” Ellis said.

Freezing congressional salaries is hardly a new idea on Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers have floated similar proposals in every year dating back to 1995, and long before that. Though the concept of forgoing a raise has attracted some support from more senior members, it is most popular with freshman lawmakers, who are often most vulnerable.

In 2006, after the Republican-led Senate rejected an increase to the minimum wage, Democrats, who had just come to power in the House with a slew of freshmen, vowed to block their own pay raise until the wage increase was passed. The minimum wage was eventually increased and lawmakers received their automatic pay hike.

In the beginning days of 1789, Congress was paid only $6 a day, which would be about $75 daily by modern standards. But by 1965 members were receiving $30,000 a year, which is the modern equivalent of about $195,000.

Currently the average lawmaker makes $169,300 a year, with leadership making slightly more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) makes $217,400, while the minority and majority leaders in the House and Senate make $188,100.

Ellis said that while freezing the pay increase would be a step in the right direction, it would be better to have it set up so that members would have to take action, and vote, for a pay raise and deal with the consequences, rather than get one automatically.

“It is probably never going to be politically popular to raise Congress’s salary,” he said. “I don’t think you’re going to find taxpayers saying, ‘Yeah I think I should pay my congressman more’.”

The Jewish community better get serious about the cancer that’s growing inside it. The devastation on Wall Street carries a lot of Jewish names, from firms like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers to individuals such as Bernard Madoff, whose $50 billion Ponzi scheme collapsed over the weekend, and lawyer Marc Dreier, arrested last week for defrauding investors of hundreds of millions of dollars.

On the Internet more and more people who don’t like us are beginning to connect the dots, pointing out that there are an awful lot of Jews who bear responsibility for Wall Street’s fall. But that’s not what bothers me. Anti-Semites will always find something to hate us for, and I’m way too busy to worry about what a bunch of bigots think anyway.

Rather, what worries me is this: what if some if it is true? What if our community has become too obsessed with money? Source>>>

A banking giant is handing out £2.4billion in bonuses to its City workers just months after being bailed out by the U.S. government.

Beleaguered Wall Street firm Morgan Stanley is planning to pay its 5,000 London staff an average of just over £53,000 each, despite the current financial crisis.

It comes just a day after Goldman Sachs revealed it is paying a staggering £4.3billion in bonuses to its staff  -  despite posting its first quarterly loss in a decade. more

In light of the Governments Great Idea of Bailing Out Wall Street!?!, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac and increasing there debt as it is.  One thing I found last night(09/30/08) while surfing the net looking at different things.  I found this article .

Aside from the Greed of you know who, giving loans to people who can’t possibly afford payments on a Two Hundred Thousand Dollar home or greater.  Then they want the Tax Payers To Bail Them Out.   NO!  I found a solution to where the Government can pay back some of the Trillions of Dollars in Debt they have gotten us in .

Stop giving ILLEGAL, Undocumented Aliens Benefits, or loaning money to countries when we are in such debt..  I mean if this is just what they spend in one year on Welfare(I’m assuming $, medical coverage, and Food Stamps, etc) alone and it adding up to $432 Million a Year just for that in one county.  That is not including the other things they are given

Imagine (rough estimate) this is just a what if: all 3143+- U.S. Counites in the USA spent this amount that would equal= roughly about $135,777,600,000.00 on Those Here Illegally.  Thats not including what is spent on US Citizens much and many undeserving who use The Welfare System (now called SSI) as a way of life for generations.

jlh

U.S. Debt Clock

As of September 2008 when this was written, the total U.S. federal debt was approximately $9.7 trillion^[2], about $31,700 per capita (that is, per U.S. resident).
United States public Debt

Today the U.S. National Debt is:

The Outstanding Public Debt as of 16 Dec 2008 at 08:47:33 PM GMT is:

$10,611,303,871,718.65

The estimated population of the United States is 305,286,594
so each citizen’s share of this debt is $34,758.50.

The National Debt has continued to increase an average of
$3.60 billion per day since September 28, 2007!

US Dept of Treasury
The current law, 31 U.S.C. § 301, reads as follows (in part):

“ (a) The Department of the Treasury is an executive department of the United States Government at the seat of the Government.

(b) The head of the Department is the Secretary of the Treasury. The Secretary is appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.

When the Federal Reserve policymakers decide on interest rates Tuesday, investors will probably look one step beyond their decision, to gauge how much money will the Fed be willing to print once it is out of rate ammunition. Rates won’t likely hit zero Tuesday, but this could be unavoidable in the near future, according to strategists and market experts.

Unemployment is likely to surge after more job cuts have been announced by banks and the U.S. auto industry teetering on the brink of collapse. The housing market is likely to take another hit as more people lose their jobs, and consumption will plummet further.   MORE>>>>>

There was at least one warning sign everyone missed in the Bernard Madoff story. Madoff, a former Nasdaq chairman who reportedly created the largest swindle in Wall Street history, liked to spread around the money he allegedly stole to make himself look good. Madoff was arrested on one charge of of securities fraud Thursday and released on $10 million bail. He faces up to 20 years in jail in what authorities say was a giant Ponzi scheme. “Such a scheme can involve taking investments from clients, spending the money on yourself and repay clients out of other clients accounts. Readers of this column may recall such a case with Hollywood money manager Dana Giacchetto back in 2001.

There were some indications that Madoff might have been in trouble. The signs were there. Last year, his own Madoff Family Foundation gave only $95,000 to other charity groups. This was a significant drop from 2006, and from every year since 2000. In 2006, Madoff (which is pronounced “made-off” as in, made off with all our money) gave away a total $1,277,600. It’s surprising no one noticed the difference in 2007 since it affected a number of hospitals and other health organizations. MORE>>>>>

Amidst the hand-wringing of the automaker bailout debate, Ron Paul took the opportunity on the House floor yesterday to remind Congress that the real culprit behind the financial crisis is the Federal Reserve, and that allowing the Fed to continue to print money without audit will only prolong the pain.

“There were many who predicted that the climax would be exactly as we are witnessing,” said the Congressman before lamenting that no one seems willing to go back and discover how financial bubbles form and how they burst. “Instead we just carry on doing the same old thing…..we spend more money, we run up more debt, we print more money, and we think that’s gonna solve the problem that was created by spending too much money, running up debt, printing too much money and here we are today,” stated the Congressman, adding that Congress was debating about “tinkering on the edges” while failing to deal with the big problem.  >>>Watch the clip<<<

Senate Republicans balked at supporting a $14 billion auto rescue plan approved by the House on Wednesday, negotiators worked late into Thursday evening to broker a deal but deadlocked over Republican demands for steep cuts in pay and benefits by the United Automobile Workers union in 2009.

The failure in Congress to provide a financial lifeline for G.M. and Chrysler was a bruising defeat for President Bush in the waning weeks of his term, and also for President-elect Barack Obama, who earlier on Thursday urged Congress to act to avoid a further loss of jobs in an already deeply debilitated economy.

“It’s over with,” the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said on the Senate floor, after it was clear that a deal could not be reached. “I dread looking at Wall Street tomorrow. It’s not going to be a pleasant sight.”

Mr. Reid added: “This is going to be a very, very bad Christmas for a lot of people as a result of what takes place here tonight.” more

DISCRIMINATION against dominant white males will soon be encouraged in a bid to boost the status of women, the disabled and cultural and religious minorities.

Such positive discrimination — treating people differently in order to obtain equality for marginalised groups - is set to be legalised under planned changes to the Equal Opportunity Act foreshadowed last week by state Attorney-General Rob Hulls.

The laws are also expected to protect the rights of people with criminal records to get a job, as long as their past misdeeds are irrelevant to work being sought.

Equal Opportunity Commission CEO Dr Helen Szoke said males had “been the big success story in business and goods and services”.

“Clearly, they will have their position changed because they will be competing in a different way with these people who have been traditionally marginalised,” she said.

“Let’s open it up so everyone can have a fair go.”  source

“A GLOBAL ECONOMY REQUIRES A GLOBAL CURRENCY” stated Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker, who is currently on Obama’s economic team. The economic team includes the Zionist Jewish banker, Robert Rubin. Many Washington insiders believe that Volcker will be Obama’s pick for Treasury Secretary.

Volcker’s call for a global currency is featured as the header on the Single Global Currency Association Web Site. The SGCA boasts that it is “dedicated to implementing a Single Global Currency within a Global Monetary Union and managed by a Global Central Bank.”

But before a Global Central Bank can be established, there must first be a series of “regional” Central Banks. Zionist Jews, like Robert Rubin, who is the Director of Citigroup Banking & on Obama’s economic team, are already planning a “North American Central Bank” as a stepping stone to a Global Central Bank.

As CS Lewis said in his famous book, The Screwtape Letters: “the safest road to Hell is the gradual one.” source/audio

Detroit’s Big Three automakers must provide a detailed nine-point plan to Congress by Dec. 2 in order to win approval of $25 billion in emergency bridge loans and show that “top automobile executives (are) making significant sacrifices and major changes to their way of doing business.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid told the CEOs of General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC in a letter released late Friday that they must provide detailed information on current cash, agree to grant the government senior status for loans and include plans to pay health care and pension obligations.

“Shareholders, business partners and prospective benefactors — the American people — deserve to see a plan that is accountable to taxpayers and that is viable for the long term,” the Democrats wrote. “In return for their additional burden, taxpayers also deserve to see top automobile executives making significant sacrifices and major changes to their way of doing business.” more

Detroit’s Big Three auto makers are begging Congress for a $25 billion government rescue, while the legislation clings to life support on Capitol Hill and top lawmakers and the White House suffer from bailout fatigue.

Democratic congressional leaders want to tap the $700 billion Wall Street rescue package for new loans to U.S. auto manufacturers and suppliers, but the White House and GOP lawmakers say the beleaguered industry shouldn’t get any new funds.

President George W. Bush and GOP lawmakers instead propose diverting $25 billion in loans approved by Congress in September — designed to help auto manufacturers retool their factories so they can make more fuel-efficient vehicles — to cover the firms’ immediate financial woes. source

The Treasury Department reversed course on its sweeping bailout effort Wednesday, saying it would not use the $700 billion rescue fund approved by Congress to purchase bad mortgage securities but instead will continue pumping money into banks to boost their lending ability while it looks for ways to get more money flowing for school loans, credit cards and other consumer purchases.

In answering questions about the shift in strategy, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson ruled out using the fund to bail out the troubled auto industry and said his priority will be stabilizing the financial system and reviving a consumer credit market that “has for all practical purposes ground to a halt.”

Although Paulson abandoned the plan he pitched when he sold the bailout to Congress, an aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was never keen on buying subprime mortgage securities and considers Treasury’s new course - investing $250 billion in banks - a better financial fix. Source>>>

The technology companies’ move, which follows criticism that the companies were assisting censorship of the internet in nations such as China, requires them to narrowly interpret government requests for information or censorship and to fight to minimise cooperation.

The initiative provides a systematic approach to “work together in resisting efforts by governments that seek to enlist companies in acts of censorship and surveillance that violate international standards”, the participants said.

In a statement, Yahoo co-founder and chief executive Jerry Yang welcomed the new code of conduct.

“These principles provide a valuable roadmap for companies like Yahoo operating in markets where freedom of expression and privacy are unfairly restricted,” he said.

“Yahoo was founded on the belief that promoting access to information can enrich people’s lives, and the principles we unveil today reflect our determination that our actions match our values around the world.” source

Sholom Rubashkin, 49, a powerful member of the Hasidic Jewish community and former head of the kosher plant Agriprocessors, was taken into custody Thursday morning by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

He faces three counts: conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens for profit; aiding and abetting document fraud; and aiding and abetting aggravated identity theft.

If convicted, the first two counts carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and fines of up to….source

WASHINGTON – The government will begin doling out $125 billion to nine major banks this week as part of its effort to contain a growing financial crisis, a top Treasury official said Monday.

Assistant Treasury Secretary David Nason said the deals with the nine banks were signed Sunday night and the government will make the stock purchases this week. The deals are designed to bolster the banks’ balance sheets so they will begin more normal lending.

The action will mark the first deployment of resources from the government’s $700 billion financial rescue package passed by Congress on Oct. 3.

The bailout package has undergone a major change in emphasis since it was passed by Congress. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson decided to use $250 billion of the $700 billion to make direct purchases of bank stock, partially nationalizing the country’s banking system, as a way to get money into the financial system more quickly.  Source>>>

 WASHINGTON – House Republican leader John Boehner on Wednesday urged President Bush to block all federal funds to a grass-roots community group that has been accused of voter registration fraud.

“It is evident that ACORN is incapable of using federal funds in a manner that is consistent with the law,” Boehner, R-Ohio, wrote Bush, saying that funds should be blocked until all federal investigations into the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now are completed. ACORN, a group that has led liberal causes since it was formed in 1970, this year hired more than 13,000 part-time workers to sign up voters in minority and poor neighborhoods in 21 states. Some of the 1.3 million registration cards submitted to local election officials, using the names of cartoon characters or pro football players, were obviously phony, spurring GOP charges of widespread misconduct.  Source>>>

WASHINGTON - Days from becoming the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, Lehman Brothers steered millions to departing executives even while pleading for a federal rescue, Congress was told Monday.  As well, executives who feared for their bonuses in the company’s last months were told not to worry, according to documents cited at a congressional hearing. One executive said he was embarrassed when employees suggested that Lehman executives forgo bonuses, and cracked: “I’m not sure what’s in the water.” The first hearing into what caused the nation’s financial markets to collapse last month, precipitating a $700 billion bailout, opened with finger-pointing and glimpses into internal company documents from Lehman’s chaotic last hours.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the giant investment bank was “a company in which there was no accountability for failure.” Lehman’s collapse set off a panic that within days had President Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson asking Congress to pass the rescue plan for the financial sector.  Source>>>  Also related

 Sarah Palin accused Democratic candidate Barack Obama on Saturday of “palling around with terrorists,” in the latest sign the U.S. election campaign is turning increasingly nasty. The comment by Palin, whose running mate, John McCain, is battling Obama for president in the Nov. 4 election, was dismissed by the Obama campaign as “gutter politics” and came shortly after the McCain campaign called the U.S. senator from Illinois a liar.

“Our opponent though is someone who sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect, imperfect enough that he is palling around with terrorists who would target their own country,” Palin said of Obama, also calling him an embarrassment.”

Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan said, “Today, the McCain-Palin team took their discredited, dishonorable campaign one desperate step further, announcing that they were going to try ‘turning a page on this financial crisis’ and launching more personal attacks on Senator Obama.” Source>>>

As I predicted earlier, Congress dutifully passed the 700 Billion Dollar Bailout, the biggest robbery in the history of the world. Hopefully, the American people will now finally understand that we no longer have representative government in this country. Every Congressman reported overwhelming opposition to bailout from their constituents