Why the U.S. Government Hates -and Fears- Gold

By Alan Walsh

The U.S. Government hates Gold because it serves as a clear, unambiguous, and constant sign of their fiscal irresponsibility.

U.S. currency used to be issued by the U.S. Government, and was backed by Gold. You could literally trade-in your dollars for Gold. Then, the Federal Reserve system was created, the dollar was disconnected from Gold, and the U.S. government stopped issuing currency. To really “seal the deal”, the government even outlawed individual ownership of Gold for awhile and forced citizens to sell it to them at a fixed price they set; then they raised the “official” price of Gold, devaluing every dollar citizens held by about 40%.

The Federal Reserve (also referred to as the U.S. central banking system, or central bank) is not a government agency; it’s a private bank, owned by other big banks, and run by people from those banks. When the U.S. Government wants additional money to spend, it buys it at face value ($100 for a $100 bill, for instance) from the Federal Reserve; which creates the currency. That’s why your dollars say “Federal Reserve Note” on them. In order to buy the currency, the U.S. government goes into debt  via Treasury Notes & Bills, etc. The government then spends that money.

Why did the U.S. government do this? So politicians could avoid accountability, buy votes, get reelected, increase their power, and transfer the effect of their spending to the future. This is how the federal government got to be the monster it is today. Under the old system, the government could only spend as much as it held in gold-backed dollars. If they wanted to spend more, they had to tax citizens. Citizens don’t like higher taxes, and get upset. Politicians lose jobs. Government was held accountable. The new Federal Reserve system removes this nasty inconvenience by letting the politicians just go buy currency from the Federal Reserve, creating new debt in the process; and government debt is a claim on the productivity of the nation – therefore it is your debt. Government doesn’t produce; it only consumes – your wealth. The income tax was created at the same time as the Federal Reserve system to pay for this debt.

As government buys more dollars from the Federal Reserve (and creates more debt in the process), it increases the number of dollars in circulation; thus creating inflation – plus damaging boom & bust cycles in the economy – plus interest expense on the debt. This is where Gold becomes very annoying to them. Gold, like any other commodity, adjusts in price with inflation and glaringly points it out. As the number of dollars in circulation goes up, the price of Gold rises.  People see their purchasing power in dollars go down, so they trade them for Gold; which holds its purchasing power in times of inflation and serves as alternative money. Government doesn’t want you to notice their little shell game, and they don’t want you to stop using and holding their inflationary dollars, so they hate Gold.

Our government, and other governments who play the same shell game, try to control the price of Gold and hold it artificially down through surreptitious trading activity in league with major financial firms. They try to send you false signals about their inflationary borrow & spend activity by artificially holding the cost of Gold down. If the price of Gold is low, everything must be okay, right? Wrong! Very, very wrong!

We’ve now reached a point where government borrowing and spending is so extreme that they can’t artificially hold Gold down to the price level they would like anymore.  Thus, Gold is trading near $1,700.00 per ounce. Many experts argue that if the government wasn’t surreptitiously intervening in the market to hold the price of Gold down, it would be trading for $3,000 or more.  Regardless, the rise in the price of Gold is a clear and unambiguous signal that government spending is out of control. The effect of this is to undermine peoples’ faith in the dollar and our government.  That makes it hard for government to keep up their shell game. Their borrowing & spending has also created a debt that the income tax can’t begin to cover – plus those nasty and growing interest obligations.

Sober people have also questioned how much of the Gold the government holds it actually owns anymore. They suspect that the government’s secret Gold sales to flood the market and hold the market price of Gold down have been so extensive that very little of the Gold they hold is actually owned by them anymore. Large Gold sales usually don’t involve physical transfer. An electronic record is created to note the new ownership. Therefore the government may be sitting on a large cache of Gold that “we the people” don’t own anymore. Perhaps this is partly why the price of Gold has risen despite government’s best efforts to hold it down. Maybe they’ve run out of Gold to sell. We can’t know for sure, because the government hides this activity behind a thick wall of secrecy. But bits and pieces of info leak out now and then, and they paint a dismal picture. Investigators have even uncovered documents created by central bankers for central bankers on how to execute market intervention between each other to hold the Gold price down.

As the government shell game grows, people start paying attention, and realizing how they’re being hosed by the government’s inflationary, destructive borrow and spend policy. If more Americans understood how our monetary policy works, and what government’s doing to them, they’d be screaming. Government does everything it can to keep us in ignorance.

Faith in the U.S. Dollar has been so severely undermined that other nations, who are not so naive in these matters, are seriously talking about abandoning the dollar as the “world currency”, a beneficial status which the U.S. has enjoyed since the end of World War II. If that happens, investment coming into the U.S. will decline and government will find it increasingly difficult to sell or roll-over their debt; China being our largest current creditor. Then the U.S. will hit a “fiscal cliff” that makes the current one look like a ride in the park.

The U.S. national debt is now over $16 Trillion dollars; over $52,000 per person, and approx. 125% of gross domestic product (gross domestic product being our productivity as a nation – your productivity – the productivity our government taxes you on) – a new record by far. The current government’s policies alone added $8 Trillion to that debt in the last four years. Then there’s the interest on all that debt. Budget projections indicate that the national debt could hit $20 Trillion in the next couple years if we keep going the way we are. Other nations are starting to look at the U.S. like Greece; a bankrupt financial disaster. We’re mortgaging our nation to entities like China, who are not exactly our friends. The current administration’s indebted the nation to a greater extent than any other, but they’re not the only perpetrators. This has been going for decades since the new system was created. It’s not a Democrat or Republican problem – it’s a national tragedy.

Gold at $1,700 an ounce sends this signal clearly – which government fears and hates.

The government wants you to hold their inflationary dollars. The Federal Reserve does too; and bad-mouths Gold. The finance houses who surreptitiously work with the government to control the price of Gold tell you that Gold is an unproductive asset, and you should hold dollars instead; while they quietly buy it for their own accounts. They’re all propagandizing you to keep their shell game going. I remember one time a couple of years ago when one of the major financial houses (JP Morgan I believe) was publicly telling it’s clients to sell Gold, while privately buying it for their own account.

The national tragedy goes even deeper. The Federal Reserve holds secret meetings where it shares inside information with the finance houses who help it; information that they use to make millions and billions on the markets from you unknowing investors. If you think the equity & debt markets are free and open, think again. It’s all manipulated.

Let’s talk about one of the many ways in which your government shafts you with this shell game – Social Security. You are required to make tax payments into Social Security. These payments are made with post-income tax dollars (you’re first income-taxed on the income you pay the social security tax with). The government spends the social security revenues (money) and replaces them in the social security trust fund with government debt instruments; thus, the government spends your social security contributions as it sees fit, and replaces them with new government debt. Of course, government debt is a claim on the productivity of the country – your productivity – and therefore represents a new debt you as citizens take on. This is important to note, because government spends your social security contributions, and creates a new debt owed by you as a citizen (another tax) for payment of benefits to you. Then, when you receive your benefits, up to 85% of them are subject to income tax depending on your filing status and how much income from other sources you have coming in.

To recap, the government first taxes the income you pay social security taxes with (income tax), then taxes you for social security (social security tax), then spends the money and replaces it with new debt (a new claim on your productivity, or tax), and then taxes you on your benefits (income tax). That’s three taxes on the money you put into social security, plus the social security tax itself. Of course, the government must pay interest on the new debt they created (another claim on your productivity, or tax), so really you pay five taxes; and your contributions are spent now for anything the government wants. Most citizens think the government is taking their money and putting it into a social security trust fund (savings account) to pay your benefits. Nope! That money’s gone. They spent it and replaced it with debt – debt that you owe as citizens.

The government says that your benefits money is safe because it’s invested in instruments guaranteed by the U.S. government. What they really mean is that your benefit claims are backed by their ability to tax you; or create new debt that you owe as a citizen; and that’s the only way those benefits are going to be paid. They just keep spending the tax money as it comes in, and pass the buck for social security obligations to future generations. Neat trick huh?

Additionally, “people retiring today are part of the first generation of workers who have paid more in Social Security taxes during their careers than they will receive in benefits after they retire. It’s a historic shift that will only get worse for future retirees, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.”  The government absorbed all the money you put in, plus the employer contributions, and you won’t even get back what you alone put in; let alone all the interest you could have earned on that money over the years. This is what your government has done for you. Isn’t it great? What a deal!

Your wealth, purchasing power, and financial stability are being undermined every day by the government’s borrow & spend shell game, the underhanded dealings of the Federal Reserve and it’s finance house cronies, and very likely the sale of our nation’s Gold reserves (your Gold reserves) to manipulate the markets and fool you. Even your most basic “protections” are being undermined by government subterfuge. Gold serves as a clear warning, and an alternative.

That’s why the U.S. government hates -and fears- Gold.

Be informed.

Learn More About the U.S. Government Monetary Policy:

http://walshal.wordpress.com/2009/04/11/monetary-policy-a-primer/

Other Suggested Reading:

America Has Become a Pinata

http://walshal.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/america-has-become-a-pinata/

Cutting the Deficit: Sacrificing Workers to Save the Rich

“There’s class warfare, all right, but its my class, the rich class
that’s making war and we’re winning” – Warren Buffet

By James Petras

November 29, 2010 “Information Clearing House” – The most important and popular social and tax programs in the United States are threatened by a self-styled “Bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform”. Appointed by President Obama on February 18, 2010, co-chaired by two longstanding champions of Wall Street: ex Senator Simpson (R, WY) and former Clintonite White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles. The Commission Report issued November 10 proposes to slash social security payments, reducing recipients to poverty, raise the retirement age to 69 ensuring that millions of workers will die before they can retire, or enter retirement in ill health; reduce or freeze cost of living increases through inflation indexes which understate by half the rises in food, gas, hospital and education. The Commission proposes deep cuts in Medicare, increased Medicaid co-pays and slashing $54 billion from graduate medical education. The Commission proposes to eliminate tax breaks including deductions for home mortgage interest payments while taxing employer provided medical insurance.

The same Commission Report proposes to reduce capital gains and income taxes for the rich by up to 24%.
President Obama and the Republican leadership praised the Commission and wants “to give them space to work on it”.

The so-called crisis of Social Security is a result of the Republican and Democratic governments siphoning off payments into the general fund. The forthcoming shortfall (2030) can be easily remedied by lifting the payroll tax ceiling, for the rich, taxing all earned income. Medical costs can be reduced by 50% by replacing the for profit corporate health insurance and pharmaceutical corporations with a non-profit national health system, similar to successful programs in Europe and Canada.Both Medical plans and Social Security can be easily funded by imposing a 1%sales tax On the sale of stocks and bonds.

The deficit proposals put forth by Obama’s Bipartisan Commission threaten to push the one-third of retirees who depend mainly on their social security payments into the food kitchens or destitution. The added cost and reductions in health care will increase the mortality rate among working families. The increase in retirement age will result in “work until you die”, with no time for leisure, travel or grandchildren. It is time to send a message to Washington: cut Social Security and Medicare and home interest deductions and you will visit Washington on your own time.

Social Security strained by early retirements

WASHINGTON – Big job losses and a spike in early retirement claims from laid-off seniors will force Social Security to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes the next two years, the first time that’s happened since the 1980s.

The deficits — $10 billion in 2010 and $9 billion in 2011 — won’t affect payments to retirees because Social Security has accumulated surpluses from previous years totaling $2.5 trillion. But they will add to the overall federal deficit.

Applications for retirement benefits are 23 percent higher than last year, while disability claims have risen by about 20 percent. Social Security officials had expected applications to increase from the growing number of baby boomers reaching retirement, but they didn’t expect the increase to be so large.

What happened? The recession hit and many older workers suddenly found themselves laid off with no place to turn but Social Security.

“A lot of people who in better times would have continued working are opting to retire,” said Alan J. Auerbach, an economics and law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “If they were younger, we would call them unemployed.”

Job losses are forcing more retirements even though an increasing number of older people want to keep working. Many can’t afford to retire, especially after the financial collapse demolished their nest eggs.

Some have no choice.

Marylyn Kish turns 62 in December, making her eligible for early benefits. She wants to put off applying for Social Security until she is at least 67 because the longer you wait, the larger your monthly check.

But she first needs to find a job.

Kish lives in tiny Concord Township in Lake County, Ohio, northeast of Cleveland. The region, like many others, has been hit hard by the recession.

She was laid off about a year ago from her job as an office manager at an employment agency and now spends hours each morning scouring job sites on the Internet. Neither she nor her husband, Raymond, has health insurance.

“I want to work,” she said. “I have a brain and I want to use it.”

Kish is far from alone. The share of U.S. residents in their 60s either working or looking for work has climbed steadily since the mid-1990s, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This year, more than 55 percent of people age 60 to 64 are still in the labor force, compared with about 46 percent a decade ago.

Kish said her husband already gets early benefits. She will have to apply, too, if she doesn’t soon find a job.

“We won’t starve,” she said. “But I want more than that. I want to be able to do more than just pay my bills.”

Nearly 2.2 million people applied for Social Security retirement benefits from start of the budget year in October through July, compared with just under 1.8 million in the same period last year.

The increase in early retirements is hurting Social Security’s short-term finances, already strained from the loss of 6.9 million U.S. jobs. Social Security is funded through payroll taxes, which are down because of so many lost jobs.

The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that Social Security will pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes next year and in 2011, a first since the early 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security.

Social Security is projected to start generating surpluses again in 2012 before permanently returning to deficits in 2016 unless Congress acts again to shore up the program. Without a new fix, the $2.5 trillion in Social Security’s trust funds will be exhausted in 2037. Those funds have actually been spent over the years on other government programs. They are now represented by government bonds, or IOUs, that will have to be repaid as Social Security draws down its trust fund.

President Barack Obama has said he would like to tackle Social Security next year.

“The thing to keep in mind is that it’s unlikely we are going to pull out (of the recession) with a strong recovery,” said Kent Smetters, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “These deficits may last longer than a year or two.”

About 43 million retirees and their dependents receive Social Security benefits. An additional 9.5 million receive disability benefits. The average monthly benefit for retirees is $1,100 while the average disability benefit is about $920.

The recession is also fueling applications for disability benefits, said Stephen C. Goss, the Social Security Administration’s chief actuary. In a typical year, about 2.5 million people apply for disability benefits, including Supplemental Security Income. Applications are on pace to reach 3 million in the budget year that ends this month and even more are expected next year, Goss said.

A lot of people who had been working despite their disabilities are applying for benefits after losing their jobs. “When there’s a bad recession and we lose 6 million jobs, people of all types are going to be part of that,” Goss said.

Nancy Rhoades said she dreads applying for disability benefits because of her multiple sclerosis. Rhoades, who lives in Orange, Va., about 75 miles northwest of Richmond, said her illness is physically draining, but she takes pride in working and caring for herself.

In June, however, her hours were cut in half — to just 10 a week — at a community services organization. She lost her health benefits, though she is able to buy insurance through work, for about $530 a month.

“I’ve had to go into my retirement annuity for medical costs,” she said.

Her husband, Wayne, turned 62 on Sunday, and has applied for early Social Security benefits. He still works part time.

Nancy Rhoades is just 56, so she won’t be eligible for retirement benefits for six more years. She’s pretty confident she would qualify for disability benefits, but would rather work.

“You don’t think of things like this happening to you,” she said. “You want to be in a position to work until retirement, and even after retirement.”

Link to Article

Millions face shrinking Social Security payments

WASHINGTON – Millions of older people face shrinking Social Security checks next year, the first time in a generation that payments would not rise. The trustees who oversee Social Security are projecting there won’t be a cost of living adjustment (COLA) for the next two years. That hasn’t happened since automatic increases were adopted in 1975.

By law, Social Security benefits cannot go down. Nevertheless, monthly payments would drop for millions of people in the Medicare prescription drug program because the premiums, which often are deducted from Social Security payments, are scheduled to go up slightly.

“I will promise you, they count on that COLA,” said Barbara Kennelly, a former Democratic congresswoman from Connecticut who now heads the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. “To some people, it might not be a big deal. But to seniors, especially with their health care costs, it is a big deal.”

Cost of living adjustments are pegged to inflation, which has been negative this year, largely because energy prices are below 2008 levels.

Go to Article

Social Security? Not Exactly

By Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin

The first public retirement pension scheme was created by Otto von Bismarck in 1880 Germany. Fifty years later, during the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt followed suit in the United States. As we’ve seen, the number of people expected to reach the retirement age of 65 was not considered to pose a threat to future funding. Life expectancy in 1935, in the United States, for example, was 76.9 for men. Workers relying on the plan for retirement would not receive much each month and were not expected to live long enough to drain the system.

When Social Security was founded, the typical US worker at age 65 could expect to live another 11.9 years. But if today’s official projections are right, by the year 2040 the typical 65-year-old worker can expect to live at least another 19.2 years. If the normal retirement age had been indexed to longevity since 1935, today’s worker would be waiting until age 73 to receive full benefits and tomorrow’s workers even longer.

In a report called “Demographics and Capital Markets Returns,” Robert Arnott and Anne Casscells argue that the crisis is not in Social Security, but in demographics. “When an entire society ages,” suggest Arnott and Casscells, “…the thing that matters most is the ratio between the workers to retirees. Unfortunately, the aging of the baby boom generation, which is a significant bulge in population, will cause a dramatic increase in the ratio between workers to retirees, one that will put enormous strain on society and cause friction between generations.”

In the United States, as in other developed countries, the unfunded benefit liability for public pensions amounts to 100 percent to 250 percent of GDP. It is a ” hidden debt ” far greater than official public debt. Unlike in the private sector, these debts are not amortized as expenses over 30 to 40 years. And it may be worth pointing out that under normal conditions economies do not run such crushing deficits. They only do so in crisis mode.

The annual cost of Social Security benefits represented 4.4 percent of GDP in 2008 and is projected to increase to 6.2 percent of GDP in 2034, and then decline to about 5.8 percent of GDP by 2050 and remain at about that level.

And to the retiring boomers’ other doubts and insecurities, we might add that US health care costs are expected to rise by 7 percent of GDP over the next 40 years – a rate that is more than twice as fast as other developing nations. The “old old,” – those aged 80 and over – are predicted to rise sharply through 2050 and will dramatically increase long – term care costs as well as disability, dependence, and health care expenses.

In fact, by official projections, in 2030, the US government will be spending more on nursing homes than it spends on Social Security today. “Although people justifiably worry about Social Security,” says Victor Fuchs, an economist who studies the health care industry, “paying for old folks’ health care is the real 800-pound gorilla facing the US economy.” Adding projections for Medicare and Medicaid ‘s expenditures to those of Social Security could raise the total cost to more than 50 percent of payroll taxes.

The fiscal kickers of health cost inflation and political demand for more long-term care benefits threaten to raise public spending dramatically in the United States. Between 2005 and the fall of 2008, we spent two and a half years chronicling the efforts of David Walker, the former comptroller general of the United States, and Bob Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, to reign in reform and shore up the Social Security and Medicare systems. The project yielded a feature length documentary film, which earned us a trip to the Sundance Film Festival in January of 2008 and another to the Critic’s Choice Awards in Los Angeles a year later. We published a best-selling companion book of the same title in late 2008. You’re encouraged to delve into the numbers we presented in the film and book. They’re truly mindboggling. But in many ways the project was dated the moment we released it to the public.

The credit crisis that reached a fever pitch developed in 2008 pushed the date of insolvency of these programs ever closer. On May 13, 2009, the Medicare Trustees warned that the fund they tap to pay for beneficiaries’ hospital care will be insolvent by 2017 – two years earlier than trustees had predicted the year before. The program has been paying out more than it collects in taxes and interest since last year, in part due to a recession well underway. Medicare would have to deposit $ 13.4 trillion – $ 1 trillion higher than last year’s estimate – into an interest-earning account today in order for the hospital fund to pay its scheduled benefits over the next 75 years. The program’s total unfunded obligation, which includes doctor and prescription drug benefits, is $37.8 trillion. The trustees estimated that in coming years, Medicare spending will rise faster than workers’ earnings or the economy as a whole.

Trustees say that while the financial standing of Social Security decreased more sharply than Medicare last year, the health program remains at greater risk of insolvency. The financial difficulties facing Social Security and Medicare pose serious challenges, the report concluded.

For Social Security, the reform options are relatively well understood but the choices are difficult. Medicare is a bigger challenge. Its cost growth can be contained without sacrificing quality of care only if health care cost growth more generally is contained. But despite the difficulties – indeed, because of the difficulties – it is essential that action be taken soon, particularly to control health care costs.

After the revised Social Security and Medicare announcement the world began to wonder: Can the US hold onto its AAA credit rating?

“The US government has had a triple-A credit rating since 1917,” David Walker, now president and CEO of the Peterson G. Peterson Foundation, commented in the Financial Time s following the release of the Trustees report, ” but it is unclear how long this will continue to be the case. In my view, either one of two developments could be enough to cause us to lose our top rating.

“First, while comprehensive health care reform is needed, it must not further harm our nation ‘ s financial condition. Doing so would send a signal that fiscal prudence is being ignored in the drive to meet societal wants, further mortgaging the country’s future.

“Second, failure by the federal government to create a process that would enable tough spending, tax and budget control choices to be made after we turn the corner on the economy would send a signal that our political system is not up to the task of addressing the large, known and growing structural imbalances confronting us.”

Of course, we must note that the whole credit rating biz is…well…corrupt. The agencies that are responsible for dishing out sovereign credit ratings (S&P, Fitch, and Moody’s) are the same ones that left us all out to dry in 2007. (Of course, mortgage – backed securities get a AAA…housing prices never fall!) Rest assured, if Wall Street can buy its way into AAA, Uncle Sam surely can, too.

But even Moody’s is starting to hedge their bets. They’ve since created three subdivisions within their AAA rating: resistant, resilient, and vulnerable…a corporate way of saying the good, the bad, and the ugly. While the United States isn’t in the worst of the bunch, it’s certainly not the best.

Social Security Reform in the Offing?

Add the possibility of Social Security reform to the continuing likelihood of healthcare reform, and HR leaders have workforce-planning issues of substantial complexity to work through — including the possibility that workers will remain on the job longer.

By Dallas Salisbury

 “When it rains, it pours” is one of those old sayings that has taken on new meaning in the last year.

The economic crisis has certainly qualified as a major downpour — one that is finally showing some signs of letting up.

And in the midst of that, President Barack Obama has set out to have many of his policy initiatives take on the quality of major storms with lots of disruption, rather than minor disturbances. In policy “speak,” that means comprehensive “reform,” rather than just moving things around at the edges.

The major energy bill, financial regulation and healthcare reform have been the primary focus, but Social Security may now be added to the list.

Link to article.

http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/story.jsp?storyId=229507163

REVENUE BREAKDOWN – Obama’s Spending Spree

REVENUE BREAKDOWN – Obama’s Spending Spree

By Stephen Wellman
June 5, 2009

 

This will cover spending and tax revenues for the week starting June 1, 2009. It was a busy week for the US TREASURY and one of the highlights was Tim Geithner’s meeting in China. Laughing students aside, he had a tough act to sell! Yet he kept to the same script the US FED and US TREASURY have been saying for decades now their mantra of STRONG DOLLAR … STRONG DOLLAR. Its their mantra but not their practice.

BLS WAGES

BLS data for wages that was released on June 4th to NO FANFARE … The FANFARE that moved the DOW that day was for the small dip in unemployment claims. Meanwhile if you read the hidden details, like I do, you see that there has been some massive hour cuts for American workers for the Q1 2009. That reflects perfectly with my collapse scenario for the US PAYROLL WITHHOLDING TAX REVENUES. If workers work less hours then there will be less tax revenues. Even here in Hawaii Governor Lingle is making State employees take mandatory three day furloughs(no pay) every month in order to cut costs.

What stuck out was this report on the MANUFACTURING SECTOR:

Manufacturing

Productivity decreased at a 2.7 percent annual rate in the manufacturing sector during the first quarter of 2009, reflecting a 21.7 percent decrease in output and a 19.5 percent decrease in hours (tables A and 3). These were the largest-ever declines in the output and hours series, which begin with data for the second quarter of 1987. Over the last four quarters, manufacturing productivity fell 3.2 percent, the largest four-quarter decline in the series (tables A and 3). This contrasts with the 3.7 percent average annual increase from 2000 to 2007. In the durable goods manufacturing subsector, output declined 31.0 percent and hours fell 23.0 percent, yielding a productivity decline of 10.4 percent. In nondurable goods industries, productivity rose 1.9 percent as the decline in output of 11.6 percent was less than the 13.2 percent decline in hours.

Hourly compensation in manufacturing grew 13.4 percent during the first quarter of 2009, reflecting a 15.8 percent rise in durable goods industries and a 10.1 percent rise in the nondurable goods industries (seasonally-adjusted annual rates). Real hourly compensation, which takes into account changes in consumer prices, increased 16.1 percent for all manufacturing workers. Unit labor costs rose 16.6 percent in manufacturing during the first quarter of 2009, after increasing 17.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008. Over the last four quarters total manufacturing unit labor costs increased 12.0 percent, the largest increase in the series.

These moves represent the BIGGEST moves since 1987. So things are falling off a cliff for America’s manufacturing base. I have also reviewed this same info for the State Of California and it is confirmed. The biggest drops in payroll for California are Construction and Manufacturing. The reports don’t really say why, but I imagine it is due to closing doors or moving out! Interesting the two sectors which show the least decline in employment are mining and healthcare. Healthcare in California is stable.

So productivity decreases while wage costs increase. Hummmmm??? NEXT!

US TREASURY DAIIY STATEMENT

Well on June 3rd, 2009, the US TREASURY spent $22.332BIL USD on Social Security benefits in 24 hours. That put our SPEND RATE up to 6.00. The US TREASURY only took in $7.559BIL USD in tax revenues on June 3rd and out of that $7.449BIL was from US PAYROLL TAX REVENUES. How much tax did the US corporations pay? $52mil. Those rich people with their Estate taxes only paid in $3mil USD that day.

Here is the LINK to the US TREASURY DAILY STATEMENT for June 3, 2009.

So how much have we spent on Social Security for FY 2009 so far? Around $385.7BIL USD and how much on TARP? Around $321.4BIL USD … not much difference. But on UNCLASSIFIED we have spent way over what we spend on Social Security at $413.6BIL USD. Between OTHER and UNCLASSIFED we have spent a combined total of $1.777TRIL USD and the media is dead silent. There’s so much money in the system on a daily basis the US TREASURY can’t even line item it!

TRUST FUND IOUS IN LAYMAN’S TERMS

There has been much talk about how the US TREASURY “borrows” from the Social Security Trust Fund. If only that were the only Trust Fund they hand IOUs to!

On every US TREASURY DAILY STATEMENT is a term called GOVERNMENT ACCOUNT SERIES. First TABLE III-B refers you back to TABLE III-A where there is a breakdown of both “marketable”(bills, notes and bonds) and “nonmarketable”(intergovernment debt). As anyone with eyes can plainly see the vast majority of “debt” is in the “Government Account Series” line item in the “non-marketable” section of both TABLES III-A and III-B. Just think of that BIG number as the UNFUNDED LIABILITY number for US CONgress to borrow from the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds and many other trust funds you probably have never heard of. This is the magic hocus-pocus of IOUs that are suppose to be repaid in our lifetime.

So this stuff is “ON-BUDGET” and “OFF-BUDGET”. The “OFF-BUDGET” debt did not start until 1937 during the Great Depression, under FDR, but it has steadily grown since then just like everything that BIG GOVERNMENT does. Once again both DEMS and REPS have been guilty of growing the gross DEBT; both are experts at fiscal irresponsibility.

Back to the Government Account Series. These are non-marketable securities, implicit debt, guaranteed by the US government. They are mainly TRUST FUNDS. This chart of TRUST FUNDS is from the Financial Management Service, a bureau of the US TREASURY. I think it is important to get a perspective on just how widespread this addiction to SPEND has become. It has infested all manners of solvent entities and turned them into IOU ridden wards of the state.

The following TABLE FD-3 is only reported monthly, so March 2009 is the last data point.

Here is the LINK to the website that publishes these tables. Click on “Federal Debt”.

You can see that the US government owes these Trust Funds a total of trillions.

I found this statement from the FMS … “Government account series (FD-2)—Certain trust fund statutes require the Secretary of the Treasury to apply monies held by these funds toward the issuance of nonmarketable special securities. These securities are sold directly by Treasury to a specific Government agency, trust fund, or account. Their rate is based on an average of market yields on outstanding Treasury obligations, and they may be redeemed at the option of the holder. Roughly 80 percent of these are issued to five holders: the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund; the civil service retirement and disability fund; the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund; the military retirement fund; and the Unemployment Trust Fund.”

The BIG FIVE!!

I’ll bet they are “special”! I just hope we never find out just how “special” they really are!

There are also “marketable bonds” as per Table III-B of the US TREASURY DAILY STATEMENT. Every BOND issued by companies or governments has a “Redemption Value” upon maturity whereby the company, or in this case the government, pays to redeem it.

So in the end should the US TREASURY count these securities or “IOUs” when they borrow from a multitude of Trust Funds? The idea is that these “IOUs” will be made good when they are due or “mature”. So in theory as these IOUs mature the government must print money to pay them if there are no tax revenues to cover them. I personally am not counting on getting any checks from Social Security by time I retire. I also doubt I am going to have Medicare, but instead some Third World version of UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE that is tantamount to a Medicare default.

Just because all this is listed on the US TREASURY DAILY STATEMENT don’t get the idea that all these numbers add up and make sense … THEY DON’T! Try to add up the OTHER total with the breakdown that is listed for OTHER, it never adds up.

This is the stuff that the GAO has been complaining about for decades now and is the main reason that David Walker(former GAO Chief)quit.

So next time when you hear someone compare the US government to ENRON, you’ll know why. More to the point you’ll know where ENRON got all their ideas from! Yet the S&P gives out their AAA rating … AAA is virtually worthless in my opinion, but then again I am not CHINA or the millions of people out there sitting in cash on the sidelines using Treasuries or FDIC accounts. By the way the US government even borrows from a trust fund entitled “Deposit Insurance Fund”. Hummmmmm??? I wonder if that is related to the FDIC.

All this info is available to the public so feel free to do your own research. When was the last time any of this was discussed in the SITUATION ROOM or on SQUAWK BOX or on OPRAH? Nobody wants to know the real truth and even after going on 60 MINUTES, David Walker walked away completely convinced that the US CONgress is just that … a CON!

None of this data supports a STRONG DOLLAR POLICY. Strangely enough it all comes from the same entity that Tim Geithner heads, the US TREASURY.

Gold is the only durable hedge against this enormous monetary fraud of the irredeemable currency Ponzi scheme.

GOVERNMENT IS ONLY AS HONEST AS ITS MONEY …