Carbon Currency to Replace All Paper Currencies, Limiting Manufacturing, Food Production and People Movement

If the global elite intends for Carbon Currency to supplant national currencies, then the world economic and political systems will also be fundamentally changed forever. Forces are already at work to position a new Carbon Currency as the ultimate solution to global calls for poverty reduction, population control, environmental control, global warming, energy allocation and blanket distribution of economic wealth. An integral part of Technocracy was to implement an economic system based on energy allocation rather than price, replacing traditional money with Energy Credits. Technocracy's focus on the efficient use of energy is likely the first hint of a sustained ecological/environmental movement in the United States. Modern emphasis on curtailing carbon fuel consumption that causes global warming and CO2 emissions is essentially a product of early Technocratic thinking. To facilitate an equilibrium between man and nature, Technocracy proposed that citizens would receive Energy Certificates in order to operate the economy. Two key differences between price-based money and Energy Certificates are that (a) money is generic to the holder while Certificates are individually registered to each citizen and (b) money persists while Certificates expire. The latter facet would greatly hinder, if not altogether prevent, the accumulation of wealth and property. Because of the connection between the environmental movement, global warming and the Technocratic concept of Energy Certificates, one would expect that a Carbon Currency would be suggested from that particular community, and in fact, this is the case.

Cutting Through the Matrix (Excerpt)

Rothschild and Gore's New Song – Every Breath You Take, The More Money We Make

By Alan Watt, cuttingthroughthematrix.com
February 2, 2010

...If you’ve noticed today too, especially in the last I’d say 5 years, we’ve found that ADVISORY boards are on everybody’s governments today; unelected advisory boards made up of supposed academia and scientific specialists.

This is the RISE of technocracy that’s supposed to take us over and bring us into a planned society where our whole way of life is to be altered completely.

Remember, the members of the Club of Rome were given the job, the task, of finding a way to UNITE humanity, to unite them under a common cause, maybe a war type scenario, so that we’d give up our rights, go along with all the new ideas they’d give to us, but ultimately to bring in a controlled, ordered, planned society.

That means family planning for everyone across the entire planet in a post-nationalistic world, an INTERdependent society, with their global order. That’s again, what the United Nations is ultimately supposed to rise up to; the occasion to be the boss of all of this, corrupt as they are, mind you.

We never get beyond that, that so much has been really planned for us. Our education goes towards this CREATION of a reality to foster obedience to a system. That’s really what your education is all about. It is very true that you’re told very little about reality while you are in school. You are told all you NEED to know… by your masters. They certainly discourage thinking outside of the box in academia. You parrot what your professor says and you make good marks and you come through. That means you’re given a scroll at the end. Your head is ‘squared’ and that means that you have been given a QUALITY APPROVAL STAMP to join their system and work for them, your masters in this world. But you’ll never really figure it out for yourself.

There is a good article here on Carbon Currency (see below). This fits into this topic. Carbon currency — I’ve told you already that this carbon tax, and so on, is not to be just put on big business and big corporations — it’s to come down to YOU. How much YOU will cost society from birth to death, and you are going to pay for it, you see. You will get personal tax, carbon tax invoices, bills coming from the governments across the world. That is part of it. This goes back again into technocracy.

Carbon Currency: A New Beginning for Technocracy?

By Patrick Wood, canadafreepress.com
January 26, 2010

Introduction

Critics who think that the U.S. dollar will be replaced by some new global currency are perhaps thinking too small.

On the world horizon looms a new global currency that could replace all paper currencies and the economic system upon which they are based.

The new currency, simply called Carbon Currency, is designed to support a revolutionary new economic system based on energy (production, and consumption), instead of price. Our current price-based economic system — and its related currencies that have supported capitalism, socialism, fascism and communism — is being herded to the slaughterhouse in order to make way for a new carbon-based world.

It is plainly evident that the world is laboring under a dying system of price-based economics as evidenced by the rapid decline of paper currencies. The era of fiat (irredeemable paper currency) was introduced in 1971 when President Richard Nixon decoupled the U.S. dollar from gold. (Alan: Actually, it was already in fractional reserve long before that.) Because the dollar-turned-fiat was the world’s primary reserve asset, (A: Because the dollar was its primary asset) all other currencies eventually followed suit, leaving us today with a global sea of paper that is increasingly undesired, unstable, unusable.

The deathly economic state of today’s world is a direct reflection of the sum of its sick and dying currencies, but this could soon change.

Forces are already at work to position a new Carbon Currency as the ultimate solution to global calls for poverty reduction, population control, environmental control, global warming, energy allocation and blanket distribution of economic wealth.

(A: That’s the real reasons for this con game of environmental control, global warming and so on. These are the real reasons behind it. Remember, that’s WHAT they dreamt up at the Club of Rome.)

Unfortunately for individual people living in this new system, it will also require authoritarian and centralized control over all aspects of life, from cradle to grave.

What is Carbon Currency and how does it work? In a nutshell, Carbon Currency will be based on the regular allocation of available energy to the people of the world. If not used within a period of time, the Currency will expire (like monthly minutes on your cell phone plan) so that the same people can receive a new allocation based on new energy production quotas for the next period.

(A: I’ve mentioned before, Bertrand Russell wrote in the 40s about this very system when he said that eventually the government will dish out CREDITS to the public. Of course now we know it will be carbon credits. But he said the same thing, everyone on the bottom level would start off with the same amount, you can’t save it up, it starts at the same amount every Monday. That’s all to do with control. This is not a new idea. It’s an ongoing movement by a very well organized group that’s been here for an awful long time.)

Because the energy supply chain is already dominated by the global elite, setting energy production quotas will limit the amount of Carbon Currency in circulation at any one time. It will also naturally limit manufacturing, food production and people movement.

Local currencies could remain in play for a time, but they would eventually wither and be fully replaced by the Carbon Currency, much the same way that the Euro displaced individual European currencies over a period of time.

Sounds very modern in concept, doesn’t it? In fact, these ideas date back to the 1930’s.

(A: It’s actually much older) when hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens were embracing a new political ideology called Technocracy and the promise it held for a better life.

(A: Actually, I’ve got writings from the organizations in the 1800s talking about it, from the minutes of their meetings.)

Even now-classic literature was heavily influenced by Technocracy: George Orwell’s 1984, H.G. Wells’ The Shape of Things to Come and Huxley’s “scientific dictatorship” in Brave New World.

This paper investigates the rebirth of Technocracy and its potential to recast the New World Order into something truly “new” and also totally unexpected by the vast majority of modern critics.

Background

Philosophically, Technocracy found it roots in the scientific autocracy of Henri de Saint-Simon (1760-1825) and in the positivism of Auguste Comte (1798- 1857), the father of the social sciences. Positivism elevated science and the scientific method above metaphysical revelation. Technocrats embraced positivism because they believed that social progress was possible only through science and technology. [Schunk, Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective, 5th, 315]

The social movement of Technocracy, with its energy-based accounting system, can be traced back to the 1930’s when an obscure group of engineers and scientists offered it as a solution to the Great Depression.

The principal scientist behind Technocracy was M. King Hubbert, a young geoscientist who would later (in 1948-1956) invent the now-famous Peak Oil Theory, also known as the Hubbert Peak Theory. Hubbert stated that the discovery of new energy reserves and their production would be outstripped by usage, thereby eventually causing economic and social havoc. Many modern followers of Peak Oil Theory believe that the 2007-2009 global recession was exacerbated in part by record oil prices that reflected validity of the theory.

Hubbert received all of his higher education at the University of Chicago, graduating with a PhD in 1937, and later taught geophysics at Columbia University. He was highly acclaimed throughout his career, receiving many honors such as the Rockefeller Public Service Award in 1977.

In 1933, Hubbert and Howard Scott formed an organization called Technocracy, Inc. Technocracy is derived from the Greek words “techne” meaning skill and “kratos”, meaning rule. Thus, it is government by skilled engineers, scientists and technicians as opposed to elected officials. It was opposed to all other forms of government, including communism, socialism and fascism, all of which function with a price-based economy.

As founders of the organization and political movement called Technocracy, Inc., Hubbert and Scott also co-authored Technocracy Study Course in 1934. This book serves as the “bible” of Technocracy and is the root document to which most all modern technocratic thinking can be traced.

Technocracy postulated that only scientists and engineers were capable of running a complex, technology-based society. Because technology, they reasoned, changed the social nature of societies, previous methods of government and economy were made obsolete. They disdained politicians and bureaucrats, who they viewed as incompetent. By utilizing the scientific method and scientific management techniques, Technocrats hoped to squeeze the massive inefficiencies out of running a society, thereby providing more benefits for all members of society while consuming less resources.

The other integral part of Technocracy was to implement an economic system based on energy allocation rather than price. They proposed to replace traditional money with Energy Credits.

Their keen focus on the efficient use of energy is likely the first hint of a sustained ecological/environmental movement in the United States. Technocracy Study Course stated, for instance,

Although it (the earth) is not an isolated system the changes in the configuration of matter on the earth, such as the erosion of soil, the making of mountains, the burning of coal and oil, and the mining of metals are all typical and characteristic examples of irreversible processes, involving in each case an increase of entropy. (Technocracy Study Course, Hubbert & Scott, p. 49)

Modern emphasis on curtailing carbon fuel consumption that causes global warming and CO2 emissions is essentially a product of early Technocratic thinking.

As scientists, Hubbert and Scott tried to explain (or justify) their arguments in terms of physics and the law of thermodynamics, which is the study of energy conversion between heat and mechanical work.

Entropy is a concept within thermodynamics that represents the amount of energy in a system that is no longer available for doing mechanical work. Entropy thus increases as matter and energy in the system degrade toward the ultimate state of inert uniformity.

In layman’s terms, entropy means once you use it, you lose it for good. Furthermore, the end state of entropy is “inert uniformity” where nothing takes place. Thus, if man uses up all the available energy and/or destroys the ecology, it cannot be repeated or restored ever again.

The Technocrat’s avoidance of social entropy is to increase the efficiency of society by the careful allocation of available energy and measuring subsequent output in order to find a state of “equilibrium,” or balance. Hubbert’s focus on entropy is evidenced by Technocracy, Inc.’s logo, the well-known Yin Yang symbol that depicts balance.

To facilitate this equilibrium between man and nature, Technocracy proposed that citizens would receive Energy Certificates in order to operate the economy:

“Energy Certificates are issued individually to every adult of the entire population… The record of one’s income and its rate of expenditure is kept by the Distribution Sequence, so that it is a simple matter at any time for the Distribution Sequence to ascertain the state of a given customer’s balance… When making purchases of either goods or services an individual surrenders the Energy Certificates properly identified and signed.

“The significance of this, from the point of view of knowledge of what is going on in the social system, and of social control, can best be appreciated when one surveys the whole system in perspective. First, one single organization is manning and operating the whole social mechanism. The same organization not only produces but also distributes all goods and services.

“With this information clearing continuously to a central headquarters we have a case exactly analogous to the control panel of a power plant, or the bridge of an ocean liner…” [Technocracy Study Course, Hubbert & Scott,p. 238-239]

Two key differences between price-based money and Energy Certificates are that:

a) money is generic to the holder while Certificates are individually registered to each citizen; and

b) money persists while Certificates expire.

The latter facet would greatly hinder, if not altogether prevent, the accumulation of wealth and property.

Transition

At the start of WWII, Technocracy’s popularity dwindled as economic prosperity returned, however both the organization and its philosophy survived.

Today, there are two principal websites representing Technocracy in North America: Technocracy, Inc., located in Ferndale, Washington, is represented at www.technocracy.org. A sister organization in Vancouver, British Columbia is Technocracy Vancouver, can be found at www.technocracyvan.ca.

While Technocracy’s original focus was exclusively on the North American continent, it is now growing rapidly in Europe and other industrialized nations.

For instance, the Network of European Technocrats was formed in 2005 as “an autonomous research and social movement that aims to explore and develop both the theory and design of technocracy.” The NET website claims to have members around the world.

Of course, a few minor league organizations and their websites cannot hope to create or implement a global energy policy, but it’s not because the ideas aren’t still alive and well.

A more likely influence on modern thinking is due to Hubbert’s Peak Oil Theory introduced in 1954. It has figured prominently in the ecological/environmental movement. In fact, the entire global warming movement indirectly sits on top of the Hubbert Peak Theory.

As the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome recently stated,

“The issue of peak oil impinges directly on the climate change question.” (see John H. Walsh, “The Impending Twin Crisis – One Set of Solutions?, p.5.)

The Modern Proposal

Because of the connection between the environmental movement, global warming and the Technocratic concept of Energy Certificates, one would expect that a Carbon Currency would be suggested from that particular community, and in fact, this is the case.

In 1995, Judith Hanna wrote in New Scientist, “Toward a single carbon currency”,

“My proposal is to set a global quota for fossil fuel combustion every year, and to share it equally between all the adults in the world.”

In 2004, the prestigious Harvard International Review published “A New Currency” and stated,

“For those keen to slow global warming, the most effective actions are in the creation of strong national carbon currencies… For scholars and policymakers, the key task is to mine history for guides that are more useful. Global warming is considered an environmental issue, but its best solutions are not to be found in the canon of environmental law. Carbon’s ubiquity in the world economy demands that cost be a consideration in any regime to limit emissions. Indeed, emissions trading has been anointed king because it is the most responsive to cost. And since trading emissions for carbon is more akin to trading currency than eliminating a pollutant, policymakers should be looking at trade and finance with an eye to how carbon markets should be governed. We must anticipate the policy challenges that will arise as this bottom-up system emerges, including the governance of seams between each of the nascent trading systems, liability rules for bogus permits, and judicial cooperation. [Emphasis added]

HIR concludes that “after seven years of spinning wheels and wrong analogies, the international regime to control carbon is headed, albeit tentatively, down a productive path.”

In 2006, UK Environment Secretary David Miliband spoke to the Audit Commission Annual Lecture and flatly stated,

"Imagine a country where carbon becomes a new currency. We carry bankcards that store both pounds and carbon points. When we buy electricity, gas and fuel, we use our carbon points, as well as pounds. To help reduce carbon emissions, the Government would set limits on the amount of carbon that could be used." [Emphasis added]

In 2007, New York Times published “When Carbon Is Currency” by Hannah Fairfield. She pointedly stated,

“To build a carbon market, its originators must create a currency of carbon credits that participants can trade.”

PointCarbon, a leading global consultancy, is partnered with Bank of New York Mellon to assess rapidly growing carbon markets. In 2008 they published “Towards a Common Carbon Currency: Exploring the prospects for integrated global carbon markets.” This report discusses both environmental and economic efficiency in a similar context as originally seen with Hubbert in 1933.

Finally, on November 9, 2009, the Telegraph (UK) presented an article “Everyone in Britain could be given a personal ‘carbon allowance.’”

“… implementing individual carbon allowances for every person will be the most effective way of meeting the targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. It would involve people being issued with a unique number which they would hand over when purchasing products that contribute to their carbon footprint, such as fuel, airline tickets and electricity. Like with a bank account, a statement would be sent out each month to help people keep track of what they are using. If their "carbon account" hits zero, they would have to pay to get more credits”.

As you can see, these references are hardly minor league in terms of either authorship or content. The undercurrent of early Technocratic thought has finally reached the shore where the waves are lapping at the beach.

Technocracy’s Energy Card Prototype

In July 1937 an article by Howard Scott in Technocracy Magazine described an Energy Distribution Card in great detail. It declared that using such an instrument as a “means of accounting is a part of Technocracy’s proposed change in the course of how our socioeconomic system can be organized.”

Scott further wrote,

“The certificate will be issued directly to the individual. It is nontransferable and nonnegotiable; therefore, it cannot be stolen, lost, loaned, borrowed, or given away. It is noncumulative; therefore, it cannot be saved, and it does not accrue or bear interest. It need not be spent but loses its validity after a designated time period.”

This may have seemed like science fiction in 1937, but today it is wholly achievable. In 2010 Technocracy, Inc. offers an updated idea of what such an Energy Distribution Card might look like. Their website states,

“It is now possible to use a plastic card similar to today’s credit card embedded with a microchip. This chip could contain all the information needed to create an energy distribution card as described in this booklet. Since the same information would be provided in whatever forms best suits the latest technology, however, the concept of an ‘Energy Distribution Card’ is what is explained here.”

If you study the card above, you will also note that is serves as a universal identity card and contains a microchip. This reflects Technocracy’s philosophy that each person in society must be meticulously monitored and accounted for in order to track what they consume in terms of energy, and also what they contribute to the manufacturing process.

Carbon Market Players

The modern system of carbon credits was an invention of the Kyoto Protocol and started to gain momentum in 2002 with the establishment of the first domestic economy-wide trading scheme in the U.K. After becoming international law in 2005, the trading market is now predicted to reach $3 trillion by 2020 or earlier.

Graciela Chichilnisky, director of the Columbia Consortium for Risk Management and a designer of the carbon credit text of the Kyoto Protocol, states that the carbon market “is therefore all about cash and trading – but it is also a way to a profitable and greener future.” (See Who Needs a Carbon Market?)

Who are the “traders” that provide the open door to all this profit? Currently leading the pack are JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

Bloomberg noted in Carbon Capitalists on December 4, 2009, that:

“The banks are preparing to do with carbon what they’ve done before: design and market derivatives contracts that will help client companies hedge their price risk over the long term. They’re also ready to sell carbon-related financial products to outside investors.”

At JP Morgan, the woman who originally invented Credit Default Swaps, Blythe Masters, is now head of the department that will trade carbon credits for the bank.

Considering the sheer force of global banking giants behind carbon trading, it’s no wonder analysts are already predicting that the carbon market will soon dwarf all other commodities trading.

Conclusion

Where there is smoke, there is fire. Where there is talk, there is action.

If M. King Hubbert and other early architects of Technocracy were alive today, they would be very pleased to see the seeds of their ideas on energy allocation grow to bear fruit on such a large scale. In 1933, the technology didn’t exist to implement a system of Energy Certificates. However, with today’s ever-advancing computer technology, the entire world could easily be managed on a single computer.

This article intended to show that:

• Carbon Currency is not a new idea, but has deep roots in Technocracy
• Carbon Currency has grown from a continental proposal to a global proposal
• It has been consistently discussed over a long period of time
• The participants include many prominent global leaders, banks and think-tanks
• The context of these discussions have been very consistent
• Today’s goals for implementing Carbon Currency are virtually identical to Technocracy’s original Energy Certificates goals.

Of course, a currency is merely a means to an end. Whoever controls the currency also controls the economy and the political structure that goes with it. Inquiry into what such a system might look like will be a future topic.

Technocracy and energy-based accounting are not idle or theoretical issues. If the global elite intends for Carbon Currency to supplant national currencies, then the world economic and political systems will also be fundamentally changed forever.

What Technocracy could not achieve during the Great Depression appears to have finally found traction in the Great Recession.

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“I don’t care who the government is. Let me control the money and I will control the country.”

Mayer Amschel Rothschild (attributed to the German godfather of the Rothschild bank cartel and grandfather to heir Lord Baron Nathaniel Mayer de Rothschild: owner of the Bank of England and a key promoter of the U.S. Federal Reserve Act. 1744-1812)

“The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.”

President Thomas Jefferson (a founding father of America, condemning present and future monopoly money power. 1743-1826)

“I want to own nothing and control everything.”
“The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun.”

John D. Rockefeller (promoter of the U.S. Federal Reserve Act in alliance with the Rothschild bloc. 1839-1937)

“We will have world government whether or not we like it. The only question is whether world government will be achieved by conquest or consent.”

James Paul Warburg (monopoly banker in testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Warburg was an agent of the Rockefeller-JP Morgan-Rothschild banking bloc and son of Paul Warburg, chief architect of the Federal Reserve Corporation, an unconstitutional private bank monopoly set up for cartel hegemony. 2/17/1950)

"Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world."

Henry Kissinger (ex U.S. Secretary of State and ongoing agent for the ruling class. Living. Quote 1970)

“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the government of the U.S. ever since the days of Andrew Jackson. History depicts Andrew Jackson as the last truly honorable and incorruptible American president.”

President FDR (on Fascist rule in a letter to corporate con man “Colonel” Edward M. House, a founder of the Council on Foreign Relations and political fixer for the ruling class. House also handled President Wilson for the foisting of the privately rigged Federal Reserve bank monopoly. 11/21/1933)

$4 Trillion in Deficits for State and City Pensions Could Destroy the U.S. Economy

US Cities Face Half a Trillion Dollars of Pension Deficits

By Nicole Bullock, Financial Times
October 12, 2010

Big US cities could be squeezed by unfunded public pensions as they and counties face a $574 billion funding gap, a study to be released on Tuesday shows.

The gap at the municipal level would be in addition to $3,000 billion in unfunded liabilities already estimated for state-run pensions, according to research from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the University of Rochester.

“What is yet to be seen is how this burden will be distributed between state and local governments and whether the federal government will be called upon for bail-outs,” said Joshua Rauh of the Kellogg School.

The financial demands of unfunded pension promises come as state and local governments grapple with years of falling tax revenue related to the recession.

The combination has raised concern that defaults, which are historically rare in the $2,800 billion municipal bond market where local governments obtain money, could now rise.

“The bondholders would be competing with the pension beneficiaries for scarce government resources,” Mr Rauh said.

Current pension assets for plans sponsored by Philadelphia can only pay for promised benefits through 2015, while Boston and Chicago would deplete their existing funds by 2019. Cincinnati, Jacksonville, Florida and St Paul have current pension assets that can only pay for promised benefits through 2020.

Local governments use unique accounting methods that many, such as Mr Rauh, believe understate obligations. Based on his estimates, which use US Treasuries as the benchmark, each household already owes an average of $14,165 to current and former municipal public employees in the 50 cities and counties studied.

“Philadelphia has the most immediate cause for concern, as the city can pay existing promises with existing assets only through 2015,” Mr Rauh said, assuming an 8 percent annualized return, the most common benchmark for municipal plans.

In New York City, San Francisco and Boston the total is more than $30,000 a household and, in Chicago, it tops $40,000. Taxpayers in these areas risk not only local tax increases and service cuts to pay for benefits, but potentially some of the bill for the $3,000 billion unfunded obligations at the state level, the researchers say.

“The fact that there is such a large burden of public employee pensions concentrated in urban metropolitan areas threatens the long-run economic viability of these cities, as residents can potentially move elsewhere to escape the situation,” Mr Rauh said.

The research examines 77 pension plans sponsored by 50 major cities and counties and covering about 2 million workers, which is estimated to be two-thirds of workers covered by local pensions. Researchers then extrapolated the results – an unfunded liability of about $5,300 per worker – to come up with the total estimate of $574 billion.

Report Reveals Aggregate State Debt Exceeds $4 trillion

By Andrew Guevara, State Budget Solutions
October 24, 2011

State Budget Solutions' (SBS) second annual state deficit report reveals aggregate state debt presently exceeds $4 trillion.

How the States Fared

The states with the largest total deficits include California, New York, Texas, New Jersey, and Illinois, respectively. California hit the bottom of the list with a deficit of more than $612 billion. The same states made the bottom of list last year, too.

Despite the high state debt levels, Vermont, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming maintained positions at the very top of the list this year. Many of these states at the top of the list ranked very well across the board.

In predicting states' future economic performance, New York, Vermont, Maine, California, and Hawaii scored the lowest in the rankings. The states on the other end of the list include Utah, South Dakota, Virginia, Wyoming, and Idaho. The rankings are based upon economic data examined over the past 10 years to forecast future performance.

Methodology

Although states themselves present deficit figures, those amounts do not offer a full picture of the state's liabilities and can rely on budget gimmicks and accounting games to hide the extent of the deficit. SBS takes a straightforward approach to calculating total state debt, defining it as the sum of outstanding official debt, pension and other post-employment benefits (OPEB) liabilities, Unemployment Trust Fund loans, and current budget gap. While liabilities are not actually debt, they are a stream of future spending obligations that states have committed themselves to spending.

SBS calculated the total official liabilities for each state according to the latest comprehensive annual data available. The research also looks at the overall financial landscape for each state by considering top income tax rates, past economic performance, and economic outlook.

Comparison of Liabilities

Pensions and OPEB play a crucial role in straining state budgets. Minimum unfunded liabilities total more than $3.4 trillion right now. This year, SBS incorporated state pension liability figures computed by Andrew Biggs from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in addition to data from the Pew Institute, which were included in last year's state deficit study.

The SBS "Just How Big are Public Pension Liabilities?" report explains how pension liabilities are calculated by states according to accounting rules different from the private sector. States are, for example, allowed to assume high rates of return without taking into regard the associated high risk. The AEI figures estimate how large public pension liabilities would be if states used private sector market-valuation methods. Pew warns that its estimates are low, so the AEI numbers are preferable in estimating the true value of state debts.

Public pension liabilities stand at more than $2.8 trillion using AEI figures. With the Pew pension liability numbers, the figures stand at $656 billion, up from $452 billion last year.

According to AEI's numbers, total state debt for this year is more than $4 trillion. The total is more than $2 trillion utilizing Pew's pension liabilities, still up from $1.8 billion last year.

Sources

Income tax rates were obtained from the Federation of Tax Administrators, and state rankings for past economic performance and future economic outlook are from the American Legislative Exchange Council's 2011 report "Rich States, Poor States."

Outstanding debt and outstanding debt per capita were obtained from each state's most recent Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR), which can lag current data by one to three years. Pension numbers for this year were obtained from AEI's "The Market Value of Public-Sector Pension Deficits." A separate calculation was done using Pew's "The Widening Gap: The Great Recession's Impact on State Pension and Retiree Health Care Costs" report on pension funds as of 2009. OPEB liabilities were also found in this year's Pew report as well. Pension numbers from last year were from Pew's "The Trillion Dollar Gap: Underfunded State Retirement Systems and the Road to Reforms" report on pension funds as of 2008. Unemployment Trust Fund Loans were from the National Council of State Legislators, and current budget shortfalls are from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Editor's Note: The spreadsheet linked to below has been corrected to reveal the proper state rankings for Outstanding Debt, found in Column I. There was an error in the sorting of the column, not in the amounts of debt.

View the data here.

States Scaling Back Public Pension Plans to Close Funding Gap

By Laura Cohn, Kiplinger's Personal Finance
May 16, 2010

If you thought earning a fat pension in a public-sector job was a sure thing, think again. According to an analysis by the Pew Center on the States, state and local pension plans are operating under a deficit of at least $1 trillion. A separate report on 125 state plans by Wilshire Consulting found that the ratio of assets to liabilities -- the funding ratio -- of state pension systems slipped to 65 percent in 2009 from 85 percent in 2008.

How did this happen? Simply put, the states didn't make big enough payments to their pension plans, they failed to squirrel away enough money to pay retiree health benefits and, perhaps most egregious, they increased their benefits without figuring out how to pay for them. Pew's $1 trillion figure -- tallied through the end of the 2008 fiscal year -- is conservative given that it doesn't capture the stock-market losses incurred in the second half of that year.

To help close the gap, some states are scaling back their retirement plans. According to Pew, 10 states have curbed benefits to new workers or raised the retirement age. Nevada, for instance, changed the formula used to calculate pension benefits for those hired after Jan. 1 to provide a lower payout. It also raised the retirement age for public workers from 60 to 62, starting this year. Another 10 states -- including Iowa, Nebraska and New Mexico -- boosted employee contributions.

Workers are also contributing more to the health-care plans they'll get once they exit the workforce. New state workers in Kentucky, for instance, must now put 1 percent more of their paychecks toward their retiree health plans.

The outlook is grim.

"If pension systems continue on the course they've been on, the bite out of state budgets will get bigger," says Katherine Barrett, consultant to Pew.

Unlike the federal government, which controls the printing presses and can run huge deficits, states must balance their budgets. For states with severe deficits, that could mean an increase in taxes, a reduction in public services or both.

The Truth About the State Pension Crisis: Separating Economic Myth from Economic Fact

By Veronique de Rugy
March 14, 2011

Myth 1: Unfunded state pensions do not represent an immediate threat and are therefore not in crisis.

Fact 1: In the best case scenario, some state pension funds will run out as soon as 2017. And the longer the states wait to fully fund their pensions, the more drastic the financial consequences will be.

The fact that state pensions only represent a small share of state budgets doesn’t mean that they aren’t in crisis. Take the case of New Jersey. According to Joshua Rauh, professor of finance at Northwestern University, under the best case scenario, New Jersey’s pension funds (there are 5 of them) are scheduled to run out as soon as 2017. Once those state pension plans run out of money, pension payments will have to come out of the state’s general fund revenues—that is, out of the pockets of state taxpayers.

Furthermore, there is reason to believe these estimates are too conservative. When private-sector accounting methods are used to show the true market value of state pension liabilities, the situation becomes even more critical than it initially appears.

According to Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute and my Mercatus Center colleague Eileen Norcross, the state of New Jersey reports that its pension systems are underfunded by $44.7 billion. Yet when those pension plan liabilities are calculated in a manner consistent with private-sector accounting requirements—methods that economists almost universally agree to be more appropriate—New Jersey's unfunded benefit obligation rises to $173.9 billion.

In other words, New Jersey has made a $173 billion promise without any idea of how it will pay for it. I would say that’s a crisis.

Plus, this is serious money. As Biggs and Norcross note,

This amount is equivalent to 44 percent of the state's current GDP and 328 percent of its current explicit government debt. This calculation applies a discount rate of 3.5 percent (the yield on Treasury bonds with a maturity of 15 years) to reflect the nearly risk‐free nature of accrued benefits for workers. It is estimated if state pension assets average a return of 8 percent, New Jersey will run out of funds to meet its pension obligations in 2019. If asset returns are lower than 8 percent, they will run out of funds sooner.

This has real implications. State actuaries estimate that under certain assumptions, New Jersey’s pension plans will run out of enough assets to make benefit payments beginning in 2013.

The irony is that New Jersey, like other states, has put itself in a financial binder even before the pension crisis really hits. That says a lot about the state’s future ability to address the problem.

Myth 2: State debt accurately reflects state liabilities. And state default is not a concern because the federal government will bail the states out before they reach that point.

Fact 2: Many government pension liabilities are kept off the books, so most states and cities underestimate their actual debt.

Consider Connecticut. Bonds are only a small part of its total debt. Like many other states, Connecticut also owes to its pensions and retiree health care funds, which are not clearly disclosed, and which will cost even more in the long run.

Northwestern's Joshua Rauh and Robert Novy-Marx, an assistant professor of finance at the University of Rochester, have added Connecticut’s unfunded liability to the state’s debt. As you can see in the chart above, the state’s reported debt is roughly $23 billion. The official estimated value of its unfunded pension liabilities is $48.4 billion. That’s $71.4 billion. On top of that amount we should add another $28.2 billion in underestimated liabilities due to poor accounting standards. Now you have a total state debt of almost $100 billion.

Would the federal government really have the ability to bail out 50 states whose individual debt often exceeds $100 billion? That would cost roughly $5 trillion. And while all of that money wouldn’t be paid out at once, it is still unrealistic for the states to count on a federal bailout.

Myth 3: State and local workers are not overpaid. And even if they are, changing their compensation won’t make a difference.

Fact 3: While this is a complex issue, the total compensation package for state workers does tend to exceed that of their private-sector counterparts.

Take the case of Ohio.

The Buckeye Institute for Policy Solutions has an interesting report out called “The Grand Bargain is Dead.” As we see in this example from Ohio, compensation costs for state and local employees begins at a higher level than that of their private-sector counterparts and continues to diverge throughout the employees’ careers. According to the Buckeye Institute, for 26 careers in state and local government paying around the median wage rate, government employees were consistently and significantly paid above the corresponding private-sector wage rate.

Ohio has an on-the-book $8 billion budget gap. The data shows that in the Buckeye state, where almost one new public-sector job was added to the economy for each private-sector job from 1990 to 2010, realigning state worker compensation packages to match those of their private-sector peers would save taxpayers over $2.1 billion in the next two years (or 28 percent of this year’s $8 billion deficit).

It is true that comparing compensation is a tricky business. While taking a closer look at the differences between public and private-sector employees explains some of the compensation differential, it is not great enough to explain the difference in wages between comparable public and private employees.

This chart from The New York Times shows that there are 12 percent more white-collar workers in local government than there are in private employment and 19 percent more white-collar workers at the state level. Some argue that this is the reason for the difference in compensation. It’s the diplomas stupid! Maybe, but all the diplomas in the world can’t explain the 221 percent difference in lifetime employment costs witnessed by workers in Ohio.

Myth 4: The financial crisis, which caused a depreciation of pension assets, is the real culprit behind pension underfunding.

Fact 4: While the recession dealt a severe blow to state pensions, the problem of pension underfunding dates back to the early 2000s. Many states had already failed to cover the cost of promised benefits even before they felt the full weight of the Great Recession.

The problem started long before the recession. A 2010 Pew study called “The Trillion Dollar Gap,” found that in 2000, slightly more than half of the states had fully funded pension systems. By 2006, that number had shrunk to six states. By 2008, only four states—Florida, New York, Washington and Wisconsin—could make that claim. The chart above, taken from the Pew study, illustrates this point.

Here’s the bottom line: We can argue endlessly over when the pension plans will run out of cash, or what the true value of the unfunded liabilities is. We can even debate what the true meaning of being broke. But there is one issue where there is no room for debate. Once the pension plans run out of money, the payments will have to come out of general funds, meaning out of the pockets of taxpayers. If the states want to avoid this, they must push through reforms as soon as possible. A good first step would be to switch to accounting methods that show the true market value of their liabilities. Once those methods are in place, lawmakers should consider moving away from defined benefit pensions.

Reason columnist Veronique de Rugy appears weekly on Bloomberg TV to separate economic fact from economic myth. de Rugy is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. See more at Reason.com

State and City Pensions Could Destroy U.S. Economy

By The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University

October 13, 2010

Take $3 trillion in unfunded legacy liabilities from state-sponsored pension plans, add $574 billion more from municipal and county pensions, and you have a fiscal tsunami that will make the Great Recession look like a cake walk.

In “The Crisis in Local Government Pensions in the United States,” a new report issued by the Kellogg School, economists Joshua Rauh of the Kellogg School and Robert Novy-Marx of the University of Rochester calculate the aggregate unfunded liabilities and forecast the number of years assets will last for 77 defined pension plans sponsored by 50 major U.S. cities and counties. The sample represented all non-state municipal entities with more than $1 billion in pension assets, covering 2.04 million local public employees and retirees.

“This new paper calculates the present value of local government employee pension liabilities for about two-thirds of total local government employees, and estimates the unfunded obligation for the remaining one-third of workers covered by municipal plans not in our sample,” said Rauh, associate professor of finance at the Kellogg School.

If all other spending was shut down, the city of
Chicago would need to allocate about eight years of
dedicated tax revenues to cover pension promises.

“Philadelphia has the most immediate cause for concern, as the city can pay existing promises with existing assets only through 2015 — less than five years from now,” Rauh said.

“In addition to…severe local tax increases and spending
cuts, [taxpayers] also will be called upon to pay for their
share of the $3 trillion unfunded liabilities at the state level.”

Rauh and Novy-Marx estimate that each household already owes an average of $14,165 to current and former municipal public employees in the 50 cities and counties they studied, including only the unfunded portion of benefits that have already been promised based on work performed. In New York City, San Francisco, and Boston, the total is more than $30,000 per household. In Chicago, the total is more than $40,000 per household.

“The situation is especially dire for taxpayers in these areas,” Rauh said. “In addition to being exposed to the prospect of severe local government tax increases and spending cuts, they also will be called upon to pay for their share of the $3 trillion unfunded liabilities at the state level.”

According to Rauh, it is clear that state and local governments in the U.S. are not far from the point where these pension promises will impact their ability to operate. Once the funds themselves are liquidated, the extent to which promised pension payments are competing with other local resources will skyrocket, eroding a large portion of many municipal budgets.

Bonds on the Brink

“The fact that there is such a large burden of public employee pensions concentrated in urban metropolitan areas threatens the long-run economic viability of these cities, as residents can potentially move elsewhere to escape the situation,” he explained.

Check out your state's budget here: http://www.sunshinereview.org/core/home

Iran Nuclear Threat Is Not Imminent But War with Iran Is

Israel Could Strike Iran Soon: Will This Lead to World War III?

The Pentagon realized through their game scenarios that if they started all-out World War III, 90 percent of humanity would die — including most of them. So they didn’t want to go along with it. The Pentagon has systematically sabotaged these plans. They constantly prevented attacks on Iran. They stopped Israeli air raids. They invaded Georgia to stop an Israeli attack on Iran from there. They didn’t want to start World War III, because they realized it was insanity. [The South Ossetia war… was an Israeli air base that was designed to attack Iran and start this whole thing.] Yet the 'Powers That Be' are still trying to attack Iran. One of the enforcement arms that could come into play, now that a wedge has been driven with this lawsuit, is the Pentagon. The good guys in the Pentagon could at some point actually do mass arrests at gunpoint of most of the House of Representatives and the Senate — these guys have private accounts in the Vatican Bank and they have been bribed. - David Wilcock's interview with Ben Fulford, CONFIRMED: The Trillion-Dollar Lawsuit That Could End Financial Tyranny, Divine Cosmos, December 12, 2011

The Rockefeller faction in the U.S. is building up the military; they’re trying to get the Western countries on a full, militarized basis to prepare for World War III. They want to reduce population and they want to wipe out the Chinese. And they don’t want to lose control. They don’t want to lose power. They still have their Messianic, fascist, cultist beliefs that they are destined to rule humanity. The Israeli newspapers openly referred to China and Russia and Iran as Magog, and the G5 and G7 as Gog. They were trying to get all these countries to kill each other. They were trying to start World War III... They had this plan to start this whole Gog and Magog thing again. This time the plan involved starting a limited nuclear war between Iran and Israel. They were going to use that war as an excuse to set up martial law in the G7 countries. They’ve been trying it for quite a long time now — ever since 2001, even before... They are still trying to attack Iran. I’ve had reports now that they are planting nuclear bombs in the seabed off the shore of Tokyo to create another tsunami here. - Asian Secret Societies (the Dragon Family) Want Their Gold Back; the Western Secret Societies Blew Up the World Trade Center So That They Wouldn't Have to Give It Back

According to David Bay, Cutting Edge Ministries:

President Richard Nixon issued Executive Order #11647 on February 14, 1972, which reorganized the United States into 10 federal regions... The unconstitutional goal of this reorganization into 10 super regions is to set the stage for the abolishment of governments from the federal, to the state, to the county, and even to the local, levels. The objective is to set in place the form of government that could be implemented during a planned crisis, that would effectively strip us of our elected representational form of government. Suddenly, we would find ourselves being governed by officials who are not elected, nor responsible to any voters.

This regional system is apparently unlimited in its scope and powers. Thus, Americans could very well discover that they are back under the control of the type of government that our Founding Fathers spent their lives and fortunes overthrowing! Worse still, we could find ourselves facing the type of dictator which we have seen ruling Russia and Nazi Germany.

This regional system is also apparently a military structure. We will see this more clearly when the federal program called "General and Complete Disarmament" (Public Law 87-297) is fully integrated according to this 10-region system of government. We also will probably not see this 10-region system implemented until we are under the simultaneous crises of which we have spoken many times.

When America is under the following planned crises, we will witness this changeover to this 10-region system, most likely with FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) exercising initial control. These are apparently the crises that are planned:

1. All-out nuclear warfare in the Middle East (or neutron warfare).


2. All-out nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula (or at least the threat of such a war).


3. Arab terrorists threatening to devastate American cities with atomic, chemical or biological weapons (or actually carrying out this threat).


4. Total oil embargo from the Arab nations in support of Arab forces fighting Israel in the Middle East.


5. Earthquakes deliberately caused to create panic.


6. Simultaneous riots in many American cities to further cause panic.


7. American Presidency weakened because of scandal and infighting with Congress and the Courts to further cause panic among American voters.


8. The Stock Market will crash, causing absolute panic amongst all Americans. Jobs will immediately begin to be lost, thus further adding to the panic.

Antichrist is supposed to appear at the end of the Middle East crisis. If this occurs, then "aliens" and visible "angels" are to appear to urge all peoples of the world to support him and his plan.

At this moment, the head of FEMA will suddenly appear, announcing that he is taking "temporary" control, and quoting all the various Executive Orders and laws passed by Congress giving him all the authority he needs to assume the powers of government, of all branches of our former Constitutional government.

Once this changeover to the new 10-region system of government occurs, amidst all these contrived and planned crises, you may rest assured the End of the Age is upon us.

World War III will occur before the Antichrist appears to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. After the Third World War, the new temple will be rebuilt for Antichrist, not Jesus Christ. A one-world government with a one-world religion will be established, the anti-Christian kingdom prophesied in chapter 13 of the book of Revelation. This one-world power will offer apparent peace and security to a world in chaos. The devil, Satan, will establish his earthly kingdom for "a little season," so that he as God will stand in the holy place, showing himself that he is God, and he will deceive many with his signs and wonders. - Satan's Final Deception Before Christ Returns

Once you understand that Middle Eastern events are being driven by this fervent Masonic desire to rebuild Solomon's Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, then you will be able to make sense of what is occurring over there today. To finally realize this dream, control of Jerusalem, generally, and of the Temple Mount, especially, must pass from Israeli control; but it must not pass to Arab control. Rather, control of Jerusalem must pass to the Illuminized International Community. God is using this Masonic "preoccupation" with Jerusalem to pull all the nations of the world together against Jerusalem. Literally, out of the smoke, devastation and terror of the planned World War III, The Christ (Antichrist) shall come striding. - David Bay, Cutting Edge Ministries, June 25, 2009

The goal of the New Jerusalem Covenant Project is to create the plan by which Antichrist can solve the Middle East crisis; Antichrist will use this crisis to stage his appearance in the world. Antichrist is supposed to appear at the end of the Middle East crisis (World War III). The prophetic reality of Daniel 9:24-27, Matthew 24:15 and Revelation 11:1-12 is that the new Temple will be built after World War III and will produce the Man of Sin. Thus, the Illuminati plans to destroy the Dome of the Rock during the World War III fighting so that their Antichrist can rebuild Solomon's Temple. This reality means that Arabs will retain control over the Temple Mount until the moment Antichrist comes to the world scene and seizes it for the Jews so his temple can be created. "Peace and safety" will be heralded, and the leaders of the major nations will be busy taking credit for their "brilliant" leadership that seemingly finally solved the deeply engrained religious strife in and around Jerusalem that has plagued mankind for the past 1,400 years. - David Bay, Cutting Edge Ministries

Well before the battle of Armageddon [the final battle and final judgment], but during the final three and one-half years of this earth, the anti-Christian kingdom shall reach its full manifestation. The anti-Christian kingdom shall be the climax of the development of the man of sin: it is the kingdom of man, of the creature, without God, without the seven; and therefore his number is 666, the number of man indeed. The kingdom of man under Satan shall be complete: it shall be a kingdom which has sway over all the universe, over all men, over all the powers of creation; it shall be a kingdom in which man worships his own work and in which the devil is lord supreme. "And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up;" that is, the devil incarnate, claiming to be God, shall rule over his world government from Jerusalem for five months before Christ returns in the clouds of heaven to deliver up His people as the nations prepare for the battle of Armageddon. - Outline of the Book of Revelation

Bible prophecy describes the battle of Armageddon [the final war on earth, which occurs after Christ returns in the clouds of heaven to deliver up His people] as a coalition of nations that will almost certainly include China and Russia and several Muslim nations of the Middle East. Every day, the evidence mounts that China will be tightly leagued with Russia and many of the Islamic nations in a powerful anti-Israel political and military alliance from which the 200-million-man army described in the book of Revelation (Rev. 9:16) will ultimately come. - The Sixth Trumpet War of Revelation 9

The Euphrates originates in Turkey, and flows through Syria and Iraq; then it converges with the Tigris River, which then borders Iran. Anyone who hears the daily news should know that these four nations are extremely volatile trouble spots for military conflicts nowadays. The prophecies even imply that the nation of Iraq, once controlled by the regime of Saddam Hussein, will be a notable part of this final showdown. The population of these countries today is: Turkey -- 77 million; Syria -- 19.4 million; Iraq -- 29 million; Iran -- 70 million. The total population of that region is 195.4 million. Obviously, a 200-million-man army cannot come from these nations alone. In the light of China's cooperation with Iran and Syria (both openly and covertly), it appears to be fairly certain that China will league with Iran and Syria, somehow engaging Iraq and Turkey as well, to attempt to defeat Israel and the West. Their rabid anti-Zionism, anti-American hatred will not die, but will escalate into the worst conflagration in the history of human conflicts. Every day, the evidence mounts that China will be tightly leagued with Russia and many of the Islamic nations in a powerful new anti-Israel political and military alliance from which this 200-million-man army will ultimately come. - Ken Raggio

The essay "The Sixth Trumpet War of Revelation 9" presents a coalition of forces -- in particular, China, Russia, Iran, Syria and Turkey -- attacking Israel from the East at the sixth trumpet in a war before the battle of Armageddon. However, the war which begins at the sixth trumpet is the battle of Armageddon, when the heathen nations join forces to destroy Jerusalem. This coalition of forces, called Gog and Magog in the Bible, will prepare to attack the one-world government ruled from Jerusalem. It will be upon this scene, when the heathen nations are gathered in battle and surrounding Jerusalem, that Christ will return to deliver up His people. - The Church Will Be 'Raptured' at Armageddon

Israel Committed to Attacking Iran in June 2012

By Kurt Nimmo, Infowars.com
March 24, 2012

In an exclusive report, Jerusalem-based DEBKAfile reports that both Israel and the United States are on the same page in regard to launching an attack on Iran.

“American and Israeli intelligence evaluations of the state of Iran’s program are in accord – contrary to the impression gained from Obama administration officials,” DEBKA-Net-Weekly reported on March 22. “Both are of one mind on the imperative to paralyze that program even by force if Iran refuses to give up its pursuit of a nuclear weapon.”

On Friday, it was reported that the United States, European allies and Israel agree that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program.

“Tehran does not have a bomb, has not decided to build one, and is probably years away from having a deliverable nuclear warhead,” the National Post reported.

Despite this evidence, the Israeli government has decided to attack Iran.

According to DEBKAfile, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in a radio interview on Thursday that if Israel is resolved to attack Iran, it will have to do so within three months. In February, it was reported that Israel would carry out an attack in June and would use Saudi Arabia as its base.

DEBKAfile claims Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has convinced a majority of his Security and Diplomatic Cabinet of the urgency of an attack.

“He is now backed by the two deputy prime ministers, the defense, foreign affairs, interior and finance ministers, while Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor and Minister without Portfolio Benny Begin are unconvinced. Netanyahu can therefore go ahead and safely put the military option to the vote in the cabinet for the first time,” DEBKAfile reports.

With this consensus, Barak sent IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz to Washington to meet Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin E. Dempsey. Gantz told Dempsey Israel would “be happy if the US halts Iran’s nuclear program in its tracks, no matter whether this is done by economic sanctions, an oil embargo, negotiations between Tehran and the world powers, or secret US-Iranian diplomacy.” The effort, however, would need to fit within the three month timeline.

Israeli officials then met “discretely” with leading members of Congress and told them about the three month timeline.

DEBKAfile states, however, that Israel “may have to part ways with the United States on the Iranian issue the first time in its short history” and attack Iran “before it is too late.”

Israel is now committed to an attack on Iran that will occur during the height of campaigning for the 2012 U.S. presidential election. The Republican national convention will be held on August 27-30 in Tampa, Florida, and the Democrat convention will be held on September 3-6 in Charlotte, North Carolina. If Israel attacks Iran in June, it will undoubtedly be the dominant issue during the convention and the election in November.

Republican candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have all expressed their support of an Israeli attack on Iran. Ron Paul is the only candidate who opposes an attack. A poll conducted earlier this month revealed that a majority of Republicans believe the U.S. will attack Iran this year.

Obama said on March 5 that the U.S. would always “have Israel’s back” but said there was still time for diplomacy.

Special Report: Intel Shows Iran Nuclear Threat Not Imminent

By Tabassum Zakaria and Mark Hosenball, Reuters
March 23, 2012

The United States, European allies and even Israel generally agree on three things about Iran's nuclear program: Tehran does not have a bomb, has not decided to build one, and is probably years away from having a deliverable nuclear warhead.

Those conclusions, drawn from extensive interviews with current and former U.S. and European officials with access to intelligence on Iran, contrast starkly with the heated debate surrounding a possible Israeli strike on Tehran's nuclear facilities.

"They're keeping the soup warm but they are not cooking it," a U.S. administration official said.

Reuters has learned that in late 2006 or early 2007, U.S. intelligence intercepted telephone and email communications in which Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a leading figure in Iran's nuclear program, and other scientists complained that the weaponization program had been stopped.

That led to a bombshell conclusion in a controversial 2007 National Intelligence Estimate: American spy agencies had "high confidence" that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003.

Current and former U.S. officials say they are confident that Iran has no secret uranium-enrichment site outside the purview of U.N. nuclear inspections.

They also have confidence that any Iranian move toward building a functional nuclear weapon would be detected long before a bomb was made.

These intelligence findings are what underpin President Barack Obama's argument that there is still time to see whether economic sanctions will compel Iran's leaders to halt any program.

The Obama administration, relying on a top-priority intelligence collection program and after countless hours of debate, has concluded that Iranian leaders have not decided whether to actively construct a nuclear weapon, current and former officials said.

There is little argument, however, that Iran's leaders have taken steps that would give them the option of becoming a nuclear-armed power.

Iran has enriched uranium, although not yet of sufficient quantity or purity to fuel a bomb, and has built secret enrichment sites, which were acknowledged only when unmasked.

Iran has, in years past, worked on designing a nuclear warhead, the complicated package of electronics and explosives that would transform highly enriched uranium into a fission bomb.

And it is developing missiles that could in theory launch such a weapon at a target in enemy territory.

There are also blind spots in U.S. and allied agencies' knowledge. A crucial unknown is the intentions of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Another question is exactly how much progress Iran made in designing a warhead before mothballing its program. The allies disagree on how fast Iran is progressing toward bomb-building ability: the U.S. thinks progress is relatively slow; the Europeans and Israelis believe it's faster.

U.S. officials assert that intelligence reporting on Iran's nuclear program is better than it was on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, which proved to be non-existent but which President George W. Bush and his aides used to make the case for the 2003 invasion.

That case and others, such as the U.S. failure to predict India's 1998 underground nuclear test, illustrate the perils of divining secrets about others' weapons programs.

"The quality of intelligence varies from case to case," a U.S. administration official said. Intelligence on North Korea and Iraq was more limited, but there was "extraordinarily good intelligence" on Iran, the official said.

Israel, which regards a nuclear Iran as an existential threat, has a different calculation. It studies the same intelligence and timetable, but sees a closing window of opportunity to take unilateral military action and set back Iran's ambitions. Israel worries that Iran will soon have moved enough of its nuclear program underground -- or spread it far enough around the country -- as to make it virtually impervious to a unilateral Israeli attack, creating what Defense Minister Ehud Barak recently referred to as a "zone of immunity."

While Israel would not be able to launch an effective offensive in this analysis, the U.S., with its deeper-penetrating bombs and in-air refueling capability, believes it could still get results from a military strike.

Israel has not publicly defined how or when Iran would enter this phase of a nuclear weapons program. Barak said last month that relying on an ability to detect an order by Khamenei to build a bomb "oversimplifies the issue dramatically."

CONFIDENCE IN INTELLIGENCE

U.S. confidence that Iran stopped its nuclear weaponization program in 2003 traces back to a stream of intelligence obtained in 2006 or early 2007, which dramatically shifted the view of spy agencies.

Sources familiar with the intelligence confirmed the intercept of Fakhrizadeh's communications. The United States had both telephone and email intercepts in which Iranian scientists complained about how the leadership ordered them to shut down the program in 2003, a senior European official said.

U.S. officials said they are very confident that the intercepts were authentic - and not disinformation planted by Iran.

"Iran has been a high-priority intelligence target for years. Sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes we really are good," said Thomas Fingar, who was chairman of the National Intelligence Council when it compiled the 2007 intelligence estimate.

While declining to provide specific details, Fingar, now at Stanford University, said:

"We got information that we had never been able to obtain before. We knew the provenance of the information, and we knew that we had been able to obtain it from multiple sources. Years of hard work had finally paid off."

The judgment that Iran had stopped work on the weapons program stunned the Bush White House and U.S. allies. Critics accused U.S. spy agencies of over-compensating for their flawed 2002 analysis that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had active nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs.

The 2007 report gummed up efforts by the Bush administration to persuade the U.N. Security Council and others to add pressure on Iran with more sanctions. It was greeted with disbelief by Israel and some European allies.

"It really pulled the rug out of our sanctions effort until we got it back on track in 2008," recalled Stephen Hadley, former national security adviser to Bush.

Overlooked by many was that the report said Iran had been pursuing a nuclear weapon and was keeping its options open for developing one, he said.

"The problem was that it was misinterpreted as an all-clear when it wasn't that at all," Hadley said.

A November 2011 report by the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency said suspected nuclear weaponization efforts led by Fakhrizadeh were "stopped rather abruptly pursuant to a 'halt order' instruction issued in late 2003 by senior Iranian officials."

The reasons for this are not clear. Western experts say it was probably related to a fear of being next on the hit list after the United States toppled Saddam next door.

Iran emphasizes its nuclear program is for civilian purposes. Ayatollah Khamenei this week said Iran does not have nuclear weapons and will not build them.

DISMEMBERED AND BURIED

Some key U.S. allies were never entirely comfortable with the 2007 U.S. intelligence estimate. The Europeans conceded that a centrally directed weaponization program probably stopped, but believed pieces of the program were being pursued separately.

Many European experts believed the Iranians had dismembered their bomb program and scattered and buried its parts, some of them in military or scientific installations, some in obscure academic institutions.

Under pressure from both European allies and Israel's supporters, U.S. intelligence agencies late in the Bush administration and early in Obama's tenure began to take a second look at the 2007 estimate. Some consideration was given to bringing it more into line with European views. Intelligence received after publication of the 2007 estimate suggested that in 2006, Iran believed the United States was going to have to abandon its troubled venture in Iraq. Wisps of information were gathered that Iranian officials were talking about restarting elements of the bomb program, a U.S. intelligence official said on condition of anonymity. But analysts were divided about the significance of the new information. The revised estimate was delayed for months.

Eventually, at the very end of 2010, an updated version was circulated within the government. Unlike the 2007 estimate, the White House made public no extracts of this document. A consensus emerged among U.S. experts that the new intelligence information wasn't as alarming as originally thought, according to officials familiar with the result. The 2010 update largely stuck to the same assessments as the 2007 report, these officials said. U.S. intelligence chiefs issued a vague public acknowledgement of the ambiguities of their latest assessment.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Congress in February 2011 that

"Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so."

TIME FRAME

The United States and Israel are on the same page in judging how long it would take Iran to have a nuclear weapon that could strike a target: about a year to produce a bomb and then another one to two years to put it on a missile.

Both countries believe Iran has not made a decision to build a bomb, so even if Tehran decided to move forward, it would be unlikely to have a working nuclear device this year, let alone a missile to deliver it.

"I think they are years away from having a nuclear weapon," a U.S. administration official said.

Three main pieces are needed for a nuclear arsenal: highly enriched uranium to fuel a bomb, a nuclear warhead to detonate it, and a missile or other platform to deliver it. For Iran's program, the West has the most information about the first.

Iran has a declared nuclear program for medical research and producing energy, is a member of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and allows U.N. nuclear inspectors into its facilities.

The inspections are conducted by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and its reports provide some of the best snapshots of where Iran's program stands.

Iran conducts uranium enrichment at the Natanz plant in central Iran and at a site at Fordow buried deep in a mountainous region near the holy city of Qom. Both sites were built secretly and made public by others.

Natanz was unveiled in 2002 by an Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq. Obama and other world leaders announced the existence of the Fordow site in 2009.

Natanz houses about 8,800 centrifuge machines spinning to increase the concentration of U-235, the type of uranium that yields fissile material. Fordow is built to contain about 3,000 centrifuge machines, but the most recent IAEA report says about 700 are operational.

Most of Iran's stockpile is 3.5 percent low enriched uranium. When Tehran declared in February 2010 that it would begin enriching uranium up to 20 percent purity, that sharply increased the anxiety of Israel and others.

Nuclear experts say that enriching uranium from the naturally occurring 0.7 percent concentration of U-235 to the low-level 3.5 percent accomplishes about 70 percent of the enrichment work toward weapons-grade uranium. At 20 percent concentration, about nine-tenths of the work has been completed. For Iran, getting to 90 percent would require changing some of the plumbing in the centrifuges, experts said.

"From 20 to 90 is exponentially easier," a U.S. intelligence official said.

An IAEA report last month said that Iran has produced nearly 110 kilograms (240 pounds) of uranium enriched to 20 percent. That is less than the roughly 250 kilograms (550 pounds) that nuclear experts say would be required, when purified further, for one nuclear weapon.

Iran's enrichment program was set back by the Stuxnet computer virus, which many security experts suspect was created by Israeli intelligence, possibly with U.S. assistance. It wormed its way into Iranian centrifuge machinery as early as 2009. The Institute for Science and International Security estimated that Stuxnet damaged about 1,000 centrifuges at Natanz and stalled its enrichment capability from growing for about a year.

But it isn't clear how lasting an impact Stuxnet has had. Reuters reported last month that U.S. and European officials and private experts believe Iranian engineers have neutralized and purged the virus.

EYES IN THE SKY

U.S. officials and experts are confident that Iran would be detected if it jumped to a higher level of enrichment.

The IAEA monitors Iran's enrichment facilities closely, watching with cameras and taking measurements during inspections. Seals would have to be broken if containers that collect the enriched material were moved or tampered with.

U.S. and European intelligence agencies are also keeping tabs through satellites, sensors and other methods. They watched for years as a hole was dug into a mountainside near Qom and determined - it is unclear precisely how - late in the Bush administration that Fordow was likely a secret uranium enrichment site.

Obama was briefed on Qom when he was president-elect and was the one to publicly announce it to the world in September 2009.

"They had a deep understanding of the facility, which allowed them to blow the whistle on Tehran with confidence," a U.S. official said.

Rumors periodically pop up of other secret enrichment sites, but so far they have not been substantiated.

"Most of the people who make the argument that they might have a covert facility or a series of covert facilities are doing that to justify bombing them sooner rather than later," said Colin Kahl, a former defense official focused on the Middle East.

"We are very confident that there is no secret site now," a U.S. administration official said.

But given Iran's history of secretly building facilities, the official predicted Tehran would eventually construct another covert plant.

THE UNKNOWN

One of the biggest question marks is how far Iran advanced in designing a nuclear device - a task considered to be less complicated than producing highly enriched uranium.

The more primitive the device, the more enriched uranium is required. Making it small enough to fit on the tip of a missile would be another challenge.

The IAEA has information that Iran built a large containment chamber to conduct high-explosives tests at the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran. Conventional weapons are tested at that base, and the U.S. government appears convinced that any nuclear-related tests occurred prior to the 2003 halt.

But Iran denied the IAEA access to the Parchin site in February, raising more suspicion, and the nuclear agency seems less confident that weapons work has halted altogether.

IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said recently,

"We have information that some activity is ongoing there."

In its November 2011 report, the IAEA said it had "serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program."

It cited Iran's efforts to procure nuclear-related and dual-use equipment, acquisition of nuclear-weapons development information and work on developing a nuclear weapon design in the program that was stopped in late 2003.

"There are also indications that some activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device continued after 2003, and that some may still be ongoing," the IAEA said.

While Iran does not yet have a nuclear warhead that can fit on a missile, it does have the missiles.

Iran has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East, and many of those projectiles could be repurposed to deliver a nuclear device, intelligence director Clapper said in congressional testimony.

Western experts also point to Iran's test firing of a rocket that can launch satellites into space as an example of a growing capability that could potentially be used for nuclear weapons.

"The nuclear threat is growing. They are getting relatively close to the place where they can make the decision to assemble all three parts of their program -- enrichment, missile, weaponization," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers said in an interview. Khamenei "hasn't said 'put it together' yet," said Rogers, a Republican. "Have they decided to sprint to making the device that blows up? Probably not. But are they walking to a device that blows up? Yes."

The debate over air strikes, supercharged by Israel's anxiety and U.S. election-year politics, has raised the specter of the Iraq war. The White House justified that conflict on the grounds of weapons of mass destruction, as well as significant ties between Iraq and al Qaeda. Both proved to be mirages.

"There are lots of disturbing similarities. One has to note the differences, too," said Paul Pillar, a former top CIA analyst.

"The huge difference being we don't have an administration in office that is the one hankering for the war. This administration is not hankering for a war," said Pillar.

What Is the Meaning of the 70 Weeks in Daniel and the 1260 Days in Revelation?

• The first temple was destroyed in 586 BC.
• The second temple was completed in 516 BC, 70 years after the first temple was destroyed.
• The second temple was destroyed in 70 AD.
• Israel became a nation again in 1948. The year 2018 will mark the 70th anniversary of Israel's rebirth as a nation.

According to scripture, a generation is 70 years. The importance of numbers in scripture leads us to believe that we can expect the third temple to rebuilt by 2018 for Satan to rule over his one-world government:

Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. - 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4

When the fifth trumpet is sounded, Satan will be released from the bottomless pit to rule over his earthly kingdom (his one-world government and religion). He will stand in the holy place, showing himself that he is God, and he will promise peace and security to a world in desperate need of grand solutions to profound problems. Satan, deceiving many with his signs and wonders, will reign as king over this earth for five months, during which time (sixth trumpet) 1/3 part of man will be killed (most likely Christians and others who refuse to worship "the beast" and to receive his "mark" in their right hand or forehead).

After this earthly reign by Satan for "a little season" and his persecution of the followers of Christ, Christ will return in the clouds of heaven with great power and glory (seventh trumpet) to deliver up His people to the kingdom of heaven. He then will destroy by fire the kingdom of "the beast" and create a new heaven and a new earth over which He will reign with His people for eternity.

One could assume that the rebuilding of the temple is man's desire, not God's as we know the ultimate sacrifce was already made. But God will allow this temple to be rebuilt for the purpose of exposing antichrist.

"The day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." - 2 Thessalonians 2:2-4

May 14, 1948 (when Israel again was officially established as a nation) started a 70 year countdown (Psalm 90:10 & Zechariah 1:12).

Concerning the number 70, when we add 70 years from Israel's birth, we come to the end, which is in 2018, the Last Generation. The Last Generation that Christ spoke about concerning the end-times is the generation born into this world when Israel was created in 1948. And, more importantly, one generation is 70 years, so Christ Jesus the Lord reveals to us that we are the ones that shall witness the fulfillment of all these things.





The Middle East crisis will lead to World War III. Antichrist will appear at the end of WWIII to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. A one-world government with a one-world religion will be established, the anti-Christian kingdom prophesied in chapter 13 of the book of Revelation. This one-world power will offer apparent peace and security to a world in chaos. The devil, Satan, will establish his earthly kingdom for "a little season," so that he as God will stand in the holy place, showing himself that he is God, and he will deceive many with his signs and wonders.

For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them. - 1 Thessalonians 5:3

Source: http://chainedeagles.blogspot.com/