Federal Debt Relief System is at the forefront in the battle to defend the constitution by arming millions of Americans with this sobering information and vital education.

Federal Debt Relief System wants to address those chanting the disturbing chorus of "voter fraud," or “ACORN!” elections are being influenced and sometimes determined by people ineligible to cast a ballot impersonating eligible voters. 

To be sure, the Americans see disenfranchising, disturbing instances of "voter fraud" every election cycle. However, the "fraud" we witness is different. We know of deceptive practices, misinformation and lies that are used to keep registered, legitimate voters away from the polls. Sadly, we also still find ourselves fighting attempts by unscrupulous election officials to disenfranchise the people in communities we represent. 

It is our experience that "voter impersonation" is actually quite rare. Nationwide, between 2002 and 2006, when a crackdown on voter fraud was one of the U.S. Justice Department's top priorities, more than 400 million votes were cast, but an average of only 30 federal cases per year were prosecuted.

Regardless of the questionable prevalence of this type of election fraud, several states have passed discriminatory photo ID laws. Sadly, rather than addressing real voter fraud, the true effect of these laws is to disenfranchise the estimated 20 million Americans who have not purchased IDs.  Disproportionately these people are minorities, elderly and low-income Americans.

Yet, malicious voter fraud continues. In Virginia, registered voters received robotic calls stating that they could vote by telephone by pressing a number for the candidate of their choice. The call ended by stating that they had now voted and didn't need to go to the polls.

In 2006 in Orange County, Calif., 14,000 Latino voters got letters in Spanish saying it was a crime for immigrants to vote in a federal election. It didn't say that immigrants who are citizens have the right to vote. 

The NAACP has also seen a dramatic increase in erroneous purging of voting rolls, as well as eligible voters mistakenly not added. These are voters believing or having been told that they have done everything correctly, only to be turned away from the voting booth on Election Day. 

We know from Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 that erroneous purging of the rolls, underestimating the number of needed functioning voting machines and ballots, the inadequate number and under-trained poll workers, intimidation of voters and the misuse of photo ID requirements, especially in neighborhoods with heavy concentrations of racial and ethnic minorities, along with blocked access to polling sites and intentional deception and voter intimidation, lead to disenfranchisement of eligible voters. These problems are more than just "voter fraud." These problems are a national travesty. 

Federal Debt Relief System believes it’s important that people know the truth so that they can make up their own minds. 

See Also Bailout, Credit Reform Now

Posted by bobthestrawman at 4:38 PM EST

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Federal Debt Relief System is at the forefront in the battle to defend and restore America’s constitution by arming millions with this sobering information and vital education.

Should we be concerned over election fraud in the upcoming election? If history is any guide, then the emphatic answer is "yes!" There are numerous cases, just in the last decade or so, in which elections were stolen and races were decided by a handful of votes.

An investigation of 5,000 fraudulent absentee ballots in Miami in 1997 resulted in the election results being overturned. In addition to votes by fictitious individuals and persons using false addresses (persons who didn't actually live in Miami), votes were also bought. And vote buying is a federal crime that the Department of Justice has prosecuted repeatedly.

In 2003, the Indiana Supreme Court threw out the results of a mayoral election because of absentee ballot fraud. The results of a state senate race in Tennessee in 2005 decided by only 13 votes were declared invalid because of votes by felons, the dead, people who didn't live in the district, and individuals whose registered addresses were vacant lots. The photographs of those vacant lots, taken by an investigator, starkly illustrate the kind of voter fraud that unfortunately still goes on in our elections.

Today, there are investigations in more than a dozen states over tens of thousands of fraudulent voter registration forms submitted by ACORN. How many of those fraudulent registrations have not been caught by election officials? How many will result in fraudulent votes? If we have a very close election, fraudulent votes may well end up deciding the results, damaging our democratic government and our confidence in our election process.

Federal Debt Relief System believes it’s important that people know the truth so that they can make up their own minds. 

Also See: Credit Revolt, financial disaster

Posted by bobthestrawman at 8:17 PM EST

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Federal Debt Relief System is at the forefront in the battle to defend and restore constitutional rights to all Americans by arming millions with this sobering information and vital education.

Federal Debt Relief System spotted this at CNN Money recently:  

While there were some encouraging signs that the credit crisis is not having as devastating an impact as some fear, the slowing economy looms large.

"We're not seeing anything besides the normal tightening of credit you usually get at the end of an expansion," said Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist for the National Association of Independent Businesses.

Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, which represents smaller and mid-size manufacturers, said that most manufacturers are conservatively managed and have fairly low levels of debt. Tonelson is urging caution on any government bailout, saying banks should not be encouraged to resume their free-lending ways to consumers already overburdened with debt.

Even if businesses aren't yet impacted by the economy collapse, they are certainly planning for slowing sales as credit to consumers dries up. That could mean fewer orders for goods - and fewer people needed to manufacture, ship, stock and sell those goods.

"It's reasonable to expect not only job losses, but wage losses as well," said Tonelson.

Said Daniel Penrod, an industry analyst with the California Credit Union League, a trade association for credit unions: "We haven't really seen small businesses getting hurt because of access to money, but rather just because of the slowdown."

With the holiday shopping season just around the corner, the next sector ripe for a hit is retail, said John Challenger, chief executive of global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. A survey by Challenger released Wednesday said that the number of job cuts in September rose 7.2% to 95,094.

"Consumers are tapped, it's going to be a tough year," said Challenger. "Unemployment is going up by leaps and bounds."  

Federal Debt Relief System believes it’s important that people know the truth so that they can make up their own minds. 

Also See: Credit Revolt, financial disaster  

Posted by bobthestrawman at 10:42 PM EDT

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Federal Debt Relief System is at the forefront in the battle to defend and restore America’s  constitution by arming millions with this sobering information and vital education.

Federal Debt Relief System spotted this at The Market Oracle recently:  

In his book, The Money Men , H.W. Brands wrote of the first major test the Federal Reserve faced after its creation in 1913. In its role as arbiter of the nation's money supply the Fed made its first policy blunder in making cheap money overly plentiful in the early 1920s, which encouraged a speculative bubble in the stock market. By 1928, the Fed recognized its error and instead of gradually slowing down the money creation, did something that has been part of their modus operandi ever since. In true reactionary fashion the Fed slammed on the monetary brakes and started raising interest rates, paving the way for the great 1929 stock market crash.

Making matters worse and adding fuel to the fire, the Fed continued its tight money policy while the U.S. government actually raised taxes and thereby greatly exaggerated the Great Depression of the 1930s. Was this a case of ignorance born of inexperience or was a sinister motive at work here? One could almost excuse their mistakes of the late 1920s and early ‘30s due to the Fed's lack of experience. Yet such latitude can't be so easily granted them today with more than 90 years of experience behind them.

Long-time Fed watcher Bert Dohmen of the Wellington Letter offers the following insight, “Who controls the liquidity necessary to buy stocks? It's the Federal Reserve through its monetary policy.” Dohmen goes on to observe, “Invariably bear markets occur when the central bank tightens money. This sudden change in the availability of money causes investors to sell stocks in order to raise cash. Suddenly the buyers turn into sellers and the markets plunge….It's a shift in the demand-supply relationship.”

One astute economist wrote in 1966 concerning the 1929 stock market crash, “The excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy (in the late 1920's, in order to lower interest rates) spilled over into the stock market – triggering a fantastic speculative boom. Belatedly, Federal Reserve officials attempted to sop up the excess reserves and finally succeeded in breaking the boom. But it was too late: By 1929 the speculative excesses had become so overwhelming that the attempt precipitated a sharp retrenching and a consequent demoralizing of business confidence. As a result, the American economy collapsed….The world economies plunged into the Great Depression of the 1930's.”

This economist was none other than Alan Greenspan. In the above statement he admits that whenever the Fed sees speculative excess (as they certainly did in the 2003-2004 period) it will cause them to tighten money. It has been ever thus since the Fed's inception in 1913.

Will the Fed's latest efforts at reflating the financial market succeed? If history is any guide then it should eventually stabilize the stock market and allow the newly formed 6-year up cycle along with the peaking 10-year cycle to work its magic in 2009 for one final cyclical bull market before the “hard down” phase of the Kress 40-year and 60-year cycles commences in 2010.

Federal Debt Relief System believes it’s important that people know the truth so that they can make up their own minds. 

Also See: Credit Revolt, financial disaster  

Posted by bobthestrawman at 3:06 PM EDT

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Federal Debt Relief System spotted this at CNN Money recently:  

Production at the nation's factories fell into a virtual tailspin in September, declining by the largest amount in nearly 34 years, according to a report released by the Federal Reserve on Thursday.

"This is consistent with a recession, there's no doubt about it," said John Silvia, chief economist for Wachovia.

The report said the enormous decline was in most part due to hurricanes Gustav and Ike's disastrous effects on the Gulf Coast industry. Mining output took a 7.8% nosedive due to the storms, and oil and gas-related production fell as well.

Recession worries

Industrial production is one of the four factors that the National Bureau of Economic Research considers to determine if the current economy problems  has fallen into a recession. The other three factors are employment, personal income and retail and wholesale sales of manufactured goods.

Though industrial production has been volatile over the past year and a half, registering up-and-down growth since January 2007, it has only recently shown the kind of huge drop off that is typical in a recession. After slight rises in manufacturing in June and July, production tanked a whopping 1.1% in August on a sizeable drop auto manufacturing.

Production fell for 12 straight months during the 2001 recession. The Fed said for the third quarter, production fell 6%, nearly doubling the 3.1% decline of the second quarter.

"Industrial production is a key input into the overall output of the U.S. economy," Silvia said. "For all practical applications, there is a one-to-one correspondence between production and how the economy is growing."

"GDP is gross domestic product, and this is a measure of production," he added.

In other troubling news, The Philadelphia Federal Reserve reported that its regional manufacturing index decreased by 41.3 points, to minus 37.5 from positive 3.8 in October. It was the largest one-month decline in the history of the index. Economists polled by Briefing.com expected a decline of just 5 points.

Sign of weakness to come

The report also showed that industrial capacity utilization - a measure that tracks the percentage of factories in use - posted a seasonally adjusted decrease of 4.6% to 76.4%. Economists had expected a decrease of just 0.7% to 78%.

Manufacturing output decreased 2.6% in September, and the factory operating rate fell to 74.5%, which is more than five percentage points below the average from 35-year average from 1972-2007.

"Over the last six months we have seen utilization declines in manufacturing and mining," Silvia said. "Historically, lower capacity utilization rates have been consistent with weaker corporate profits." 

The Federal Debt Relief System is dedicated to sounding the alarm while there is still time to do something about it.

Learn more at Federal Debt Relief System now.

Read more about Job Losses, Public Debt Reform

Posted by bobthestrawman at 7:36 PM EDT

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Federal Debt Relief System knows this is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, a $700 billion taxpayer bailout, public outcry over excessive pay and the demise of three of the biggest securities firms won't deter Wall Street from offering year-end rewards to employees on top of their salaries, compensation experts say.

From Bloomberg:

Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, both still on track for profitable years, have set aside about $13 billion for bonuses after three quarters, down 28 percent from a year ago. Even some employees at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which declared the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history last month, will get the same bonus they received a year ago.

Goldman, the biggest and most profitable Wall Street firm until it opted to become a bank holding company last month, has set aside about $6.85 billion for bonuses, or an average of $210,300 for each employee, down 32 percent from $339,400 a year ago. Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest securities firm until it also converted to a bank, has $6.44 billion for bonuses, or $138,700 per person, down 20 percent from last year. Both firms accrue a fixed percentage of their revenue for compensation, so the decline in bonus pools matches the drop in revenue.

Merrill's Compensation

The money Merrill has set aside for bonuses equates to an average $110,000 for each of its 60,900 people, up from $108,000 a year ago because more than 3,000 jobs have been cut.

The bonus figures are based on estimates that about 60 percent of the compensation and benefits expenses reported by the companies will be paid in year-end bonuses, as occurred in past years. Average bonuses aren't an indication of how much any employee will receive, since payments range widely from assistants to top traders. Bonuses aren't paid until the end of the fiscal year, so firms could choose to reallocate the funds.

``We are in the process of determining appropriate levels of year-end compensation, and no decisions have been made,'' said, a spokesman at Morgan Stanley. A  spokesman for Goldman in New York, declined to comment.

``There should be a moratorium on bonuses,'' Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told reporters last week. ``If nobody gave them, there wouldn't be a competitive aspect.''

A worldwide economy collapse, caused in part by the financial industry's losses, and a U.S. Treasury plan to spend $250 billion of taxpayer money buying stakes in banks, have made pay a political issue this year.

``I'm just flabbergasted that the financial community has failed to show any sense of leadership on this issue and doesn't seem to understand how angry people are at them,'' said the editor of Corporate Library, a Portland, Maine-based corporate-governance research firm. ``They are just a bonus away from having the villagers come after them with torches.''

Amen to that.  I’ll bring the….

Federal Debt Relief System believes it’s important that people know the truth so that they can make up their own minds. 

See Also Bailout, America’s Debt Revolt

Posted by bobthestrawman at 7:13 PM EDT

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Federal Debt Relief System spotted this at CNN Money recently:  

Job losses have been mounting, and the slowing economy and credit crunch is likely to take an even greater toll in the coming months.

Analysts on average forecast that the monthly employment report expected Friday will reveal that the economy shed 105,000 jobs in September - the largest monthly loss in five years. The economy already has lost 605,000 jobs this year.

Unemployment is expected to remain at a relatively high 6.1%.

What's more troubling is that hiring trends have deteriorated even further in recent weeks - and that won't be reflected in government statistics until later this year.

Failing mortgages and struggling banks have made it difficult for businesses and consumers alike to borrow money. If businesses can't borrow money, the thinking goes, they can't expand stores or hire more people.

"A complete lockup of the credit markets will reverberate throughout the economy in a very severe fashion," said Martin Regalia, chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a business lobby group. "If the economy problems continue further, we'll see truly dramatic unemployment."

Regalia expects unemployment to reach 6.5% by the end of the first quarter next year, and 7% if nothing is done by the government to free up the capital markets. While the economy may stop shedding jobs at that point, he said those stubbornly high rates of unemployment could persist until the end of 2009.

Actual job losses are more difficult to predict. Regalia said 150,000 to 175,000 a month could be likely, significantly higher than today's levels but far below the rate of 250,000 to 300,000 lost during the last recession in 2002.

The government is still negotiating a package that would enable the purchase of distressed assets from banks in the hopes of getting them to lend again. The $700 billion bailout was rejected in the House of Representatives on Monday, and the Senate is set to vote on a revised version on Wednesday night.

"If we don't have measures to correct the situation, we will see more [job] losses," said Joyce Bastoli, a vice president at Ajilon Finance Solutions, part of the staffing company Adecco. "If companies don't have access to capital, we will see it trickle down."

The Federal Debt Relief System is dedicated to sounding the alarm while there is still time to do something about it.

Learn more at Federal Debt Relief System now.

Also See: Credit Revolt, financial disaster

Posted by bobthestrawman at 7:20 PM EDT

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Federal Debt Relief System spotted this at Bloomberg News recently:  

Former Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Alan Greenspan said a ``once-in-a-century credit tsunami'' has engulfed financial markets and conceded his free-market ideology shunning regulation was flawed.

``Yes, I found a flaw,'' Greenspan said in response to grilling from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. ``I was shocked because I'd been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.'' Greenspan added he was ``partially'' wrong for opposing the regulation of derivatives.

Greenspan's contrition came after lawmakers and Fed watchers increasingly blamed the former Fed chairman for helping cause the crisis with lax oversight of the housing boom and derivatives markets. Normally afforded deference by Congress, he endured almost four hours of questions from lawmakers less than two weeks before a national election.

``Greenspan is finally taking some responsibility for his actions,'' said the director of economic research at Northern Trust Co. in Chicago and a former Fed official. ``The damage has been done. His reputation has definitely been tarnished.''

Greenspan, responding to questions, said only ``onerous'' regulation would have prevented the economic collapse. Stifling rules would have suppressed growth and hurt Americans' standards of living, he said.

Part of the problem was that the Fed's ability to forecast the economy's trajectory is an inexact science, he said.

``If we are right 60 percent of the time in forecasting, we are doing exceptionally well; that means we are wrong 40 percent of the time,'' Greenspan said. ``Forecasting never gets to the point where it is 100 percent accurate.''

The admission that free markets have their faults was a shift for the former Fed chairman who declared in a May 2005 speech that ``private regulation generally has proved far better at constraining excessive risk-taking than has government regulation.''

Did you see that?  He said ‘better at constraining excessive risk taking”? You gotta be kidding me.  The problem is that the joke is on all of us.

Federal Debt Relief System believes it’s important that people know the truth so that they can make up their own minds. 

See Also Bailout, America’s Debt Revolt

Posted by bobthestrawman at 7:51 PM EDT

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The big three credit rating firms, Moody's Corporation, Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings'  profits in recent years have been among the fattest on Wall Street.  One firm, Moody's, rang up profit margins three to four times those of Exxon Mobil Corp. while assuring investors that complex mortgage-backed investments were safer bets than they really were, according to Bloomberg News.

In recent financial filings noted by the investor web blog Footnoted.org, however, Moody's confirmed it had "errors in the model" it used to rate some investments, and is "cooperating with . . investigations and inquiries" by "states attorneys general and other governmental authorities," including the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Two former rating company employees who took issue with their firms' practices are also slated to testify Wednesday, according to the panel.

A former managing director at Standard & Poor's who left in 2005, after he says he refused to go along with several clear and questionable acts of corporate corruption.   

"They thought they had discovered a machine for making money that would spread the risks so far nobody would ever get hurt," the executive told a Bloomberg reporter last month..

The other former executive to testify, Jerome Fons, has become an advocate for reforming the rating industry since leaving Moody's Corp. last year. Fons has pointed out the glaring conflict of interest on which the rating firms are based – they are paid by the firms who will profit if their investment product gets a stellar rating – and has even suggested the lucrative industry should be replaced entirely.

A Securities and Exchange Commission investigation in June found the companies faced conflicts of interest, stemming from the fact that the investment banks trying to sell the mortgage-backed securities were the ones paying the firms to rate their products. Emails uncovered by investigators showed analysts were concerned that negative ratings would hurt their firms' income.

Federal Debt Relief System believes it’s important that people know the truth so that they can make up their own minds. 

See Also Bailout, America’s Debt Revolt  

Posted by bobthestrawman at 6:46 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, 24 October 2008 6:50 PM EDT

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Before You Go Shopping  Word To The Wise

Federal Debt Relief System is at the forefront in the battle to restore the Constitution and liberty by arming millions with the sobering information and vital education designed to restore America’s freedom which today is sadly and urgently under attack and duress from all sides. 

Federal Debt Relief System knows a credit card may seem like the perfect partner to anyone with an empty wallet staring longingly at a pair of shoes with just the right fit or the newest Xbox videogame. But beware; if you're someone without a budget--or self-control--jumping blindly into a relationship with this piece of plastic can leave you badly burned.

If you don't understand what you're getting yourself into, you're not ready.

So what is it about credit cards? They seem like the perfect solution for those of us practically living paycheck to paycheck, right? How many times have you wanted to book that flight to Europe but just didn't have the funds right now? This is the beauty of charging; immediate gratification. But there is a downside to having the ability to buy whatever you want, whenever you want.

Just as compound interest is your best friend when you're saving money, it's your worst enemy when you owe money. If you can't afford to pay your credit card bill, little fees for things like late payments and going over your credit limit--not to mention interest itself--will cause your balance to balloon. Not only will your sweet plastic love affair turn sour, you could carry the load of credit card debt  the rest of your life.

Let's say you're about to spend $2,500 on a shiny, new flat panel HDTV with a credit card that carries an annual percentage rate (APR) of 20%. If you're like many people, you may choose to pay the minimum on your card, which is generally about 3% of the balance, $2,500 in this case. If you pay the minimum $75 each month on that $2,500 you will end up paying total interest of $1,180, and it will take more than four years to pay off.

Credit cards are sneaky little guys who deceive, entice and then entrap it’s victims in endless layers of corporate exploitation  Unlike the fixed interest associated with savings accounts,  credit card interest is variable and can change--mostly higher--at any time. On some cards, if you miss a payment your APR may go up substantially. In addition, that attractively low APR a credit card promises when you sign up will probably at least double after the introductory period is over. Credit cards also hit you with fees if your balance goes above your credit limit.

Credit cards can be a great companion and offer many benefits. But be smart about what you can afford to charge, and stay on top of your payments. You don't want to find yourself head-over-heels in a relationship that holds you back for the rest of your life.

Federal Debt Relief System is a powerful tool on your side in the war against credit debt.

Posted by bobthestrawman at 7:17 PM EDT

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