Posted this on another blog, but worth posting again. This problem  started decades ago...

I understand more now , after some research...

On April 5, 1933, newly inaugurated President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102, which prohibited the “hoarding” of gold by U.S. citizens. Americans were required to turn their gold holdings over to the federal government at the prevailing price of $20.67 per ounce.

Pursuant to Roosevelt’s executive order, anyone caught violating the law was subject to a federal felony conviction, 10 years’ confinement in a federal penitentiary, and a $10,000 fine. Soon after the confiscation, U.S. officials announced that the government would sell its gold in international markets for $35 an ounce, thereby devaluing the dollar by almost 70 percent and immediately “earning” a potential profit of almost $15 an ounce on the gold it had confiscated.

Two months later, Congress enacted legislation nullifying gold clauses in both government and private contracts, thereby requiring creditors in such contracts to accept devalued paper money in payment of such contractual obligations, even though the contract itself stipulated payment tied to gold.

Keep in mind that the Framers had implemented a gold standard so that the American people would be forever protected from the destructiveness of inflation. It was the gold standard — that is, the requirement that the federal government redeem all its paper notes and bills in gold — that had operated as a restraint on government’s ability to print ever-increasing amounts of paper money. The gold standard’s positive effect on capital markets was also one of the primary reasons that the United States rather quickly became one of the most prosperous nations in history.

The Supreme Court’s opinions in the gold-clause cases are worth reading. (See Norman v. Baltimore & O.R. Co.). The most persuasive arguments, not surprisingly, were published by the dissenters — McReynolds, Sutherland, Van Devanter, and Butler, who often voted to declare much of Roosevelt’s New Deal unconstitutional:

    Just men regard repudiation and spoliation of citizens by their sovereign with abhorrence; but we are asked to affirm that the Constitution has granted power to accomplish both. No definite delegation of such a power exists; and we cannot believe the farseeing framers, who labored with hope of establishing justice and securing the blessings of liberty, intended that the expected government should have authority to annihilate its own obligations and destroy the very rights which they were endeavoring to protect. Not only is there no permission for such actions; they are inhibited. And no plenitude of words can conform them to our charter....

    Under the challenged statutes it is said the United States have realized profits amounting to $2,800,000,000. But this assumes that gain may be generated by legislative fiat. To such counterfeit profits there would be no limit; with each new debasement of the dollar they would expand. Two billions might be ballooned indefinitely — to twenty, thirty, or what you will.

    Loss of reputation for honorable dealing will bring us unending humiliation; the impending legal and moral chaos is appalling.
In 1974 Congress made it legal to own gold once again, providing Americans the means to protect their wealth from the inflationary propensities of the federal government.

Is there a possibility, however, that federal officials could confiscate gold again and make it illegal to own it? You bet your bottom gold dollar there is. For one thing, the Trading with the Enemy Act is still on the books and is still being used as the basis for presidential decrees. For another, ever since the Roosevelt administration, federal officials, assisted by the Federal Reserve, have never desisted from issuing ever-growing quantities of paper money, an inflationary process that has ravaged people’s savings. Finally, federal officials hate gold because its rising price in the face of inflation provides a public and an easily readable market message to the citizenry that government officials are destroying the currency.
 It's simple after reading this , see, http://www.fff.org/freedom/... why this supposed bailout was almost a certain occurance.

Now you know how it feels like being raped.

Got a phone called from Iraq about 2 hours ago. The word there is they ain't happy to be in the dust and have this happen back here.

But remember, it was GW and McCain who at least tried the last 7 years to warn this was happening. Wish they could have been awake as Ron Paul has been for decades now and warning, doing something. So in other words, thanks for nuttin'.

But deep down inside we can always remember that the source started this and they "bailed us out". Thanks Barney Frank, Chris Dood, Etc.....  National Community Reinvestment Act.

New battle cry, Remember 1977, 1992 and don't let them happen again. Down with ACORN.

I'm not sure it's happened yet but I feel like the time isn't far off when the revolution may have to consist of more than what the citizens can do with their votes.

After some preliminary research I've found that the top 25 net worth senators are worth a combined $1.097B, the top 25 representatives $1.618B and the top ten members of the executive branch in DC are worth another $206M. Those are 2006 figures but should be fairly representative of today's politicians.

Now with just those 60 people we've got a combined net worth of almost $3B. Adjust that for inflation and about a 7% ROI over the last two years and we'd have something in the neighborhood of $3.5B. And there were nearly 200 congresspersons who voted "yes" for this monstrosity so if we multiply $3.5B by 3 that gets us to about $10.5B. I figure we could add another billion or two from Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac execs and then start on those from other companies who plan to save their collective butts with *our* money. So let's say we could garner eighteenor twenty billion from siezing all these people's assets and putting them out in the street.

I know it's not a big hole in that $700B bailout package that turned into a $860B law, but similar to one hundred lawyers at the bottom of the ocean, it's a start!.

Ernie

John: Ignoring your advise on personal finance is what got us in this trouble. Sponsored, underwritten, and hailed by our politicos as a wondeful thing, personal debt has been creeping upward for the last two decades. The generation of "never a delayed want" are about to feel the world come down on them.

What about those of us who have earned and saved? We're screwed by a devalued currency, low earned interest rates, and a falling stock market. That is the group really getting screwed!

Where has the American taxpayer and voter been for the last 20 years plus.  We elect these fools and continue to support them.  It's OUR own damn fault.