Bankers, Government Austerity: Seizure of public Property for Corporations

June 17, 2011 1 Comment

by Wayne Madsen
Wayne Madsen Report
June 15, 2011

What lies in store for Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Italy, and, in short order, the United States, is the wholesale sell-off of public property to private corporations at bargain basement prices. What the despots who gather in their secretive lairs at Davos, Cernobbio, Bilderberg, and G8/G20 are bringing about is a world where no property is owned by the state, which by default means the people. Total corporate control over every facet of life equals extreme fascism.

What is occurring in Greece is a bellwether for what will befall other nations in Europe, as well as the United States, if the bankers get their way. And in Greece, the people know how generations of investments by the taxpayers are being turned over to vampire capitalists who have the full backing of the International Monetary Fund, European Commission, and the European Central Bank.

The European and global bankers have demanded that the Greek government sell off entirely or assume a minority stake in a number of state enterprises and utilities.

For example, this year global capitalists are slated to acquire 84 percent of OTE, the Greek telecommunications provider. In addition, private bankers will assume 66 percent ownership of the Greek Postal Savings Bank; 51 percent of the National Lottery; 60 percent of the Salonika Water Authority; 68 percent of DEPA, the natural gas utility; and 25 percent ownership of the ports of Piraeus and Salonika.

Next year, the capitalist grab for public property increases in intensity with Athens International Airport coming under 79 percent private ownership. The global capitalists will also obtain 100 percent ownership of the Egniata toll motorway; 60 percent of Hellenic Post; 66 percent of OPAP, the state-run video-lotto and online sports betting firm; 73 percent of the Athens Water Authority; 83 percent of DEI, the Greek Electric Authority; and 51 percent of the Greek Regional Airports Authority.

The Greek Communist Party has vowed to fight against the acquisition of public property by the private sector. In fact, it is the Communist parties of Europe that have been the most vocal against the power grab by the bankers but their opposition to the privatization moves receives very little attention by the corporate-controlled media.

Massive sell-off lists of public property are now being drawn up by the governments of Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Ireland. In the United States, there are calls for the privatization of the US Postal Service, Social Security, and Medicare.

One Libyan government official this reporter spoke to in Tripoli, during an intensive NATO bombing assault, opined that the same fate is in store for the Libyan Socialist Jamahiriyah. With the highest standard of living in Africa, Libyans could witness the U.S.- and NATO-backed rebel government begin to sell off Libyan government assets to global capitalists. The Libyan official said, “These people [global bankers] would sell the air if they could get away with it.”

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Libya and the Imperial Re-Division of Africa

April 29, 2011

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
Global Research
April 26, 2011

Plans to attack Libya have been longstanding. The imperial war machine of the United States, Britain, France, Italy, and their NATO allies is involved in a new military adventure that parallels the events that led to the wars against Yugoslavia and Iraq. The war machine has been mobilized under the cover of “humanitarian intervention.”

In fact what the Pentagon and NATO have done is breach international law by intervening on the side of one of the combating parties in Libya in a civil war that they themselves have encouraged and fuelled. They have not protected civilians, but have launched a war against the Libyan regime in Tripoli and actively assisted the Benghazi-based Transitional Council in fighting the Libyan military.

Before the rapprochement with Colonel Qaddafi, for years the U.S., Britain, France, and their allies worked to destabilize Libya. Confirmed by U.S. government sources, Washington attempted regime change in Tripoli several times.[1] According to General Wesley Clark, former NATO commander, the Pentagon had active plans for launching a war against Libya.
The U.S. and its NATO allies are now embroiled in a new war that has the patented characteristics of the wars and invasions of Iraq and the former Yugoslavia.

A large naval armada off the shores of Libya has been bombing Libya for weeks with the declared objective of ousting the Libyan regime. At the same time, Libyan internal divisions are being fuelled.

Misinformation is systematically being spewed. Like Saddam Hussein before him, the U.S. and the E.U. have armed and helped Colonel Qaddafi. It is, therefore, important to hold the U.S. and the E.U. accountable for these weapon sales and the training of Libyan forces.

Also, like in Iraq, another Arab dictator was befriended by the U.S., only to be subsequently betrayed.

Prior to Iraq’s rapprochement with the U.S., at the outset of the Iraq-Iran War, Saddam Hussein was a Soviet ally and considered an enemy by Washington.

Today's friends are tomorrow's foes

The case of Colonel Qaddafi is in many regards similar. Ironically, Qaddafi had warned Arab leaders in 2008 at a meeting in Damascus under the auspices of the Arab League about regime change. He pointed to the U.S. government’s “bad habit” of betraying its Arab dictator friends:

Why won’t the [U.N.] Security Council investigate the hanging of Saddam Hussein? How could the leader of an Arab League state be hanged? I am not talking about Saddam Hussein’s policies or our [meaning the other Arab leaders] animosity towards him. We all had our disagreements with him. We all disagree with one another. Nothing unites us except this hall. Why is there not an investigation about Saddam Hussein’s execution?

An entire Arab government is killed and hung on the gallows – Why?! In the future it is going to be your turns too! [The rest of the Arab officials gathered start laughing] Indeed!

America fought alongside Saddam Hussein against Khomeini [in the Iraq-Iran War]. He was their friend. Cheney was a friend of Saddam Hussein. Rumsfeld, the [U.S.] defence secretary during the bombing of Iraq [in 2003], was a close friend of Saddam Hussein.

At the end they sold him out. They hung him. Even you [the Arab leaders] who are the friends of America – no I will say we – we, the friends of America, America may approve of our hanging one day. [2]

At the end of the 1991 Gulf War, the U.S. deliberately encouraged open revolt against Saddam Hussein’s regime, but stood back and watched as Saddam Hussein put down the Iraqi revolts by force.

In 2011, they have done the same thing against Qaddafi and his regime in Libya. Not only was the revolt in Libya instigated by Washington and its allies, the rebels have been supplied with weapons and military advisers.

When the U.S. and its allies triggered the anti-Saddam revolts in Baghdad in the wake of the Gulf War, “no-fly zones” over Iraq were established by the U.S., Britain, and France under the pretext of protecting “the Iraqi people from Saddam.” For years Iraq was systematically attacked. The Iraqi Republic was bombed and its capabilities to defend itself were eroded.
Today, the U.S. and its allies have imposed a no-fly zone over Libya with the pretext of protecting “the Libyan people from Qaddafi.” If they wanted to protect the Libyan people from Qaddafi, why did they arm Qaddafi in the first place? Why did they enter into business transactions in the wake of the 2006 and 2008 anti-government riots in Libya? There is much more to this narrative, which is part of a broader march to war.

A New Imperial Re-Division of Africa: The London Conference

The London Conference on Libya reveals the true colours of the coalition formed against Libya. In a clear breach of international law, the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, and their allies are making decisions about the future of Libya ahead of any changes on the ground. [4] Democracy is a bottom-up process and Libyan governance is an internal matter to be decided upon by the Libyans themselves. These decisions can not be made by foreign powers that have been the staunch supporters of some of the worst dictatorships.

Current chiefs of state such as Sarkozy and Berlusconi befriended the man they call today a dictator.

The nations gathered at the conference table in London have no right whatsoever to decide on whether Qaddafi must stay or go. This is a sovereignty right that only Libyans alone have. Their involvement in the civil war is a breach of international law, as is their siding with one of the camps in the civil war.

The London Conference on Libya can be likened to the Berlin Conference of 1884. Unlike 1884, this conference is aimed at dividing the spoils of war in Libya, instead of the direct carving up of an entire continent. Also, Washington, instead of staying away like in 1884, is the leading power in this new conference involving the affairs of the African continent.
The position of the U.S. and its Western European allies is very clear:

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and British Foreign Secretary William Hague led the crisis talks in London between 40 countries and institutions, all seeking an endgame aimed at halting Gadhafi’s bloody onslaught against Libya’s people.

Although the NATO-led airstrikes on Gadhafi’s forces that began March 19 aren’t aimed at toppling him, dozens of nations agreed in the talks that Libya’s future does not include the dictator at the helm.
“Gadhafi has lost the legitimacy to lead, so we believe he must go. We’re working with the international community to try to achieve that outcome,” Clinton told reporters.

As she spoke, U.S. officials announced that American ships and submarines in the Mediterranean had unleashed a barrage of cruise missiles at Libyan missile storage facilities in the Tripoli area late Monday and early Tuesday — the heaviest attack in days.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle echoed Clinton’s point.

“One thing is quite clear and has to be made very clear to Gadhafi: His time is over. He must go,” Westerwelle said. “We must destroy his illusion that there is a way back to business as usual if he manages to cling to power.” [4]

The London Conference on Libya, however, not only deals solely with Libya, but holds the blue prints to a new imperialist re-division of the entire Africa continent. Libya, which became a holdout when Qaddafi changed his mind, will be used to complete the “Union of the Mediterranean” and as a new bridgehead into Africa. This is the start of major steps that will be taken by the U.S. and the E.U. to purge the growing Chinese presence from Africa.

A New Imperial Re-Division of Africa: “Operation Odyssey Dawn”

The name “Operation Odyssey Dawn” is very revealing. It identifies the strategic intent and direction of the war against Libya.

The Odyssey is an ancient Greek epic by the poet Homer which recounts the voyage and trails of the hero Odysseus of Ithaca on his way home. The main theme here is the “return home.”

The U.S. and the imperialist powers are on their own odyssey of “return” into Africa.

This project is also intimately related to the broader military agenda in Southwest Asia and the drive into Eurasia, which ultimately targets Russia, China, and Central Asia.

Washington’s military agenda pertains  to the African and the Eurasian landmass, namely a supercontinent known as the “World-Island.” It is control of the World-Island that is the object of U.S. strategies.

The U.S. and NATO have triggered a civil war in Libya, as their pretext for longstanding plans of military aggression. A systematic media disinformation campaign, similar to the one used against Iraq from 1991 to 2003, has been launched.

In fact, the media has led the way for the war in Libya as it did in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The U.S. and its cohorts have also used the atmosphere of popular revolt in the Arab World as a cloud to insert and support their own agenda in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

The Libyan Prize of the Mediterranean

There is an old Libyan proverb that says “if your pocket becomes empty, your faults will be many.” In this context, Libyan internal tensions are not dominated by breadbasket issues. This sets Libya apart from Arab countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Morocco, and Jordan. [5] In Libya, the lack of freedom as well as rampant corruption has created opposition to the regime, which has been used by the U.S. and its allies as a pretext to justify foreign intervention.

Libya has come a long way since 1951 when it became an independent country. In 1975, the political scientist Henri Habib described these conditions:

When Libya was granted its independence by the United Nations on December 24, 1951, it was described as one of the poorest and most backward nations of the world. The population at the time was not more than 1.5 million, was over 90% illiterate, and had no political experience or knowhow. There were no universities, and only a limited number of high schools which had been established seven years before independence. [6]

According to Habib the state of poverty in Libya was the result of the yoke of Ottoman domination followed by an era of European imperialism in Libya. [7] Habib explains: “Every effort was made to keep the Arab inhabitants [of Libya] in a servile position rendering them unable to make any progress for themselves or their nation.” [8]  He also explains:

The climax of this oppression came during the Italian administration (1911 – 1943) when the Libyans were not only oppressed by the [foreign] authorities, but were also subjected to the loss and deprivation of their most fertile land which went to colonists brought in from Italy. The British and French who replaced the Italians in 1943 attempted to entrench themselves in [Libya] by various divisive ways, ultimately to fail through a combination of political events and circumstances beyond the control of any one nation. [9]

Despite political mismanagement and corruption, Libya’s oil reserves (discovered in 1959) were used to improve the standard of living for its population. Libya has the highest standards of living in Africa.

In addition to its energy reserves, the Libyan state played an important role. Libyan energy reserves were nationalized after the 1969 coup against the Libyan monarchy. It should be noted that these Libyan energy reserves are a source of wealth in Libya that if fully privatized would be a lucrative spoil of war.

To a certain extent, the isolation of Libya in the past as a pariah state has also played a role in insulating Libya. As most of the world has become globalized from an economic standpoint, Libyan integration into the global economy has in a sense been delayed.

Despite having vast sums of money stolen and squandered by Qaddafi’s family and their officials, social services and benefits, such as government housing, are also available in Libya. It has to be cautioned too that none of this means that neo-liberal restructuring and poverty are not afoot in Libya, because they very much are.

Until the conflict in 2011 ignited, there was a huge foreign work force in Libya. Thousands of foreign workers from every corner of the globe went to Libya for employment. This included nationals from Turkey, China, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, the European Union, Russia, Ukraine, and the Arab World.

Neo-Liberalism and the New Libya: Saif Al-Islam Qaddafi and Rapprochement

From 2001 to 2003, a process of rapprochement began between Libya and the U.S. and its E.U. partners. What changed? Colonel Qaddafi did not stop being a dictator or change his behaviour. Rapprochement brought an end to Tripoli’s defiance to its former colonial masters. Libya had bowed to U.S. and E.U. pressures and a modus vivandi came into effect.
Qaddafi’s credentials as a democrat or a dictator were never an issue. Nor was the use of brute force. Subservience was the real issue.

The force used against the riots in 2006 and 2008 did not even faze the E.U. and Washington, which continued their “business as usual” with Tripoli. Even U.S. government sources implied that economic interests should not be jeopardized by issues of international law or justice; for example, BP pressured the British government in 2007 to move forward with a prisoner exchange with Libya so that a Libyan oil contract could be protected. [10]

Almost overnight, Libya became a new business bonanza for U.S. and E.U. corporations, especially in the energy sectors. These lucrative contracts also included military contracts of the order of $482 million (U.S.) in military hardware, training, and software from E.U. members (including chemical and biological agents). [11]

Yet, two more things were demanded by Washington, namely the imposition of an imperial tribute as well as the the opening up of the Libyan military and intelligence apparatus to U.S. influence. As a result Libya ended all support for the Palestinians and handed the U.S. government its dossiers on resistance groups opposed to Washington, London, Tel Aviv and their allies. This turned Libya into a so-called “partner” in the “Global War on Terrorism.” Washington would get involved in all aspects of Libyan state security:

Although U.S. sanctions on Libya were lifted in 2004 and terrorism-related restrictions on foreign assistance were rescinded in 2006, Congress acted to limit the Bush Administration’s ability to provide foreign assistance to Libya as a means of pressuring the Administration and the Libyan government to resolve outstanding terrorism claims. The Bush Administration’s October 2008 certification [...] ended standing restrictions on the provision of U.S. foreign assistance contained in appropriations legislation for FY2008 and FY2009. Assistance requests submitted by the Bush and Obama Administrations for FY2009 and FY2010 included funding for programs to reengage with Libyan security forces after “a 35-year break in contact” with their U.S. counterparts and to support Libyan efforts to improve security capabilities in areas of common concern, such as border control, counterterrorism, and export/import monitoring. [12]

Libya has also become active in global banking and finance. The U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of New York even made 73 loans to the Arab Banking Corporation (ABC), which is a bank mostly owned by the Central Bank of Libya, totalling an amount of $35 billion (U.S.). [13] According to Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont in a complaint to U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke, the mostly Libyan-owned bank received over $26 billion (U.S.) in near zero interest rate loans from the U.S. Federal Reserve that it has been lending back to the U.S. Treasury at a higher interest rate. [14] The Arab Banking Corporation is currently exempted from sanctions on Libya and may serve in creating a fiscal link between Wall Street and Benghazi.

Saif Al-Islam Qaddafi was vital in this process of opening up Libya to trade with Washington and the European Union. In 2000 Saif Al-Islam graduated from a university in Austria and became heavily tied to foreign associates who became his policy advisors and friends.

Prince Andrew of Britain reportedly became a close friend of Said Al-Islam: so close that Chris Bryant, a senior Labour Party politician, demanded in the British House of Commons that Prince Andrew be removed from his position as special trade envoy at the start of the conflict with Libya. [15]

Western advisors to Tripoli played an important role in shaping Libyan policy. A “New Libya” started to emerge under Saif Al-Islam, who pushed for the adoption of IMF-style neo-liberal economic reforms.

Starting in 2005-2006, significant social and income disparities started to emerge in Libya. The Libyan Revolutionary Committees Movement was in large part disbanded by Saif Al-Islam. Had the Committees Movement remained, they would most probably have sought to prevent the present conflict from escalating.

Moreover, Saif Al-Islam went to London and established ties in Britain with Noman Benotman, a former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). [16] He became friends with Benotman.

Supported by Saif Al-Islam, Benotman and Ali Al-Sallabi, a Libyan citizen based in Qatar (who was on Tripoli’s terrorist list), negotiated a truce between the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and the Libyan government.

It is also worth noting that all the ministers and ambassadors who defected or left Libya were chosen by Saif Al-Islam.
As in the case of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the neo-liberal reforms applied in Libya created social and income disparities which in turn contributed to political instability.

Rapprochement with Tripoli and Imperial Extortion

In late-2008, the U.S. government got Tripoli to pay what was tantamount to an “imperial tribute.” Libya capitulated and agreed to an uneven reparation agreement with Washington. The agreement is called the “Claims Settlement Agreement between the United States of America and the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab.” Under the agreement Libya would concede $1.3 billion U.S. dollars to Washington, while Washington would give the Libyans $300 million U.S. dollars. Article 4 of the agreement’s annex states:

Once contributions to the Fund Account reach the amount of U.S. $1.8 billion (one billion eight hundred million U.S. dollars), the amount of U.S. $1.5 billion (one billion five hundred million U.S. dollars) shall be deposited into Account A [the U.S. account] and the amount of U.S. $300 million (three hundred million U.S. dollars) shall be deposited into Account B [Libya’s account], which in both cases shall constitute the receipt of resources under Article III (2) of the Agreement. [17]

Despite all this, Libya has remained a relatively wealthy country. In 2010, Tripoli even made an offer to buy a portion of British Petroleum (BP), one of the world’s largest corporations. [18] The National Oil Company of Libya also remains one of the largest oil companies in the world.

Even with the lucrative business deals that resulted from the rapprochement, the U.S. and the E.U. have always had an objective of furthering their gains and control. The E.U. powers and Washington merely waited for the right opportunity. Plans for taking over and controlling Libya and the Libyan energy sector were never abandoned. Nor could Washington and Western Europe accept anything less than a full-fledged puppet government in Libya.

Upheaval and Qaddafi’s Response

Even with the rapprochement with Tripoli, the U.S. and its E.U. partners continued to cultivated ties to so-called “opposition” figures and organizations with a view to implementing regime change at some future date. This is why the National Salvation Front of Libya has been mostly active in Washington. In the words of a timely Congressional Research Service (CRS) report (February 18, 2011):

The National Conference for the Libyan Opposition (an umbrella organization of opposition groups headed by the National Libyan Salvation Front (NLSF) [...]) and Internet-based organizers called for a “day of rage” to take place on February 17. Similar events had been organized by anti-government groups in many other countries in the Middle East and North Africa over the previous month. On February 17, [2011] hundreds of protestors took to the streets in Benghazi and in other cities in its vicinity. [19]

Colonel Qaddafi has ruled Libya under a harsh dictatorship that has systematically used violence and fear. Yet, the level of violence that has put Libya in a state of upheaval has been distorted. [20] Many of the initial reports coming out of Libya in early-2011 were also unverified and in many cases misleading. These reports have to be studied very carefully. According to the same CRS report prepared for the U.S. Congress, initial reports all came from “local [Libyan] media accounts, amateur video footage and anecdotes, and reports from human rights organizations and opposition groups in exile.” [21]

Qaddafi’s objectives are to preserve his regime and not to undo it. After Qaddafi became aware of the growing foreign threat directed towards his regime, the use of force was on the whole restrained. The regime in Tripoli did not want to give further excuses to the U.S., the E.U., and NATO for military intervention in Libya.

Qaddafi had exercised restraint for the sake of preserving his dictatorship. The Libyan regime knew very well that a bloody civil war would be used as a justification for intervention under a humanitarian pretext. That is why Qaddafi opted to try to negotiate where he could instead of using force. The use of violence is not to the favour of the Libyan regime or Libya, but rather works in the favour of the U.S. and the E.U. states.

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya specializes on the Middle East and Central Asia. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).

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Italy and France now want to close borders

April 27, 2011

Sarkozy and Berlusconi want passport-free travel within the EU suspended as north African migrants flee north

UK Guardian
April 27, 2011

France and Italy have thrown down the gauntlet over Europe’s system of passport-free travel, saying a crisis of immigration sparked by the Arab spring was calling into question the borderless regime enjoyed by more than 400 million people in 25 countries.

Challenging one of the biggest achievements of European integration of recent decades, Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi also launched a joint effort to stem immigration and demanded European deportation pacts with the countries of revolutionary north Africa to send new arrivals packing.

The French president and the Italian prime minister, at a summit in Rome, opted to pile the pressure on Brussels and the governments of the other 25 EU states, demanding an “in-depth revision” of European law regulating the passport-free travel that takes in almost all of the EU with the exception of Britain and Ireland.

Prompted by the influx to Italy of almost 30,000 immigrants, mainly from Tunisia, in recent months, the two leaders warned that the upheavals in north Africa “could swiftly become an out-and-out crisis capable of undermining the trust our fellow citizens place in the free circulation within the Schengen area”.

The passport-free travel system known as the Schengen regime was agreed by a handful of countries in 1985 and put into practice in 1995. Since then it has been embraced by 22 EU countries as well as Norway, Switzerland and Iceland, but spurned by Britain and Ireland. It is widely seen, along with the euro single currency, as Europe’s signature unification project of recent decades.

But like the euro, fighting its biggest crisis over the past year, the Schengen regime is being tested amid mounting populism and the renationalisation of politics across the EU.

In other setbacks to borderless Europe, Germany, France and other countries have been blocking the admission of Bulgaria and Romania to Schengen in recent months, while the arrival of thousands of Middle Eastern migrants in Greece has fed exasperation with Athens’s inability to control the EU’s southern border.

The Franco-Italian move, following weeks of bad-tempered exchanges between Paris and Rome over how to deal with the Tunisian influx, is the biggest threat yet to the Schengen regime.

“For the treaty to stay alive, it must be reformed,” Sarkozy said. Berlusconi added: “We both believe that in exceptional circumstances there should be variations to the Schengen treaty.”

They sent a joint letter to the European commission and European council chiefs, José Manuel Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy, urging proposals from Brussels and agreement on a new system at an EU summit of government heads in June.

The commission said it was drawing up new proposals, tinkering with the current system, to be unveiled next week. But it has resisted, with the support of most EU governments, intense Italian pressure to label the arrivals from north Africa an emergency.

Under European law the border-free regime can be suspended only for reasons of national security, routinely invoked in recent years by member states hosting major international sporting events such as the World Cup or the European football championships, where individual countries contend with a huge, one-off influx of foreigners.  Read Full Article…

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Fluoride is a Toxic Industrial Waste Product

April 1, 2011 1 Comment

NaturalNews.com
April 1, 2011

Since the 1940′s fluoride is used in toothpaste and is added to drinking water in many countries around the world. The dental profession claims that fluoride is safe and necessary for good dental health.

Fluoride is actually toxic waste from the aluminium, phosphoric acid and phosphate fertilizer industries. Millions of tons of fluoride are produced each year.

Up until the 1930′s, fluoride was discharged directly into the air and waterways, causing great damage. Lawsuits were mounting as more and more victims learned that their problems were caused by fluoride poisoning. The industry’s response was to change the public’s perception of fluoride.

Many ‘scientific’ studies were presented to convince the public that fluoride was safe. Lucrative positions were created for ‘research’ and ‘education’ with the express purpose of promoting the use of fluoride in toothpaste and in drinking water. Instead of paying millions for disposal of this toxic waste, fluoride was now being sold to toothpaste and water companies!

Drinking water is now fluoridated in many countries, including the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Turkey, Italy, India and Chile. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoridation_by_country

Most toothpaste brands contain fluoride as the main active ingredient. Procter and Gamble, manufacturer of Colgate toothpaste, admitted in 1984 that a small tube of toothpaste contains enough fluoride to kill a child! Toothpaste now carries a warning label that if more than a pea-sized amount is swallowed, to get medical help immediately.

Up to 80 percent of young people in some U.S. cities have dental fluorosis, which is the first visible sign of excessive fluoride exposure. Fluoride also causes calcium deficiency, which can lead to osteoporosis, skeletal thinning, fractures, anemia and rickets.

Fluoride causes premature aging since it damages enzymes. This affects the immune system, digestive system, respiratory system, blood circulation, liver, kidneys, thyroid and brain function. Fluoride can also cause hyperactivity and a lower IQ in children.

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Creation of Debt As The Basis For Growth

November 5, 2010

By Bob Chapman

The UK, Europe, the US and Canada are different degrees of welfare states. By way of regulation, government controls via taxation. The states and their inhabitants send taxes to Washington, which takes its cut and sends funds back to the states with strings attached. You either do what we want you to do, or we cut off your funds. The states and the people are subject to extortion with government using their funds to do so. By using regulations, welfare and extortion, the federal government creates dependency.

Another phenomenon that has developed is a second dependency. People in society, not just in the US, but also in many countries, are dependent on their grandparents and parents and as years progress that situation will worsen. Earning power to maintain a previous lifestyle is no longer available with the staggering tax burden. Including income and VAT taxes in Europe, taxation averages 70%. The ability and opportunity to become successful and wealthy is more limited in today’s societies. Even the college degree has been demeaned. Almost anyone who can hold a pencil today is college material, when 60% of attendees shouldn’t even be there. Adding insult, the jobs once available to college attendees are no longer available, because more often then not illegal aliens hold them. As a result, it is far more difficult to work your way through college and as a result one graduates with a loan for $60,000 that will be paid back in many cases over a lifetime. In most cases that means most won’t be able to afford to buy a house until they are in the 30s or 40, if ever.

Since 1913 the basis for growth in America has been creation of debt out of thin air, a product of the privately owned Federal Reserve and a fractional banking system. It is considered prudent under such a system to lend nine times your underlying assets. Several years ago the figure was 70 and today it is still 40 times. Government and citizens purchase economic goods on credit. Government issues bonds and individuals borrow money.

Today money is only a method of exchange; it is not longer a store of value, especially in an environment of zero interest rates. An important characteristic of money to retain its soundness is gold backing. Today only one currency has any gold backing and that is the euro, which has about 5% gold backing. Ten years ago that backing was 15%, but gold was sold off to suppress the price of gold in conjunction with the US government and many other central banks. As a result we have a world of essentially worthless fiat currencies. The world is left with no sound money and as a result gold has again taken its place as the world’s reserve currency. If for no other reason is that it owes no one anything. Occasionally silver fulfills this role as well – both have for the last six centuries.

Financial operations conducted by government and a privately owned Federal Reserve leads to the extended creation of money and credit exceeding revenues. That leads to inflation, perhaps hyperinflation, and some times eventually deflationary depression. This is especially true when currency is not backed by gold. Having a Federal Reserve makes sound money even more difficult, because it can create endless amounts of money and credit as we have witnessed since August 15, 1971. What the banks and the Federal Reserve have done is use the fractional banking system to steal and expropriate the wealth of dollar owners. Such a system by its very nature is unsound. There is no such thing as full faith and credit, because it is not worth the paper it is written on, whether it is issued by a Federal Reserve or by a government, especially if it’s fiat or unbacked by something such as gold. This money leads to servitude because as it carries less value perpetually and the discovery leads to war and totalitarian government.

A recent manifestation of this profligacy is the urging by government for consumers to consume more with their steadily depreciating currency and to stop paying off debt. At the same time interest rates are lowered to zero to encourage consumption. Needless to say, savers are penalized with poor returns. That is for the most part the elderly. Such policy forces savers to become speculators, unless, of course, they have discovered gold and silver related investments. This process reduces the savings base and forces central banks to create more and more aggregates. It also enrages savers. The entire game has been changed and for the most part few have learned how to protect themselves.

The foregoing allows the Dow to sell at higher levels than previously because a part of those savings go into the stock market and bonds. If you haven’t noticed the bond market is in a bubble created by the Fed. You would think there was some kind of safety in stocks and bonds. Then again, desperate people do desperate things. If you want to see what safety in bonds is, just look at Britain’s bond markets since WWII. This is the sort of result you can expect when you marry corporations and government, and you end up with corporatist fascism.

By the time you read this the US congressional elections will be over and the Democrats will have lost about 50 House seats and probably 9 Senate seats. The American people are outraged over what has been done to them by the last three administrations.

As a result gold has been rising strongly, as the dollar remains under pressure. This in part is due to QE2, as well as the systemic problems facing the US economy. Spending the economy into strength again is not working. The only party increasing spending is the government. They also reflect most of the job growth. Private construction was the weakest in a dozen years.

This is reflected as well in government debt up $1.65 trillion to $13.5 trillion. The government is so deep in debt it cannot sell more debt fast enough to keep up with increases and old debt. The Fed has to purchase 80% of that debt, which cannot continue indefinitely. The result of all this is that the US lurches from one crisis to another.

As always bankers have been borrowing short to lend long, a sure recipe for disaster. That leads us to one of the greatest frauds of the century, the collapse of the real estate market and securitized mortgages. In order to survive banks are borrowing from the Fed at zero rates and lending back to them at 2-1/2%. No one says anything because no one wants the banks to fail. No matter what you call it the result is extending the debt timeline hoping something good will happen

Over the past few weeks we have seen the beginnings of trade war, which in reality had been going on for years. The statements by Chairman of the Fed, Bernanke, and statements as well by Treasury Secretary Geithner, started the ball rolling. The discussion of a possible QE2 set off wild currency volatility with the dollar falling the most and the yen, euro and Aussie dollars being the strongest. The Swiss franc shared leadership with the yen. While this transpired Mr. Geithner told the world the government wanted a strong dollar and that its lower level was just about right.

The significance of currency war is that inevitably leads to trade war. You might call it a backdoor entry. The string of competitive devaluations over the years were overlooked and tolerated by the US because cheap foreign goods held down US inflation and the dollars purchased to subdue domestic currency value were used to buy US Treasuries and Agencies. That benefit was now of limited benefit as nations bought less Treasuries and the Fed had to monetize US Treasury debt. This has and will continue to bottle up inflation to a larger degree in the US, as less hot US dollar flow goes into foreign countries. Countries such as Brazil have already implemented a tax on dollar flows into their country. We can expect more countries to follow and that will be followed by US trade taxes on goods and services. We have already started to see this in goods sold in China and the US. The US wants to increase exports and a weaker dollar makes that happen.

The Fed via stealth has been engaged in QE2 since early June via the bond and repo markets and Wall Street is well aware of that. The easing is talked to in terms of $500 billion over the short term in order to keep the economy level to slightly higher. Some $2.5 trillion will be needed over the next year and another 42.5 trillion the following year. If not forthcoming deflation will rear its ugly head and devour the US and then the world economy. In the meantime the secretive Fed has been surreptitiously lending more funds to Europe to Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Italy.

The deliberately cheapened Chinese yuan has caused a $260 billion trade deficit with China, or a 20% plus increase. That is a doubling in 10 years from 20% to 40% of its trade deficit. China says it is willing to raise the value of the yuan incrementally over the next several years, but that simply isn’t good enough. We believe trade barriers will become a major issue in the coming session of Congress. The transnational conglomerates know such a move is inevitable. The US has to find a way to solve growing unemployment, which in the real world now stands at 22-3/4%. You cannot have a recovery as long as that many people are unemployed. In addition, those numbers are headed higher, soon to reach 1930’s depression levels. This is something that should have been done long ago, but the elitist forces fought it off as long as possible. The end of free trade and globalization, as we have known it, over the past 20 years will be one of the bigger issues in congress over the next two years. When the yuan is 40% undervalued it becomes a major issue.

The flip side of the immediate problem of QE2 and a lower dollar is higher gold, silver and commodity prices, and an increase in inflation. Mr. Bernanke says we need inflation. Not a lot just a little. Official CPI figures are up 1.6%, whereas real inflation has risen 7% and is headed higher. It’s tough being between the rock and the hard place and that is where the Fed sits. It’s expanded money and credit for banking and Wall Street so no one will be too big to fail.

This issue will hit the streets prior to all the election results being known.

Just as big news will be how much QE2 will be admitted to by the Fed and besides Treasuries and Agencies, how much and what other bonds will the Fed purchase? After we find out how money will be injected into the system we then have to discern how much inflation it will foster.

The truth of the current Keynesian economic system has been taken for granted and it is in the processes of failure. That event demands that the system be purged of its excesses. As we projected back in May, the Fed and the administration will pour $5 trillion into the economy over the next two years just to keep the economy going sideways. This is a staggering amount of money and credit created out of thin air to be monetized, which will certainly depreciate the dollar. We have just seen food and other prices double again. What will happen when all this liquidity hits the economy? You guessed it, more inflation. For some reason the masters of the universe on Wall Street seem to think that somehow inflation and hyperinflation will not appear. They believe in a destructive theory that everything they believe is true. It is part of their misreading of life and its real meaning.

The US would be spending a whopping $200 million per day on President Barack Obama’s visit to the city.

“The huge amount of around $200 million would be spent on security, stay and other aspects of the Presidential visit,” a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit said.

About 3,000 people including Secret Service agents, US government officials and journalists would accompany the President. Several officials from the White House and US security agencies are already here for the past one week with helicopters, a ship and high-end security instruments.

“Except for personnel providing immediate security to the President, the US officials may not be allowed to carry weapons. The state police is competent to take care of the security measures and they would be piloting the Presidential convoy,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

Navy and Air Force has been asked by the state government to intensify patrolling along the Mumbai coastline and its airspace during Obama’s stay. The city’s airspace will be closed half-an-hour before the President’s arrival for all aircraft barring those carrying the US delegation.

The personnel from SRPF, Force One, besides the NSG contingent stationed here would be roped in for the President’s security, the official said.

The area from Hotel Taj, where Obama and his wife Michelle would stay, to Shikra helipad in Colaba would be cordoned off completely during the movement of the President.

Shares of Ambac Financial Group Inc. (ABK 0.50, -0.32, -39.23%) were down 49% in Monday’s premarket trading after the company in a regulatory filing said its board has decided not to make a regularly scheduled interest payment on notes due in 2023. If the interest is not paid within 30 days of the scheduled interest payment date of Nov. 1, an event of default will occur under the indenture for the notes, Ambac said. The firm has been unable to raise additional capital as an alternative to seeking bankruptcy protection and is currently pursuing with an ad hoc committee of senior debt holders a restructuring of its outstanding debt through a prepackaged bankruptcy proceeding, according to the filing. If Ambac is unable to reach agreement on a prepackaged bankruptcy in the near term, it intends to file for bankruptcy prior to the end of the year. “Such filing may be with or without agreement with major creditor groups concerning a plan of reorganization,” Ambac said.

[When Ambac insures, mostly municipal bonds, they transfer their own rating to the bonds so if a municipal has a rating of BBB and Ambac is AAA, the municipals assume a Triple A status. If Ambac goes out of business the bonds lose their AAA status and revert to their normal rating status, which might be B or BBB or AA, the bottom line is munis are going to fall in value and we predicted this would happen two years ago, and as usual few were listening. Bob]

The Transportation Security Administration is implementing an enhanced pat-down procedure at national airport security checkpoints, including in Greater Rochester International Airport.

Last week the Dow fell 0.1%, S&P was unchanged, the Russell 2000 was unchanged and the Nasdaq 100 gained 1%. Banks fell 1.1%; broker/dealers rose 0.6%; cyclicals fell 0.4% and transports were unchanged. Consumers fell 0.5%; utilities fell 0.6%; high tech rose 1.6%; semis surged 4.4%; Internets rose 3.2% and biotechs rose 1.4%. Gold bullion rose $30.00, the HUI rose 4.4% and the USDX fell 0.4% to 77.04.

The 2-year T-bills fell 2 bps to 0.33% and the 10-year T-notes rose 4 bps to 2.60%. The 10-year German bunds gained 4 bps to 2.52%.

Freddie Mac 30-year fixed rate mortgages rose 2 bps to 4.23%, the 15’s rose 2 bps to 3.66%, one-year ARMs were unchanged at 3.30% and the 30-year fixed rate jumbos fell 6 bps to 5.18%.

Fed credit fell $1 billion. Fed foreign holdings of Treasury, Agency debt rose $12.9 billion to $3.294 trillion. Custody holdings for foreign central banks rose Year-to-date to $339 billion, or 13.9% annualized.

M2, money supply, expanded $13 billion to $8.873 trillion, that is up 3.5% annualized and yoy it is up 3.3%.

Total money market fund assets rose a large $24.6 billion to $2.807 trillion. YOY assets have fallen $487 billion.

Total commercial paper outstanding jumped $22.8 billion to $1.168 trillion, a high for the year.

Economist Stiglitz: We need stimulus, not quantitative easing

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel prize- winning economist at Columbia, disagrees. He thinks it can hurt, and it also won’t do very much.

Joseph Stiglitz: The Fed, and the Fed’s advocates, are falling into the same trap that led us into the crisis in the first place. Their view is that the major lever for economic policy is the interest rate and if we just get it right, we can steer this. That didn’t work. It forgot about financial fragility and how the banking system operates. They’re thinking the interest rate is a dial you can set and by setting that dial, you can regulate the economy. In fact, it operates primarily through the banking system, and the banking system is not functioning well. All the literature about how monetary policy operates in normal times is pretty irrelevant to this situation.

The point is the stimulus did work. They made a very big mistake in underestimating the severity of the downturn and asked for too small of a stimulus, and they didn’t do enough in the design.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/30/AR2010103004612.html

Stiglitz, Nobel or not, is recycling Keynesian remedies that are the cause of US economic and financial problems; and his logic is faulty.

Joe says QE is undesirable because it will intensify ‘currency wars’. But the currency wars are a direct result of US reliance on Keynesian economics that have pushed the US toward bankruptcy and forced the Fed to paper over the enormous Keynesian deficits. [‘Tis why most economists aren’t money managers.]

The cost of tires, gloves and condoms is set to rise following a 65 per cent jump in the price of natural rubber in the past year.

Yves Smith op-ed in NY Times: How the Banks Put the Economy Underwater – When mortgage securitization took off in the 1980s, the contracts to govern these transactions were written carefully to satisfy not just well-settled, state-based real estate law, but other state and federal considerations. These included each state’s Uniform Commercial Code, which governed “secured” transactions that involve property with loans against them, and state trust law, since the packaged loans are put into a trust to protect investors. On the federal side, these deals needed to satisfy securities agencies and the Internal Revenue Service.

This process worked well enough until roughly 2004, when the volume of transactions exploded. Fee- hungry bankers broke the origination end of the machine. One problem is well known: many lenders ceased to be concerned about the quality of the loans they were creating, since if they turned bad, someone else (the investors in the securities) would suffer.

A second, potentially more significant, failure lay in how the rush to speed up the securitization process trampled traditional property rights protections for mortgages.

Business inventories increased $115.5B, which is far more than expected. The inventory binge contributed 1.44% to GDP growth. Final sales (GDP less inventories) increased 0.6%. Final sales to domestic purchasers increased 2.5%. This is down significantly from the 4.3% increase in Q2.

The measure is in place for travelers who choose not to go through the imaging technology devices known as the full-body scanners.

Passengers always have had the option to walk through the metal detectors and be patted down, but there will be some change to the latter procedure. The enhanced pat-down, which TSA officials tested in Boston and Las Vegas airports and which officials say adds another detailed layer of security, uses a front-of-the-hand, slide-down technique on passengers’ bodies.

“If you refuse to go through the full body scan, you are going to be subject to a physical pat-down of your person,” said David Damelio, Greater Rochester International Airport director. “In Rochester, we only have one machine, so we are not always going to be able to get everyone through that machine.”

Damelio said passengers will be able to request a pat-down from someone of the same gender.

“TSA constantly evaluates and updates screening procedures to stay ahead of evolving threats,” said TSA spokesperson Ann Davis. “While we cannot share specific details of our procedures for security reasons, pat-downs are designed to address potentially dangerous items, like improvised explosive devices and their components, concealed on the body.”

Sixty-five airports use the body scan imaging technology, with the device coming soon to four more major airports: Chicago Midway Airport, Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C., William P. Hobby Airport in Houston and LaGuardia Airport in New York City.

The body scan has been known to speed up security procedures by producing images in seconds and reducing the need for additional screening.

Images are transferred to monitors in another room, where they are viewed by security personnel.

The images are disposed of immediately after they are evaluated, and facial features are blurred.

“I’ve gone through the scan before, and it takes seconds and doesn’t bother me,” Damelio said. “But I know it does bother some people. The more you travel, the more you are going to be impacted by these changes because they are happening nationwide.”

One of our contacts in the oil and gas business says that oil will move up $30 to $50 a barrel over the next 8 months; that means that those in that business should take action to protect themselves.

“Indianapolis Workforce Development spokesman Marc Lotter said the agency is merely being cautious with the approach of an early-December deadline when thousands of Indiana residents could see their unemployment benefits end after exhausting the maximum 99 weeks provided through multiple federal extension periods.

“Given the upcoming expiration of the federal extensions and the increased stress on some of the unemployed, we thought the addition of 36 armed guards would provide an extra level of protection for our employees and clients,” he said.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this weekend promised to force the Senate to vote on an immigration bill, the Dream Act, in a lame-duck session of Congress next month.

Mr. Reid, a Nevada Democrat who is in a desperate battle to keep his Senate seat, told Univision’s “Al Punto,” a Sunday political talk show, that he has the right as majority leader to decide what legislation reaches the floor, and said he is “a believer in needing to do something” on immigration.

In doing so, he elevated immigration to join jobs, spending and tax cuts — the issues most lawmakers expect to dominate Congress when they reconvene in November.

“I just need a handful of Republicans. I would settle for two or three Republicans to join with me on the Dream Act and comprehensive immigration reform, but they have not been willing to step forward,” Mr. Reid said. “They want to keep talking about this issue, and I say [it] is demagoguery in its worst fashion and is unfair to the Hispanic community.”

The Dream Act would grant legal status and a path to citizenship to illegal immigrant schoolchildren and to illegal immigrants who agree to serve in the U.S. military.

In September, just before Congress adjourned for two months, Mr. Reid tried to attach the Dream Act to the annual defense policy bill, which already was loaded down with language laying out a path for gays to serve openly in the military. But Republicans blocked the defense bill, arguing that Mr. Reid was playing politics just before the election.

The immigration issue has been dominant in the Nevada Senate race, which pits Mr. Reid against Republican nominee Sharron Angle, who has been running ads accusing Mr. Reid of being a friend of illegal immigrants.

Then, Mr. Reid last week had to fire a staffer after it was revealed she had entered into a sham marriage to help a man stay in the United States.

The Justice Department is sending a small pack of election observers to Arizona as Hispanic groups sound the alarm over an anti-illegal immigration group’s mass e-mail seeking to recruit Election Day volunteers to help block illegal immigrants from voting.

Hispanic voting rights groups say the e-mail is just an attempt to intimidate minority voters. But election fraud monitors say that there are hundreds of examples of duplicate registrations, wrong information and past unregistered voters getting ballots.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/29/justice-dept-send-election-observers-arizona-group-seeks-crack-illegal-voters/

The New York Times said in an editorial Sunday that Secretary of Homeland Security United States, Janet Napolitano, should eliminate the costly and inefficient virtual fence that has tried to build on the border with Mexico.

Napolitano, who slowed this year, new works of Secure Border Initiative Network (SBInet) and allocated 50 million of its funds to other programs, you should delete “once and for all” when the contract expires with the Boeing company late next month recommended.

The SBInet program, consisting of towers with radar and cameras to curb illegal immigration along the three thousand 200 kilometers of border “is a costly failure” and it is time to “disconnect the virtual fence,” the newspaper said New York.

The project initially estimated at seven thousand 600 million dollars was driven in 2006 by former President George W. Bush and continued by his successor, Barack Obama, but has been plagued by software defects.

With over a billion dollars already spent, barely have covered 80 kilometers from the border to date, to which is added critical reports on Government Oversight Office (GAO), which questioned the failure to meet deadlines already established.

The GAO also criticized Boeing for providing evaluation data “incomplete and abnormal”, which has prevented the Department of Homeland Security asked for an accounting firm for its cost control and timeliness, said The New York Times.

He said the virtual fence was a malconcebida idea based on the false premise that immigration control is achieved by closing the border, with more sensors, fences and “boots on the ground.”

As long as the demand for cheap labor, the need for better jobs and legal impediments to enter the country, people continue to seek ways of crossing the border, the newspaper said.

Urged a comprehensive immigration reform that allows for greater border security.

The Institute for Supply Management’s factory index rose to 56.9 in October from 54.4 a month earlier, the Tempe, Arizona-based group said today. Readings greater than 50 signal growth.

Economists forecast the ISM manufacturing gauge would decline to 54, according to the median of 75 projections in a Bloomberg News survey. Estimates ranged from 52 to 56.8.

U.K. factory growth unexpectedly accelerated as hiring and export orders improved, other reports showed today.

A China purchasing managers’ index released by the logistics federation rose to 54.7 last month from 53.8. A second PMI, from HSBC Holdings Plc and Markit Economics, jumped to 54.8 from 52.9.

Consumer spending rose less than forecast in September as incomes dropped for the first time in more than a year, a sign Americans may keep rebuilding savings and paring debt as the economy is slow to recover.

Purchases increased 0.2 percent, the smallest gain in the third quarter, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. Incomes fell 0.1 percent, the first drop since July 2009, and the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation stagnated, capping the smallest 12-month gain in nine years.

Construction spending in the U.S. unexpectedly rose in September, led by increases in homebuilding and public projects.

The 0.5 percent gain brought spending to $801.7 billion after a revised 0.2 percent drop in August that was previously reported as a 0.4 percent gain, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington.

Homebuilders are recovering from a slump in demand following the expiration of a government tax break and still face the challenge of mounting foreclosures that are adding to the housing inventory. While rising profits may help corporate spending on structures grow next year, government construction outlays may slow as federal stimulus funds fade and state and local municipalities cut budgets.

“Construction is still a very low- to no-growth scenario for the next nine months at least,” Russell Price, a senior economist at Ameriprise Financial Inc. in Detroit, said before the report. “There’s still a lot of capacity out there to be absorbed. We’ve already been seeing some hit to infrastructure spending from budget cuts on the state and local governments especially as the federal stimulus eases.”

Economists forecast construction spending would decrease 0.5 percent, according to the median projection in a Bloomberg News survey. The 50 estimates ranged from a drop of 1.2 percent to a 0.5 percent increase.

Other figures from the Commerce Department today showed consumer spending rose less than forecast in September as incomes dropped for the first time in more than a year, a sign Americans may keep rebuilding savings and paring debt as the economy is slow to recover.

Purchases advanced 0.2 percent, the smallest gain of the third quarter. Incomes fell 0.1 percent, the first drop since July 2009, and the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation stagnated, capping the smallest 12-month increase in nine years.

Construction spending was down 10 percent in the year ended in September, today’s report showed.

Private construction spending was unchanged. A 1.8 percent increase in homebuilding was offset by a 1.6 percent drop in commercial projects as fewer factories were put up. Non- residential construction decreased to the lowest level since January 2005.

Public construction climbed 1.3 percent following a 2.2 percent gain in August. Federal construction outlays increased 6.1 percent, while state and local government spending rose 0.8 percent. New transportation grids and schools accounted for most of the gains.

State and local debt sales swelled to an 18-month peak of $13.8 billion, overwhelming investor demand and sending municipal bond yields to the highest level in more than two months.

The Federal Reserve will probably introduce an unprecedented second round of unconventional monetary easing tomorrow by announcing a plan to buy at least $500 billion of long-term securities, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Policy makers meeting today and tomorrow will restart a program of securities purchases to spur growth, reduce unemployment and increase inflation, said 53 of 56 economists surveyed last week. Twenty-nine estimated the Fed will pledge to buy $500 billion or more, while another seven predicted $50 billion to $100 billion in monthly purchases without a specified total. The remainder said the Fed would buy up to $500 billion or didn’t quantify their forecast.

The varied responses reflect differences among Fed officials over the total amount of purchases needed to bolster the recovery. Policy makers, pursuing unprecedented stimulus, have cut the benchmark rate almost to zero and bought $1.7 trillion in securities without generating growth fast enough to bring down unemployment from near a 26-year high.

“There’s no silver bullet right now” and central bankers have “very few options left in terms of lowering interest rates,” said John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina. He predicted $500 billion of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities purchases in the next six months.

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