The following clips are from a Prison Planet report (though there have been some brief confirmations of this stuff elsewhere in reputable MSM news)...

    According to a London Times report, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will probably be in attendance at this week’s Bilderberg Group meeting, as top globalists meet to plot the financial future of the planet behind closed doors.

    The Times article notes that “US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s public schedule is mysteriously empty for the next two days,” speculating that he will be in Vouliagmeni, Greece for the annual elitist confab, following in the footsteps of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who attended last year’s conference in Washington DC just months before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the start of the economic crisis ...

    Geithner’s presence at Bilderberg is noteworthy, not only because Bernanke attended immediately before the economic crisis last year, but also because Bilderberg’s agenda for 2009 is heavily weighted towards the financial crisis. According to a pre-meeting booklet handed out to members that was leaked to investigative journalist Daniel Estulin, “Bilderberg is divided on whether to put into motion, “Either a prolonged, agonizing depression that dooms the world to decades of stagnation, decline and poverty … or an intense-but-shorter depression that paves the way for a new sustainable economic world order, with less sovereignty but more efficiency.” ...

It isn't as if this happened overnight. These forces of international finance capitalism have been around for centuries, their power handed forward from father to son, conclave to cartel, church to cult. Wars have been fought, governments undermined, people great and small assassinated or disappeared. All in a day's work, I suppose. Or at least that of the last century, with the pace stepping up as soon as Hitler's bunker was stormed and Hiroshima and Nagasaki levelled. The pace quickened again immeasurably when the Wall was breached and the Soviet resistance to the so-called "New World Order" crumbled into dust. Please look at the history; make the connections ...

This the end game, I think. No, the world will not end. But the Dream will, hope as you might that this economic Titanic will miraculously right itself and you will be on the sundeck watching the beautiful, glittering icebergs drift slowly to starboard and port.

With the market bubble artificially reinflated (once again sucking loose change out of hope- and greed-crazed small investors), little snorts of platitude have emanated from the south ends of both DC and Wall Street: "we may be bottoming out, turning the corner", they say; "the pace of the crash is slowing." "Less people lost their jobs last month than the month before! Hoorah!!" I hope it occurs to you that there ain't that many jobs left to lose. Do you finally give up all hope only when all the McDonald's close and Netflicks goes tits up? As the saying goes, "We've got 'em right where they want us."

This is the news from Yahoo Finance (in full - so sue me):

    The green shoots story took a bit of hit this week between data on April retail sales, weekly jobless claims and foreclosures. But the whole concept of the economy finding its footing was "preposterous" to begin with, says Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates.

    "We're in a complete mess and the consumer is smart enough to know it," says Davidowitz, whose firm does consulting for the retail industry. "If the consumer isn't petrified, he or she is a damn fool."

    Davidowitz, who is nothing if not opinionated (and colorful), paints a very grim picture: "The worst is yet to come with consumers and banks," he says. "This country is going into a 10-year decline. Living standards will never be the same."

    This outlook is based on the following main points:

    * With the unemployment rate rising into double digits - and that's not counting the millions of "underemployed" Americans - consumers are hitting the breaks, which is having a huge impact, given consumer spending accounts for about 70% of economic activity.
    * Rising unemployment and the $8 trillion negative wealth effect of housing mean more Americans will default on not just mortgages but student loans and auto loans and credit card debt.
    * More consumer loan defaults will hit banks, which are also threatened by what Davidowitz calls a "depression" in commercial real estate, noting the recent bankruptcy of General Growth Properties and distressed sales by Developers Diversified and other REITs.

    As for all the hullabaloo about the stress tests, he says they were a sham and part of a "con game to get private money to finance these institutions because [Treasury] can't get more money from Congress. It's the ‘greater fool' theory."

    "We're now in Barack Obama's world where money goes into the most inefficient parts of the economy and we're bailing everyone out," says Daviowitz, who opposes bailouts for financials and automakers alike. "The bailout money is in the sewer and gone."

I truly hope you enjoy the summer Star Trek and Terminator flicks this season. Me, I'm looking for some Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, and Daffy Duck reruns.

Thufferin' thuccotath!!