My name is Michael Lombardi. You may have heard of me. Maybe you are one of the hundreds of thousand of investors who get my daily Profit Confidential column.

Or maybe you’ve heard of my company, Lombardi Publishing Corporation. I started it back in 1986. …

Over the past decade, I’ve been widely recognized as the predictor of five major economic events.

Here they are …

1. Told my readers to get into gold in 2002;
2. Told them to get out of the housing market in 2006;
3. Predicted the recession of late 2007;
4. Told  my readers to get out of stocks in the fall of 2008; and
5. Told my readers to get back into stocks in March of 2009.

On May 2, 2011 I told my readers a stock market crash was headed our way. From May 2, 2011 to October 4, 2011, the Dow Jones Industrials fell 2,472 points. …

What I’m about to tell you, my prediction number six, which is about to happen, is so off the wall, so controversial, I didn’t want you to think it was coming from some kind of quack. …

Something very big will happen in America within the next 180 days. It will be more devastating than the credit crisis of 2008. …

The economy is slowing. Retail sales in the U.S. are running at their slowest pace in five months. After trillions of dollars the government has pumped into the economy to revive it, U.S. corporations ended the 2011 with their slowest profit growth in two years.

Last year was the worst year for new home sales in the U.S. since 1963! And a glut of foreclosed resale homes still overhangs the housing market. Housing prices are set to fall again in 2012. …

The underemployment rate … stands stubbornly at 15% in the U.S.

Banking is still a mess. Europe’s debt crisis is a huge problem for American banks; their exposure is close to $1 trillion.

Many European countries are in a recession again and I believe the United States is on the cusp of falling back into a recession. … But this is not the real problem. …

Our budget deficit this year will be $1.3 trillion. Our official national debt exceeds $15 (heading for) $16.4 trillion. Our unofficial national debt, when you take into account unfunded liabilities and entitlement to our citizens, is closer to $100 trillion. …

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac own or guarantee half the residential mortgages in America. Who owns both of these companies now? Why, it’s the U.S. government. …

Today, what do we have in America to carry us into the next boom? Nothing. The Internet isn’t creating jobs. Manufacturing, it’s gone to Mexico, India and China. …

Interest rates have remained so low for so long that inflation will become a serious problem for America in the months and years ahead. …

my prediction is that this next recession will also be much worse than the 2007-2008 recession and that it will hit as deep as the Great Depression. …

Our government has no money left to bail us out …

If the current bear market rally follows the same path as the bear market rally of 1934 to 1937, we have only a couple of more months left before the next phase of this bear market gets underway, ultimately bringing stock prices below their March 2009 lows. …

Here are my five core beliefs about what’s headed our way and how I plan to actually profit from them….

… Doug believes that an upcoming series of events will likely change the fabric of our society …

The Greater Depression
For years now we’ve been watching the U.S. economy and social system deteriorate … You may … believe that things are improving. But facts don’t lie…

For starters, the homes we live in, which represent the single largest egg in the nest for most households, show no signs of recovering lost values. …

The number of U.S. residents receiving food stamps in America as a percent of the population has grown from 8% to nearly 20% over the past decade …

The unemployment rate … has more than doubled since 2008. …

There is now 7 trillion US dollars circulating in foreign countries. As America cannot deal with its massive debt and consequent credit rating downgrade, foreigners are already getting nervous holding these dollars. Almost any sort of financial calamity could scare some central bank into exiting its dollar position wholesale. And once one of them starts, the race will be on …

And the situation isn’t much better elsewhere around the globe. As Doug says, “As fast as things are going down the drain in the U.S., it’s even worse in the Eurozone. … It’s not just Greece… its Spain, Portugal, Italy, and France is next. At this point there’s no way out. It’s not just Europe and the U.S. Both Japan and China are next.”

So what happens when bankrupt countries like Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain gobble up the latest bailout and saunter back to the trough for more?

The net result is that uneconomic patterns of production and consumption are going to be liquidated …

In fact, Doug and his team believe that when (not if) the huge masses of people in this country find out that unemployment benefits and welfare can no longer be extended it will result in mass hysteria and violent outrage. …

Doug writes: “Governments’ everywhere are creating trillions of new currency units. That’s bad news in many ways. But the good news for speculators is that this crisis will create new market bubbles. Some markets will collapse. For instance I wouldn’t want to own a McMansion in the suburbs, or a so called “collectible” car or bond. Meanwhile other markets are going to turn into manias as investors try to hide from a collapsing dollar. The precious metals market and mining sectors are the first markets to come to mind in that regard.” …

No political party can turn around this ship. The fact is, America is now economically, morally, and intellectually bankrupt.

At $75 trillion in government obligations, the debt level has accumulated to an amount so enormous that it will be impossible to pay back. … And instead of cutting back … the government has chosen to print. …

(From a subscription promotion.)

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ACTA: The Corporate Usurpation of the Internet

Nile Bowie
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/01/acta-corporate-usurpation-of-internet.html

In the wake of a public outcry against internet regulation bills such as SOPA and PIPA, representatives of the EU have signed a new and far more threatening legislation yesterday in Tokyo. Spearheaded by the governments of the United States and Japan and constructed largely in the absence of public awareness, the measures of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) dramatically alter current international legal framework, while introducing the first substantial processes of global internet governance. With complete contempt towards the democratic process, the negotiations of the treaty were exclusively held between industry representatives and government officials, while excluding elected representatives and members of the press from their hearings. …

Robert Reich
Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino owner, … had, before the South Carolina Republican primary, donated $5 million to the pro-Gingrich Super Pac “Winning Our Future” …

Adelson has … cut another $5 million check for Gingrich to go negative on Romney in Florida. …

And, who knows? … They might decide to put in another $5 million or perhaps $20 million into Gingrich’s Super Pac. …

Do you know who Sheldon and Marian Adelson are? Do you know what Gingrich has promised them, or what they think they’ll get out of a Grinch presidency? I don’t. But if Newt becomes President of the United States … Newt will owe them big time. …

(But I know the newt would not yield to pressure like that. His character is too pure; his morals too high.)

Newt Gingrich? Really?

… In the first place, Newt Gingrich is the personification of the word “globalist.” Gingrich is a longtime member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Gingrich never saw a globalist agenda-item that he did not enthusiastically support such as: NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, FTAA, the North American Union (by whatever name it’s called at the moment), the NAFTA Superhighway, ad infinitum. Gingrich is as much committed to open borders as is Bill Clinton, Al Gore, or Barack Obama. Gingrich is as committed to the advancement of the George Soros-sponsored Agenda 21 “green” initiatives as any person living today.

In the second place, Newt Gingrich’s actual record is fundamentally opposite his constant “conservative” rhetoric. … voting for every kind of welfare program imaginable …

And let’s not forget that, after orchestrating the “Contract With America” … it was Newt Gingrich that quickly abandoned those promises–which led to his eventual resignation following the 1996 elections, when voters fled the GOP in disgust after Gingrich’s compromises. …

William Jasper also reported … at:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/73600337/Speaker-for-Whom-12Dec1994

In the third place, if the current trend toward … a police state disturbs you, Newt Gingrich is the last person in the world you would want to elect President of the United States.

Devvy Kidd writes, “On October 22, 1991, Gingrich voted for … a National Police Corps. … As Rep. Susan Molinari (R-NY), one of Newt’s cheerleaders, explained to Michael Kinsley on CNN’s Crossfire, ‘If it wasn’t for Newt Gingrich, you wouldn’t have a crime bill.’

“Indeed. The Gingrich-led opposition ‘threw’ the game, failing to challenge the bill’s fundamental flaw–that the federal government has no constitutional authority … . ‘That crime bill stank to high heaven,’ charged Pat Buchanan. ‘It federalizes crimes such as spousal abuse, giving the feds police power the Constitution reserves to the states.’”

See Devvy Kidds’ report at:

http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd449.htm

The contents of Newt Gingrich’s record in this report are merely the tip of the old proverbial iceberg. … And this is the man Christians and conservatives in South Carolina want to be the next President of the United States? …

Newt Gingrich wants to continue the Wilsonian foreign entanglement philosophy by continuing to send troops to fight undeclared, unconstitutional wars; by continuing to entrap and enrage foreign capitols into conflicts that only serve the interests of international bankers and the military-industrial complex …

If the Republican Party has a death wish, they will nominate Newt Gingrich as their Presidential candidate. Gingrich is a snake-oil salesman … and he will sell America’s sovereignty to an international New World Order and turn our country into a police state. Christians, of all people, should know better.

Newt Gingrich? Really?

January 24, 2012 by The Guru Investor

Top forecaster Norman Fosback says “the market’s fundamental position has evolved to the most favorable alignment in 20 years,” and sees big gains for stocks over the next year and the next five years. … almost 14% annualized. … He says corporate profitability is at an all-time high, but market P/E ratios are back where they were in 1990. As for the European debt crisis, Fosback doesn’t think it will take down U.S. markets …

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 23, 2012

India is the first buyer of Iranian oil to agree to pay for its purchases in gold instead of the US dollar … Sources expect China to follow suit. India and China take about one million barrels per day, or 40 percent of Iran’s total exports of 2.5 million bpd. …

By trading in gold, New Delhi and Beijing enable Tehran to bypass the upcoming freeze on its central bank’s assets and the oil embargo which the European Union’s foreign ministers agreed to impose Monday, Jan. 23. …

Delhi is to execute its transactions … through two state-owned banks: the Calcutta-based UCO Bank, … and Halk Bankasi (Peoples Bank), Turkey’s seventh largest bank which is owned by the government. …

Turkey announced publicly last week that it would not adhere to any sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program unless they were imposed by the United Nations Security Council. … China for its part has declared its opposition to sanctions against Iran. …

China and Russia (will buy Tehran’s) oil in currencies other than US dollars. (They) are keeping the workings of those (payment) mechanisms top secret.

(Read the whole article here.)

(This trumps the western sanctions. What will the west do next?)

January 22, 2012
Brandon Turbeville

… In the South Carolina Republican primaries on Saturday, there are now questions surrounding the vote counting process that took place … Some individuals who witnessed the actual certification of the vote are beginning to question whether (there was) voter fraud. …

In Pickens County … Chris Lawton, … who came to the Pickens County elections office to witness the vote certification, noticed a series of situations that were either in direct opposition to State voting laws, or, at the very least, highly questionable. …

Mr. Lawton claims he was told that he had to … watch the vote tabulation on the projector … Eventually, he … decided to assert himself as per his rights to witness the count personally under State law. He says, “[They were] very unfriendly and appeared agitated at my presence. When I got my wits I went back and declared State law allowed me to witness all aspects of this process. …”

Mr. Lawton then states that at 8:00 pm a precinct which he believes to be Prater’s Creek came into the office without the “zero” tape; the device that shows the voting machines were started at a vote count of zero. Without the “zero” tape, there is no certainty that the voting machines did not begin operation loaded with votes for specific candidates, a very serious issue to say the least.

Mr. Lawton states that, at 8:02 pm, the Paul campaign called the elections office and was hung up on and given no information regarding the vote-counting process.

At 8:05 pm, Mr. Lawton claims that a box of ballots arrived (Box 216) which he believes were also from Prater’s Creek. This box had a broken security seal. When Lawton asked for the serial number of the machine that these ballots came from, he says he was told to wait. …

These were not the only ballots to come back unsecured. According to Lawton, the discs containing the Powdersville District 2 ballots arrived being carried by a poll worker. These discs were not only missing a seal, but were being carried in a personal folder inside the worker’s left pocket. …

Around 8:55 pm, a lady from Clemson Precinct 1 stated that the boxes and machines for this precinct were actually dropped off at another precinct – Stone Church at University Baptist Church in Clemson.

Lawton says that he asked when the machines and ballots would arrive at the correct precinct and was told that the votes had already been tabulated and would be coming in later. He claims that he was then told, later on, that the machines and ballots would be stored at the church. Lawton says that he never found out where the ballots and machines ended up before he departed his precinct Saturday night.

Yet Pickens County is not the only location where the method of counting votes is questionable.

In Florence County, for instance, a confidential source informed me that the vote certification was seriously flawed and essentially conducted in secret. Those individuals who came to witness the certification were not allowed into the room where the votes were being tallied and could only view the process through a glass window.

The process itself was conducted behind closed doors and witnesses could only view individuals working on computers (there were no paper ballots) – but they were unable to actually see what was on the computers themselves. Because the vote counting took place in a closed room, there was no sound available to any of the witnesses either. Only a computer screen tacked onto the wall was available for witnesses in order to view what was allegedly happening on the computers in the next room.

This is particularly concerning since the South Carolina State Constitution states that, while votes are to be cast in secret, they are to be counted in public.

It is important to note that, at no time, did the witnesses have access to the room in which the ballots were being counted to either corroborate or contest the process in Florence. There was no way for them to even ask questions regarding the vote counting.

As the source stated, “The system is designed so that just a few people have access to the votes and only a few people know what those votes actually are.”

The issue of lack of access granted to vote count witnesses seems to be a trend all across South Carolina.

In addition, Florence County also reported some rather strange voting machine failure as well. Within the first hour of voting, some of the machines in the Florence 35 District began to experience technical failures, forcing the precinct to move to paper ballots. …

In South Carolina, all election results are transmitted through a Spanish owned company, Scytl/SOE Software, before they are reported to the public. This company’s software has been implicated in voter fraud in the past …

Bev Harris, an elections and vote fraud expert, writes on her website BlackBoxVoting.com,

… In South Carolina … results could be incorrect at either end of the pipeline – - from the ES&S iVotronic paperless touchscreen voting machines, which have a history of incorrect totals, or from the private results reporting firm Scytl/SOE Software, which has centralized control over what gets reported.

She also writes “There is only one way to immediately find out whether Scytl/SOE reported the right results*, and that is for members of the public to capture evidence of reported precinct results when polls close tonight.” …

Yet, even putting aside the Scytl/SOE Software and ES&S voting machines, vote fraud would still be a major issue in South Carolina.

For instance, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson recently sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice which was dated Thursday, January 19, 2012, and contained details of voter fraud in South Carolina. The analysis of the fraud was conducted by the Department of Motor Vehicles and was sent to U.S. Attorney Bill Nettles.

As reported by the Associated Press and FOX News, “In a letter dated Thursday, Wilson says the analysis found 953 ballots cast by voters listed as dead. … “

It is an unfortunate reality that election fraud has become commonplace in every state in the Union and South Carolina is no exception. Although, at this time, it is unknown to what extent fraud has been committed in South Carolina or which campaign was hurt the most, one thing is for sure – whenever there is vote fraud, the inevitable losers will always be the voters. (One would assume the “winners” would be the perps.)

(Background:)

by John Rubino on January 22, 2012

… Illinois? It’s more or less the same size as Greece, its finances are in the same generally catastrophic shape, and its leaders are just as feckless and dishonest. It owes tens of billions of dollars to various investors and stakeholders and will clearly have to stiff many of them at some point. …

To summarize, even after a massive tax increase Illinois is looking at a half a billion dollar deficit (and additionally) “… a backlog of about $8.5 billion in unpaid bills … $27 billion in outstanding bonds … roughly $80 billion owed to the state’s public employee pension funds.” …

Why then would anyone buy an Illinois municipal bond, or accept a state contract that requires future payments, or move a business to the state, or keep a business in the state, or do anything else that required faith in the willingness or ability of the state to pay its bills? The only possible answer is that Illinois isn’t Greece; it’s Spain or Italy, an entity so big and important that … when it hits the wall, Washington will have no choice but to step in and cover its (liabilities). In the same way that a Spanish bond is really a German bond because Germany has no choice but to make good on it, the big insolvent US states are wards of the central government.

The bottom line effect of all this stepping up and bailing out is to exchange a solvency/debt crisis for a currency crisis in which the markets at some point figure out that failed states are so numerous and their needs so great that the printing presses will never stop.

Granville: DJIA to fall 4000 pts in 2012

Down to the 8,000 area.