Its release of first and second quarter results detailed a sharp rise to $46.447 billion in its payments to the Treasury, from $40.456 billion in the first six months of 2011, reminding U.S. taxpayers the Fed has been a significant source of income.Fed a Significant Source of Income?
Say what? From Federal Reserve FAQs
The Federal Reserve does not receive funding through the congressional budgetary process. The Fed’s income comes primarily from the interest on government securities that it has acquired through open market operations. Other sources of income are the interest on foreign currency investments held by the Federal Reserve System; fees received for services provided to depository institutions, such as check clearing, funds transfers, and automated clearinghouse operations; and interest on loans to depository institutions. After paying its expenses, the Federal Reserve turns the rest of its earnings over to the U.S. Treasury. Got that? The Fed receives interest on government debt. The more it bloats its balance sheet, the more interest it receives (from the government, courtesy of US taxpayers of course). Whatever the Fed does not waste on salaries and other expenses, it returns to the US treasury.Somehow the authors of that article managed to turn the Fed into a significant, $46 billion, profit center for the US taxpayers. Wow.
Furthermore, by suppressing interest rates, the Fed has crucified those on fixed income. Also recall that Fed fueled the housing bubble in the first place by holding interest rates too low, too long, in its open market operations.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
www.globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com link to original article
8/29/2012
Mish/ Mike Shedlock – FED A Profit Center For Taxpayers?
Huffington Post – Will Bunch – From Miami Beach To Tampa, 40 Years Of Fear And Loathing Democracy
The last time they held the political conventions in Florida was 1972. It was the summer that I turned 13 years old, and I was falling in love for the first time.
With politics, that is.
Forty years ago, Miami Beach — a half-day’s swamp drive across the sweltering Sunshine State from the hockey-rink home of the 2012 Republican convention — was the pulsating heart of U.S. politics. Terrified by the violence and unrest of the 1968 Democratic confab in Chicago, both parties saw the beachside city, with its gated, spread-out rococo resorts, hippie-friendly police chief and distance from the hubs of campus protest, as the last safe place in America.
Indeed, the GOP convention was utterly forgettable but for the sight of Sammy Davis Jr. hugging the awkward President Richard Nixon. But the Democratic gathering in mid-July was a completely different affair.
The hook was that the party bosses were threatening to derail the likely — but far from assured — nomination of the anti-war, anti-establishment candidate Sen. George McGovern, even though the South Dakotan had won the most primaries. The “McGoos,” as the left-leaning McGovern acolytes were known, beat back the challenge — but what sideshows!
“The streets of ’68 are the aisles of ’72!” shouted gleeful reformers, as recounted by author Rick Perlstein in his epic tale of the era’s politics, Nixonland. Battles over the party platform and issues like women’s rights and abortion were waged not behind closed doors but on the podium, where America heard a delegate plead for gay rights for the first time. The cast of characters in Miami Beach included Abbie Hoffman, Shirley MacLaine, Arthur Miller… and George Wallace, all of it recorded, in a purple haze, by gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson.
It was impossible for me to avert my adolescent eyes. The tiny 9-inch black and white TV set in my bedroom flickered until 4 in the morning, when the delegates stopped squabbling long enough for the networks to finally play the “Star Spangled Banner” and cut to the test pattern. On the final night, a roll call for vice president lasted for hours as votes were cast not just for McGovern’s doomed choice Thomas Eagleton but Yippie Jerry Rubin, newsman Roger Mudd, even Mao Zedong.
It was crazy. It was messy. It was weirdly beautiful. It was democracy.
And so they made sure it never happened again. When Nixon trounced McGovern — who’d given his acceptance speech at 2:45 in the morning, because of the whacked-out VP balloting — in November, leaders of both parties took extraordinary steps to guarantee that TV viewers would never see dissent, a.k.a. free speech, a.k.a. democracy. Platform fights were moved out of prime time and into what Mitt Romney would call “quiet rooms.”
The notion of debating policy in the public forum of a convention became a quaint relic of the era before television and before the Vince Lombardiazation of American politics, before winning wasn’t everything but the only thing.
I’ve thought about 1972 a lot this week, especially when I saw that Romney’s forces down in Tampa were using the excuse of Tropical Storm Isaac to go extreme lengths to keep down challenges from a small band of a couple of hundred delegates supporting libertarian Ron Paul — who hasn’t fully endorsed the ex-Massachusetts governor.
The Republican Party has already imposed a rule that a candidate’s name can’t even be placed in nomination without a majority of delegates in five states (Paul has but three). Now, Team Romney wants to move up by one day the roll call of the states — where the candidate actually claims the nomination, a one-time highlight that’s going the way of the manual typewriter — because it’s afraid Paul’s small band of backers will raise a ruckus.
The funny thing is that conventions are where candidates are supposed to show voters they’re the kind of guy who can stand up to the Iranians or the Chinese or the American enemy du jour. Yet here is Mitt Romney, practically cowering under a table at the idea of giving the Paulities 10 minutes to talk about the gold standard or their fence to keep Americans from fleeing to Mexico.
How sad.
It’s been a long, strange trip in the decades since reporters saw Hunter Thompson peeling out from the driveway of his Miami Beach hotel in his red convertible, a six-pack of beer in the front seat. Democracy was in his rear-view mirror.
Sheldan Nidle – Update For The Spiritual Hierarchy And The Galactic Federation – 29 August 2012 | Lucas 2012 Infos:
3 Chicchan, 13 Uo, 9 Eb
Dratzo! We return! At present, we are waiting for the date to begin the preliminaries that are to take place prior to bringing the new banking system on-line. This period will be swiftly followed by the formal announcement of this new global financial system, which by its very nature will create a situation that makes it impossible for the dark cabal to subsist. It is the subsequent new governments which will allow the prosperity funds to be delivered. Long ago, your world was prevailed upon to accept not only that the irrational Anunnaki worldview was ‘real’ but that no other reality was possible. This belief will be shattered by the new financial system which will open doors that have been kept firmly shut by the dark cabal. The upcoming, vast transference of funds will remove the lockdown on progress that the dark has imposed on you for decades, and once this clamp is gone, the new procedures and accompanying official expositions can go forward. However, these are merely the initial steps that will lead quickly to a massive operation that is to manifest the full agenda decreed by the Light and morph this present nightmare realm into a Light-infused dream.
As these various improvements are announced and your world accordingly changes for the better, a whole new style of governance will come into being which will make a point of imparting more and more details of the changes afoot on many levels. We have come here to be mentors for this great change. One of the big transformative factors will be the release of much technology withheld from you for many decades. We are also keen to make the announcements that lead to disclosure. Disclosure does nothing less than open up this vast galaxy to you once again. With disclosure you will be privy to things that will drastically and irrevocably alter the way you perceive the universe and your place in it. It will no longer be a place of inhospitable, uncharted space; suddenly it will contain places where friends and family reside, and which will be easily accessible, using your new technology. But most importantly, it will be a realm fully fathomable, which gloriously affirms your oneness with all life by demonstrating to you how intertwined we all are to the Creator and to all of Heaven.
Our reunion with you will bring you to the very brink of full consciousness, by allowing you to see just how easy it is to make the final move into your natural state of existence. Once whole again, you can resume your sacred service as Gaia’s faithful mentors, thereby reestablishing a pledge we humans made to her nearly 900,000 years ago. Indeed, this mentorship includes the overseeing of your entire solar system. Resuming your divine service includes reunion with your Inner Earth family and meeting a great many non-corporal Beings who have come from throughout this solar system and who have been carrying out those tasks that you are about to take on again. Your local Spiritual Hierarchy assures us that you are quite ready for these and other tasks which are soon to require your attention. The Agarthans and their cetacean associates are preparing the proclamations to be made to you once you have transformed back into your fully conscious state. This will involve the story of how you originally came to Earth and why many Spiritual Hierarchies agreed to make you fully conscious Beings long ago on Vega.
This history forms part of a huge process of reconnecting you to your special origins, and then, introducing you to the duties of full consciousness and your many responsibilities to this part of physicality. As you begin to recall your origins, it will be necessary to provide a general education that can assist your nascent galactic society to fulfill its truly incredible destiny. Those of you who have agreed in your life contracts to remain here have to become aware of what is expected of you by your local Spiritual Hierarchy. Heaven and you are to work closely to unfold the divine plan in this sector of physicality. One aspect we have already mentioned to you is your mentorship of a vast group of Beings who dearly wish to acquire a Lightbody and make the sacred journey to full consciousness. Such capabilities are what make you very special Beings, and it is why you are being watched by so many throughout the galaxy. It also explains why Heaven permitted us to set up this first contact mission.
Blessings! We are your Ascended Masters! We come on this date with some good news! We are now allowed to explain to you that a new banking system is very close to manifesting. Major banks around your world are currently preparing for the implementation of numerous new rules. These regulations are to alter the operation of international transactions and to prepare for the series of announcements introducing a new hard-backed currency. The governments of your globe have been advised that an international version of N.E.S.A.R.A is to be implemented, and this will precipitate a rapid change in your global political systems. Accordingly, the Galactic Federation has placed several defense ships in position to ensure that these changes happen as agreed to by the dark cabal. The time has come for these dark ones to surrender their power to the Light!
These changes can allow our sacred secret societies to begin to disburse the prosperity funds to the world. We have also advised our associates to prepare a number of special teachings which will explain a great many truths that have been either greatly modified or completely hidden from you for millennia. These circumstances made it necessary for us to hide this information deep within the vaults of many temples and cathedrals until such time as we could release it to you. You may be somewhat shocked at first, but these sacred Truths need to become part once again of your spiritual knowledge of this physical realm. It will begin a process of clarification regarding the wonders and miracles of the state of full consciousness that you are returning to. This subject matter will move to center stage in your lives during the weeks ahead because you are needed by Heaven to resume your sacred service to the Light.
We the Ascended Masters have a divine duty to bring you through the sacred veil and return you to your true Beingness as physical Angels. Thus we welcome the arrival of our kin and the means in Inner Earth for restoring you to that most precious state. All that is being set in motion is done with the aim of fulfilling Heaven’s mandate. You have wandered around in a state of artificial amnesia for far too long, and it is time to reinstate your former wisdom and abilities. The societies cooked up by the dark and orchestrated by the Anunnaki are to cease. Your innate Oneness will be reestablished, allowing you to develop a wonderful prototype of galactic society. This new realm of yours is to welcome the former dark empires of this galaxy and transform them to Light by providing them with a full Lightbody, along with the techniques and etiquette that Spirit requires.
Today, we supplied you with more detail about what is clandestinely happening around your world. These preparations will enable big changes in banking, which in turn will result in the ousting of the dark. The Galactic Federation and its defense ships are supporting these actions and thus the end of this obstructive cabal is near! Be in joy, and ready to accept the gifts of Heaven! Know, dear Ones, that the countless Supply and never-ending Prosperity of Heaven are indeed Yours! So Be It! Selamat Gajun! Selamat Ja! (Sirian for Be One! and Be in Joy!)
New Court Filing Reveals How the 2004 Ohio Presidential Election Was Hacked | The Galactic Free Press:
A new filing in the King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell case includes a copy of the Ohio Secretary of State election production system configuration that was in use in Ohio's 2004 presidential election when there was a sudden and unexpected shift in votes for George W. Bush.
The filing also includes the revealing deposition of the late Michael Connell. Connell served as the IT guru for the Bush family and Karl Rove. Connell ran the private IT firm GovTech that created the controversial system that transferred Ohio's vote count late on election night 2004 to a partisan Republican server site in Chattanooga, Tennessee owned by SmarTech. That is when the vote shift happened, not predicted by the exit polls, that led to Bush's unexpected victory. Connell died a month and a half after giving this deposition in a suspicious small plane crash.
Marylene Raffaelle – The Arcturian Group | The Galactic Free Press:
Marylene Raffaelle – The Arcturian Group – 29 August 2012
Posted on August 29, 2012 by lucas2012infosWe come to wish you all a very happy summer. Much is coming to fruition at this time and we see the light of your dear planet earth becoming intense and awakened. Much is soon to manifest as a result of your hard work dear ones, so do not be surprised as you witness many traditions begin to crumble. It is a time of transition and shifting to new ways of seeing, being, and living. You will be pleasantly surprised when the world finally realizes that there is no need for war, separation, cruelty, and extreme power held by a few. These concepts are remnants of an energy that is now completing for those of you choosing to move forward.
This new world is represented through new ways of living and yet, it is not new at all, for you are simply now awakening to the realization that you are and always have been, One. All living things are connected by virtue of their being in and of the One omnipresent, One omnipotent, and One omniscient Consciousness. As the manifestation of Source, you are also one with every Divine Idea within Divine Consciousness. Think upon that dear ones–you are actually one with Divine ideas of abundance, joy, peace, intelligence, completeness, wholeness, and much more. These Divine ideas are held in place by law. If there were disease or lack in Divine Consciousness, it would be held in place forever and could never be healed or changed.
Many of you are now experiencing painful endings; the leaving behind of people, places, and things that no longer resonate with you. These things as you have known them, are not held in place by Divine law but were the expressions of your state of consciousness at the time they were important to you. Do not be afraid to lovingly let go of all that is finished, because this paves the way for new and higher forms of that which you love to appear in your experience–new friends, new activities, new joys, for nothing real can ever be lost and your new and higher resonance will draw that which is completeness for you, to you.
There are two areas of strong belief firmly intrenched in the third dimensional consciousness and both are causing pain for many at this time. These two are; 1.Beliefs regarding romantic relationships and 2.Beliefs about money.
In third dimensional energy (duality and separation) relationships are based on the concept that “I am half of a couple”. “I need you to give me the feminine energy” (male belief), or “I need you to to give me the masculine energy” (female belief) and “together we are whole”. This concept has been in place for lifetimes and is still being pushed upon you through books, movies, television shows, family, friends, churches etc.
However, as you awaken to your innate completeness, you begin to understand that you are already complete and whole and that as the manifestation of Source, you embody both the masculine and the feminine qualities/energy. Those spiritually ready for this awareness but still needing to integrate their masculine or feminine aspect are now getting ample opportunities for practice through experiences of daily living that force one or the other to take on responsibilities heretofore believed to belong to the opposite sex. You cannot move forward into the new and higher energies while still entertaining the belief that you are half. All have both the masculine and feminine energies. It is a matter bringing them into a balance regardless of what physical form has been chosen for this life time. This awakening is causing conflict in many established marriages and relationships as suddenly one partner realizes his or her completeness while the other chooses to stay in the old energy of being half of a couple.
The other area manifesting many problems now is the struggle to release the beliefs of financial lack and limitation. Mankind creates from its state of consciousness–personally as well as globally. The third dimensional consciousness always manifests as pairs of opposites because it is an energy of duality and separation. Therefore, the world as you have experienced it lifetime after lifetime, has always known lack and limitation, it has become the accepted normal. There is a human matrix of beliefs and it is filled with concepts of lack with more being added each day. Your job is to stop claiming these beliefs as true and thus allowing them to become your state of consciousness. You are ready to move beyond this matrix of beliefs and it is difficult.
Abundance is held in place by Divine law and you are now ready to accept and embrace that. We are not guiding you to sit in poverty repeating over and over; “God is all” while doing nothing, for to “pretend a state of consciousness not attained, is human”. Truth must become a state of realized consciousness before it can manifest. What we are saying, is that it is time to make the first step as you consider acting on a financial situation, a step of realizing that Divine Consciousness (which you are in your true essence) contains nothing of lack. Recognize that you have simply come under the influence of false concepts and beliefs because it is all you have ever known–no judgement, no guilt–just a moving into the new and higher awareness of abundance as being for all, held in place by Divine Law.. This is your journey, this is evolution–your work as you evolve. Remember, you chose to evolve through duality and separation and you are doing a fine job. After assuring yourself of the truth, then proceed take whatever human footsteps may be necessary at the time.
All is about to change very soon and this is why we guide you to let go of blindly holding on to things and ways that no longer work for you. You are moving into new awareness which in turn will lead you into a new and higher state of consciousness. When people try and hold to what is old and finished and no longer resonates simply because of family, friends, false pride or duty, they hold themselves back and cause themselves much unnecessary pain. However, there will always be free will and all can choose when and if they wish to awaken.
It is a new time dear ones, a time for celebration, for that which is real is beginning to manifest. You are not hearing about this through your media, but much is taking place behind the scenes. Hold to your center of truth as best you can with every experience of daily life while visualizing your energy field filled with Light.
You are being bombarded with much that is old and false as the clearing process within and without manifests chaos. The Light is forcing illusions created of shadow energy to surface in order that they be looked at and released. You are beginning to recognize this chaos for what it is– the manifestation of that with is old and untrue, creations of duality and separation.Mankind as a whole is no longer resonating with ideas of war, in spite of the intense and ongoing efforts of those seeking to keep you in bondage to the belief that war is necessary for your safety.
You are now awakening to what is real and the understanding that real power lies within. We love you and congratulate you in your difficult yet necessary work of awakening, dear ones. All is proceeding according to plan.
Trust. Trust. Trust.
We are the Arcturian Group
David Wilcock ~ Will There Be a "Quantum Awakening" in December 2012? | The Galactic Free Press:
Divine Cosmos
David Wilcock, August 28, 2012This beautiful, inspiring reading reminds us that there is only Identity -- and makes some intriguing suggestions about what may occur at the end of this year.
AN INTRODUCTORY NOTEThe last 20 years have been quite the incredible ride -- to say the least -- and it all seems to be coming to a focal-point now.
In less than a month I will be celebrating my 20-year anniversary of sobriety. I have been completely free of mind-altering drugs and / or alcohol since September 21, 1992.I began writing my dreams down every morning, starting the very next day -- and have continued this daily practice ever since.To read the rest of this story, visit divinecosmos.com.
Swiss bank employee arrested in data theft case
The Miami Herald
AP, 8/26/12
BERLIN -- Swiss private bank Julius Baer says a Zurich-based employee has been arrested on suspicion of stealing confidential client information that was later passed to German tax investigators.
Bank spokesman Jan Vonder Muehll confirmed a report Sunday by Swiss weekly SonntagsZeitung about the case.
To read the rest of this story, visit miamiherald.com.
