...waiting to hear anything resembling hard-hitting news from anyone on television. NBC (owned by GE, whose fortunes as a defense contractor have risen substantially with the phony "war on terror") in particular isn't ever going to stray too far from the party line. Check out their "Nightly News" broadcast sometime -- stories about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are framed in such obviously propagandistic ways as to be laughable.

There is no real "Fourth Estate" on television (or radio or almost all mass media publications) anymore, except for small tidbits here and there that are quickly denounced and/or simply deleted. It's all now a part of the military-industrial-government propaganda machine. Even the wire services are part of the propaganda process, often repeating things that are totally false (like the bit about Iran's Ahmadinejad calling for "Israel to be wiped off the map").

It's ALL under the control of very few people who are also the same people who control our government and the military-industrial complex.

You didn't really think they'd overlook control of the news media, did you?

“It is the final triumph of a system of domination when the dominated start singing its virtues.”

-Ngugi WaThiong'o, Decolonizing the Mind

Bush: Threat of World War III if Iran goes nuclear

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1732974320071017

We lived for decades with a nuclear-armed (to the teeth) Soviet Union. Now, somehow, if Iran has a nuke (something of which there is no proof whatsoever!), it's WWIII time!

The military-industrial complex and their government sock puppets are going to start a war that will make Iraq look like a Sunday School picnic. The mass media is preparing the way with this kind of hysterical garbage.

Terror! Nukes! Muslims! Terror!

This will have the dual effect of pumping up the profits of those who make war and giving the criminals who run this country a very convenient scapegoat for the crashing of the U.S. economy -- which, together, are going to be their further rationale for even more curtailing of civil liberties and fascist government control.

The demise of all that we hold dear as Americans is happening in front of our eyes, folks.

re: "...how far all of this is going to go..."

All the way.

"Merrill said the writedown increased after the firm took a second look at its valuation of collateralized debt obligations and subprime mortgage backed securities."

http://www.thestreet.com/s/merrill-writedown-mushrooms/newsanalysis/wallstreet/10386153.html?puc=_googlen?cm_ven=GOOGLEN&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA

Fact is, NO ONE really knows the proper "valuation of collateralized debt obligations and subprime mortgage backed securities". And, whatever they might actually have been yesterday, you can be sure they're dropping today -- with no end in sight.

Mortgage Originated Credit Crunch May Just Be Beginning

(Excerpt): The whole structure of the [mortgage] security presumes there will be… buyers of the low quality tiers. When [that] end of the market dries up, you can’t sell the higher quality tiers either. So the entire market just shuts down. (MORE)

http://usmarket.seekingalpha.com/article/44233

Julian Robertson Predicts a Doozy of a Recession

"I think we are going to have a doozy of a recession," Robertson told CNBC's Erin Burnett. "I think the credit situation is worse than anybody realizes, and...I think we're getting little inklings of that. I don't think any of the normal indicators you would look at in the economy are really very strong. As a matter of fact, they are weak, and not really getting any better."

http://seekingalpha.com/article/50747-julian-robertson-predicts-a-doozy-of-a-recession

US a paper tiger, says doomsayer

"Everyone thinks the US is the No.1 economy in the world. We're not. All we've been doing is consuming stuff on borrowed money. There's no savings...The collapse of consumer spending, associated with higher mortgage payments and vanishing home equity, will plunge the economy into severe recession, further exacerbating the collapse in real estate prices, worsening the recession and continuing the vicious cycle...People call us the biggest economy in the world but it's false, we'll be lucky to be in the top 20 in two years' time."

-economist Peter Schiff

http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23636,22234638-462,00.html

See you in the soup lines, folks.

"We lost sight of the fact that debt-induced growth was not the same as a legitimate economic recovery. Fiscal and monetary stimuli are tools, not a solution, but few questions were asked as long as the markets were buoyant. All the while, the very basis of our investments, the dollar, continued to erode."

-Todd Harrison, founder and CEO of Minyanville

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/looking-devils-street/story.aspx?guid=%7B5ED9F803%2D6811%2D4F79%2D9113%2DE7A128D1B4E0%7D

Reports Suggest Broader Losses From Mortgages

Every time economists and Wall Street executives think they have acknowledged the full extent of the losses from the meltdown in real estate mortgages, more bad news turns up.

...At this juncture, economists say the troubles in the mortgage market could, all told, cost financial firms and investors up to $400 billion....Experts caution that these estimates are preliminary and the total costs could get bigger still [THEY WILL - Scorpio]. They also note that the loss of real estate wealth could prove more damaging for the general public than falling stock values because more American families own homes than own stock... (MORE)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/business/25mortgage.html?em&ex=1193457600&en=306d5ec90da8dec6&ei=5087%0A

You ain't seen nothin' yet.