HOW A FRAUDULENT GUARDIANSHIP COMMENCES AND CONTINUES

Angela V. Woodhull,Ph.D.

“A large part of the victim’s money is spent on attorney’s fees and guardian’s fees. As long as there is ample money in the victim’s guardianship account, the guardian and her attorney cohorts will file motion upon motion after motion to the courts,”

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STEP ONE—“EMINENT DANGER”—THE INITIAL COURT PETITION

The professional guardian, with the assistance of her attorneys, commences the embezzlement process by filing an emergency petition in the probate courts to become the “emergency” “temporary” guardian

Florida guardianship statutes, like many states, (Chapter 744) require that there be an “eminent danger” in order for the petitioner to become the “emergency temporary guardian.”

The guardian oftentimes fabricates the “eminent danger” by , stating that there is a neighbor or relative or stranger who is taking advantage of the elderly person. In some cases, this may be a somewhat true statement, albeit an exaggerated claim. In most cases, upon further investigation, there has been no “eminent danger” whatsoever.

Step One takes away all of the victim’s civil rights and therefore gives the guardian and her attorneys full control over the victim and his or her assets.

STEP TWO—THE EXAMINING COMMITTEE
Once the professional guardian has taken control of the victim on a temporary basis (the emergency temporary guardianship order expires in 60 days) an examining committee of three medical “professionals” steps in to verify the allegation of mental incapacity. Oftentimes, the victim is administered a cocktail of psychotropic drugs to enhance the claims that he or she is incompetent.

“Ward” Elizabeth Faye Arnold, for instance, stated, “They put me on drugs that made me feel very drunk. I couldn’t even remember my name. Now that they have all my money, they don’t medicate me that way anymore.” One of the three medical professionals must be a psychiatrist and the victim is generally always found to be mentally incapacitated. The guardian usually has her own set of medical professionals that she utilizes on a regular basis. For instance, professional guardian Rebecca Fierle is married to a medical doctor and therefore has an entire fleet of medical professional associates available to her. Rebecca Fierle also utilizes the services of Attorney Thomas Sawyer, Orlando, who also happens to be a medical doctor.

Back in the courtroom, soon after the three medical professionals file their reports, there is a capacity hearing. The victim seldom is permitted to attend this hearing. The judge quickly scans the medical examinations that “verify” that the victim is “mentally and/or physically incapacitated.” The judge then signs an order that gives the professional guardian full and permanent legal authority over the victim’s person and property.

STEP THREE—THE “FEAST” BEGINS

Property is sold for below market value and the deeds switch and switch several times. (kick backs are suspected) Bank accounts, annuities, stocks, and CDs are liquidated into one big guardianship account.

Out of this large bank account, the guardian is expected to pay all the victim’s, but bills oftentimes go unpaid.

HOW THE VICTIM’S MONEY IS SPENT

1. ATTORNEY’S FEES AND GUARDIANSHIP FEES FOR “SERVICES RENDERED TO ‘BENEFIT’ THE ‘WARD’”

A large part of the victim’s money is spent on attorney’s fees and guardian’s fees. As long as there is ample money in the victim’s guardianship account, the guardian and her attorney cohorts will file motion upon motion after motion to the courts, such as:

–A motion to sell the ward’s furniture

–A motion to liquidate stocks and CDs

–A motion to transfer the ward to a different nursing home

–A motion to sell the ward’s homesteaded house

–A motion to open up a safety deposit box

Each motion can cost the “ward” in excess of $2,000.00 because the motion must be written, researched, filed, and then a hearing is scheduled. Oftentimes, the motions cost more than what is being petitioned for.

2. PUFFING THE MONTHLY BUDGET—The guardian frequently doubles the monthly expenses then keeps the remainder.

1.3. SELLING THE “WARD’S” PERSONAL BELONGINGS FOR BELOW MARKET VALUE THEN POCKETING THE DIFFERENCE—The guardian underestimates the amount of the sale of personal items, such as jewelry, paintings, and antiques, for the purpose of the court record inventories, then is free to keep the difference. There is little court oversight. For example, professional guardian Rebecca Fierle went from bankrupt in 1997 to multimillionaire by 2007.
2.4. BILLS ARE SIMPLY NOT PAID
Oftentimes, the bills of the “ward” are not even paid. When the “ward” dies, the guardian simply places an ad in an obscure newspaper, if there is money left for an estate to be probated. Assuming creditors do not see the ad and file a claim against the estate within 30 days, their claims are forever barred and so the guardian was able to fool creditors and abscond with the money and not have to pay any of the bills. If she is caught, she simply pays the bills of the creditors who caught her. This frequently includes Medicaid.

1.5. ACCOUNTING IS NOT ACCURATE
The guardian can claim a much lower amount of liquid assets than what the victim is actually worth and then pocket the rest.

EXAMPLE: Julie Sweeten–$400,000.00 estate with an alleged $80,000.00 remaining when Sweeten died. More than $300,000.00 was spent in three years.

Louise A. Falvo started off with approximately $800,000.00. Two months into the guardianship, Fierle filed an accounting with the court stating that Falvo was worth only $672,000.00. Shortly thereafter, a bank statement from Bank of America stated that Falvo now had $449,000 after all accounts had been liquidated. So, approximately $200,000 turned up missing.

1.6. FAKE WILLS: In this scenario, the guardian claimed that Julie Sweeten desired to leave her estate to her bank. A forged will was entered into the record. Wachovia Bank trustee was then given $80,000.00 from the uncontested, probated estate.
STEP FOUR: THE MYSTERIOUS DEATHS

Once the funds have been spent, the “ward” oftentimes suddenly dies.

-OR

The “ward” dies when there is still plenty of money — if a huge probate battle can commence, thereby further enriching the attorneys and guardian.

Examples: Carlisle Bosworth died soon after his $250,000 had been spent.

James Deaton–$5 million, three years in probate–$3 million in attorney’s fees with a pittance finally paid out to his family members.

LOUISE A. FALVO—suspected morphine sulphate overdose as cause of death; huge probate battle to enrich attorneys ensued even though

LOUISE A. FALVO’s bank accounts were all POD/ITF to her daughter, so probate should have been completely unnecessary.

NASGA, National Association to Stop Guardianship Abuse, has adopted a three part theme to succinctly describe the legally sanctioned exploitative guardianship process: “Isolate, Medicate, Take the Estate.”

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http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d101046.pdf

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/10/27/elderly.abuse/index.html?iref=allsearch

*All court records are available for verification of the facts

Court of Appeal Upholds Judgment Against Lawyer for Elder Abuse

By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer

The First District Court of Appeal Friday affirmed a judgment requiring several individuals, including an Oakland attorney, to pay more than $400,000 in damages and attorney fees to the conservator for an elderly disabled woman.

Div. Four upheld the award against Oakland attorney Carol Veres Reed, along with Ida McQueen’s sister and uncle, for misappropriation of funds from the unauthorized sale of property that McQueen’s father left her in trust.

McQueen, now 75 years old, suffers from physical and mental disabilities. Her father provided in his will that she could live in the family’s Oakland home for life. He also established a testamentary trust, giving the trustees discretion to use the principal for McQueen’s benefit during her lifetime, with the remainder of the assets to be divided among her surviving siblings after her death.

McQueen’s father died in 1990, and his two brothers were appointed to administer the estate. McQueen remained in the home until 2000, when she was taken to a nursing home due to medical complications.

Lawyers Visit

While in the nursing facility, she was visited by Reed—who had handled her father’s estate, and whose father had prepared the will—and her brother, attorney Richard K. Veres. The two lawyers presented her with a power of attorney, naming her sister, Earline Drumgoole, to act on her behalf.

A witness later testified that McQueen told him that she did not understand who her visitors were or what they had her sign.

Unable to return to the home, which was apparently uninhabitable, she was later placed in a community care facility. Her uncle, Ray Blackshire, acting as trustee, sold the house in 2004 for $240,000, with the net proceeds being placed in Reed’s client trust account and later distributed among several family members, with a part of it going to Reed as the still-unpaid legal fees for handling the estate of McQueen’s father 10 years earlier.

In November 2004, the Regional Center for the East Bay, a public entity that assists the disabled, learned that the house had been sold without McQueen’s knowledge or consent, and that she had not received funds from the distribution. Legal proceedings were initiated, resulting in the appointment of a conservator for the limited purpose of bringing an action for elder abuse.

Conservator Sues

The conservator sued Reed, Drumgoole, Veres, Blackshire, and a nephew of McQueen’s. Alameda Superior Court Judge Jo-Lynne Lee ruled before trial that the testator’s intent was to create a life estate in the house for McQueen, and that her interest was not extinguished upon the sale.

The defendants claimed at trial that they had a good fait reasonable belief that the life estate had ended, and that McQueen could not have benefited from the sale of the home because there would have been a reduction or elimination of her SSI and Medi-Cal benefits.

The conservator disputed this, presenting expert testimony that the proceeds could have been protected through proper financial planning, although a rebuttal witness testified that would not have been possible during the relevant time frame.

The judge granted McQueen’s nephew a nonsuit, and the jury exonerated Veres. As to the remaining defendants, the jury found for the plaintiff on theories of conversion, breach of fiduciary duty, negligence, concealment, and—in Reed’s case—financial elder abuse and breach of fiduciary duty as an attorney, and awarded nearly $100,000 in compensation.

Lee awarded the conservator more than $320,000 in attorney fees against Reed under the elder abuse statute.

Presiding Justice Ignacio Ruvolo, in an unpublished portion of his opinion for the Court of Appeal, said Reed was properly found liable.

He rejected the argument that jurors held her to an erroneously higher standard of care because she was an attorney. The jurist said the argument was inconsistent with the jury instructions, and that defense counsel made no showing that jurors ignored the instructions.

Nor was it error, Ruvolo wrote, for the judge to instruct the jury as to the Rules of Professional Conduct. While the rules themselves do not create tort liability, the presiding justice explained, it was appropriate for Lee to read them to the jurors so that they could resolve a “potentially confusing” factual issue.

Reed, the presiding justice explained, testified that with respect to the power of attorney, she was acting as counsel for both Drumgoole and McQueen. It was therefore proper, Ruvolo said, for the judge to explicate the ethical requirements regarding representation of adverse interests and the duty to inform a client of significant developments.

In the published portion of the opinion, Ruvolo concluded that the judge was correct in instructing the jury to disregard McQueen’s government benefits in calculating damages.

This was a proper application of the collateral source rule, Ruvolo said, even though there appear to be no prior published cases on whether federal government benefits are a gratuitous source under the rule.

The case is Conservatorship of McQueen, A126825.

http://www.metnews.com/articles/2011/mcqu011811.htm
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Chalk one up for the good guys!

Fueled by aging baby boomers, a growing number of elderly residents are falling victim to physical abuse, neglect and financial exploitation

Investigations of such cases have nearly doubled in the past five years — jumping from about 5,200 in 2005 to nearly 10,000 last year — as the state heads towards a “silver tsunami” by 2030, when 1.2 million people 60 and older are projected to make up nearly one-fourth of the population.

Yet as the number of reports rose, the state's rate of substantiating abuse or neglect fell, dropping last year to about 17 percent — well below the national average of almost 50 percent.

Advocates say this is just one example of how Kentucky is doing too little to address its urgent need to find ways to better serve seniors.

Others problems found by The Courier-Journal in a six-month review:
Because of budget problems, the state has about 500 fewer “front-line” social workers than it did a decade ago — down from about 2,000 to about 1,500. This has increased demands on workers.
In Adult Protective Services, the lead state agency that investigates suspected mistreatment of elderly and vulnerable adults, workers carry nearly twice the number of cases recommended under national standards.
About $6 million has been cut from the state Department for Aging and Independent Living, eroding programs meant to keep older adults healthy and safe in their communities. Those programs include Meals on Wheels and housekeeping help.

All this is putting the state's seniors at enormous risk, advocates say.
“These are the most vulnerable people in the state,” Deborah Anderson, the aging department's commissioner, told a panel of lawmakers earlier this year. “What this bottom line means is that we will not be able to meet their needs.”
In Louisville, a few hours of weekly personal care assistance means Bessie Cronin, 99, can live safely in her own apartment at a senior complex and enjoy the independence she prizes.

But a growing number of seniors remain on waiting lists for such help because of limited state resources, said Nancy Gordon, who supervises the care Cronin receives through the local Area Agency on Aging. And that means more elders may be living at home but unable to care for themselves or have anyone from outside checking in and providing assistance, Gordon said.

Read it all here=>>Courier Journal.Com

How Judges Use Assistance With Debt Repayment to Help Settle Cases

by Janet Phelan, September 11, 2009

SAN BERNARDINO, CA — Several years ago, all of the county's probate and conservatorship cases were moved to the Redlands Courthouse, and most of these cases were subsequently heard by Judge James M. Welch.

Recent documents obtained by the Sentinel point to suspicious financial activity by Welch, who at one point in time was the presiding judge of San Bernardino County. Welch was featured in an article in the Sentinel on June 12th of this year in a lengthy exposé regarding questionable business practices by Melodie Z. Scott, a professional fiduciary and conservator for the elderly. Scott is President of C.A.R.E., Inc., located at 25 E. State Street in Redlands, right around the corner from the courthouse.

The activities by Scott cited by the Sentinel as questionable involved giving conservatee property to her own family members, overcharges on her clients' accounts, missing monies from clients' accounts, selling conservatee property at bargain basement rates only to have the property jump in value and resold the next year, withholding medical care from conservatees resulting in death, and allegations of possible undue influence on judges.

The documents uncovered relating to Judge Welch reveal that he has mortgaged his primary residence, located in the 300 block of La Colina in Redlands several times in recent years, encumbering it with loans which could not possibly be paid back on a judge's salary in the brief turn-around time indicated by the reconveyances (repayment of loans). The document numbers and the size of the loans follow:

In 1998, Welch and his wife, Ginny, took out a loan for $217,200 on their La Colina residence, which was fully paid back in March of 2003. The reconveyance document number attached to this transaction is 2003-0173087.

In February of 2003, James and Ginny Welch took out another loan on their residence, this time for $234,000. This was fully paid back by June 10, 2004, as listed in document number 2004-0410928.

Another loan was taken out by the Welches on May 17, 2004, as listed in document number 2004-0353533. This loan was for $358,965.71.

Messages were left with Welch's secretary, inquiring as to where the money was going and how he was paying these loans back. The possibility that Welch was taking out loans and investing the money, then paying back the loans with the proceeds was considered and discarded. For the last seven years, Welch has reported to the Fair Political Practices Commission on his form 700 financial disclosure statements that he has no investments.

A query was also left with Judge Welch's secretary as to three property transactions recorded in neighboring Riverside County, attributed to a James Michael Welch, Trustee.

Judge Welch has declined to comment. Presiding judge Jim McGuire issued a terse letter on August 12th, 2009, in response to an inquiry from the Sentinel about the Welch loans and Riverside County transactions. McGuire stated:

"Please be advised that I have received and reviewed your letter of August 11, 2009. Please be further advised that I am an administrative presiding judge and, therefore, my review jurisdiction is limited. Nothing contained in your letter is of a nature over which I would have review jurisdiction. Any request for review or investigation by me is, therefore, denied."

There has been no confirmation or denial from the court as to whether Welch's exodus from his probate assignment in Redlands had any bearing on the recent media scrutiny given his actions as a judge or his apparent bias towards cases involving Melodie Scott, who recently launched a legal protest concerning the denial of her fiduciary license by the California Professional Fiduciary Bureau.

This practice of judges taking out large loans appears to be widespread and crosses county boundaries. Information gathered on Commissioner John McCoy and Judge Sharon Waters (both of Riverside County) has recently been turned over to a Riverside County district attorney investigator, Jeff Chebahtah. While Chebahtah has acknowledged receipt of the information on the Waters and McCoy loans, he has at press time refused to assign a complaint/case file number. The practice of accepting evidence and refusing to assign a tracking number has been previously explored by this reporter in an article entitled: "How the California Justice System covers up crimes against the elderly: A method to the madness" and appears to be deployed when either the matter is too trivial for the district attorney to take seriously or when there is a political agenda to keep the report out of the system and thus not to investigate at all.

Parenthetically, both McCoy and Waters were recently and consecutively removed from an active case in Riverside Superior Court, following a protest lodged that the loans smacked of pay-offs or bribes.

In San Bernardino County, Judge Steven Mapes ascended to the bench in 2007 and currently sits on Barstow court, following his tenure as an deputy district attorney in San Bernardino. Mapes has also been involved in the loan program, apparently going back to 1998, when he took out a loan on his home on Patricia Drive for over $155,000. He subsequently took out further loans on his property, including loans for $100,000 in 2001 and 2002, another loan for $307,500, also in 2001, one for $88,500 in 2002 and a loan in 2004 which was in excess of the value of the house, recorded at the tax assessor's office as $427,528. This loan was taken out for a resounding $493,000.

More recently, in 2006, he again borrowed money against his property. Since 2001, Judge Steven Mapes has received seven different reconveyances on his loans.

Judge Mapes did not return calls from the Sentinel inquiring as to who was paying back these loans.

More recent articles from Janet Phelan=>>http://theintelhubradio.com/2010/11/10/janet-phelan-human-rights/

New York Court Corruption=>>http://newyorkcourtcorruption.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-to-bribe-judge-assistance-with-debt.html

Judges Involved in Multiple Property Reconveyances=>>http://www.tulanelink.com/tulanelink/judicialbribes_10a.htm

At The Crossroads Once More! What Will You Do?

The year was 1959 and Fidel Castro said " I am not communist" never the less many saw the writing on the wall and gathered whatever they could, and left the country.
Many Cubans such as my father Dr. A.J. Fernandez M.D. prospered in the new land and built a sizeable estate to benefit future Fernandez's generations until the State Sanctioned white collar looters took it all away......Never the less Dr. Fernandez and his wife Clara Fernandez enjoyed many years of prosperity until they got old and became easy prey with No one willing to help or protect them but rather pile on the piñata, and grab all they could in their drunken greed stupor to get it all before someone else does......

Others Cubans who viewed my father's comments as alarmist and chose to stay in Cuba are not so lucky today and are dying in Cuban prisons as political prisoners forgotten by all but a few.... Babalu.Com

Again the year was 1939 and many saw the writing the wall and many Jews left Germany and went on to build prosperous lives in Brazil,Argentina, Israel,America and countless other places.... many dismissed this warnings as alarmists and stayed behind in Germany, these did not do so well....

Again history places us at a crossroads in our destiny and the writing is on the wall, the war on the elderly has been declared, with no punches pulled as the number of elderly under guardianship languishing in human warehouses is kept secret, the number of property confiscations are on the rise, the loss/lack of human rights for an entire segment of the population is astonishing......

Will you be the one who waits until you are too old to water your lawn and be hauled off kicking and screaming to a nursing home, of if you live in the northern climate will you wait until you are unable to come out after every storm to shovel snow off the sidewalks and likewise be declared 'incapacitated' in a closed non parte hearing in which you or your loved ones have NO say and have all your property confiscated, your social security income diverted to pay for guardian fees, and your property sold to satisfy legal fees for the cost of having you declared incompetent?

Will you be one of the ones who sees the writing on the wall in time or will you be one of the ones dragged off kicking and screaming into the nursing facility?

If you think you are immune and this only happens to other people, think again! The year was 2000 , the place was New York City

The Honorable Judge John L. Phillips, known to all as the Kung-Fu Judge. Upon learning of his candidacy in 2001, Brooklyn D.A. Joe Hynes filed an ex-parte (secret action) to seal up all of Judge Phillips' assets. Twelve apartment buildings and two movie Theatres were part of the millionaire judges' empire. The Court then appointed Hynes former Chief of Staff, Harvey Greenberg, as Judge Phillips' "Guardian."

The transcript of the probate court proceeding is chilling. Anyone can file a motion to declare a person incompetent. The county government, ithen steps in to appoint a guardian.What happens after that is best exemplied in Judge Phiilips's case.
Sometime between November and December of 2000, Greenberg was appointed "temporary guardian" of the "mentally incapacitated" Phillips.
The following winter, Phillips' heat was cut off, and neighbors found him living in squalor and poor health, wearing an overcoat and hat. As one acquaintance of Phillips' put it, "They wanted him to die."

All of Judge Phillips' properties were sold for pennies-on-the-dollar. Then the judges' home mysteriously burned to the ground, obfuscating any records he had been keeping. The guardians neglected to pay the insurance. Six years later, the once museum-like four story brownstone at 155 Herkimer Street still sits in the heart of Bed-Stuy as a boarded up shell. A monument to the tragic end of the Kung-Fu Judge.

Now, the undisputed facts, according to the IRS, are that between the years of 2000 and 2007, four separate guardians sold $10 million dollars of Judge Phillips' property and failed to pay or file any taxes. The undisputed facts of the case: Judge John L. Phillips, died homeless and broke. He owned 12 apartment buildings and 2 movie theatres.

Blog sites such as ElderAbuseHelp.Org, EstateOfDenial.Com and others are gathering evidence that this is not an isolated incident but a rapidly spreading racket that threatens every elderly citizen who manages to retire with any monies saved up for their old age...In fact this practice is become the norm more than the exception in a single day the same judge that declared Phillip's incapacitated , Judge Pesce handed 17 guardianships in a single day to a 38-year-old attorney named Dagmar Plaza! In 0ne single day!

If this can happen to a sitting Judge, you think it won't happen to you? Or are you feeding the sharks hoping they eat you last?

Will you be like Silvia Bush who at 78 years old, you can’t get up fast enough Your house is broken into; you are pulled off your chair as you are cleaning you coffee pot peacefully at your own kitchen table.· You are grabbed by your shoulder pulled off your chair onto the linoleum of your kitchen, hurting your shoulder.· On the floor, you are handcuffed.· Taken out of your house.· Loaded into an ambulance.· In the ambulance, your are forcibly constrained , taken to St. Anthony’s psychiatric, ward with no attempt to contact your family

You have time to make a call and leave a message asking for your son on Frank Sampson’s answering machine while they are breaking in. This tape recording is proof you are not delusional, gravely disabled, or a danger to yourself or others.

Reporters such as Maria Bartiromo who initiated a series on this racket had soon to change networks and report on financial matters instead, another Investigative Journalist whose family legacy has also been wiped out in the probate racket named Janet Phelan who initiated a series of articles titled "The Probate Murders" has been subject to un relenting and vile personal attacks being forced to leave the country in order to continue her investigations. This writer when writing about the atrocities committed against our elders became a target for retribution, and after spending the family legacy in legal fees, opted to leave the country in order to continue to speak against elder abuse in the hope that others will open their eyes before it's too late and take concrete actions to protect themselves and their families.

War on the Elderly Intensifies : Not Shoveling Snow Could Soon Become a Crime!

By: Freeman Klopott Examiner Staff Writer

District property owners could soon be ticketed for not shoveling snow off the sidewalks around their land. The D.C. Council is considering a bill that would empower the city to write tickets of at least $25 for residential property owners and at least $250 for businesses if they don't clear their sidewalks. They'd have eight hours from the time the snow stops to get the job done.

The city currently requires property owners to shovel within the eight-hour time frame. But if a property owner doesn't act, the city can clear the sidewalk and then sue the property owner for the cost.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/dc/2011/01/dc-considers-ticketing-uncleared-sidewalks#ixzz1BDqNv8lc

--------------------------------
Note from editor:

This law should prove to be a boom to the new generation of probate attorneys,with an increasing elderly population in addition to jailing 70 year old grandmothers for failing to water her lawn and keep her lawn green we could now initiate Guardianship procedures to remove elderly people who are not able to shovel snow after a big storm, remove them for their home,initiate the sell thereof, and place the elder not capable of such tasks in a nursing home.......and most disturbing who decides when an elder is not capable of maintaining her home? and should the government be involved in such matters?

Thank you ElderAbuseHelp.Org! College Education Scam

By Lou Ann Anderson

Thanks to our friend, Ray Fernandez, at ElderAbuseHelp.org for calling attention to this article from the National Inflation Association. The law school/legal industry aspect of this piece has a significant tie-in, we believe, to probate abuse.

Here in Texas, higher education funding is going to be a big topic in our legislature. With that, the NIA article inspired an new (unplanned, but irresistible) EoD column entitled Will 2011 bring the bursting of a “college bubble”?

As the Texas legislature along with many other state governments prepare to grapple with budget shortfalls and spending cuts, public college and university funding are likely to come under great scrutiny. With that, a recent National Inflation Association article warns that the bursting of a “college bubble,” akin to the real estate bubble, could happen this year and bring widespread consequences.

We agree with the article’s basic premise that too many of today’s high school students are being funneled into college for purposes that better serve the employment and power-coalescing machines associated with higher education rather than helping to prepare all of these young people to be productive members of society. College is an appropriate and important path for some students, however, others may find technical
or skills-based training facilities – especially with a clearly defined field of interest – a far more beneficial and cost effective course.

As higher education costs rise, many of these kids are being encouraged to take on debt disproportional to the earning power their degree or certification will ever generate making this a decision with long-lasting and financially detrimental consequences. And unfortunately, it’s members of the higher education industry or their surrogates that encourage this action. We wish more financially responsible parents were in the mix so as to better counsel their children, but that general absence contributes to this and many other troublesome societal trends.

Friends and associates with recent experience on college campuses tell stories of waste, even fraud, associated with Pell Grants. We know respectable, productive people who say that without such funding, their college experience might have been unattainable or at least far more difficult. Today’s climate, however, also encourages disinterested and unmotivated students seeking only to “scam” the system. This disservice is perpetrated by the higher education industry and other politically correct allies promoting a false sense of education equality over sensible public policies. And who is hurt in this equation? Legitimate students genuinely seeking to maximize educational opportunities, American taxpayers who foot the bill and American businesses that can’t find appropriately qualified candidates to fill positions.

This column additionally attracted our interest at EstateofDenial.com because of this reference to higher education and the legal industry:

All across America, thousands of students are graduating law school each year with $250,000 in debt, but with no jobs at law firms available to them. 15,000 attorney and legal staff jobs have disappeared since 2008, yet 43,000 law degrees are being handed out each year. Law degrees are losing their value faster than the U.S. dollar is losing its purchasing power. Lawyers are non-producing workers that do nothing to create any real wealth for society. The artificially high incomes of lawyers are made possible entirely by inflation, which steals the wealth from hard working goods producing middle-class Americans and transfers it to those who add no real value to society.

With estate abuse and probate corruption as our focus, we address all aspects of the issue. EoD reports on how many estate disputes (via wills, trusts guardianships or powers of attorney) are contrived so as to generate billable hours for the involved attorneys. It’s a form of barratry, a criminal practice involving the generation of profit for legal services by an attorney who stirs up a dispute and encourages lawsuits in order to file a groundless claim. With the aging Baby Boomers, extended lifespans and families not living in close proximity as once was the case, one can reasonably wonder that a supply of unemployed or under-employed lawyers might find probate an appealing growth area. It’s a position that bodes badly for an unsuspecting public whose assets now become “up for grabs.” These conditions also illustrate the college scam concept of self-serving universities aggressively recruiting students to potentially assume great debt for entry into a professional field with diminishing opportunities.

This National Inflation Association column isn’t an across-the-board discrediting of college educations. It merely offers timely comparative data, substantive reasoning and good advice to the youth of America today to “think for yourselves.” It’s perspective that adults in these young people’s lives would also do well to adopt.

Lou Ann Anderson is an advocate working to create awareness regarding the Texas probate system and its surrounding culture. She is the Online Producer at http://www.estateofdenial.com/, a Policy Advisor with Americans for Prosperity – Texas Foundation and a Director of Women on the Wall. Lou Ann may be contacted at info@EstateofDenial.com.

Related Articles: College education ’scam’ has far-reaching impact

A Dallas woman romances elderly men, digs deep into their pockets and calls it love.

By Patrick Michels Thursday, Jan 13 2011

He gave her the directions, and she drew out the conversation, gathering information about him as they spoke. An 87-year old man, he lived by himself in Preston Hollow, and from his house, his dress, his manner, she could see how wealthy he was, how vulnerable. She gave him her name,Vickie Peterson, and her phone number.

He called her after a few days, and on May 28, 2004, the two met in an Albertson's parking lot and walked to Wendy's for coffee. According to police reports, he handed her a check on June 9, the first of 18 he'd write, this one for $15,000. As they became closer, Whiteside offered to write Peterson into his will, but she talked him out of it, saying she was worried what his family would think. He gave her money to pay off her debt, to cover a trip to visit her father hospitalized in Washington state. She told him she was an unemployed single mother living with her aunt; each month he would give her half his income.

She brought her three-year-old daughter to his house to visit, gave him rides to the doctor and the grocery store. Whiteside told her he could use somebody to help out around the house full-time, but she said they'd have to get married first. He proposed to her in September.

The whole time, he played it cool with his daughters. "He was being cagey," Kitty Whiteside recalls today. "He was like, 'Oh, I've been out to dinner.' Well, great, 'Who'd you go with?' He wouldn't say." Another daughter, Eileen Doehring who lives in Houston, says her father even lied and said he'd met his new friend through Highland Park United Methodist Church, where he'd been an active member and volunteer for over 60 years.

Kitty was back in Dallas that Christmas when she found a file on his computer called "Meeting A New Person." The responsible thing, she decided, was to spy. In it, he writes that she'd said she'd been married but her husband died, that she's Catholic and, like him, considers herself a Democrat. "She was very petite—less than five feet, deeply tanned, (Hispanic?) attractive," he writes. "She had been in Dallas a few months, from Seattle." He ends with a revealing expression of the bond he feels for this new woman in his life: "I would treasure her as one of my friends, but not as the friend." Kitty e-mailed herself a copy.

"To him, it was new life. It was hope. It was, 'I can be independent,'" she says. "[Peterson] really feeds that side, which you want to be the truth." Kitty says her father had already been "paranoid" about his daughters taking his car keys away, or talking him into moving into a nursing home.

While he was out with Peterson in February 2005, Whiteside's home was robbed, the first time in the more than 50 years he'd lived there. Then, in June that year, he was robbed again. His daughters told him they were suspicious Peterson was involved, but he wasn't buying it.

Kitty says she told a friend about the journal her father had written regarding this woman a half century his junior, and was surprised by the response: "'You better get on that right away. It's Gypsies,'" she recalls him telling her. "He said his friend's father in Florida had been taken over by a family of Gypsies." Kitty didn't know what to make of the generalizations she began hearing. "I was just really disappointed to learn that this was a really common thing, that some of the stereotype wasn't just a stereotype," she says.

That August, Doehring visited her father and found records of $30,000 payments to Peterson on her dad's kitchen table. To get him away from Peterson, she drove him to Houston for a few weeks and then came back to Dallas to file a police report for a loss of more than $230,000.

While they waited for the police to investigate, his daughters say the stress took a toll on him and the Parkinson's-like symptoms he'd been suffering worsened. "He just declined after that," Kitty says.

The money was gone, but Whiteside never pressed charges. His daughters say he alternated between worrying how he'd look when the story became public, and feeling sympathy for Peterson. "I'm not sure he was ever really convinced that she had done anything wrong," Doehring says. "Had he been healthy enough, I'm not sure what kind of a witness he would've been against her." Even had he been committed to pursuing the case, a prosecutor told them, it would've been tough to get a conviction.

Of course, none of that mattered. Whiteside fell and broke his hip in January 2006, and never recovered. He died later that year.

Time and again, Dallas police have heard from men who say Peterson breezed into their lives like this, friendly, assertive and mysterious, a single mom who asked for help caring for her daughter, or with some crisis in her life, always grateful as the weeks rolled on and the payouts grew. Peterson declined to return multiple interview requests, both directly and through her lawyer, Doug Mulder, but police reports and family members' recollections describe a persuasive confidence artist, a woman practiced at spotting targets at just the right point in their lives, getting close without revealing too much herself, and disappearing when families or police begin closing in.

Read it all =>>here

• A Little More Reading With This Week's Cover: Sweetheart Swindles, Romani Culture and "Gypsy Crime" Specialists

"The Government That Governs the Least Governs The Best"

Founded in 1541, Santiago de Chile is one of the more attractive capital cities of South America. With a population of nearly six million, it is a modern metropolis and you can find almost everything you need. Whether you are here on business or pleasure travel, Santiago is of interest to many visitors.

Dear Readers:

Please accept my apologies when I get off track, but I believe we are a community and are all tied together by common experiences and share a common goal, mainly to raise awareness to the problems facing our generation as we age and learn to grow old together....

AS I prepare for another day the sounds of diverse languages drifts in through my window, like Santiago, a breath of fresh air and freedom, no mailman delivering threatning communications demanding things, no real estate tax bill to pay or court hearing to go to, a place where the mantra "The best government is the one that governs the least" is music to my ears, my only question as I read Simon Black's letter is what took me so long? a letter I 'd like to share with you....

--------------------------

Date: January 13, 2011
Reporting From: Santiago, Chile


Yesterday evening I was walking around the beautiful tree lined streets of Providencia, one of Santiago's central upscale districts.

I might as well have been walking around Berlin or Strasbourg-- Providencia is a clean, highly civilized area with plenty of parks, cafes, and boutique shops that adjoin the neighborhoods of manicured homes and quiet mid-rise condominium buildings.

On the streets its common to see a host of walkers, runners and bikers-- Santiago is a very 'outdoors' city, much like Austin or Vancouver, and with such beautiful mountain vistas and great weather, it's easy to understand why.

What's interesting is the number of languages that you can hear being spoken while walking around town-- the varied nationalities that have made Santiago their home is staggering for a country of this size (17 million).

It's common to see the token French, German, British, and American expats... but in addition you come across people from all over the world-- Africans, Taiwanese, Thai, Russians, and even Iraqis.

Chile has become one of the countries in a growing list that welcomes foreigners with open arms-- people who are willing to work hard, add value, or bring in capital are respected and treated well.

This is the same approach that has worked in places like Hong Kong and Singapore; these are two countries where just about every nationality on the planet can enter without a visa.

Propping the door wide open for foreigners provides significant economic benefits; people are more likely to visit (and spend their money) in a place where they are treated well, and they're more likely to do business in a place where they feel comfortable.

The exact opposite end of the spectrum is the United States... and to a growing degree, the UK. Foreigners who arrive to the US are subjected to discourteous, disrespectful measures and made to feel like lowlife criminal terrorists.

For many, it's an absolutely horrific experience. Maria C., the Chilean lady who owns the apartment I'm renting in Providencia told me yesterday about her most recent-- and last-- trip to the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security decided that, instead of being a well-respected Chilean national attending her Harvard reunion, she was a suspected Colombian drug trafficker. DHS detained her for over 12-hours, confiscating her purse, her passport... even her shoes.

She was continually interrogated by DHS officials who played good cop/bad cop mind games, and when she was given 'permission' to use the bathroom, it was under close-up video surveillance. They finally released her without so much as an explanation, let alone an apology.

Maria's story is unfortunately common; Homeland Security's Customs and Border Patrol division takes itself way too seriously, and its uniformed chimpanzees are convinced of their own righteousness... that their actions are actually defending the homeland.

One recent story makes this attitude abundantly clear. It involves a Canadian woman, Lind Bird, who was stopped, searched, and relieved of her $2 Kinder Surprise egg by US border patrol agents.

Kinder Surprise eggs are a type of European chocolate candy, and they're considered illegal in the United States because the FDA has deemed them a choking hazard for children.

The eggs are perfectly legal in Canada, and Bird had one in her vehicle as she was crossing the border. After a stern talking-to by agents, Bird's egg was confiscated by the United States government, who subsequently sent her a 7-page letter demanding that she authorize the 'destruction' of the egg.

Stories like this are so ridiculous that they border on satire... and yet they're entirely true.

Rather than wasting taxpayer dollars such nonsense, the US government should be rolling out the red carpet for all nationalities with welcome signs saying "Thank you for spending your hard earned savings in our economy... and while you're at it, please consider mopping up our excess housing inventory!"

I mention housing because it's such a massive problem; the latest census data shows that there are 19 million vacant homes in the US... and climbing. There are only a handful of ways to clear out this surplus.

First, the country can wait it out until a new generation of Americans comes of age, moves away from mom, and establishes a new household. Given the country's anemic growth rate over the last decade, this option will take years. And years.

Second, the excess inventory could be consumed by a sudden surge in Americans' wealth that sends them on a shopping spree for second and third homes.

Considering that the government has spent a few trillion dollars to create a few hundred thousand temporary and low-paying jobs, however, this seems unlikely.

Third, foreigners could provide the much-needed influx of people and capital that are required to purchase and fill the surplus of homes. Given the way that the government has so distastefully mistreated foreigners over the last several years, however, those cries would likely fall on deaf ears.

Just ten to fifteen years ago, if the US housing market had been in a similar situation, foreigners from all over the world would have been lining up to buy cheap property in the states; there was no greater status symbol than having a home in New York, San Francisco, or Florida.

Today, foreigners understand that the world is a big place, and that there are dozens of other countries that will treat them like human beings, and offer attractive incentives to boot.

Latvia is one country already taking this step, offering EU residence to anyone that purchases real estate subject to minimum criteria (I'll have a lot more actionable information about this in our upcoming edition of Sovereign Man: Confidential, due out this weekend).

Meanwhile, the US government will continue to treat visitors like criminals, scare citizens about terrorist threats, and wrap itself up in a blanket of righteousness... all while failing to realize that instead of protecting the homeland, these policies take an active role in the destruction of the economy.

Simon Black
Senior Editor, SovereignMan.com


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Crossposted from Retire Caribbean.Info

Related: Chilean Life Insurance

Comments From Readers "It feels like an endless battle."

"Likely nothing without people like us kicking and screaming all the way.
Sara lives a few hours from me and we have become dear friends thru this all. She has made a lot of noise. She is one tough chick and Chemung Counties worse publicity campaign.My case was recently dismissed in PA with the court telling me to take my fight to Florida. It feels like an endless battle.

Thank you for all you continue to do for the cause."

xxxxxxxxxxx
Named blanked for privacy and to protect sender from further retribution

---------------

Hi Holly, when you are told to take your complaint to Florida, and in turn Florida will tell you to take it to re-open the case in Chermoung Co.

Some of us that have been through the mill are very familiar with these shenigans, when my mother Clara Fernandez was kidnapped in Monroe County Florida we were told that the case had to be reported in the locality she was found, after a grueling 10 hours drive through hurricane weather with my 88 years old father in tow because he could not understand why his wife of 56 years was taken , we were sent back home after sleeping in the car, (there were no hotel rooms,due to 4 hurricanes through Fl in the summer of 2005) after 20 hours in the car with a 88 year old grieving husband, (worried about his wife) the Sheriff's Dept told us it was a family matter ( a sibling that was left out of the will due to emotional instability kidnapped Clara Fernandez and drugged her, (Ample Evidence,available) then he re did the Will,POA's and transferred all liquid assets to him and his (alternate lifestyle) partner William B. Hart of Winter Park ,Florida.

To make a very long story shorter, the Sheriff said they could not help us and sent us to the State Attorneys' office, they in turn call it a civil matter and passed us on like a hot potato to the DCF, who initiated 7 back to back investigations, without ever doing anything other than hinder,obstruct and obscure the legal efforts underway to save my mother. *

The case was moved from Clara's place of residence, since the elder sibling had Clara execute a Quit Claim Deed the attorney for the counterpart could now claim that Clara did not owe any property in the county she resided and the venue was moved, time and time again at a very juicy profit for the courts and all the officers at the attorneys's feeding trough until a three million dollar equity ,result of multigenerational effort of sweat and tears was wiped out including the hopes of putting our children, (their grandchildren though college) went up with frivolous and padded multi layers legal bills by an army of attorneys all appointed by different parties, but paid for from the estate.

Clara went through 4 (four) different judges and again to condense in an effort to throw us off, Clara was dragged through four different counties leading one judge
to quote his own words, Clara being "On a string pulled from one county to another" Judge Von Hoff August 31, 2005

http://elder-abuse-cyberray.blogspot.com/2006/12/on-string-being-pulled-rom-one-county.html (click on document to view)

Holly after having being ridiculed, reputation and business ruined by unproven allegations and DCF complaints being used against us for the sole reason of Harassing, embarrassing, or harming another the victims, for personal financial gain for the reporting person for the reason of acquiring custody of a vulnerable adult and to gain personal benefit for the reporting person in the dispute involving a vulnerable adult.

Holly please realize that the worst stories, stories like that of Dr. A.J. Fernandez were not included the GAO report because families like mine do not wish to re live those moments that killed my father because of the stress of the situation and nearly destroyed the rest of us.

So we are quite familiar with the shenigans of the probate court to change the jurisdiction in order to keep victims off balance and un able to foot the legal bills for multiple jurisdictions, but because we are not children and do not lend ourselves to being called a 'Ping Pong Balls" ,our assets ransacked, being ridiculed in back room deals between attorneys and judges, we have decided to leave the country instead and opt out of the US legal system ....

"When appeasement of a corrupt court system in order to gain security and freedom, you lose both"

Ray Fernandez
Editor

*For the sake of being fair there were many hard working DCF workers who were fair and wanted to do a good job and protect the elderly but their hands were tied, like the time when a psychologist that interviewed Clara Fernandez thought that she was being financially abused by the Guardian attorney and filed a complaint with the DCF , upon being investigated he made it clear to the DCF investigator that if she persisted in her investigation of him (the attorney/guardian) she would not fare well.

Mentor Man Fighting For Elder Rights

By Tracey Read News-Herald.com

Tom Fields' father lay dying in a hospital bed in Florida on a morphine drip for cancer.

Fields, a Mentor resident, believes that during his final hours his father was the victim of financial elder abuse by people close to him.

He said his father's wishes about his property were altered as a new will was written.

"People took advantage of my father and got him to sign a document," Fields said.

"There was no protection against this. A protocol could have stopped that."

Fields is now an independent advocate fighting to get laws passed to protect families in similar situations.

"Nothing here in Ohio holds abusers accountable," he said. "My main focus is to keep people out of the court system, which is basically taking advantage of people who are victims."

Fields' first step was writing the Ohio Department of Aging to ask it to create task forces looking at elder abuse issues and how to prevent them.

He also proposed a step-by-step list of protocols for hospitals to follow to prevent financial abuse:

* The first step would be to create a checklist of conditions in which patients are most likely to be taken advantage of — those on morphine drips, in a coma, Alzheimer's patients.

* Before an attorney could have the patient sign anything, an independent, trained examiner would first examine the patient to determine whether they are competent to make important legal decisions.

* The independent examiner would go to the patient's room to ask open-ended questions to collect evidence.

"An example would be asking the patient, ‘Do you have any legal or financial business you would like to conduct?' " Fields said. "Sometimes, the patient is misled. They're told (a will) is a birthday card and they sign it."

* Compare the documents to make sure they say what the patient wants them to say.

"Don't wait until the person is dead to make sure their wishes are carried out," Fields added.

Fields, who has testified before the Ohio Elder Abuse Commission and spoken out against a state Senate bill before a House committee, is also hoping lawmakers allow people the right to include statements in their wills saying any changes to their wills can be voided if they are later proved incompetent.

"I want to give the person the ability to control his or her own affairs," he said.

Ohio Long-Term Care Ombudsman Beverley Laubert said Fields' efforts aren't going unnoticed.

State ombudsmen, who field complaints about long-term care services and voice clients' needs and concerns to nursing homes, are working on several possible solutions to elder abuse issues involving finances.

"We hope to give probate judges the authority to freeze assets when it looks like financial exploitation is taking place," Laubert said.

"We'd also like to add employers of banks and financial planners to the list of mandatory reporters of those who suspect exploitation.

"We just need to find a sponsor with the new General Assembly. I'm hoping we're going to make progress. Tom is a very strong advocate.

"I'm not sure everything we have will address his concerns, but it's a step in the right direction."

I invite anyone who wants to discuss with me this report to contact me, Tom Fields, by calling me at 440/255-7693 or e-mailing me at tvfields@oh.rr.com. I am especially interested in providing others more information about needed safeguards, expecially the 5-step interview protocol which I have described for the Elder Abuse Commission.


Additional Comments by Mr. Tom Field:

Meanwhile, I'd like to address the comment submitted on Jan 6, 2011 which asks if I have proof of what I allege. Not only do I have that proof, but for many years now I have exhibited that proof online so as to share it with others.

This proof consists of the transcripts of the sworn testimony of those involved in the case, including the defendant, doctors, and lawyers. See, for example, the testimony of the doctor who started my father on the morphine drip which begins at http://home.roadrunner.com/~tvfields/SteinmetzDepo/Frameset001.htm and is summarized at: http://home.roadrunner.com/~tvfields/SteinmetzDepo/Frameset000.htm.

Additional evidence is linked at: http://home.roadrunner.com/~tvfields/ILF_Links/Frameset001.htm.

Finally, as for that reader’s suggestion that I "retain a lawyer in or an investigator in Florida to look into it", I hope it is clear that this evidence was collected by Florida attorneys whom I retained to represent the estate. I also hope that reader and others might be interested in the following private opinion of Florida police detective Joe Roubicek "“The obvious contradictions abound and one would wonder what the judge was thinking. As for the lawmakers and what they can do about it … You've suggested putting specific safeguards in place … it seems to me that in your case there is no way that your father should have been recognized as having capacity while in his deathbed. There should have been laws in place to prevent that and prevent any judge from doing what this one did”. Detective Roubicek works in the county next to where my father died and is the author of the book "Financial Abuse of the Elderly: A Detective's Case Files of Exploitation Crimes". As he describes in Chapter 6 of his book, he helped bring about the current criminal code (FSA 825.103) which defines exploitation and makes it a crime.

False Complaints and the Florida Dept of Children and Families

On this Editorial for ElderAbuseHelp.Org I will quote an article By news-press.com Originally posted on February 09, 2007

"Floridians worried that a child or older adult is being abused can now report it online.
To report suspected abuse or neglect, go to the Web site of The Florida Department of Children and Families, www.dcf.state.fl.us/abuse/report.

Last year, there were about 348,000 abuse claims reported across the state.
In Lee County, there were 5,400 hot line calls.

The Web and phone system can be used to report concerns of abuse or neglect unless a child, elder, or person with disabilities is in immediate danger. In that case, call 911.A fax number, 800-914-0004, and a TDD number, 800-453-5145, for the deaf, hard of hearing or speech impaired are available to report abuse ".

We applaud any step in the right direction to make Elder Abuse reporting more accessible to complainants .

The DCF of Florida needs to have the ability to quickly differentiate between the perpetrators and the victims as time is of the essense with these cases. This is not always easy as Elder Abusers are shrewd and "the testator, misled by fraud, will often do so with pleasure and satisfaction.." - Dr. Irwin Perry M.D. J.D.

"An example of fraud is the situation where one influences a testator that another relative has stirred up trouble." - Irwin Perry M.D. J.D.

Florida Statutes 415.102 states :

(9) "False report" means a report of abuse, neglect, or exploitation of a vulnerable adult to the central abuse hot line which is not true and is maliciously made for the purpose of:

(a) Harassing, embarrassing, or harming another person;
(b) Personal financial gain for the reporting person;
(c) Acquiring custody of a vulnerable adult; or
(d) Personal benefit for the reporting person in any other private dispute involving a vulnerable adult.

The Division of Children and Families , and the Department of Elder affairs needs to have the resolve to have the provisions of Chapter 415.102 enforced and to develop a zero tolerance on Elder Abuse, this with the ability to move quickly to sort out the perpetrator from the victims will go a long ways in protecting our elders in the future.

Please email the DCF of Florida and express your own opinions and suggestions.
Their Communication contact list- The DCF Office of Communications contact list

By Ray Fernandez

Grandma Goes to Court

In a trial, a Southern small-town prosecuting attorney called his first witness, a grandmotherly, elderly woman to the stand. He approached her and asked, 'Mrs. Jones, do you know me?' She responded, 'Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a boy, and frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you'll never amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you.'

The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, 'Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?'

She again replied, 'Why yes, I do. I've known Mr. Bradley since he was a
youngster, too. He's lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can't build a normal relationship with anyone, and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him.'

The defense attorney nearly died.

The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench and, in a very quiet voice, said,

'If either of you sonofabitches asks her if she knows me, I'll send you both to the electric chair.'

More Predictions for 2011...

The excerpts taken below do not reflect the view of E.A. and or it's editor who would like to believe that Americans politicians are noble and caring individuals who are there for the peoples and are working hard to protect the hard working American public from injustices and ever vigilant to make sure the American people get the government and the justice they deserve but represent the view of a few fringe elements out there who refuse to drink the kool aid and obviously do not watch the evening news and are not aware of the green shoots and the economic recovery underway with a robust stock market leading the way. President Barack Obama recent remark to the report of increase jobs from the hiring of 411,00 census workers to say." "This report is a sign that our economy is getting stronger by the day." …

We are publishing this article in the interest of contrasting opinions..........

Editor

"I would love to wish all a Happy New Year, but unless one is a member in good-standing of the DC Hog Trough Diner 2011 is going to suck even worse than 2010. That may be hard for many to imagine, but the US has now engineered the Perfect Storm to assure that the USS Titanic is going to sink.

The bailouts and QE1 did nothing except accelerate the rate of transfer of wealth into the right pockets, and probably not your pockets. The proposed QE2, QE3, QE4, or as many 'quantitative easing' shams and scams as they want to do will continue to not work and accomplish nothing for the average American. The ship is going down and it is going to be more pain, no gain for what is a broke and broken US system.
Expect higher interest rates in 2011. The Bank of England has already stated up to 5%, and real inflation is much more than that. When food and energy prices are escalating but not factored into the real inflation rate, the numbers you are seeing are a sham, a lie.
If 'economic stimulus' did not happen at interest rates ranging from 0% to 1%, when they rise to 5% to 10% expect even less economic results in 2011. Sooner or later all parties end and it is then time to face the music. The music and what America will have to face in 2011 will be about the ugliest bitch of a year that has happened in the last 100 years.
Of course, the Fed will continue to manipulate the stock market so Americans think they are getting rich swimming with the sharks. When the value of the dollar is declining, the capital markets increasing as yet another bubble, the net effect is zero growth. In real terms, it might actually prove to be negative growth, more contraction and more bad employment news.

The rest of the world is asking the question so I will ask it too. What in Hell does it take to wake you stupid people up over in the 50 states of La-La Land?
Are you so wrapped up in dumbass you cannot grasp or understand anything that is fundamental to your wellbeing? Get this straight, Uncle Sam and Big Brother are not your friend.

Trust that hunger, poverty, lack of food will increase in 2011. These morons in DC do not care if you are starving, and evidently Americans cannot make the mental connection as to why they are hungry and starving.
The US will set an all time record in debt versus lack of production output in 2011. The US is not the world's largest economy and has not been in several years. The EU has taken that away even with a stronger currency and China just pushed Japan out as the second largest production output.

The only 'change' in the world is every place except America. The voters of America did not vote for change in November 2010. The same liars, thieves and traitors are still firmly in control of America, so there will be no change, only the appearance of change.

Printing money is not industrial output. That is simple to grasp but seems to be lost on most Americans. When US GDP is around 46% 'financial services' and a large amount of that is brazen fraud, America needs to rethink its business plan. First it killed the output, then the jobs and now well on its way to killing a nation. I doubt that America will rethink its business plan in 2011, so expect more of the same and maybe worse.

I wonder at times if Americans can grasp the sheer magnitude of fraud that was the rigged, artificial 'robust economy' Bush kept bragging about and was literally a house of cards housing market. There was only about $4 trillion stolen from foreign nations, banks, pension funds, insurance companies and private investors to create the illusion that everything was just hunky-dory in Nitwitville, America.

Americans seem to want their salvation delivered to the door like a pizza. It has never worked that way, 2011 will not change that fact.

The BP Deep Horizon blow out will continue to destroy an entire ecosystem. What was recently reported as 'BP oil covers 1,000's of miles of ocean floor' will change to read "BP oil covers 10's of thousands of miles of ocean floor". Many will continue to get sick, up to and including the point of either dying or their health being ruined for life.

Yeah, Americans like to talk about their freedoms and rights. Go ahead, all Americans have the right to eat as much oil contaminated seafood as they wish.
Be careful swimming in what used to be a beautiful gulf, the sharks are running out of food.

The American voice will continue to become less relevant in this coming year. It does not take a crystal ball to figure that one out. When a sound asleep nation is lead by liars, con-artists and idiots, there is no possible outcome but a stupid end solution.

Global Warming will continue to be revealed as a scam as much of the world braces itself for the worst winter in the past 100 to 200 years.

Americans will still obediently comply with any TSA abuse, thinking wrongly that America is being protected. Maybe when TSA starts shoving their fist up American asses, Americans will realize that the hardest nation on Earth to travel within is the United States for Americans and foreigners alike. There are no problems elsewhere and no TSA sort of shakedown, humiliation and abuse.

Financial collapse of America? That is very likely, so make sure you have food, means to raise or buy food, and make sure the lifejacket is handy. There are very turbulent waters ahead.
If you have not considered moving to a real nation, you might want to consider that. America is toast!! "

By Karl Schwarz
12-31-10

Related=>>Fall of the Republic (Video)

Gerald Celente's Top Trends Of 2011

Top Trends of 2011 By Gerald Celente 12-28-10

KINGSTON, NY, 28 December 2010 - After the tumultuous years of the Great Recession, a battered people may wish that 2011 will bring a return to kinder, gentler times. But that is not what we are predicting:

1. Wake-Up Call The people of all nations, having become convinced of the inability of leaders and know-it-all "arbiters of everything" to fulfill their promises, will do more than just question authority, they will defy it. The seeds of revolution will be sown.

2. Crack-Up 2011 In 2011, with the bailout funds and arsenal of other schemes to prop up the economy depleted, teetering economies will collapse, currency wars will ensue, trade barriers will be erected, economic unions will splinter, and the onset of the "Greatest Depression" (a trend we forecasted before the massive bailouts existed) will be recognized by everyone.

3. Screw the People As times get even tougher and people get even poorer, the "authorities" will intensify their efforts to extract the funds needed to meet fiscal obligations. While there will be variations on the theme, the governments' song will be the same: cut what you give, raise what you take.

4. Crime Waves No job + no money + compounding debt = high stress, strained relations, short fuses. In 2011, with the fuse lit, it will be prime time for Crime Time. As Gerald Celente says, "When people lose everything and they have nothing left to lose, they lose it." And "lose it" they will.

5. Crackdown on Liberty As crime rates rise, so will the voices demanding a crackdown. A national crusade to "Get Tough on Crime" will be waged against the citizenry. And just as in the "War on Terror," where "suspected terrorists" are killed before proven guilty or jailed without trial, in the "War on Crime" everyone is a suspect until proven innocent.

6. Alternative Energy In laboratories and workshops unnoticed by mainstream analysts, scientific visionaries and entrepreneurs are forging a new physics incorporating principles once thought impossible, working to create devices that liberate more energy than they consume. What are they, and how long will it be before they can be brought to market?

7. Journalism 2.0 2011 will mark the year that new methods of news and information distribution will render the 20th century model obsolete. With its unparalleled reach across borders and language barriers, "Journalism 2.0" has the potential to influence and educate citizens in a way that governments and corporate media moguls would never permit.

8. Cyberwars In 2010, every major government acknowledged that Cyberwar was a clear and present danger and, in fact, had already begun. The demonstrable effects of Cyberwar and its companion, Cybercrime, are already significant ­ and will come of age in 2011. Equally disruptive will be the harsh measures taken by global governments to control free access to the web, identify its users, and literally shut down computers that it considers a threat to national security.

9. Youth of the World Unite University degrees in hand yet out of work, in debt and with no prospects on the horizon, feeling betrayed and angry, young adults and 20-somethings are mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore. Not mature enough to control their impulses, the confrontations they engage in will escalate disproportionately.

10. End of The World! The closer we get to 2012, the louder the calls will be that "The End is near!" Among Armageddonites the actual end of the world, and annihilation of the Earth in 2012, is a matter of certainty. Even the rational and informed may sometimes feel the world is in a perilous state. Both streams of thought are leading many to reevaluate their chances for personal survival, be it in heaven or on earth.

11. The Mystery Trend ... will be revealed upon publication of theTrends Journal in mid-January.

With http://enews.trendsresearch.com an unexcelled track record to prove it, no one can provide a more accurate look into the future than Gerald Celente, Trends Journal Publisher.

To scoop your competition and give your audience something of real significance to think about ­ and talk about in the New Year, schedule an interview with Gerald Celente by contacting:

Zeke West, Media Relations
zwest@trendsresearch.com
845 331.3500 Ext. 1