Archive for the ‘Economy’ Category

BTL Update 2011 November 9

Wednesday, November 9th, 2011

Is Ron Paul Good for Israel?

Homeland Security Orders a Reduction in Border Inspections

Scientist who said climate change skeptics had been proven wrong accused of hiding truth by colleague

U.S. challenges South Carolina immigration law

‘Bloated’ Federal Workforce Rises 12% as Rest of US Goes Jobless

Corporations Don’t Pay Taxes – Ever!

Bill Gates Urges Obama to Embrace Global Tax

Republican run North Dakota: an economic success ignored by the Leftist media – it doesn’t “fit”

CFP’s Call to Champions of Conservative Media

New Evidence Fast and Furious was a Gun Control Plot

Homeland Security Advisor Accused of Leaking Docs

PULLING THE IAEA INTO THE “ATTACK IRAN” DEBATE WILL BACKFIRE

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Facts and Truth About U.S. Inflation, Debt, and Political Crisis

Friday, August 19th, 2011

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) yesterday released their consumer price index (CPI) data for the month of July. The BLS reported an increase in year-over-year CPI growth to 3.63%, the highest rate of U.S. price inflation since October of 2008. July’s official government reported year-over-year U.S. price inflation rate of 3.63% was up from 3.56% in June, 3.57% in May, 3.16% in April, 2.68% in March, 2.11% in February, 1.63% in January, 1.5% in December, and 1.1% in November.

The official rate of U.S. price inflation has increased by 230% over the last eight months. NIA conservatively projects the official rate of U.S. price inflation to surpass 4% by year-end and 5% in early 2012. NIA estimates the real rate of U.S. price inflation, without geometric weighting and hedonics, to currently be approaching 8%. NIA projects the real rate of U.S. price inflation to reach double-digit territory by mid-2012, if not much sooner.

Gold prices today reached a new all time high of $1,877 per ounce. Gold is the best gauge of inflation, not the CPI. On June 15th when the BLS reported May CPI data, gold was trading for only $1,520 per ounce. Even though the BLS reported a year-over-year CPI increase for the month of May of 3.16%, the mainstream media reported that inflation was slowing down and not a problem because gas prices were declining. Although seasonal adjusted gas prices in the month of May were down 2%, NIA reported to you that non-adjusted gas prices actually rose 3.6%. NIA then warned you that the BLS’s seasonal adjustments will reverse beginning in the month of July and start boosting reported gas prices.

NIA was right, seasonal adjusted gas prices in the month of July increased 4.7%. The mainstream media intentionally misled Americans about price inflation during the month of June, but the world is now recognizing the truth about how U.S. price inflation is spiraling out of control with the price of gold having risen 23% since mid-June. The investment community is also finally realizing what NIA has been saying for years, inflation does not create real economic growth.

The Dow Jones declined today by 172.93 points to 10,817.65 and the Dow Jones/Gold ratio fell to 5.84. The Dow Jones/Gold ratio is declining at a faster rate than even we expected. NIA was one of the only organizations in the world to accurately predict that the Dow Jones/Gold ratio would decline to 6.5 in 2011. NIA continues to believe that the Dow Jones/Gold ratio will decline to 1 this decade, which will mean another 83% loss for Dow Jones stocks in terms of real money.

The lower the stock market declines in the near-term, the greater the chances are that the Federal Reserve will soon unleash QE3 in disguise under a new name. Despite gold reaching a new all time high, the core-CPI, which the Federal Reserve likes to use to gauge inflation because it excludes food and energy prices, is currently up 1.77% on a year-over-year basis, compared to an annual gain of 0.61% in October of last year. Even though core-CPI growth appears to still be low, year-over-year core-CPI growth has increased by 290% since October of last year, a larger gain on a percentage basis than the official CPI. Ever since the Federal Reserve announced QE2 in November of last year, core-CPI has increased for nine straight months.

By the time the 2012 Presidential election comes around, inflation will be the top concern on the minds of all Americans. Inflation will be an even bigger concern than unemployment, because nobody will want to have a job that pays them a salary in U.S. dollars. The only Presidential candidate who has the knowledge and courage necessary to preserve what little purchasing power the U.S. dollar still has left is Ron Paul. NIA supports Ron Paul to become the Republican nominee in the 2012 U.S. Presidential election. To become the Republican nominee, Ron Paul will need to win the Republican presidential primaries. Unlike the general election to be held on November 6th, 2012, the Republican primaries are a series of primary elections and caucuses that are spread out over five months beginning in February.

Iowa is always the first state to vote and will have their caucuses on February 6th, followed by New Hampshire on February 14th, Nevada on February 18th, and South Carolina on February 28th. The results of the first few primaries/caucuses usually influence how people will vote in the following primaries/caucuses. It is important for a candidate to build momentum early on. If a candidate doesn’t have a strong showing in early primary states, they frequently drop out of the race before all of the primaries/caucuses are completed.

The way the primaries are structured gives voters in early primary states, especially voters in Iowa, a lot of power compared to voters in states like New York who very often don’t vote until the nominee has already been determined. About six months before every Iowa Republican primary is the Ames Straw Poll, an unofficial Presidential straw poll that takes place in Ames, Iowa, of who Iowa voters are planning to support in their caucuses. The 2011 Ames Straw Poll just took place on August 13th with Michele Bachmann finishing first place with 4,823 votes and Ron Paul coming in second with 4,671 votes, only 152 votes behind Bachmann.

To attend the Ames Straw Poll and have the opportunity to vote in the poll, attendees were required to purchase a ticket priced at $30. Bachmann gave her supporters 6,000 free tickets at a cost to her campaign of $180,000. Only 80% of the people she gave free tickets to actually voted for her and that’s assuming none of the people who bought tickets voted for her. Bachmann didn’t just pay for the entrance of 6,000 people who she thought supported her, but she paid a small fortune to have Grammy Award winning country singer Randy Travis perform in a special air-conditioned tent. Bachmann even paid to transport forty bus loads of Randy Travis fans to the event, who were required to register at the Bachmann table and vote before seeing the entertainment.

With Bachmann spending a total of nearly $1 million on this event, she should have won the straw poll in a blow out. Click on the link below to see a shocking video we just posted to the NIA blog of the never ending line of Bachmann “supporters” registering at her table so that they could vote without paying the $30 fee. NIA believes that many of these people pretended to support her in order to get free tickets, but actually voted for Ron Paul: http://inflation.us/blog/2011/08/crazy-video-of-bachmann-ames-straw-poll-line/

The morning after Bachmann’s phony victory, she appeared on five different nationwide talk shows. Ron Paul wasn’t allowed to appear on any, with both ‘Meet the Press’ and ‘Fox News Sunday’ canceling interviews they had scheduled with him. Meet the Press spent the morning talking about Bachmann’s win and Tim Pawlenty dropping out of the race after finishing third with less than half of the votes of Bachmann and Ron Paul. They barely mentioned Ron Paul even when he finished in a statistical dead heat with Bachmann.

Even more frustrating and disturbing, the Wall Street Journal published a long article Sunday morning about the race and it focused almost entirely on Bachmann’s straw poll win and Rick Perry’s entry into the race. The article only had one sentence about Ron Paul that read, “Libertarian Ron Paul, who has no chance to win the nomination, finished a close second.” On Monday morning, Ron Paul was scheduled to appear on NBC’s ‘Today’ show, but that interview was canceled as well with an NBC official saying it was due to “logistics and timing reasons with the news in Indiana and Somalia.”

The mainstream media believes that if they repeat “Ron Paul has no chance of winning” enough times, it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The same applies to the media constantly referring to Mitt Romney as the front-runner. The media supports Romney because they like how he is a part of the Republican establishment and if elected would stick with the status quo in Washington.

Four years ago when Ron Paul was relatively unknown, Romney was the winner of the 2007 Ames Straw Poll. Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, who were both also seeking the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, chose not to participate in the 2007 Ames Straw Poll. Romney at the time in his own words called Giuliani and McCain cowards. Romney said, “I think if they thought they could have won, they would have been here,” and “If you can’t compete in the heartland, if you can’t compete in Iowa in August, how are you going to compete in January when the caucuses are held, and how are you going to compete in November of ’08?”

NIA believes that if Romney thought that he could have won the 2011 Ames Straw Poll, he would have been there. Romney knows that he lost all of his grassroots supporters when he spoke out in favor of the Federal Reserve’s destructive monetary policies and said Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was doing a good job. Romney showed his true colors when he said that the Federal Reserve is a non-issue and that he won’t be discussing it during his campaign. He has now proven himself to be a hypocrite who was scared of looking bad by losing to Ron Paul in the straw poll and losing his “front-runner” status that was handed to him by the mainstream media. If Romney was afraid to compete in Iowa this month, NIA sees no chance of him winning in Iowa this February and no chance of him winning the Republican nomination.

With Iowa voters having a lot of power being in the first primary state, Iowa residents have spent more time researching the candidates than residents of most other states. Because Iowa voters are educated on the issues, especially issues affecting the economy, the media knew Ron Paul would have a strong showing in the Ames Straw Poll and for weeks leading up to it ran countless stories designed to downplay the poll and make it seem irrelevant. One Fox News reporter even went as far as saying that winning the straw poll is a negative and makes it nearly impossible to win the nomination. None of these things were said before the poll in 2007 because the media knew their darling Romney would win.

All educated Americans who understand the facts and truth about the U.S. economy and inflation are in strong support of Ron Paul because of his 24 year record in Congress of voting against increases in government spending and taxes, and voting for measures to strengthen our currency and reduce monetary inflation. Ron Paul stands for everything that NIA believes in such as liberty, freedom, and sound money. He has done more to protect the U.S. Constitution than any other person in Washington. Our founding fathers had the foresight 224 years ago to see the economic problems we have today. Even back then, rulers of nations had a history of coin clipping, replacing the silver in coins with base metals, and implementing other measures that stole from the purchasing power of ordinary citizens. Our founding fathers never would have imagined just how easy it has become to create inflation, where now the Federal Reserve with the click of a mouse can credit trillions of dollars to any banking institution worldwide.

For years, the media has dismissed Ron Paul’s fight against the Federal Reserve and its destruction of the U.S. dollar. The media calls Ron Paul’s ideas radical, but NIA believes Ron Paul is the most sane person in Washington. NIA believes balancing the budget, auditing the Federal Reserve, returning to a gold standard, and bringing our troops home from the Middle East, are all sane ideas that must be implemented if we want to have any hope of avoiding hyperinflation.

Rick Perry, the governor of Texas who just entered the race for the Republican presidential nomination, was recently asked about the Federal Reserve and in response he called Bernanke’s acts of printing money “treasonous”. NIA was the first to call Bernanke’s actions treasonous. Back on December 9th of last year, NIA released an article entitled “WikiLeaks, Bernanke, and Hyperinflation” in which NIA said that it was “deeply disturbed by how U.S. politicians and the mainstream media have been calling for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be charged with treason.” Although in no way does NIA support Assange or his actions, we expressed in our article how we don’t believe it is a treasonous act to help spread the truth about our country’s foreign policy and other sensitive topics when the information he posted was given to him and in no way did he hack any government systems to obtain it.

NIA went on to state in its December 9th article, “If there is one American who deserves to be charged with treason, it is Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.” It is not humanly possible to betray ones country in a way that is more egregious than Bernanke’s despicable acts. NIA is currently in the process of producing a sequel to its critically acclaimed documentary ‘Meltup’, which has received over 1.1 million views with 96% of its viewers “liking” the movie and only 4% “disliking” it, a record for YouTube documentaries at least 50 minutes in length with over 1 million views. NIA’s sequel to ‘Meltup’ will expose the latest updated facts and truth about the U.S. economy, Federal Reserve, and inflation. It will set a whole new standard as the most in-depth, informative, educational, and entertaining economic documentary ever produced. Most importantly, it will expose why Bernanke’s actions are indeed treasonous.

As far as Rick Perry is concerned, he is really no different than Romney. Perry like Romney is a governor who was elected to office due to his strong ties to the Republican establishment. Both Perry and Romney according to many media pundits look very Presidential. You will never hear Perry or Romney speak a word about bringing our troops home, repealing legislation that invades Americans’ privacy rights without making us any safer here at home, and eliminating entire departments of government including the Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Commerce, Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Homeland Security. These unnecessary bureaucracies have done nothing but add to our budget deficits, without a single success story to justify their existence.

Perry is not a true fiscal conservative. He and his wife complained that the Texas governor’s mansion was too small and is now spending $11 million of President Obama’s stimulus money to renovate and expand its size. With the construction now taking place at the governor’s mansion and Perry unable to live there, Texas taxpayers have so far spent $700,000 to rent him an even bigger Texas mansion and to cover expenses at the mansion including Neiman Marcus window coverings and a subscription to Food & Wine Magazine.

What is unbelievable to us is that Perry for the most part has been a career politician, yet he has somehow managed to become a multi-millionaire while spending nearly all of his time in public office earning a relatively modest salary. Of course, if Perry was elected President, nothing much will change from the Obama administration and within a few years, he might become a multi-billionaire because a billionaire will be the new millionaire. Make no mistake about it, Perry may be trying to differentiate himself from Romney by speaking out against the Fed, but as President of the United States of America, NIA guarantees that Perry wouldn’t do a damn thing to limit the Fed’s powers and stop it from wiping out both the savings of senior citizens and the purchasing power of their Social Security checks. Perry is already in the pocket of the big banks and we just posted an 11 second video on the NIA blog that proves it: http://inflation.us/blog/2011/08/shocking-video-bank-of-america-executive-offers-to-help-out-rick-perry/

Tomorrow, Saturday, August 20th, is Ron Paul’s birthday. To celebrate his birthday and help build momentum for his Presidential campaign, Ron Paul supporters have organized a huge “moneybomb” that starts at midnight tonight. If you would like to give Ron Paul the best possible birthday President and help increase the chances of our nation’s survival, please make a donation beginning at midnight tonight by going to: http://www.ronpaul2012.com/

It is important to spread the word about NIA to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, if you want America to survive hyperinflation. Please tell everybody you know to become members of NIA for free immediately at: http://inflation.us

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World Domination By ‘The Money Changers’

Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

The Secret of Oz
It is commonly known in economics academia that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz written by L. Frank Baum in 1900 is loaded with powerful symbols of monetary reform which were the core of the Populist movement and the 1896 and 1900 presidental bids of Populist Democrat William Jennings Bryan. Oz is a virtual forest of monetary reform symbolism, done by someone extremely well versed in the Populist monetary reform goals of the period (Baum was a newspaperman and author) – goals which have never changed - they are still valid today, they are needed now more than then.

THE MONEY MASTERS is a 3 1/2 hour non-fiction, historical documentary that traces the origins of the political power structure. The modern political power structure has its roots in the hidden manipulation and accumulation of gold and other forms of money. The development of fractional reserve banking practices in the 17th century brought to a cunning  sophistication the secret techniques initially used by goldsmiths fraudulently to accumulate wealth. With the formation of the privately-owned Bank of England in 1694, the yoke of economic slavery to a privately-owned “central” bank was first forced upon the backs of an entire nation, not removed but only made heavier with the passing of the three centuries to our day. Nation after nation has fallen prey to this cabal of international central bankers.

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Ron Paul Blasts Debt Deal

Monday, August 1st, 2011

August 1, 2011ALEXANDRIA, Virginia – Today, 2012 Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul issued a statement outlining his opposition to the debt ceiling deal struck between the White House and Congress. See statement below.

“While it is good to see serious debate about our debt crisis, I cannot support the reported deal on raising the nation’s debt ceiling.  I have never voted to raise the debt ceiling, and I never will.

“This deal will reportedly cut spending by only slightly over $900 billion over 10 years.  But we will have a $1.6 trillion deficit after this year alone, meaning those meager cuts will do nothing to solve our unsustainable spending problem.

“In fact, this bill will never balance the budget.  Instead, it will add untold trillions of dollars to our deficit.  This also assumes the cuts are real cuts and not the same old Washington smoke and mirrors game of spending less than originally projected so you can claim the difference as a ‘cut.’

“The plan also calls for the formation of a deficit commission, which will accomplish nothing outside of providing Congress and the White House with another way to abdicate responsibility.

“In my many years of public service, there have been commissions on everything from Social Security to energy policy, yet not one solution has been produced out of these commissions.

“By denying members the ability to offer amendments and only allowing an up-or-down vote that will take place in the hectic time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, this Commission essentially disenfranchises the vast majority of members from meaningfully participating in the debate over reducing spending and balancing the budget.

“Furthermore, despite the claims of the bill’s proponents, there is nothing to stop the commission from recommending tax increases.

“One of the reasons why I humbly suggest that I am the most qualified Presidential candidate is my experience to see and understand the long track record of failure, disappointments, and bad recommendations made by such commissions.

“Times like these require statesmanship and steady leadership, which I and the grassroots activists who have joined my campaign believe I am uniquely qualified to provide.

“What should bother Americans most is that under cover of this debt ceiling circus, we learned from a recent GAO one-time, limited audit that the Federal Reserve secretly pumped $16 trillion into American and foreign banks over three years.  All of the Fed’s fat cat cronies were taken care of at the expense of the American public.

“To put that into perspective, our entire national debt is $14.5 trillion, and our annual deficit will be about $1.6 trillion, meaning the Federal Reserve created and appropriated more than our entire national debt to banks around the world in a few short years.  We have been fighting in Congress these past few weeks over raising our debt ceiling by $2 trillion, an amount the Fed secretly gave away to just one big bank.

“For decades, politicians have promised future restraint in exchange for hikes in the debt limit.  We are always told that we must act immediately to avoid a crisis.  But time and time again, politicians reveal themselves to be untrustworthy, and we soon find ourselves in a crisis being led by the same folks who wish only to maintain the status quo.

“I believe in the great American traditions of free markets, sound money, and personal Liberty.  But we are moving far away from what made us the greatest nation in human history. We must cut spending and balance our budget now, before it is too late.

“Let me be clear.  The cuts we must make will not be easy, and there will be difficult times in the short run.  But I have the greatest confidence that if we come together as a People, work hard, and do the right things, our country will be back on track in no time and on its way to unprecedented prosperity.  But, if we continue to print money and pyramid debt, we will destroy ourselves and lose the promise of America forever.

“These difficult times require a President willing to stand against runaway spending.  If elected, I will veto any spending bill that contributes to an unbalanced budget, and I will balance the budget in the first year of my term.  I will not allow the Federal Reserve to destroy the value of our money by shoveling dollars into the pockets of its banker friends.

“I remain committed to working on behalf of the American people to drastically reduce spending and implement fundamental changes that will reform government and restore our nation’s prosperity.”

Paid for by Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign Committee
www.ronpaul2012.com

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Important Debt Ceiling Update

Monday, August 1st, 2011

President Obama just announced late this evening that a deal has been reached to cut government spending and raise the debt ceiling in order to avoid a debt default. If the deal is approved on Monday, it will raise the debt ceiling by between $2.1 and $2.4 trillion in three installments: $400 billion immediately, $500 billion this fall subject to a disapproval vote by Congress, and $1.2 to $1.5 trillion more after a special committee agrees on a matching amount of spending cuts that will be in addition to $900 billion in spending cuts proposed in the bill. With no tax increases included in this plan, all of this additional debt will eventually be monetized and paid for through monetary inflation.

Although the deal is supposed to cut as much as $2.4 trillion in spending over the next decade, Obama said that none of the spending cuts will occur anytime soon so that not to derail the phony economic recovery. That’s right, none of the cuts will come until early 2013 and by then we will need to once again raise the debt ceiling to north of $20 trillion. If our elected representatives were serious about cutting spending, they would have the bulk of the spending cuts now and not in the future when many of them will be out of office.

This deal is a complete and total sham, and will do nothing to prevent hyperinflation. In no way will these spending cuts be mandated and nothing will force future Congresses to abide by them. Even with these cuts, government spending is going to increase every single year for the next decade. As price inflation spirals out of control in the years ahead causing the purchasing power of the dollar to plummet, all government employees will demand higher salaries and it will cost more to run all parts of the government. Future Congresses will raise spending and make the spending cuts proposed in this deal meaningless.

NIA believes that all of the events that took place in Washington this weekend were scripted in advance. It is likely that both parties knew from the beginning what deal they would ultimately agree to, but came out with these other proposed bills in order to satisfy tea party supporters and make them think that their efforts are making a difference. The reality is, although the tea party movement helped Republicans take over the House of Representatives so that Democrats didn’t have free rein in Washington, most of the new Republicans elected to Congress haven’t followed through with their promises and have failed to make any kind of a positive difference.

Everybody in Washington assumes that interest rates will remain at artificially low levels for the rest of this decade. The interest rate that the U.S. paid on its total marketable debt in the month of June was only 2.38%. Exactly one decade earlier, in June of 2001, we paid 6.162% interest on our total marketable debt or 159% higher than current average interest rates. On August 15th we owe our next interest payment of approximately $30 billion. Imagine if that payment rises 159% higher to $77.7 billion or $932.4 billion annualized. Later this decade, interest rates will not only rise back to normal levels like we had in 2001, but will likely rise to artificially high levels to balance out the damage being created today from artificially low interest rates.

If this bill is approved by Congress and the President on Monday, it will avoid a short-term honest debt default but just about guarantee a default by inflation later this decade. There is about a 1 in 1,000 chance that future Congresses will stick with the spending cuts in this bill, but even if they do, rising interest payments will not only wipe out the $2.4 trillion in spending cuts, but they will add trillions more to future deficits and the national debt. A new Gallup Poll shows that 53% of Americans oppose raising the debt ceiling compared to only 37% who favor an increase. We pray that millions of Americans march to Washington tomorrow in protest of this bill and that millions more call, email, and fax their elected representatives in the morning demanding that they vote no.

It is important to spread the word about NIA to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, if you want America to survive hyperinflation. Please tell everybody you know to become members of NIA for free immediately at: http://inflation.us

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12 Warning Signs of U.S. Hyperinflation

Sunday, March 27th, 2011

One of the most frequently asked questions we receive at the National Inflation Association (NIA) is what warning signs will there be when hyperinflation is imminent. In our opinion, the majority of the warning signs that hyperinflation is imminent are already here today, but most Americans are failing to properly recognize them. NIA believes that there is a serious risk of hyperinflation breaking out as soon as the second half of this calendar year and that hyperinflation is almost guaranteed to occur by the end of this decade.

In our estimation, the most likely time frame for a full-fledged outbreak of hyperinflation is between the years 2013 and 2015. Americans who wait until 2013 to prepare, will most likely see the majority of their purchasing power wiped out. It is essential that all Americans begin preparing for hyperinflation immediately.

Here are NIA’s top 12 warning signs that hyperinflation is about to occur:

1. The Federal Reserve is Buying 70% of U.S. Treasuries. The Federal Reserve has been buying 70% of all new U.S. treasury debt. Up until this year, the U.S. has been successful at exporting most of its inflation to the rest of the world, which is hoarding huge amounts of U.S. dollar reserves due to the U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. In recent months, foreign central bank purchases of U.S. treasuries have declined from 50% down to 30%, and Federal Reserve purchases have increased from 10% up to 70%. This means U.S. government deficit spending is now directly leading to U.S. inflation that will destroy the standard of living for all Americans.

2. The Private Sector Has Stopped Purchasing U.S. Treasuries. The U.S. private sector was previously a buyer of 30% of U.S. government bonds sold. Today, the U.S. private sector has stopped buying U.S. treasuries and is dumping government debt. The Pimco Total Return Fund was recently the single largest private sector owner of U.S. government bonds, but has just reduced its U.S. treasury holdings down to zero. Although during the financial panic of 2008, investors purchased government bonds as a safe haven, during all future panics we believe precious metals will be the new safe haven.

3. China Moving Away from U.S. Dollar as Reserve Currency. The U.S. dollar became the world’s reserve currency because it was backed by gold and the U.S. had the world’s largest manufacturing base. Today, the U.S. dollar is no longer backed by gold and China has the world’s largest manufacturing base. There is no reason for the world to continue to transact products and commodities in U.S. dollars, when most of everything the world consumes is now produced in China. China has been taking steps to position the yuan to be the world’s new reserve currency.

The People’s Bank of China stated earlier this month, in a story that went largely unreported by the mainstream media, that it would respond to overseas demand for the yuan to be used as a reserve currency and allow the yuan to flow back into China more easily. China hopes to allow all exporters and importers to settle their cross border transactions in yuan by the end of 2011, as part of their plan to increase the yuan’s international role. NIA believes if China really wants to become the world’s next superpower and see to it that the U.S. simultaneously becomes the world’s next Zimbabwe, all China needs to do is use their $1.15 trillion in U.S. dollar reserves to accumulate gold and use that gold to back the yuan.

4. Japan to Begin Dumping U.S. Treasuries. Japan is the second largest holder of U.S. treasury securities with $885.9 billion in U.S. dollar reserves. Although China has reduced their U.S. treasury holdings for three straight months, Japan has increased their U.S. treasury holdings seven months in a row. Japan is the country that has been the most consistent at buying our debt for the past year, but that is about the change. Japan is likely going to have to spend $300 billion over the next year to rebuild parts of their country that were destroyed by the recent earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster, and NIA believes their U.S. dollar reserves will be the most likely source of this funding. This will come at the worst possible time for the U.S., which needs Japan to increase their purchases of U.S. treasuries in order to fund our record budget deficits.

5. The Fed Funds Rate Remains Near Zero. The Federal Reserve has held the Fed Funds Rate at 0.00-0.25% since December 16th, 2008, a period of over 27 months. This is unprecedented and NIA believes the world is now flooded with excess liquidity of U.S. dollars.

When the nuclear reactors in Japan began overheating two weeks ago after their cooling systems failed due to a lack of electricity, TEPCO was forced to open relief valves to release radioactive steam into the air in order to avoid an explosion. The U.S. stock market is currently acting as a relief valve for all of the excess liquidity of U.S. dollars. The U.S. economy for all intents and purposes should currently be in a massive and extremely steep recession, but because of the Fed’s money printing, stock prices are rising because people don’t know what else to do with their dollars.

NIA believes gold, and especially silver, are much better hedges against inflation than U.S. equities, which is why for the past couple of years we have been predicting large declines in both the Dow/Gold and Gold/Silver ratios. These two ratios have been in free fall exactly like NIA projected.

The Dow/Gold ratio is the single most important chart all investors need to closely follow, but way too few actually do. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) itself is meaningless because it averages together the dollar based movements of 30 U.S. stocks. With just the DJIA, it is impossible to determine whether stocks are rising due to improving fundamentals and real growing investor demand, or if prices are rising simply because the money supply is expanding.

The Dow/Gold ratio illustrates the cyclical nature of the battle between paper assets like stocks and real hard assets like gold. The Dow/Gold ratio trends upward when an economy sees real economic growth and begins to trend downward when the growth phase ends and everybody becomes concerned about preserving wealth. With interest rates at 0%, the U.S. economy is on life support and wealth preservation is the focus of most investors. NIA believes the Dow/Gold ratio will decline to 1 before the hyperinflationary crisis is over and until the Dow/Gold ratio does decline to 1, investors should keep buying precious metals.

6. Year-Over-Year CPI Growth Has Increased 92% in Three Months. In November of 2010, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS)’s consumer price index (CPI) grew by 1.1% over November of 2009. In February of 2011, the BLS’s CPI grew by 2.11% over February of 2010, above the Fed’s informal inflation target of 1.5% to 2%. An increase in year-over-year CPI growth from 1.1% in November of last year to 2.11% in February of this year means that the CPI’s growth rate increased by approximately 92% over a period of just three months. Imagine if the year-over-year CPI growth rate continues to increase by 92% every three months. In 9 to 12 months from now we could be looking at a price inflation rate of over 15%. Even if the BLS manages to artificially hold the CPI down around 5% or 6%, NIA believes the real rate of price inflation will still rise into the double-digits within the next year.

7. Mainstream Media Denying Fed’s Target Passed. You would think that year-over-year CPI growth rising from 1.1% to 2.11% over a period of three months for an increase of 92% would generate a lot of media attention, especially considering that it has now surpassed the Fed’s informal inflation target of 1.5% to 2%. Instead of acknowledging that inflation is beginning to spiral out of control and encouraging Americans to prepare for hyperinflation like NIA has been doing for years, the media decided to conveniently change the way it defines the Fed’s informal target.

The media is now claiming that the Fed’s informal inflation target of 1.5% to 2% is based off of year-over-year changes in the BLS’s core-CPI figures. Core-CPI, as most of you already know, is a meaningless number that excludes food and energy prices. Its sole purpose is to be used to mislead the public in situations like this. We guarantee that if core-CPI had just surpassed 2% and the normal CPI was still below 2%, the media would be focusing on the normal CPI number, claiming that it remains below the Fed’s target and therefore inflation is low and not a problem.

The fact of the matter is, food and energy are the two most important things Americans need to live and survive. If the BLS was going to exclude something from the CPI, you would think they would exclude goods that Americans don’t consume on a daily basis. The BLS claims food and energy prices are excluded because they are most volatile. However, by excluding food and energy, core-CPI numbers are primarily driven by rents. Considering that we just came out of the largest Real Estate bubble in world history, there is a glut of homes available to rent on the market. NIA has been saying for years that being a landlord will be the worst business to be in during hyperinflation, because it will be impossible for landlords to increase rents at the same rate as overall price inflation. Food and energy prices will always increase at a much faster rate than rents.

8. Record U.S. Budget Deficit in February of $222.5 Billion. The U.S. government just reported a record budget deficit for the month of February of $222.5 billion. February’s budget deficit was more than the entire fiscal year of 2007. In fact, February’s deficit on an annualized basis was $2.67 trillion. NIA believes this is just a preview of future annual budget deficits, and we will see annual budget deficits surpass $2.67 trillion within the next several years.

9. High Budget Deficit as Percentage of Expenditures. The projected U.S. budget deficit for fiscal year 2011 of $1.645 trillion is 43% of total projected government expenditures in 2011 of $3.819 trillion. That is almost exactly the same level of Brazil’s budget deficit as a percentage of expenditures right before they experienced hyperinflation in 1993 and it is higher than Bolivia’s budget deficit as a percentage of expenditures right before they experienced hyperinflation in 1985. The only way a country can survive with such a large deficit as a percentage of expenditures and not have hyperinflation, is if foreigners are lending enough money to pay for the bulk of their deficit spending. Hyperinflation broke out in Brazil and Bolivia when foreigners stopped lending and central banks began monetizing the bulk of their deficit spending, and that is exactly what is taking place today in the U.S.

10. Obama Lies About Foreign Policy. President Obama campaigned as an anti-war President who would get our troops out of Iraq. NIA believes that many Libertarian voters actually voted for Obama in 2008 over John McCain because they felt Obama was more likely to end our wars that are adding greatly to our budget deficits and making the U.S. a lot less safe as a result. Obama may have reduced troop levels in Iraq, but he increased troops levels in Afghanistan, and is now sending troops into Libya for no reason.

The U.S. is now beginning to occupy Libya, when Libya didn’t do anything to the U.S. and they are no threat to the U.S. Obama has increased our overall overseas troop levels since becoming President and the U.S. is now spending $1 trillion annually on military expenses, which includes the costs to maintain over 700 military bases in 135 countries around the world. There is no way that we can continue on with our overseas military presence without seeing hyperinflation.

11. Obama Changes Definition of Balanced Budget. In the White House’s budget projections for the next 10 years, they don’t project that the U.S. will ever come close to achieving a real balanced budget. In fact, after projecting declining budget deficits up until the year 2015 (NIA believes we are unlikely to see any major dip in our budget deficits due to rising interest payments on our national debt), the White House projects our budget deficits to begin increasing again up until the year 2021. Obama recently signed an executive order to create the “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform”, with a mission to “propose recommendations designed to balance the budget, excluding interest payments on the debt, by 2015″. Obama is redefining a balanced budget to exclude interest payments on our national debt, because he knows interest payments are about to explode and it will be impossible to truly balance the budget.

12. U.S. Faces Largest Ever Interest Payment Increases. With U.S. inflation beginning to spiral out of control, NIA believes it is 100% guaranteed that we will soon see a large spike in long-term bond yields. Not only that, but within the next couple of years, NIA believes the Federal Reserve will be forced to raise the Fed Funds Rate in a last-ditch effort to prevent hyperinflation. When both short and long-term interest rates start to rise, so will the interest payments on our national debt. With the public portion of our national debt now exceeding $10 trillion, we could see interest payments on our debt reach $500 billion within the next year or two, and over $1 trillion somewhere around mid-decade. When interest payments reach $1 trillion, they will likely be around 30% to 40% of government tax receipts, up from interest payments being only 9% of tax receipts today. No country has ever seen interest payments on their debt reach 40% of tax receipts without hyperinflation occurring in the years to come.

It is important to spread the word about NIA to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, if you want America to survive hyperinflation. Please tell everybody you know to become members of NIA for free immediately at: http://inflation.us
National Inflation Association 2011 March 26

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