From the February 2009 Idaho Observer:

Interesting times…

These are interesting times. The oncoming waves of calamity and chaos, if we can survive their pounding, are also forming a rip current to help Man surf towards our potential and the possibilities of a positive future. The various schemes of collectivism and elite dominance are beginning to flail about and fail. From this, there is no retreat. With the global scale of present and pending events, there is nowhere to hide.

We are facing personal economic challenges while many state, local and even national governments are on the verge of bankruptcy. Iceland is completely insolvent. It is now a place, not a government. California, the seventh largest economy in the world, is paying its bills with IOUs.

Property seizures and foreclosures are on the rise. Millions have lost their jobs. Millions more will. Homelessness is here for many of the formerly affluent. The American Dream of credit-based opulence has been jolted awake to reality.

The TARP bailout, which the recipients adamantly refuse to account for, has shown itself to be no more than a banker’s coup. Inspired by the banker’s success, state and local governments and other private enterprises now want their turn at the trough—a chance to wallow in the "stimulus." Undaunted by reality, this federally-scripted drama is unfolding. The congressional and executive actors portray a mythical tale of how we can tax and borrow our way back to an imagined prosperity. A multitude of mayors are fawning at the feet of Congress to become the trickle down conduit for the stream of "stimulus."

Treasury debt is bursting into the $trillions. With a shortage of buyers in their bond exchange scheme, the Treasury has resorted to buying its own bills to maintain the illusion of a market. The "stimulus" depends on this illusion.

The COMEX Exchange, where commodities are "sold" on paper, will reportedly soon default. Crashing with it will be the ability to control real world commodity products with promissory paper. Expect gold, silver and other commodities to escape from suppression and rise to their natural value.

U.S. railroad traffic is down 17.2 percent in the first four weeks of 2009 compared with the first four weeks of 2008. According to the Association of American Railroads, motor vehicle and equipment shipments are down 63 percent and metal products are down 47.7 percent. Canadian rail traffic data shows similar numbers.

Wholesale inventories plunged this December by the largest amount in nearly 17 years. It was also the fourth straight monthly decline.

Manufacturing barely has a pulse. When major manufacturers shut down, suppliers must find new manufacturers to supply. Who is starting up new major manufacturing ventures now?

Ocean shipping is tied up in port. Without bank issued letters of credit to ensure commerce between nations, ships don’t move. The Baltic Dry Index, which measures ocean cargo volumes, has dropped 95 percent. A store shelf near you will soon reflect this downturn in importation.

Global food production is predicted to falter dramatically from drought and lack of credit for farmers who have been lulled into dependency on banks and government programs. Those who supply credit, in this creditory new world, are turning off the food supply.

The "Third World" will see famine, while Americans discover their accustomed diet is a factory product. Food factories are beginning to close down. The colorfully packaged boxes, bags and containers that many have come to associate with food will begin to disappear from the shelves. After that, "we" become "Third World."

What is the people’s response so far? In New England, at-risk homeowners stormed the mansions of mortgage company CEOs in organized protests. UK students have occupied universities with sit-ins reminiscent of the 60s, successfully compelling administrations to change policies and investments. The Israeli attack on Gaza lit the fuse for many students, in part because their universities have investments in the weapons industry, but the scope of their protest is expanding.

How does government plan to defend itself? The "Stimulus Bill," includes $5.5 billion for public safety, i.e., safety from the outraged public—more surveillance infrastructure; more SWAT hardware and training; more bodies to fill uniforms in the police army. Follow that with a congressional call for more FEMA camps, a federal license for handguns and semiautomatic weapons, a ban on private gun sales and a prohibition on keeping a loaded firearm for self-defense.

As a pork wallow bill, the "stimulus" is about much more than economic recovery. I can’t even begin to tell you about the "stimulus," because the Table of Contents alone is larger than this article. It is a thousand-page piece of legislation that appropriates more "money" than was spent on the entire government for the first 170 years of our country’s existence. We won’t know the details until after it is signed into law—and neither will the lawmakers who voted for it.

But there is one component that should have everyone concerned. The "stimulus" creates a new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology. This new agency will:

• Electronically track the medical treatments of "every individual in the United States," without their consent, by a federal system which makes your private information available to over 600,000 entities;

• Monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective;

• Provide penalties for Hospitals and doctors that are not "meaningful users" of the new system;

• Ration healthcare through a Federal Council that approves or rejects treatments using a formula which divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit—if you’re old and infirm, you’ll just have to wait;

• Control health care, from medical and nursing educational curriculums, to prescribed treatments and how much hospitals get paid;

• Provide more funding for this medical bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined.

• This new database of all Americans will include psychological records, which can be used for many purposes, including limiting the right to keep and bear arms, as recently happened to 150,000 military veterans under last year’s "NICS Improvement Act," otherwise known as the "Veterans’ Disarmament Act."

Between the TARP Act appropriating $850 billion and providing the Treasury secretary with blank check kiting authority and this "stimulus" bill, the real world "bail-out" numbers are somewhere between $3 trillion and 10 trillion "dollars" pumped into banker’s accounts and the economy—and this is only in the last few months. Where did it go and what will it do?

The money supply of all of the world’s major currencies is now increasing by 10-30 percent annually. An increase in the money supply is the root cause of inflation. What will be the result of a 3-to-10 trillion "dollar" infusion into America’s economy in just a few months? Hyperinflationary collapse—by design?

Individual federal income tax revenues for 2008 were $1.25 trillion. Is there any possibility that the bail-out/stimulus/grand looting can ever be repaid?

Fedgov will have to immediately float massive amounts of new Treasury debt in order to finance the remaining bank bailouts and the nearly trillion dollars for the new "stimulus" program. If almost everyone is selling their treasury notes and the U.S. Treasury is already the primary buyer of its own outstanding bonds, who is going to buy the newly issued debt that will fund the "stimulus?"

Forty-six states have high budget deficits. Combined with major revenue shortfalls, many states won’t make it through the year. Most of the liquid assets and slush funds for state and local governments have been in the stock or bond markets. Since last fall, those values have been cut by approximately half. Unlike fedgov and its private partner the FED, which can create money at will, from nothing, states are dependent on taxes and revenue sources to finance their operations. Where does a state go to file for bankruptcy?

But we need not have such a dire outlook. Buried in the heart of America is a solution to our woes—the Bakken Oilfield—if only it was "ours" and "we" developed it. The USGS recently upgraded its assessment of the Bakken from 150 million barrels of recoverable oil to over 500 billion barrels—that’s billion with a b, for those who have recently been confused by our mind-numbing million/billion/trillion/quadrillion economy.

The Bakken Formation stretches from North Eastern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada. Estimates, even if just 10 percent of the oil is recoverable, would give Montana a resource base worth more than $5.3trillion—and that doesn’t include North Dakota.

This light, sweet oil is enough crude to fuel the American economy for 41 years. It’s larger than Saudi Arabia’s oil fields, or Iraq or Iran. We don’t need war, conquest and hegemonic dominion anymore because we have enough oil in our own backyard.

That’s the problem. Oil is just the excuse for war. War is where the banking-military cartel makes their real profit. Don’t expect the Bakken Oilfields to rescue us any time soon. The Bakken would compromise the oil tanker industry and the war machine.

Besides, whose oil is it? Does it belong to the state or federal governments who acquired the real estate it’s under by dishonored and violated treaties with the native peoples. Is it a public resource? Will the Bakken Formation be one of the "hard assets" that the banking cartel is collateralizing with their "bail-out" funds? After "we the people" prevail in this great contest, will the banker’s fictional, fiat paper be considered "collateral" that gives them right, title and interest in anything?

The absurd conduct of the federal government is increasingly obvious even to state governments that have become highly dependent on federal hand-outs. Largely ceremonial and toothless, and whether it be from altruistic motives or mere survival, several states are legislatively serving notice on the fedgov that the states are sovereign and fedgov must cease and desist all non-constitutionally empowered actions against their state. The state sovereignty movement of the 1990s is seeing a rebirth. New Hampshire is even threatening secession.

The private sector is also attempting a reformation of the federal behemoth. We The People Foundation is tackling a novel idea, restarting the federal constitution and a government formed thereunder, with a "Continental Congress 2009" (www.wethepeoplefoundation.org).