G20 leaders Sunday were singing a new tune — “growth friendly fiscal consolidation” — which in a few short weeks of behind the scenes haggling has become the slogan of the day.

The term first seems to have emerged earlier this year in Washington, as governments undertook a delicate diplomatic dance to unite opposing views on how to shore up global economic recovery.

In April the International Monetary Fund (IMF) published its forecasts for world growth, and warned major economies were shouldering unprecedented levels of public debt which could derail the world economy.

“The challenge is to devise, like in many other advanced economies, a medium-term fiscal plan that anchors expectations and targets measures that are growth friendly,” said IMF economist Joerg Decressin.

The term then popped up again in a comment by US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on June 2.

“As the IMF says, we want those fiscal reforms to happen in a way that’s growth friendly,” he said, as he headed to G20 finance ministers talks in South Korea.

Putting together the two words has two benefits: it sounds reassuring at a key moment when European debt levels are stirring fears, and it stresses the need for growth as the US puts the accent on stimulus rather than austerity.

The IMF took up the theme again the day after.

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Growth Friendly, New

We all know by now – after feeling the negative impact of the recession, the credit crunch, and the high rates of unemployment – that it pays to be smart about how we use credit and manage our levels of debt. Right before the worst of the global recession and credit crisis hit, for example, the average American consumer was carrying such a large burden of debt that he or she was actually earning less each month that was being spent.

 

You cannot continue to balance your finances if you are spending more than a dollar for every dollar you bring home from work, but that is exactly what millions of Americans were doing. That

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Credit, Credit Card

New investor here. I wanted to use this place as a platform for boosting my investment education. It’s no secret that I’m pretty green when it comes to the world of investments, but I’m making some progress. Or at least I thought I was until I started digging into mutual funds. I thought that a mutual fund was actually another type of investment product, like a stock or a bond, but apparently I couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

The reality is that a mutual fund is nothing more than a collection of investments that are alike in scope that are managed by a fund manager. Since my main focus is on stocks, we’re going to focus on equity mutual funds since these are simply a collection of stocks.

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. Tags: avalanche, credit card debt, dave ramsey, debt reduction, debts, financial expert, financial trouble, highest interest rate, money, revolving debt, snowball

According to a recent news item, “due to rising prices of the materials used to mint coins, it now costs 2 cents to manufacture every penny and nine cents to make a nickel.”

Most who read that fail to see the utter absurdity of it all.

Stop and think how little sense this makes.

How can it cost two cents for the materials to make one penny?

…Or nearly a dime to produce one nickel?

What sort of “money” is being used to pay for the raw materials?

Clearly not the same money made from the raw materials.

That’s like saying it now costs two units of copper and zinc to make one unit of copper and zinc (a penny).

See how absolutely insane that sounds?

Yet that’s just the kind of thing, total rubbish, that passes for “news” these days!

Let’s look at it a little closer and see if we can’t figure out what is really meant by this confusion.

Clearly the “two cents” in costs to make one penny cannot be the same thing, so since it apparently has a different value, it must be something entirely different than the materials used to compose the coin.

What has been left unsaid is that the materials are paid for with units of paper or electronic (debit, credit) so-called money (called “dollars,” note for short) which clearly are worth less than their face value.

“Rising prices of materials,” therefore, actually means a debased value for the note “dollar.”

Which means the amount of note “dollars” has increased, causing an increase in prices to compensate for this unlawful form of taxation, which in turn is actually a lowering in value of every note “dollar” unit.

So what this news item is really saying is that it now costs two-hundredths of a worth-less note “dollar” to produce a one cent coin, or nearly one tenth of a note “dollar” to produce a nickel.

Not very surprising when you also notice how it now costs more than thirty note “dollars” to buy one silver coin (real) dollar!

The costs of raw materials must have been kept artificially less than inflation demands, or else it should now cost more like one-thirtieth of a note “dollar” to produce one penny, and 1.5 note “dollars” to produce one nickel.

That’s just how much value has been stolen out of the economy, and your net worth or income and buying power, by government theft, through the criminal act of inflating the supply of currency in circulation beyond the replacement rate for old, worn-out bills, or an increase in population requires.

This is a direct result of the outright fraud of having a double standard in monetary units, such as coins composed of any valuable materials and paper notes given a value greater than their true value in exchange for said materials, or real dollars.

A silver dollar is now clearly so far superior to a note “dollar” that the fraud has become unsustainable, and this means that — beginning with the poor and elderly on fixed incomes, or with savings valued in fraudulent paper or electronic note “dollars,” on up — the economy must suffer this loss (theft) one way of another.

Such an economy cannot be “fixed” by yet more inflation (government giveaways, social “welfare” programs, and similar boondoggle swindles of the public), under false promises this will solve everything this sort of dishonest activity is responsible for causing in the first place.

In short, look for more of the same problems, and even worse economic times ahead, until the majority of people wake up, wise up, and finally admit that these governmental goons are actually responsible for all our social problems!

Which is to say we, the dumbed-down public — deprived of a proper education by government-run schools and lower educational institutions pretending to be “advanced” or “higher,” which are really just indoctrination mills for pro-government propaganda and reverse English, ala Orwell’s 1984 — are responsible for this irresponsible and ludicrous behavior by our public “servants.”

If the lunatics are in charge of the “asylum” of our government, its because the “doctors” (voters) put them there in the first place!

Which only happens because you actually listened to all the lunatic promises made by politicians running for public office, seeking the “easy” way of “something” (benefits, entitlements) for “nothing” (forcing “somebody else” to pay for it all).

Don’t look now, but you’re that somebody else!

As Gore Vidal said: “Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.”

Anyone who proposes to give you back more than they already take away in taxes — be it hidden excise/import, sales and/or “income” — should ipso facto be instantly pronounced an insane wannabe thief, who should either be institutionalized, incarcerated, or both.

Only once we have true accountability in the highest offices of the land — through sane citizens with realistic expectations — can you ever hope to make ends meet, pay off all your bills, put plenty of good food on your table, provide a quality education (strange as those words might seem and sound to someone so deprived of the real real thing), and even put aside a small savings for a rainy day.

You cannot get there by trying to rob Peter and Paul to pay you.

Fiscal responsibility means dumping all those who have been causing all our economic woes to begin with (international banksters through the criminal “FED” — Federal Reserve — fraud bank, a non-government private institution with a fancy government-sounding name, similar to Fed-Ex).

Congress never had the right or authority to delegate its power to create and regulate the money supply of America, especially to foreigners (an act of high treason against we the people, the results of which have caused America’s suffering from every engineered recession/depression we have endured since that felonious edict).

It really is possible to pay for a dollar’s worth of coins with a single dollar bill, once it is made redeemable in one real silver dollar (for instance) to the bearer on demand, just as used to be the case with silver certificates.

These things only seem impossibly delusional to those deluded by the impossible idea that non-dollar paper or electronic fraud “dollars” and nonsense somehow make “dollars and cents.”

Hank Scott is the author of A Nation Gone Mad (available now through Amazon: https://www.createspace.com/3454151), One Man’s Epic Struggle Against Institutional Insanity. You can subscribe to his free email alerts and learn more about how to stop state abuse now at: http://ANationGoneMad.com

(c) Copyright – Hank Scott. All Rights Res

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Foreclosures are expected to increase as more Americans drop out of HAMP

The Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program aimed at providing relief to distressed homeowners does not seem to be having its intended effects, according to the Associated Press. As more Americans are forced to drop out of the program, the number of foreclosures in the U.S. is expected to climb.

To date, the $75 billion program has seen nearly one-third of its 1.24 million initial applicants drop out or face disqualification, making the number of people that have left the program higher than the number of Americans that received permanent mortgage modification loans under HAMP, the AP reports. Read the full post

Distressed Homeowners, Hamp