International Forecaster Weekly

Jose Padilla And The Consequences For Us All

Jose Padilla and the consequences for us all... Invesment experts wrong about the dollar... no shame in the White House... John Roberts loves reading Richard Haass... British journalist Robert Fisk banned from entering the US... the push to cutt US farm subsidies...

Bob Chapman | October 1, 2005

We are forced to speak again of the situation of Jose Padilla and the dire consequences it holds for all Americans. Padilla was taken into custody by federal agents on May 8, 2002, as part of the war on terrorism and held as a material witness. It is important to point out here that being held as a material witness is a ruse to incarcerate. We do not know if Mr. Padilla is innocent or guilty of anything and neither does the US government. If they had a case they’d indict and charge him. For most of his time in confinement he’s been held in a naval brig in South Carolina. He is being held indefinitely because our appeal court says our President can do this in a time of war. Mr. Padilla is an American citizen. Even though convicted of nothing he is considered an illegal combatant and so he does not have the rights and guarantees that the constitution requires the government to accord criminal defendants. That means the Pentagon can hold him forever.

Under the Magna Carta and via common law and our Bill of Rights, there are procedural rights and guarantees and these protections have been lost in the indefinite jailing of Padilla. That means our government, under the guise of terrorism, can pick up and jail anyone anywhere in the world for any reason at any time. No habeas corpus as to why someone should be detained. No legal counsel, no due process and charges. There is a right to trial by jury. There is the right to confront witnesses and there is a presumption of innocence, which entitles the accused to remain silent and requires the government to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. These guarantees apply to Americans and foreigners who are accused of a federal crime.

The case of Padilla is an attempt by our government to destroy America’s federal criminal-justice system and replace it as was done in Germany under Nazism in the 1930s. Ninety-eight percent of Americans know nothing of the Padilla case and its threat to our rights and guarantees by any despot. Our government wants the authority to kidnap and punish without any federal court interference whatsoever. The concept is anyone government accuses of terrorism becomes a prisoner of war, not a criminal defendant, and this prisoner of war is not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention, which governs prisoners of war. These are illegal combatants because terrorism is not a lawful way to wage war and because these uncharged and un-convicted combatants are not wearing military uniforms. All this illegal activity by our government is sanctioned by and signed off by our President.

At the Supreme Court level if these powers are upheld then no one is safe from the tyranny of a corrupt, despotic government. We can guarantee you there will be thousands of cases of prosecutorial abuse in our future and they will include anyone who speaks out about our elitist government. No one will be safe and this is no exaggeration. History is replete with examples of governments that used the criminal justice system to round up, punish and execute innocent people. With today’s corporatist fascist government in America no less can be expected. If the Padilla case is not reversed by the Supreme Court anyone criticizing government will be classified as those supporting terrorists. The bang on the door will come at 3:00 a.m. Your home will be surrounded by heavily armed government employees; you’ll be picked up, tortured, abused, raped and thrown in jail indefinitely. You can do nothing to defend yourself. There is no check on the military to take anyone into custody at any time. If the Supreme Court agrees with the appeals court then that’s when they’ll start collecting people like us who speak out.

Our President is masterminding this entire program with the assistance of the neocons and our congress. This is an attempt to impose military rule over America and we believe you should contact your representatives and express your dismay at their lack of interest in this most important issue.

Suspects arrested of detained by federal authorities could be forced to provide samples of their DNA that would be recorded at a central database under a provision of a Senate bill to expand government collection of personal data. The measure was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last week and is supported by the White House, but has not gone to the floor for a vote. This goes beyond the current law, which allows federal authorities to collect and record samples of DNA from those convicted of crimes.

This is absolutely outrageous. This is like fingerprinting. How can government demand such information from innocent people? Next we’ll have profiling based on genetic characteristics. Get after your elected representatives now and stop this unconstitutional invasion of our privacy.

Most experts thought that investors and central banks would be dollar sellers in 2005. The figures now tell us central banks were big buyers, not sellers. There was some diversification but by and large the plan by the major central banks was to have a dollar rally and take pressure off the euro. If you remember last we reported the IMF figures and they said that during 2004 the Fed and foreign investors absorbed $409.7 billion or about 113% of total Treasury issuance of $362.5 billion. This may work for now but its long-term bearish on the dollar and it’s very pro-inflationary. Gold is the only neutral non-fiat currency and it’s now rising against all currencies and as long as foreign central banks continue to buy dollars of decreasing value versus gold they’ll all continue downward. Gold will go up indefinitely as long as they continue to do what they are doing.

There is no shame and there is no embarrassment neither in congress or the White House. There are but a few statesmen and lots of pragmatic, purchased, politicians. They almost all enrich themselves as we head toward financial oblivion. We have two natural disasters three weeks apart that will cost $300 to $500 billion and we have a president who won’t increase taxes and a congress that refuses to cut pork. The Republican leader Tom DeLay says there is no fat left to cut in the federal budget. Does he really believe we are that stupid? If we were not optimists we’d be very pessimistic and depressed. As optimists we know we’ll win. The only question is what will be the price we have to pay? We have colossal debt and it keeps getting bigger. We have another quagmire called a war costing us $6 billion a day. When Roosevelt was faced with such a dilemma he cut non-war spending 20% and Truman cut 28%. Vietnam and Johnson spent with abandon. In 1982 there were 10 pork projects approved by Congress. In our recently passed Transportation Equity Act there were 6,371 totaling almost $400 billion. There is no morality left in Washington. It has truly become a den of vipers. All our elected representatives worry about is reelection, by buying votes and campaign contributions, a process that is totally corrupt as is the use of lobbyists, which should be banned. This is beyond cynical. America needs a wake up call. God tried to give us that with Katrina and Rita, but we are not listening. Hedonists never listen.

We are told California’s house appreciation will only be 10% in 2006, probably versus 14% in 2005. That could be the case if the 10-year Treasury stays at 4.25% because foreign governments continue to buy them without incentive for profit. That means a 5.75% 30-year fixed rate mortgage. The exotic mortgages will continue and the day of reckoning will have been suspended for another year. In the process though gold will go to $850 an ounce as official inflation climbs to 6-7%. Thus, the $523,150 house will increase in value to $575,500 as projected unit sales fall 2% to 630,610.

At the same time the California Association of Realtors tells us this glowing story they also tell us the 30-year fixed mortgage rate will rise to 6.4% and one-year ARMS will hit 5.1%. A 10% gain in value would mean only 15% of Californians could afford the average home. We disagree with the esteemed association. A 1/2% higher lending rate will leave a flat market and downward pressure on housing prices. That would also mean those with interest only and adjustable rate mortgages may not be able to make payments and go into foreclosure. That would also put pressure on housing prices. We’ll see, but 2006 is not going to be as good a year as 2005.

We are told that our Supreme Court Justice nominee expressed great enthusiasm for a new book by Richard Haass, a friend who runs the Council on foreign relations. The book, entitled “The Opportunity” presents the idea of how to integrate the world under a single political and economic order through a war of attrition. That would be accomplished by an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece. “Our policies must recognize that globalization is a reality, not a choice,” says Haass in the tome that has so enchanted John Roberts. We told you in a previous issue that Roberts wouldn’t have been chosen if he wasn’t part of the elitists program. This of course proves it, so what else did you expect? Roberts agrees with Haass, “Sovereignty is conditional, even contractual, rather than absolute,” subject to revocation by the international community in the case of nations that defy its will. “The world 35 years from now will be semi-sovereign. It will reflect the need to adapt legal and political principles to the most serious challenges.” Roberts has been chosen by the Illuminati to adapt the legal system to the New World Order described in the manifesto written by his dear friend who is a top Illuminist at the Council on Foreign relations. Did you really think you were going to get someone who would look out for the interests of the American people?

Louisiana’s congressional delegation has requested $40 billion for Army Corps of Engineers projects in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, about 10 times the annual corps budget for the entire nation, or 16 times the amount the corps has said it would need to protect New Orleans from a Category 5 hurricane. As you know, the funds were diverted for the war in Iraq and used by Fatherland Security to pursue phantom terrorists. That is in addition to the $32 billion request by the Governor of Louisiana. In eying the requests they are found to be loaded with pork. These requests are in addition to the $62.3 billion already approved. That is about $134.3 billion. That cost of $200 billion when all is said and done is stretching toward $400 billion. The requests boggle the mind. Brazen doesn’t begin to describe it. The Louisiana delegation is using Katrina as an excuse to resurrect a laundry list of pork projects. All the work done on requests for the Congressional delegation was done by lobbyists who are also on a working group. We should expect these kinds of requests the way endemic corruption is today in Washington.

Robert Fisk, the great British journalist who has been covering war zones for decades, has been banned from entering the US. This is of course for reporting the truth and repeatedly exposing the US and British governments’ disinformation campaigns. Fisk has been told his papers were not in order. This, of course, comes under the venue of the Patriot Act and Fatherland Security. Fisk is probably suspected of aiding and abetting terrorism. We are surprised he wasn’t thrown in jail. Fed chairman, Sir Alan Greenspan, told France’s Finance Minister Thierry Breton that the US has, “lost control of its budget deficit.” Breton said, “The US has lost control of their budget at a time when racking up deficits has been authorized without any control from congress. The situation that is creating tension today on the currency market is clearly the American deficit. One has the feeling that interest rates will probably continue to rise slightly until his departure.” Greenspan is due to retire in January 2006.

As the Chinese yuan trading band widened from 1.5% to 3% as US Treasury paper came under pressure as traders surmised that the Bank of China would be buying less Treasury debt as part of its dollar intervention operations. There is no further need to buy dollars and Treasuries because the yuan is no longer based on the dollar. It is based on a basket of currencies. Program Trading accounts for 70.8% of NYSE volume. That is 1322.7 million shares daily. This has nothing to do with investment. The concept has turned the exchanges into gambling casinos. Its little wonder the average investor is out of the market. Brokerage firms executed an additional 839.4 million shares daily of program trading away from the NYSE, with 0.5% of the overall total on foreign markets.

The IMF says, “There is rising concern among the world’s economic leaders that financial market participants may be under-estimating economic risks and that implies that central banks will keep lifting interest rates for some time.” They should mention that to real estate investors.

The office of the Comptroller of the currency reports a net easing of retail underwriting standards and it warns that banks are overly concerned about fee generation and under concerned about loan quality. They just want to generate commissions without regard to profit and loss. Banks are concerned about renting money and not the repayment of principal. Alan Greenspan has fostered that mentality with his relentless credit creation and the perceived Greenspan put.

One of these days the denizens of the foreign exchange market are going to discover that the dollar and the American economy will not always be the logical repository of capital at the margin. The alternative, the euro, is facing a European recession, EU political problems, and political problems in Italy as well as Germany. That is all understandable, but the dollar’s problems are far greater.

August existing home sales rose 2%. Sales were up 7.8% from August 2004 and were the second highest on record. The median home sales price rose 15.8% to $220,000 year-on-year. Inventories of homes for sale rose 3.5% in August to a 4.7% month supply, the most plentiful month’s supply since November 2003.

On Monday, in spite of the Fed adding $10 billion in repurchase agreements and putting the repo pool at $94.830, the market struggled all day. Gold was hit in Europe and then in the US, but gold rebounded strongly for the day.

The World Bank’s policy-making committee has agreed to a global debt-relief proposal sought by the Group of 8. That will wipe out $55 billion in debt for 37 nations. Our experience having lived in a number of third world nations is that they‘ll run their debts up again. An unspoken part of the agreement is the privatization of utilities in all countries by US or European elitist companies.

The US is under growing pressure to cut farm subsidies as their latest meeting with three other trade powers ended in deadlock. There are only three months left to agree on a framework global trade treaty. There is a good chance the US will not bend. They think their tariffs of 12% are acceptable. In addition, there are other simmering issues between rich and poor countries. Brazil is seeking WTO sanctions against the US after the elitist US neocons failed to comply with a ruling ordering it to reform cotton subsidies. The EU has also angered Brazil, Thailand and Australia by announcing plans to dump its two million metric ton sugar surplus on world markets just before a ban on its sugar subsidies enters into force.

Shortages of building materials along the Gulf Coast will increase construction costs and support housing price gains if interest rates stay in their current mode. We believe they are headed higher. The experts expect the national median price for housing of all types to rise 10.8% this year. Over the past five years homes have risen in value by 53%.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington have listed the 13 most corrupt politicians in Washington. Leading the pack is Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and House Majority whip Roy Blunt (R-MO). Then there are Representatives Richard Pombo (R-CA), Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA). Then there are Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) and Representatives Bob Ney (R-OH) and Tom Feeney (R-FL). William J. Jefferson and Cunningham are under federal investigation. The other three are Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), Representatives Charles H. Taylor (R-NC) and Marilyn N. Musgrave (R-CO) and Rep. Rick Renzi (R-AZ). We are sure there are some subjective feelings being vented.