Christie, President, Fuggetaboutit New Jersey

The news continues to paint a deep dark picture in New Jersey,  especially for Christie's presidential run. In a word, Fuggetaboutit.

Last month Christie was forced to cut $2.5 Billion dollars from the State planned pension contribution and now today comes word that the Revel Casino in Atlantic City is likely to close down. In a letter to employees the company projected Mid August to shut the doors if they cant find a buyer. New Jersey tax payers are likely to loss all of the $260 million dollars they invested into the project in 2011 under Christie's lead.

Bridgegate aside, I think it is the collapse of the income expectations in his budget combined with the ineffective pension fix he totted that have sent his presidential bid into the toilet for the final flush.

The monstrosity playing out in Atlantic city today was predicted years back. Long before this project ran into trouble, long before the government bailed it out. Pennsylvania dealt a decisive blow back when they announced the boarder casino wall project, that was back in the 2005 era.

The financial and structural issues  NJ faces are massive and this casino failure will be more than just a nail in Jersey's coffin.

The depth of the problem is still not clear due to the complexities of pension actuarial regulations associated with government pension plans The obfuscation caused by the decades long GASB / FASB reporting disparities is in my opinion outright intentional deception by GASB. Over two decades of an unsupportable position on the NON reporting requirements of unfunded liabilities. That is a crime, if not by statute than surely by logic.

In fairness to GASB, it's now admitted their actions were "problematic" and the fix is at hand, but so much damage has been done. The problems are ahead of us, not behind us, and they are massive. Terminal? Maybe.

The full scope of the unfunded liabilities is an important factor but I think the key issue is more one of social injustice issue than just a massive financial problem. It is the government "ruling" the people no longer "of the people".  Few talk details about it but that is why so much anger is developing.

THE TWO SIMPLE QUESTION THAT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED

1) Why are government employees compensated (total package) so much higher than their private sector counterparts?

2) Why are there special tax benefits and legal standards afforded to government employees?

As I see it that is the fundamental issue at hand. The ramifications are staggering. The productive sector of our economy is being drained not only of it's money but of its opportunity, it's promise, it's freedom its potential, this is having an impact on the very souls of the American citizens.  The desperation, a sense of hopelessness is descending on America as a once unquestioned brightness now faces the darkness.  An unknown future and a lack of confidence in the most turbulent of times.

New Jersey's problems are deep but it is the social injustice being forced on the population by a corrupted government that hid the truth for decades and created a sense of entitlement for the government employees.

U-Haul Rate Study-  Cost comparison Wayne New Jersey to Austin Texas and vice-a-versa  

My most recent review of the U-Haul rates Between Wayne, New Jersey and Austin, Texas indicates that it is 250% more expensive  to rent a 26 foot truck to go to Austin  than to do the reverse. Drilling deeper I found the cost difference for a 17 foot truck is less, 200%. This may indicate that it is the larger, more established households moving out. This supply and demand analysis is not a scientific assessment by any means however it is at the least a curious argument. The 250% difference on the larger truck appears to come from cost discount to return the asset back to NJ.

 That's the way I see it.


FASB - The governing body of private sector accounting standards
GASB - The governing body of government sector accounting standards

The latest from “DHS Insider” (Part I & Part II)

By Findalis
Monkey in the Middle


Hat Tip to Texas Fred

If this doesn't scare you, then your dead.

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For those that haven’t seen it, aren’t on the mailing list or what have you, I have been getting messages from these folks and their Department of Homeland Security *mole* for quite some time now. In light of recent events I am sharing this story, Parts I and II, in their entirety. From the folks at Northeast Intelligence Network I give you this.

The latest from “DHS Insider” (Part I)

By Douglas J. Hagmann


Introduction

23 December 2012: After a lengthy, self-imposed informational black-out, my high-level DHS contact known as “Rosebud” emerged with new, non-public information about plans being discussed and prepared for implementation by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the near future. It is important to note that this black-out was directly related to the aggressive federal initiative of identifying and prosecuting “leakers,” at least those leaks and leakers not sanctioned by the executive office – the latter of which there are many.

Due to those circumstances, my source exercised an abundance of caution to avoid compromising a valuable line of communication until he had information he felt was significant enough to risk external contact. The following information is the result of an in-person contact between this author and “Rosebud” within the last 48 hours. With his permission, the interview was digitally recorded and the relevant portions of the contact are provided in a conversational format for easier reading. The original recording was copied onto multiple discs and are maintained in secure locations for historical and insurance purposes.

Meeting

The following began after an exchange of pleasantries and other unrelated discussion:

DH: Do I have your permission to record this conversation?

RB: You do.

DH: I’ve received a lot of e-mail from people wondering where you went and why you’ve been so quiet.

RB: As I told you earlier, things are very dicey. Weird things began to happen before the election and have continued since. Odd things, a clampdown of sorts. I started looking and I found [REDACTED AT THE REQUEST OF THIS SOURCE], and that shook me up. I’m not the only one, though, that found a [REDACTED], so this means there’s surveillance of people within DHS by DHS. So, that explains this cloak and dagger stuff for this meeting.

DH: I understand. What about the others?

RB: They are handling it the same way.

DH: I’ve received many e-mails asking if you are the same person giving information to Ulsterman. Are you?

RB: No, but I think I know at least one of his insiders.

DH: Care to elaborate?

RB: Sorry, no.

DH: Do you trust him or her. I mean, the Ulsterman source?

RB: Yes.

DH: Okay, so last August, you said things were “going hot.” I printed what you said, and things did not seem to happen as you said.

RB: You’d better recheck your notes and compare [them] with some of the events leading up to the election. I think you’ll find that a full blown campaign of deception took place to make certain Obama got back into office. The polls, the media, and a few incidents that happened in the two months before the election. I guess if people are looking for some big event they can point to and say “aha” for verification, well then I overestimated people’s ability to tell when they are being lied to.

DH: What specific incidents are you referring to?

RB: Look at the threats to Obama. Start there. The accusations of racism. Then look at the polls, and especially the judicial decisions about voter ID laws. Bought and paid for, or where there was any potential for problems, the judges got the message, loud and clear. Then look at the voter fraud. And not a peep from the Republicans. Nothing. His second term was a done deal in September. This was planned. Frankly, the Obama team knew they had it sewn up long before election day. Benghazi could have derailed them, but the fix was in there, so I never saw anything on my end to suggest a ready-made solution had to be implemented.

DH: What’s going on now?

RB: People better pay close attention over the next few months. First, there won’t be any meaningful deal about the fiscal crisis. This is planned, I mean, the lack of deal is planned. In fact, it’s necessary to pave the way for what is in the short term agenda.

DH: Wait, you’re DHS – not some Wall Street insider.

RB: So you think they are separate agendas? That’s funny. The coming collapse of the U.S. dollar is a done deal. It’s been in the works for years – decades, and this is one of the most important cataclysmic events that DHS is preparing for. I almost think that DHS was created for that purpose alone, to fight Americans, not protect them, right here in America. But that’s not the only reason. There’s the gun issue too.

DH: So, what are you seeing at DHS?

RB: We don’t have a lot of time, tonight – our meeting – as well as a country. I mean I have heard – with my own ears – plans being made that originate from the White House that involve the hierarchy of DHS. You gotta know how DHS works at the highest of levels. It’s Jarrett and Napolitano, with Jarrett organizing all of the plans and approaches. She’s the one in charge, at least from my point of view, from what I am seeing. Obama knows that’s going on and has say, but it seems that Jarrett has the final say, not the other way around. It’s [screwed] up. This really went into high gear since the election.

But it’s a train wreck at mid management, but is more effective at the lower levels. A lot of police departments are being gifted with federal funds with strings attached. That money is flowing out to municipal police departments faster than it can be counted. They are using this money to buy tanks, well, not real tanks, but you know what I mean. DHS is turning the police into soldiers.

By the way, there has been a lot of communication recently between Napolitano and Pistole [TSA head]. They are planning to use TSA agents in tandem with local police for certain operations that are being planned right now. This is so [deleted] important that you cannot even begin to imagine. If you get nothing else out of this, please, please make sure you tell people to watch the TSA and their increasing involvement against the American public. They are the stooges who will be the ones to carry out certain plans when the dollar collapses and the gun confiscation begins.

DH: Whoa, wait a minute. You just said a mouthful. What’s the agenda here?

RB: Your intelligence insider – he knows that we are facing a planned economic collapse. You wrote about this in your articles about Benghazi, or at least that’s what I got out of the later articles. So why the surprise?

DH: There’s a lot here. Let’s take it step by step if you don’t mind.

RB: Okay, but I’m not going to give it to you in baby steps. Big boy steps. This is what I am hearing. Life for the average American is going to change significantly, and not the change people expect. First, DHS is preparing to work with police departments and the TSA to respond to civil uprisings that will happen when there is a financial panic. And there will be one, maybe as early as this spring, when the dollar won’t get you a gumball. I’m not sure what the catalyst will be, but I’ve heard rumblings about a derivatives crisis as well as an oil embargo. I don’t know, that’s not my department. But something is going to happen to collapse the dollar, which has been in the works since the 1990′s. Now if it does not happen as soon as this, it’s because there are people, real patriots, who are working to prevent this, so it’s a fluid dynamic. But that doesn’t change the preparations.

And the preparations are these: DHS is prepositioning assets in strategic areas near urban centers all across the country. Storage depots. Armories. And even detainment facilities, known as FEMA camps. FEMA does not even know that the facilities are earmarked for detainment by executive orders, at least not in the traditional sense they were intended. By the way, people drive by some of these armories everyday without even giving them a second look. Commercial and business real estate across the country are being bought up or leased for storage purposes. Very low profile.

Anyway, I am hearing that the plan from on high is to let the chaos play out for a while, making ordinary citizens beg for troops to be deployed to restore order. but it’s all organized to make them appear as good guys. That’s when the real head knocking will take place. We’re talking travel restrictions, which should not be a problem because gas will be rationed or unavailable. The TSA will be in charge of travel, or at least be a big part of it. They will be commissioned, upgraded from their current status.

They, I mean Jarrett and Obama as well as a few others in government, are working to create a perfect storm too. This is being timed to coincide with new gun laws.

DH: New federal gun laws?

RB: Yes. Count on the criminalization to possess just about every gun you can think of. Not only restrictions, but actual criminalization of possessing a banned firearm. I heard this directly from the highest of my sources. Plans were made in the 90′s but were withheld. Now, it’s a new day, a new time, and they are riding the wave of emotion from Sandy Hook., which, by the way and as tragic as it was, well, it stinks to high heaven. I mean there are many things wrong there, and first reports are fast disappearing. The narrative is being changed. Look, there is something wrong with Sandy Hook, but if you write it, you’ll be called a kook or worse.

DH: Sure

RB: But Sandy Hook, there’s something very wrong there. But I am hearing that won’t be the final straw. There will be another if they think it’s necessary.

DH: Another shooting?

RB: Yes.

DH: That would mean they are at least complicit.

RB: Well, that’s one way of looking at it.

DH: Are they? Were they?

RB: Do your own research. Nothing I say, short of bringing you photographs and documents will convince anyone, and even then, it’s like [DELETED] in the wind.

DH: So…

RB: So what I’m telling you is that DHS, the TSA and certain, but not all, law enforcement agencies are going to be elbow deep in riot control in response to an economic incident. At the same time or close to it, gun confiscation will start. It will start on a voluntary basis using federal registration forms, then an amnesty, then the kicking-in of doors start.

Before or at the same time, you know all the talk of lists, you know, the red and blue lists that everyone made fun of? Well they exist, although I don’t know about their colors. But there are lists of political dissidents maintained by DHS. Names are coordinated with the executive branch, but you know what? They did not start with Obama. They’ve been around in one form or another for years. The difference though is that today, they are much more organized. And I’ll tell you that the vocal opponents of the politics of the global elite, the bankers, and the opponents of anything standing in their way, well, they are on the top of the list of people to be handled.

DH: Handled?

RB: As the situations worsen, some might be given a chance to stop their vocal opposition. Some will, others won’t. I suppose they are on different lists. Others won’t have that chance. By that time, though, it will be chaos and people will be in full defensive mode. They will be hungry, real hunger like we’ve never experienced before. They will use our hunger as leverage. They will use medical care as leverage.

DH: Will this happen all at once?

RB: They hope to make it happen at the same time. Big cities first, with sections being set apart from the rest of the country. Then the rural areas. There are two different plans for geographical considerations. But it will all come together.

End of Part I

Source: The latest from “DHS Insider” (Part I) « Northeast Intelligence Network

More business-like habits in Washington might rescue the country

Commentary by James H. Shott 

Some Americans fully understand the potentially cataclysmic economic situation facing the country. They are not the ones we have to worry about.

Who we have to worry about are the ones – the millions – that either do not fully comprehend the problem, or have some level of understanding and either are unconcerned about the problem, are using it to their advantage, or have no idea what to do about it. Many of the people in this group hold positions in the federal government, and are responsible for creating the crisis and/or perpetuating it and making it worse.

While government and business are distinctly different creatures, there are aspects of sound business operation that belong in the Federal Government Operators Manual, and Chapter I is “Fiscal Responsibility.”

The Prime Directive, derived from the U.S. Constitution, is a simple one: Government must remain small with limited scope and interfere minimally in the lives of the citizens it exists to serve. It must be a good steward of the people’s finances, taxing minimally and spending frugally.

If such a manual existed and if it had the force of law, many politicians and bureaucrats would have been jailed or fired for their part in creating a crisis that more and more resembles to a frightening degree what now threatens socialist Europe.

The situation is this: The U.S. has borrowed debt amounting to $50,000 for every citizen in the country totaling nearly $16 trillion. Despite this enormous and growing debt, in most years the federal government willfully spends more than it takes in, averaging deficits of $1.3 trillion annually since 2009, which is approximately 40 percent more than revenue, and has increased the national debt by about a third.

To say it is foolish and risky to have done this for years on end produces one of those “well, duh!” moments.
Yet, that is what we have done, and continue to do.

Those Americans more concerned with the fate of the nation than with their own political well-being know that we cannot continue on this course.

There are three options to correct this crisis: Reduce spending; increase revenue; or a combination of both. The latter is the best option.

Some people advocate deeply cutting the out-of-control and frequently wasteful and fraudulent spending. These people are responsible citizens and conscientious public servants. They are accused of wanting to throw people out on the street, take food from babies, and other equally cartoonish slurs by those who want to maintain the status quo, people who a) benefit from wasting your tax dollars or b) benefit from government misspending.

Government taxation and spending is where common business practice should be applied: what would a business with costs 40 percent higher than its income do? Unlike government, which can – but shouldn’t – print money at will, if it wants to survive, a business must have more income than spending. Government should have a balance of the two.

One of the first things a business would do is cut non-essential expense. Here, the federal government has a vast array of opportunities: combine the dozens of wasteful duplicated services, reduce employee expense through attrition; fire unproductive and self-serving federal workers, and take the virtually unprecedented step of shutting down programs that do not work. Like Head Start, a true tribute to government inefficiency that a Department of Health and Human Services study found has wasted $150 billion since 1965, but produces no lasting benefits for participants.

 It could scale back the frenzied regulatory efforts of the EPA and other agencies that spend our money killing jobs, raising costs for businesses and consumers, but produce negligible improvements, or do more harm than good. It could stop agencies like the GSA from robbing taxpayers to fund lavish get-togethers posing as training activities, and stop giving away the public’s money on dumb ideas like the half-billion President Barack Obama “loaned” to the failed solar company Solyndra, and other self-defeating assaults on the private sector. It could sell the 14,000 federally owned real estate properties that now sit empty and unproductive.

The government could give up its predatory attitude toward businesses and the wealthy in its futile effort to increase government revenue, and the politicians could replace their efforts to gin up class envy with practical steps that would foster job creation, thereby broadening the tax base and actually increasing tax revenue.

The idea of raising taxes on rich folks might cause some people to get all tingly, but it won’t make a significant difference in balancing out the treacherous over-spending in which the federal government continues to indulge.

Federal government fiscal negligence predates Mr. Obama’s presidency by many years, but the sign that proclaims “The Buck Stops Here” is on the desk he campaigned so aggressively to earn in 2008, and before he asks a single American to pay a penny more in taxes to support a bloated bureaucracy or higher costs resulting from excessive regulation, he needs to get his administration under control. Some or perhaps most of the ideologues now running the administration are not up to the task, but the country has lots of capable people outside government that can do the job.

Cross-posted from Observations

There Really Were Good Old Days

There Really Were Good Old Days

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

An old friend and I were conversing recently and reminiscing about the world we grew up in as opposed to the world we actually live in today. It is something “old-timers” like us have been doing since the dawn of time.

We were comparing the price of gasoline where he lives as opposed to the price for the same gasoline here, where I live, on the edge of a coastal resort area.

We live in neighboring states, but here in NC we have one of the highest state gasoline taxes in the United States.  Add to that the proximity of that resort area and I, unfortunately, fall into one of those pricing zones set up for the tourist trade. As a result, the price for gasoline is consistently higher where I live than where he lives… substantially higher.  

Of course, we began comparing the price of gasoline today to what we paid for it as teen-agers.  There is no comparison.  Regular gasoline was 13 cents a gallon and high test was 15 cents per gallon.  Really expensive gas was 17 cents a gallon for regular and 19 cents a gallon for high test – and that was before gas wars.  Then it was not unheard of to pay 11 and 12 cents for a gallon of regular gasoline. 

When you went out to purchase a car, you didn’t buy a car that got the best gas mileage – you bought a car you actually wanted!  They had lots of steel and lots of chrome.  Cars of that age had character unlike these generic models that are so similar you can’t tell who made the cussed thing without getting a good look at the trademark on the hood or trunk lid. 

We both remembered the early gas pumps.  They had five-gallon glass containers on top.  There were manually operated.  They had no electric pumps inside them.  YOU pumped five gallons of gas from the underground tanks up into that glass container atop the pump with a pump handle.  Then you placed the nozzle of the hose into your gas tank and gravity transported the gas from the glass container to the tank of your car.  You could only pump five gallons at a time. If you wanted more, that meant you had to repeat the process. 

It was quite an experience when it was raining or sleeting – or worse. A dollar’s worth of gasoline would last you all week!

A teenager on a date could have a ball on five dollars -- and still have money in his pocket when he got home.

A hamburger was 15 cents and a coke was a five to seven cents, depending upon whether we were in North Carolina or South Carolina.  Since we lived right on the border we were then, and remain today, as much at home in one state as the other.

NOBODY, in their wildest dreams, ever thought gasoline would sell for three to four dollars, and more, per gallon.  NOBODY.  It was inconceivable … period.  This was America and such things just did not happen.

But it did happen -- all because we were not paying attention.  We trusted our government to do what was right for America… not what was politically correct.  Suddenly there was something called the Environmental Protection Agency, and something else called the Department of Energy -- and by that time -- we were well and truly had! We were then, and we are now, sitting on a sea of oil.  Yet, our government will not allow us to knock holes in the dirt and suck it out.

We have oil containing rock and oil containing sand and we have vast deposits of oil just off our coasts -- in our own territorial waters.  It’s just sitting there while we pay through the nose for oil we have to purchase from countries that hate us even after we debase ourselves just for the privilege of buying their oil. 

What kind of government does that to its people?  Answer:  The kind of government we have in Washington, DC.

See, back in the good ole days, we made a terrible mistake.  We trusted our government.  Now that we KNOW better -- it is too late.

Or is it?

If, as some are suggesting, we are about to have a global financial collapse, we’ll get a “do over.”  It won’t be pretty and it is going to hurt like the dickens, but if there is a bright side to an economic apocalypse, it may be that we will get a chance to clean our government of the socialists, Marxists, progressives, and left-wing liberals that spent us into this mess. 

Some say the Good Ole Days were not all that good.  Having lived in both I can tell you the Good Ole Days beat the heck out of the mess we live in today!

J. D. Longstreet

Top Russian Analyst Predicts U.S. Breakup and New North American Currency

Monday a top Russian political analyst predicted that the United States is heading for collapse and will divide into six separate parts. Canada, Mexico and the U.S. will adopt the Amero currency, and China and Russia will regulate world markets.

According to RIA Novosti (Russian News and Information Agency), Professor Igor Panarin was interviewed by Izvestia and the interview was published on Monday.

If and when the U.S. breakup comes about Panarin states that "we” (Russia) “could claim Alaska - it was only granted on lease, after all."

Panarian said that because the dollar “is not secured by anything,” and because America’s debt has “grown like an avalanche” and is now more than 11 trillion, this “is a pyramid that can only collapse.”

Panarin has been making this prediction since 1998. RIA Novosti reported that Panarin made these dire predictions at an international conference in Australia 10 years ago when the U.S. economy appeared to be strong.

Panarin hedged when it came to pinpointing the exact time of the “expected” U.S. economic collapse.

When asked when the U.S. economy would collapse, Panarin said: "It is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world's financial regulator."

Panarin said that China, “with its vast reserves, and Russia, “could play the role of a regulator in Eurasia."

Panarin stated that millions of Americans have lost their savings and because General Motors and Ford are on the verge of collapse and whole cities will be left without work. Because governors are also demanding money from the federal government, dissatisfaction is growing. Panarin continued:

"Dissatisfaction is growing, and at the moment it is only being held back by the elections and the hope that Obama can work miracles. But by spring, it will be clear that there are no miracles."

RIA Novosti also reported that Panarin points to a vulnerable political setup in the U.S., which includes "lack of unified national laws," and "divisions among the elite,” which will bring the breakup about in the very near future.

He predicted that the U.S. will break up into six parts - the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong. . . He even suggested that "we could claim Alaska - it was only granted on lease, after all."

According to RIA Novosti, Panarin claimed that a secret (North American Union) agreement in 2006 was reached between Canada, Mexico and the U.S. making the Amero currency the new monetary unit. This Amero will replace the dollar under the pretext that “terrorists are forging them and they need to be checked."

For a little perspective on Russia’s failing economy read Wednesday’s article, Russia and the Global Economic Crisis by Stephen Sestanovich published by the Council on Foreign Relations.

Apparently Russia’s economy isn’t doing all that well. Export earnings from energy and metals are sharply declining, corporate balance sheets are over-leveraged, there is a “chorus of bailout appeals,” bank failures, credit crunches, failing real-estate and mortgage defaults . . . and the list goes on.

Technorati Tags: Russian,RIA Novosti,Izvestia,Professor Igor Panarin,Amero,North American Union,Federalism,sovereignty,world markets,regulation,independence movements,economic collapse,Alaska,United States,Canada,Mexico,Russia,China

Trackposted to Conservative Cat, The World According to Carl, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.