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"Recession" has a clear technical definition.

Based on easily manipulable data
.

You statists are so cute when you're at your most utterly naive and gullible!

Yes and no. Germany isn't being nefarious. The crux of the issue is the same as it's always been - Greece should never have joined the EU. Germany and Greece have very different economies and different fiscal and monetary policies. Given Germany has more power in voting, Greece knew what they were getting into. In fact, they lied about their economy just to get in - because they wanted the benefits of the euro that all EU countries would enjoy plus the stability of the euro and the lower interest rate they could (and did) restructure their debt under when converting to the euro. This backfired during the Great Recession when they were disproportionately affected and subsequently every country in the EU was given a different interest rating for their government bonds based upon their individual risk where before, they were all given the same risk level - so they got currency stability, but lost interest rate stability.

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/...

Germany pushed for rules to entry that require a deficit lower than 3% of GDP - Greece cooked their books and lied when they showed numbers to the EU lower than that. There was also a rule that total debt had to be lower than 60% of GDP. Greece hadn't seen numbers like that in decades, but the rule was bent and they were allowed in. HUGE mistake for all parties. Greece wasn't a good fit even with lots of safeguards in place as their needs didn't match Germany and other players.

40% of Germany's GDP comes from exports... and they got rid of exchange rates between EU countries plus lower exchange rates worldwide because the euro wouldn't increase in value as quickly as the deutschmark - the trade-off for them was that they pay higher interest rates to support the overall euro. Greece got bonuses, too -- lower interest rates, lower inflation, and cheaper imports which briefly led to a higher standard of living. Greece was on track to lowering its debt and increasing GDP...

What happened? - the market crash, the housing crash, worldwide economic collapse basically. Everyone suffered, but not equally. Greece couldn't effectively use monetary policy to help recover from the injury because it was tied to the EU - and Germany, who weathered the slump like a champ and saw no need for such measures, had more power to control that monetary policy in the EU than Greece or other suffering countries.

So, the dominoes start falling. Greece takes one measure after another to compensate for the lack of monetary policy flexibility as it crushes under debt without the ability to change the money supply and/or interest rates, or ease trade with fluctuating exchange rates. Their credit rating is downgraded making it impossible to get decent interest rates on loans needed to get themselves through the recession. There was no money for a stimulus package and the crippling debt just made the situation worse. The bailouts and debt-restructurings are nice peace-offerings, but wow... when you see how Greece was dealing with up to nearly 30% interest rates for a while there, it still feels like they're being fleeced. The whole thing smells of usury.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi...

Coupled with austerity measures during a recession, I'm surprised Greece didn't just get up and leave the EU long ago. I don't blame Germany for acting in their own best interests, but I do blame each EU country that allowed members to join that did not match the necessary economic requirements.

Spain and Greece are suffering high unemployment largely because their wages are in euros and they can't do much with fiscal and monetary policies to ease their current competitive disadvantage:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E...

If they hadn't joined the EU to begin with, they might have bee

Here are some citations to get you started:

• Merkel is deliberately cutting green energy subsidies
• her predecessor left directly to Gazprom
• first link out of Google about Hungary
• more on Merkel

Transcend Conditioned Consciousness None But Ourselves Can Free Our Minds

Captcha: origins

Transcend Conditioned Consciousness None But Ourselves Can Free Our Minds

Captcha: enlists

We can PRINT FOR FREE:

The Trillion Dollar Coin: What You Really Need to Know

Don't be fooled, governments have INFINITE MONEY:
The Trillion Dollar Coin: What You Really Need to Know

The Trillion Dollar Coin: What You Really Need to Know

In fact during our colonial days, our government did fund its operations by issuing colonial scrip. Our colonies were flourishing at this time and because the government was printing its own money, there was no need for income taxes. (By the way, it is not a coincidence that the Federal Income tax was instituted just before the Federal Reserve Act because the bankers know that the government would need the revenue to pay for the interest on its money supply and debt.) The colonial governments would issue this colonial scrip to pay their debts. There were some colonies that printed too many and suffered inflation, but most were judicious in their creation. Once the British bankers became aware of this colonial prosperity and how their debt based money system was being bypassed, they petitioned King George to forbid the colonies to issue their own currency. Since the bankers controlled the monarchy then, much as they control our government today, their wishes were granted. This quickly resulted in not enough circulating money to facilitate economic activity and the colonies quickly entered into a deep depression. It was this economic depression that was the driving force for the American Revolution.

Another time that the U.S. government printed its own money was during the civil war. The bankers tried to extort interest rates from Lincoln of 24% to 36% to finance the war.

“I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe.”

Abraham Lincoln

The Trillion Dollar Coin: What You Really Need to Know

The Trillion Dollar Coin: What You Really Need to Know

Another time the U.S. government printed its own money was in 1963 under Kennedy’s Executive Order No. 11110 that returned to the U.S. government the power to issue currency, without going through the Federal Reserve. This order instructed the Treasury to print bills against any silver inventory held by the government. There were billions of these certificates printed and they were known as United States Notes and they were all interest free. Some of you may remember some of these bills as they had a red seal, rather than the more common green seal of the Federal Reserve Notes. These United States Notes represented a mortal threat to the Federal Reserve System, and we all know what happened to Kennedy 5 months later.

After the Kennedy assassination, no more interest free United States Notes were issued. The Executive Order was never repealed by any U.S. President, This Executive Order is still valid, yet no president Republican or Democrat has ever utilized it!

Think about this, much of the $16 trillion in debt that was created since the Kennedy assassination has been because of the interest payments on the debt. If any subsequent president had found the courage to use Executive Order 1110, our current level of debt would be magnitudes smaller. We would not be in the same mess we are in now. So when you hear people talking about needing budget cuts in order to solve our problems and leaving a legacy of debt to our children, you are listening to people who do not understand our monetary system, or worse, they are supporters of the current system of debt that can never be paid off with the resulting perpetual interest payments to the private bankers. The better solution would be to have the government issuing its own money, debt free. Now that would be a great “gift” to our children and grandchildren!

One very valid point made by critics of having the government being able to issue its own money is that there will be nothing to restrain the government from simply overspending. In reality, banker issued debt money has also done little to limit government spending. The mechanism we have currently for that now is the congressionally approved debt ceiling, however flawed that is. Any move towards government issued money could be met by congressionally mandated structures to prevent runaway spending. At the least, if we did not have to deal with the interest payments, our spending would be significantly less than it is currently and that would help cut the deficit significantly.

Captcha: interim

The Trillion Dollar Coin: What You Really Need to Know

The “experts” in the corporate media ridicule the idea of the coin (government printing its own debt free money) and say that nothing like this has ever been done before. That would not be accurate either.

In fact during our colonial days, our government did fund its operations by issuing colonial scrip. Our colonies were flourishing at this time and because the government was printing its own money, there was no need for income taxes. (By the way, it is not a coincidence that the Federal Income tax was instituted just before the Federal Reserve Act because the bankers know that the government would need the revenue to pay for the interest on its money supply and debt.) The colonial governments would issue this colonial scrip to pay their debts. There were some colonies that printed too many and suffered inflation, but most were judicious in their creation. Once the British bankers became aware of this colonial prosperity and how their debt based money system was being bypassed, they petitioned King George to forbid the colonies to issue their own currency. Since the bankers controlled the monarchy then, much as they control our government today, their wishes were granted. This quickly resulted in not enough circulating money to facilitate economic activity and the colonies quickly entered into a deep depression. It was this economic depression that was the driving force for the American Revolution.

Another time that the U.S. government printed its own money was during the civil war. The bankers tried to extort interest rates from Lincoln of 24% to 36% to finance the war.

“I have two great enemies, the Southern Army in front of me and the bankers in the rear. Of the two, the one at my rear is my greatest foe.”

Abraham Lincoln

Instead of acquiescing to the bankers, Lincoln courageously started printing Greenbacks to finance the war saving the nation huge future interest payments. In fact the Greenbacks were so popular with the people that a political party formed called the Greenback Party. In the end, we all know what happened to Lincoln.

The Trillion Dollar Coin: What You Really Need to Know

Think about this: if you had the LEGAL right to print your own money would you:

1. print your own money to pay your bills?

2. borrow money at interest from the private banks to pay your bills?

Of course any sane person would print their own money. Yet here we have the unimaginable stupidity of a government with the ability to print its own interest and debt free money. Instead chooses to borrow that money at interest. Astoundingly, the corporate controlled media is not asking why this practice continues.

It actually gets even worse. It costs the government 4 cents to print a bill of any denomination, for the paper, labor, ink equipment maintenance etc. It does not matter whether the bill is $1, $5, $20, or $100, the cost is the same. So if you were the one printingthis legal money, the last 4 bills mentioned would have cost you 16 cents to print. Now can you imagine the totally absurd notion of you taking these 4 bills to your banker, selling it to them for the cost of printing (16 cents), and then borrowing it back at face value ($126) with interest charges? This is the height of lunacy, and yet this is exactly what our government does. The Treasury Dept prints the bills, delivers them to the Federal Reserve branch offices, charges them for the cost of printing, and then borrows this money back at face value with interest. Ask yourself why the corporate controlled media is not covering this story.

The Trillion Dollar Coin: What You Really Need to Know

This bank is popular with both Democratic and Republican legislators in the state of North Dakota. This idea is starting to catch fire and 20 states are now considering some form of state banking legislation. By having a state owned bank that uses the fractional reserve lending system to create its own money out of thin air interest free, the state of North Dakota has a resource that is counter-cyclical, meaning it is capable of reducing the negative impact of recessions. They can make money available for local governments and businesses precisely when private banks decrease lending. This bank has existed for 90 years and remained stable during the financial crisis. The Bank of North Dakota is one key reason why the state has weathered the crisis better than most, has the lowest unemployment in the country, and has a current budget surplus.

Remember that game? Surplus energy is critical for supporting innovation within a society, and as some of our energy resources are becoming more expensive to exploit [Peak OIl], surplus energy declines. Apparently per capita energy consumption has declined over the past 40 years, so it seems possible, perhaps likely, that this is having numerous deleterious effects within our society, which are actually symptoms rather than prime causes of our unfortunate situation.

It is a bit late in our game to respond to this old problem (we peaked in our domestic petroleum production back in the 70s), but if we could tap into a vast source of carbon-free energy, we could conceivably synthesize all of the carbon-neutral fuels we require. Now, where is that wonderful machine?

[The game!] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_(video_game)

[Peak OIl could limit economic growth] http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article31330.html

[LFTR] http://energyfromthorium.com/2011/10/04/flibe-uk-4/

Thats exactly correct. For a good description of the properties of money, check out the following link:

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article10370.html

The US would never cause hyper-inflation to repay their debts... doing so would destroy their economy overnight.

QE1 - http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/library/chart-graph/monetary-policy-qe1-qe2-and-oil?library_node=25113
QE2 - http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article26376.html
QE3? - http://money.msn.com/market-news/post.aspx?post=d062663c-e5c3-4801-8aec-a3c5a5130bbe
QED

The Dow is rising and falling in time with these huge injections of newly minted electronic cash, and all that money has to go somewhere - it's causing huge fluctuations in global asset and commodity values, and consequent crashes when it is withdrawn. It could be argued that it is making things worse, not better, and it is certainly causing higher inflation.

In 10 years time $1000 will be worth less, and quite possibly close to worthless. The only other way out is to grow the economy huge amounts while under pressure from significantly cheaper or more efficient competitors (China, SE Asia etc), pull out of all those incredibly expensive foreign wars and foreign military bases, or default. Inflating their way out of it is the easiest way for the politicians.

No "insider" would ever do something like this, right?

Really? Exactly who backs it up? As in, for real exactly, not some 'cloud' construct.

Really? Who the fuck backs up your american greenback?

Jesus christ people have their heads firmly up their
ass nowadays.

Do you even know what fiat currency is?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money

Do you realize "backing" is not the same as accepting?

http://kwaves.com/fiat.htm

The very first paragraph describes BitCoin,
ie, it is JUST like those worthless pieces
of paper that (some of you) have in your
wallets.

THIS, is REAL money... in it's time:
http://www.fastcoin.com/images/1922-Gold-Certificate-Gold-Coin-Note-xf-31606.jpg
and this
http://www.antiquebanknotes.com/Images/Gold_Certificates/1905_20.00_Technicolor_Gold_Certificate.jpg
and this
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/images/1DollarSilverCertificate.jpg

But sure as hell, not THIS
http://www.millionface.com/l/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/currency_notes/Banjamin_Franklin_on_dollar_100_note.jpg

-AI

See: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14996.html http://viewzone2.com/fakegoldx.html http://gold-quote.net/en/articles/fake-tungsten-gold-bars.php http://news.coinupdate.com/largest-private-refinery-discovers-gold-plated-tungsten-bar-0171/ http://www.gata.org/node/8390 Some people are suggesting that the businesses offering cash for gold jewellery are doing so because there is less likelihood that they will be deceived than they would be if buying bullion. Also, in related news: http://bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/viewthread.php?tid=658195 http://dailypaul.com/99841/where-is-our-gold-that-is-missing-from-fort-knox http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=45782 BTW, I couldn't find any of this referred to on any mainstream site, so I leave it to others to determine if this is rumour or not.

Who cares? Do you think the J-20 uses "exactly" that formulation?

You do realize that the paint is radar absorbing and the composition is still classified today right? Even the paint composition of the S-71 Blackbird is still classified. There are many things still classified about these once top secret programs even though the existence of the planes themselves are no longer secret. The Chinese would have considered the paint as one the most prized secrets of the F-117 so it would be fair guess that they've would have used the paint in their formulation if they got their hands on it.

So what you're saying is that you're more likely that superpowers around the world learning that a stealth fighter was downed in Kosovo wouldn't send agents to try to recover parts of the wreckage. I would be surprised if Russia, Israel, and China all sent agents. Most recently, China copied the Su-27 and the Su-33 and called them the J-11 and J-15, however, China insists that they were homegrown airplanes even though they are near exact matches to the Russian planes. China is willing to steal technology from a partner and ally. You think they wouldn't do so from an enemy?

How the Swedish butter/margarine brand Bregott want you to see cattle living:
http://www.bregott.nu/

Quite ideal but not very uncommon cow life in Sweden (quite realistic, some may have worse grass or bigger area + more animals but still pretty normal):
http://www.par-mikael.se/bilder/kor.jpg

Obviously not a farm longer but still how I'm used to see them:
http://www.arosmotorveteraner.se/foton/20061118222926.JPG

Pretty normal interior I believe, maybe slightly smaller / dirtier at older farms:
http://www.stjarneberg.se/DCP_0895.JPG

Larger scale but still nothing like how I assume it's in the US and even more so in Brazil:
http://www.womtorp.se/bilder/bilder/ladugardsbilder/ny%20ladugard%202.jpg
http://www.womtorp.se/bilder/bilder/ladugardsbilder/Ladug%C3%A5rd%201.jpg (may look boring)
http://www.womtorp.se/bilder/bilder/ladugardsbilder/Liggb%C3%A5s%201.jpg (clean)
http://www.womtorp.se/bilder/bilder/ladugardsbilder/Kor%203.jpg (looks like they have it quite ok)
http://www.womtorp.se/bilder/bilder/ladugardsbilder/Kallhall%201.jpg (cute!)

The winters obviously lead to cattle being inside during that half+ year.

I can understand how you need antibiotics in conditions like this:
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/images/hogfarm.jpg
http://www.examiner.com/images/blog/EXID1513/images/pig-factory-farms.jpg
http://candobetter.org/files/pigFarm01.jpg

And that's not much of a life ...

I think the animals would be much better threatened (but maybe "perform" worse and get worse med-care) in small family farms. Atleast then they more or less become your pet.

this -> "The European Union has a population larger than the United States and yet it manages just fine."..past history man, I'm talking about going forward. I really suggest you take the blinders off and LOOK at some in depth economic analysis, get beyond the headlines and read some contrarian economists. Oh heck, here's one, the darlingest of your ultra far left rich dudes, soros, argue with him why doncha about the future status of your dream welfare union.. the EU is right behind the US with the debt bomb realities. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-09/soros-says-greece-needs-cheaper-loans-to-avoid-death-circle-.html

More recent events and analysis

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/markets-rally-as-greek-debt-crisis-eases-1943155.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/7583304/Euphoria-over-Greek-rescue-fades-as-first-cracks-appear.html

Here is a short overview of the US debt situation as it is today

Let this one sink in a bit...

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article18393.html

These are the outright thieves "in charge" of our economic situation

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/32906678/looting_main_street/print

really, ^^^^ those dudes right there run things. In and out of government, the musical chairs with thieves and liars in government, in the Fed, back to their Wall Street gangster lairs, lather rinse repeat, and it hasn't mattered a whit which imperial leader or group of goofballs in our congress we have had, D or R next to their name, it's those same dudes always *really* in charge behind the scenes....

Now see why we aren't going to be having any welfare state here, or even a credible economy soon? The system is already broken, we've been "corporate raided" on a huge scale, and even the "change" government is just more of the same tired old BS.

Your central banker pigs are just as much thieves as ours have been, you'll see... just wait. Your welfare states are going to be crumbling because you don't understand simple basic math, plus time travel, you can't live in the past and expect that to be the future or..along those lines, ain't happening. What was then, was then, in the future.....? I am old enough to remember when the US had a very decent real economy, we were the largest creditor nation, not the biggest borrower, and healthcare was cheap, affordable for most people. Even the crappiest jobs had free or cheap coverage, or you could buy it on the side for cheap. But then the corporate looting really began, along with the ludicrous expansion of government based on lying promises of something for nothing...now 35 years later, poofed, gone, we are sunk without borrowing money all the time, and we have no credible plans to pay back what we have already borrowed.

You have to make money to spend it, FIRST, on welfare or whatever, and no, running printing presses is not making money. You can't keep pouring six gallons of stuff from a five gallon bucket, and accounting and bookkeeping tricks only work so long. You don't make money by exporting jobs, them other fellas make the money then. And you certainly don't make money by letting your central casino bankers run rampant and steal everything that ain't nailed down, and especially when you run those thieves in and out of official government positions where they get to *set policy*.

Now some of the nations there in the EU just might squeak by over the

Although the wsj and the economist are good reads, they present the globalist/statist/looter viewpoints more often than not. You won't find much in the way of contrarian analysis at those sites, so you need some balance. Check out the market oracle http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/ and global research http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=home for some alternative views.

China is in a leading position, but not in the G8 but has UNSC seat, economic power sure, but with problems just like or worse than the US has, but its bubble hasn't burst.

- so you think that China has a bubble economy then?

It's a currency bubble; the Chinese government is keeping the yuan artificially low vs. the dollar. Plus they're building bogus empty cities in the desert to prop up their GDP.

China has been acquiring the means to produce wealth, that's what they have been buying besides debt instruments. And that's why they are getting richer, and at such a rate. They buy anything at all related to manufacturing. You name it, they want it, either directly, or get just the R&D..whatever it takes. They bought the tools used to make more tools to then go on and build..anything. Anything at all, which they then export, and reap value-added profit from. They buy the means to produce wealth from the west and Japan, turn around, produce the wealth, sell it back to the places that were producing the wealth, undercutting the market there..obvious profit. They make so much doing this that not only can they continue to acquire more machinery, etc, but are sitting on quite the surplus of foreign cash, which they are now going around the planet and buying up natural resources and farmland with. Just sticking some in debt instruments helps them maintain their markets, it's a form of currency manipulation for the most part, it gives them mass leverage.

Crude example, they don't want to have to buy mass quantities of cars and airplanes from someplace else, that just costs wealth,. doesn't make wealth, they want to buy the factories to make cars and airplanes..because running those sorts of factories makes wealth, which expands their domestic economy and provides a lot of better paying jobs.. A to Z there, anything you can name or think of. That's what they have been buying and are still buying.

Eventually, they will have such a monopoly on manufacturing, owning the raw resources from all over the planet plus the factories and toolings needed, etc, that they can move on to the next step and slide away from a weaker yuan/renminbi and concentrate more on their internal markets, and those foreign markets where they get raw resources from. Their current western "consumer" markets won't be of as much importance to them then, there won't be this "need" to maintain really cheap exports that some of the more short sighted economists always talk about. they needed it in the past, and still do today -to a point- but eventually once they dominate that need evaporates rather quickly.

  They are fairly close to that point now, on an historical long range timeline. They *had* to suck it up for a lot of years and have cheaper exports in order to keep getting more machinery and tools, etc, market by market by market. As they start to dominate market after market, this removes that particular niche from so much concern for them with exchange rates. They still need to export, but their target consumers will be shifting away from the places where they originally sourced all the machinery and expertise from, to internal and raw resource regions..because that's all they will need at that point. Check and mate then, they win. The 19th and 20th century industrialized west falls to second or even third tier status on the global scale. Much fun and games in those areas then..historians will have much to discuss.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_trade_for_the_People's_Republic_of_China#History_of_Chinese_foreign_trade

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Modernizations

http://www.heritage.org/press/commentary/ed061509d.cfm

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14239.html

People seem to be ignoring that if news gathering becomes a volunteer-only effort, we're going to get crappy, slanted news -- far worse than anything we see today. Anyone with an agenda is going to put "reporters" on the scene who will deliver precisely the message they want you to hear, dressed up as "news".

Anyone with 5 minutes, a major historical news story and google news archive can demonstrate the fallacy in your argument. You have described _exactly_ the state of mainstream news today - crappy, slanted news delivering the message they want you to hear (i.e. profitable to special interest groups). Pick any of the most significant events in the last decade where powerful special interest groups had a firm position, and the mainstream news has rolled over to shaft their viewer/readers with exactly the wrong message to suit their corporate masters position, flooding the media echo chamber with the deceptive message in the process. Check it for yourself in the archives.

Pre-Iraq war - news message: weapons of mass destruction ("we must invade, there is no other choice"). Special Interest Group: The MIC..

Financial Crisis pre-2008 - news message: Money supply increases, what money supply increase? M3 discontinued, its not important... move along nothing is broken here as reflected in the total absence of mainstream news coverage

The majority of news sources that told it how it turned out (in retrospect), were non-mainstream news sources - and thanks to services like google news archive it can easily be demonstrated. You did not hear significant anti-war positions from the mainstream news cool-aid stand, which remained completely silent. You also could have also known well in advance that inflation was heading for the moon, and where and why to best place your hard earned savings for the coming economic storm from independent professionals not driven by increasing the bottom line, but instead in delivering accurate high quality news.

Publishers of mainstream news can't cut it on the internet, because they cannot compete with free high quality alternatives from motivated professionals.

All Ponzi schemes eventually crash. I'm not the only one who thinks that.

your kidding me. bad data? how about the intentional an orchestraed manipulation of the money supply desgined to create a bubble. Heres a couple links off the top of my head for you idiots out there: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article6914.html http://www.rense.com/general83/they.htm

I certainly agree that sub-primes were a very bad idea, and they helped trigger this collapse. But they were only the tip of the iceberg. We've had more than 50 years where debt has grown faster than GDP. That trend was unsustainable and had to stop eventually. Without sub-prime loans, we may have lasted a bit longer, with a softer fall at the end. Take this quote from 18/12/2006 "These blind faithful will pay the price in not too distant a future", well before the sub-prime crisis came to light.

There is a very big reason why the current financial crisis is worse than anything anyone remembers. The last 50 years of living beyond our means is finally catching up to us. There simply isn't any more available credit, we've spent it all.

Any attempt at a financial rescue that does nothing to reduce debt, is no rescue at all. The only long term way out of this mess is to reduce debt. First we have to cut our spending till it's less than our income so we have something left to pay down our debt. But even this has a huge cost. Last year 4.5 trillion dollars of the US's 14 trillion dollar GDP was funded by increasing private debt. Stop that growth of debt and overnight 30% of the economy disappears.

The band has stopped playing, the music has stopped, but there's nowhere to sit down because we sold all the chairs when we thought we didn't need them.

Note : I can't claim that Michael Totten is absolutely right. Only that he reports a very different side of the war, and unlike other reporters, he went to the area to investigate.

A opposing timeline is here : http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article5904.html but notice that there is little explanation how Georgia with "15,000 troops in South Osseta" got driven out of the country in a single day by 800 Russian peacekeepers. That seems astonishing.

Wikipedia has a timeline that also suggests the simple version or the war is incomplete. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_South_Ossetia_war