WASHINGTON — The number of foreclosed homes rose over the summer after fewer people at risk received assistance lowering their monthly mortgage payments, a new report shows
About 470,000 homeowners received help either directly from banks or through government programs in the July-September quarter, according to a report released Wednesday by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and Office of Thrift Supervision. That’s a 17 percent drop from the previous quarter and a decline of 32 percent from the same period last year.
The storyline being sold to the American public by the White House and the corporate mainstream media is that the economy is growing, jobs are being created, corporations are generating record profits, consumers are spending and all will be well in 2011. The 2% payroll tax cut, stolen from future generations to be spent in 2011, will jumpstart a sound economic recovery. Joseph Goebbels would be proud.
PROPAGANDA MINISTERS
It was another wise old man named Ben Franklin who captured the essence of what those in control are peddling:
Since the early 1990 decade, the nation’s maestros have promulgated the notion that cheap money is a beneficial factor for the sustenance of wealth, for economic development, for the standard of living, for the robust industries, in general for the American society. Nothing could be further from the truth, but even today the reckless US economists from the Keynesian Camp and their controllers from Wall Street have convinced the multitudes that cheap money is a good thing. Cheap money comes with a deadly ultimate cost. The inept professor occupying the US Federal Reserve Chairman post has gone on record claiming the US banking sector has a secret weapon in the Printing Pre$$ that it can use with zero cost, in its electronic form. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Clinton & Rubin team began the distortion of the Consumer Price Index, ostensibly to reduce Social Security and USGovt pension benefits in cost of living raises. They wanted to cause a massive USTreasury Bond bull market, and succeeded in doing so. They wished also to bring down the USTreasury Bond yields. The infamous Fed Valuation Model dictated that as rates rose, stocks fell. So the scheme to manipulate the bond market began with the venerable craftsmen of rigged markets, ruined engines, and mega-fraud schemes. They taught from their high priest pulpits that cheap money was good for the financial markets. Nothing could be further from the truth.
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
The mostly empty city of Bayannao¿er, which boasts a beautiful town hall and World Bank-sponsored water reclamation building
These amazing satellite images show sprawling cities built in remote parts of China that have been left completely abandoned, sometimes years after their construction.
Elaborate public buildings and open spaces are completely unused, with the exception of a few government vehicles near communist authority offices.
Some estimates put the number of empty homes at as many as 64 million, with up to 20 new cities being built every year in the country’s vast swathes of free land.
The photographs have emerged as a Chinese government think tank warns that the country’s real estate bubble is getting worse, with property prices in major cities overvalued by as much as 70 per cent.
Ghost city: Kangbashi was meant to be the urban centre for wealthy coal-mining community Ordos and home to its one million workers, but its roads are eerily empty and the houses stand vacant
This video was originally created to be part of an art exhibit for Exposed the Art Project http://www.exposedtheartproject.org , a multimedia collaboration raising awareness of social issues. The group decided that the message in the Deliberate Dumbing Down of America shouldn’t be put on hold. So here it is. The other artists of Exposed the Art Project are: painters Barry Gross and Viktor Safonkin, and photographers Adela Holmes and Presscott McDonald. We picked four themes for our premier—Social Commentary, Spirituality, Metamorphosis and Time and Chance. This is my contribution for Social Commentary.
Parcel bombs that struck the Chilean and Swiss embassies in Rome on Thursday injured two people, one severely, Italian news agency ANSA reported.
A 53-year-old staffer at the Swiss embassy may lose his left hand after a parcel bomb detonated while he was holding a piece of mail, and a staff member at the Chilean embassy was also injured in a similar matter, although less seriously.
The Thursday blasts are sure to fuel fears of the possibility of more terrorist attacks this Christmas holiday. Police said they were monitoring all embassies in Rome, Reuters reported.
Italian authorities suspected that the mail bombs were an “attack with terrorist aims,” as Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters that the explosions were a “serious threat” against the diplomatic missions, AFP reported.
Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno said that the blasts were a “wave of terrorism” that was “much more worrisome than a single attack,” according to the New York Times.
The explosions come just two days after an improvised bomb was found in a Romesubway train. Authorities later said that thepackage contained explosives but did not have a detonator.
Another suspicious package was discovered Thursday at the Ukrainian embassy, while two additional bomb threats were reported at the Rome city council offices. All three incidents turned out to be false alarms, according to ANSA.
Photo: ReutersIranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad smiles as he addresses the media during a news conference in Istanbul, Turkey, 24 Dec 2010
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is attending an Eurasian economic conference in Istanbul where attendees committed themselves to greater economic cooperation. But such commitments come as Turkey’s allies in Europe and the U.S. are looking to Ankara to support them in isolating Iran over its controversial nuclear program.
At a packed press conference Thursday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared U.S.- led attempts to stop his country from developing nuclear power a complete failure. He also said sanctions against his country were doomed to fail and went on to praise the Economic Cooperation Organization, or ECO, for offering new ways for countries in the region to develop their economies.
“Under the leadership of Turkish President Abdullah Gul we have reached an agreement to enhance and organize deeper economic cooperation,” he said. The Istanbul summit will result in countries reaching a new level of economic cooperation. Leaders and delegations from Afghanistan, Pakistan and other Central Asian countries also attended the trade bloc’s summit, which aims to promote regional economic development and cooperation among member states.
WASHINGTON – THE United States on Friday downplayed a newspaper report about US firms being allowed to do business with Iran and other blacklisted countries, insisting its sanctions were squeezing Teheran.
The New York Times reported that some 10,000 deals had been allowed under a humanitarian aid loophole approved in 2000 that lets US companies – including food giants Kraft and Mars – get around economic blacklists for countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism.
But senior US Treasury official Stuart Levey said such exports were ‘trivial in the context of our Iran policy’ of using sanctions aimed at the government and military to convince Tehran to halt its nuclear drive.
‘This effort is having its intended impact. Iran’s leadership is worried about its isolation from the international financial system and the other effects of sanctions,’ he said in a statement.
This year the international community, especially the Obama administration, has ramped up pressure on Teheran, blacklisting even more Iranian individuals and firms under an extended economic embargo.
Yet according to the Times report, an office at the US Treasury Department has granted licenses via a 10-year-old law that exempts humanitarian aid, both agricultural and medical. — AFP
