2012 Press Release Archives

2012 Press Release Archives

FINANCIAL SURVIVAL REQUIRES NEW HOLIDAY TRADITION, SAY EXPERTS

“PARENTS NEED TO THINK LIKE THE THREE WISE MEN”

12.12.12 -- For the first time in American history, millions of parents worry that their children will have fewer opportunities than they did.

“Today's children will face a lifetime average tax rate of 83 percent to pay for America's fast-growing European-style welfare state,” says monetary expert Craig R. Smith, whose just-published latest book is The Great Debasement: The 100-Year Dying of the Dollar and How to Get America's Money Back.

three kings “Most of today's children will be stuck in an economy with chronic double-digit unemployment,” Smith says, “and this will keep wages down and limit their opportunities.”

“Most of today's children will spend their lives stymied on the promotion ladder at work looking up at the backside of older bosses who need their income and refuse to retire,” says Smith, an expert on money who is frequently interviewed by Fox's Neil Cavuto and other business journalists.

“Most of today's children will watch their meager earnings devoured by government-caused inflation, soaring prices and an ever-shrinking dollar,” warns Smith.

“Many will postpone having children of their own, making even more vulnerable an America that has plunged to a non-replacement fertility rate of 1.87 children per woman....which will mean too few future workers to pay for your children's retirement,” he says.

“The good news is that this holiday season you can start giving your children the survival skills to escape this fate,” says Smith.

“You know the old saying: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime,” says Smith.

“This holiday season, no matter how young your children are, you can starting teaching them financial survival skills that can protect them for a lifetime,” says Smith. “It's a lot smarter than investing in some toy that will be worn out and forgotten in a few weeks.”

“In America parents traditionally take their child to the bank to get a first passbook savings account, but today's banks now pay almost no interest,” says Smith's co-author Lowell Ponte, a former think tank futurist and former Reader's Digest Roving Editor.

“In prosperous Switzerland, parents take their child to get a first small gold coin or bar of gold,” says Ponte.

“This teaches values, responsibility and thrift, and builds a reliable store of value that will be a lifeboat in the tidal wave of inflation that all the trillions of paper dollars government is conjuring from thin air inevitably will soon cause,” says Ponte.

“With our spendaholic politicians now destroying the value of our paper dollars, it's time to learn from the peaceful, successful Swiss, and teach our children the the habit, wisdom and incorruptible value of gold,” says Ponte.

“To a manger in Bethlehem long ago, three wise men brought three gifts, one of which was gold. This began a long tradition of giving such gifts to honor that same birth.”

“That gold was a wise gift that helped a family escape the wrath of a wicked ruler,” says Ponte.

“An educational gift of gold, and a new family tradition of giving and saving this Biblical standard of genuine money, could prepare your children for financial survival in a future that could bring many severe challenges,” says Craig Smith, who 30 years ago founded and today is Chairman of Swiss America Trading Corporation.

For an amazing interview with Craig Smith or Lowell Ponte about the Great Debasement call: Bronwin Barilla at (800) 950-2428 or email bkbarilla@greatdebasement.com


“GIMME SHELTER”

HOMES MIGHT SOON NO LONGER BE TAX SHELTERS, SAY EXPERTS
MONEY-HUNGRY POLS PLOT END OF MORTGAGE INTEREST DEDUCTION

12.6.12 -- The American Dream of home ownership began to die with the crash of home prices in 2008 that destroyed 39 percent of the average American family's total net worth and has left 11 million families underwater, owing more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.

question “The American Dream will soon be put to death by President Barack Obama and lawmakers of both parties who are planning to end the tax-deductibility of interest that homeowners pay on their mortgages,” says Craig R. Smith.

Smith is a renowned monetary expert whose just-published latest book is The Great Debasement: The 100-Year Dying of the Dollar and How to Get America's Money Back.

“This has been the biggest tax break widely used by hard-working Middle Class Americans, but greedy, money-hungry politicians are now quietly plotting to snatch it away – first tightly capping it for the Upper Middle Class, and soon thereafter phasing it out for the Middle Class,” says Smith.

“In 1913 Congress began allowing citizens to deduct interest paid for many things, including homes,” says Smith, whose new book focuses on the creation of the income tax and Federal Reserve by Progressives in 1913, and how the U.S. Dollar has over the 100 years since then lost 98 percent of its purchasing power through money and tax manipulation.

This Great Debasement of our money and politics has been “the largest confiscation of wealth in world history,” writes Smith – a hidden-tax transfer of at least $222 Trillion from working Americans to the government.

“In 1986, lawmakers were eager for even more trillions in taxes, so they repealed the law that let taxpayers deduct interest on credit cards and most other debts,” says Smith, an expert on money who is frequently interviewed by Fox's Neil Cavuto and other major business journalists.

“These politicians also put limits on how much home mortgage and equity line interest high achievers could deduct,” says Smith, “but in 1986 they were afraid to touch the home mortgage interest deduction for Middle Class Americans.”

“They knew that this, along with Social Security and Medicare, was the other 'third rail' of American politics – touch it and you die, politically.”

“Today our jackal-pack politicians are losing this fear,” says Smith's co-author Lowell Ponte, who has been a think tank futurist and Reader's Digest Roving Editor.

“Our greedy politicians see this as $100 Billion every year that working Americans get to keep for themselves and their families, money that is easy for government to grab,” says Ponte.

“These Progressive politicians are already planning to take Americans' 401(K), IRA and pension life savings, in exchange for devalued, low-paying government bond I.O.U.s, as was done recently in Argentina; to increase the Death Tax to confiscatory levels; to jack up the tax on dividends and capital gains; and to cap at a low amount how much Americans can deduct for charitable contributions,” says Ponte.

“This is all part of the ongoing 'Great Debasement,' the biggest forced transfer of private property and individual savings to the government in human history,” says Ponte.

“Under President Barack Obama, the government is trying to take it all, to redistribute the capital of our capitalist achievers, and to turn all of us into serfs and dependents of the expanding feudal state,” says Ponte.

“Limiting and then eliminating your mortgage interest deduction is just one more giant step down this road to serfdom.”

“Housing has begun to revive in recent months, but a closer look shows that much of this has come from Chinese buyers snapping up bargains on the East and West Coasts, and from speculators buying and building cheap housing to rent, not to sell, to hard-pressed families,” says Smith.

“America is being turned into a nation of renters, not home-owners, which means that our culture is becoming more transient, less rooted, and less committed to building permanent, stable communities,” says Smith.

“Today one house in five is home to more than one family, while many big-spending local governments are gouging homeowners with soaring property taxes to pay for fat public-employee union pension obligations,” says Ponte.

Two years ago in their book, Crashing the Dollar, Smith and Ponte documented how misguided government policies caused the 2008 housing crash – by strong-arming banks into giving home mortgages to millions of un-creditworthy people.

In their more recent books, The Inflation Deception and now The Great Debasement, Smith and Ponte show how such policies have put the economy and the U.S. Dollar into a “death spiral.” These books are “survival guides” to show individuals and families how to protect themselves from what is coming.

“It's clear that the family home has become a riskier investment – and a much less secure tax shelter for people's investment and savings – than it used to be,” says Smith.

“Prudent people should now urgently consider diversifying a portion of their remaining life savings into safer investments that the politicians are not eyeing hungrily or can so easily snatch away.”

* * *

For an amazing interview with Craig Smith or Lowell Ponte about the Great Debasement of America's dollar, the history of secession movements in America, and lots more, call: Bronwin Barilla at (800) 950-2428 or email bkbarilla@greatdebasement.com

SOURCES:

Peter Eavis, “Mortgage Interest Deduction, Once a Sacred Cow, Is Under Scrutiny,” New York Times, November 26, 2012. URL: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/mortgage-interest-deduction-once-a-sacred-cow-is-seen-as-vulnerable/

Charles Wallace, “Is it Time to Kill the Mortgage Interest Tax Deduction? DailyFinance.com/AOL.com, April 20, 2011. URL: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/04/20/eliminate-mortgage-interest-tax-deduction/

Liz Peek, “Homeowners Not Better Off Now Than Four Years Ago,” The Fiscal Times, September 5, 2012. URL: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2012/09/05/Homeowners-Not-Better-Off-Now-than-Four-Years-Ago.aspx#page1

Diana Olick, “How Rising Home Prices May Actually Stall the Recovery,” CNBC, November 30, 2012. URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/50026661/print/1/displaymode/1098/


OBAMA PLANS TO GRAB PRIVATE IRAs, 401(K)s, SAY EXPERTS

PRESIDENT EYES SNATCHING $18.5 TRILLION FROM SAVERS
YOUR TARGETED RETIREMENT NEST EGG – MOVE IT OR LOSE IT

uncle sam 11.27.12 – During President Barack Obama's first term, the government massively expanded the welfare state, took over American healthcare, effectively expropriated several major banks and two of the nation's three biggest car companies, and nationalized 90 percent of a trillion dollars of student loans.

In President Obama's second term, his biggest takeover target is the $18.5 Trillion that Americans have saved in their personal Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), 401(K) plans and pension accounts, say two prominent economic experts.

“This is one of the biggest pools of private money left in America, and our spendaholic politicians would love to divvy it up,” says Craig R. Smith, a renowned monetary expert whose just-published latest book is The Great Debasement: The 100-Year Dying of the Dollar and How to Get America's Money Back.

“In 2010 President Obama's Treasury and Labor Departments, as well as ruling Congressional Democrats, were openly discussing ways, for example, to confiscate private retirement accounts and 'replace' them with a government 'annuity' backed by Treasury bonds,” says Smith.

“This would force Americans to buy risky government debt, just as China, Japan and other nations are now less and less willing to do,” says Smith,

“In effect, this Ponzi scheme would seize peoples' private savings, which politicians would then spend immediately to expand the welfare state, making more voters dependent on government handouts,” says Smith.

“Retirees, in place of their savings, would be paid a government bond interest rate lower than the rate of inflation,” says Smith, an expert on money who is frequently interviewed by Fox's Neil Cavuto and other business journalists.

“Instead of their savings, retirees would get inflated paper government dollars worth less than what they had saved,” says Smith. “In effect, this would transfer to the government trillions of dollars that senior citizens had earned.”

“This confiscation of trillions of dollars from the savings of retirees would already be happening if voters in 2010 had not thrown out the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives,” says Smith's co-author Lowell Ponte, a former think tank futurist and retired Roving Editor at Reader's Digest.

“Argentina in 2008 effectively expropriated the money in private pension funds, leaving debased government bonds worth only 29 cents of their face value in their place – much as our politicians looted and spent $2.66 Trillion from the Social Security Trust Fund, leaving paper I.O.U.'s in its place,” says Ponte.

“Bulgaria likewise transferred approximately $60 million in private retirement savings into a government pension scheme. Ireland levied money from the National Pension Reserve Fund to bail out banks.”

“In 2010 Hungary demanded that citizens give the government their private savings or forfeit all state pension money they had been promised,” says Ponte.

“In 2012 California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the first government-run retirement program for private employees, reportedly funded by requiring companies with 5 or more employees to divert 3 percent of each employee's pay to CalPERS, the California Public Employees Retirement System.”

“This new law is expected in its first year to add $6.6 Billion to the coffers of a California government retirement system already underfunded by as much as $500 Billion,” says Ponte. “It's just one more way to tax private sector workers' earnings to bankroll fat pensions for the public employee unions that have run a once-golden State of California into the ground.”

(“California, as we've written, is now experiencing a 'reverse gold rush' of successful people fleeing to keep from losing the gold they've earned to the sky-high taxes. By destroying this state's once-prosperous economy, politicians have made it appropriate that the animal on the California flag is a bear, not a bull.”)

“President Obama is eager to 'spread the wealth around' that belongs to achievers who have earned and saved it,” says Ponte. “But the more he takes from these savers, by 'means testing' or a hundred other Progressive gimmicks, the more he will discourage people from saving for their own retirement – and the more he will make retirees dependent on an already-bankrupt government.”

“People need to wake up and see the bullseye, the red laser dot, where rapacious, money-hungry politicians are aiming for their IRAs, 401(K)s, and pensions,” says Craig Smith.

“Your retirement nest egg is being targeted for political confiscation,” says Smith. “One prudent decision could be 'Move it or lose it.'”

“Take at least a portion of your savings and convert it into something that will not be lost if the politicians suddenly confiscate your retirement accounts, or further debase the dollar's value to cover the stratospheric debts caused by out-of-control government spending,” says Smith.

For an amazing interview with Craig Smith or Lowell Ponte about the Great Debasement of America's dollar, the history of secession movements in America, and lots more, call: Bronwin Barilla at (800) 950-2428 or email bkbarilla@greatdebasement.com


SOURCES:

Gary DeMar, “Obama Administration to Go After Retirement Accounts,” Godfather Politics, November 23, 2012. URL: http://godfatherpolitics.com/8220/obama-administration-to-go-after-retirement-accounts/

Jerome R. Corsi, “Now Obama Wants Your 401(K): Treasury, Labor on Path to Nationalize Retirement,” WND.com, November 25, 2012. URL: http://www.wnd.com/2012/11/now-obama-wants-your-401k/

Newt Gingrich and Peter Ferrara, “Class Warfar's Next Target: 401(K),” Investor's Business Daily / American Enterprise Institute, February 18, 2010. URL: http://www.aei.org/article/society-and-culture/class-warfares-next-target-401k-savings/


AMERICANS SHOULD “SECEDE” FROM U.S. DOLLAR, SAY EXPERTS
“THIS ISN'T LEAVING, BUT RETURNING TO, THE UNITED STATES”

11.20.12 -- In the wake of the November 6 re-election of President Barack Obama, more than 900,000 Americans have signed petitions requesting that their states' be allowed to secede “peacefully” from the United States.

At least 10 states have each filed more than 25,000 such signatures, the number at which the Obama Administration has said it would formally reply to petitions. [For exact current numbers, see “Sources” below...]

dollar “Americans can and should do more than symbolically protest against the economic disaster our nation now faces,” says Craig R. Smith, a renowned monetary expert whose just-published latest book is The Great Debasement: The 100-Year Dying of the Dollar and How to Get America's Money Back.

“The real secessionists in America are the Progressives (like President Obama), who first took power in the election of 1912 and in 1913 created the income tax and the Federal Reserve, whose job was to replace dollars previously as 'good as gold' with an 'elastic' currency,” says Smith.

“The Progressives over the past 100 years have replaced the solid gold- and silver-backed money specified in the U.S. Constitution with paper Federal Reserve Notes worth no more than politicians' promises,” says Smith.

“Politicians unconstrained by a gold standard were able to print and spend as much as they wished, causing The Great Debasement of our hard-earned dollar,” says Smith, an expert on money who is frequently interviewed by Fox's Neil Cavuto and other business journalists.

“Over the past 100 years Progressive politicians have carried out the greatest expropriation of wealth in human history, taking at least $222 Trillion from working Americans by manipulating the value of their 'elastic' U.S. Dollars,” says Smith.

“Those Progressives, in effect, seceded from America's Constitution, replacing the Dollar created by the Framers with a new Progressive paper monopoly money we were then forced to use to pay their new income tax,” says Smith.

“This paper fiat money continues to lose value because our politicians and Fed keep printing and borrowing trillions,” says Smith. “We can't go much farther with a faith-based paper dollar in which lenders around the world are losing faith. The laws of economics require that the dollar will soon be hit by a tidal wave of inflation that will wash away many trillions in private life savings and other investments held in the form of dollars.”

“The good news is that Americans CAN choose to secede from this Progressive funny money,” says Smith's co-author Lowell Ponte, a former think tank futurist and retired Reader's Digest Roving Editor.

“People can protect a portion of their life savings by seceding from today's debased paper dollars and by creating their own family gold standard,” says Ponte.

“People can secede from today's unconstitutional economy of debased Progressive paper currency by returning to what America's Founders specified as genuine money, gold and silver,” says Ponte.

“Ronald Reagan once said that he did not leave the Democratic Party,” says Ponte. “The Democratic Party, he said, left him.”

“The Progressives left the Constitution and its solid, reliable, inflation-free money,” says Ponte.

“When prudent patriots reject the Progressives' paper fiat dollars and invest instead in things the politicians and Fed cannot run off a printing press in Washington, D.C., to pay for their reckless spending, they are not seceding from the United States,” says Ponte.

“On the contrary, such patriots are returning to the United States of America's Framers and Constitution,” says Ponte. “They are escaping from a Progressive-dominated land where, as Jefferson warned, Americans could someday find themselves 'homeless' – with their heritage and inheritance lost – in a continent their pioneer ancestors conquered.”

“Seceding from the Progressives' 'elastic' paper money system is much more than a symbolic protest,” says Ponte.

“Returning to America's Constitutional standard of real, solid money – which itself was based on the Biblical definition of real money – will put a portion of your life savings beyond the reach of today's greedy, grasping Progressive politicians.”

“This is a powerful way for people right now to issue their own Declaration of Independence and help restore our Constitutional Republic, while protecting their own savings and sending today's politicians a sharp, pointed message.”

For an amazing interview with Craig Smith or Lowell Ponte about the Great Debasement of America's dollar, the history of secession movements in America, and lots more, call: Bronwin Barilla at (800) 950-2428 or email bkbarilla@greatdebasement.com

SOURCES:

To see up-to-the-minute totals for secession petitions in the 50 states, go to: http://lanceingle.com/playground/

“Petitions for U.S. Secession Submitted From All 50 States,” McClatchey Newspapers, November 17, 2012. URL: http://www.vindy.com/news/2012/nov/17/petitions-us-secession-submitted-all-50-states/?print

Valerie Richardson, “Secession Petitions Boosting Spirits on Right Wing,” Washington Times, November 15, 2012. URL: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/nov/15/secession-petitions-boosting-spirits-on-right-wing/


OBAMA TAXES ON RICH WILL HIT POOR, SAY EXPERTS

President Obama's Vengeful Tax Policies Will Injure Everybody”

11.12.12 -- In his first weekly speech since his November 6 re-election, President Barack Obama said that he has a voter “mandate” for, and will insist on, much heavier taxes on “the richest Americans.”

Without such taxes on the rich, President Obama has said, he will force the U.S. economy over the “fiscal cliff” into heavier taxes on most Americans, a devastating new Recession, and unemployment that will soar to above 9 percent starting January 1, 2013.

fiscal “Mr. Obama apparently thinks he has a winning political poker hand, because he knows his mainstream media allies will blame Republicans for the economic horrors caused if he hurls America off the 'fiscal cliff,'” says Craig R. Smith, whose just-published latest book is The Great Debasement: The 100-Year Dying of the Dollar and How to Get America's Money Back.

“The Republican-majority House of Representatives also received a voter mandate on November 6 to hold taxes down,” says Smith, “and under the U.S. Constitution all taxing and spending bills must originate in the House, the governmental body closest to the voters because its members are re-elected every two years.”

“The voters seem to prefer divided, gridlocked government, because they ended Democratic control of the House in 2010 and voted to keep a solid Republican majority in the House in 2012,” says Smith, a monetary expert frequently interviewed by Fox's Neil Cavuto and other major business journalists.

“President Obama, following his re-election, said that he will not 'accept any approach [to avoiding the fiscal cliff] that isn't balanced,'” says Smith's co-author Lowell Ponte, a former think tank futurist.

“But Mr. Obama's divisive politics of class warfare have produced the most divided, unbalanced, polarized America in 50 years,” says Ponte.

“Hours before the November 6 election, President Obama told his supporters to vote because 'voting is the best revenge,'” says Ponte. “For four years he has governed contrary to his 2008 promises as a candidate to bring Americans together and end partisanship.”

“Instead, the Obama presidency has divided America through unrelenting class rhetoric and policies to transfer capital from the capitalist 'makers' to the 'takers' of free government benefits, Mr. Obama's voting constituency,” says Ponte.

“By heavily recruiting people to sign up for Food Stamps, Mr. Obama increased those dependent on this welfare program by more than 50 percent,” says Ponte, “creating an invisible soup line of voters with incentive to protect this freebie that would stretch more than 17,500 miles long, more than 70 percent of the distance around Planet Earth.”

“The Bureau of Labor Statistics was supposed to publish its data days before the election showing that Food Stamps now go to an all-time record 47.1 million people,” says Ponte, “but like other data showing Mr. Obama's economic failures, this mysteriously got delayed until the Friday afternoon following the election.”

“A record 70.4 million, more than 1 of every 5 Americans, have also enrolled in Medicaid – government medical care for the poor – under President Obama,” says Ponte, “and now Mr. Obama threatens to make millions more of us poor unless he is allowed to massively tax more, spend more, and buy yet more votes to advance his Big Government ideology with taxpayer money.”

“President Obama says he wants to tax the wealthy, yet this is almost impossible to do,” says Craig Smith, who with Ponte has also written the recent widely-praised financial books Crashing the Dollar and The Inflation Deception.

“Two-thirds of upper income earners are also the owners and investors of companies that make the products that everybody, including the poor, buy,” says Smith.

“When you tax such companies and the people who own them, they will just pass the tax along in higher prices for their products – just as President Ronald Reagan had his economists identify in the 151 hidden taxes in every loaf of bread,” says Smith.

“The poor will in the end pay most of these taxes, but politicians like Mr. Obama will be able to avoid responsibility for taxing the poor,” says Smith.

“The poor will also increasingly be trapped by government dependency because heavily-taxed companies and investors will produce fewer and fewer jobs,” says Smith.

“A cynic might think that Progressive politicians like President Obama want this to happen,” says Ponte, “because a permanent majority of poor people dependent on government handouts could vote to keep Progressives like Mr. Obama in perpetual power.”

“If Mr. Obama prefers to rule a ruined economy than risk having Progressives voted out by people in a prosperous, self-reliant economy,” says Ponte, “then he will hold the poor hostage as a way to demand even more transfer of wealth from the productive to the government.”

“Our nation will suffer a terrible decline in this Obama Transfer-mation of America.”

CHECK OUT THE TAX FOUNDATION'S 2013 TAX CALCULATOR

To schedule an interview with Craig R. Smith or Lowell Ponte, call: Bronwin Barilla at (800) 950-2428 or email bkbarilla@greatdebasement.com

Sources:

Daniel Politi, “Obama: I Have a Mandate on Tax Hike for Wealthiest Americans,” Slate.com, November 10, 2012. URL: http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/11/10/obama_insits_on_tax_hike_for_rich_on_fiscal_cliff_deal.html

Tyler Durden, “Foodstamps Surge by Most in One Year To New All Time Record, In Delayed Release,” ZeroHedge, November 10, 2012. URL: http://www.zerohedge.com/print/459228

Matt Cover, “Record 70.4 Million Enrolled in Medicaid in 2011” 1 Out of Every 5 Americans,” CNSNews, November 9, 2012. URL: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/record-704-million-enrolled-medicaid-2011-1-out-every-5-americans


MARKET UNDER OBAMA SHOWS SYMPTOMS OF SICKNESS: EXPERTS

OBAMA RE-ELECTION MIGHT BE FATAL TO DOLLAR, ECONOMY

11.7.12 - The morning after President Barack Obama's re-election, stocks plunged more than 351 points, far below 13,000 to 12,876.60, the market's biggest one-day point drop in a year.

“This is one more symptom of a sickening economy under President Obama,” says monetary expert Craig R. Smith, whose just-published latest book is The Great Debasement: The 100-Year Dying of the Dollar and How to Get America's Money Back.

never “Since Mr. Obama's inauguration in January 2009, the price of gold rose 91 percent and of silver 165 percent, symptoms of investors being worried about the future of stocks and the value of the dollar. The Dollar Index has fallen by almost 5 percent, from 85.47 in January 2009 to 80.77 today,” says Smith.

“The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up by 61 percent on election day this week,” says Smith, “but under President Obama our upside-down stock market has gone up on bad news and down on good news. Market speculators now buy on whatever will prompt the Federal Reserve to conjure more stimulus billions out of thin air.”

“Our National Debt soared from $10.62 Trillion to $16.21 Trillion during President Obama's first term, as he doled out more than $5.5 Trillion in stimulus money.

Unemployment was 7.6 percent when Mr. Obama took office in 2009, but rose to above 8 percent for the next 43 months while 23 million Americans remained unable to find full-time work. Even these chilling numbers were controversial because of changes in how unemployment was calculated.

“If the same percentage of adults were in the workforce as when Barack Obama took office, the unemployment rate would be 11.1 percent,” the Washington Post reported in May 2012.

If the Job Participation Rate – which plummeted from 65.8 percent to below 63.6 percent (the lowest percent of the population working since December 1981) during Obama's first term – “was where it was when George W. Bush took office,” the Washington Post reported, “the unemployment rate would be 13.1 percent.”

Weeks before the November 6 election, the Bureau of Labor Statistics under President Obama's Executive Branch shocked experts by announcing that the unemployment rate had suddenly plunged from 8.1 to 7.8 percent, the biggest one-month drop in 29 years, dating back to when the economy was growing robustly at 5 percent under President Ronald Reagan.

Under President Obama, standards were adjusted so that a person working one day per month counted as employed, but those who stopped looking for work for four weeks ceased to be counted as unemployed.

Mr. Obama's presidency began with the biggest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) drop in 27 years, and during his first four years growth fell from 3.8 percent to an anemic 1.3 percent in the second Quarter of 2012 and at most 2 percent today,” says Smith, a prominent business executive frequently interviewed by Fox's Neil Cavuto and other major business programs.

“If we factored a real inflation rate of around 7 percent, our real growth rate is closer to minus 5 percent, meaning that we have been in recession for the past four years.”

“Our sick economy is not recovering,” says Smith. “The stimulus not only failed, it made things worse. Fearful of the tidal wave of future inflation this flood of paper money will soon cause, business people cut back on investment and hiring, according to an economic analysis at the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank we discuss in our book The Great Debasement.

“The rise in gold, silver and stimulus spending under President Obama are like antibodies in a sick economy,” says Smith's co-author Lowell Ponte, a former think tank futurist and former science editor at Reader's Digest.

“They reflect how weak the economy has become, and are symptoms of how afraid investors are,” says Ponte.

“President Obama's re-election will make our economy even sicker,” predicts Ponte.

“Mr. Obama has said he will push America off January's 'fiscal cliff' into a new Great Recession if Congress refuses to impose crushing new taxes on businesses and their owners, who already pay the heaviest business tax rate of all advanced nations.”

“The whole nation is being held for ransom, threatened with trillions in higher taxes if President Obama does not get his way,” says Ponte.

“And going off the January 2013 'fiscal cliff' would also downgrade America's global credit at a time when 40 cents of every dollar President Obama spends is money borrowed from the People's Republic of China and elsewhere.” says Ponte. “If interest rates increase for such borrowing, this could quickly break America's financial back.”

“Yet President Obama has expanded the welfare state so much, and promised trillions more to special interests to win re-election,” says Ponte, “that America's rate of borrowing could soon exceed the $58,000 every second that government borrowing reached during his first term as President.”

In their new book The Great Debasement, Smith and Ponte warned that with 49.1 percent of American households now receiving a government benefit, the 2012 election would be a tipping point in American history that could turn America permanently into a European-style welfare state.

Many Progressives no longer believe in God, they wrote, but “have you ever met a Progressive who did not believe that the government is Santa Claus with a bottomless bag of free goodies?” (TGB page 260)

For the past four years, they say, the U.S. economy has been weakened by 25 percent by what they call “donkey drag,” rule by an ideological President and his party eager to impose heavier taxes and regulations on business.

“This 'donkey drag' will continue to hamper jobs for the next four years, and will drive trillions of investment dollars to the 17 other nations recently rated by the Cato Institute as having more economic freedom than today's United States,” says Ponte.

“Our nation once prospered from skilled people coming here to seek freedom,” says Ponte. “But now as Lady Liberty's torch of economic freedom grows dimmer, our economy grows sicker, and our dollar weakens under President Obama's anti-business policies, the best and the brightest will be moving their talents and investments to countries with more opportunity.”

To schedule an interview with Craig R. Smith or Lowell Ponte, call: Bronwin Barilla at (800) 950-2428 or email bkbarilla@greatdebasement.com


RE-ELECTED GRINCHBAMA COULD STEAL NEXT 4 CHRISTMASES, SAY ECONOMIC EXPERTS

OBAMA RE-ELECTION COULD RUIN ECONOMY FOR YEARS

“RUST BELT” STATES WOULD SUFFER MOST, EXPERTS PREDICT

grinch 11.2.12 – If progressive Democratic President Barack Obama is re-elected, this will persuade many thousands investors that the United States is no longer a friendly country for free enterprise or business, say two economic analysts in a new book.

“President Obama has said he will take America over the 'fiscal cliff' on January 1, 2013, and wreck America's economy and credit rating unless he is able to impose trillions of dollars in higher taxes on businesses and their owners,” says Craig R. Smith, whose just-published latest book is The Great Debasement: The 100-Year Dying of the Dollar and How to Get America's Money Back.

“Such enormous tax increases, along with Mr. Obama's record of using government regulation to stifle energy and other industries, will quickly plunge America back into deep Recession or worse,” says Smith.

“One immediate effect will be that a re-elected President Obama will be the Grinch who steals Christmas, not just in 2012 but for his next four years in office,” says Smith, the founder and chairman of a major company who is frequently interviewed by Fox's Neil Cavuto and other business media.

“Businesses have been holding back $3 Trillion, not using it to hire or expand pending the election outcome,” says Smith.

“If the American people re-elect this president who makes no secret of his desire to tax and restrict business, much of that $3 Trillion will be invested in other countries – and trillions more that are now invested in jobs for Americans could soon be moved abroad,” says Smith.

“The part of America likely to be hit hardest by this would likely be any 'rustbelt' states that vote for Mr. Obama's re-election,” says Smith's co-author Lowell Ponte, a former think tank futurist.

“Ohio had been gaining jobs thanks to its Republican Governor John Kasich, but President Obama had campaigned in Ohio taking credit himself for this improvement,” says Ponte. “The mainstream media refused to ask Mr. Obama why economic improvement was happening only in states with Republican Governors.”

“If voters in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin or Pennsylvania give Mr. Obama a winning re-election margin, then investors will conclude that the old union class-warfare hatred of business there is rising – and future private investment in these pro-Obama states will cease,” says Ponte.

“Any of these states that go for Mr. Obama will slide back into economic ruin for a long time as investment flees from them,” says Ponte. “Ohio could face decades of sad Christmases, empty holiday stockings, and lost job opportunities for its children if it votes for Obama in 2012.”

“If people put themselves in the shoes of investors for a moment before election day, they'll understand that nobody is eager to take the risk of investing or hiring where the people vote to re-elect an openly anti-business, anti-capitalist President Obama,” says Ponte.

“The real choice people face on election day isn't between President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney,” says Ponte.

“The real choice on Americans' ballot,” says Ponte, “is whether voters are so committed to ruinous class warfare that they are willing to sacrifice their own children's future, and to destroy America's economic future, by voting to re-elect President Barack Obama and his failed high-tax, high-debt, high-unemployment anti-free enterprise ideology.”

To schedule an interview with Craig R. Smith or Lowell Ponte, call: Bronwin Barilla at (800) 950-2428 or email bkbarilla@greatdebasement.com


WILL FRIDAY REPORT “DO A JOB” ON AMERICAN VOTERS?

DO NOT SWALLOW OBAMA'S JOBS REPORT, SAY EXPERTS

money 11.1.12 – President Barack Obama's “October Surprise” could arrive on November 2, only four days before the election – an official October “Jobs Report” manipulated to create the illusion that Mr. Obama's economic policies are starting to succeed, say two economic experts.

“For the first 43 months of President Obama's term, unemployment was stuck above 8 percent,” says Craig R. Smith, whose just-published latest book is The Great Debasement: The 100-Year Dying of the Dollar and How to Get America's Money Back.

“The grim reality of 24 million Americans unable to find full-time work was destroying Mr. Obama's chances for re-election,” says Smith, “but then, something strange happened.”

“The government's September [2012] jobs report, issued October 5, surprised experts by saying that the jobless rate had somehow declined from 8.2 to 7.8 percent,” Smith writes in The Great Debasement.

“This was the largest one-month jobless decline in 29 years,” writes Smith, “which back then happened when the economy under President Ronald Reagan was growing by more than 5 percent.”

“In September 2012 the most recent adjusted growth rate for the economy was an anemic 1.3 percent, with many economic indicators pointing to even further slowing,” continues Smith, who is frequently interviewed by Fox's Neil Cavuto and other prominent business media.

“Obama Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, a former member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, adamantly denied that the number had been manipulated.”

The retired head of General Electric, Jack Welch, was savaged by the dominant liberal media for telling friends: “Unbelievable job numbers...these Chicago guys [Obama apparatchiks] will do anything...can't debate so change numbers.”

“In fact, Mr. Obama has done many things to manipulate the job numbers in his favor,” says Smith's co-author Lowell Ponte, a former think tank futurist.

“If we still counted the unemployed the way we did during President Jimmy Carter's Administration, today's real unemployment rate would be around 14.9 percent,” says Ponte. “Today a person ceases to be counted if he or she stops applying for work for only four weeks or is given a government scholarship to Junior College or government Disability benefits.”

“Last summer President Obama issued a directive granting welfare agencies waivers if they dropped the “Workfare” requirement signed in 1996 by Democratic President Bill Clinton that those on welfare be seeking jobs – a provision that cut welfare rolls by half,” says Ponte.

“This meant that potentially millions on welfare would within four weeks be removed from the unemployment count – even though not one of them found a job,” says Ponte. “It was a way of gimmicking the numbers downward to help Mr. Obama's re-election prospects.”

“Likewise, Mr. Obama made it much easier to get onto lifelong Social Security Disability benefits by claiming hard-to-disprove mental problems – and those disability rolls have exploded, with more people than 8 million people, more than the population of New York City,” says Ponte. “This is bankrupting Social Security but it helped Mr. Obama gimmick the unemployment numbers below 8 percent.”

“And President Obama's used lots of other tricks, too, to deceive the voters,” says Ponte. “His 'Far-Left' appointee to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics was described by Bill Wilson in Investor's Business Daily last July 18 as having a background 'more explicitly linked to overt anti-American ideologies than any Obama appointee since his infamous 'green jobs czar' [and self-described 'communist'] Van Jones.'”

“The Bureau of Labor Statistics has said that Hurricane Sandy's aftermath might prevent it from releasing new job numbers on Friday, before the election, as scheduled,” says Ponte.

“I suspect that if BLS has numbers that can help President Obama, these will be released on Friday. If the numbers can't be massaged enough to help his re-election, I would not be surprised if BLS releases nothing until after next Tuesday's vote. Bottom Line: Take anything they say with a very large grain of salt...and a healthy dose of skepticism.”

To schedule an interview with Craig R. Smith or Lowell Ponte, call: Bronwin Barilla at (800) 950-2428 or email bkbarilla@greatdebasement.com

SOURCES:

Chapter One of Craig R. Smith and Lowell Ponte, The Great Debasement: The 100-Year Dying of the Dollar and How to Get America's Money Back. Phoenix: IdeaFactory Press, November 2012. Pages 29-32.

Rick Ungar, “Meet the 'Job Truthers' – Obama Enemies Suggest a Conspiracy in Today's Job Numbers,” Forbes Magazine, October 5, 2012. URL: http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/10/05/meet-the-job-truthers-obama-enemies-suggest-a-conspiracy-in-todays-job-numbers/2/


“Donkey Drag” Slows Economy by 25%, Say Experts

Anti-Business Political Party Retards Investment, Jobs, Prosperity

10.26.12 – One of America's two major political parties now advocates much heavier taxation and regulation of business.

This party also distorts the free marketplace by giving many billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize companies run by its political allies and cronies.

donkey This is causing a “donkey drag” of as much as 25 percent on America's economic growth by chilling the investment climate, say two economic experts in their new book.

“To investors, every election has become a risky gamble that the anti-business party could gain or extend more power over the government,” says Craig R. Smith, whose latest book (pub. date November 1, 2012) is The Great Debasement: The 100-Year Dying of the Dollar and How to Get America's Money Back.

“The uncertainty and fear this causes is a major reason why companies have since 2009 been holding back as much as $3 Trillion – not using it to hire more workers or expand their businesses – at least here in the United States,” says Smith, one of America's most interviewed corporate chairmen.

“The days when we had separation of the free marketplace and state, may be gone forever after the November election,” says Smith.

“One of our two ruling political parties is bent on killing the goose that from the birth of America until 1913 laid golden eggs of prosperity,” says Smith.

“Today if you want a retirement nest egg, you'll have to lay your own.”

“Today's Democratic Party has built its power by redistributing wealth,” says Smith's co-author Lowell Ponte, a former think tank futurist. “Nearly two out of every three tax dollars are now spent as 'transfer payments,' taking money out of your pocket and moving it to the pocket of someone who Progressive politicians deem more worthy of spending the fruits of your labor than you are.”

“Today 49.1 percent of American households have someone living there who gets a government benefit at taxpayer expense,” says Ponte, “and nearly half of working-age Americans pay no income tax.”

“The November 2012 election brings America to a 50-50 Tipping Point,” says Ponte. “Voters in a few days will choose between the party that represents the taxpayers – the “makers” – versus the Big Government party of those who are given taxpayer-funded free goodies , the “takers.”

“If the Big Government, anti-business party this November retains its control of the White House or the U.S. Senate, a large percentage of that $3 Trillion businesses have held to see how the election turns out will move or stay overseas,” says Ponte.

“If the American people vote for this political party that has crippled our economy and pushed 23 million Americans out of full-time jobs, investors everywhere will decide that America is no longer a free country,” says Ponte.

“People used to invest their money, talents and lives here because America had freedom of enterprise,” says Ponte, “and this made us prosperous.”

“The Democratic Party prior to 1913 believed in free enterprise, but it has been taken over by politicians with a collectivist European ideology,” says Ponte.

“Why would anyone reject freedom by voting for politicians committed to this leftward ideology that has failed everywhere it's been tried?” says Ponte. “Do they understand that a vote for this spendaholic political party is a vote to donkey-drag us down the road to Greek-like economic ruin and their further debasement of the U.S. Dollar?”

To schedule an interview with Craig R. Smith or Lowell Ponte, call: Bronwin Barilla at (800) 950-2428 or email bkbarilla@greatdebasement.com

Sources:

“Donkey Drag” in Craig R. Smith and Lowell Ponte, The Great Debasement: The 100-Year Dying of the Dollar and How to Get America's Money Back. Phoenix: IdeaFactory Press, November 1, 2012. Page 141.

Jeff Cox, “Economy's Biggest Drag Right Now Is Government,” CNBC, April 27, 2012. URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/47205997/Economy_s_Biggest_Drag_Right_Now_Is_Government


Will You Ever Be Able to Retire?

How to Escape ‘Retirement Age Inflation’

Comics joke that “80 is the new 65,” but for millions of Americans, it’s no laughing matter.

New retirees today are the first generation who will receive less in Social Security benefits than they paid in, according to a new analysis by the Associated Press. People who retired in 1960 could expect seven times more in benefits than they’d paid, depending on how long they lived, and as recently as 1985, workers at every income level could expect to get more than they paid in Social Security taxes.

retirement “With the baby boomers hitting retirement age this year, it’s only going to get worse for the Social Security system,” says David Bradshaw, (myideafactory.net), monetary expert and publisher of “The Inflation Deception: Six Ways Government Tricks Us and Seven Ways to Stop It!”

“Social Security is already paying out more in benefits than it’s taking in. If the government doesn’t raise the retirement age, it faces $120 trillion in unfunded liabilities to recipients of Social Security, Medicare and other programs,” Bradshaw says.

The American International Group has already warned that the United States and other indebted Western governments will be pushing up retirement ages to as high as 80.

“The bottom line is that people have to take smart steps to secure their own retirement,” says Bradshaw, editor of Real Money Perspectives magazine and publisher of three books explaining the future of gold, the dollar and inflation.

“People can still retire much younger than 70 or 80, but only if they plan and invest in precise ways that outsmart the politician games,” says Bradshaw a 25-year investment expert.

For media interviews with David Bradshaw in August and Lowell Ponte or Craig R. Smith in September please contact: Bronwin K. Barilla at 1-800-950-2428 or bkbarilla@swissamerica.com.

SOURCES:

Boris Cerni and Zachary Tracer, “AIG Chief Sees Retirement Age as High as 80 After Crisis,” Bloomberg News, June 3, 2012. URL: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-03/aig-chief-sees-retirement-age-as-high-as-80-after-crisis.html

“Should Boomers Say Bye to Retirement?” CNBC, June 4, 2012. URL: http://www.cnbc.com/id/47671928/


OBAMA “DOUBLE CON” COULD WIN ELECTION – AND WRECK U.S. ECONOMY, EXPERTS WARN

In a Few Weeks You'll be Told “Unemployment Has Fallen to About 7 Percent.” This Will Be a Deception, a Trick. Here's How the Con Will Happen.

graphs 7.17.12. -- In a Few Weeks You'll be Told “Unemployment Has Fallen to About 7 Percent.” This Will Be a Deception, a Trick. Here's How the Con Will Happen.

The Obama Administration eliminated the requirement that able-bodied people on one of the biggest welfare programs had to demonstrate that they were actively looking for a job.

“Without this Clinton reform, the social safety net can easily turn into a hammock of free money, free housing and many other benefits,” say economic experts Craig R. Smith and Lowell Ponte, co-authors of the widely-praised recent books “Crashing the Dollar” and “The Inflation Deception.”

“By eliminating this work requirement, President Obama has opened the way for millions to re-apply immediately for welfare – and for dependency on Big Government that will give them a selfish reason to vote for Mr. Obama's Big Government Party this coming November,” says Smith, a monetary expert.

“This cynical, and probably illegal, end of the Clinton welfare reform is a 'Double Con' that helps Mr. Obama's reelection in a second way,” says Ponte.

“When welfare recipients were required to seek work, they got counted as unemployed,” says Ponte, a former think tank futurist.

“But now millions on welfare will stop seeking jobs, and within four weeks they will no longer be counted as unemployed.”

“So in a few weeks you can expect the media to announce that the economy is suddenly improving thanks to President Obama, that official unemployment has fallen from 8.2 percent into the 7 percent range, and that the President was right and deserves to be reelected,” says Ponte.

“But the only thing that has changed is that millions of welfare recipients are no longer seeking work,” says Ponte. “It's a double con game to fool voters.”

“It's not good news for taxpayers that President Obama is buying his reelection with tens of billions of taxpayer dollars for millions of people his new policy is adding to the welfare rolls,” says Smith.

“The U.S. is already broke, so where will we get all this new welfare money?” ask Smith and Ponte.

“All these billions must either be borrowed from entities such as the People's Republic of China, our biggest foreign lender, or printed out of thin air, which causes inflation and raises the price of everything working Americans must buy.”

“By creating this huge new welfare dependency and debt and the illusion of improving employment to improve his chances for reelection, Mr. Obama will make companies even more afraid to hire and invest in America,” say Smith and Ponte.

“The result of this fear will be even fewer jobs for Americans who want and need to work.”

“President Obama's cynical 'double-con' could be the straw that breaks the back of America's already-fragile economy and plunges us into a new Recession or Depression,” warn Smith and Ponte.

For media interviews with Lowell Ponte or Craig R. Smith please contact: Bronwin K. Barilla at 1-800-950-2428 or bkbarilla@swissamerica.com.

SOURCES:

Robert Rector and Katherine Bradley, “Obama Ends Welfare Reform As We Know It,” Heritage Foundation/National Review, July 12, 2012. URL: http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/309300

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “Temporary Assistance For Needy Families Information Memorandum, Transmittal No. TANF-ACF-IM-2012-03,” July 12, 2012. URL: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/policy/im-ofa/2012/im201203/im201201.html


– Experts Respond to Obama “Economy” Speech –
Obama a “Blame Duck” President

“He Blames Everyone Else, Ducks Responsibility”
“His Failure to Lead Is Destroying Our Future”

6.14.12 -- “We expected a speech about economic policy on Thursday,” say two widely-praised economics authors, “but what President Obama delivered was a political speech that demonized his Republican opponent and pandered to unions and other Democratic special interest groups with promises of vastly more government money.”

obama Craig R. Smith and Lowell Ponte, co-authors of the widely-praised recent books The Inflation Deception: Six Ways Government Tricks Us...And Seven Ways to Stop It! and Crashing the Dollar: How to Survive a Global Currency Collapse, are available to discuss this speech and President Obama's economic ideas.

“Mr. Obama's Cleveland speech at a government college, cheered by a crowd of government money beneficiaries, was the biggest barrage of distortions and outright falsehoods I've ever heard in what was billed as an economic speech,” says Ponte, a former think tank futurist.

“President Obama doubled down on government pouring billions into green energy companies such as Solyndra that have failed,” says Smith, “yet to do this he must bleed the green energy of investment capital out of private companies that actually create America's jobs.”

“This is what Mr. Obama called asking the 'wealthy' to pay their 'fair share,'” said Smith. 'This is fine with me, so long as the government won't take their investment money at gunpoint if investors say 'No, we'd rather actually make successful jobs ourselves instead of having it taxed away and given to the President's cronies and major donors, as happened at now-bankrupt Solyndra and 80 percent of the other 'green energy' companies to which Mr. Obama gave taxpayer billions.'”

President Barack Obama got elected by promising hope, change, high ethics and a post-partisan uniting of our country.

Instead he has created the most partisan, polarizing, and anti-business Administration in American history, and his continued his attacks on free enterprise advocates in Thursday's speech.

“President Obama's failure to lead and seek compromise has turned what historically would have been a brief recession into a deep, nightmare Great Recession from which it could take a decade or more to recover,” say Smith and Ponte.

“Most politicians by the time they reach high office have learned give and take, the art of compromise to achieve what is best for the country,” says Smith, a monetary expert.

“President Obama instead went from being a radical community organizer, a master of confrontation politics, threats and deliberate polarization, to the Chicago political machine's presidential candidate.”

“He never matured as a political leader, and his radical ideology and tactics have produced a President who seems unable to compromise or craft ways that those on both sides of an issue can win.”

“President Obama's inability to lead or build consensus and agreement is making all of us losers,” says Smith.

“President Obama's idea of community organizer politics is collectivist, to get people to think of themselves as rival groups pitted against each other instead of individuals with shared values and goals,” says Ponte, a former think tank futurist.

“In Obama's world view, if one group wins another must lose, so the idea of seeking a win-win solution is simply unthinkable.”

“Even worse,” says Ponte, is that President Obama lacks the maturity to either compromise or admit that any of his disastrous economic policies have failed.”

“He has become a 'Blame Duck' President, who relentlessly blames others for everything that goes wrong and ducks taking responsibility even though he has been President for more than three years.”

“Yet Mr. Obama claims that everything from President George W. Bush to the troubles in Europe – and not he – are to blame for the fear and uncertainty that are holding back investment and hiring in the United States.”

“At first Mr. Obama was cheered around the world,” says Smith, but now as the German newspaper Der Spiegel and the BBC have just reported, the whole world is now beginning to recognize President Obama as a dismal failure who has misled all of us.” (See: Sources)

“We are all paying a terrible price for his unwillingness to change policies that clearly have failed,” says Smith. “Even now, President Obama could be using the rush of Europeans seeking safety in the U.S. Dollar to help revive our economy...yet President Obama is so ignorant of economics, so unwilling to change, so hostile to investors and the free marketplace, and so eager to make taxes higher and government bigger that he is destroying America's future.”

“The President said he believes investors will want to come here and start good companies,” says Smith, “yet he villifies those who succeed and promises to raise their taxes when America already has the highest business taxes on Earth. He simply doesn't understand how free enterprise works.”

“When President Obama has eliminated free enterprise, what kind of enterprise does he think will then exist?” says Ponte. “Two possibilities exist: either unfree enterprise or no enterprise at all. And who, then, will make the wealth and other free goodies for President Obama to buy votes with?”

“The President was right to say that voters face a choice between 'two fundamentally different visions' of society and government,” says Ponte. “That choice is between collectivism, with government controlling all property and wealth, and free market individualism.”

“Mr. Obama said 'No, I don't believe the government is the answer to all of our problems,'” says Ponte, “yet the only solutions Mr. Obama offered require higher taxes and bigger government, a vision of America as one big family run paternalistically by Godfather Barack Obama. This is a vision of America's future that I don't share.”

For media interviews with Lowell Ponte or Craig R. Smith please contact: Bronwin K. Barilla at 1-800-950-2428 or bkbarilla@swissamerica.com.

SOURCES:

“World Cools Towards Barack Obama – Survey,” BBC News, June 13, 2012. URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18417967

Bruce Stokes, “Germans Increasingly disillusioned with Obama,” SpiegelOnline, June 13, 2012. URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/pew-survey-shows-germans-disillusioned-by-the-us-and-president-obama-a-838537.html

William Saletan, “Blame Europe: Obama Ducks Responsibility for U.S. Unemployment....” Slate Magazine, June 8, 2012. URL: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/frame_game/2012/06/obama_blames_europe_his_economic_press_conference_ducks_the_bad_jobs_report_.html


President Obama Can Quickly Restore Prosperity, Say Economic Experts
They Explain His Surprising Key to Immediate Jobs, Investment

chart Last Friday, with a sharp rise in the jobless rate, the stock market plunging 275 points, and economic growth stalling at an anemic 1.9 percent, all doubt ended about President Barack Obama's efforts to revive America's slowing economy, say two highly praised economics experts.

President Obama's policies of Keynesian stimulus, printing trillions of paper dollars out of thin air, and government intervention in the free marketplace have “completely failed” and are now dragging the U.S. back into recession, stagnation and high inflation.

“The President was well-intended but sincerely mistaken, but he could revive the economy, quickly put millions back to work, and redeem his reputation in history with one courageous, decisive act,” say Craig R. Smith and Lowell Ponte, co-authors of The Inflation Deception: Six Ways Government Tricks Us...And Seven Ways to Stop It! and Crashing the Dollar: How to Survive a Global Currency Collapse.

“Investment and hiring are now largely frozen by uncertainty – as people wait to see the outcome of the election, future taxes and future regulations. President Obama today could end all this uncertainty,” says Smith, a longtime monetary expert and author who has been interviewed by CNBC, Fox Business, and other business media.

“President Obama could heal our economy and the world almost instantly simply by acknowledging that his policies have failed and that he is resigning the presidency,” says Ponte, a former think tank futurist.

“If Mr. Obama continues to blame others and double down on failure, he will lose in the election and be remembered as the worst president in American history...perhaps as the one who ended American greatness forever,” says Ponte, a veteran radio and television journalist whose articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and other publications.

“However, if President Obama acknowledges his policy failures and announces, as President Lyndon B. Johnson did in 1968, that he will not seek reelection but will devote his final months in office to solving our problems, today's fear and uncertainty will immediately be replaced with optimism, reinvestment and economic revival and prosperity,” says Ponte.

“If he cares enough about the poor and unemployed to set aside his own ego, ambition and failed ideology for the greater good of the country and the world,” says Ponte, “Barack Obama could be remembered in history as a great statesman and inspiring national leader.”

“Mr. Obama can go down to defeat by waging socially-divisive class warfare,” says Ponte, “or, by resigning, he can become the healer he promised to be as a candidate four years ago – and become a classy winner and hero forever in American hearts, minds and history.”

“Everybody makes mistakes, but it takes a real man to admit being wrong, to take responsibility without excuses or blaming others, and to pay the price for fixing the damage his mistakes caused,” says Ponte.

“I hope President Obama is man enough to do this.”

For media interviews with Lowell Ponte or Craig R. Smith please contact: Bronwin K. Barilla at 1-800-950-2428 or bkbarilla@swissamerica.com.

SOURCE:

Larry Kudlow, “Obama's Economic Model Is a Failure,” RealClearPolitics.com, June 2, 2012. URL: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/06/02/obamas_economic_model_is_a_complete_failure_114360.html


FRIGHTENED INVESTORS MAKING A DANGEROUS MISTAKE, EXPERTS WARN "U.S. DOLLAR MAY BE WORST PLACE TO SEEK SAFETY."
“The Weakening Dollar is today's biggest economic problem.”
“It's like seeking safety from a bear market in the bear's cave.”

5.29.12 -- Fearful investors have been fleeing from the stocks, real estate, and commodities such as oil because of economic instability in Europe, China, the Middle East and Washington, D.C.

“Investors are smart to seek a safe haven, because the global economy may be close to a meltdown, but many are making a dangerous mistake that is hazardous to their wealth,” two financial authors warn.

drip “Many are jumping from the frying pan into the fire by converting all their assets into U.S. Dollars,” say Lowell Ponte and Craig R. Smith, co-authors of the widely-praised recent books The Inflation Deception: Six Ways Government Tricks Us...And Seven Ways to Stop It! and Crashing the Dollar: How to Survive a Global Currency Collapse.

“This is a huge mistake because the once-solid U.S. Dollar has become a flimsy shelter made only of paper,” says Ponte. “It's no longer the 'flight-to-safety' asset it used to be. The Dollar is being manipulated, losing value and at risk of crashing.”

“The U.S. Government printed more than $5 Trillion dollars out of thin air to paper over reckless political spending during the past three years,” says Smith, a 30-year monetary expert.

“The Federal Reserve has already signaled that it's ready to magically conjure trillions more. And every dollar they print makes the dollars you earn and save worth less.”

“To paraphrase President Ronald Reagan, the Dollar isn't a safe haven from today's risky economic problems. The weakening Dollar IS today's biggest economic problem,” says Ponte, a former think tank futurist.

“Food and gasoline prices have been rising,” says Ponte, “largely not because these things have been gaining value – but because the Dollar is losing value. And the Great Recession has been caused by this and other reactions to our weakening dollar, as economic historian Brian Domitrovic has shown.”

“The economy now has people so afraid and uncertain that many are seeking shelter from today's Bear market in the bear's cave by converting their assets into Dollars, which the politicians can debase by printing trillions out of thin air,” says Ponte.

“Instead, we should be seeking safety by diversification by buying solid things that the Fed and the politicians can't print, and therefore can't devalue as they have the U.S. Dollar. This is how to protect the purchasing power you've earned.”

For media interviews with Lowell Ponte or Craig R. Smith please contact: Bronwin K. Barilla at 1-800-950-2428 or bkbarilla@swissamerica.com.



U.S. HIT BY 6 SHATTERING BLOWS
Even One Could Wreck our Economy. All 6 Spell Disaster

The United States has just been hit by six economic nightmares at once.

This deadly convergence of disasters could plunge America back into a Great Recession-- or worse, warn Lowell Ponte and Craig R. Smith, co-authors of the widely discussed book THE INFLATION DECEPTION: Six Ways Government Tricks Us...And Seven Ways to Stop It!

6 NIGHTMARISH ECONOMIC INDICATORS:

1. America's economic recovery has ended. The Commerce Department reported last week that economic growth has plummeted from 3.0 percent to a far-worse-than-predicted 2.2 percent, so slow that the economy is sure to stall. With 7.2 percent real world inflation eating up any improvement, our real economic growth is now negative 5 percent as the economy goes into a downward death spiral. Stick a fork in it. The recovery is cooked.

2. Unemployment is getting worse, despite government numbers cooked to make things appear slightly better in this reelection year by removing another 522,000 people who have despaired of finding work from the jobless count. In all, 29.7 million Americans are now unemployed or underemployed, including the one of every 5 men aged 25-54 who have no job. Had the Obama Administration not changed how jobs are counted, today's official unemployment rate would be 10.9 percent, and the proportion of those unemployed plus underemployed would top a whopping 18 percent! Even the 115,000 jobs the Obama Administration claims were created in April turn out to be mostly in simple retail, restaurant hamburger flipping, and bars, perhaps because the President's failed economic policies have driven America to drink. These jobs provide honest work, but they are not the kinds of high-productivity jobs upon which America can build a healthy economic revival.

3. Factory orders are tanking. U.S. Manufacturing companies just posted their biggest decline in three years. It's no wonder that in April Stanford University Economics Professor Edward Lazear described our situation in the Wall Street Journal as “the worst economic recovery in history.” Days later Dr. Lazear revised his analysis by declaring on CNBC that “this is not a recovery at all.”

4. Housing just saw prices continue to drop for the 6th straight month, pulling down American savings and dreams as they fall. Yale University economist Dr. Robert Shiller, whose Case-Shiller Index is the standard for analyzing home values, said days ago that property values “might not recover in our lifetime.” And lest we forget, no economic recovery has ever happened in American history without a recovery in home prices. Dr. Shiller in a despairing moment days ago said that our world is now in a state of “late Great Depression.”

5. Disposable income is sinking, down by hundreds of dollars a year from January 2009 when President Barack Obama was inaugurated to February 2012, according to the most recent data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank.

More than 70 percent of America's Gross Domestic Product had come from spending. But as disposable income falls, such spending must come from more borrowing...as, indeed, is happening as banks (bailed out by taxpayers) again shower America's mailboxes with easy credit card offers that have low teaser rates as well as sky-high rates for those who become unable to pay loans off. Why shouldn't we have the same profligate-spending fun as our politicians?

6. Europe is now headed into an economic cave-in likely to take us down with it. The election of socialist Francois Hollande as French President spells the end to the German-French austerity agreement that was propping up the currency of the European Union, the Euro. That same weekend German Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right coalition government lost a state election in Schleswig-Holstein. European office-holders of all parties will now tilt more leftward, away from thrift and towards higher taxes on business, inflationary paper money printing and spending, and ever-bigger government. American taxpayers will be expected to pay trillions to stave off Europe's bankruptcy....or risk going down with these lands from which many of our ancestors once fled.

President Obama might take comfort from the victory of a fellow leftist in France. Or he might recognize that economically-stressed French voters rejected flamboyant centrist incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy in favor of a bland, unexciting alternative nicknamed “Mr. Normal” who in outward personality, if not ideology, resembles Republican Mitt Romney. This could be a very bad omen for Mr. Obama.

For media interviews with Lowell Ponte or Craig R. Smith please contact: Bronwin K. Barilla at 1-800-950-2428 or bkbarilla@swissamerica.com.

SOURCES:

Ron Scherer, “GDP Report Puts Obama in Economic 'Gray Zone.' Will Republicans Profit?” Christian Science Monitor, April 27, 2012.

“Employers in U.S. Added Fewer Jobs Than Forecast in April,” Bloomberg, May 4, 2012.

Bruno J. Navarro, “'This Is Not A Recover at All': Stanford's Lazear,” CNBC, April 18, 2012.

Christopher S. Rugaber, “U.S. Home Prices Drop for 6th Straight Month,” Associated Press, April 24, 2012.

Matt Dietrichson, “Suburban Housing Market May Not Recover 'In Our Lifetime,'” Houston Tomorrow, April 2, 2012.

Daniel Gross, “Renting Prosperity,” Wall Street Journal, May 4, 2012.

Catherine Boyle, “We Are in Age of 'Late Great Depression': Shiller,” CNBC, April 30, 2012.

“Factory Orders Post Biggest Decline in Three Years,” Reuters/CNBC, May 2, 2012.

“Socialist Francois Hollande Wins French Presidency,” BBC, May 6, 2012.


IS THE FED PLAYING POLITICS WITH OUR MONEY?
EXPERTS SAY NEW LAW COULD STOP THIS

4.23.12 -- This week investors, big and small are anxiously awaiting the Federal Reserve Board's policy statement to see how it impacts the U.S. Dollar's value.

The Federal Reserve, America's central bank, was supposed to be politically neutral and to keep the U.S. Dollar sound as a dollar.

“But the Fed can tilt an election by producing lots of money from thin air to create the illusion of prosperity,” says Lowell Ponte, co-author with Craig R. Smith of the widely-praised recent books THE INFLATION DECEPTION and CRASHING THE DOLLAR.

bernanke “Although the Federal Reserve is no more a part of government than the shipping company Federal Express, the President appoints the Fed's chairman and vice chairman,” says Ponte.

“Under President Jimmy Carter the Fed was given a second 'Mandate,' to artificially manipulate the money supply to keep unemployment low,” says Ponte. “But conjuring money from thin air to create jobs weakens the value of the Dollar.”

“Since then the Fed's been under political pressure to make the economy better, to 'levitate' the stock market, and thereby in effect to win re-election for whomever is President of the United States,” says Ponte, a former think tank futurist.

“Now Congressman Kevin Brady (R.-Texas), vice chairman of the powerful Joint Economic Committee, is proposing the Sound Money Act to reduce the Fed's mandate to only one thing – keeping prices stable,” says Craig R. Smith, a monetary expert.

“Rep. Barney Frank (D.-Mass.) and other liberals are fighting the Sound Money Act tooth and nail,” says Ponte, “because it could stop the Fed from pumping up the welfare state, stock market and political spending with magic money from nowhere during an election year.”

The Fed meets Monday, April 23, behind closed doors under “expedited procedures” to decide what how next it will affect the value of our money.

For media interviews with Lowell Ponte or Craig R. Smith please contact: Bronwin K. Barilla at 1-800-950-2428 or bkbarilla@swissamerica.com.

Sources:

John B. Taylor, “The Dangers of an Interventionist Fed,” Wall Street Journal, March 29, 2012.

Michael Warren, “Sound Dollar Act Seeks Single Mandate for Federal Reserve,” Weekly Standard, March 5, 2012.

Ralph Benko, “Good Money: Why Rep. Kevin Brady's Sound Dollar Act Worries Barney Frank,” Forbes Magazine, April 9, 2012.

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, “Advanced Notice of a Meeting under Expedited Procedures,” April 19, 2012.


U.S. ECONOMY IS TITANIC – AND SINKING, SAYS EXPERT
“WE URGENTLY NEED TO BE MAKING OUR OWN LIFEBOATS”
Life & Death Lessons of RMS Titanic Sinking 100 Years Ago this Month

4.13.12 – On April 15, 1912, a ship the experts called “unsinkable” and “too big to fail,” the Titanic, sank after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic.

titanic “We watch movies and imagine what it must have been like for half the passengers for whom there were no lifeboats,” says former think tank futurist Lowell Ponte.

“But look around you. You are on the U.S.S. Titanic right now. Our economy has already hit the iceberg, had a huge hole torn in its side, begun flooding with icy water, and we don't have enough lifeboats,” says Ponte, a widely-read financial author.

“The captain, eager to get re-elected this November, is pretending that the ship can right itself by tilting left. The crew is still serving champagne, passing out free goodies, and rearranging chairs on the deck to make things appear normal,” says Ponte, co-author of Crashing the Dollar: How to Survive a Global Currency Collapse.

“And the band keeps playing, despite the flickering lights, the jolts and tremors of a frightened stock market that just fell 550 points in five days, and the screech of metal twisting as the U.S.S. Titanic's financial hull caves in.”

“We now know that 100 years ago the Titanic's sank because its hull was made with defective rivets that broke on impact,” says Ponte.

“Our economy has likewise been built on weak paper money and on borrowing, not real productive strength. The U.S. Government now borrows $58,000 every second to provide 42 cents of every dollar our politicians continue to wildly spend.”

“It's a ship of state built of cards, credit cards, recklessly steered by a ship of fools.”

“The iceberg is reality, including the unalienable Law of Supply and Demand,” says Ponte, co-author of The Inflation Deception: Six Ways Government Tricks Us...And Seven Ways to Stop It! “We printed more than $5.5 Trillion out of thin air, now sitting like a mountain of frozen inflation that is pushing up the price of food, gasoline and other necessities.”

“Our politicians knew we risked sinking the economy by all this reckless spending, but they are addicts, spendaholics, who are unable to stop.”

“The hole in our ship is debt, which has now surpassed America's entire Gross Domestic Product, our whole national income,” says Ponte.

“The politicians created this monstrous debt to bail out their supporters at giant banks deemed 'too big to fail,'” says Ponte, whose articles have appeared in The Wall Street Journal and many other publications.

“So now the whole system is sinking, but nobody has enough money to bail out the U.S.S Titanic with its $16 Trillion debt hole that gets bigger by $1.8 Trillion every year. Almost no politician is willing to stop the flood by putting a halt to government spending,” says Ponte.

“They do not dare. In today's America 49.5 percent of households receive some kind of government check, while 47 percent of adults pay no income tax whatsoever.”

“The U.S.S. Titanic is sinking,” says Ponte. “The only uncertainty is whether it will go underwater this year, next year or the year after that.”

“What is certain,” says Ponte, “is that, like the Titanic sinking of 100 years ago, there aren't enough life boats to save everybody. Monetary expert Craig R. Smith and I co-authored The Inflation Deception to show people how we might keep the economy afloat and restore prosperity, or, if that fails, how people can quickly and securely build their own lifeboats. We need to do this urgently.”

For media interviews with Lowell Ponte or Craig R. Smith please contact: Bronwin K. Barilla at 1-800-950-2428 or bkbarilla@swissamerica.com.


New SwissAmerica.com Website Provides Fresh Approach to Today's Hottest Asset

website March 5, 2012 (Phoenix, AZ) -- With millions of Americans thinking about how to move their assets out of harm's way this year, America's most reliable long-established tangible asset company has just launched their redesigned website.

SwissAmerica.com is already a popular, financial news and education website with information about buying gold and silver coins and precious metals IRAs. The new website offers more multimedia, learn-at-your-own-pace tools, a daily podcast featuring breaking news, over-the-horizon analysis and help from a team of specialists.

"Smart money follows good ideas. We designed SwissAmerica.com as a portal back to a better world of fundamental economic values, specified by America's Founders as a better way of saving for the future. Action follows wisdom," says CEO Dean Heskin.

"SwissAmerica.com simplifies the entire experience of investigating, buying, selling and tracking precious metals by providing brand new portfolio tools accessible online and from iPad and iPhone apps," says Mr. Heskin.

"From day one, our goal has been to inspire Americans to rediscover gold," says author and Swiss America Chairman Craig R. Smith, who founded this highly-respected Phoenix-based firm in 1982. "Precious metals have become the best-performing assets of the new century and we chronicle the growing list of reasons at SwissAmerica.com daily."

Mr. Smith's 2001 book, REDISCOVERING GOLD IN THE 21ST CENTURY, was the first to accurately predict the beginning of a new long-term gold rush. Since then, gold prices have rocketed from $265 to over $1,700 an ounce.

"There is much wisdom to be gained from history about gold and money," says Smith. "The new SwissAmerica.com will also serve as a doorway to revisit the past. Thousands of pages from our extensive library are now searchable online."

"Gold Standard News Daily" is Swiss America's daily 60-second podcast covering breaking financial and gold market news and trends, which is produced by Real Money Perspectives editor David Bradshaw. "Gold Standard News Daily" also airs nationally twice daily on Talk Radio Network (TRN), home of The Savage Nation.

"We invite the public to join us online for a wealth of wisdom and 'big picture' economic analysis. We hope you'll find the peace of mind that comes from building a personal gold standard for yourself and family, as well as a vision to rebuild an honest money system in America - which politicians can neither create nor destroy," says Mr. Smith.

Swiss America's 30th anniversary newsletter, "Vote Gold 2012" is being offered free to the public this month to celebrate the launch of the new SwissAmerica.com. Call toll-free 800-289-2646 or visit online.


Expert Offers Six Vital Steps To Avoid Gold Coin Fraud, Scams and Hustlers When Buying or Selling

goldhandcuffs 2.22.12--(Phoenix, AZ) --After thirty years of faithfully serving the public as a buyer and seller of precious metals and numismatic (collector) coins, Swiss America Trading Corp. is very concerned by the influx of gold dealers making false claims, deceptive promises and non-deliveries of goods to customers.

"When it comes to buying or selling precious metals, 'caveat emptor' (let the buyer beware) is the best rule of thumb in today's marketplace fraught with fraud, scams and hustlers," says Swiss America Chairman Craig R. Smith, who has been an active coin trader for nearly half a century.

Mr. Smith is a pioneer in providing customer transparency, full disclosure and a buy-back policy since founding Swiss America in 1982 from his Phoenix, Arizona home. Since then, as the public has slowly rediscovered the wisdom of asset diversification; the firm has grown a hundredfold, built a corporate headquarters, operated debt-free and maintained a stellar industry reputation nationally.

According to Mr. Smith, there are scores of ways unethical gold dealers are scamming the public today, including over-pricing coins, over-promising performance, over-selling the product and long or even non-delivery of the product after payment is made.

Smith believes the rise of the Internet has been both a blessing and a curse for inexperienced coin shoppers. Searching for a reputable gold dealer can be very confusing as consumers wade through a mixture of hard-to-understand information, disinformation and half truths from an industry that, until recently, has had a general lack of accountability.

To help protect consumers from gold fraud and scams, seven years ago Mr. Smith helped found NCA, the Numismatic Consumer Alliance ( www.stopcoinfraud.org ), a New Jersey-based not-for-profit organization that has helped consumers recover $5 Million since it began in 2005.

According to the NCA Website, "Many of these buyers are senior citizens with no knowledge of coins who also lacked the Internet savvy to check out what they were buying and who they were buying it from."

NCA co-founder John Albanese writes, "The industry has failed to prove its ability to competently self-regulate and police transactions between itself and the public. The company intends to bring attention to, and thereby illuminate certain types of fraudulent and illegal conduct."

Sadly, Smith expects the trend of rising consumer fraud and scams to grow in the months and years ahead as predatory marketers continue their own “gold rush” into this field where investors are coming to seek security in an uncertain economy.

This is why Smith coined the phrase "learn before you earn" as the first step for consumers to avoid being hustled and rushed into buying gold coins from the wrong firm.

Two decades ago Mr. Smith first published six basic, practical steps to help consumers avoid gold fraud and scams.

1. Buy and sell U.S. gold coins from a recognized national dealer or broker who has experienced the ups and downs in the market and has at least a 10-year track record. Find out if a dealer is a member in good standing with the Better Business Bureau, American Numismatic Association (ANA), Industry Council for Tangible Assets (ICTA), Certified Acceptance Corp (CAC), Numismatic Guaranty Corp (NGC) and Professional Coin Grading Services (PCGS).

2. Make sure the gold dealer offers a two-way market. Confirm that the dealer will not only sell the coin but also guarantee in writing to buy it back. Closely examine their buy-back policy. Make sure the buy-back price does not vary on a basis of quantity. Also inquire about the time factor for repayment. Reputable companies will always settle a trade within 72 hours.

3. Buy only PCGS or NGC certified "sight-seen" (vs. unseen) U.S. numismatic gold or silver coins with a fair inspection period after delivery. This ensures buyers the option of exchanging a coin if they don't like its appearance. Make sure your coin has been inspected for copper spots and other imperfections by at least two numismatists.

4. Look for full, truthful disclosure. Be sure the dealer has presented both the upside and downside risks associated with the coins being purchased. Short-term versus long-term positioning should be explained to in clear, understandable language. Beware of dealers who suggest putting more than 30% of one's assets into precious metals.

5. Be sure the gold or silver coins can be bought and delivered at the prices quoted. In other words, don't just buy the quote, buy the coin. Anyone can promise to sell coins 10%, 20%, or even 75% less than another dealer IF they don't have the coins to deliver. Make sure the dealer can actually deliver the coin quoted at the price quoted.

6. Buy from a gold dealer in whom you have complete trust. Check references carefully. Most importantly, ask many questions before buying or selling, and get satisfactory answers. Demand facts, historical performance charts and portfolio tracking tools, and ignore the hype. Always keep in mind that a profit is not made buying a gold coin, but only when the time comes to sell it.

Anyone following these six steps will be well on his or her way to having a positive experience in buying and selling precious metals. For more information visit SwissAmerica.com/nofraud, which has additional tips on avoiding gold scams from the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission as well as educational videos and other resources on the subject available free to the public.

For media interviews with Craig R. Smith please contact: Bronwin K. Barilla at 1-800-950-2428 or bkbarilla@swissamerica.com.


China’s Good-Luck New Year of the Dragon Portends Bad Luck for U.S., Expert Warns

1.20.12 -- Monday (Jan. 23) is Chinese New Year, celebrated with feasting and firecrackers by more than 1.5 billion people.

“This new year could also bring fireworks and conflict,” warns former think tank futurist and author Lowell Ponte, “because in China's calendar we are entering the Year of the Dragon.”

dragon In Chinese culture the dragon means good luck, wealth, volatility, energetic change and power. That could mean bad luck for us.

“The dragon is the symbol of Chinese emperors and of China's imperial ambition,” says Ponte. “The Communist rulers in Beijing will see the Year of the Dragon as auspicious for China to expand its influence, power and wealth.”

In his 2011 book “The Inflation Deception” (inflationdeception.com), Ponte and co-author monetary expert Craig R. Smith discuss the risks of America's trillion-dollar debt to China.

"China is amassing hundreds of tons of gold monthly, which certainly assures higher gold prices. A report from the Financial Times reports China's gold imports in November 2011 were 20% higher than the previous month, the fastest pace in over two years," writes Craig R. Smith.

“I predict that the Year of the Dragon will bring dangerous Chinese confrontations with America and the West,” warns Ponte.

Talking Points
-China’s 12-year cycle of animals is related to the Chinese zodiac. What does the Year of the Dragon signify?
-You say the Central Intelligence Agency ought to hire a skilled Chinese astrologer. Why?
-In “The Inflation Deception,” you speculate that China is already taking revenge against the West for the Opium Wars more than a century ago by addicting our leaders. How so?
-This fall, while America holds elections, China will also have a major change of leaders. Why should this worry us in the West?
-China's rulers are terrified of something the United States could do to outmaneuver them. What is this?
-You write that a prominent Asian economist told you during a lunch in Singapore what to fear from Communist China. What did he say?

The above topics are all covered in Lowell Ponte's upcoming story, "China's Ominous Year of the Dragon" to be published in Swiss America's 2012 Real Money Perspectives newsletter.

For media interviews with Craig R. Smith or Lowell Ponte contact: Bronwin K. Barilla at 1-800-950-2428 or bkbarilla@swissamerica.com.


TWO OF TOP THREE GOP CANDIDATES FAVOR RETURN TO GOLD STANDARD

A Restored Gold Standard Would Transform America's Economy, and Might Send Gold's Price Above $10,000 per Ounce, Says Financial Expert.

1.4.12 -- Two of the top three winners in Iowa's Republican caucuses Tuesday night have supported a return to a Gold Standard that would back U.S. Dollars with gold.

If one of them becomes President, we might soon see a new Gold Standard causing huge changes in America's economy, and the price of gold skyrocketing to $10,000 per ounce or more, an expert predicts.

Texas Congressman Ron Paul, who finished third in Iowa Tuesday night, was a member of President Ronald Reagan's National Gold Commission and has co-authored a book advocating a restored Gold Standard, says Lowell Ponte.

Ponte is co-author with monetary expert Craig R. Smith of the widely-praised financial books CRASHING THE DOLLAR (2010) and THE INFLATION DECEPTION (2011), and of the 2011 White Paper RE-MAKING MONEY.

Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, according to Ponte, agreed to be part of a bus tour across Iowa last June dedicated to advocating the return to a national Gold Standard.

Other Republican presidential candidates at the time also eagerly signed up to be speakers as part of this Iowa Tea Party-sponsored 18-day bus trip.

Two who signed up for this pro-gold tour were former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who respectively finished fourth and sixth in the Iowa caucus Tuesday night.

Four of the six leading Republican candidates may therefore support the return of a national Gold Standard, a major difference between their economic policy and that of incumbent President Barack Obama, who has supported printing more than $5 Trillion dollars in an attempt to stimulate the U.S. economy.

Other then-candidates on last June's pro-Gold Standard bus tour had departed the race prior to Tuesday's Iowa caucuses, said Ponte.

These gold advocates are former pizza company executive Herman Cain, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, who has said he might seek the Libertarian Party's nomination in 2012.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who finished fifth among six candidates in Iowa Tuesday night, has not advocated a return to the Gold Standard.

Gov. Perry has, however, been extremely critical of Federal Reserve Board monetary policy. One of Perry's prominent supporters is publisher Steve Forbes, a former presidential candidate who advocates returning America to a Gold Standard within five years.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has not advocated a return to the Gold Standard and has said he would not consider abolishing the Federal Reserve, which has the unlimited legal power to create as many paper dollars as it deems necessary.

For media interviews with Craig R. Smith or Lowell Ponte contact: Bronwin K. Barilla at 1-800-950-2428 or bkbarilla@swissamerica.com.

More Links

Weekly Charts

Current Spot Prices

Weekly Charts
Current Spot Prices

Gold

$2214.10

Silver

$24.81

Platinum

$911.49