You know what? You didn't have to accept it. But you did.

We chose not to contribute to the recession at my house. We didn't accept the bullshit stimulus check that was created out of thin air by the Fed. Didn't you people even stop for a second and wonder where that money was going to come from? I can only hope that you stocked up on food.

Here's what I've been up to.

Ok, so I know that my posting has fallen off to almost nothing in the recent couple of months, not only am I getting ready to graduate, but things have been coming down the pipe faster than I can keep up. You know that I've discussed the recession that we are clearly in, and you know that I've blasted the MSM (main stream media) for not telling you what myself and others have been screaming to the tops of our lungs. We may have made a breakthrough, but you're not going to like it. What follows is a WALL STREET JOURNAL article. Yep, the WALL STREET JOURNAL. Who's a conspiracy theorist now? Load Up the Pantry April 21, 2008 6:47 p.m. I don't want to alarm anybody, but maybe it's time for Americans to start stockpiling food. No, this is not a drill. You've seen the TV footage of food riots in parts of the developing world. Yes, they're a long way away from the U.S. But most foodstuffs operate in a global market. When the cost of wheat soars in Asia, it will do the same here. Reality: Food prices are already rising here much faster than the returns you are likely to get from keeping your money in a bank or money-market fund. And there are very good reasons to believe prices on the shelves are about to start rising a lot faster. "Load up the pantry," says Manu Daftary, one of Wall Street's top investors and the manager of the Quaker Strategic Growth mutual fund. "I think prices are going higher. People are too complacent. They think it isn't going to happen here. But I don't know how the food companies can absorb higher costs." (Full disclosure: I am an investor in Quaker Strategic) Stocking up on food may not replace your long-term investments, but it may make a sensible home for some of your shorter-term cash. Do the math. If you keep your standby cash in a money-market fund you'll be lucky to get a 2.5% interest rate. Even the best one-year certificate of deposit you can find is only going to pay you about 4.1%, according to Bankrate.com. And those yields are before tax. Meanwhile the most recent government data shows food inflation for the average American household is now running at 4.5% a year. And some prices are rising even more quickly. The latest data show cereal prices rising by more than 8% a year. Both flour and rice are up more than 13%. Milk, cheese, bananas and even peanut butter: They're all up by more than 10%. Eggs have rocketed up 30% in a year. Ground beef prices are up 4.8% and chicken by 5.4%. These are trends that have been in place for some time. And if you are hoping they will pass, here's the bad news: They may actually accelerate. The reason? The prices of many underlying raw materials have risen much more quickly still. Wheat prices, for example, have roughly tripled in the past three years. Sooner or later, the food companies are going to have to pass those costs on. Kraft saw its raw material costs soar by about $1.25 billion last year, squeezing profit margins. The company recently warned that higher prices are here to stay. Last month the chief executive of General Mills, Kendall Powell, made a similar point. The main reason for rising prices, of course, is the surge in demand from China and India. Hundreds of millions of people are joining the middle class each year, and that means they want to eat more and better food. A secondary reason has been the growing demand for ethanol as a fuel additive. That's soaking up some of the corn supply. You can't easily stock up on perishables like eggs or milk. But other products will keep. Among them: Dried pasta, rice, cereals, and cans of everything from tuna fish to fruit and vegetables. The kicker: You should also save money by buying them in bulk. If this seems a stretch, ponder this: The emerging bull market in agricultural products is following in the footsteps of oil. A few years ago, many Americans hoped $2 gas was a temporary spike. Now it's the rosy memory of a bygone age. The good news is that it's easier to store Cap'n Crunch or cans of Starkist in your home than it is to store lots of gasoline. Safer, too.

Greenspan urges the further collapse of the US economy.

First of all, you need to understand that dumping of the dollar will not help our inflation. If the oil producing nations drops the dollar peg(US dollar reserve), we will further spiral into a recession. No, I don't know more than Greenspan, but come on people, use your frigging heads here. Even Dick Cheney has liquidates his US holdings into something else. Get ready for stagflation. Arabianbusiness.com article link Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Monday near-record Gulf Arab inflation would fall "significantly" were the oil producers to drop their dollar pegs, in contradiction to Saudi policy. "In the short term, free floating... will not fully dissipate inflationary pressure, although it would significantly do so," Greenspan told an investment conference in Jeddah. But Saudi Central Bank Vice-Governor Muhammed Al Jasser and UAE Central Bank Governor Sultan Nasser Al-Suweidi both said dollar pegs have served their economies well by attracting foreign investment. "They did very well for our economies because it has led to more capital flows," Al-Suweidi told an investment conference in Abu Dhabi on Monday. Likewise Al Jasser, questioned by newswire Reuters about the riyal/dollar peg on Sunday, said: "It just happens to be serving our economic interests and continues to do so." The pegs restrict the Gulf's ability to fight inflation by forcing them to shadow US monetary policy when the Fed is cutting rates to ward off recession and Gulf economies are surging on a near five-fold jump in oil prices since 2002. Inflation in Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, hit a 27-year peak of 7% in January, while in the UAE, price rises in 2006 - the latest available figure - rose to 9.3%, at least a 19-year high. Still, "Gulf governments should consider the implication of such a move in the long term," Greenspan said of the idea of floating their currencies. Rifts in Gulf monetary policy widened last May when Kuwait broke ranks with its neighbours by severing its link to the dollar in favour of a basket of currencies, saying a weak dollar was driving imported inflation. Oman has said it will not join a single currency at all, and Al-Suweidi said in November he was under mounting social and economic pressure to drop the peg. He has since backtracked, mirroring the position of Saudi Arabia, which has in the last month introduced public sector wage increases, welfare payments and subsidies to offset the impact of inflation. Qatar, contending with the region's highest inflation, is urging Gulf states to bridge differences over a single currency, saying monetary union could avert possible unilateral revaluations, its prime minister told Reuters on Saturday. (Reuters) On a side note, here's an article where Greenspan says that the US economic recovery is going to take longer than previously thought. And most of you people didn't even know that you were in a recession.

Call me the Grinch, call me Scrooge, but don't say that I didn't tell you.

If you're running out and spending all of your earnings/savings on iPhones and every other gadget being hawked this holiday season, you're setting yourself up for some serious hurt. If you didn't read my previous post on the recession that you're not aware of. I suggest that you pay very close attention to this one. Keep your cards close to your chest and keep your money in your wallets. Do you ever stop to consider why you don't read/hear these types of stories in the American press? Believe me when I say that it is not going to be easier on you if you ignore the issue. Turning a blind eye will not save you from the avalanche of issues born of a trillions dollar debt and the fact that the world is refusing to do business in US currency. Morgan Stanley issues full US recession alert By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor Last Updated: 1:24am GMT 11/12/2007 Morgan Stanley has issued a full recession alert for the US economy, warning of a sharp slowdown in business investment and a "perfect storm" for consumers as the housing slump spreads. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke Fed chairman Ben Bernanke will be hoping he can keep the US economy from recession In a report "Recession Coming" released today, the bank's US team said the credit crunch had started to inflict serious damage on US companies. "Slipping sales and tightening credit are pushing companies into liquidation mode, especially in motor vehicles," it said. "Three-month dollar Libor spreads have jumped by 60 to 80 basis points over the last month. High yield spreads have widened even more significantly. The absolute cost of borrowing is higher than in June." "As delinquencies and defaults soar, lenders are tightening credit for commercial, credit card and auto lending, as well as for all mortgage borrowers," said the report, written by the bank's chief US economist Dick Berner. He said the foreclosure rate on residential mortgages had reached a 19-year high of 5.59pc in the third quarter while the glut of unsold properties would lead to a 40pc crash in housing construction. advertisement "We think overall housing starts will run below one million units in each of the next two years -- a level not seen in the history of the modern data since 1959," he said. Although the US job market has apparently held up well, an average monthly fall of 138,000 in the number of self-employed workers over the last quarter suggests it may now be buckling. "Consumers face what could be a perfect storm," said Mr Berner. The partial freeze on subprime mortgage rates announced last week by US treasury secretary Hank Paulson may help cushion the blow for some banks, but it could equally backfire by adding a "risk premium" that drives even more lenders out of the mortgage market. Like Goldman Sachs, and Lehman Brothers, the bank no longer believes Asia and Europe will come to the rescue as America slows. It has slashed its 2008 growth forecast for Japan from 1.9pc to 0.9pc, and warned that credit stress will weigh heavily on the eurozone. Mr Berner said US demand is likely to contract by 1pc each quarter for the first nine months of 2008, but the picture could be far worse if the Federal Reserve fails to slash rates fast enough. It is betting on a quarter point cut this week, with three more cuts by the middle of next year. "We expect the Fed to insure against the worst outcome," he said. Morgan Stanley is the first major Wall Street bank to warn that it is may now be too late to stop a recession, though most have shifted to an ultra-cautious stance in recent weeks. The bank at first treated the August crunch as a "mid-cycle correction", much like the financial storm after Russia's default in 1998. But the collapse of the US commercial paper market has now continued for seventeen weeks, suggesting a "fundamental deleveraging of the banking system." Mr Berner -- known at Morgan Stanley as the "resident bull" -- is one of the most closely watched analysts on Wall Street. While he began to turn bearish last April as the credit markets turned nasty, the latest report is written in tones that may is rattle the fast-diminishing band of optimists. How bad is it when Iran starts refusing US dollars for oil? What currency are we having to convert to, at a higher rate, in order to pay for our oil imports? Euros, that's what. I advise you to get a Plum RAZR from Sprint for $.99 and save the other $499.99 for keeping you house together. It really is time to reel in the spending.