Good times in the US of A

We all know how stressed life can be. It then becomes easy to focus only on the challenges at hand and forget about the sweetness of life. It is also well known that people are more inclined to look outside the box for answers, towards alternative forms of knowledge like astrology, when life's problems become pressing. Indeed, this is the true role of astrology, to help people deal with life and get out of difficult spots. One aspect of that is to show when good times are around the corner.

The triple-transit report
In the SAMVA USA chart, there are some genuinely good times ahead, especially in the summer of 2009. The graph here is calculated by the astrology software Jyotish Tools and shows when the transits in the chart tend to be difficult, neutral or positive. Sure, plenty of challenges are seen. That is the norm in life. However, by and large, American's will find it easier to forget about them in June and July.

A good day
A foretaste of things to come is on March 1, when 3rd lord Mercury and 10th lord Mars combine on top of the natal Sun in the 7th house of the chart and 4th lord Venus is exalted and well placed in the most effective point of the 9th house. To top it off 1st lord Moon will be well placed in the 10th house. A moment to savour.

June 20-June 25, 2009
From the middle of June things begin to get good and serously so from June 20 to June 25. It will be one of the best times of the year, when 4th lord Venus becomes conjunct 10th lord Mars in the most effective point of the 10th house. There will be sweetness in the public life. Meanwhile 3rd lord Mercury, and 1st lord Moon for a few days, will be in Taurus where they are well placed and give expression to indications of the 11th house of income and goals. There will be satisfaction in life.

July 15-July 19, 2009
In the second half of July will also be a good time, when 10th lord Mars and 4th lord Venus will be in the 11th house, while 2nd lord Sun and 3rd lord Mercury will be well placed in the 1st house. Americans will feel good about themselves.

July 31-August 6, 2009
End July and the first week of August will also be a time to enjoy with 10th lord Mars on the most effective point of the 11th house and 2nd lord Sun in the most effective point of the 1st house. Meanwhile, 3rd lord Mercury will be in the 2nd house. The status and enjoyment of American culture will be expressed.

Source
The excellent Jyotish Tools software
http://www.jyotishtools.com/

Downfall of a President

The Oscar nominee for best picture in 2009, Frost/Nixon, brings to life a moment in 1977 when President Richard Milhouse Nixon publicly admitted his wrongdoings in the Watergate Scandal and apologised to the American public for it. In doing so, a painful episode began to close in American history concerning a highly evident case of manipulation of power at the highest levels of government. This tendency and the downfall of President Nixon are shown in a crystal clear manner in the SAMVA USA chart (Perpetual Union).

Still, the "Watergate Scandal" stands as an enduring testament to a dark side of US democracy - the abuse of power by those entrusted with it. The scandal revealed the fact that there existed, with the knowledge of the President, "a White House dirty tricks squad, which was behind an orchestrated campaign of political sabotage, an enemies list, a "plumbers" unit to plug political leaks and a secret campaign slush fund associated with the Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP), all with high-level administration involvement." Given such abuses, it is not surprising to come across conspiracy theories surrounding many events in the national life, notably the assassination of President Kennedy, which many believe was executed by secret agents of the government.

Manipulation in government
Indeed, such a tendency for manipulation in government is seen in the , notably in the conjunction of Rahu at 17° 47' Aries and the most effective point of 10th house at 20° 00' Aries. Rahu is the lord of desire for material gain and rules secrecy, diplomacy, deception and manipulation. The 10th house rules, amongst other things, the government administration. Hence, there is such an element seen in the national life of the most powerful nation on the planet. Interestingly, while Nixon received a full pardon for his part in the crimes, the top government officials in the Nixon administration weren't so lucky and many of them were imprisoned after being found guilty by a court of law for their participation in the subsequent cover-up following the Watergate break-in. However, Nixon received his justice and was sidelined from national life from 1974 to the time of his death in 1994.

Difficulties for the leader
What is perhaps more interesting is that the SAMVA USA chart shows the difficulties that sometimes befall US Presidents. The aspect in the chart of Saturn, as 8th lord of obstacles and endings, to the 2nd lord Sun, as indicator of the leader and other highly placed persons, is clear on this point. Earlier, the astrology of the many assassination attempts in US history have been documented on this blog. Earlier, many assassination attempts made on US Presidents have been described in the article Death of a President. In this article, an anlysis is given of the fateful moment in the national life when President Nixon fell from power.

First, let us step back in time and recall the timeline of the major events in the Watergate Scandal:
June 17, 1972: The scandals began with the arrest of five men for breaking and entering into the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Office complex in Washington , D.C during the early morning hours.
January 1973: The men who broke into the office were tried and convicted. All seven men were either directly or indirectly employed by President Nixon's Committee to Re-elect the President. Many people suspected a conspiracy
March 19, 1973: James McCord, one of the burglars, writes a letter to Judge John J. Sirica charging a cover-up of the burglary, transforming the affair into a political scandal of unprecedented magnitude.
April 30, 1973: Nixon is forced to ask for the resignation of two of his most influential aides, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, both of whom were indicted and ultimately went to prison.
October 20, 1973: Nixon compels Justice Department officials to fire Special Watergate Prosecutor Archibald Cox, who would not obey the Presidential order to drop his subpoena for Nixon's secret tapes of his conversations in the White House.
January 28, 1974: Nixon campaign aide Herbert Porter pleads guilty to the charge of lying to the FBI during the early stages of the Watergate investigation.
February 25, 1974: Nixon's personal lawyer Herbert Kalmbach pleads guilty to two charges of illegal election-campaign activities.
March 1, 1974: former aides of the President, known as the Watergate Seven — Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, Charles Colson, Gordon C. Strachan, Robert Mardian and Kenneth Parkinson — are indicted for conspiring to hinder the Watergate investigation.
April 5, 1974: former Nixon appointments secretary Dwight Chapin is convicted of lying to the grand jury.
April 7, 1974, the Watergate grand jury indicts Ed Reinecke, Republican lieutenant governor of California , on three charges of perjury before the Senate committee.
July 24, 1974: In the case United States v. Nixon, the Supreme Court ruled that claims of executive privilege over the tapes were void, and they further ordered him to surrender them to Jaworski.
July 27, 1974: the House Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives votes 27 to 11 to recommend the first article of impeachment against the President: obstruction of justice is passed.
July 29, 1974 The second article of impeachment (abuse of power) is passed.
July 30, 1974: the third article of impeachment (contempt of Congress) article is passed. Nixon complies and releases the subpoenaed tapes. Their contents are finally revealed.
August 7, 1974: after being told by key Republican Senators that enough votes exist in Congress to convict and remove him from office, Nixon decides to resign.
August 8, 1974: In a nationally televised address during the evening, Nixon announces he will resign, effective at noon Eastern Time on Friday, August 9, 1974.
August 9, 1974: Nixon signs his resignation letter at 11:35 am and leaves the White House by helicopter at Noon.
September 8, 1974: Richard Nixon receives a full pardon from his successor, President Gerald Ford.
May 25, 1977: Final of four interviews is broadcast on national TV where Nixon admits breaking the law and letting the American people down.

The downfall of Nixon
The aspects on August 9, 1974 are quite difficult. Mercury-Mercury period was operating. Transit functional malefic Ketu at 23° 53' Taurus was exactly aspecting natal 2nd lord Sun at 23° 44' Capricorn while transit functional malefic Rahu at 23° 53' Scorpio/H5 was aspecting transit 2nd lord Sun at 23° 09' Cancer/H1. This fateful moment for the US President, just like in the assassination of President Kennedy, shows up with chilling clarity in the SAMVA USA chart.

Interestingly, in the months leading up to the resignation, the nodes were stationary afflicting natal 8th lord Saturn at 26° 46' Scorpio/H5 and natal Sun. Transit 8th lord Saturn was conjunct the MEP of the 12th house under aspect from 6th lord Jupiter conjunct the MEP of the 8th house. Transit Saturn was also afflicted by natal Ketu at 17° 47 Libra in the 4th house. As the above timeline shows, the months leading up to the resignation were very tense in the political life of the country.

Conclusion
In short, the SAMVA USA chart shows in a stunning manner the dramatic events in the national life. Given this strong confirmation of the event, likely the events leading up to the departure of a reviled President Nixon was no less traumatic for the American people than the sorrow following the untimely death of a much admired President Kennedy. The two events show startling similarities in the exactness of the afflictions to the natal Sun at the time of the fateful point of separation.

Source
Watergate Scandal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watergate_scandal
Transits in SAMVA USA chart on November 22, 1963
http://tinyurl.com/Kennedy-killed

Easy come, easy go

Since its discovery in 2006, the SAMVA USA chart has been consistently tested with predictions for events far into the future. Amazingly, these predictions have come true.

The predictions discussed here have to do with the planet Saturn as 8th lord of easy gains and obstacles and endings in the chart. It is linked to both that which is achieved with little effort and that which is lost, in one sense it is a case of easy come, easy go.

Let's look at some of the predictions
The following predictions were made in late 2007 or early 2008 for things to happen in late 2008 and early 2009

Monday, December 31, 2007
The year ahead for the USA
“...end of the year [2008]...transit Saturn will ... be under the aspect of natal Saturn in the chart, heightening the potential for ... destruction of assets.”
http://cosmologer.blogspot.com/2007/12/year-ahead-for-usa.html

Saturday, February 2, 2008
More financial market volatility in 2008
“November 2008 until February 2009: transit Saturn in Leo H2 under aspect of natal Saturn in Scorpio H5. This aspect threatens a serious setback to easy gains and other indications of Saturn.”
http://cosmologer.blogspot.com/2008/02/more-financial-market-volatility-in.html

Now, let´s look at what happened
Several investment scams came to light from December 2008 to February 2009 revealing the destruction of hundreds of billions dollars of assets of private investors and public funds. Investors were lured with their funds into schemes promising easy acquisition of additional riches. What turned out was the destruction of the assets entrusted to high profile scam artists. Moreover, a significant portion of the assets lost were ‘easy gains’ as reported in the monthly statements the investors received. One elderly couple told they "invested $700,000 in Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, which informed them that their assets appreciated to about $1.8 million." Now they "don't expect to be getting any [of the money] back." Such revelations have resulted in a run on banks operated by one of the fraudsters. This is a tragic state of affairs for those involved, a quality linked to the 8th lord of endings.

On top of that the US stock market took a dive and more banks went bankrupt. In total, trillions of assets in the US economy have been wiped out last year. This was also predicted as explained in the articles More accurate stock market predictions and Crisis in the fall.

The following news stories report some recent cases involving significant amounts of wealth of private investors or public funds being destroyed in recent months, involving the evaporation of also what were thought to be easy gains.

Trillions of Dollars Gone
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Seven trillion dollars. That's how much wealth evaporated from the stock market last year.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/01/10/ST2009011001747.html

Former Nasdaq chairman charged with fraud
December 11, 2008 -- Updated 0436 GMT (1236 HKT)
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Former Nasdaq chairman Bernard Madoff was arrested Thursday and charged with a single count of securities fraud for allegedly operating a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme from his investment advisory business, federal authorities said.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/12/11/madoff.arrest/index.html

Five charged over US Iraq 'scam'
Wednesday, 7 February 2007, 22:22 GMT
BBC - A US court has charged three reserve army officers and two civilians with using millions of dollars of Iraq reconstruction money for personal gain. The group are accused of directing at least $8m (£4m) to a construction firm run by a US businessman in return for luxuries such as cars and jewellery. The officers were responsible for supervising how some $26bn was spent on reconstruction projects in Iraq. One man has already been jailed and another awaits sentence over the scam.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6340717.stm

Stanford saga prompts run on banks
February 19, 2009 -- Updated 1321 GMT (2121 HKT)
(CNN) -- Politicians and banking regulators across Latin American and the Caribbean called for calm Wednesday after panicked investors pulled their money from banks owned by the Stanford Group, whose owner is accused in a multibillion dollar investment and sales fraud scheme.
......SIB's Web site says its network has $51 billion in deposits and assets under management or advisement, with more than 70,000 clients in 140 countries.
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/02/19/venezuela.stanford.banks/index.html

In addition we should note that the recent conjunction of Jupiter and Rahu in Capricorn, with Jupiter ruling finance and Rahu ruling manipulation, was associated with a number of these frauds being revealed at this time. Also this has been predicted on the SAMVA discussion list.

Further information
Bernard Madoff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff
Burned investors sound off on Madoff
http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/20/news/newsmakers/madoff_investors/index.htm?cnn=yes
Allen Stanford
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Stanford

MARS AND THE AFGHAN SURGE

Mars is the planet of war. When it is heavily aspected it can have an impact on the things indicated by Mars, such as troops.

Recently, President Barack Obama vowed not to let Al-Qaeda operate "with impunity" in Afghanistan and said a combined effort was needed to eradicate safe havens for the Taliban and other militants there. To this end, US troops stationed in Iraq are being shifted to Afghanistan. Today, the news is published that the first wave of increased US troop levels in Afghanistan has become active and has already had skirmishes with Taliban fighters.

MARS AFFLICTED IN TRANSIT
For those who follow the SAMVA USA chart, it is no coincidence that US military forces are being increased and military action is increasing in Afghanistan. From an astrological point of view, this is taking place as transit 10th lord MARS indicator of the military is conjunct transit JUPITER 6th lord of conflict as well as transit stationary functional malefic RAHU in Capricorn and the 7th house of foreign affairs in SAMVA USA chart. With transit Mars conjunct two functional malefic planets in house of foreign affairs in the SAMVA USA chart, it is no surprise that the USA is sending more troops to engage in a conflict in a foreign country.

NEWS STORY
Newest US troops in dangerous region near Kabul
Mon Feb 16, 3:23 pm ET AFP – Close to 3,000 American soldiers who recently arrived in Afghanistan to secure two violent provinces near Kabul have begun operations in the field and already are seeing combat, the unit's spokesman said Monday......Several roadside bombs also have exploded next to the unit's MRAPs — mine-resistance patrol vehicles — but caused no casualties, he said. "In every case our vehicles returned with overwhelming fire," Ostehozer said. "We have not suffered anything more than a few bruises, while several insurgents have been killed." Commanders are in the planning stages of larger scale operations expected to be launched in the coming weeks.

LOOKING FORWARD
The Venus-Saturn period begins on February 17, 2009 and transit SATURN, as 8th lord of obstacles and endings but also easy gains is now in retrograde motion. It will enter the most effective point of the 2nd house of wealth, status and relations with close neighbors on March 1, 2009, at 25° 00' Leo. From that time, Saturn will also aspect the 4th house of natural resources, fixed assets and communal harmony, the 8th house of easy gains, bureaucracy and obstacles and endings and 11th house of income, goals and friends.

The aspect becomes closest in mid May 2009 when Saturn becomes stationary at 20° 55' Leo, within 1° orb of the MEP degree. This will bring considerable strain on the above indications.

Source
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090216/ap_on_re_as/as_afghan_surge_begins

Jupiter conjunct Rahu in Capricorn

Transit-to-transit aspects involving the slow moving planets, like Jupiter and Saturn, are always informative to follow. At the present time we are witnessing the manifestation in world affairs of the energy associated with the conjunction of Jupiter and Rahu in transit. The expression of this aspect depends crucially on each national chart. Below the energy associated with this aspect is presented in general terms and then in terms of the specific expression in a few national charts.

Around 5 pm GMT on Friday, February 13th, 2009, the conjunction of transit Jupiter and transit stationary Rahu at 15° 12’ Capricorn (sidereal zodiac) becomes exact. Jupiter will then also be opposite transit stationary Ketu at 15° 12’ Cancer. As the Moon’s nodes, Rahu and Ketu, are functional malefic planets in vedic astrology, and the planet Jupiter is debilitated in the sign of Capricorn, it becomes quite vulneralbe to the harmful indications of the nodes. The general indications of Jupiter, which include “diplomatic attaches, advisors to head of state, teachers, judiciary and banking systems,” are expected to suffer or be subject to strain at this time. The functional indications of Jupiter, tied to the house its Moolatrikona sign Sagittarius falls into, are going to be more prominently affected.

The functional nature of Rahu manifests as a crisis involving “diplomatic moves, manipulations and deceit,” while the energy of Ketu appears in the form of sudden often explosive “natural calamities or violent actions or events.” Hence, the indications of Jupiter are likely to harmed or strained by such influences.

This aspect began to be felt on January 24th, when Jupiter at 10° 46’ Capricorn came within 5° of Rahu at 15° 46’. During the applying phase of the aspect, its energy has been increasing. After the aspect peaks on February 13th, it will begin to separate and then pass out of the 5° orb on March 6th, when Jupiter will be at 19° 47’ Capricorn and Rahu will be at 14° 47’.

Israel
In the 21° Caprircorn rising chart for Israel, Jupiter is the 12th lord of losses. It is presently conjunct Rahu in the 1st house exactly opposite to the 7th lord Moon at 15° Cancer in the 7th house of foreign affairs in the chart. Moon is also conjunct transit Ketu. The nodal affliction of the natal Moon was in January associated with foreign policy problems, including the invasion of the Gaza Strip. With Jupiter adding to the affliction, there is now a strain on the formation of a cabinet (ruled by the Moon) in the Israel government. In fact, the outcome of the election on February 10 has been undecisive bringing difficulty for the formation of a government. Some have labeled the situation as a political crisis. These problems will likely peak on February 13 and then begin to wind down.

United Kingdom
In the 16° Virgo rising horoscope of the United Kingdom, Jupiter is 4th lord of communal harmony and fixed assets. The conjunction of Jupiter and Rahu in the most effective point of the 5th house (ruling the management, speculation and creativity) creates a problem for the banks and monetary policy (ruled by Jupiter). At the time of this aspect becoming close, the problems have increased and the outlook for the economy has steadily worsened, undermining the confidence and well being of the people.

Australia
In the 15° Virgo rising chart of Australia, Jupiter is 4th lord of communal harmony and fixed assets. In the chart both 12th lord Sun and 6th lord Saturn are conjunct in the most effective point of the 4th house of fixed assets and natural resources. This natal predisposition to setbacks in this area is now being provoked by the transit affliction of the 4th lord. The mass deaths were first reported on February 7th when natal Ketu at 8° Taurus in the 9th house was exactly afflicting transit Mars as 8th lord of death at 8° Capricorn. Ketu and Mars are both very hot planets. The problem with raging forest fires has claimed the lives of hundreds of people and brought shock to the population. Prime Minister Rudd has suggested the fires were human acts of mass murder.

USA
In the 20° Cancer rising SAMVA USA chart, Jupiter is 6th lord of financial stability. This conjunction in the 7th house of foreign affairs is creating problems for the the government bail-out plan of the Obama administration. It has been met with fierce resistance from the political opposition and controversy. There have been claims that without the plan the economy will collapse and counter-claims that with the plan the economy will collapse, notably due to a rise in interest rates and/or drop in the value of the dollar. As the conjunction is not prominently afflicting in the natal chart itself, the problems brought out by this aspect are likely to be fleeting. Interestingly, banking CEOs (ruled by Jupiter) from the USA and UK (focus on 7th house) have testified before the US Congress this week and been subject to humiliation.