http://cnsnews.com/news/article/treasury-quietly-warns-expect-debt-limit-be-reached-near-end-2012

Treasury Quietly Warns: 'Expect Debt Limit to Be Reached Near End of 2012'

November 6, 2012

U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

(CNSNews.com) - The U.S. Treasury quietly warned at the end ofa statement issued last Wednesday that it expects the federal government to hit its legal debt limit before the end of this year--which means before the new Congress is seated--and that "extraordinary measures" will be needed before then to keep the government fully funded into the early part of 2013.

On Aug. 2, 2011, President Obama signed a deal he had negotiated with congressional leaders to increase the debt limit of the federal government by $2.4 trillion. But, now, after only 15 months, almost all of that additional borrowing authority has been exhausted.

Although Treasury revealed in its statement on Wednesday that it was likely to hit the debt limit by the end of the year, Treasury Secretary Geithner failed to respond to a letter that Senate Finance Ranking Member Orrin Hatch and Senate Budget Ranking Member Jeff Sessions sent to him on Oct. 15 demanding that he notify them by Nov. 1 what he believes to be the exact date Treasury will hit the debt limit and the date he expects to begin using "extraordinary measures" to avoid it.

"Treasury continues to expect the debt limit to be reached near the end of 2012," says the tenth paragraph of the "Quarterly Refunding Statement" put out by Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Markets Matthew Rutherford.

"However, Treasury has the authority to take certain extraordinary measures to give Congress more time to act to ensure we are able to meet the legal obligations of the United States of America," said the statement. "We continue to expect that these extraordinary measures would provide sufficient 'headroom' under the debt limit to allow the government to continue to meet its obligations until early in 2013."

Prior to the release of this statement, Sen. Hatch and Sen. Sessions sent Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner a letter asking him specific questions about the approaching debt limit and the administration's plans for dealing with it. Hatch's and Sessions's questions included these two: 1) "What is Treasury’s forecast of the date upon which Treasury will find it necessary to use extraordinary measures to manage to keep federal debt at or below the statutory debt limit?" 2) "What is Treasury’s forecast of the date upon which the U.S. government will reach the statutory debt limit given use and exhaustion of these extraordinary measures?"

The senators gave Geithner a "hard deadline" of Nov. 1 for providing an initial response to these questions. Julia Lawless, spokesperson for the Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee, confirmed that as of Nov. 6 the committee had received no response from the Treasury secretary.

As of Oct. 31, according to the Daily Treasury Statement (DTS), the portion of the federal debt subject to the legal limit was $16,222,235,000,000--just $171.765 billion below the $16,394,000,000 debt limit.

In October alone, according to the DTS, the debt subject to the limit increased by $195.214 billion.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-07/morning-after

The Morning After

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/07/2012 06:56 -0500

Obama has been reelected, the Senate remains in the hands of the democrats, while Congress is controlled by the GOP. Most importantly, the printer is firmly in the hands of Ben Bernanke. In other words, nothing has changed, as was largely expected all along. The worst case scenario - a protracted litigation, challenging the results of the election - has been avoided after Mitt Romney contested shortly before midnight, and as a result the immediate downward gap in risk following the election has been largely recouped overnight. More importantly, '4 more years' of the same monetary policy and no end to currency dilution have resulted in a nearly $50 jump in gold overnight with the metal in the $1720s this morning, because while the Fiscal Cliff remains hopelessly unresolved, and the baseline scenario that the market will need to tumble to shock politicians into waking up, remains (as does Goldman's 1250 year end S&P price target), the reality is that no matter what happens, Bernanke and crew will print and monetize the coming deluge of debt (which would also have been the case if Romney had won). And with total debt set to rise to $22+ trillion over the next 4 years, a deluge it will be. Most importantly, with Obama reelected, Europe is now "off the hook" and can finally rock the boat, which means Greece can take its rightful place at the front of the domino chain. Remember: the latest Greek austerity vote is today and voting (i.e. debating) has begun, and with vote results expected later today. It also means that the military festivities in the middle east,where the US now has 2 aircraft carriers and 2 marine assault groups, can resume.

A just released Op-Ed by Pimco's El-Erian touches on all the key points:

Now, the morning after an expensive and acrimonious campaign, a re-elected President Obama must find a way to get Congress to step up to its responsibilities on economic governance. The election did nothing to heal the seemingly intractable partisan divisions in Washington. In fact, the bitter tone of the presidential contest could well encourage further polarisation.

Continued Republican control of the House and a filibuster-prone Senate suggest that President Obama will need to aggressively follow through on his economic vision while naming and shaming Congressional disruptors even more. This could do more than strategically align citizens’ desire for clear economic direction with their low opinion of Congress’s effectiveness; it could also influence the behaviour of new members coming into Congress (and there are quite a few of them).

While markets wait for this to happen, and unfortunately it could take quite a while, bond and equity investors could well experience a series of “Groundhog Days” – finding that a hyperactive Fed (still struggling to compensate for the paralysis of other policymaking entities) remains their best friend; and that the fiscal cliff, Europe’s debt crisis and Middle Eastern geopolitical risks continue to constitute threats to the asset classes’ favourable correlations and low volatility.

Have no doubt: yes, an enormous sum of money was spent on the campaigns; and, yes, many promises were made as the candidates sought to differentiate themselves. Yet, after an initial flurry, it is essentially déjà vu for investors. They will continue to hope for political sputnik moments while worrying about potential market instability.

Some more immediate thoughts, with an FX bias, from SocGen:

Can we expect a risk-on mood following Obama's re-election? In the very short term, that may indeed be the case: his victory means a loose monetary policy and weak USD policy will underpin economic activity in 2013. It implies low US swap rates and US bond markets outperforming the eurozone. However, we remain cautious as we see the initial market reaction as quite muted.

From a FX standpoint, we would see a lower USD/JPY via the interest rate channel (200dma at 79.62) and a higher AUD/USD (risk-on mood and hopefully more reassuring Chinese data, the 28 Sep high at 1.0474 or even the 21 Sep high of 1.0519 may be in sight). The profile for the EUR/USD is not as clear as eurozone drivers remain centre stage. Greece, Spain and, to a lesser extent, Cyprus and Slovenia are still potential sources of stress.

Cautious medium-term outlook. We do not think the initial market reaction constitutes a lasting trend. The US still must address the fiscal cliff over the coming weeks, with what will probably be a divided Congress. That is where the challenge lies. The US administration will have to renew more than half of the existing fiscal measures to avoid a marked slowdown in activity. This will have to go hand in hand with the first (smooth) signs of efforts in terms of fiscal discipline to satisfy rating agencies. Will it be enough to keep markets calm?

Risk factor. In the second scenario, were US structurals to come to the fore and take a turn for the worse, the USD and US bond markets would be in good position for a huge sell-off, with the debt ceiling and rating agencies on the radar, and 2008 still fresh in mind. This is a just risk factor for now. 10Y US swap rates have lost 200bp. The EUR/USD hit 1.60, with a completely different eurozone story. Should such a scenario occur, the cross would have to revisit 1.35 (2011 highs), before contemplating 1.4950 (2011 highs).

And as usual, the comprehensive market recap, via DB's Jim Reid:

Asian markets are retracing earlier losses with major equity benchmarks now off their intraday lows. The Nikkei, Hang Seng, KOSPI were all down somewhere between three and four-tenths of a percent earlier but are now mostly unchanged on the day. The S&P 500 Futures are also off the lows but still 6pts down since the US close. Gold continues to edge higher, up nearly $9 in the overnight session to $1725/oz as the Dollar index continues to weaken. Treasuries are also trimming back some earlier gains although the 10yr yield is still down 6bps at around a 3-week low of 1.688% as we type.

Clearly this is a developing story but the win for Obama likely ensures that money printing is here to stay which is market friendly. It’s still far too early to suggest what it means for the fiscal cliff though. Only time will tell on this front as it depends on how co-operative the Republicans feel after a defeat. This story will now slowly start to unfold.

As we conclude the key vote in the US, another vote to watch today will be in Greece as the Parliament decides on the austerity measures that are prerequisites for the next tranche of the bailout. According to Der Spiegel a narrow victory looks likely at this stage which would see the coalition government secure just enough votes (154) to pass it through the 300 seat parliament. Meanwhile a 48-hour planned protest that started yesterday saw 16,000 Greeks reportedly take to the streets in Athens. Apparently numbers were slightly disappointing which was blamed on public transport workers being on strike!! The Greek tensions have been overshadowed by events in the US but it remains a live issue.

Staying in Europe, markets yesterday perhaps got their first explicit signal from Rajoy with regards to the bailout prospects. The Spanish PM told us that it makes no sense to ask for a rescue if Spanish spreads stay the same. He also added that he’d want to know how much yields would fall with a rescue. Interestingly these headlines fail to provoke much weakness with the 10-year Spanish bond yields finishing the day 9bps lower at 5.66% despite a brief post-headline spike. The market doesn’t appear to be overly concerned on the timing of a Spanish aid request as long as the conditional backstop from ECB remains in place. This standoff can't last forever though and at some point the market will likely lose patience. This however doesn't seem to be imminent.

Beyond Spanish bonds and despite an uninspiring day for Euroland data, yesterday was overall a positive day for risky assets. Equity markets rallied on both sides of the Atlantic with the CAC, DAX and the S&P 500 finishing +0.87%, +0.70% and +0.79% respectively. US equities performance was helped by strength in cyclical sectors such as Energy (+1.57%), Financials (+1.21%) and Industrials (+1.10%). Commodities enjoyed a late surge into the final hours of US trading with Gold and Brent rallying +1.8% and +3.1% to $1716/oz and $111/bbl respectively. This was perhaps prompted by hopes of a President Obama victory and another term for Chairman Bernanke or at least someone in his mould.

Taking a slightly closer look at the data flow the final euro-area October services PMI fell slightly on the month driven by Germany’s headline PMI and a worse-than-expected reading for France. The good news is perhaps a better peripheral reading as Italian and Spanish services PMI edged higher in October to offset a weaker manufacturing sector. That said our economists noted that assuming no change for the rest of Q4 the October composite PMI would point to a GDP contraction of 0.5% qoq in Q4, below the -0.2% qoq that they are forecasting.

Looking at the day ahead, industrial output in Spain and Germany will be the main releases in Europe. The EU will also release its autumn economic forecasts later this morning while we might also hear from Draghi as he speaks at an event in Frankfurt at around midday. Merkel will also address the European Parliament this afternoon at 3.15pm London time before meeting PM Cameron at 10 Downing Street for a dinner later this evening. The key event though will likely be Greece’s parliamentary vote (likely to take place later tonight). It will be a quiet day as far as US data flow is concerned with US consumer credit and mortgage applications the only ones due. The Treasury will sell $24bn in 10-year notes though. In terms of earnings, BNP Paribas and Telefonica are some of the interesting names reporting. As for the US election, there will be a sigh of relief that uncertainty is out of the way and that the Fed are unlikely to have their wings clipped. However how long will it be before the market starts to price in the fiscal cliff scenarios?

Fakakta FEMA

Disorganized federal workers add to mayhem

BY: Mary Lou Byrd
November 6, 2012 12:43 pm

“It’s been the worst nightmare possible,” said Vinny Accetta, a Staten Island resident from the flooded Midland Beach area. He, his wife, Devon, and their toddler twins are staying with relatives seven miles from their home.

Eight days after Hurricane Sandy, Accetta is still waiting for FEMA to come and assess the damage to his home. After the hurricane, he was given a case number by FEMA. Now he waits in the cold.

“FEMA came to my block and a few neighbors were assessed,” he said. “I asked the worker if he could check my home and he replied, ‘You’re not on my list.’ “

President Barack Obama promised during his visit to the Northeast as he surveyed the damage that there would be no “red tape.”

That promise has not been fulfilled.

“It is a crazy run-around with FEMA,” Accetta said. He went back online to check his status, which showed nothing new, and then he said he tried calling FEMA for hours. He still has no answers and has no idea when they will show up.

When asked if he thought there was any type of organization in FEMA, Accetta responded, “none whatsoever.”

The local response also has been slow. The New York City Building Department, according to Accetta, has not assessed the damage to his home and labeled it with a sticker. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that residents’ homes would be tagged with either a green, yellow, or red sticker, indicating how to proceed into a home.

“I heard they were coming today, so I waited from nine o’clock until five,” Accetta said. They did not come. After losing nearly everything, all he is waiting for is a sticker and word from FEMA so he can start to move on and determine what he can do with his home.

FEMA’s incompetence is putting people’s lives at risk as the situation deteriorates.

Temperatures have dipped below freezing in New York City, making matters worse for those suffering without power in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and placing thousands at risk in the upcoming Nor’easter scheduled to hit the area on Wednesday.

Power is unlikely to return for many before the winter storm hits. Con Edison Spokesman Allan Drury said they were working on a press release announcing that homes that were flooded must hire a licensed electrician and get certification before their power is restored.

When asked if a federal agency could do the inspections to alleviate homeowners of this added burden, Drury said, “I believe homeowners are responsible for their own equipment.”

“If their equipment is damaged, they can’t receive electricity,” stated Drury.

Sources tell the Free Beacon that if homeowners aren’t certified, their lines will be cut, an action that would affect approximately 14,000 residents in Staten Island.

The pending Nor’easter may cause additional problems for Con Ed, which has now restored power to almost 90 percent of Staten Islanders.

Many fear that power that has been restored may be knocked out again by the coming storm, so crews from out of state on hand to help with Sandy’s aftermath are being retained until after the storm, according to Con Ed.

Estimates of the damage are soaring due to the storm, and according to Eqecat, a disaster modeling and analysis company, total economic damage could reach $50 billion.

Some of those in the flooded areas in New York from the Rockaways, Queens, to Midland Beach in Staten Island have lost everything. Now they must wait until they get an electrician to clear their home’s equipment before power is restored. That could take weeks with the considerable damage up and down the Northeast.

It is pitch black and uninhabitable in Accetta’s area of Midland Beach, and most homeowners have now sought housing with relatives. Renters are now in shelters, he said.

With no power and with major intersections without working streetlights, it takes a half hour for Accetta to travel seven miles from his parents’ house to his home each day. As a licensed electrician, he said he understands Con Ed’s decision, considering many people’s electrical panels were submerged in water. He said the company is doing a “fantastic job.”

While the local and federal agencies have not yet responded, Accetta has received a warm meal from Red Cross. More help has come from what he labeled a “great network” of family, friends, and even strangers.

“I contacted my insurance adjuster, who has yet to come, and told him that the smell is so bad in my home and I can’t take it anymore,” he said. “He told me to take pictures, and that I could remove the carpeting and other contents.”

He said that, after he made a posting on Facebook, 30 people arrived to help him rip up all the carpeting in his home and discard the contents. Some were friends and family, but many were people he did not even know. With so much help, he moved the crew from his house to five other neighbors’ homes and was able to clean out their homes, too.

Staten Island Councilman James Oddo, on his Twitter account, has been vocal about the lack of attention to Staten Island.

“Funny, I don’t remember seeing Chris Jones on any of the streets in Midland Beach,” he wrote. One day ago, he addressed Hollywood and wrote: “Hey Hollywood, feel free to come to the fore en masse to raise $ for long-term housing needs of Sandy victims.”

http://freebeacon.com/fakakta-fema/

and....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/9654122/Inside-Israels-nuclear-wargames.html

Inside Israel's nuclear wargames

Israeli military leaders have conducted a war game simulating a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, three days after the US Presidential elections. They concluded such an operation could be pulled off without plunging the whole region into war. Iranian experts disagree. David Patrikarakos reports.

By David Patrikarakos

1:56PM GMT 04 Nov 2012

873 Comments

On the 24 September at Israel’s National Institute of Security Studies, an obdurately dull building off a main road in Tel Aviv, three dozen men and women drawn from the top echelons of Israel’s political and military elite met to play a war-game, the outcome of which could help decide whether Israel goes to war with Iran.

I was in Israel with film director, Kevin Sim, who was making a documentary on the war game for ‘Dispatches’ on Channel 4.

The notional starting point of the game was 9 November 2012, just after the American presidential elections. Participants were divided into ten groups each representing likely key players in the conflict – Israel, Iran, the US, Russia, Hezbollah, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Russia and the UN. All the teams were made up of Israelis.

The war game is what it says it is – a game. Despite its seriousness, inside the Institute there was an air of make-believe.

The “Netanyahu” who led the Israeli team was an imposter – a former Deputy Foreign Minister of Israel. Two former government ministers took turns to play Obama. Putin was a former Israeli ambassador to Moscow.

The war game was designed to explore the likely outcome of an Israeli pre-emptive attack on Iran; it didn't examine the legal or moral arguments for or against any such strike but rather focused on how the Iranians might retaliate and what the wider fallout would be.

The game began when the players were told that just after midnight, in a surprise air raid, Israeli bombers had attacked nuclear installations deep inside Iran. First reports indicated that Israel had acted alone without consent or help from the Americans.

The Iranians responded quickly to the Israeli strike, launching a barrage of Shahab-3 ballistic missiles (based on the North Korean Nodong-1 missile) at Israeli targets, including the country’s largest city, Tel Aviv. Then they discussed their political goals.

The most immediate of these was the desire to rebuild the nuclear programme, preferably to a level “beyond what it was on the eve of the strike.” Given their newfound status as victims of an attack, another priority was to have the sanctions on Iran lifted; and to have sanctions placed on Israel for its “unprovoked act.”

They also decided to offer Jordan and Egypt extensive aid packages to cancel their peace treaties with Israel, before debating a key dilemma: whether or not to attack US targets. With Iran’s considerable influence in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention its huge presence in the Gulf, the Iranians could cause huge problems for Washington.

In the end, though, the decision was taken to refrain; Washington was one more complication they didn't need. Russia (which has been building the Bushehr nuclear power plant) was also approached for immediate help to rebuild the devastated facilities, as well as delivery of S-300 surface-to-air missiles and a consignment of Sukhoi 24 aircraft.

Militarily, Iran tried to get its allies – namely, its proxy militia groups Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza – to enter the conflict on its behalf.

"All our help to you over the years," the Israeli playing Ahmadinejad (a former colonel in military intelligence) declared in a meeting with Hezbollah, "has been for the purpose of this moment."

"There’s no such thing as a free lunch," his assistant added. The Lebanese declared they were only too happy to help - in any way that would not bring massive Israeli retaliation down on Lebanon. There was tension in the room.

The Israelis, meanwhile, had met with the “US President” (the Israelis deliberately made no comment on who had won the 7 November US Presidential election), who, despite being unhappy at the lack of a “timely announcement” about the “premature” strike, reiterated his support for Israel. Washington’s primary concern, it seemed, was to avoid an escalation of hostilities in what it considered to be the world’s most volatile region. It raised the status of alert for its forces across the Middle East.

The Israelis were clear on what they wanted from their US ally. Most important was for Washington to use its ‘good offices’ in Lebanon and Gaza to prevent Hezbollah and Hamas inflaming the situation. The Israelis also wanted US ships in the area, armed with Aegis anti-missile systems, to help intercept the Iranian missiles raining down on them.

Finally, they requested that the US maintain pressure on Iran in the UN Security Council, and to help ensure that Israel was not the victim of ‘one sided resolutions in the United Nations."

^{Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad looks on as Iranian military hardware is displayed march during the National Army Day parade in Tehran, Iran}

On the ground, things were tense. As Iran continued shelling Israel, people began to leave Tel Aviv heading to the South. Fearing Israeli retaliation, Hezbollah limited themselves to firing only a few, sporadic Katyusha rockets into northern Israel in an attempt to placate their Iranian patron, and succeeded in pushing the inhabitants of the city of Kiryat Shmona into heading south as well. Israel, in turn, instructed its army not to respond to the firing from Lebanon without the Minister of Defense’s authorization; army reserves were called up.

But the Israelis were also planning – for a second wave of strikes against Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities, which they undertook about 24 hours (in game time) after the first. This second strike seemed to encapsulate the war game for Israel. Its boldness rewarded and Iran simply unable to respond in kind: limited to firing missiles at Israel, many of which were intercepted - largely by itself.

By the game’s end, Iran’s nuclear facilities had been almost totally destroyed. Hezbollah and Hamas had done nothing more than launch a few token rocket salvos at Israel, while Iranian missiles had been of only limited effect. Iran had also failed in its attempts to have the sanctions on it removed and, thanks to US cover in the UN Security Council, it had also failed to have sanctions placed on Israel. It was the game’s clear loser.

Yehuda Ben-Meir, the former deputy foreign minister of Israel, who had played Netanyahu, summed the situation up. “The principal insight we gained was that following an Israeli attack the entire world was interested in calming the region down.

"Before the attack everyone had something to say on a possible attack but once it became a fait accompli the world wanted to know what would happen next, and everyone’s goal was to contain the situation and to prevent escalation.”

An Israeli missile launching from the Iron Dome missile-defence system

I had seen Israel’s perspective on a possible attack and now wanted an Iranian view, so I caught a flight to Istanbul to put the game’s results to Hossein Mousavian, a former member of Iran’s nuclear negotiating team. He believed the game was deeply flawed.

Dismissing the limited nature of Iran’s response, Mousavian argued that in reality Iran would respond ‘by all means’, employing the total power of its armed forces to draw Israel into a long-term war. Perhaps, more importantly, Mousavian argued that Iran would see the US as complicit.

Iranians, he said, are convinced that Israel is too small to attack Iran unilaterally Iran. "They see Israeli as just a baby,” he said. “One that would never act without US assistance.”

The attack would also have huge regional consequences, he continued. Most obviously, Iran would use its status as the symbol of resistance against Israel in the Middle East to stoke the high levels of anti-Americanism that already exist there. Even groups like Al Qaeda, he argued, who are Iran’s enemies, would use “inflamed Muslim sentiment to launch attacks at American citizens across the world and on US soldiers on the many American bases in the region.”

At the end of our interview, he leaned forward, took my arm and looked me right in the eyes. He recalled the Israeli strikes on an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 and a Syrian reactor in 2007.

“This is the big mistake that people make,” he told me. “To think if Israel attacks Iran, like it attacked Iraq and Syria, the Iranians would not retaliate.

"The nation is one hundred percent different. The whole region would be engulfed.”

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/11/06/reminder-well-be-hitting-the-debt-ceiling-before-the-end-of-2012/

Reminder: We’ll be hitting the debt ceiling before the end of 2012

POSTED AT 5:01 PM ON NOVEMBER 6, 2012 BY ERIKA JOHNSEN

The clock is ticking and the results are going to start trickling in soon, but I can’t just sit here twiddling my thumbs for another hour, so here’s a friendly last-minute reminder for you if you’re in the same boat. Regardless of whether the nation picks the incumbent or the challenger as their leader for the next four years, we still have an imminent situation to deal with — the debt limit isn’t going to just raise itself, you know. Via CNS News:

The U.S. Treasury quietly warned at the end of a statement issued last Wednesday that it expects the federal government to hit its legal debt limit before the end of this year–which means before the new Congress is seated–and that “extraordinary measures” will be needed before then to keep the government fully funded into the early part of 2013.

On Aug. 2, 2011, President Obama signed a deal he had negotiated with congressional leaders to increase the debt limit of the federal government by $2.4 trillion. But, now, after only 15 months, almost all of that additional borrowing authority has been exhausted. …

“Treasury continues to expect the debt limit to be reached near the end of 2012,” says the tenth paragraph of the “Quarterly Refunding Statement” put out by Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Markets Matthew Rutherford.

“However, Treasury has the authority to take certain extraordinary measures to give Congress more time to act to ensure we are able to meet the legal obligations of the United States of America,” said the statement. “We continue to expect that these extraordinary measures would provide sufficient ‘headroom’ under the debt limit to allow the government to continue to meet its obligations until early in 2013.”

In a nutshell, the Obama administration’s ferocious spending habits keep driving us up against a wall, and even if the Treasury can do some fancy financial rejiggering to keep the government legally running slightly beyond the deadline and into 2013, the lame duck Congress may still have to deal with this, not to mention the coming “fiscal cliff.” And then, of course, there’s also the possibility that the executive branch and our Congressional makeup will remain unchanged, and then we’ll be no better off than we are now anyways.

So what did America decide today, I wonder? A path to more huge deficits and debt, a lack of leadership, economic stagnation, and more silly legislative-financial dithering like this; or a well-managed path to prosperity and reduced deficits and debt? Time will tell.

and.......

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-11-06/election-2012-how-winner-will-destroy-america

Election 2012: How The Winner Will Destroy America

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/06/2012 14:23 -0500

Authored by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market.com,

Of all the hollow and uninspired elections that this country has suffered through over the past several decades, one might think that at some point long ago the American public would have finally struck a plateau of disenfranchisement; that we could sink no further into despondency, that there is a saturation limit to the corruption of our voting process. Unfortunately, there has been no such luck. I have to say that in all honesty I have never seen more people gut jumbled and disgusted with our electoral system than I have in 2012. Sure, there is still a hyper-gullible segment of the populous that continues to play the game, but even those idiots are beginning to admit that the choices offered are dismal at best, catastrophic at worst. The fog of the false Left/Right paradigm is starting to lift, and all that lay in its wake is a hoard of lost wide-eyed flabbergasted followers without a coattail or a talking point to cling to. Sudanese refugees have a better chance of survival than these people do…

Even in the more obvious of fraudulent past elections there was at least an attempt by the establishment to present a pageant of conflicting ideologies (George W. Bush vs. John Kerry comes to mind). There has always been the Democrat who pretends to be anti-war, or the Republican who pretends to be small government, or the Democrat who pretends to defend our right to privacy, and the Republican who pretends to be pro-2nd Amendment. But in 2012, even the theater of rhetoric has disappeared. Both primary party candidates seem to be sharing the same intestinal tract and the same teleprompter, and now, the average American is asking a new set of questions. They do not wonder how these men will change things for the better. Not at all. Instead, they wonder which one will do LESS DAMAGE while in office. This is the terrible reality we have come to understand in our society today. It is a sad awakening, but a necessary one.

As you read this now, the new President of the United States is being “chosen” or has been chosen. Whoever the “winner” happens to be is ultimately irrelevant. They do not count. They are mascots. Middle management cronies running through the motions to distract the masses while enacting the policies of their superiors. They are fry cooks serving greasy overpriced democracy with no real sustenance. What does matter, though, is what comes next. I’m sorry to say that the idea that one man will do less damage than the other is a naïve sentiment. Democrat? Republican? Obama? Romney? The crimes and calamities wrought will be exactly the same. Take a look into my crystal ball and see the future. Here is how the winner will destroy America…

1) He Will Continue The Policy Of Dollar Devaluation

Neither candidate has expressed any interest through the election or even before it to protect the value of our currency, and both candidates have supported steps towards quantitative easing and fiat printing in order to delay an inevitable national debt crisis. Both Romney and Obama have sung the praises of Ben Bernanke (Romney changed his tune just in time for his campaign, but who's buying that?) and the private Federal Reserve despite the consistent failures of that despotic institution to produce any tangible economic results with their Keynesian methods.

The dollar will see a vast devaluation during the term of this candidate and a loss of world reserve status, leading to stagflation (a combination of the worst elements of deflationary and inflationary crises in the same event). Skyrocketing prices and crumbling unemployment will be the highlights of his presidency, because he will never take measures to reign in or dismantle the primary root cause of the problem; the Federal Reserve itself.

2) He Will Continue Extreme Government Debt Spending

Neither candidate has offered a practical or operable solution to the $16 trillion official national debt problem we now face, let alone the tens of trillions of dollars in entitlement obligations that the Treasury Department never talks about. A nation can only live off food stamps and credit for so long before it implodes like a wet paper sack. And this is exactly what we have become; an entire culture of debt addicts and money hounds searching for our next fix of foreign or central bank cash. The fact is, both Obama and Romney would INCREASE spending while using fiat injections to buttress an ever weakening economy in the name of “stability”. The new president will claim that if spending cuts are initiated, it will send the U.S. financial system into a tailspin and a “return” to recession conditions. This will of course be a lie. We have not left recession/depression conditions since 2008.

3) He Will Support And Expand On Wars In The Middle East

There is no such thing as a mainstream “anti-war candidate” in 2012. Not even a fake one. Obama’s measures of state violence and complete lack of respect for the sovereign internal matters of foreign nations surpass the madness of George Bush Jr. He has even gone so far as to assert that his office has the right to assassinate American citizens without trial, evidence, or due process of the law. Not only has he asserted the right to this power, he has used it! Romney’s position, hilariously, is that Obama has not gone far enough! Either way, the winner in 2012 is going to leap like a vile locust into new countries and unleash a plague of laser guided death. The next president WILL be a war hungry president.

4) He Will Lock Down The Web And Limit Internet Speech

Both Romney and Obama have expressed a desire to establish cybersecurity measures which include vast new governmental authority over the functions and operations of the internet. The ultimate goal? To gain legal precedence for the right to dictate web content, up to and including the ability to label any website a subversive threat to national security or a recruitment tool for “extremists”.

With the establishment spreading completely baseless accusation of cyberthreats coming from every corner of the globe (but mostly from Iran) it would seem that they are conditioning the public for a future encounter with a cyber event, and telling them who to blame when it occurs. The problem is, the most prominent cyber security threats to the internet in the past few years have come not from the Middle East, or Russia, or China, but the U.S. and Israel (Stuxnet anyone?). Keep this in mind when our new president blames the next cyber attack on a convenient political target and then uses the event as an excuse to regulate the web.

5) He Will Erase American Civil Liberties

This president will find a reason, or he will create a reason to diminish Constitutional protections including our right to trial and due process. Both candidates have offered unflinching support for the National Defense Authorization Act and its provisions for indefinite detainment. Neither man has ventured any sincere concerns over the broad nature of the language involved in the labeling of “terrorists” and “extremists”. Literally anyone can now be categorized as an enemy combatant and a threat to national security for almost any reason, and this appears to be the way Obama and Romney like it. That is to say, they both want totalitarian powers, or at the very least, they have made no effort to turn them down.

It is important to note that there has never been a government in history that sought out such powers and did not actually use them. Only a fool would assume his favorite elitist candidate in 2012 will not utilize the extreme authorities now amassed for the executive branch over the past decade.

6) He Will Embrace A Globalist Dynamic And Abandon American Sovereignty

Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are surrounded by “advisers” who are also members of the Council On Foreign Relations, an institution which openly calls for the dissolution of American sovereignty on a regular basis and the creation of a centralized global system dominating the financial, social, and political life of every nation in the world. With the economic stability of the U.S. on the verge of oblivion, it is very likely that a historic crisis will ensue during the first term of the next president, and that he will in response suggest a new global system as the solution.

This system has already been created, in part, by the IMF and World Bank in concert with member governments and revolves around the issuance of a new world reserve currency (Special Drawing Rights) as the centerpiece. I can guarantee with absolute certainty that the next president, regardless of who he happens to be, will promote an IMF rescue package coupling the dollar to the SDR and turning over full economic control of America to an international body. He will make it sound rational, reasonable, and even advantageous, but in the end, he will be selling the globalist snakeoil he was conscripted to sell before his election campaign ever started.

In 2012, it will not be about voting. It will not be about “winning”. It will not even be about getting to the next election. It will be about survival. As big a joke as the 2012 elections have become even to the generally unaware, I am not laughing. I do not need to look at the promises of either candidate. I do not need to weigh their half-assed quick fix policies. All I have to do is look at the current downward trend and understand that the president, whoever he may be, will continue it. If anything is to truly change, it will be because we as Americans finally walk away from the game, enacting our own solutions and our own opposition instead of handing over our power to sniveling errand boys wrapped in flags and expensive suits and self-rightousness every four years. 2012 is going to be the beginning of upheaval and renewal, for better or for worse, and it is certain that the guy in the White House into 2013, Republican or Democrat, is going to be a part of the problem, nothing more…

Catharsis Ours

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

AS a reminder - when the Election " Circus " leaves town Wednesday , next week , next month ....... someone has to clean up behind the elephants and donkeys.....