Cashless Society, NEW WORLD ORDER

When Abraham Lincoln allowed the Treasury to print money for the first time in the depths of the Civil War, it was a major innovation born of a pressing reality.

The Union was broke.

Now, 150 years later, in admittedly less dire circumstances, Congress is preparing itself for the next big thing when it comes to money — a future in which payments are made with a wand like wave of a phone rather than the exchange of wrinkled pieces of paper.

"We are, I think, on a precipice of some fundamental change in the way money is exchanged between consumers and businesses," Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said as she opened the first of a string of hearings in March.

Federally backed paper money allowed the Union to keep fighting the war after the government had burned through its coin reserves and a massive loan from banks, and had been reduced to writing IOUs to pay soldiers.

The greenback government notes, initially conceived as an emergency measure, quickly gained acceptance, with soldiers seeing it as their patriotic duty to spend them. But paper money is a 19th-century technology that has barely changed in 15 decades. Since the mid-1990s, cash has been in decline, according to a Federal Reserve estimate.

It now faces stiff competition not only from credit cards but also from smartphones that promise businesses a way to advertise to customers before they pay or to offer them coupons, sort of like printing a little ad next to George Washington's face or bumping up the value of a dollar bill to a dollar and 15 cents.

"The mobile device becomes a new marketing channel for merchants to use," said Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the industry group the Smart Card Alliance.

The Federal Reserve found in March that 12 percent of cellphone users had already made a payment through their phones. The same month, almost two-thirds of technology experts surveyed by the Pew Center on Internet and American Life said they expected mobile payments to eclipse cash and credit cards by 2020.

Last year, Google started Wallet, one of the most promising demonstrations of mobile money. It works by linking a phone to a credit card or a prepaid debit card. To pay in a store, a customer passes his phone over a reader at the checkout, sending the information using a technology called near field communication, or NFC.

Google partnered with Sprint, and AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon teamed up and planned to start their own NFC-based system called Isis this summer. Apple and PayPal are expected to offer ways to pay by phone too.

Although the attention of the country's biggest tech and wireless companies signals a watershed moment for mobile payments, members of Congress and regulators grappled at the hearings with how to make sure the competing systems played nicely together.

Richard Oliver, a retired executive at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, advocated an "open mobile wallet" that could be stuffed with just as many credit cards, receipts and store cards as a real wallet.

Serious questions about security and privacy need to be answered. There are concerns that hackers could siphon off money without customers noticing.

"The bottom line is that as the mobile payment system evolves it is important . . . to provide proper oversight so that these payments can be secure and convenient," Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., said in March.

Wendell Wolka, a historian and collector of money, points out that a "cashless society" has been predicted for decades.

Despite its limitations, cash offers privacy and is likely to be accepted by anyone, even in the middle of a blackout.

There may also be ways for cash to live side by side with mobile money.

Frustrated by what he considered to be the dull appearance of U.S. paper money, Richard Smith, a creative director at the marketing firm Sullivan, set up the Dollar ReDe$ign Project and received beautiful new designs.

But, he said, "The most interesting ideas I got were those that went beyond traditional currency."

For example, one submission proposed an elegant balance between paper and electronic money. It involved bills printed at home that could also be scanned into a digital account using a phone.

Yasmina Haryono, a Berlin interaction designer on the team behind the idea, said she wanted to give people complete control over their money.

WAKE UP AMERICA...ITS TIME !!

Let me ask you a question, With Syria gaining chemical weapons from Russia, Iran on the verge of Nuclear weapons, this Islamic uprising throughout the middle east and moving fast to the rest of the world, the formation of the new Eurasia union with Russia, China Brazil and India, the global collapse of economy’s around the world, Hezbollah and Mujahedin pouring across our borders in the south every day, our own security council talking about how many terrorist are pouring across our , wide open southern borders, …with  all of this in mind, do you thing that SOMETHING is not going to happen ??  Can you say this will all settle down and everyone in the world will find common ground and all will be well? NO NO NO. something bad, very bad is going to happen and it will effect the entire world ! there is no way at this point to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

On my radio show I have been showing all of these events in news and sound bites for a long time. I have been screaming it from the roof tops. WHY? Because its time for all people to be ready for a change that the world has never seen before ! If you know God, its time to get right with your maker, its time to know the truth about who and what we as created people really are. Don’t allow the things of the world to fool you into a sense of complacence ! the reality you think you know is not the true reality ! its time to wake up America, time to set aside, even for a short time and look at the world the way it really is ! if you don’t you will be as sheep to the slaughter ! think I am kidding…take one day….ONE DAY out of your life and dedicate it to doing some good research to find the truth of what is the true reality ! If you love your family and friends, for Gods sake DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT !!  because if you don’t you will be counted as just another conquered people, or worse.

W Dean Shook, wdeanshook.com,  and here is a link to my Radio show where I cover this every day. Live at 8:00 pm pacific time or listen to past shows at Blog Talk Radio.com ……..http://www.blogtalkradio.com/w-dean-shook.rss

Jerusalem to become Egypt’s capital

If Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi became president, Egypt’s new capital will no more be Cairo, the new capital will be Jerusalem, a Egyptian cleric said at a presidential campaign rally, which was aired by an Egyptian private TV channel.

“Our capital shall not be Cairo, Mecca or Medina. It shall be Jerusalem with God’s will. Our chants shall be: ‘millions of martyrs will march towards Jerusalem’,” prominent cleric Safwat Hagazy said, according to the video aired by Egypt’s religious Annas TV on Tuesday.

The video went viral after being posted on YouTube – accompanied by English subtitles by Memri TV –, with 61,691 views until Thursday night.

Egyptian cleric Safwat Hegazy  shouts during a demonstration at Tahrir Square in Cairo, against the verdict for deposed leader Hosni Mubarak. (Reuters)

“The United States of the Arabs will be restored on the hands of that man [Mursi] and his supporters. The capital of the [Muslim] Caliphate will be Jerusalem with God’s will,” Hegazy said, as the crowds cheered, waving the Egyptian flags along with the flags of the Islamist Hamas group, which rules the Gaza Strip.

“Tomorrow Mursi will liberate Gaza,” the crowds chanted.

“Yes, we will either pray in Jerusalem or we will be martyred there,” Hegazy said.

Hegazy’s speech came during a presidential campaign rally at the Egyptian Delta city of Mahalla, where Mursi attended along with the Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohammed Badei and members of the group and its political wing the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).

Mursi will challenge Egypt’s former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq in the election run-off, scheduled on June 16 and 17. Shafiq, an air force general, was the country’s last prime minister before former president Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down by a popular uprising in February 2011.

A court on Saturday sentenced the former ruler and his interior minister to life imprisonment for their role in the killings of up to 850 protesters in the January 25 uprising that ended Mubarak’s 30-year rule. Six senior police officers were acquitted for lack of evidence.

The verdicts were met by angry street protests by Egyptians who considered them too lenient and demanded a purge of the judiciary.

Members of the Islamist-dominated parliament attacked the verdicts, accusing the court of ignoring the rights of peaceful protesters killed in the uprising.

Hegazy led thousands of protesters at Cairo’s iconic Tarir Square against the verdicts. Protesters also called for the endorsing of the ‘Political Isolation Law’ that could bar political figures from Mubarak era, including Shafiq, from joining political life in the country for some years.

Endorsing the law, which will be decided by Cairo Supreme Constitutional Court on June 14, two days before the election run-off, could push Shafiq out of the presidential race.

For activists, choosing Shafiq would symbolize a return to the old regime and an end to the revolution. Voting for Mursi, on the other hand, would mean handing Egypt to an Islamic movement they say has monopolized power since the uprising.

wdeanshook.com    e-mail  contact@wdeanshook.com

The decline of America

All over America tonight there are people that believe that their lives are over.  When you do everything that you know how to do to get a job and you still can't get one it can be absolutely soul crushing.  If you have ever been unemployed for an extended period of time you know exactly what I am talking about.  When you have been unemployed for month after month it can be very tempting to totally cut yourself off from society.  Those that are kind will look at you with pity and those that are cruel will treat you as though you are a total loser.  It doesn't matter that America is in decline and that our economy is not producing nearly enough jobs for everyone anymore.  In our society, one of the primary things that defines our lives is what we do for a living.  Just think about it.  When you are out in a social situation, what is one of the very first things that people ask?  They want to know what you "do".  Well, if you don't "do" anything, then you are not part of the club.  But the worst part of being unemployed for many Americans is the relentless pressure from family and friends.  Often they have no idea how hard it is to find a job in this economy - especially if they still have jobs.  Sometimes the pressure becomes too great.  Sadly, we are seeing unemployment break up a lot of marriages in America today.  Things are really hard out there right now.  A very large number of highly educated Americans have taken very low paying service jobs in recent years just so that they can have some money coming in even as they "look for something else".  Unfortunately, in many cases that "something else" never materializes.  In the past, America was "the land of opportunity" where anything was possible.  But today America has become "the land of lowered expectations" and the worst is yet to come.
We live during a time when "the American Dream" is literally being redefined.  In the old days, just about anyone could get a good job that would pay enough to make it possible to buy a house, buy a nice car and raise a family.
Unfortunately, those days are long gone. 
Today morals, ethics and honesty are words that this new generation have to look up to understand. People today will act in a dishonest way, in larger in number, more often then ever before. The media tells us crime rates are on the decline, the opposite is true, not only are crimes on the rise, but the brutality and severity of crimes are off the chart ! Greed and self have moved in to America to stay, Can we put the tooth paste back in the tube.
come to my radio broadcast at ..http://www.blogtalkradio.com/w-dean-shook.rss
Or e-mail me at contact@wdeanshook.com......or the web page at wdeanshook.com..

Pat Leahy’s Anti-Israel Extremism

Last Thursday, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) targeted an amendment by Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) that would force the State Department to determine how many actual Palestinian refugees – not their children, relatives, friends, or distant relations – are being served by US tax dollars. Leahy was upset because he knew, as most supporters of the Palestinian cause do, that the number of Palestinians who fled or were expelled from Israel during the 1948 war of annihilation launched by the Arabs against Israel is far smaller than the number of Palestinians now claiming redress.
“Frankly, Mr. Chairman, as a member of this committee, I always look at what is in the United States’ interest first and foremost,” he said on the Senate floor. “And this would hurt the United States’ interests. It may give a momentary advantage to one side or the other after we spend all that money, but it hurts the United States’ interests.” His inflection was clear – he was implying that those who support the Kirk Amendment are more interested in Israel’s interests than in those of the United States.
That implication is that anyone who supports Israel is not an American patriot. And that is a charge that has been aimed over and over at Israel supporters by the far left of late, from Media Matters’ MJ Rosenberg, who uses the white supremacist term “Israel firster” to smear those who support Israel, to Think Progress bloggers, who have used the same language.

US-Pakistan rift widens

A rift between the US and Pakistan appears to be widening at the Nato summit in Chicago – a dangerous development that could undermine Barack Obama's hopes for an orderly withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The US has said repeatedly that Pakistan holds the key to the future of the region but relations between Obama and President Asif Ali Zardari have deteriorated in a standoff over supply routes to Afghanistan.
Pakistan closed the routes after a US air strike killed two dozen Pakistani troops in November.
Obama is refusing to see Zardari, possibly because he arrived in Chicago without a deal in his pocket on reopening the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to US transport. A White House spokesman said no bilateral meeting between Obama and Zardari at the Nato summit was scheduled.
Instead Pakistan is making a series of demands in return for reopening the supply routes, including a review of the US policy of drone attacks against targets inside Pakistan and a public apology for the killing of its troops.
Zardari was invited late to the two-day Nato summit, which will be dominated on Monday by discussion of the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan by 2014 and the retention of a modest armed presence in the county for a decade after that.
The Obama administration had high hopes that Zardari would arrive in Chicago prepared to announce the opening of supply routes essential to Nato. Zardari, in talks with the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, made a series of demands, offering to reopen the supply routes only if the US was prepared to pay a higher charge for each vehicle using it, doubling the tariff from $250 to $500 per vehicle. Sources later said Pakistan may be demanding up to $5,000 per vehicle. Zardari also wants a public apology for the killings.
The fact that Zardari had to settle for a meeting with Clinton rather than the president is in itself a snub.
General John Allen, the US commander in Afghanistan, told reporters at a briefing: "There have been some very positive indications of late with the government in Islamabad about an interest in entering into negotiations, which I think you're all aware of, to open the ground line of communications. I can't tell you when that will occur – obviously sooner is better than later."
A Pakistan presidential spokesman said Zardari told Clinton he wanted "to find a permanent solution to the drone issue as it not only violated our sovereignty but also inflamed public sentiments due to innocent civilian casualties". The US is using drone attacks on suspected al-Qaida and Taliban members.
The Obama administration is angry over the demand for increased payments given the level of aid America is already giving to Pakistan. US officials frequently portray Pakistan as pivotal to a peaceful resolution of the Afghanistan conflict.
The Nato summit is on course to agree details of a phased withddrawal of the 130,000 international troops over the next two and a half years and to announce millions in dollars to maintain Afghan forces after 2014.
Pakistan has a crucial role in Afghanistan because of its close ties to the Taliban and other insurgent groups challenging the Afghanistan government.
Pakistan will regard it as a humiliation that Obama refused to grant Zardari a bilateral meeting, particularly as he met President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan in Chicago on Sunday an hour before the Nato summit opened.
The Obama administration has expressed regret over the killing of the Pakistan troops but is reluctant to issue an apology, concerned this will be portrayed by Republicans as a sign of weakness.
The Nato secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said on Sunday that Nato realised it could not solve Afghanistan's problems without including Pakistan in the solution. He expressed hope the supply route issue would be resolved soon.
With the route through Pakistan closed, Nato has had to use supply routes to the north of Afghanistan, which are slower and more costly.
The White House national security spokesman, Ben Rhodes, asked at a press conference if Zardari had gone to Chicago under the misconception he would see Obama, replied that Obama's schedule was busy. He said issues such as the reopening of supply lines were not normally dealt with at presidential level. Rhodes said: "The invitation to attend this summit was extended by Nato of course. We obviously supported that. It's important for Pakistan to be here because as we contemplate the future of the region, they are obviously going to be a part of that picture.
"What I would say is, frankly, the types of issues that are being worked through about the reopening of the supply lines are not the type of issues that get hammered out at the presidential level. These are things that working-level negotiating teams sit down and address."
Rhodes did not anticipate a bilateral meeting between Zardari and Obama.

Government troops and warplanes pounded al-Qaida positions in southern Yemen on Wednesday, killing at least 29 militants as part of a ramped up campaign against the group, military officials said.
Al-Qaida-linked fighters have taken over a swath of territory and several towns in the south, including the Abyan provincial capital of Zinjibar, in the past year, pushing out government forces and setting up their own rule. In recent weeks, the army has launched a concerted effort to dislodge the militants from their strongholds - and is closely coordinating with U.S. troops who are helping guide the operations from inside Yemen.
On Wednesday, Yemeni airstrikes hit a farm in Moudia, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the town of Lawder in Abyan, where al-Qaida fighters were holed up, killing at least 16 militants including top local commander Samir al-Fathani, officials said.
Witnesses said plumes of smoke drifted over the site, which was littered with the charred wreckage of two destroyed vehicles.


Al-Fathani's brother, Abdel-Monem al-Fathani, was involved in the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000 and was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Abyan in late January.
The fighting is part of a four-front offensive the military began Tuesday, using warplanes and heavy artillery to clear the way for an assault by ground troops on towns where al-Qaida fighters are either operating or in control. For the first time, Yemen's army is receiving direct help from U.S. troops, who are operating from a desert air base near the main battle zones to help coordinate assaults and airstrikes, according to Yemeni officials.
The officials said it was the most direct American involvement yet in the country's expanding campaign against al-Qaida's branch in Yemen, which has been blamed for directing a string of unsuccessful bomb plots on U.S. soil from its hideouts in the impoverished country at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula.
The U.S. has strongly backed Yemen's new president, Abed Rabbo Hadi, who took power in February as part of a U.S.-backed deal that pushed authoritarian leader Ali Abdullah Saleh, once a U.S. ally, out of office. Hadi has since vowed to make the fight against al-Qaida a priority.
On Wednesday, President Barack Obama signed an executive order allowing the Treasury Department to freeze the U.S.-based assets of individuals who the White House says "threaten the peace, security and stability" of Yemen. The order was meant as a deterrent against future action and does not immediately levy any penalties against specific people or organizations.
The Yemeni military has enlisted the support of tribal militiamen in its campaign against al-Qaida. Fighting alongside government forces Wednesday, militiamen killed 13 militants who were trying to retake a strategic hilltop, Youssef Mountain, overlooking Lawder. Two militiamen were killed in the fighting, officials said.
On another front in Zinjibar, hit-and-run gunbattles between government troops and al-Qaida fighters left four soldiers dead, according to a military hospital official.
Also, a security official said a Jordanian surgeon was arrested on suspicion he was heading to Zinjibar to join al-Qaida.
All of the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief the media.
The fighting in Abyan, particularly around the town of Jaar, has resulted in scores of civilian casualties, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Wednesday. It did not provide numbers.
"We are extremely concerned about the increasing number of casualties and about allegations of airstrikes in civilian locations," said Eric Marclay, the head of the ICRC delegation in Yemen.
The ICRC called on all parties to distinguish between civilians and fighters, and protect health care workers operating in the areas.
In the last three months, the ICRC said it tended to around 100,000 internally displaced people and residents in Abyan, providing them with food and other material.