Les Nouvelles Internationales est un site alternatif pour les gens qui veulent mieux comprendre ce qui se passe dans notre monde et pour mieux connaître notre histoire.
Ce site se veut un moyen de résister à la manipulation de la pensée par la désinformation et la propagande de masse.
Une population éduquée n`est pas manipulable. Cessons de nous faire violer psychiquement, protégeons-nous mentalement. Les ploutocrates dépensent des milliards pour contrôler notre pensée. Fermons la TV!
C'est en rendez-vous le lundi dès 15h
pour l'émission la plus écoutée de CHOQ FM, la radio officielle de
l'Université du Québec à Montréal !
***Hyperliens vers les sources des informations discutées sur l'émission d'aujourd'hui:
Smart meters
are 'massive surveillance' tech - privacy supremo - The Register
The European Data Protection Supervisor has warned that smart meters are a
significant privacy threat and wants limits on the retention and use of
customer data before it's too late.
The EDPS is an independent authority figure tasked with identifying where EU
policies might represent a risk to privacy. He reckons next-generation meters,
which precisely monitor electricity use within homes, are a very likely
candidate unless his concerns are addressed ahead of time.
Peter Hustinx, who fills the role with the assistance of Giovanni
Buttarelli, admits there are advantages of smart metering, but warns that the
technology will "also enable massive collection of personal data which can
track what members of a household do within the privacy of their own homes".
He pulls up examples of baby monitors and medical devices, which have
identifiable patterns of energy consumption and could therefore be used to
monitor what people are doing.
This is so completely Awesome! What will be a legendary Rant from an
Illinois Representative on the Congressional Floor!
All of our Elected Officials Should stand UP this Way for The People! I am
not sure who it is that is in the video at this time, but when I find out I
will put it here.
His name is Mike Bost - from Illinois General Assembly (I have his full info
on the blog, including his email address to Thank him)
As some 500 000
Haitians still live in displaced camps, five star hotels are being built amid
shanty towns.
It is worth noting that Western governments have insisted that aid money for
Haiti be given to NGOs and foundations rather than to the Haitian government,
which they consider to be "corrupt".
In the aftermath of the January 2010 earthquake, people in the US, Canada
and the EU, who made donations to those humanitarian organisations and NGOs did
not realize that their contribution to Haiti's reconstruction would be
channeled towards the building of five star hotels to house foreign
businessmen. Their expectation was that the money would be used to provide food
and housing for the Haitian people.
We were wrong on peak oil. There's enough to fry us all July 2, 2012, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers) http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/02/peak-oil-we-we-wrong
For the past 10 years an unlikely coalition of geologists, oil drillers,
bankers, military strategists and environmentalists has been warning that peak
oil – the decline of global supplies – is just around the corner. We had some
strong reasons for doing so: production had slowed, the price had risen
sharply, depletion was widespread and appeared to be escalating. The first of
the great resource crunches seemed about to strike. Some of us made vague
predictions, others were more specific. In all cases we were wrong. Peak oil
hasn't happened, and it's unlikely to happen for a very long time. ["Oil - The Next Revolution"] by the oil
executive Leonardo Maugeri, published by Harvard University, provides
compelling evidence that a new oil boom has begun. The constraints on oil
supply over the past 10 years appear to have had more to do with money than
geology. The low prices before 2003 had discouraged investors from developing
difficult fields. The high prices of the past few years have changed that.
Maugeri's analysis of projects in 23 countries suggests that global oil supplies are likely to rise
by a net 17m barrels per day (to 110m) by 2020. This, he says, is "the
largest potential addition to the world's oil supply capacity since the
1980s". The investments required to make this boom happen depend on a
long-term price of $70 a barrel – the current cost of Brent crude is $95.
Money is now flooding into new oil: a trillion dollars has been spent in the
past two years; a record $600bn is lined up for 2012.
BP has just released its annual Statistical Review of World Energy in which
it claims that Venezuela now holds the largest proven oil reserves in the
world, overtaking the original leader Saudi Arabia.
The South American nation’s oil deposits were increased from last year’s
figure to an estimated at 296.5 billion barrels, more than Saudi Arabia’s 265.4
billion barrels.
Global reserves have been increased by 1.9 percent from last year’s 1.62
trillion barrels to 1.65 trillion. Robert Wine, a spokesman from BP, explained
that the reason for the revisions is that BP’s review is published in June,
before most countries issue their annual reserve figures. Watch further efforts to destabilize an ailing
Chavez' government by the US, in order to install a more US-Centric government
which will remove their oil industry from its nationalized state, and allow
private development.
What is the Trans-Pacific Partnership? June 20, 2012, CBC News (Canada's public broadcasting system) http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/06/20/f-trans-pacific-partnership-explained.html
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) may soon be an acronym as recognizable
as NAFTA — but this free trade venture could have much more economic strength
and impact than its North American predecessor. The Trans-Pacific Partnership
is a free trade deal aimed at further expanding the flow of goods, services and
capital across borders. Its four founding members — New Zealand, Chile,
Singapore and Brunei – soon caught the attention of five other nations: the
United States, Australia, Peru, Vietnam and Malaysia, who joined in 2008. The
nine partners currently have a combined GDP of more than $17 trillion. Canada
and Mexico are now being considered for membership, subject to the approval of
the nine countries already involved. Add to this the possibility that Japan
could join the TPP, despite mounting protests in that country, and the economic
and political traction of the group increases. In fact, the TPP could become
the world's largest free-trade zone. "It's really a trade agreement for the one per cent and their
corporate interests," said Maude Barlow, the National Chairperson of the
Council of Canadians, which opposed and continues to criticize NAFTA.
"This is not going to be a good deal for Canadians." Note: A later Toronto
Star article reveals that the agreements of
the TPP are secret.
Looking For 10% Yields? Go Online For Peer To Peer Lending June 6, 2012, Forbes Magazine http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisbarth/2012/06/06/looking-for-10-yields-go-online-for-peer-to-peer-lending/
Today a tidal wave of aging boomers want income, but traditional sources are
lacking. But there’s [a] source of high yield that relatively few consider.
Peer-to-peer lending, or making personal loans via the Internet using websites
like LendingClub.com and Prosper.com. After six years of experience and some bumps, including a financial
crisis and ensuing recession, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending has finally earned its
place on an income investor’s menu. The basic premise of these
bank disintermediaries is that they harness the networking power of the Web to
match people who have excess cash with people in need of it or those who simply
want to refinance credit card debt. The key to its success has been how the
sites have managed the inherent riskiness of unsecured personal loans. Believe it or not, it is now possible
to earn yields of 6% or more, making relatively safe loans to complete
strangers. San Francisco’s Lending Club is the largest P2P
lender, followed by its crosstown rival Prosper. Lending Club and Prosper have
loaned a total of more than $1 billion since inception, in 112,000 loans.
Lending Club currently issues about $45 million in loans a month versus
Prosper’s $13 million per month. Of course defaults happen. Lending Club’s
top-rated three-year loans expect a default rate of around 1.4%, and the
riskiest loans, offering rates as high as 25%, have a 9.8% default rate. Note:
A 1.4 default rate is much lower than that of the average bank. For those who
want to borrow or loan money free of the banks with excellent rates, check out www.lendingclub.com and www.prosper.com.
Tony Cartalucci, Contributor
Activist Post
Citing no evidence, and on the heels of yet another baseless
"activist" report claiming a massacre has taken place in Homs,
nameless US officials claimed to the Wall Street Journal that the Syrian
government is taking chemical weapons out of storage for possible use
"against anti-regime rebels or civilians, possibly in an ethnic cleansing
campaign."
Despite claiming to possess this information, the US officials refused to
disclose the location these weapons were being moved to, nor the actual
nomenclature of the weapons, stating only "they are most worried about
Syria's stockpiles of sarin gas." ...
The armed Syrian opposition has got their hands on chemical weapons, which
they acquired from Libya, a media report claims. They allegedly plan to use it
against civilians and pin the atrocity on the Bashar al-Assad regime.
The report by DamPress claims the opposition group in possession of the
weapons is being trained in its use inside Turkey. No further detail on the
alleged conspiracy is given.
The United States has hired Syrian rebels to fulfill one of its main foreign
policy objectives in the Arab country, that is the removal of President Bashar
al-Assad, an anti-war activist tells Press TV.
“The purpose of the arms insurgency is regime change. This is the US-backed
military force,” Don Debar said in an interview with Press TV on Monday.
Accordingly, the armed opposition refused to put down arms and negotiate the
peace plan proposed by UN-Arab League envoy to Syria Kofi Annan, Debar also
said.
The Russian cargo ship the Alaed has left Russian waters again on an attempt
to deliver refurbished Syrian helicopters back to the Syrian military. The last
shipping attempt failed after British officials, under US pressure, forced the
revocation of their insurance.
Being a Russian-flagged ship removes the insurance obstacle, and the close
proximity of the flotilla presumably will prevent Britain from giving serious
consideration to attacking it when it gets close to British waters.
A dozen Russian warships from three fleets are participating in a joint
three-month exercise. The group is to visit the Syrian port city of Tartus,
where a Russian base is located. The drills are not related to the Syrian
conflict, the military say.
The warships and supply ships are derived from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet,
Northern Fleet and Baltic fleet, the Defense Ministry said. The exercise’s main
goal is to test inter-fleet coordination during the joint maneuvers.
Given the worsening crisis in Syria, the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper
reported that the Russian army is apparently being prepared for a mission in
Syria. Citing anonymous sources in the military leadership, the newspaper said
that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the general staff to work out a
plan for military operations outside Russia, including in Syria.
President Shimon Peres has cancelled his visit to the Olympic Games in
London due to the refusal of the Olympic organizing committee to allow him to
sleep in the Olympic village over Shabbat night.
The Israeli president, despite not being religious, does not travel publicly
on Shabbat and will therefore not be able to attend the Olympic opening
ceremony.
...
Sources in the organizing committee were mystified by the president's
announcement, since there are at least two suitable hotels at walking distance
from the Olympic village. See IS SHIMON
PERES THE TERRORIST MASTERMIND BEHIND 9-11?
It's Deja Vu all over again-Yogi Berra
US officials say Damascus is moving parts of its chemical weapons arsenal,
an allegation denied by Syrian authorities. Some in Washington imply that the
weapons may be used for “ethnic cleansing”.
Syria is believed to have a large arsenal of chemical weapons, including
sarin nerve agent, mustard gas and cyanide, which is undeclared due to the
country not being a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention.
The Wall Street Journal cites unnamed US officials as saying that parts of
the arsenal are being relocated from their storage facilities.
The Syrian government denied the alleged move when asked for comments.
The United States has
predicted that another Houla-style massacre will occur in Syria and has even
mentioned exact locations. Might as
well put up a flashing neon sign that blinks "False-flag attack in
progress. Proceed with recklessness because
we're gonna blame Assad for your dead corpse anyway!"
Armed groups fighting against the government of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad have blown up another gas pipeline in the crisis-hit eastern province
of Deir Ezzor.
A respected mainstream publication, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung(FAZ),
has reported that the infamous Houla massacre in Syria, which the US and NATO
hoped would be the casus belli for their planned invasion, was in fact carried
out by rebel forces.
Highlighted in the National Review, of all places, the FAZ investigation was
exhaustive and convincing.
NRO reports on the original FAZ story:
Israel's deputy military chief has warned that Syria's large chemical
weapons stocks could be trained on Israel. I remember when Israel said the same thing about
Saddam's chemical stocks .. which turned out not to exist!
Syrian rebels took control of a Syrian air force base near the city of Homs
Sunday, according to a report in Al-Arabiya.
The fighters gained control of a number of surface-to-air missile batteries,
giving them an extra edge as they battle forces loyal to Syrian President
Bashar Assad.
According to the report, officers and soldiers at the base defected and
joined rebel forces. The base’s battalion commander had asked the soldiers to
choose between joining the rebellion or going home. Looks as though this might be a real
turning point in this proxy war by foreign assets to depose Assad. And remember: the faster the current regime in
Damascus goes down, the more rapidly we are
most probably approaching a date for an attack against Iran.
SANA state media’s documentary discussed the Damascus incident. It named Western-recruited
Jabhet al-Nusra terrorists responsible.They also carried out earlier attacks. A Syrian documentary
aired on June 9, and a June 7 report by Germany’s leading broadsheet provide
more evidence. Both refutes Western and scoundrel media misinformation.
Russian journalist Marat Musin revealed the same thing. Based on firsthand
observations and eyewitness testimonies, he refuted Western misinformation and
lies.
Western-enlisted death squads bear full responsibility. Government forces
and/or so-called pro-Assad shabbiha had no involvement.
[The] 108 bodies were laid out by the Free ’Syrian’ Army [1] in a mosque in
Houla. According to the rebels, these were the remains of civilians massacred
on 25 May 2012 by pro-government militia known as ‘Shabbihas’.
The Syrian government appeared completely shocked by the news. It
immediately condemned the killings, which it attributed to the armed
opposition.
While the national news agency, SANA, was unable to provide details with
certainty, the Syrian Catholic news agency, Vox Clamantis, immediately issued a
testimony of some of the events formally accusing the opposition [2].
Five days later, the Russian news channel Rossiya 24 (exVesti) aired a very
detailed 45-minute report, which remains to date the most comprehensive public
inquiry [3].
Il est de plus en
plus évident que le gouvernement syrien n’est pas responsable des tirs
d’artillerie qui ont tué 32 enfants et leurs parents... Tout semble indiquer au
contraire que c’est l’oeuvre d’escadrons de la mort financés par les USA.
La doctrine
militaire américaine envisage le rôle central “d’évènements produisant un
nombre important de victimes” et dans lesquels des civils innocents sont
tués...
"Iran and Hezbollah are an inseparable part of the Syrian atrocities,
and the world needs to act against them too," Netanyahu was quoted as
saying. "Iran blew up the Hindenburg. Really, they
did! And they sank the Titanic, and shot down both Challenger and Columbia.
They tear the tags off of seat cushions. They fart in elevators.That adds to
global warming! They drove the dinosaurs to extinction! These are really nasty
people, and you should kill them for us!" -- Nodding Yahoo
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The BBC was busted using a photo of a room full of corpses from
Iraq (2003) as 'evidence' of a massacre in Syria last week.
The massacre itself was the act of Al Qaeda in Syria, though
Western media and the UN are trying desperately to convince us that
the Syrian government was behind it and generate a completely phony
public consensus to support foreign intervention.
There are SEVERAL issues making the media's version of events
totally unbelievable to even the casual observer.
The U.N.'s human rights office said Tuesday that most of the 108 victims of
a chilling massacre in Syria last week were shot at close range, some of them
women and children who were gunned down in their homes.
The report offered grim new details of an event that could prove to be a
turning point in Syria's 15 months of violence, but did not decisively say who
carried out most of the killings. Again, why would Assad, desperate to avoid being
invaded, commit such an obvious overt act that hands the invaders a
justification for the invasion?
Houla, Syria Stunt
Proves: Old Tricks are the Best Tricks
Tony Cartalucci Prisonplanet.com
As information trickles out of Houla, Syria, near the city of Homs and the
Lebanese-Syrian border, it is becoming clear that the Syrian government was not
responsible for shelling to deaths some 32 children and their parents, as
periodically claimed and denied by Western media and even the UN itself. It
appears that instead, it was death squads at close quarters – accused by
anti-government “activists” as being “pro-regime thugs” or “militias,” and by
the Syrian government as the work of Al Qaeda terrorists linked to foreign
meddlers.
As the killings were allegedly taking place, US, British, and French representatives were already
preparing to accuse, condemn, and level punishment against the Syrian government,
calling for an immediate UN Security Council session as well as the convening
of the “Friends of Syria” cadre to seek expanded arms shipments and aid to
militants. It was politically motivated haste, an opportunity engineered or
otherwise, for the West to push forward with its long sought after regime
change. NATO during the same period, had just slaughtered a family of 8, including 6 children in
Afghanistan, so surely if humanitarian concerns and justice were driving
these foreign interests, Afghanistan would have been brought up along with
Houla. It unfortunately was not.
Israeli airplanes are smuggling weapons into Syria through Iraq's Kurdistan
region, Syrian sources told Iranian Press TV.
According to the sources, Israel sends weapons to autonomous Kurdistan
region in Iraq's north, which are then smuggled into Syria with financial
assistance from Qatar.
Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani has
facilitated the operations of illegal Israeli firms in the region.
When America goes to war or plans one, the corporate media march in
lockstep. Journalism is the first casualty. Managed news misinformation
substitutes for truth and full disclosure.
Cheerleading propaganda is relentless. Readers and viewers are betrayed. Imperial
wars are called liberating ones. Separating fact from fiction is challenging.
Only replacing independent regimes with pro-Western puppet ones matters. The
media support it. Blood on their hands doesn't deter them. Steady income eases
conscience pangs. Soul selling pays well. Syria's regime has to be changed in order to
begin the attack against Iran, and that is the true prize here, from Israel's
(which of course also means the US Government's) perspective. I will be very surprised if Netanyahu waits
until after the US election in November to start this.
Very,very,interesting!
WASHINGTON — The U.S. intelligence community has intensified surveillance of
Israel’s military.
Western diplomatic sources said President Barack Obama has ordered
intensified U.S. intelligence on Israel’s military and government.
They said Obama wanted to ensure that his administration could collect
information that would indicate an Israeli plan to strike either Iran or Syria.
Hillary Clinton has put forward a new plan to remove Syrian president Bashar
al-Assad from power. Echoing recent US threats to take action on Syria
independently of the UN, the plan’s announcement coincides with yet another
tragic massacre.
Clinton’s announcement comes amidst the news of more tragic violence in
Syria. In what is being called a new massacre, reports on Thursday claimed that
some 100 people, many of them women and children, were killed in the Hama
region. The opposition says that Syrian security forces are responsible, while
Damascus has accused rebels of perpetrating the heinous massacre themselves to
try and garner support for foreign military intervention. Neither story can be
independently confirmed. Please remember: if Syria is attacked overtly by
outside forces, Iran is treaty-bound to
support Syria militarily. And that will become the "justification" for an attack
against Iran.
Morning headlines again falsely accused Assad of mass killings in Qubeir
village in central Hama province.
Houla-style slaughter was repeated. Reports said as many as 78 civilians
were killed. Half were women and children. Around 35 members of one family were
murdered in cold blood.
Victims were shot at close range and/or stabbed. Some bodies were burned.
Independent reports haven’t explained what eventually will come out. Pro-Assad
loyalists were targeted for assassination. At issue also is creating pretexts
for Libyan-style intervention.
The head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Syria says the nation is now in a
full blown civil war as the US and Russia accuse each other fueling the
violence.
A Jordanian member of the UN observer team in Syria says some of his
teammates are carrying out spy missions by collecting information about Syria’s
military headquarters.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that the UN Security
Council would not allow a mandate on the intervention into Syria.
"There will be no external intervention by the [UN] Security Council, I
guarantee you," Lavrov told journalists in Kazakhstan's capital of Astana.
Western countries have been attempting to make the UN Security Council take
tough measures against the Syrian government, where according to UN statistics
some 9,000 have been killed during clashes between government forces and the
opposition since March of last year. So far the Security Council has not come
to a unanimous decision since both Russia and China have vetoed intervention
into Syria so as not to repeat the "Libyan scenario. Without a UN mandate, the US and NATO may simply
move on their own to affect regime change in Syria. This could well mean war with Russia, if the
Duma and Russian military (and of course, Vladimir Putin) decide that they need
to draw a line in the sand here.
BATUMI, Georigia – China and Russia say they are united in opposing foreign
intervention in Syria. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to meet with
allies Wednesday in Turkey to discuss how best to pursue a political transition
to end President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.
Secretary of State Clinton says it is “pretty clear” that the main focus of
international diplomacy must be on intensifying efforts to speed a political
transition in Syria.
“We believe there is a way forward and we are going to continue to pursue
that and we invite the Russians and the Chinese to be part of the solution of
what is happening in Syria,” she said.
China's top state newspaper warned on Monday that any Western-backed
military intervention in Syria would unleash even bloodier chaos, and said
abandoning envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan could push Syria into the
"abyss" of full-scale war.
According to a report published in Daily Star, British Special Forces would
set up camps along Syria’s borders with Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon and that
Special Air Service (SAS) troops and MI6 agents will help the rebels if civil
war breaks out in the country.
They also have hi-tech satellite computers and radios that can instantly
send back photos and details of events unfolding in Syria.
”There are guys in the communications unit who are signalers that can go
right up front and get involved in close-quarter fighting,” Daily Star quoted
a senior Whitehall source as saying.
The British troops would be part of an international force including French
and Turkish soldiers and possibly Americans.
The Free Syrian Army
declared that it was no longer bound by a ceasefire plan brokered by Kofi Annan,
the UN and Arab League special envoy to Syria, who was yesterday struggling to
salvage international backing for his efforts .
Rebel leaders said they had authorised the resumption of full-scale military
operations after the Syrian leader ignored their ultimatum to comply with the
terms of Mr Annan's plan by last Friday.
"We have decided to end our commitment to this (plan)," Maj Sami
al-Kurdi, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, said.
The US, NATO, Israeli, and Gulf State-backed "heroic" Free Syrian
Army has been accused by Syria's Christian community and its foreign affiliates
of waging a sectarian, not "pro-democratic" war on the Syrian people.
French Bishop Philip Tournyol Clos stated, "the picture for us is utter
desolation: the church of Mar Elian is half destroyed and that of Our Lady of
Peace is still occupied by the rebels.
Syria has barred a string of US and European diplomats, saying they are
"no longer welcome" in the country, but has signed an agreement to
admit humanitarian aid.
"It was not possible to independently confirm many details of the
massacre Wednesday afternoon in Qubair, a small Sunni hamlet northwest of the
city of Hama that is surrounded by villages populated by members of Assad’s
Shiite-affiliated Alawite sect," reported the Washington Post. Even days
after the alleged atrocity unfolded, no evidence has been produced to match the
torrent of sensational headlines now being exploited by the West and the UN to
justify another round of condemnation and threats against the Syrian
government.
The US Navy has unexpectedly dispatched a fourth aircraft carrier to the
Persian Gulf, along with a fleet of underwater drones in what is being
considered just the latest move in a series of escalations leading towards a
potential war with Iran.
The deployment of dozens of small, unmanned submarine-like watercraft was
confirmed by the Los Angeles Times this week, which cites military officials
speaking on condition of anonymity.
Israel is fully prepared to attack Iran if needed, declared Israeli Defense
Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, saying the military threat is one convincing
method of forcing Tehran to give up its nuclear ambitions.
According to the military chief, “the vectors of international diplomatic
isolation, economic pressure and sanctions, disturbances to the [nuclear]
project… and a credible military threat” make the list of factors that can
influence the direction of Iran's nuclear program.
“In order to be a credible military threat, we must be super-ready, and as
far as I’m concerned, we’re super-ready,” Gantz was cited by Israeli media as
saying to the country’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Memo to Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff
Gantz; sir, I would very strongly caution you to be very careful about what you
wish for here. First, according to many studies, Israel may be
able to start this war by itself, but will most likely need US military
intervention to assist you to succeed in it. And I can assure you, sir, that the American
people have no appetite whatsoever for this war. They understand fully that
they were lied to about the war in Iraq (for which Israeli leadership was
cheerleading, as Iraq was being characterized as its "existential threat du
jour" at the time). They fully understand that to date, because of
IAEA inspections, no nuclear materials have been diverted from its energy
program into any kind of nuclear weapons program. The 20% enrichment which is happening in Iran is for the creation
of medical isotopes; not to make weapons with which to blow things up. They also understand that, due to the provisions
of the Symington Amendment, and because Israel refuses to become a member of
the NNPT and allow its nuclear missile sites to be inspected (there is no more "ambiguity" over this program, sir), that every dime the American government gives to
Israel in military or financial aid, is
completely illegal. To be sure, the Obama regime may institute some
kind of martial law with which to gag protestors against American military
participation in such an attack; this will not, however, change the way
Americans will feel about it, which
will be that they have been betrayed by their government. But let's say this war is neither a clean
"surgical strike", or short, but drags on for a couple of years?!?
The Israeli casualties will be enormous, and Hezbullah will be attacking every
Israeli asset in the region and beyond. And one question, sir: in attacking Iran, how
comfortable does the Israeli military and political leadership feel about
knowing that an attack against Iran will also kill members of one of the oldest
surviving Jewish communities in the world, your fellow and sister Jews who are
living in Iran?!? Just checking. And even if the US does assist you militarily,
this does not insure a positive outcome, and for the following reasons: the US
government doesn't have the troops, the money, or the manufacturing to insure a
successful outcome. And lastly, Chief of Staff Gantz, leaders of
nuclear-armed countries such as Russia, China, and Pakistan have recently
publicly stated that should Iran be attacked, they will go to its aid militarily. So what we have here, sir, is the potential for a
global thermonuclear war over an alleged Iranian nuclear program which cannot,
to date, be proven to exist. So please, be very careful about what you wish
for as an outcome to a war with Iran; the
unintended consequences from such an engagement could be both catastrophic and
irreversible, not only for Israel and its future, but for the entire world as
well.
The Pentagon is considering awarding a Distinguished Warfare Medal to drone
pilots who work on military bases often far removed from the battlefield. "I got this medal for pushing the blue
button, and I got this medal for pushing the red button, and I got the ribbon
for pushing the yellow and red buttons together while leaving the blue button
alone, and ..."
The Pentagon is considering awarding a Distinguished Warfare Medal to drone
pilots who work on military bases often far removed from the battlefield. . . .
Madison Ruppert, Contributor
Activist Post
Lockheed Martin, one of America’s largest war profiteers, has demonstrated
technology in partnership with LaserMotive which can extend the flight time of
their “Stalker” drone by 2,400 percent using a ground-based laser and
potentially allow the drone to stay in the air indefinitely.
With drones being used by the military in league with law enforcement and
with the practice set to expand across United States, this could be a great way
to keep surveillance on potential criminals around the clock, or just monitor
traffic.
This technology, which admittedly sounds like pure science fiction, uses a
proprietary method to wirelessly transfer energy via laser light over long
distances, in this case from the ground to the Stalker as it flies...
As the Federal Aviation Administration helps usher in an age of drones for
U.S. law enforcement agencies, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s)
domestically by the U.S. military — and the sharing of collected data with
police agencies — is raising its own concerns about possible violations of
privacy and Constitutional law, according to drone critics.
A non-classified U.S. Air Force intelligence report obtained by KNX 1070
NEWSRADIO dated April 23, 2012, is helping fuel concern that video and other
data inadvertently captured by Air Force drones already flying through some
U.S. airspace, might end up in the hands of federal or local law enforcement,
doing an end-run around normal procedures requiring police to obtain court
issued warrants...
As many are now well aware, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is
pushing for the integration of drones into the national airspace, especially
for use by law enforcement and unsurprisingly a bill was passed and signed into
law doing just that.
The US carried out another drone strike in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled
tribal agency of North Waziristan. The strike is the third in Pakistaniin three
days, and the eighth in the two weeks since the US failed to get Pakistan to
reopen the supply lines for NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The remotely piloted Predators or Reapers launched a pair of missiles at a
compound in the town of Mir Ali, a terrorist hub in North Waziristan, according
to AFP. Fifteen "militants" were killed in the strike, Pakistani
officials told the news agency.
Two Pakistani intelligence officials say four missiles were fired at targets
in the village of Mana Raghzai in South Waziristan near the border with
Afghanistan on Sunday morning.
At the time of the attack, suspected militants were gathered to offer
condolences to the brother of a militant commander killed during another
American unmanned drone attack on Saturday. The brother was one of those who
died in the Sunday morning strike. The Pakistani officials said two of the dead
were foreigners, and the rest were Pakistani.
The New York-based Global Policy Forum (GPF) said in a research report on
Tuesday that Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) committed “serious
human rights abuses, killed or injured innocent civilians, engaged in financial
malfeasance and committed many other breaches of the law.”
The full report is entitled “Dangerous Partnership: Private Military &
Security Companies and the UN.”
Bowing to pressure from the Coalition for Mercury-free Drugs (CoMeD, Inc.)
and other organizations, the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed its 2004
guidelines on eliminating, reducing, and replacing Thimerosal in vaccines to
public health officials worldwide.
WHO made its disclosure before the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) where it met unprecedented resistance to its defense of the use of
neurotoxic mercury in vaccines. “This is a huge development,” says CoMeD’s Vice
President, David Geier, while speaking at UNEP’s INC4 meeting.
The swine flu vaccine used during the pandemic may increase the risk nervous
system disorder that causes temporary paralysis almost three fold, a study has
found.
Researchers in Canada have found that for every million doses of the H1N1
pandemic vaccine that were administered in 2009/10 there were two extra cases
of Guillain-Barré syndrome which can be fatal in extreme cases.
Vaccines aren’t supposed to cause disease. But that appears to be what’s
happening on Australian farms.
Scientists have found that two virus strains used to vaccinate chickens
there may have recombined to form a virus that is sickening and killing the
animals.
“This shows that recombination of such strains can happen and people need to
think about it,” said Glenn Browning, a veterinary microbiologist at the
University of Melbourne, Parkville, in Australia and one of the co-authors on
the paper.
“The birds effectively choke to death on blood and mucus,” said Browning.
Indian J Med Ethics. 2012 Apr-Jun;9(2):114-7. PMID: 22591873
Abstract Author(s):
Neetu Vashisht, Jacob Puliyel
Article Affiliation:
Department of Paediatrics, St Stephens Hospital, Delhi 110054, India.
puliyel@gmail.com
It was hoped that following polio eradication, immunisation could be
stopped. However the synthesis of polio virus in 2002, made eradication
impossible. It is argued that getting poor countries to expend their scarce
resources on an impossible dream over the last 10 years was unethical.
Furthermore, while India has been polio-free for a year, there has been a huge
increase in non-polio acute flaccid paralysis (NPAFP). In 2011, there were an
extra 47,500 new cases of NPAFP. Clinically indistinguishable from polio
paralysis but twice as deadly, the incidence of NPAFP was directly proportional
to doses of oral polio received. Though this data was collected within the
polio surveillance system, it was not investigated.
Anthony Gucciardi
Activist Post
CT scans, routinely performed on children and adults alike at the suggestion
of their doctor, may actually triple the risk of developing leukemia or brain
tumors in children.
Scientists are now warning over the link between CT scan radiation and
elevated brain tumor risk after the information was brought to the surface,
thanks to new research stemming from Newcastle University.
Alternative health
experts have long warned against the large amount of unnecessary CT scans and
other scanning techniques involving radiation.
Published Thursday in The Lancet
medical journal, the scientists discovered that due to the fact that the CT
scans can trigger cancer, it should only be used when “fully clinically
justified.”
Currently, doctors frequently use CT scans to examine the severity of chest
infections and other diseases. In addition, head trauma is also examined with
CT scans to check for brain injury. This is particularly problematic when
considering the fact that these scans involve rather large doses of radiation,
even when compared to x-ray alternatives. CT scan radiation can be especially
problematic with growing and developing brains.
In fact, CT scans emit 10 times more radiation than x-ray options. It is for
this reason that the researchers of the study conclude that it should be a
“priority” to limit radiation doses used in CT scans. The results were based on
180,000 children who received CT scans in Britain between 1985 and 2002.
Previously, dental
x-rays have been linked in similar research to a two-fold increase in brain
tumor risk. Coming out of Yale, the researchers found that the risk factor
ratio could actually be even higher for children, which isn’t surprising. When
exposed to bitewing x-rays (the kind that shows upper and lower back teeth)
performed less than once per year, patients were 1.1 to 1.6 times more likely
to experience a form of brain cancer known as meningioma. When the number of
x-rays jumped to 1 or higher per year, or even more frequent panorex dental
X-ray (an X-ray showing all teeth and surrounding bones), the risk factor
increased by 2.7 to 3.0 What’s more, is that x-rays performed before age 10
gave the young children a 4.9 times more likely chance to develop the
condition.
As further research comes out, it becomes more and more apparent that radiation
is unsafe at any dose — especially for children. It is time to re-examine the
current medical paradigm and opt for safer alternatives in order to fight the
burdgeoning cancer rates currently surging throughout the globe.
By supporting this effort, Gates believes she can prevent 40% of people who
would otherwise have been born, there by justifying family planning as a scheme
to make women healthier who have “families are more successful and their
communities are more prosperous.”
The future has no fathers, according to Gates. Only one child, only one
woman.
Susanne Posel, Contributor
Activist Post
At the London Summit on Family Planning (LSFP), the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation (BMGF) pledged
$560 million to their campaign to depopulate underdeveloped nations. World
leaders, private-sector corporations, UN representatives and non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) attended the LSFP.
Warren Buffet, friend and fellow Elitist, has agreed
to hand over most of his wealth to charity; contributed stock valued
at $1.52 billion in his annual gift to the BMGF.
Buffet asserted in a YouTube video in 2011:
"I urge people to unbutton their wallet, pull out a check, reach into
their purse, whatever it takes. You will find that when you give a dollar and
something of yourself, a lot more than a dollar comes out the other end."
The Global Vaccine Action Plan (GVAP)
is pushing governments worldwide with the power of the UN to back them to
coerce the increase of global vaccinations through strategic programs.
The DVC is comprised of stakeholders from the global health community. The Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) have also partnered with the WHO and DVC to
support GVAP.
The BMGF released a statement on
the GVAP saying that they are excited to be part of this “incredible
opportunity” to continue their efforts to eradicate polio in “Nigeria,
Pakistan, and Afghanistan” and fund “vaccination campaigns with the support of
international partners.
The details of GVAP include
delivery of vaccines to DVC between 2011 – 2020 with aims to administer these
immunizations to underdeveloped nations like Africa and India. The initiative
will attempt to exceed the UN’s Millennium Development Goal (MDG)
that “immunization . . . should be recognized as a core component of the human
right to health”, the plan says. The plan’s mission is to “extend, by 2020 and
beyond, the full benefit of immunization to all people.”
Strategic objectives of the scheme are defined:
Extending
the polio vaccine program to global expectations
Meeting
regional elimination targets through immunizations
Meeting
vaccination targets in every region, community and country
Collaborating
with drug corporations to produce vaccines and technologies
WHO
and DVC want to build relationships with pharmaceutical manufacturers to
research and develop new vaccines for diseases that are not treatable through
immunization.
By 2015, all underdeveloped nations will be admonished by the UN to introduce
one or more underutilized vaccines, which will be licensed and disbursed by WHO
and DVC to low- or middle-income countries by 2020.
End of the American Dream Did you know that
sterilization will not cost women a penny under Obamacare? A new regulation that goes into effect on August
1st requires that health plans cover sterilization for all women with
“reproductive capacity”.
That includes teenage girls. According to the
new regulation, women must have access to sterilization “without having to pay
a co-payment, co-insurance or a deductible.” So women will not have to
pay a single penny out of pocket if they want to get sterilized. Of course
this sterilization mandate will make health insurance more expensive for all of
us, but the social engineers in Washington D.C. feel that increasing access to
sterilization is a very important public policy goal.
If we broaden our perspective, and if we look beyond particular developments
and attempt to grasp what is happening over a longer period of time, the nature
of the horror that awaits us takes on a clearer shape: The West's ruling class
is embarked on a program of killing and elimination. A general caution should
be kept in mind. I'm not suggesting that this program is one that the ruling
class has explicitly identified, even to itself, at least not necessarily.
This, of course, is the goal which the ruling class announces, and which it
desperately tries to convince both itself and us is true. This is why the push is on for chemical or
physical sterilization, coupled with a rush to war as dual means for
depopulation. You
have not killed me yet. Time to short Monsanto? Who else does the Genetically
Altered Seed?Oh thank you so much Gates and Buffett.Time to short BRK-A http://rachelhunt.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/gmo-corn-and-sterilization/Taking antibodies from women with a rare condition
known as “immune infertility” and isolating the genes that regulated the
manufacture of those antibodies, they inserted them into the corn plants,
creating, in essence, a biological weapon for population control. And who was
helping to finance this endeavor? The Gates’ Foundation (which includes the
Buffet Foundation) and the Rockefeller Foundation, through a project called The
Alliance for a Green Revolution, headed by none other than former U.N. Chief,
Kofi Annan. Major GMO agri-businesses are reported to be at the heart of AGRA,
using it to spread their GMO technology throughout the Third World. According
to Engdahl, “Gates and Buffet are major funders of global population reduction
programs.” http://farmwars.info/?p=283http://www.2012theawakening.com/?p=2481http://oneworldscam.com/?p=12If we can do a really good job through health care
new vaccines and reproductive services we can lower it by 10 or 15% oh but
plants need co2 to live. http://www.naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=A155D113455FAC882A3290536575C723Then there is Meat Glue. http://www.dailyspark.com/blog.asp?post=have_you_heard_of_meat_glueDon't forget Aspartame. http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Aspartame-GM-Bacteria.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AspartameUpon ingestion, aspartame breaks down into natural
residual components, including aspartic acid, phenylalanine, methanol,[21] and
further breakdown products including formaldehyde[22] and formic acid,
accumulation of the latter being suspected as the major cause of injury in
methanol poisoning. Human studies show that formic acid is excreted faster than
it is formed after ingestion of aspartate. In some fruit juices, higher
concentrations of methanol can be found than the amount produced from aspartame
in beverages.[9] High levels of the naturally-occurring essential amino acid
phenylalanine are a health hazard to those born with phenylketonuria (PKU), a
rare inherited disease that prevents phenylalanine from being properly
metabolized. Since individuals with PKU must consider aspartame as an
additional source of phenylalanine, foods containing aspartame sold in the
United States must state "Phenylketonurics: Contains Phenylalanine"
on their product labelshttp://www.enotes.com/how-products-encyclopedia/aspartameI wonder why we have high health care cost. But no
worries mate. The government is taking really good care of you. Now renumber
children. No smoking outside anymore in some states and we have put a band on
that nasty natural salt so you won't have high blood pressure. The government
is taking really good care of you. Just close your eyes and go back to
sleep.There you go And of course, the rush to war (Syria, Iran,
ANYWHERE, before the US economy tanks), is self-evident.
In the Belgian village Sivry Rance an inspector of the Department of Health
was attacked by the customers of the Café de la poste and stripped naked . The
man was controling the ban on smoking in bars. Ever
wonder why the government says smoking is bad for you yet you always see
politicians and bankers with huge cigars in their puss? It is true that the
mineral fertilizer that tobacco for cheap cigarettes made for the serfs is
grown in is radioactive, but tobacco in and of itself, grown organically, is
not the source of cancer. Is the ban on smoking because tobacco stimulates the
brain, makes it more alert, something politicians don't want the serfs to be? In Aldous
Huxley's "Brave New World", lower-class citizens were force-fed
alcohol during their gestation to damage their brains, to make them stupid,
pliant, and more useful for society's lower functions. Is that one reason
alcohol, which kills brains cells is legal in the US, while marijuana, which
stimulates the growth of new brain cells, is not?
No wonder states like California and others experienced a boom in prison
construction beginning in the 1980s.
According to statistics compiled by The Sentencing Project, a nonprofit
dedicated to prison reform, the total number of people in jails and prisons for
violating drug laws soared from 41,000 in 1980 to 507,000 by 2010.
During this same 30-year period, the overall prison and jail population more
than quadrupled, from 502,886 to 2,266,832 inmates. The United States leads the
world in per capita incarceration at 743 per 100,000, ahead of Rwanda (c595)
and Russia (568).
The price of North America's benchmark crude oil plunged to fresh
eight-month lows below US$82 a barrel on Monday as a weak U.S. jobs report last
week continued to spark a global selloff in stocks and commodities.
By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark oil for July delivery was down $1.08
to $82.15 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Earlier in the session, the contract briefly traded at $81.21, the lowest since
October.
--- Wow, gasoline is not down at the pumps.It's still the equivalent
of $5.20 per US gallon in the great white north!!!!
Michael Snyder, Contributor
Activist Post
Global leaders have tried just about everything that they can think of, but
the coming global financial catastrophe continues to march steadily toward us.
We have seen "stimulus packages", quantitative easing, bond buying,
interest rate cuts, emergency economic summits, bailout packages for banks,
bailout packages for entire nations, "Operation Twist", unprecedented
government intervention in business and massive amounts of new government debt
and yet nothing seems to revive the global economy.
In fact, it looks like we are rapidly heading into the second dip of a
"double dip recession".
Much has been said about the Baltic Dry Index over the course of the last
four years, especially in light of the credit crisis and the effects it has had
on the frequency of global shipping. Importing and exporting has never been
quite the same since 2008, and this change is made most obvious through one of
the few statistical measures left in the world that is not subject to direct
manipulation by international corporate interests; the BDI. Today, the BDI is
on the verge of making headlines once again, being that is plummeting like a
wingless 747 into the swampy mire of what I believe will soon be historical
lows.
Coincidence? Not a chance. From 2001 to 2002, a similar collapse in the BDI
preceded a progressive drop in the Dow of around 4000 points, ending in a
highly suspect (Fed engineered) illegitimate recovery. In 2008, the index fell
to near record lows once again just before the derivatives and credit crisis
hit stocks full force. To imply that the BDI is not a useful measure of future
economic trends seems like an astonishingly ignorant proposition when one
examines its very predictable behavior just before major financial downturns.
Robert Benmosche the CEO of AIG, is now saying Americans need to face the
reality that the retirement age in the US needs to be pushed to 80 years of
age.
Yes the CEO of that same AIG that held their hands out for $85 billion
dollars of your money because they decided gamble the entire global economy is
now complaining that the government can’t be expected to give out retirement
benefits to senior citizens at age of 65.
Meanwhile AIG still hasn’t paid back taxpayers for the 2008 bailout and if
you think this isn’t something that Congress isn’t going to try to push into
legislation tell that to the Greeks who have been forced by the bankers to
accept bailout terms that peg their retirement age to average life expectancy –
(which is 78 years old for females and the 81 years old for males in Greece)
According to The Financial Times, at least 900,000 home mortgages in the
U.S. were pegged to the Libor, an interest rate index that governs how much
banks charge to lend money to each other. The effect of manipulating that rate
can hardly be overstated.
In other words, more than $275 billion in outstanding U.S. housing debt
could be called in question if it is proven that major banks were actively
manipulating the Libor rate to rip off customers. So far, Bank of America,
JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup have been roped into an ongoing global
investigation of Libor rate manipulation, which recently saw British bank
Barclays admit that it was part of the scheme.
Since 1994, the mythical Strong Dollar Policy had necessitated a two prong
strategy: that of keeping rates low because weak currencies are typified by
high interest rates; and the price of gold must be suppressed as it stands as
an historical alternative settlement currency – and they don’t want the
alternative to appear “strong."
Libor – or the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate – is one of the lynch pins in
setting [rigging] global U.S. Dollar interest rates. This is why a larger
discussion needs to be had about the Libor rigging – it is not a London or
Barclay’s centric story. It has EVERYTHING to do with making the American
Dollar look viable as the world’s reserve currency.
By Rob Kirby
GATA was born in the late 1990’s – primarily on the back of fundamental
research by Frank Veneroso regarding Central Bank Gold Leasing.
Veneroso’s intellectual curiosity was aroused after being fed detailed data re:
gold leasing by the Bank of England’s Terry
Smeeton.
The fact that gold prices and interest rates were so highly “inter-related”
was first publicized in the alternative media by Reg Howe in 2001. Howe
alerted the world to academic accounts of the special relationship between gold
and interest rates. He highlighted the body of economic law and
observation associated with “Gibson’s Paradox”
– something Lawrence
Summers [later, U.S. Treasury Secretary and current senior economic advisor
to Obama] wrote about with Robert Barsky while he was a professor at Harvard in
the 1980’s.
The upshot of this Gibson’s Paradox economic theory goes something like
this: real interest rates and the gold price are causal and inter-related
with each other.
This is why Professor Lawrence Summers was summoned to Washington as assistant
Secretary of Treasury under Robert Rubin [Clinton Admin. / 1993]. It was
to implement HIS
THEORETICAL WORK under the auspices of Treasury Secretary
Robert Rubin’s mythical “Strong Dollar Policy”. Conclusion:
since 1994, the mythical Strong Dollar Policy had necessitated a two prong
strategy: that of keeping rates low because weak currencies are typified by
high interest rates; and the price of gold must be suppressed as it stands as
an historical alternative settlement currency – and they don’t want the
alternative to appear “strong”.
The interrelatedness of the gold price and interest rates helps to explain
why – According to the Office
of the Comptroller of the Currency – of the 302 Trillion in aggregate
derivatives held by American Bank Holding Cos – 81 % of this is composed of
interest rate products. This is due to the symbiosis that exists between
gold and interest rates.
Libor – or the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate – is one of the lynch pins in
setting [rigging] global U.S. Dollar interest rates. This is why a larger
discussion needs to be had about the Libor rigging – it is not a London or
Barclay’s centric story. It has EVERYTHING to do with making the American
Dollar look viable as the world’s reserve currency. When The Libor Story
First Broke
It was Q3 2007 – post [Mar. 2007] Bear Stearns collapse – when credit
markets “seized up” in response to the [Aug. 2007] sub-prime crisis, where
triple-A-rated mortgaged bonded failed – stories first began circulating the
mainstream financial press that “Libor” was “broken”.
The “tell-tale” that things were not right was A] the widening of the TED
Spread [3 month Eurodollar future vs. 3 month U.S. T-Bill] – expressed in
basis points, and B] the growing spread between Libor and the Eurodollar future
– again, expressed in basis points:
For more of this story:
http://kirbyanalytics.com/
“I just can’t imagine the demand for gold is going down,” he said in a July
9 interview at Bloomberg’s Toronto office. “I don’t personally see a solution
to the problem that we’re in, the financial leveraging issue that we all have
where everybody wants to shed debt and there’s no buyers.”
Sprott’s company manages funds investing mainly in gold, silver, and
precious-metals equities. He expects bullion will rise as investors seek the
safest assets while governments spend to stimulate their economies, increasing
chances that inflation will accelerate.
Gold, which had advanced for 11 successive years, is little changed so far
in 2012. It’s 19 percent lower than the record $1,923.70 an ounce traded on
Sept. 6 in New York after investors favored buying the dollar amid Europe’s
escalating debt crisis.
Spain will likely have to cede most control over its banks to Europe in
exchange for assistance, according to a draft agreement of the bank bailout
agreement, The Wall Street Journal reported. The requirements could mean
holders of junior bonds and preferred shares issued by banks that are bailed out
will face losses, said the newspaper in its online edition.
Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of the right-wing Popular Party
announced a new €65 billion ($79 billion) package of cuts Wednesday, the fourth
since his election last November.
The latest measures come on top of previous cuts, amounting to €48 billion,
agreed between the central government and 17 autonomous regions. Those cuts had
themselves been described as the most severe since the fascist dictatorship of
Generalisimo Francisco Franco.
Rajoy, of the center-right People's Party, proposed a 3-point hike in the
main rate of Value Added Tax on goods and services to 21 percent. Spain loots its people in a vain search for the
eleventh marble!
The US budget deficit
grew by nearly $60 billion in June, and is on track to exceed $1 trillion for
the fourth straight year. By the end of this fiscal year, which ends on Sept.
30, the full budget deficit will total $1.17 trillion, according to the
Congressional Budget Office.
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) — As recently as last month, no city in
California had opted for bankruptcy since 2008, and no U.S. city of more than
200,000 people had ever chosen bankruptcy.
The past two weeks have changed all that, in a big way, as the fiscal
struggles faced by so many American cities became too much for some to bear.
Why does the title of the article single out Barack Obama? Well, it is because
right now he is the biggest cheerleader for the economy. He is attempting to
convince all of us that everything is just fine and that the economy is heading
in a positive direction. Well, the truth is that everything is not fine and
things are about to get a whole lot worse. Certainly others should share in the
blame as well. Congress has been steering the economy in the wrong direction
for decades, the “too big to fail” banks have turned Wall Street into a pyramid
of risk, leverage and debt, and the Federal Reserve has more power over the
financial system than anyone else does.
The following are 70 facts that Barack Obama does
not want you to see….
$3.59 – When
Barack Obama entered the White House, the average price of a gallon of gasoline
was $1.85. Today, it is$3.59.
22 – It is
hard to believe, but today the poverty rate for children living in the United
States is a whopping 22
percent.
23 –
According to U.S. Representative Betty Sutton, an average of 23 manufacturing facilities permanently shut down in the United States every
single day during 2010.
30 – Back
in 2007, about 10 percent of all unemployed Americans had been out of work for
52 weeks or longer. Today, that number is above
30 percent.
32 – The
amount of money that the federal government gives directly to Americans has
increased by 32
percent since
Barack Obama entered the White House.
35 – U.S.
housing prices are now down a total of 35
percent from the
peak of the housing bubble.
40 – The
official U.S. unemployment rate has been above 8
percent for 40
months in a row.
42 –
According to one survey, 42
percent of all
American workers are currently living paycheck to paycheck.
48 –
Shockingly, at this point 48
percent of all
Americans are either considered to be “low income” or are living in poverty.
49 – Today,
an astounding 49.1
percent of all
Americans live in a home where at least one person receives benefits from the
government.
60 –
According to a recent Gallup poll, only 60
percent of all
Americans say that they have enough money to live comfortably.
61 – At
this point the
Federal Reserve is
essentially monetizing much of the U.S. national debt. For example, the
Federal Reserve bought up approximately 61
percent of all
government debt issued by the U.S. Treasury Department during 2011.
63 – One
recent survey found that 63
percent of all
Americans believe that the U.S. economic model is broken.
$6000 – If you
can believe it, the median price of a home in Detroit is now just
$6000.
$10,000 –
According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 46
percent of all
American workers have less than $10,000 saved for retirement, and 29
percent of all
American workers have less than $1,000 saved for retirement.
49,000 – In 2011,
our trade deficit with China was more than 49,000
times larger than it
was back in 1985.
50,000 – The
United States has lost an average of approximately 50,000 manufacturing jobs a month
since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.
56,000 – The
United States has lost more than
56,000 manufacturing facilities since
2001.
$85,000 –
According to the New
York Times, a Jeep
Grand Cherokee that costs $27,490 in the United States costs about $85,000 in
China thanks to all the tariffs.
$175,587 – The
Obama administration spent $175,587 to find out if cocaine causes Japanese quail to
engage in sexually risky behavior.
$328,404 – Over
the next 75 years, Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38
trillion dollars. That comes to$328,404 for each and every household in the United States.
$361,330 – This
is what the average
banker in New York City made in 2010.
440,00 – If the
federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt
at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over
440,000 years to
totally pay it off.
500,000 –
According to the Economic Policy Institute, America is losing half a
million jobs to China
every single year.
2,000,000 - Family
farms are being systematically wiped
out of existence in the United States. According to the U.S. Department
of Agriculture, the number of farms in the United States has fallen from about
6.8 million in 1935 to only about 2
million today.
2,600,000 – In
2010, 2.6 million more Americans fell into
poverty.
That was the largest
increase that we
have seen since the U.S. government began keeping statistics on this back in
1959.
5,400,000 – When
Barack Obama first took office there were 2.7 million long-term unemployed
Americans. Today there are twice as
many.
16,000,000 – It is
being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the
Medicaid rolls.
$20,000,000 – The amount of money the U.S. government was spending to create a
version of Sesame Street for
children in Pakistan.
25,000,000 – Today,
approximately 25
million American
adults are living with their parents.
40,000,000 –
According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million more
U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades if current trends
continue.
46,405,204 – The
number of Americans currently on food
stamps. When Barack Obama first
entered the White House there were only 32 million Americans on food stamps.
88,000,000 – Today
there are more than 88 million working age Americans that are not employed and
that are not looking for employment. That is an all-time record high.
100,000,000 – Overall, there are more than
100 million working
age Americans that do not currently have jobs.
$150,000,000 – This is approximately the amount of money that the Obama
administration and the U.S. Congress are stealing from future generations of
Americans every
single hour.
$2,000,000,000 – The amount of money that JP Morgan has admitted that it will lose
from derivatives trades gone bad. Many analysts are convinced that the
real number will actually end up being much
higher.
$147,000,000,000 – In the U.S., medical costs related to obesity are estimated to be
approximately 147
billion dollars a year.
295,500,000,000 – Our trade deficit with China in 2011 was $295.5
billion.
That was the largest trade deficit that one country has had with another
country in the history of the planet.
$359,100,000,000 – During the first quarter of 2012, U.S. public debt rose by 359.1
billion dollars.
U.S. GDP only rose by 142.4 billion dollars.
$454,000,000,000 – During fiscal 2011, the U.S. government spent over 454
billion dollars just on
interest on the national debt.
$1,000,000,000,000 – The total amount of student loan debt in the
United States recently surpassed the one trillion dollar mark.
$1,170,000,000,000 – China now holds approximately 1.17
trillion dollars of U.S.
government debt. Yet the U.S. government continues to send them millions
of dollars in foreign aid every year.
$1,600,000,000,000 – The amount that has been added to the U.S.
national debt since the Republicans took control of the U.S. House of Representatives. This is more than the first 97 Congresses
added to the national debt combined.
$5,000,000,000,000 – The U.S. national debt has risen by more
than 5 trillion dollars since
the day that Barack Obama first took office. In a little more than 3
years Obama has added more to the national debt than the first 41 presidents
combined.
$5,000,000,000,000 – What the real U.S. budget deficit in 2011 would
have been if the
federal government had used generally accepted accounting principles.
$11,440,000,000,000 – The total amount of consumer
debt in the United States.
$200,000,000,000,000 – Today, the 9 largest banks in the United States
have a total of more than 200
trillion dollars of
exposure to derivatives. When the derivatives market completely
collapses there
won’t be enough money in the entire world to fix it.
f this is the age of budget cutbacks and government austerity, someone ought
to tell the Pentagon and its weapons contractors, because they haven’t gotten
the memo about shared sacrifice. According to a summary of the
top federal contractors produced by the Federal Procurement Data System, the
Defense Department gave out $372.8 billion (70%) of the $532.6 billion in government
contract spending in fiscal year 2011, with just 10 arms makers accounting for
28% of all contracting dollars, up from 25% a year before, and the top 5
accounting for 20.8%. Can you
imagine what 378 billion dollars could do toward fixing this country's
crumbling infrastructure?!?
The California housing market sits in an odd stage of limbo. You can see
that the public for the most part is fully aware of the situation like an Alamo
standoff in real estate. People fully acknowledge now that banks are holding
off a tremendous amount of inventory. There is little that is secretive about
the shadow inventory at this point. Yet with all the distressed properties,
people are looking at artificially low rates and are wondering if this is the
time to buy (assuming they are not one of the 20+ percent that are
underemployed).
Obama, now has formed an agency to directly Bail out the Comex and London
exchange for all the derivative bets of Wall Street. It is a back door bail out
of the banks and makes sure the manipulation of metals continue, as I see it.
Ted Butler directly accuses the CFTC of lying and being complicit in the
manipulation of silver. He says it is easy to prove. He is calling for the
resignation of the whole CFTC board.
The Bankia group, a Spanish lender nationalized earlier this month, will
seek 19-billion euros (US$23.8-billion) of government funds as it provisions
against real estate and non-property loans.
The group will ask the state’s bank rescue fund to provide the money by
buying shares in its parent company, Banco Financiero y de Ahorros, it said in
a filing to regulators yesterday after a meeting of the board of Bankia SA, its
listed arm. The group needs a further 4 billion euros to cover real estate on
top of provisions already ordered by the government, and 5.5-billion euros for
the rest of its loan book, it said.
The dollar’s death by a thousand cuts just sustained a major blow courtesy
the samurai as Kyodo News announced Saturday that Yen-Yuan direct trading will
begin in June. Coincidence that Jim Sinclair predicted 6 months ago that the US
dollar would suffer a major set-back in June 2012?
As the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday:
Little noticed is that on Tuesday Team Obama took its first formal steps
toward putting taxpayers behind Wall Street derivatives trading — not behind
banks that might make mistakes in derivatives markets, but behind the trading
itself. Yes, the same crew that rails against the dangers of derivatives is
quietly positioning these financial instruments directly above the taxpayer
safety net. What this
basically means is that the US Government let Wall Street go wild with
high-stakes gambling called Derivatives, and even after the disaster of AIG
(which was dumped into the taxpayers) derivatives were still allowed to run
rampant across the globe. In other words, since Wall Street and the government
ducked the consequences of their earlier greed, they got greedier. Derivatives
exposure in Europe alone is almost $100 trillion. So what Wall Street and
Washington DC just did is drop the derivatives exposure onto the taxpayer. So
when the system implodes, which is now inevitable, they will come knocking on
the door for your money, your gold, your jewelry, the gold in your teeth, your
silver, your copper, your car, and most importantly the lives of your children
pledged as slaves to the resulting debt for the next 20 generations. As ancient Rome succumbed to the machinations of the
money-junkies, wives, daughters, even sons were forced to work in state-owned
houses of prostitution. Already in Europe women are being told they must work
as whores if they cannot find other work with which to pay the money-junkies.
Think it will not happen here? Still believe Saddam had nuclear weapons? Now, consider that since 2008 the American
people have told the US Government not to use taxpayer money to backstop Wall
Street's recklessness. Had DC allowed Wall Street to take their lumps from the
mortgage-backed securities fraud and fail, to be replaced by more responsible
financial leaders, we would already be headed out of this mess the way Iceland
is. But the US Government ignored the will of the people, went ahead with TARP
and an endless stream of additional bailouts, Wall Street got greedier and now
Europe hovers over the edge of a precipice, firmly tied to the Wall Street
banks by derivatives, and now Washington DC wants to move those chains from
their good buddies the bankers onto your ankles,
and wave good bye as you sink our of sight into the abyss. In other words, the government is going to force
you to pay for the failure that resulted from their doing something you told
them not to do in the first place. And if you go along with this, then you deserve
everything that is about to happen. Now is the time to get angry, because you have
nothing left to lose! “And how we burned in the camps later,
thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he
went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return
alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass
arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the
entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror
at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but
had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the
downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or
whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a
shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst,
the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love
freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation....
We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.” -― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
In terms of market capitalization, Facebook has been the biggest loser since
its debut among the companies in the Russell 1000 index, according to Bespoke
Investment Group.
You
know its bad when... two of the largest and best-known 'familia' in Europe and
the US come together. As the FT
reports, The Rockefellers and The Rothschilds are uniting
under a common group as Rothschild Investment Trust and
Rockefeller Financial Services become one. The patriarchs (David Rockefeller
96, and Lord Rothschild 76) have been 'connected' for
five decades. Between the Rothschild's 'sprawling' multi-century
banking empire across Europe and the Rockefeller's roots in 1882 Oil-money, we
can only imagine the Illuminati, Freemasons, Templars, and Central Bankers of
the world are quaking in their boots at this new global force for change - The Rothsellers or
is it The Rockchilds. What next? It seems only Soros is left to complete
the holy trinity...
Just when talks of Accelerated Kinetic Action In Close Proximity To Cash
Dispensing MachinesTM in Spain were quieting down, here comes Goldman to
reminds us that nothing is fixed. "The ECB released April deposit data
today. Italian deposits in April were stable, with a moderate increase in
retail (+€7 bn) more than offsetting a small reduction in corporate deposits.
In Spain, April saw €31 bn (or 1.9%) deposit outflow from banks. Within this
only half is attributable to corporate (down €7 bn or -3.4%) and retail
balances (down €8 bn, or -1.1%). The residual outflow is attributable to
deposit reductions by others (financial institutions / pension funds /
etc)." Yep, it's
a bank run!
If Greece left the euro, living standards would plummet, incomes would be
slashed by more than half, and inflation and unemployment would skyrocket, the
National Bank of Greece warned on Tuesday. "If Greece left the euro, living standards
would plummet, incomes would be slashed by more than half, and inflation and
unemployment would skyrocket, the National Bank of Greece warned on
Tuesday." Exactly the same thing that has happened by
staying WITH the Euro!
Greece's largest lender National Bank on Wednesday reported a 537 million
euro ($666 million) loss in the first quarter, as the country's deep recession
led to weaker income and more non-performing loans.
The benchmark U.S. Treasury yield fell to its lowest level in at least 60
years on Wednesday as worries of contagion from Spain's ailing banks raised
bids for low-risk investments.
As oil prices remain at historically high levels of around $110 (£68) a
barrel, the working paper warned a combination of rising demand and constrained
supply could have major consequences.
"Our prediction of small further increases in world oil production
comes at the expense of a near doubling, permanently, of real oil prices over
the coming decade," the report's authors concluded.
"This is uncharted territory for the world economy, which has never
experienced such prices for more than a few months."
They said that research suggested energy accounted for up to 50pc of overall
gross domestic product, meaning "the implications of lower oil output
growth for GDP could be very large."
Persistently high oil prices are already threatening the global economic
recovery according to a director of the International Energy Agency.
Amid deepening poverty and unemployment for masses of American working
people, the largest US corporations once again posted record profits last year.
Fortune magazine released its ranking of the 500 biggest US corporations
Monday, which showed that they received a record-breaking $824 billion in
combined profits in 2011, up 16 percent from 2010.
But despite having more money than ever, companies are refusing to invest
and hire. Instead, they are paying out record bonuses to executives and
hoarding what remains in cash.
It seems there was a law from 1934 saying India had to hole 85% of it's gold
in the country, but it has 46% of it outside the country now being held in England
and Switzerland. Now, we all know that The Bank of England is a driving force
behind the manipulation of Gold and the BIS is a Rothschild's banks and they
had sold all kinds of gold a couple of years ago on paper to various countries
including India.
What is funny is the Reserve Bank of India did not show up for the hearing
for this lawsuit and they have not responded to it. Remember, people in Germany
and Switzerland have requested their gold back from the U.S. a couple of months
ago. Now we have the country of India who by law is suppose to hold 85% of it's
gold in the country but has not.
MEMPHIS—Hundreds of patriots were on hand for two consecutive rallies held
in Memphis on April 27, one at noon and one in the evening. Many pledged to
bring busloads of other like-minded advocates for American sovereignty to
Chantilly, Va. on the weekend of May 31 – June 3 to protest the annual meeting
of the secretive Bilderberg group being held there.
Bilderberg will meet in Chantilly at the Westfields Marriott, a short
distance from Dulles International Airport, some 30 miles outside Washington,
D.C. Bilderberg previously met there in 2002 and then again in 2008.
A gathering of high-level figures from the elite ranks of global finance and
industry in the self-interested sphere of influence of the plutocratic
Rothschild and Rockefeller families, Bilderberg works to direct the course of
world affairs, unimpeded by popular concerns, rightly raising the hackles of
the kind of good patriots who gathered in Memphis.
Mitt Romney's press secretary, Andrea Saul, responds: "It’s not
surprising that a president who forgot to create jobs, forgot to cut the debt,
and forgot to change Washington has now admitted that he’s forgotten about the
recession.
Americans consume 80 percent of the world's supply of painkillers -- more
than 110 tons of pure, addictive opiates every year -- as the country's
prescription drug abuse epidemic explodes.
That's enough drugs to give every single American 64 Percocets or Vicodin.
And pain pill prescriptions continue to surge, up 600 percent in ten year,
thanks to doctors who are more and more willing to hand out drugs to patients
who are suffering.
As more people get their hands on these potentially-dangerous drugs, more
are taking them to get high. Their drug abuse leads to 14,800 deaths a year --
more than from heroin and cocaine combined. We saw similar drug (and alcohol) abuse patterns
in the USSR just before it collapsed.
More than 200,000 long-term jobless Americans will lose their unemployment
checks this week, when eight states roll off the federal extended benefits
program.
Nearly half of them live in California, and the rest reside in Florida,
Illinois, North Carolina, Colorado, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Texas.
The federal extended benefits program has provided the jobless with up to 20
weeks of unemployment checks after they've run through their state and their
federal emergency benefits, which together last up to 79 weeks.
But the extended benefits program is expiring throughout the country as the
economy improves. To be eligible for these benefits, a state must show that its
unemployment rate is at least 10% higher than it was in at least one of the
past three years.
All the financial news sites are covering the information about JP Morgan
losing 3+ Billion from their gambling on derivatives. That information was
released yesterday (5/10/12) Thursday after the markets closed in the U.S.
Something just is not right about the news of the 3+ Billion losses coming
out on a Thursday. That just does not happen. All bad financial news comes out
after the markets close on Fridays, so the markets do not instantly react but
have time to settle down over the weekend.
WHY was this news not held 24 more hours until today (Friday 5/11/12), after
the markets closed? This news began affecting the markets immediately. The DOW
futures were down 77 after the news came out.
I just have a problem and feel something is just not right about the
releasing of this information on a Thursday and not a Friday. They could have
held on to it until Friday.
There are far more jobless people in the United States than you might think.
While it's true that the unemployment rate is falling, that doesn't include
the millions of nonworking adults who aren't even looking for a job anymore.
And hiring isn't strong enough to keep up with population growth. UPDATE: I am bumping this back to the top
because I posted the 40% jobless figure in acomment
posted at CNN Moneyand as you can see Wall
Street's minions are already trying to ridicule the claim. If you have a
moment, feel free to add your own wisdom. Now, pay
attention class; the US has admitted there are 86
million "invisible" unemployed in the US(only they did not stay invisible as the government hoped
because the alternative media kept pointing them out). The US government admits
to there being 12.5 million "visible" unemployed, which together with
the invisible means 94.5 million Americans are available to work but do not
have a job. Total US population is 330 million. But 24% of those are young
people not eligible to work. And 13 percent are retired. So the total
population of available workers in the United States is 100% - (24% + 13%) =
63% of 330 million people, or 207 million workers. And with 94.5 million workers not working, the
true jobless rate in the US right now is 45%, not the 8% the media keeps
propagandizing you about.
Michael Snyder, Contributor
Activist Post
A Chinese group known as "Sino-Michigan Properties LLC" has bought
up 200 acres of land near the town of Milan, Michigan. Their plan is to
construct a "China City" with artificial lakes, a Chinese cultural
center and hundreds of housing units for Chinese citizens. Essentially, it
would be a little slice of communist China dropped right into the heartland of
America.
This "China City" would be located about 40 minutes from both
Detroit and Toledo, and it would be marketed to Chinese business people that
want to start businesses in the United States. Unfortunately, this is not just
an isolated purchase...
In fact,
Chinese companies have been buying up land and businesses all over the country
in recent years. There has even been talk of establishing "special
economic zones"
inside the United States modeled after the Chinese city of Shenzhen. It was inevitable that the
Chinese were going to do something with the trillions of dollars that they have
made flooding our shores with cheap products. Now they are rapidly buying up
pieces of America, and many of our politicians are welcoming them with open
arms.
The town of Milan, Michigan is a small farming community of only about 6,000
people, but big changes are coming their way. The following is from a recent Dayton
Daily News article
about this new project....
A group
of mainland Chinese known as Sino-Michigan Properties LLC paid $1.9 million for
200 acres of farmland on Milan city limits in purchases this year and in 2011,
according to local officials and property records.
Unfortunately, the goal does not appear to be to integrate this new
"city" into the existing community in and around Milan.
Rather, it appears that all of the new housing will be sold to people coming
over from China. According to
the Milan News Leader newspaper, the new housing units "would be
marketed to Chinese business people who want to start companies in the United
States".
In essence, we would be looking at a new Chinese city right in the middle of
Michigan.
This new project would be a Chinese community built by Chinese and
specifically designed for Chinese.
But isn't this supposed to be America?
Fortunately, the project does not have final approval yet. It still must be
approved by the two townships outside of Milan where the land is located.
For some reason, the Chinese seem to be particularly interested in this area of
the country.
For example, a different Chinese investment group has been busy buying up
chunks of real estate over in nearby Toledo, Ohio. The following is from an
article in the Toledo Blade on May 26th, 2011.
But it is another thing altogether to start dropping slices of communist
China inside of U.S. territory.
The federal reserves has approved the first take over of a US bank by China
while approving 3 communist state-owned Chinese banks to enter the US market.
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services estimates the funding needs of
nonfinancial corporations in the eurozone, U.K., U.S., China, and Japan at $43
trillion to $46 trillion over the next five years. This includes $30 trillion
of debt that will require refinancing and $13 trillion to $16 trillion of new
money needed to spur growth, according to a report that the credit rating agency
published earlier today.
• Dimon served on the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York at the
same time that his bank received over $390 billion in total emergency loans
from the Fed.
• JPMorgan Chase was used by the Fed as a clearinghouse for the Fed’s
emergency lending programs.
• Dimon was successful in getting the Fed to provide JPMorgan Chase with an
18-month exemption from risk-based leverage and capital requirements.
• Dimon convinced the Fed to take risky mortgage-related assets off of Bear
Stearns balance sheet before JPMorgan Chase acquired this troubled investment
bank.
$390 billion isn’t small change, even considering our current stratospheric
government spendathons that are now measured in Trillions. And since we’re
mentioning trillions, it
is apropos to bring up another figure that came out of the GAO audit of the
Fed: $16 Trillion. $16 Trillion in Bailout and Loans — Mainstream Media
Barely Notice
“As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided
more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest
financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the
world,” said Sen. Sanders in a press release on July 21, 2011. “This is a clear case of
socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for
everyone else.”
JPMorgan Chase was not even the biggest recipient of the Fed’s largesse.
That honor fell to Citigroup, which received more than $2.5 trillion! Second
was Morgan Stanley, which sucked down more than $2.04 trillion. Third was
Merrill Lynch, which took in more than $1.9 trillion. Then Bank of America at
$1.3+ trillion, Barclays at $868 billion, Bear Stearns, with $853 billion,
Goldman Sachs at $814 … and on and on.
The details of the huge sums involved and the banks they went to are tucked
away in Table 8 on page 131 of the GAO audit.
Some of the other cozy relationships between the Fed and Wall Street
insiders exposed by the audit and highlighted by Sanders include: Unflipping
believable; and on the backs of every US taxpayer at that.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The ailing U.S. Postal Service is reporting quarterly
losses of $3.2 billion, brought on by declining mail volume and mounting costs
for future retiree health benefits.
From January to March, losses were $1 billion more than during the same
period in 2010.
Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe says the mail agency is incurring
significant losses because Congress has failed to pass legislation allowing it
to eliminate Saturday mail delivery and reduce health and other labor costs.
FHA insured loans have been a big booster for the current market.
Historically FHA insured loans made up roughly 8 to 12 percent of all mortgage
originations but in 2009 they hit 30 percent. For first time home buyers it was
a stunning 50 percent showing that most people can only purchase a home today
with a very small down payment. Yet small down payments create instant negative
equity positions if the market moves sideways or pops lower (aka our current
market). For example, the 3.5 percent standard FHA down payment is wiped away
by the 5 to 6 percent selling costs. What is interesting with this is that the
FHA insured loan market is fully backed by the government (i.e., you) so any
losses will be completely shouldered by the public. The move to increase
premiums recently was no fluke. One piece of data that stood out to me was of
the number of homes in negative equity, how large the FHA numbers grew.
#1
Moody’s has announced that it has downgraded the credit ratings of 16 Spanish banks. Included
was Banco Santander, the largest bank in the eurozone. #2
Shares of the fourth largest bank in Spain, Bankia, dropped 14
percent on Thursday. #3
Overall, shares of Bankia have declined by
61 percent since last July. #4
Shares of the largest bank in Italy, Unicredit, dropped by about 6 percent on Thursday. #7 In recent days, about eight times more money than
usual has been pulled out of Greek banks. #8
Fitch has slashed the long-term credit rating for Greece from B- to CCC. #9
The European Central Bank has cut off direct lending to at least 4 Greek banks. #10
According to a recent German documentary, financial records at the Ministry of
Finance in Athens are being stored in garbage bags and
shopping carts. #14 Civil unrest is rising to dangerous levels in Italy.
The Italian government has assigned bodyguards to 550 individuals and has
increased security at about 14,000 locations in response to recent violence
related to the economic crisis. #17
Moody’s downgraded the credit ratings of 26 Italian banks on Monday. #18
Moody’s has announced that it is reviewing the credit ratings of 114 more
European financial institutions. Newspapers all over the
globe are speaking breathlessly of a potential Greek exit from the euro, but it is very unlikely to happen before the next Greek
election on June 17th. The rest of Europe is
going to continue to financially support Greece until a new government takes
power. If the new government
is willing to accept the previous bailout agreements, then financial support
for Greece will continue. If the new government
is not willing to accept the previous bailout agreements, then financial
support for Greece will stop.
If that happens, the bank runs in Europe will likely become a lot
worse.
But for now, Greece almost certainly has at least one more month in the
euro.
Beyond that, there is no telling what is going to happen.
Greece is the first domino. If Greece falls, you can count on others
to eventually start tumbling as well.
The second half of 2012 is going to be fascinating to watch.
Hopefully things will not be as bad as many of us now fear they may be.
Two policemen have been injured as hundreds of protesters hurled red paint
and eggs at officers guarding Equitalia, Italy's tax collection office, in
Naples following the suicide of yet another debt-ridden Italian citizen.
Demonstrators lobbed rocks and bottles at policemen clad in riot gear as the
building was quickly closed to the public.
The protesters claimed to have attacked the tax office after its director
refused to close it to mourn the latest suicide in Naples, allegedly sparked by
the delivery of a bill from the tax recovery office, ANSA news agency reports.
Greek depositors withdrew 700 million euros ($900 million) from the
nation's local banks recently, said President Karolos Papoulias, though the
exact timing of the transfer was unclear.
Citing a conversation he had with
Greek Central Bank Governor George Provopoulos, Papoulias said "that the
strength of banks is very weak right now."
Since May 6th, nearly one billion dollars has been
withdrawn from Greek banks. For a small nation like Greece, that is an absolutely
catastrophic number. At this point, the entire Greek banking system is in
danger of collapsing. If you had money in a Greek bank, why wouldn't you
pull it out? If Greece leaves the euro, all euros in Greek banks will
likely be converted to drachmas, and the value of those drachmas will almost
certainly decline dramatically. In fact, it has been estimated that Greek
citizens could see the value of their bank accounts decline by up to 50 percent
if Greece leaves the euro. So if you had money in a Greek bank, it would
only make sense to withdraw it and move it to another country as quickly as possible.
And as the eurozone begins to unravel, this is a scenario that we are going to
see play out in country after country. As member nations leave the
eurozone, you would be a fool to have your euros in Italian banks or Spanish
banks when you could have them in German banks instead. So the bank runs
that are happening in Greece right now are only a preview of things to
come. Before this crisis is over we are going to see bank runs happening
all over Europe.
If Greece leaves the euro, the consequences are likely to be quite
messy. Those that are promoting the idea that a "Grexit" can be
done in an orderly fashion are not being particularly honest. The
following is from a recent article in the Independent....
"Whoever
tells you a Greek exit would be no big deal is an idiot, lying or
disingenuous," said Sony Kapoor of the European think-tank Re-Define.
Economists fear that a disorderly exit would prompt a huge run by investors on
Spanish and Italian debt, forcing those countries to seek support from an EU
bailout fund, which, with a capacity of just €500bn, is widely regarded as too
small to cope with those pressures.
A Greek exit from the euro would not only result in a run
on Spanish and Italian bonds, but it would also likely result in a run on
Spanish and Italian banks.
If Greece is allowed to leave the euro, that will be a signal that other
countries will eventually be allowed to leave as well. Nobody in their
right mind would want their euros stuck in Spanish or Italian banks if those
countries end up converting back to national currencies.
Fear is a powerful motivator. If Greece converts their euros back to
drachmas, that will be a clear signal that all euros are not created
equally. The race to move money into German banks will accelerate
dramatically.
And a Greek exit from the euro is looking more likely with each passing
day. Even the IMF is now admitting that it is a very real possibility....
Christine
Lagarde, head of the IMF, warned she was “technically prepared for anything”
and said the utmost effort must be made to ensure any Greek exit was orderly.
The effect was likely to be “quite messy” with risks to growth, trade and
financial markets. “It is something that would be extremely expensive and would
pose great risks but it is part of options that we must technically consider,”
she said.
Meanwhile, banks in other troubled European nations are already on shaky
ground. The Spanish banking system is an absolute disaster zone at this point
and on Monday night Moody's downgraded the credit ratings of 26 Italian banks.
The situation in Italy is especially worth keeping a close eye on. As
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard recently noted, things are not looking good for Italy
at all....
Italy's
former premier Romano Prodi said the EU risks instant contagion to Spain,
Italy, and France if Greece leaves. "The whole house of cards will come
down", he said
Angelo
Drusiani from Banca Albertini said the only way to avert catstrophe is to
convert the European Central Bank into a lender of last resort. Otherwise Italy
faces "massive devaluation, three to five years of hyperinflation, and
unbearable unemployment."
So what can be done about any of this?
Well, there is actually a lot that could be done if politicians in Europe
were willing to think outside of the established global financial paradigm.
The truth is that Greece could solve their current financial problems in
four easy steps. They would have to be willing to stick it to the rest of
Europe and to risk being blackballed by the international community, but it
could be done.
The following is my prescription for Greece.... 1)
Default on all debts. 2)
Leave the euro. 3)
Issue drachmas that are debt-free and that do not come from a central
bank. Instead, have the Greek government create them and spend them
directly into circulation. 4)
Enjoy a return to prosperity.
Greece's president will meet the leaders of the country's three biggest
parties on Sunday in a last-ditch attempt to cobble together a coalition and
avoid a repeat election in a few weeks.
Evangelos Venizelos, the head of the socialist PASOK party, officially gave
up the mandate to form a coalition government on Saturday, the third party
leader to fail following negotiations with other parties. The problem is that the minority block of
politicians who are working for the IMF are simply refusing to go along with
any coalition that refuses to sell the Greek people back into slavery to the
bankers. In the US, this would be a filibuster approach. But if this
pro-bailout/austerity faction succeeds in reversing the Greek peoples' mandate,
they will probably trigger a revolution. The end result will be the same;
Greece will drop out of the EU, the Euro will crash and $95 trillion on credit
default swaps sold by Wall Street will come due.
The latest round of talks failed after the left wing leader who wants to
renegotiate the country’s critical EU bailout refused to join forces with
parties that support the austerity measures.
Alexis Tsipras, leader of the Radical Left Coalition or Syriza, said his
presence in the proposed coalition was merely being sought by more established,
pro-bailout parties as a “Leftwing accomplice”.
Evangelos Venizelos, the leader of the socialist Pasok party, admitted the
talks had failed and said he would return his mandate to form a government to
the president today.
Europe’s biggest banks may finally be forced to own up to their losses.
While bank executives and government leaders have been reluctant to
acknowledge that the hundreds of billions of euros of Greek debt held by
financial institutions is worth far less than its face value, they are slowly
accepting the grim reality, as investors, clients and lenders grow increasingly
wary.
On Tuesday, Deutsche Bank said it would not meet its profit goals for the
year, citing investor uncertainty and losses on Greek bond holdings. Government
officials are debating dismantling Dexia, the large French-Belgian bank, and
warehousing its troubled assets in a bad bank.
The latest woes prompted a broad market sell-off in Europe, hitting banks in
France and Germany particularly hard. Wall Street, dragged down early by the problems
on the Continent, lifted at the close, after reports that European financial
officials were considering ways to shore up the industry. It is not just Europe. Wall Street sold
trillions in Credit Default Swaps on Europe's debt, including Greece's. Greece
missed a major payment today, which means the purchasers of those credit
default swaps will start knocking on the doors of the Wall Street firms who
sold those swaps, and like AIG, they do not have the cash reserves needed to
pay the claims! Stalling tactics cannot last forever. The manure is about to
hit the air conditioning!
The citizens of Spain have taken to the streets and squares in great numbers
to demand their rights. Estimates vary enormously. Spain’s right-wing
government claims that 22,000 people came out in Barcelona in the
demonstrations on 12th May while the organisers estimate between 200,000 and
250,000. What matters, however, is not the battle of numbers but the prevalent
idea that “They don’t represent us”. A quick look at the present situation
explains why growing numbers of indignant citizens have taken up this slogan
and why they are calling for a Republic of the 99% in which the right of
existence is deemed to be fundamental. With an economy at “huge crisis point”
after two consecutive quarters of negative growth, an overall unemployment rate
of 24.44% and 52.01% for the under-25s, and veering close to a “junk rating” by
S&P, the Spanish government has responded with harsh and absurd measures
that would make any decent economist shudder.
Raising the spectre of a Greek exit, the German chancellor said “solidarity
for the euro” was threatened by the ongoing political crisis in Athens.
Stock markets around the world fell sharply with fears mounting that a euro
break-up could lead to renewed financial turmoil. The FTSE-100 index of
Britain’s major companies fell by two per cent to 5465, with bank shares hit
particularly hard.
The cost of Spanish government borrowing also hit a record high since the
single currency was introduced because of concerns that the crisis will spread.
Today, François Hollande, the new French president, will be sworn in and, in
an indication of the concern gripping Europe, will almost immediately travel to
Berlin to hold talks with Mrs Merkel that will be dominated by Greece’s plight.
JPMorgan Hit by 'Egregious' Trading Loss of $2 Billion
The Associated Press | May 10, 2012 | 07:04 PM EDT
JPMorgan announced Thursday that it lost $2 billion in a trading portfolio
designed to hedge against risks the company takes with its own money. As a
result, that segment of its business is expected to record a second-quarter
loss of at least $800 million.
JPMorgan Chase (JPM) fell 6.5% after-hours after saying it incurred
“significant mark-to-market losses in its synthetic credit portfolio.”
CEO Jamie Dimon apologized on a conference call at 5 p.m. for “egregious
mistakes” and an “unbelievably ineffective” trading strategy meant to hedge
trading positions.
“This is not how we want to run a business.” These idiots were trading in Credit Default
Swaps and using Mark-to-Market accounting, the same accounting system that led
to the Enron implosion!
Moody's announced, after the bell, they downgraded 26 Italian banks which
has sent the Euro sliding following its fall below the $1.30 psychological
barrier.
The media had been hyping up the ramifications of Spain failing to find
investor's to buy its sovereign bonds over the last several weeks.
Following Europe's Bear Stearn's moment, Spain fell far short of raising
funds they needed in their bond offering this morning, sending Spanish
sovereign debt rates soaring while the story was barely a hiccup on the media
radar, who instead diverts the attention of the masses to the JP Morgan
debacle.
Moody’s is set to ‘significantly’ downgrade 21 Spanish banks within a week,
following a cut of credit ratings on Italian banks, the Spanish economic daily
Expansion said on Wednesday.
“Sources in the Spanish financial sector are convinced that the agency will
lower in a significant manner the ratings of numerous institutions,” said the
daily.
“The announcement can come within a week according to market sources,” it
said, adding that 21 banks would be affected.
The downgrade would deal a further blow to battered Spanish banks, which
find it hard to borrow money from other banks because many in Spain are heavily
exposed to a real-estate sector that has been in a slump since 2008. China has
refused to buy any more European debt. US banks
are very heavily leveraged in European debt. When this
all comes apart (and it is only a question of when, rather than if), we will see a massive, and messy, unraveling of the world
financial system as we know it.
As the run on the banks spread in Europe, with 30%
of customers pulling cash out of UK branches of Spain's Santander bank, the
Euro spikes on absolutely no news.
Nationalized Spanish Bank Plummets On News Of Bank Run. The government of Spain, which just nationalized
Bankia to save it from collapse, is denying there was a run on the bank. But
let us face it, considering that all governments lie to their people (remember
that whopper about Saddam's nuclear weapons), would you bet your life savings
the Spanish government is telling the truth this one time? Me neither. Only keep in the bank what you need to pay bills
and keep the rest at home.
Investors dumped riskier assets for ultra-safe US government bonds... A spectacular mistake when the American people
decide (like the Greeks) that they do not want to be slaves to paying those
binds for the rest of their lives.
Greece's deputy prime minister has said the country will run out of money in
six weeks unless it honours its bitterly-disputed EU bailout deal. It isn't
a bailout, it is just another loan at interest, plunging the Greek people
further into debt to a banking system which by design produces more debt than
money with which to pay debt. Roughly half the current Greek debt was the
result of an under-the-counter deal between Papandreou and Goldman Sachs to
conceal the scale of the debt problem with currency swaps. So why should the
people of Greece be forced to repay debts from fraud?
Five months of slow, steady gains on the stock market – wiped out.
Canada’s premier stock market index is now in the red for the year so far – an
indirect casualty of the latest worries over Greece’s sovereign debt crisis and
the future of the euro.
Markets in Europe also sit in negative territory for the year, down about
one per cent in Britain and France and more than 20 per cent in Spain. The Euro crisis and its global effects (not to
mention the global effects from Wall Street's Mortgage-Backed Securities Fraud)
should put an end to this idea of globalism as a path to prosperity.
Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the debt ratings of 26 Italian banks
Monday as they struggled with the effect of the weak economy and government austerity
measures.
The move means Moody’s now ranks Italy’s banks lower than most of their
Western European peers.
Like all former French presidents, 57-year-old Sarkozy, whose fondness for
the symbols of wealth led to him being nicknamed President Bling Bling, is to
receive Euros 6,000 every month as "pension".
THE World Bank has announced it's ready to provide Indonesia with a $2
billion loan, a backstop against a potential debt crisis in one of Asia's
fastest growing economies.
It seems there is a conflict/disagreement happening between the Central Bank
of Germany (Bundesbank) and members of the Parliament and members of Germany's
Federal Audit office (the Bundesrechnungshof) about Germany's gold.
It seems Germany's gold has not been fully accounted for in at least five
years.
Now, members of the Parliament are standing up saying "They want the
people's gold, back in the country." They also are out right saying
"They don't think it is there any more either." It seems they think
the Federal Reserve and London may have sold their gold.
The Central Bank of Germany is saying "We are not to question another
Central Bank of the World. If the Federal Reserve says the gold is there, then
it is"
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