Archives: Économie - partie I

Économie:

Fed Plans Dollar Devaluation, New Evidence; Why Now?

The following excerpts of the NY Fed proposal to Bernanke and Co. reveals, plans for coping with a banking crisis in the U.S. via some form of dollar devaluation are underway, including capital controls to stem a bank run—of course.

Death of the Dollar? Economist Predicts End of Fiat Money Within Five Years

Stephanie Pomboy, founder of MacroMavens, sees the world hurtling toward a day in which money will again be backed by gold or other hard assets. Until then, she also sees plenty of trouble.
"Hear Me Now, Believe Me Later," was the title of two separate and prescient pieces penned by Pomboy, an economist and founder of the MacroMavens research boutique. One, published in March 2006, foretold the disastrous costs of the housing bubble. The second, somewhat later, laid out the consequences of the bubble's "financial echo." Today, Pomboy predicts something more draconian: the demise of fiat money—currencies that aren't backed by anything other than government decrees that they have value.

EU officials: International Monetary Fund to pull plug on Greece

Fears that Greece could be forced into bankruptcy in September have been raised by a report that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is about to pull the plug on providing additional finance to the debt-ridden Mediterranean country.
A report to be published in Monday's edition of Der Spiegel claims that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is considering ending financial aid to Greece. According to Bloomberg the information in the Der Spiegel report was provided by "unidentified European Union officials."
The report states "High ranking officials at the Fund have informed the European Union that the IMF is no longer willing to provide Greece with more aid.” Apparently the patience of high-ranking IMF officials has worn thin.
Looks like we are beginning to see the end of the Euro in the not too distant future, if this report is true.

US Census Data Worst In 50 Years – Nearly 100 Million Poor In America

Despite the government’s well massaged economic statistics the latest census data shows its bad out there. Really bad.

Sigtarp: “Americans Should Lose Faith In Their Government ... Only With This Appropriate and Justified Rage Can We Hope

The government’s special inspector general in charge of oversight of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (the “TARP” bank bailouts) – Neil M. Barofsky – wrote a stunning editorial for Bloomberg yesterday, concluding:
Americans should lose faith in their government. They should deplore the captured politicians and regulators who distributed tax dollars to the banks without insisting that they be accountable. The American people should be revolted by a financial system that rewards failure and protects those who drove it to the point of collapse and will undoubtedly do so again.
Only with this appropriate and justified rage can we hope for the type of reform that will one day break our system free from the corrupting grasp of the megabanks.

World Median Worth 2011

America's one percent are among the richest people on Earth. So it stands to reason ordinary Americans ought to be doing quite well, right? Right? Right? Let's see, where are we? Top? Nope. Second place? Nope. The bronze ... ummmm .... nope. We are .... way down ... ewwwwwwww!

This should brighten your mood for the weekend. The average Italian has a net worth three times as much as you. I thought their country was a shambles. The average freaking Spaniard has a higher net worth than you. I guess buying shit on credit for the last three decades didn’t actually make us richer. Who da thunk it? Time to fire up the barbie mate. It’s good to be an Australian – for now.

Seven Largest U.S. Banks Have Created Thousands Of Subsidiaries To Avoid Taxes: Fed Report

On Wall Street, there's a benefit to developing into something big and complex.
America's seven biggest banks now have more than 14,500 subsidiaries around the world, according to a new report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (h/t Bloomberg). They have hatched more than 10,000 of these subsidiaries since 1991, largely in an aim to skirt regulations and taxes, according to the report.
By stashing assets in foreign subsidiaries, banks can avoid U.S. taxes since the assets are subject to taxes in the country in which they are held. In addition, if the subsidiaries are in tax havens, the companies can pay taxes at a super low rate or, in some cases, not at all.

The $800 Trillion Li(e)bor Rigging Scandal Infographic For Dummies

Banks have been caught manipulating the benchmark for $800 trillion in financial instruments with the blessing full blessing of the FED and the Bank of England.
This infographic explains it so everyone can understand it.

Ellen Brown ~ Titanic Banks Hit LIBOR Iceberg: Will Lawsuits Sink the Ship?

At one time, calling the large multinational banks a “cartel” branded you as a conspiracy theorist. Today the banking giants are being called that and worse, not just in the major media but in court documents intended to prove the allegations as facts. Charges include racketeering (organized crime under the U.S. Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act or RICO), antitrust violations, wire fraud, bid-rigging, and price-fixing. Damning charges have already been proven, and major damages and penalties assessed. Conspiracy theory has become established fact.
Only three of the rate-setting banks were U.S.banks—JPMorgan, Citibank and Bank of America—and they slashed their local lending after the 2008 crisis. In the following three years, the four largest U.S. banks—BOA, Citi, JPM and Wells Fargo—cut back on small business lending by a full 53 percent. The two largest—BOA and Citi—cut back on local lending by 94 percent and 64 percent, respectively.
Their profits now come largely from derivatives. Today, 96% of derivatives are held by just four banks—JPM, Citi, BOA and Goldman Sachs—and the LIBOR scam significantly boosted their profits on these bets. Interest-rate swaps compose fully 82 percent of the derivatives trade. The Bank for International Settlements reports a notional amount outstanding as of June 2009 of $342 trillion.

Manipulation du LIBOR et de l’EURIBOR – L’arbre qui cache la forêt ?

13 juillet 2012

Posté par Stef2892

Alors que le scandale des produits dérivés types CDS (Credit default Swap) à l’origine de la crise des Subprimes de 2007-2008 est loin d’avoir fini de déverser son torrent d’injustice et de crimes impunis, voici que depuis quelques jours, une nouvelle raison d’être bien plus qu’indigné, vient frapper violement au coin du bon sens l’ensemble des débiteurs que nous sommes tous.

 Le LIBOR et l’EURIBOR c’est quoi ? :

 Il s’agit ni plus ni moins que des taux d’intérêt de référence (Le LIBOR pour la City de Londres puis plus tard à partir de 1999 l’EURIBOR qui en est une déclinaison pour la Zone Euro) à partir desquels vont être définis ceux appliqués a votre contrat de crédit pour l’achat de votre maison ou bien encore par exemple votre crédit à la consommation. Ce sont les banques entres-elles (les mafieuses associées) qui en définissent la valeur chaque jour après concertation.

 Comment sont-ils calculés :

 De l’apparente complexité des soit disant multiples variables en permettant la définition, il convient de ne retenir qu’une chose, le LIBOR et l’EURIBOR dépendent  des Taux pratiqués par la FED (Banque Fédérale Américaine et de la BCE (Banque Centrale Européenne). La faculté d’imprimer des billets du Royaume Uni n’intervenant que sur la devise Anglaise (La livre sterling), le LIBOR et l’EURIBOR dépendent donc bien directement de l’hégémonie du dollar, qui en tant que devise de référence (l’Euro n’étant bizarrement finalement qu’une devise comme une autre), s’impose partout dans le monde (plus pour très longtemps certes….).

Notons au passage que la BCE n’imprime des Euros que si ceux-ci ont d’abord été matérialisés par une ligne de crédit en dollars (Article 123 du Traité de Lisbonne) contractée auprès des marchés financiers US.

C’est donc bien la faculté que possède la FED d’imprimer des dollars qui donne aux taux d’intérêts qu’elle pratique une valeur de référence dans le calcul des taux que vont appliqués nos banques qui empruntent à la FED (Où la BCE via la FED) l’argent qu’elle vous prête ensuite.

 Il est vrai que le Système fractionnaire bancaire (autre arnaque à découvrir ici : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNbCAzzXw14 ) appliqué à vos dépôts est également à prendre en compte, mais puisque plus de 95% de l’argent qui circulent dans le monde ne provient pas de l’économie réelle, nous pouvons donc affirmer sans trop d’erreur que les taux appliqués par la FED devrait normalement impacter directement les taux de remboursement de votre maison ou celui de votre crédit à la consommation via le LIBOR où l’EURIBOR.

 Et pourtant c’est bien le conditionnel qu’il convient ici d’employer car si l’on étudie de prêt sur 10 ans les 4 courbes (FED BCE LIBOR et EURIBOR) l’on constate effectivement une quasi parfaite corrélation entre les courbes a une très grosse exception prêt….

Historique des Taux de la FED et de la BCE sur plus de 10 ans

Source :  http://france-inflation.com/taux-directeurs-bce-fed.php

Historique du LIBOR

Source : http://www.boursorama.com/bourse/cours/graphiques/historique.phtml?symbole=1xEUR9Y

Historique de l’EURIBOR

Source :  http://www.boursorama.com/bourse/cours/graphiques/historique.phtml?symbole=1xEUR8Y

Nous constatons en effet que si dans la période de la moitié 2010 jusqu’à la fin 2011 c’est le calme plat du Côté de la FED avec un taux au ras des pâquerettes, il apparait clairement une très grosse Bosse du côté du LIBOR et de L’EURIBOR. Il semble bien également que la BCE, afin de probablement donner de la consistance à ses différents plans de sauvetage de la mort qui tue n’ait pas résisté à l’envie elle aussi de mettre la main entière dans le pot de confiture de la masse d’argent dégagée par le delta entre les taux réels de l’argent disponible (auprès de la FED) et les taux appliqués aux prêts accordés pour le sauvetage des banques, banques qui ne ce sont pas gênées elles non plus de leur côté pour nous arnaquer via l’EURIBOR et le LIBOR non contente de ce satisfaire du pillage des Etats (donc avec notre argent encore et toujours) volant à leur secours.

 Nous sommes donc bien loin du grand flou artistique et sans véritables explications de ce qu’est cette fameuse manipulation du LIBOR, en tout cas, l’on comprend mieux maintenant pourquoi devant l’afflux de Tweet lui demandant pourquoi il ne parlait pas du LIBOR sur BFMTV, le chroniqueur économique Nicolas DOZE s’est vu obligé de répondre : « J’ai trouvé le sujet trop aride pour le grand public ».

 Tu m’étonnes……

-------------------------
Mon article rebondit sur l’affaire du LIBOR pour mettre en avant l’étrange bosse que l’on retrouve sur les 2 courbes du LIBOR et de l’EURIBOR. Il ne s’agit donc pas de rajouter à la complexité volontairement entretenue par les médias, mais bien de simplifier avec une constatation toute simple, alors que les courbes de la FED, de la BCE, du LIBOR et de l’EURIBOR suivent depuis des années des courbes communes, il y a une étrange variation sur la période 2010-2012 alors que la FED est au plus bas. Nos Taux de Crédit étant indexé sur l’EURIBOR, nous sommes donc tous concerné par cette bosse qui ne devrait pas être là.
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La seule chose à retenir c’est que les banques ce financent proche de 0% auprès de la FED, alors qu’elles continuent à nous mettre des taux au plus haut et elles les ont même augmentés pour ne pas couler dans la période 2010-2012. Les courbes sont sans appel.

Bankers Declare U.S. & Europe Conquered

A recent CNBC clip in which financial analysts admit to viewers that America is under the control of a group of central bankers who are building a world government is a damning insight into how the establishment has dispensed with any pretense of trying to hide their agenda as it is finalized.

Bring Us Their Heads, or Go On the Pike Yourself

What Is the Real Reason for Doyle's Letter Blasting the IMF?
http://www.thedailybell.com/4109/Anthony-Wile-What-Is-the-Real-Reason-...
…
“With many global investors still concerned about the recent price action in gold and silver, today King World News interviewed the "London Trader" to get his take on these markets. The source told KWN that ‘... the LBMA's price fixing scheme is coming to an end.' The source also said that because of this, the eventual 'move in gold and silver will literally frighten most people.’"

“As this scandal is brought to light, that the unallocated gold and silver are not there, and much of the allocated gold and silver is not at these banks either, and as you see these naked short positions unwound, the world will witness a massive price rise in in both gold and silver.  The move in gold and silver, at that point, will literally frighten most people.  They simply won’t understand what is happening.

When someone goes to a bank and deposits money, if you look at the small print, you don’t actually own that money, you’ve simply loaned it to the bank.  The banks will then turn right around and lend ten to one or whatever leverage they determine to use with your cash.  Well, when there is a run on the banks, as there has been in Europe, the money is printed by governments and given to the customers to calm things down.

The underlying problem here is that when the run on physical gold and silver begins, how will the banks print the gold and silver?  It’s not possible.  So something is brewing here.  There’s no smoke without a fire.  The reason this information is beginning to be discussed more openly is because of legal reasons.  They need to be able to say, ‘We disclosed to people that the gold and silver wasn’t there.’ 

Yes, this will include a scandal at the LBMA in those unallocated accounts.  The paper leverage in the LBMA system is off the charts.  Investors believe their gold and silver is sitting in those unallocated accounts, and they will be in shock when they find out it isn’t there.

We are talking here about a run on the bullion bank.  As this unfolds there will be a failure.  These people will only receive the fixed price before trading is halted.  This will not be called a default.  Then there will be a massive gap in the price of gold and silver.  But the bullion banks will not be allowed to go bankrupt during this process.  There is a ring of counterparties here.  If one of them fails, the whole system can fail.  So they will not be allowed to fail.”

The London Trader also stated: “I would also add that demand for gold from China is unceasing.  The Chinese not only want to diversify out of dollars, but now they also want to diversify out of the euro as well.  They are trying to do this in size.  They want out of those currencies, and what they are doing is exchanging them at the fixes in London for gold, and this will surprise some people, but we are beginning to see it in silver as well. 

Gold is the primary focus, but very recently, and on every dip, we are seeing significant purchases of silver in size.  So yes, demand from China, it’s unceasing.  They want out of these debasing currencies.  I would add that they are buying anything that’s tangible, land, timber, mines, art, etc.. 

It is absolute nonsense when people speculate the Chinese may stop buying gold and silver.  When you see 315 tons of gold was purchased by China in the first five months of the year, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  That 315 ton figure that was recently reported is patently false.  That’s just what they can’t hide.  The actual amount of gold China has accumulated is many times that 315 ton figure.

The buying is relentless.  It’s every single fix, every single day.  The Chinese are eventually planning to have gold back their new currency, which is going to replace the dollar as the reserve currency.”

We had the recent proposal to have gold categorized as a Tier-1 asset.  This moves the risk weighting from 50% to 0%.  Most people have not grasped the full significance of this proposal.  This will change the entire mechanics of the gold market when there is a time of stress, such as the one we witnessed in 2008.

This is one of the major reasons why those calling for a collapse in gold are going to be proven wrong.  Yes, in 2008/2009 we did see a significant correction in the price of gold, and that was a result of the liquidity drying up.  But in 2008, because gold was not considered a Tier-1 asset, it forced the banks to sell their only remaining liquid asset in order to raise cash.  This was done to meet margin requirements.

There was so much gold hitting the bid all at once that it was like a huge bottleneck.  This instigated a $200, waterfall-type decline, that amounted to a roughly 20% correction in gold in just 30 days.  This took place against tremendous fundamentals for gold.  In fact, the fundamentals for gold were so strong, that when gold bottomed in 2009, it only took just over 30 days for gold to break back above the level where the waterfall decline first began.

The difference this time around is that gold may be considered a Tier-1 asset, and what that means is that it will be equal to cash or Treasuries.  So there will be no need for banks to liquidate gold in order to meet margin requirements.  You may, instead, see fresh new money entering the gold market.  It’s going to provide a bid where there was no bid in 2008.”

Libor Is Not the Only Manipulated Economic Number: Core Economic Figures Twisted and Manipulated

[Bank of England executive] Paul Tucker told MPs that Barclays’ abuse of the Libor system may be only one part of the banks’ dishonesty over crucial financial information, suggesting that other markets should now be investigated.
An official inquiry into Libor – which helps determine interest rates for householders and businesses – should be broadened to include several over markets where banks are trusted to report their own data, he said.
The Libor scandal could be repeated in a number of other “self-certifying” markets where prices are determined, he said.
“Self-certification is clearly open to abuse, so this could occur elsewhere,” he said.
A Financial Services Authority inquiry into Libor should be extended to other self-certifying markets, he said. The Treasury said last night that the review, led by Martin Wheatley, was free to examine markets other than Libor.
Translation: these kinds of sharp practices infiltrated and infected every portion of the financial world.

Barclays: 'Other banks to face Libor revelations'

Senior managers at Barclays have warned staff in an internal memo that the Libor scandal will envelop other banks.
The memo circulated on Friday said that revelations about its rivals would "put in perspective" Barclays' culpability.
Meanwhile Barclays' former chief operating officer Jerry del Missier will answer MPs' questions on Monday.
Mr del Missier stands accused of having mistakenly believed Barclays was told by the Bank of England in 2008 to under-report its borrowing cost.
BBC is behind the story. Memos already surfaced proving that the Bank of England did ask the other banks to rig the LIBOR!

Titanic Banks Hit LIBOR Iceberg: Will Lawsuits Sink the Ship?

At one time, calling the large multinational banks a “cartel” branded you as a conspiracy theorist. Today the banking giants are being called that and worse, not just in the major media but in court documents intended to prove the allegations as facts. Charges include racketeering (organized crime under the U.S. Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act or RICO), antitrust violations, wire fraud, bid-rigging, and price-fixing. Damning charges have already been proven, and major damages and penalties assessed. Conspiracy theory has become established fact.
I want to see every single executive who participated in these financial crimes, and every single politician who enabled then in the process, serving time in prison, and NOT at a "Club Fed", thank you very much.

 

Bank Contractors Break Into Homes Accross the US - JP Morgan Worst Violator

Returning from work or vacation, homeowners across the U.S. are finding themselves locked out of their houses, with their homes broken into and many of their belongings stolen and destroyed.
The culprits? Bank contractors, hired to preserve abandoned properties. These contractors often ignore signs of occupation, including furniture, maintained gardens and turned on lights.
It is illegal for any bank representative to enter a property if they have not retaken it at a foreclosure sale – especially if there are signs of occupation. Yet contractors have been repeatedly ignoring these signs.

Christine Lagarde and Nicolas Sarkozy embroiled in new corruption inquiry

Christine Lagarde and Nicolas Sarkozy were embroiled in a new corruption inquiry on Sunday over the awarding of Legion d'Honneur for political favours.

The US is Entering a Recession In the Worst State in the Post WWII Period… Right As the Fed Realizes It’s Out of Ammo

On the other side of the pond, the US economy is showing major signs of deterioration. The jobs data, even after the BLS massages it, is awful. Secondly, 1Q12 GDP estimates have been revised lower. We’ve also seen the two consecutive bad Philly Fed surveys, including the fact that the average workweek has shortened for two months now. We’re also seeing a drop in the Empire Manufacturing index.
In addition to this, we’ve seen the following companies cut their forecasts for 2012: Pall (PLL), Nucor (NUE), Ryder Systems (R), Proctor & Gamble (PG), Cardinal Health (CAH), Texas Instruments (TXN), Starbucks (SBUX), Autodesk (ADSK), FedEx (FDX), Jabil Circuit (JBL), Bed, Bath & Beyond (BBBY), and Adobe Systems (ADBE).

US poverty to jump highest since 1960s

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/07/22/252290/us-poverty-to-jump-highest-since-1960s/
Poverty in the United States is projected to climb to the highest level in nearly half a century as the recession threw millions of people out of work last year.
According to a survey conducted by The Associated Press, US poverty could reach a 46-year high, with suburban families, underemployed workers, and children among the hardest-hit people, the news agency reported on Sunday.

Ten Italian cities at risk of bankruptcy, schools may not reopen

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9421599/Ten-Italian-cities-at-risk-of-bankruptcy-schools-may-not-reopen.html

Italy's financial outlook darkened on Monday amid warnings that 10 cities are at risk of bankruptcy and schools may not be able to open in the autumn because of drastic spending cuts

Breaking: Russia Joins WTO - Putin Kowtows to the Globalists

Russian President Vladimir Putin just signed a treaty that makes Russia a World Trade Organization member. Russia's accession to the WTO is the result of 18 years of negotiations.
Russian media revealed that as part of the deal, Russia will have to lower its protective tariff rate from 10% to 7.8%.
This signals the end of Russia's sovereignty in trade and economic matters. Foreign investors will now be able to buy up Russia's industries, and there are already plans to buy out Russia's telecommunications companies.

Countrywide whistleblower reveals rampant mortgage fraud part of ‘everyday business’

Countrywide Financial was one of the subprime lenders at the heart of the financial crisis; its predatory lending practices resulted in disgustingly large payouts for executives while sticking low-income borrowers with explosive mortgages they hadn’t a hope of paying back. The New York Times‘ Gretchen Morgenson called Countrywide, “Exhibit A for the lax and, until recently, highly lucrative lending that has turned a once-hot business ice cold and has touched off a housing crisis of historic proportions.”
Eileen Foster was an investigator in charge of Fraud Risk Management at Countrywide when the ticking time bomb of its bad loans detonated. The practices she discovered shocked her and have also shocked those who’ve heard her story—including the producers of “60 Minutes,” who asked her on the program last December to discuss the lack of prosecutions of any of the bankers responsible for the crisis. But instead of cleaning house and admitting guilt, Bank of America—which purchased Countrywide as the financial crisis grew, in what the Wall Street Journal calls “one of the worst deals ever struck in corporate America”–drove Foster out and tried to discredit her findings.

Take Away Homes And Food, Expect Violence - 1 Million Protest In 80 Cities In Spain

Over 1 million protestors angry protesters in 80 cities clashed violently with police who used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse large crowds.

'Black Friday' Blame-Game Escalates As Spain Is Out Of Money In 40 Days

With Valencia bust, Spanish bonds at all-time record spreads to bunds, and yields at euro-era record highs, Spain's access to public markets for more debt is as good as closed. What is most concerning however, as FAZ reports, is that "the money will last [only] until September", and "Spain has no 'Plan B".

World’s Most Prestigious Financial Agency – Called the “Central Banks’ Central Bank” – Slams U.S. Economic Policy

The central banks’ central bank, the Bank of International Settlements or “BIS” – which is the world’s most prestigious mainstream financial body – has slammed the policy of America’s economic leaders.
This is especially dramatic given that the banks own the Federal Reserve, and that the Federal Reserve and other central banks – in turn – own BIS. In other words, BIS is criticizing one of its main owners.
The bankers as a whole are trying to point the finger of blame everywhere they can rather than admit that the model of a private central bank issuing all of the public currency as a loan at interest is a giant Ponzi scheme which has brought the banking system to the edge of ruin.

12 Signs That Spain Is Shifting Gears From Recession To Depression

Michael Snyder, Contributor
Activist Post
Where have we seen this before? Bond yields soar above the 7 percent danger level. Check. The stock market crashes to new lows. Check. Industrial activity plummets like a rock and the economy contracts. Check. The unemployment rate skyrockets to more than 20 percent. Check. The bursting of a massive real estate bubble pushes the banking system to the brink of implosion. Check. Broke local governments beg the broke national government for bailouts. Check. The international community pressures the national government to implement deep austerity measures which will slow down the economy even more and hordes of violent protesters take to the streets. Check.
All of this happened in Greece, it is happening right now in Spain, and mark my words it will eventually happen in the United States...

‘Fall of EU could help a new Hitler come to power’

The political and economical crisis of the EU might help a new European Hitler to emerge, warns historian Geoffrey Roberts. He believes the current rise of ultra-nationalism in Europe resembles that one of 1930s as history tends to repeat itself.
Of all the excuses given by the globalist banking cartel as to why we should allow them to perpetuate their corrupt predations upon the populace, this one has to rank as the lamest of all! "Yes, we forced a ponzi-scheme banking system on you, but if you don't let us get away with it, HITLER IS GONNA GETCHA!" Pathetic. Simply pathetic.
Europe isn't going nationalist, they want to go regionalist! They want a restoration of the national borders which protected them from financial fraud perpetrated in foreign banking centers; fraud like Wall Street's Mortgage-Backed securities fraud, and LIBOR, etc. etc. etc. etc.
The global banking cartel wants to force their model of a private central bank issuing the public currency as a loan-at-interest on the world and the world has had enough of it. That doesn't mean we are going back to the NAZIs, it just means we want to be free.

Senate report: HSBC 'allowed drug money laundering'

A US Senate probe has disclosed how lax controls at Europe's largest bank left it vulnerable to being used to launder dirty money from around the world.
The report into HSBC, released ahead of a Senate hearing on Tuesday, says huge sums of Mexican drug money almost certainly passed through the bank.
Suspicious funds from Syria, the Cayman Islands, Iran and Saudi Arabia also passed through the bank.
HSBC said it expected to be held accountable for what went wrong.

IMF Says Japan And Spain Are Done, "Debt Ratio Will Never Stabilize"

The IMF believes that advanced economy deficits will decline by about 0.75 percentage points of GDP this year which 'strikes a compromise between restoring fiscal sustainability and supporting growth". However, continued focus on nominal deficit targets runs the risk of compelling excessive fiscal tightening if growth weakens. In addition, there is a risk in the United States of political gridlock that puts fiscal policy on autopilot and results in a sharp and sudden decline in deficits—the “fiscal cliff.” What is more troubling is the significant upward revision to all of the peripheral European nations (with Greece now at 171% Debt/GDP in 2013 versus 160.9% forecast only 3 months ago).

 

10 Million Underwater Mortgages And Shadow Inventory Worth $246B Mean Housing Trouble

Don’t be so sure the housing market is on its way back to health. Despite the first monthly increase in home prices in 7 months, as the Case-Shiller indexes showed on Tuesday, there are still more than 10 million properties with underwater mortgages, and a shadow inventory of 1.5 million, or four months supply. Negative equity will continue to take its toll on consumption, while the shadow inventory, worth about $246 billion according to CoreLogic, will constrict lending and probably affect banks’ earnings.

Mega Rich Stash $21 Trillion in Off Shore Tax Havens

Wealthy tax evaders, aided by private banks have exploited loopholes in tax legislation and stashed over $21 tn in offshore funds, says a report. The capital drained from some developing countries since 1970 would be enough to pay off national debts.

1% hide $21 trillion, US big banks hide $10 trillion; ending world poverty: $3 trillion

*hyperlinks live at source*

Using data from the BIS, IMF, World Bank, and governments, former Chief Economist at McKinsey, James Henry, reports the 1% have deposited $21 trillion to $32 trillion in tax havens to evade taxes. Related, the Federal Reserve reports the US top seven banks have over $10 trillion in assets recorded in over 14,000 created “subsidiaries” to avoid taxes.

The 1% hide more than total annual economic output of the US and Japan combined. This is also 7 to 32 times the $1 to $3 trillion estimated to end global poverty (here, here). Importantly, the 1% in US government have reneged on their promise to end poverty since the 1990 World Summit for Children, and even reject full support of microcredit to end poverty while earning a profit.

Global poverty kills a million children every month. Since the seven US banks created the last 10,000 of their tax haven subsidiaries since 1991, more human beings have died from preventable poverty than from all wars, murders, and violent deaths of any kind in all human history. As you may know, ending poverty reduces population growth rate in every historical case.

To understand the 1%, please read the last two paragraphs again, and then consider the “emperor has no clothes” obvious unlawful wars and full spectrum of economic parasitism. This is what Occupy is helping the 99% recognize.

As always, I suggest arrests of obvious 1% leaders for obvious crimes centering in war, money, and propaganda. This creates opening for obvious economic solutions to benefit 100% of Earth’s inhabitants.

CONFIRMED AT LAST: The Attempted Cover-Up Of How JP Morgan Torpedoed Lehman Brothers

This is a very interesting development...
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Goldman Sachs Stole $55 Million In Build America Fees

Goldman, which got $10 billion in taxpayer bailout money amid the credit crisis in 2008, was paid $54 million to lead underwrite or help sell $34 billion of the bonds and $1.7 million to serve as an adviser on a separate $2.4 billion of Build America Bond sales, the bank told Grassley’s office in a second communication dated March 9. Jill Gerber, a Grassley spokeswoman, confirmed the content of the letters.

 

TPP secrets: Obama covertly granting more power to multinational corporations

Despite the White House’s efforts to keep a proposed free trade agreement concealed from the public — and even Congress — an excerpt from the TPP leaked Wednesday reveals that President Obama is prepared to bow to multinational corporations.
"Bush was better than Obama on this," Judit Rius of Doctors Without Borders Access to Medicines Campaign tells HuffPo. "It's pathetic, but it is what it is. The world's upside-down."
“The majority of Congress is being kept in the dark as to the substance of the TPP negotiations, while representatives of U.S. corporations – like Halliburton, Chevron, PHRMA, Comcast, and the Motion Picture Association of America – are being consulted and made privy to details of the agreement,” said Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon).

 

Thousands march on the White House to protest TPP

More than a dozen protesters upset with US President Barack Obama’s inclusion of America in the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal were arrested at the White House on Tuesday.

Former Wells Fargo CEO Richard Kovacevich: 2008 Crash Manufactured - Made Insiders Tremendous Amounts of Money

Kovacevich talks about the Fed requiring banks to take bailout funds. The Fed and the government needed this money to be loaned out to increase the money supply. By giving member banks more money, the Fed wanted them to loan it out to the public, which would create even more money. Kovacevich says the that regulators simply failed to do their jobs - no new regulations were needed. TARP was simply a coverup for regulators' corruption and negligence. Financiers profited tremendously from the market collapse, a collapse that they knew was coming because they saw the enormous leverage and risk lenders were taking.

Airlines' fuel surcharges far outpacing fuel prices

Since April 2011, fuel surcharges by U.S. airlines have risen 53%, while fuel prices have increased 24%, according to a study by Carson Wagonlit Travel.

Spain & Italy Ban Short Selling

Contagion.
That’s the best word to describe the European markets this morning, as first Italy, and now Spain have announced short selling bans.
Spain’s ban applies to ALL STOCKS, as well as the OTC derivatives market, and will last 3 months at a minimum.

Greek PM Warns Recession To Approach Great Depression Levels

Greek prime minister Antonis Samaras warns the Greece recession will deepen worse than forecast to levels not seen since the Great Depression.

Police: Homeless Man Walks Into Courthouse With Weapons, Asks To Be Arrested

So this homeless guy walks into a criminal courthouse with a handgun and a knife and, well, gets arrested. The incident was no laughing matter, as the man actually asked police to arrest him.
Harris County police arrested Jason Tanner, 30, after the homeless man allegedly brought weapons with him to the Harris County criminal courthouse Thursday. The Houston Chronicle reports that Tanner was carrying a .45-caliber semi-automatic pistol and had bullets in his pockets. Police officials indicated that Tanner was also carrying a knife and a dozen ammunition rounds.
“He walked up to Deputy Nyulassie and said, ‘I’m carrying concealed weapons and need to be arrested,’” Constable Deputy Chief J.C. Mosier told the Chronicle. “I’ve never seen anyone volunteer to get arrested.”
This is a nasty sign of the times, and sure to get repeated in communities around this nation.
Of course, the prison-industrial complex just loves behaviour like this, because it provides more slave labor for their business endeavors.
Three years after the onset of the financial and economic crisis, hunger remains high in the United States. The financial and economic crisis that erupted in 2008 caused a dramatic increase in hunger in the United States. This high level of hunger continues in 2010, according to the latest government report (with the most recent statistics) released in September 2011 (Coleman-Jensen 2011). In 2010, 17.2 million households, 14.5 percent of households (approximately one in seven), were food insecure, the highest number ever recorded in the United States 1 (Coleman-Jensen 2011, p. v.) The official poverty measure is published by the United States Census Bureau and shows that: In 2010, 46.9 million people were in poverty, up from 37.3 million in 2007 -- the fourth consecutive annual increase in the number of people in poverty . This is the largest number in the 52 years for which poverty rates have been published (DeNavas-Walt 2011, p. 14).

Cisco To Lay Off 1,300 Employees In Latest Cutback

Cisco Systems was preparing to lay off about 1,300 workers just a few months after the world’s largest maker of computer networking equipment warned that growing economic uncertainty is making it tougher to close deals.
The cuts announced Monday represent about 2 percent of Cisco System Inc.’s payroll of 65,000 workers.

Debt crisis: Greek economy is in a 'Great Depression' says Samaras

Mr Samaras's comments come two days before a team of Greece's debt inspectors arrive in Athens to push for further austerity measures if the debt-laden country wants to qualify for further rescue payments and avoid a chaotic default.

Cameron Says Euro Needs Single Government

David Cameron has given his strongest warning yet that the euro is doomed to fail as fears grow that Greece is close to crashing out of the single currency.
The Prime Minister dismissed new French president Francois Hollande’s claim that Britain was ‘indifferent’ to the fate of the eurozone, insisting it was essential for our economy that the Continent recovers.
‘We want the euro area to succeed,’ Mr Cameron said in an interview with the Daily Mail. ‘It’s 40 per cent of our exports. It’s vitally important these economies get back to growth.

Israel's social protest coming back?

Thousands gather in Tel Aviv for first social rally of summer, demonstrators hold up signs calling for 'sane housing prices,' greater equality. More rallies held nationwide.
Dear Israeli people. The bankers do not want affordable housing. If you could buy a house and pay it off in just a few years, like a car, then you would be free of the banks and of no more use as a slave. So, bankers work to make sure housing costs so much you will work your entire life for that stack of printed paper slips you need to borrow from them to buy that house. The interest on those pretty printed pieces of paper from the bank is often more costly than the actual home itself, and is passed onto the next "owner", making every home a pyramid scheme from the point of th view of those bankers.

ECB Stops Lending to Some Greek Banks as Draghi Talks of Exit

The European Central Bank said it will temporarily stop lending to some Greek banks to limit its risk as President Mario Draghi signaled the ECB won’t compromise on key principles to keep Greece in the euro area.
There is no 11th marble. And more lending can't fix that!

Goldman Sach's Accidently Releases Damning Information of Illegal Naked Short Sales *Last Week* - JPM was/is the distraction from this info

The paper proves that Goldman Sachs does naked short selling. They will sell and short stocks they don't even have nor are able to get. In other words, just like the fractional reserve banking of creating money out of thin air with key strokes. Goldman Sachs pretended to own or had in their hands, stocks which they didn't have. They would short the stocks and do trades on non-existent stocks. They also did this to affect the stock price on the market. So they could make some stocks Fail. They even use that word in the documents accidentally released.

BBC News: Q&A: Spain's woes

Spain, Europe's fifth-largest economy, has had doubts cast on the strength of its banking sector thanks largely to the country's property crash.
Its banks have lent billions of euros they might never get back and this has made investors very nervous.
On 18 May, credit ratings agency Moody's cut its ratings for 16 Spanish banks, reflecting the heightened risk of them suffering huge losses if property loans are not repaid.
The Spanish government has had to part-nationalise one of its banks and may have to bail out more.

Bank Run Hits Greece, 10% Unemployment Hits France

France’s unemployment rate has risen to 10 percent, with millions of French citizens looking for work as Europe’s economic crisis shows no sign of letting up.

Banks Notified By DHS Of Unannounced Warrantless Looting Of Personal Accounts Or Safe Deposit Boxes

According to in-house memos now circulating, the DHS has issued orders to banks across America which announce to them that "under the Patriot Act" the DHS has the absolute right to seize, without any warrant whatsoever, any and all customer bank accounts, to make "periodic and unannounced" visits to any bank to open and inspect the contents of "selected safe deposit boxes."
Further, the DHS "shall, at the discretion of the agent supervising the search, remove, photograph or seize as evidence" any of the following items "bar gold, gold coins ..."
If people have their emergency money in a safe deposit box or an account in a bank that closes, they will not be allowed into the bank to get it out. They can knock on the door and beg to get in but the sheriff’s department or whoever is handling the closure will simply say “no” because they are just following orders.
In other words, when the manure hits the ventilation system, the US Government will loot your bank accounts and anything of value in your safety deposit boxes to save the bankers. FDR did this in 1933 confiscating gold, and Bush/Obama did it confiscating private homes in 2008-2012.
Our advice is to keep in the bank only that money needed to cover your checks and keep the rest of your money and valuables at home. Invest in a safe that bolts to the floor, and a shotgun.

JPMorgan shares lurch down again as trading losses hit $3bn

Jamie Dimon's worst fears for the scale of losses on the "London Whale" derivatives disaster could be coming true in double-quick time.

 

JPM’s CIO Loss Widens to $5 Billion

Last weekend we advised SD readers that our sources had informed us that JPMorgan’s derivatives losses sustained by their CIO desk were actually $100 Billion, not the $2 Billion admitted by Jamie Dimon to investors.
Well, one week later, the MSM (WSJ) is now reporting that JPM’s CIO has now lost $5 billion.
Perhaps more interesting, the WSJ states that Jamie Dimon personally approved the delta-hedging of its interest rate swaps positions which has resulted in the FUBAR derivatives losses for JPM.

FBI Launches Investigation Of JPMorgan Chase For Illegal Speculation

The FBI has confirmed they have launched a criminal investigation into JP Morgan Chase over their recently announced $2 billion loss in 'synthetic' securities.

 

IIF's Charles Dallara says Greek exit 'somewhere between catastrophic and armageddon'

The damage to the rest of Europe from Greece leaving the euro would be "somewhere between catastrophic and Armageddon", the chief negotiator for the body representing private sector holders of Greek bonds said on Wednesday.

 

FTSE 100 ends week £80bn down

The eurozone storm showed no signs of clearing tonight as fears over Spain and Greece saw £80 billion wiped from the value of London's leading shares index in just one week.

Asian stocks post declines

Stocks fell across Asia on Friday on renewed concerns over eurozone credit conditions.

India promises ‘some austerity’ as rupee collapses

Facing a collapse in investor confidence and a decline in the rupee to a record low against the dollar, India’s finance minister said Wednesday it was time for “some austerity” — but not time to panic.

Hewlett-Packard to axe up to 30,000 jobs

Big Risk: $1.2 Quadrillion Derivatives Market Dwarfs World GDP

One of the biggest risks to the world's financial health is the $1.2 quadrillion derivatives market. It's complex, it's unregulated, and it ought to be of concern to world leaders that its notional value is 20 times the size of the world economy. But traders rule the roost -- and as much as risk managers and regulators might want to limit that risk, they lack the power or knowledge to do so.
A quadrillion is a big number: 1,000 times a trillion. Ou un million de milliards!
Yet according to one of the world's leading derivatives experts, Paul Wilmott, who holds a doctorate in applied mathematics from Oxford University (and whose speaking voice sounds eerily like John Lennon's), $1.2 quadrillion is the so-called notional value of the worldwide derivatives market. To put that in perspective, the world's annual gross domestic product is between $50 trillion and $60 trillion.

ICELAND. No news from Iceland?… why?

How come we hear everything that happens in Egypt but no news about what’s happening in Iceland:
…
In Iceland, the people has made the government resign, the primary banks have been nationalized, it was decided to not pay the debt that these created with Great Britain and Holland due to their bad financial politics and a public assembly has been created to rewrite the constitution.
And all of this in a peaceful way. A whole revolution against the powers that have created the current global crisis. This is why there hasn’t been any publicity during the last two years: What would happen if the rest of the EU citizens took this as an example? What would happen if the US citizens took this as an example.
What the Icelandic people did with their odious debt is nothing less than absolutely brilliant, which is why the corporate media dares not whisper a word about it, lest Americans realise that such a completely peaceful revolution is absolutely possible here.

Venezuela Leads The World In Supporting Workers With Its New Labor Law

Venezuela's National Assembly passed extraordinary new labor laws in support of workers on April 30, 2012. In a time when workers have had their rights stripped away and capitalist economies are collapsing throughout the United States and Europe, the Venezuelan government has managed to keep its economy thriving and has given the bounty to Venezuelan workers. We regard these new laws to be the most progressive labor legislation in the world today. We thank Axis of Logic Columnist, Arturo Rosales for his report and analysis.

Pour info

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcpkrqydklY&feature=plcp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqy7SZleoYc&feature=plcp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiHZ9M3VpFo&feature=plcp

De : CHOQ.FM L'Autre Monde [mailto:choqfmlautremonde@free.fr]
Envoyé : samedi 19 mai 2012 23:30
Objet : FLASH : LA VILLE DE FRANCFORT EN QUASI-ÉTAT DE SIÈGE DEPUIS 3 JOURS POUR PROTÉGER LA BCE DES MANIFESTANTS

=== FLASH : LA VILLE DE FRANCFORT EN QUASI-ÉTAT DE SIÈGE DEPUIS 3 JOURS POUR PROTÉGER LA BCE DES MANIFESTANTS ===

 

Au cours d'une longue conversation téléphonique que je viens d'avoir avec l'un des adhérents de l'UPR, qui est un Français expatrié à Francfort, celui-ci m'a confirmé qu'en ce 19 mai après-midi, tout le centre ville est vide de voitures et occupé par des dizaines et des dizaines de véhicules de police, ainsi que par des policiers à cheval.

C'est aujourd'hui le 4ème jour que les abords du siège de la Banque Centrale Europénne (BCE) est la cible de manifestants du mouvement "BLOCKUPY", qui sont tenus à une large distance du gratte-ciel de le BCE.

Environ 20.000 personnes selon la police (et plus de 25.000 selon les organisateurs), défilent ce samedi après-midi dans le calme dans le centre-ville de Francfort, la capitale financière allemande pour protester contre les programmes d'austérité européens.

Cette manifestation est la seule à avoir été autorisée par la municipalité et la justice allemande dans le cadre d'un programme du "collectif d'organisations anti-capitalistes" Blockupy Frankfurt initialement prévu sur quatre jours, de mercredi à samedi.

INFORMATIONS EXCLUSIVES UPR

===================== 

1°) Chose remarquable et cachée par tous les médias, la BCE a demandé à tous ses employés de rester chez eux et de ne pas venir travailler depuis 3 jours.

C'est du jamais vu depuis que la BCE existe.

----------------------------

2°) Autre chose remarquable, les autorités de la BCE ont proposé au Conseil des gouverneurs, qui devait se réunir jeudi, de se réunir exceptionnellement dans les locaux de la Bundesbank, situés plus loin de l'épicentre des manifestations. 

Cette proposition a été rejetée sèchement par les gouverneurs de plusieurs banques centrales nationales d'autres pays (qui font partie de l'Eurosystème), qui y voyaient la preuve d'une tutelle de plus en plus lourde de la Bundesbank sur la zone euro.

C'est à ce genre de petits "détails" que l'on mesure le degré d'aversion croissante - sinon de haine latente - que l'euro est en train de provoquer entre tous les États de la zone.

QUELQUES PHOTOS CACHÉES PAR LES MÉDIAS FRANÇAIS

====================================

L'accès à la BCE est rendu impossible par des cordons de forces de l'ordre :

Voyage de M. Hollande dont il n'est d'ailleurs strictement rien ressorti de concret.Sauf, bien entendu, de bonnes paroles, comme je l'avais prévu.

François ASSELINEAU

Edmund Leopold de Rothschild Dies at 84

I am not sure why this took so long to get into the major papers considering he died on April 19th, 2012, and he was such a prominent figure but here's what I've found so far.
Most of the obituaries are making him out as a musical philanthropic and miniature train enthusiast. They say very little about his banking activities in Latin America and his funding deep involvement in the CO2 caused Global Warming scam.

Edmund Leopold de Rothschild banker for Global Warming Scam

"After Edmund [Leopold] de Rothschild’s statement, without basis, at the 4th World Wilderness Congress in 1987, that CO2 is the cause of a non-existent global warming – and that combating it needs money (our money), he founded the World Conservation Bank for this reason. In 1991 its name was changed to The Global Environment  Facility (GEF).

The purpose of this facility is to lend money to the poorest countries, printed by the IMF out of thin air, and with the guarantee of our governments. The facility takes wilderness areas with mineral riches as security. The GEF money is then to flow back to our governments as reimbursement for paid loans. I.e. We give away our tax money. For what?

When a country cannot repay loans to the GEF it must give up a piece of its territory to the Rothschild banks (GEF, IMF, World Bank) – up to 30% of the Earth are meant. If land cannot be offered as collateral the country must starve (Haiti, Argentina and others).

Rothschild´s  stroke of genius was that he had his GEF smuggled into the UN system at the Rio UN Summit in 1992 by his friend, Maurice Strong. So now high-ranking ministerial officials from 179 countries are in the the council of the bank – blessing Rothschild grabbing the world!"

http://soldierforliberty.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/the-maurice-strong-rothschild-connection-beyond-the-co2-scam-and-into-control-of-land-and-food/

The Euro Area Economy Is Deteriorating At A Disastrous Pace

In case you forgot how quickly the euro area economy was deteriorating, here's a look at the latest reading of composite PMI for the 17-country region.
That index fell to 46.7 this month, even worse than an earlier flash reading of 47.4.
Perhaps most concerning is that the effects of the European Central Bank's two three-year long-term refinancing operations appears to already be fading, as business activity rebounded slightly at the start of 2012 before declining sharply later in the year.
When the Euro goes, it will take the US banks right down with it.

Spanish recession means food handouts rather than fiestas in rural Extremadura

With regional unemployment at 31%, businesses shut, and even the cherries rain-spoiled, gloom is shrouding Jaraíz de la Vera
Now, pay attention class; the US has admitted there are 82 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.

The Baltic Dry Is Down Some 45% or More So Far This Year, Which Brings To Mind Some Small Things I've Picked Up About The Shipping Industry.

Leaving out big family names like Onassis and Mrs Kennedy, who live in another world enirely, the shipping industry is the most discreet in the world, which means you can keep secrets in there; it's a very ethical place.
It's a place where there's no cheating. Not customers, or anyone else in the industry because everyone knows everyone else – they're sailors after all – and they talk to each other.

Bank of New York Mellon Chief Resigns in a Shake-Up Along with Over Six Hundred Bankers Worldwide No Explanations

"It is not known under what circumstances these individuals have left their positions, I make no judgement on that. I find the timing of so many resignations extremely curious and a temporal marker in history of high significance. No one should assume I make any judgement about the character of these people. I frankly don't know their reputations except for a few rather famous ones.

INFLATION GONE WILD: Look How Much Cheaper Everything Used To Be

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-cheaper-everything-used-to-be-2012-4?op=1

The dollar has lost 90 percent of its value since the early 1900s.
This dramatic devaluation has crushed anyone who kept money in cash, and it has hurt workers when wages failed to keep up with inflation.

This Is the First Time In History that All Central Banks Have Printed Money at the Same Time … And They’re Failing Miserably

Simultaneous Global Printing Is Failing Miserably
Mainstream Keynesian economists argue that the failure of the European austerity measures to pull Europe out of the doldrums proves that more stimulus is needed, and that austerity is poison at this stage.
Indeed, most mainstream economists pretend that debt doesn’t exist … or believe that debt for its own sake is good and necessary.
But Martin Weiss noted last month:
Four of the world’s largest central banks have gone absolutely berserk, running the money printing presses like never before in history:

Source: Chart lines — Pimco

Indeed, China and India have been printing as well, as shown by the last 2 of these 2011 charts:
The U.S. is printing lots of money…..

Source, The St. Louis Fed
The Bank of England is printing lots of money…..

Source: The BoE
The EU is printing lots of money….

Source: The ECB
Japan is printing lots of money…..

Source: The BoJ
China is printing lots of money…..

Source: The People’s Bank of China
India is printing lots of money…..

Source: Reserve Bank of India
Pimco CEO El-Erian warned last month that central banks might fail in their giant experiment to cure the world’s economic ills with paper money. See this and this.

Over 1.5 million Visa, MasterCard credit card numbers stolen?

Global Payments, the U.S.-based credit card processor company that experienced a security breach affecting plastic issued from Visa and MasterCard, is about to release more information about the attack. Last time, the firm said the breached portion of its processing system was confined to North America and that less than 1.5 million credit card numbers were stolen. The timeframe during which Global Payments was hacked, however, has significantly grown. In other words, the hack could have been much worse.

BORDERS TO FRANCE TO BE TEMPORARILY CLOSED

The Interior Ministry has announced that it will close the borders between Spain and France, due to serious fears of public order and domestic security issues, to coincide with the European Central Bank summit in Barcelona.
The money-junkies are getting nervous.
We know about the scam of the 11th Marble.
They know we know!

US home prices drop for 6th straight month

Home prices dropped in February in most major U.S. cities for a sixth straight month, a sign that modest sales gains haven't been enough to boost prices.
The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home-price index shows that prices dropped in February from January in 16 of the 20 cities it tracks.
The steepest declines were in Atlanta, Chicago and Cleveland. Prices rose in Phoenix, San Diego and Miami. They were unchanged in Dallas.

'US blames Iran for rising fuel prices'

So, Obama imposes sanctions on Iran, then when the resulting shortage drives oil prices up, it's all Iran's fault? Are these White House staffers on drugs or something?

Report: Obama Blaming Israel for Rising Fuel Prices

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/154432#.T3vFbdXZpoF
The Obama administration is blaming Israel for the recent rise in global crude oil prices, says its "posturing" on Iran brought the rise.

Hugh Hendry On Europe "You Can't Make Up How Bad It Is"

At The Milken Institute conference yesterday, Hugh Hendry delivered his usual eloquent and critical insights on the state of Europe. Beginning with the statement that "All of Europe has defaulted", the canny-wee-fella (translation: shrewd and cautious young chap) explained that "The political economy in Europe is such that the politicians chose to default on their spending obligations to their citizens in order to honor the pact with their financial creditors and so as time goes on, the politicians are being rejected."

Foreclosed Homes Destroyed By Previous Owners (VIDEO)

Home owners who have had their houses taken away in foreclosure sometimes take their anger out on the houses themselves.
WTEV reports on a foreclosed mansion in Jacksonville, Fla. in which the previous owners have apparently ripped out the home's cabinets, light fixtures and appliances.
With millions of Americans still facing foreclosure, the phenomenon of homeowners ransacking their houses on their way out may only continue. In Florida, one in every 336 housing units received a foreclosure filing in March, according to RealtyTrac.
I have to wonder if the next act by state governments will be prosecution and trial of the people who do this, followed by extremely harsh prison sentences, if vandalism against property by previous owners who were foreclosed upon can be proven.

You pay higher hydro bills, big business pays less

Big industries in Ontario shifted nearly a quarter of a billion dollars off their hydro bills in the first nine months of last year — onto the bills of households and small businesses.
And they may have collected tens of millions in additional payments by “double dipping” on overly generous conservation incentive programs.
That’s the conclusion of the province’s electricity market watchdog, the market surveillance panel.
And here is another example of "privatizing the profit, socialising the debt going on right now. My hydro rates are skyrocketing and we now know why: big corporations are shifting their load of hydro debt on taxpayers while they reap huge profits.

Vatican 'accepted one billion lire' to bury crime boss in basilica next to former popes

The Vatican is facing a deepening controversy over the burial 22 years ago of a notorious crime boss, with reports emerging that the church accepted a one billion lire (£407,000) payment from the mobster's widow to allow his interment in a basilica.

Banks received billions in support during 2008-09 crisis, report says

Canada’s big banks received billions in support from the federal government and the Bank of Canada during the 2008-09 financial crisis, a report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says.
“While these funds were repaid in full, it is clear that the banks benefited enormously from public financing when private funds were unavailable,” wrote David Macdonald, author of the report released Monday.
“In addition, had the rapid and enormous deployment of public funds not been available, most, if not all, Canadian banks would have encountered serious difficulty.”
Dear Canadians; they told us TARP was all paid back, too!

Tarp Overseer Debunks Bailout Myths: Big Companies HAVEN’T Repaid Tarp Funds … And Funds to Help Homeowners HAVEN’T Been Paid

Apologists for government bailouts push two main myths:
That all of the bailout funds have been repaid
That the bailouts helped the average American
But the official government overseer of the Tarp bailout program – the special inspector general for TARP, Christy L. Romero – has debunked both myths.
Today, Romero wrote the following to Congress:
After 3½ years, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (“TARP”) continues to be an active and significant part of the Government’s response to the financial crisis. It is a widely held misconception that TARP will make a profit. The most recent cost estimate for TARP is a loss of $60 billion. Taxpayers are still owed $118.5 billion (including $14 billion written off or otherwise lost).

22 Signs That The Collapsing Spanish Economy Is Heading Into A Great Depression

As Spain’s too big to bail economy continues on its momentous collapse here are 22 signs a Great Depression is coming.

A bipartisan House agrees to relax rules on complex financial instruments called derivatives

To the chagrin of consumer groups, the House gave overwhelming bipartisan approval Monday to two bills easing requirements that President Barack Obama’s overhaul of financial regulations impose on some exotic financial instruments blamed for helping trigger the 2008 financial crisis.
Lawmakers of both parties said they were relaxing rules that would otherwise inhibit the ability of companies to manage the risks of prices and investments, ultimately reducing their profitability and job creation. Consumer groups said legislators were bowing to the interests of their corporate and finance-world contributors and taking steps that might prove harmful to the public.

It's Official - The Fed Is Now Buying European Government Bonds

As if the 'risk-less' dollar-swaps the Fed has extended to any and every major central bank were not enough, William Dudley just unashamedly admitted that the Fed now holds 'a very small amount of European Sovereign Debt'.
Dudley, testifying to a House panel, noted that he doesn't see more efforts by the Fed to buffer the US from Europe's tempests and believes European banks are deleveraging in an orderly manner. So not only is the US taxpayer bailing out Europe via the IMF (as we noted here a week ago using Greece as an intermediary) and the Fed is providing limitless USD swap lines but now we join the ECB in monetizing European government bonds - something we warned might happen back in December 2010. As for being a small amount - wasn't MF Global's holding relatively small too?
Unflipping believable.

Congress Moves To Stop the FED’s Covert Bailout of Europe With US Taxpayer Money

This week congress will challenge the Federal Reserve’s covert bailout of Europe through the IMF using US taxpayer money

BRICS Move To Replace Dollar With "Super-Sovereign” Global Currency

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, collectively known as the BRICS nations, are moving forward with their plan to unseat the US dollar from its throne as the global trade currency and to replace it with a Chinese denominated "super-sovereign" international currency.
This Geo-political game to establish global monetary dominance is by no means limited to the attack on the US dollar.
Instead this is merely the first strike of a concerted campaign of worldwide economic warfare that will soon follow which seeks to bring the United States and its western allies to their knees.

BRIC Nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) signed Local Currency agreement at Summit. They will not trade in U.S. dollars anymore. Agreements around the world between Countries to Drop U.S. dollar for trade (including Australia)

The U.S. dollar is being dropped all around the world this month for trade.
The BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) signed an agreement to not trade in U.S. dollars anymore, but in their own currencies. They are even working on creating their own bank for trading between each other and to handle the currencies, besides lines of credit in the currencies.
Considering that Saudi Arabia and China have entered into an agreement to build a mega oil refinery worth 8.5 Billion last week, who knows how long the dollar will remain the "Petro dollar". Iran stopped trading oil for dollars on March 20th.

Brave New Bank? BRICS moot dropping dollar, IMF

The BRICS summit has wrapped up in India. Creating an alternative global lender and stepping away from the dollar as a reserve currency were among their main objectives.

BRICS to change world economy - Away from IMF

The BRICS countries' leaders are preparing for their annual meeting. These countries make up 42 percent of the world's population and a quarter of its landmass. They are also responsible for 20 percent of the Global GDP and own a whopping 75 percent of the foreign reserve worldwide. In these tough times for world economics these countries are trying to find a solution for the situation.

US exports to China hit record high of $103.9 billion

US exports to China have crossed the USD 100 billion mark for the first time, touching a record USD 103.9 billion last year.
Growing American exports to China will help boost the US economic recovery, analysts said.
With this level of exports, China has emerged as the third most common destination for US overseas shipments, just behind Canada and Mexico, US-China Business Council said.
US exports to China have risen 542 per cent from 2000 to 2011, going from USD 16.2 billion to a record USD 103.9 billion.

New round of mass layoffs in North America

The US electronics retail chain Best Buy on Thursday announced it would close 50 stores this year and lay off 400 corporate and support workers as part of a plan to cut $800 million in costs and restructure its business.
Best Buy’s announcement follows last month’s announcement by the retail giant Sears Holdings of plans to sell off 1,250 of its Sears and K-Mart stores in a bid to raise $770 million, following a $2.4 billion quarterly loss.
On Friday, another major retailer, Home Depot, said it would lay off 225 workers over the next 18 months at its customer support and distribution center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Also on Friday, ATK Sporting Group, a maker of tactical gear and shooting supplies, said it would scale back operations and lay off 325 employees in Fenton, Missouri.

Point Break: 'Spain last nail in Euro-coffin'

Eurozone finance ministers have agreed to boost the EU's rescue fund to 800 billion euros, to help countries like Spain recover from their crippling debt woes. Spain's financial crisis has prompted the government to announce its biggest austerity measures in over three decades. The country's vowed to cut 27 billion euros from its budget this year. It comes after tens of thousands of protesters hit the streets on Thursday, to fight against labor reforms.

 

A Man Has Set Himself On Fire Outside A Tax Office In Italy

450+ major bank resignations; arrests of economic & War Criminals next?

A little over three weeks ago, 116 major bank resignations was startling news. Now with over 450 resignations and David Wilcock’s compelling documentation, the question is whether the 1% criminal oligarchy face imminent arrest. 

I can’t predict the future. I don’t know what the resignations mean. I don’t know if these arrests and end of the criminal 1% is here.
That said, I can account for recent 1% criminal history that demands arrests for the murder of millions, harm to billions, and looting of trillions of the 99%’s dollars:
The most damning legal violation are unlawful wars; in "emperor has no clothes" obvious violation of the Kellogg-Briand Treaty and UN Charter.
Gabriel at http://www.facebook.com/MassResignations is tracking Insurance, Government and Healthcare Resignations.


450 RESIGNATIONS FROM WORLD BANKS, INVESTMENT HOUSES, MONEY FUNDS
I don't mind if you re-blog this listing. Save yourself the wear and tear on your karma and do me the favor of including http://americankabuki.blogspot.com in your reposting. Thanks to all who have caught minor errors. Special thank to Gabriel at Facebook Global Mass Resignations for some resignations I did not find in my searches.

Abreviations used:
CEO = Chief Executive Officer
CFO = Chief Financial Officer
CIO = Chief Investment Officer
COO = Chief Operating Officer
EVP = Executive Vice President
CRO = Chief Risk Officer
INC = Incorporated (can be private held or publically traded shares)
PLC = Public Limited Company (publicly traded shares can be listed or unlisted on stock market)
LTD = Limited Company (privately held)
LLC = American version of LTD, but can have a shareholder/member that is an INC, often hybrids of both
AG = German version of PLC
AB = Swedish version of PLC
SA = Society Anonymous in various latin languages - same as PLC
NV = Dutch version of PLC
BV = Dutch version of LTD
LP = Limited Partners (partnership with limited liability)
REIT = Real Estate Investment Trust

Click here to scroll to latest additions to list, then scroll up.

Fed earned $77 billion last year, 2nd-highest ever

The Federal Reserve and its district banks said Tuesday it earned $77.4 billion last year, down from $81.7 billion in 2010 but the second-highest level in the central bank's history. The bumper earnings allowed the Fed to distribute $75.4 billion to the U.S. Treasury, also the second-highest level ever. The earnings was derived primarily from $83.6 billion in interest income on securities acquired through open market operations, from Treasury securities, federal agency and government-sponsored enterprise mortgage-backed securities, and GSE debt securities.
Can you imagine what that 77 billion dollars would have done in circulation in the US, rather than as profit to a private central bank to which charges the US government interest to borrow from it?!?

L'affaire des Greenbacks de JFK en fait c'est une rumeur qui a starté il y a longtemps, qui a été publiée pour la première fois dans The Spotlight, avant d'être rétractée dans une Erratum la semaine d'après, ce qui n'a pas empêché des chercheurs incompétents comme Jim Marrs de citer ça comme source et de donner un grand souffle à cette fausse théorie. C'est pas mal la popularité de l'oeuvre de Jim Marrs qui a rendu cette fausse histoire si populaire dans les milieux alternatifs, toujours prêts à sauter sur la nouvelle théorie du complot qui sonne bien et paraît être une bonne explication.

Ironiquement, c'est Mike Piper, journaliste vétéran du journal The Spotlight (devenu aujourd'hui American Free Press), qui est le seul à montrer que cette rumeur a fait l'objet d'un erratum dans le journal The Spotlight alors que le livre de Jim Marrs, celui qui a donné un boost incroyable à cette théorie, n'en tient pas compte.

C'est un article publié récemment, qui se trouve depuis longtemps dans le livre "Final Judgment", paru la première fois en 1994 (maintenant rendu à la 7e édition).

http://mikepiperreport.com/Articles_Archive/AmericanFreePress/AFP2008_07-12/Michael_Collins_Piper_AFP20081229_Hard_Facts_Refute_%60JFK_Greenback%27_Myth.html

http://mikepiperreport.com/Articles_Archive/AmericanFreePress/AFP2008_07-12/Michael_Collins_Piper_AFP20081229_Hard_Facts_Refute_%60JFK_Greenback%27_Myth.html

Les faits réfutent le mythe
des 'billets verts de JFK'

By Michael Collins Piper

Page 15, AMERICAN FREE PRESS * 29 décembre 2008 * No 52

Ci-dessus un billet des États-Unis de 1966. Son existence prouve, au-delà de tout doute, que c'est un pur mythe qu'aucun billet des États-Unis n'a été émis après l'assassinat de JFK et réfute la théorie selon laquelle JFK a été tué parce qu'il aurait ordonné que les Notes des États-Unis soient retirés de la circulation et que, à sa mort, son successeur, Lyndon Johnson, aurait renversé l'ordre de JFK. Final Judgment démontre que l'ordre de JFK n'avait rien à voir avec les billets des États-Unis. Bien que la famille Kennedy se soit opposée à la Réserve fédérale et visait, finalement, à contester ce monopole, le mythe des "Greenbacks (billets verts) de JFK" a brouillé les pistes dans le débat sur le complot de JFK et c'est d'ailleurs un mythe (dans lequel tant de personnes ont investi tellement de pieuses pensées) qui refuse tout simplement de disparaître, malgré les faits.

La légende selon laquelle John F. Kennedy aurait défié la Réserve fédérale et les banquiers internationaux qui la contrôlent en émettant des billets des Etats-Unis dans l'économie américaine en 1963 -- et l'aurait donc payé de sa vie -- est un mythe qui ne veut pas disparaître. Même s'il est vrai que que des billets américains sans charge d'intérêt ont été émis au cours de l'administration JFK -- aucun doute là-dessus, il y a en fait beaucoup plus derrière cette histoire.

Premièrement, le contexte: en 1994, le livre de cet auteur, Final Judgment documentait un plan de la famille Kennedy en vue d'agir contre la Fed, tel que décrit par le père de JFK, l'Ambassadeur Joe Kennedy, a cours d'une réunion privée en 1957 entre l'ambassadeur et un de mes amis, homme d'affaires international DeWest Hooker, un critique virulent de la Fed.

Lorsqu'ils discutaient des plans de la famille, Kennedy envisageait cela à long terme, sachant qu'il serait impossible de détrôner la Fed du jour au lendemain. C'est pourquoi l'objectif de la dynastie des Kennedy était de consolider leur pouvoir pour ensuite se retourner contre l'élite mondiale. Les Kennedy étaient assez astucieux pour savoir que JFK ne pouvait pas prendre de mesures sérieuses contre la Fed au cours de son premier mandat en faisant face à une réélection difficile.

En dépit de ces révélations, immédiatement après la sortie de Final Jugement cet auteur a reçu plusieurs lettres disant en substance ceci:

    Pourquoi n'annoncez-vous pas que JFK a émis un décret par lequel il a inséré de l'argent sans intérêt (parfois appelé "billets verts") dans l'économie américaine, contournant ainsi le monopole inconstitutionnel de la réserve fédérale contrôlée par des banquiers internationaux? Ce faisant JFK a vraiment taillé une encoche profonde dans l'armure de la Fed. C'est certainement la principale raison pour laquelle il a été assassiné, mais vous ne mentionnez la Fed qu'en passant. Même Jim Marrs mentionne cela dans son livre Crossfire.

Avec ces préoccupations en tête, nous répétons ici ce que dit Marrs pour ensuite expliquer «l'histoire derrière l'histoire» de ce sur quoi Marrs avait incorrectement écrit. Marrs a écrit:

    Un autre aspect souvent négligé de la tentative de Kennedy de réformer la société américaine concerne l'argent. Kennedy a apparemment réalisé que par le retour à la Constitution, qui stipule que seul le Congrès peut émettre la monnaie et réglementer l'argent, l'énorme dette nationale pourrait être réduite en ne payant aucun intérêt aux banquiers de la Réserve fédérale, qui impriment le papier-monnaie [et] le prêtent au gouvernement à intérêt.
    Il a fait son premier pas dans ce sens le 4 juin 1963, en signant le décret 11110, qui a appelé à l'émission de 4,292,893,815 $ de billets des États-Unis par l'intermédiaire du Trésor des États-Unis plutôt que par le système traditionnel de la Réserve fédérale. Le même jour, Kennedy a signé un projet de loi changeant les provisions des billets de un et deux dollars de l'argent à l'or, renforçant ainsi le dollar américain affaibli. . . Un certain nombre de "projets de loi Kennedy" ont effectivement été délivrés -- l'auteur a un billet de cinq dollars en sa possession avec comme en-tête "Billet des États-Unis" -- mais ils ont été rapidement été retirés après la mort de Kennedy.

Les lecteurs attentifs constaterons que Marrs a cité le numéro du 31 octobre 1988 du respecté journal populiste, The Spotlight, comme la source de ses données.

Toutefois, ce que Marrs ne ignore apparemment, c'est que dans le numéro suivant, notre journal a publié une correction, expliquant qu'un employé subalterne avait trouvé cet article dans un autre bulletin d'information -- la rumeur circulant dans la presse populiste depuis des années -- et l'avait ensuite glissé dans une colonne présentant un assortiment de nouvelles brèves. Pourtant, comme notre rédacteur en chef l'a indiqué, cette histoire a été étudiée et prouvée fausse.

Mais Marrs a raté la correction et a cité l'histoire originale dans son best seller du New York Times et, en conséquence, des milliers -- peut-être des millions -- l'ont accepté comme un fait, et Marrs a été maintes fois cité par d'autres auteurs. Maintenant, avec Internet et les émissions de radio alternative, cette fausse histoire a littéralement pris vie. Le personnel du Spotlight a mené une enquête sur la légende et a constaté les faits suivants:

    La question était de savoir si le décret (EO) 11110 -- signé par JFK le 4 juin 1963 et censément abrogé par LBJ quelques heures de l'assassinat de JFK a approuvé plus de 4 milliards de dollars de billets des États-Unis, délivrés directement par le Trésor, à la place des billets de la Réserve fédérale qui rapportent des intérêts aux banques de la Réserve fédérale.
    En fait, EO 11110 concernait l'octroi au secrétaire du Trésor du pouvoir d'édicter des règles et règlements relatifs à la compétence du secrétaire d'agir sans l'approbation du président sur les ventes de lingots d'argent. En tant que président, JFK a révoqué ces deux éléments avec EO 11110.
    Qui plus est, ce fut l'administration Reagan -- et non pas LBJ -- qui a finalement abrogé EO 11110. Et ce EO concernait des certificats d'argent -- pas des billets verts -- quand Reagan a signé EO 12608, qui a révoqué plusieurs décrets dépassés, y compris celui dont il est ici question. Je le répète, l'émission de billets US n'était même pas l'objet du EO 11110 de JFK.
    En outre -- et cala est très important -- les prétendus "billets verts de JFK" ont été émis conformément à la très ancienne législation fédérale exigeant qu'un certain nombre de billets US soient toujours en circulation par le Trésor. Cela n'avait rien à voir avec un quelconque décret (ordre exécutif) ou secret mesure particulière de la part de JFK.
    En d'autres termes, les "billets verts de JFK" émis en 1963 seraient entrés en circulation de toute manière, peu importe qui était dans la Maison Blanche à ce moment-là.
    Le fait est qu'une loi du Congrès qui a été adoptée le 31 mai 1878 déclarait que le Trésor américain est tenu de conserver 322 539 016 $ de billets américains en circulation à tout moment.

Ainsi, l'émission des billets US de JFK a été fait en vertu d'une loi existant depuis longtemps dans les livres.
Ceux qui citent un décret de JFK, qui fait plutôt référence à tout autre chose, font une erreur, et rendent un mauvais service à des chercheurs sérieux.
Un dernier point: dans la dernière édition de Final Judgment, on trouve une illustration d'un billet US de 1966. Il est authentique, en la possession d'un critique vétéran de la Fed. Les négociants en devises américaines vendent fréquemment des billets US de l'ère post-JFK.
Ils peuvent vérifier l'authenticité de ces billets des États-Unis. Le fait que ce billet des États-Unis de 1966 existe est la preuve que c'est un mythe qu'aucun billet des États-Unis n'a été émis après 1963, que LBJ a retiré les billets US de la circulation au moment d'assumer la présidence après la mort de JFK.



(No #52, 29 décembre 2008, AMERICAN FREE PRESS)

Page 15, AMERICAN FREE PRESS * December 29, 2008 * Issue 52 AFP ON THE "PAY-TO-PLAY" SCANDAL

Shown above is a 1966 United States Note. Its existence proves, beyond question, that it is an absolute myth that no U.S. Notes were issued after the JFK assassination and refutes the theory that JFK was killed because he ordered U.S. Notes taken out of circulation and that, upon his death, his successor, Lyndon Johnson, reversed JFK's order. Final Judgment demonstrates that JFK's order had nothing to do with U.S. Notes whatsoever. Although the Kennedy family did oppose the Federal Reserve and ultimately intended to challenge that monopoly, the myth about “JFK's Greenbacks” has muddied the waters in the debate over the JFK conspiracy and it is a myth (in which so many have vested so much wishful thinking) that simply refuses to go away, the facts notwithstanding.

Hard Facts Refute
`JFK Greenback' Myth

By Michael Collins Piper

.The legend that John F. Kennedy defied the Federal Reserve and the international bankers who control it by issuing U.S. Notes into the American economy in 1963—and thus paid with his life—is a myth that won’t go away. Although it’s true that non-interest bearing U.S. Notes were issued during the JFK administration—no question about it— but there’s much more to the story.
First, some background: in 1994 this author’s book, Final Judgment documented—for the first time—a Kennedy family plan to move against the Fed, outlined by JFK’s father, Ambassador Joe Kennedy, in a private meeting in 1957 between the ambassador and a friend of mine, international businessman DeWest Hooker, an outspoken critic of the Fed.
When discussing the family’s plans, Kennedy was talking long term, knowing it would be impossible to dethrone the Fed overnight. That’s why the goal of the Kennedy dynasty was to consolidate their power and then move against the global elite. The Kennedys were astute enough to know that JFK couldn’t make any serious moves against the Fed during his first term while facing a tough reelection.
Despite these revelations, immediately after the release of Final Judgment this author received multiple letters saying essentially this:

Why don’t you report that JFK issued an executive order that inserted interest-free money (sometimes called “greenbacks”) into the American economy, thereby circumventing the unconstitutional, international banker-controlled Federal Reserve money monopoly? By doing so JFK put a real chink in the Fed’s armor. This is certainly the primary reason he was assassinated, but you only mention the Fed in passing. Even Jim Marrs mentions this in his book Crossfire.

With these concerns in mind, we repeat here what Marrs said and then explain the “story behind the story” of what Marrs had incorrectly written. Marrs wrote:

Another overlooked aspect of Kennedy’s attempt to reform American society involves money. Kennedy apparently reasoned that by returning to the Constitution, which states that only Congress shall coin and regulate money, the soaring national debt could be reduced by not paying interest to the bankers of the Federal Reserve System, who print paper money [and] then loan it to the government at interest.
He moved in this area on June 4, 1963, by signing executive order 11,110 which called for the issuance of $4,292,893,815 in United States Notes through the U.S. Treasury rather than the traditional Federal Reserve System. That same day, Kennedy signed a bill changing the backing of one-and two-dollar bills from silver to gold, adding strength to the weakened U.S. currency . . . A number of “Kennedy bills” were indeed issued—the author has a five-dollar bill in his possession with the heading “United States Note”—but were quickly withdrawn after Kennedy’s death.

Careful readers would find that Marrs cited the Oct. 31, 1988 issue of the respected populist newspaper, The Spotlight, as the source of his data.
However, what Marrs apparently didn’t know was that in its next issue, our newspaper published a correction, explaining that a junior staffer had found this item in another newsletter—the rumor had been circulating in the populist press for years—and slipped it into a column containing an assortment of brief news notes. Yet, as our editor indicated, this item had been investigated and proven erroneous.
But Marrs missed the correction and cited the original story in his New York Times best-seller and as a consequence, thousands—perhaps millions—accepted it as fact, and Marrs has been repeatedly cited by others. Now, with the Internet and alternative talk radio, this false story has taken on a life of its own. The Spotlight staff conducted an inquiry into the legend and found these facts:

At issue was whether executive order (EO) 11,110—signed by JFK on June 4, 1963 and supposedly repealed by LBJ within hours of JFK’s death—approved more than $4 billion in U.S. Notes, issued directly by the treasury, in place of Federal Reserve Notes which earn interest for the Federal Reserve banks.
In fact, EO 11,110 dealt with granting the secretary of the treasury the authority to issue rules and regulations pertaining to freeing the secretary to act without presidential approval on silver bullion sales. As president, JFK revoked both of these with EO 11,110.
What’s more, it was the Reagan administration— not LBJ—that finally repealed EO 1,110. And this EO dealt with silver certificates—not greenbacks— when Reagan signed EO 12,608, which revoked several outdated executive orders, including the one in question. To repeat, the issuance of United States Notes was not even the subject of JFK’s EO 11,110.
In addition—and this is important—the purported “JFK greenbacks” were issued pursuant to longstanding federal legislation mandating that a certain number of U.S. Notes always be in circulation by the Treasury. It had nothing to do with any executive order or secret special measure by JFK.
In other words, the “JFK Greenbacks” issued in 1963 would have gone into circulation no matter who was in theWhite House.
The fact is an act of Congress passed on May 31, 1878 declared that the U.S. Treasury is required to keep $322,539,016 in U.S. Notes in circulation at all times.

So the issuance of U.S. Notes by JFK was done in pursuance of a law long on the books.
Those who cite an executive order by JFK that, in fact, refers to something else altogether, are making a mistake, doing a disservice to serious research.
One last item: illustrated in the latest edition of Final Judgment is a 1966 United States Note. It is genuine, in the possession of a veteran critic of the Fed. Dealers in U.S. currency frequently sell post-JFK era U.S. Notes.
They can verify the authenticity of these U.S. Notes. The fact this 1966 U.S. Note exists is proof that it is a myth no U.S. Notes were issued after 1963, that LBJ withdrew U.S. Notes from circulation upon assuming the presidency after the death of JFK.

. . ..Michael Collins Piper can be heard every week day night live on the Internet at republicbroadcasting.org. He is the author of Final Judgment, the controversial “underground bestseller” documenting the collaboration of Israeli intelligence in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He is also the author of The High Priests of War, The New Jerusalem: Zionist Power in America , The Judas Goats: The Enemy Within, Dirty Secrets: Crime, Conspiracy & Cover-Up in the 20th Century, The GOLEM: Israel's Hell Bomb, and Target: Traficant. These works can be found at America First Books and FIRST AMENDMENT BOOKS: 1-888-699-NEWS. He has lectured on suppressed topics in places as diverse as Malaysia, Japan, Canada, Russia and Abu Dhabi.

Video: Israel Killed President John Fitzgerald Kennedy

I have two videos today. One is from the Jewish actor Richard Belzer and the second is from Michael Collins Piper who wrote Confessions of an Anti-Semite.
First up is a short video from Richard Belzer who says why the bankers killed Kennedy.
What Belzer did not say was that JFK was killed on the 53rd anniversary of the first meeting to create the Federal Reserve as a message to us all. Bankers have the right to kill the President of the United States and so they can kill you too. The President, the Attorney General and several Senators have all said the recent passage of the NDAA enshrines this Banker Arrogance into American law.
My regular readers will remember from my previous article the two other reasons for killing the President. Israel wanted nuclear weapons which JFK opposed. And secondly to set up a Jewish New World Order America would have to be involved in a lot of losing wars over a very long period of time.so Americans could be reduced to Debt Slavery and be easily controlled. Killing Kennedy also meant America would go into the Vietnam war and take One Giant Step towards Bankruptcy. Please remember that it was during that war that Nixon took America off the Gold Exchange Standard in 1971. Henry Kissinger put the whole on the Petrodollar standard with the Arab-Israeli war of  1973 and the all so important Saudi oil boycott.
I also said Israel killed Martin Luther King so America would never have an effective anti-war movement. I did not shy away from controversy when I said Israel has been blowing up buildings with Americans inside. I cited 911 and the 4-19-1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing. I did neglect to mention in that article that the US gave North Korea to Stalin after WW II so America could lose a lot of men and treasure in the Korean war.
The last video of the day is from Michael Collins Piper who ties all of the trendy theories about who killed JFK into one box labeled Mossad.

What Belzer did not say was that JFK was killed on the 53rd anniversary of the first meeting to create the Federal Reserve as a message to us all. Bankers have the right to kill the President of the United States and so they can kill you too. The President, the Attorney General and several Senators have all said the recent passage of the NDAA enshrines this Banker Arrogance into American law.
My regular readers will remember from my previous article the two other reasons for killing the President. Israel wanted nuclear weapons which JFK opposed. And secondly to set up a Jewish New World Order America would have to be involved in a lot of losing wars over a very long period of time.so Americans could be reduced to Debt Slavery and be easily controlled. Killing Kennedy also meant America would go into the Vietnam war and take One Giant Step towards Bankruptcy. Please remember that it was during that war that Nixon took America off the Gold Exchange Standard in 1971. Henry Kissinger put the whole on the Petrodollar standard with the Arab-Israeli war of  1973 and the all so important Saudi oil boycott.

The last video of the day is from Michael Collins Piper who ties all of the trendy theories about who killed JFK into one box labeled Mossad.

Global oil price may hit $240 if Iran closes Hormuz: IHS

A leading US-based energy consulting firm says oil price may hit $240 a barrel and economic growth may fall by over 25 percent if Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz in reaction to the Western sanctions.
Analysts at IHS Global Insight also told reporters that Iran can easily close the strategic strait and disrupt global oil supplies for up to three months by laying mines that the US and its allies would have to find and remove, USA Today reported...

Misery for motorists as price of petrol smashes through the 140p-a-litre barrier for the first time

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2119280/Fuel-prices-Price-petrol-smashes-140p-litre-barrier-1st-time.html

  Large family car costs nearly £100 to fill, diesel car £103

  Petrol prices have risen more than 2.75p in three weeks

  Another 3.62p will be added per litre in August duty rise

  Monthly petrol costs will have risen by £12 this year

Falling Dollar Value = Higher Gas Prices

Foodprices soaring worldwide

Frightening graph on the effects of the crisis on food prices

FACT CHECK: More US Drilling Didn't Drop Gas Price

It's the political cure-all for high gas prices: Drill here, drill now. But more U.S. drilling has not changed how deeply the gas pump drills into your wallet, math and history show.
A statistical analysis of 36 years of monthly, inflation-adjusted gasoline prices and U.S. domestic oil production by The Associated Press shows no statistical correlation between how much oil comes out of U.S. wells and the price at the pump.
The money-junkies charge whatever they think they can get away with!

U.S. Says Iran Crude Buyers Must Pledge Cuts to Avoid Sanctions

The Obama administration wants China, India and 10 other nations to present specific plans of how they will curtail Iranian (OPCRIRAN) oil imports, saying past cuts aren’t enough to win them an exclusion from new U.S. sanctions.
While China and India, the two biggest buyers of Iran’s crude, have made cuts in recent months and years, they were not granted exemptions.
The new sanctions law, enacted Dec. 31, doesn’t define what counts as the “significant reduction” needed to qualify for an exemption from penalties. U.S. officials say they have not quantified it because there is no rule of thumb or percentage of cuts that applies to all cases. Each country has different energy needs, and will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, the officials said.
Being outside the US banking system won't be a problem for India or China, which are perfectly happy to pay Iran for its oil in gold or other commodities.
The US government may well have shot itself in the foot with this one, and the US dollar may well soon be...irrelevant.

‘Iran-Pakistan trade rises despite US sanctions’

A Pakistani minister says trade levels with Iran have increased over the past few years despite US sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear energy program.
"You don't understand. When we here in the United States tell you in Pakistan not to do business with Iran, you are supposed to not do business in Iran, got it? We say, you do, understand? Hello? Hello? Did this phone go dead?" -- Official White Horse Souse

‘Iran oil exports increase in January despite sanctions’

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/232439.html
Recent data released by the Joint Organization Data Initiative (JODI) shows that Iranian crude export has increased in January despite sanctions imposed against the country’s oil sector.

US exempts 10 EU states plus Japan from Iran sanctions

The United States says it has exempted 11 nations including 10 European Union members and Japan from tough new sanctions on Iran as they have reduced oil purchase from Tehran.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement on Tuesday that the exemption covers financial institutions from 11 nations - Belgium, Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain, AFP reported.
"The actions taken by these countries were not easy…. They had to rethink their energy needs at a critical time for the world economy and quickly begin to find alternatives to Iranian oil, which many had been reliant on for their energy needs," she added.

Let them get taxed: UK controversial budget hits pensions, cars and lunches

The middle-class and pensioners are the first pay the price for economic recovery. The so called ‘granny tax’ will cost 4.4 million pensioners about 3.5 billion pounds over the next five years with every retiree paying as much as £259 more income tax than they otherwise would have. Critics have already called the budget pro-rich, with top earners benefiting from lower taxes, and the middle-class struggling from rising prices and taxes.

David Cameron unveils plan to sell off the roads

David Cameron will clear the way for a multibillion-pound semi-privatisation of trunk roads and motorways as he announces plans to allow sovereign wealth funds from countries such as China to lease roads in England.
Just 48 hours before the budget, the prime minister will give a speech calling for radical action to improve Britain's infrastructure, which is falling behind those of key competitors in Europe.

Making 9 Million Jobless "Vanish": How The Government Manipulates Unemployment Statistics

When we look at broad measures of jobs and population, then the beginning of 2012 was one of the worst months in US history, with a total of 2.3 million people losing jobs or leaving the workforce in a single month. Yet, the official unemployment rate showed a decline from 8.5% to 8.3% in January - and was such cheering news that it set off a stock rally.
How can there be such a stark contrast between the cheerful surface and an underlying reality that is getting worse?

Saudi Arabia And China Team Up To Build A Gigantic New Oil Refinery – Is This The Beginning Of The End For The Petrodollar?

In what Riyadh calls “the largest expansion by any oil company in the world”, Sinopec’s deal on Saturday with Saudi oil giant Aramco will allow a major oil refinery to become operational in the Red Sea port of Yanbu by 2014.
The $8.5 billion joint venture, which covers an area of about 5.2 million square meters, is already under construction. It will process 400,000 barrels of heavy crude oil per day. Aramco will hold a 62.5 percent stake in the plant while Sinopec will own the remaining 37.5 percent.
At a time when the U.S. is actually losing refining capacity, this is a stunning development.
Essentially, China is running circles around the United States when it comes to locking up strategic oil supplies worldwide.
Although I could never imagine living in China (too ornery and question-asking prone to survive there very long),the one thing I appreciate about the way in which the Chinese government does things, is how it secures its energy needs without firing a single shot.

Saudi Arabia: House of Saud, Falling House of Cards

The irony is rich indeed. For the past year, the Saudi rulers have done their utmost to crush the slightest dissent in their country, while at the same time they have backed Western interference, aggression and regime change in Libya and Syria – under the guise, wait for it, of advocating democratic freedom and human rights.
Despite Saudi Arabia’s vast oil wealth and official GDP per capita, unemployment and poverty are rampant. As with the other Gulf Arab countries, Saudi Arabia’s rulers rely on a slave labour economy recruited from South Asia and Africa. This means that many young Saudis have to endure a life of unemployment.
But what happens if the collapse of the House of Saud happens right before the US and Israel are about to attack Iran?!?
That's a scenario no one in the bowels of power in DC or Tel Aviv want to even consider.
But given the fragile state of things within Saudi Arabia, they had darned well better.

Top level bankers resigning in droves. What does this mean?

I have been seeing reports lately that an unusually large number of top level banking and finance executives worldwide have been resigning their positions. The American Kabuki website features a report titled, 320 RESIGNATIONS FROM WORLD BANKS, INVESTMENT HOUSES, MONEY FUNDS, and a Japanese website has posted some amazing graphs of resignations by region, by country, and by company.
Now, today, the New York Times is reporting that, “Greg Smith is resigning today as a Goldman Sachs executive director and head of the firm’s United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.”

Goldman Sachs & JP Morgan Whistle Blowers Come Clean! + Rat’s Jumping Ship

JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs whistleblowers coming forward is a clear sign that rats are jumping off the Wall Street banking cartel’s sinking ship.

Study: 18,520 Cases Of HFT Stock Market Manipulation In Last 5 Years

Researchers planning a system to completely computerize stock market trading uncovered 18,520 instances of stock market manipulation between 2006 and 2011.

The Great Recession Of 2007 Never Ended – We Are In Fact In A Depression

While economists say the Great Recession of 2007 ended and we have entered into a second recession an objective analysis reveals the recession never ended and we are in fact in a depression.

UK Budget: Millions Robbed To Pay Millionaires And Corrupt Bankers

Britain's austerity measures - massive cuts in social services coupled with sharply increased taxes - is robbery of the masses for millionaires and corrupt bankers.
Outage is growing in the UK over the latest budget that which enacts tough austerity measures that will have a dramatic impact on the quality of life of lower and middle-income households.
Amidst the barrage of criticism is several reports which show the British lawmakers themselves stand to benefit from the budget deal which lowers the tax burden on the nation's wealthiest while increasing the burden on the rest of the population.

Police attack Portuguese people protesting austerity measures

Demonstrations were held on Thursday in 38 cities and towns across Portugal, including the capital city of Lisbon, Oporto - the second largest city after Lisbon -- and Coimbra, AFP reported.
In Lisbon, police resorted to baton charge and arrests to disperse the protesters.
At least one demonstrator was arrested in Oporto as protesters expressed outrage at Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho during a visit to the northern city's university.

WALL STREET'S MORTGAGE-BACKED SECURITY FRAUD DESTROYED BOTH THE US AND EU ECONOMIES!

Deutsche Bank, a German lender, has sold the Fed more than $290 billion worth of mortgage securities, Fed data through July shows. Credit Suisse, a Swiss bank, sold the Fed more than $287 billion in mortgage bonds.
The data had previously been secret. It was released Wednesday per the recently-enacted law overhauling the federal financial regulation. The Fed, ferociously backed by the Obama administration, fought lawmakers' desire for full disclosure throughout the financial reform debate.

As detailed in "Bankers Gone Wild", mortgages were cranked out by unscrupulous mortgage brokers, then bundled together into mortgage securities, which were in turn re-sold to investors as triple-A investments, even though the bundles included sub-prime mortgages already defaulting as US jobs were shipped overseas.
These mortgage-backed securities are a Wall Street invention! And at first they appeared to be immensely profitable, so not only were US financial corporations, investment houses, and pension funds buying them, but so too were non financial corporations and major foreign banks including Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse.
But those early profits were a fiction, and we now know that many of the sellers of mortgage backed securities were engaging in Ponzi scheme activity, using proceeds from sales of mortgage backed securities to pay "earnings" to earlier investors, while the same SEC that had turned a blind eye to Bernie Madoff's $65 billion swindle looked the other way!
Worse, we now know that individual mortgages were pledged as collateral to multiple security bundles, which is illegal! This is briefly mentioned at 3:48 in the next video.
The criminal fraud even went further than that! In the case of Countrywide (now part of Bank of America) the actual titles were never really transferred, leaving the investment bundles entirely unsecured!
What appears to have happened is that the European banks realized that the American investment firms selling those mortgage-backed securities were engaging in fraud! Greenspan has admitted to such.
As the banks of Europe began to feel the major losses from the fraud, they turned to their local governments for financial assistance. In turn, those governments were forced to apply for loans from the International Monetary Fund, plunging their people deeper into debt, and the governments under the control of the private bankers! Indeed one must wonder if this multinational financial fraud had as its ultimate objective the forcing of the entire western world under the control of a giant private bank!.
Obviously, the people of Europe are refusing to be chained to a global bank and seem far more worried about their freedoms than their American counterparts. Yet a quick Google search shows the media encouraging the nations hit with this massive financial fraud to apply to the IMF for more loans, never mentioning that in their indebtedness lies the end of their national sovereignty!
Ultimately the European banks are never going to sit still for fraud, even from Wall Street, and even from the USA! In order to reduce their losses and avoid more IMF entanglements, the European banks demanded a refund on those fraudulent investment packages. No doubt the Wall Street mortgage fraudsters refused, suggesting that the bankers of Europe dump their losses on their populations just as the American banks were being forced to do. That some European banks did so explains why so many European nations are in financial trouble. However, the larger European banks may have decided to "get tough" with the Americans, and this may explain the mysterious electronic run on the US financial system in February 2009, which almost crashed the US economy. Strangely, the American people were never informed who had initiated the financial transfers, even though obviously this information is recorded in the transactions on the computer systems.
This "attack" may have been a warning from the European main banks to the US to make good on the bad investments, or risk full public exposure for the mortgage backed securities fraud!
Soon after, we learned that the Federal Reserve was handing out trillions and trillions of dollars, loans which the American people are expected to repay, only the Federal Reserve refused to say who was getting the money, and even implied that exposure of the recipients of these trillions of dollars might pose a threat to the US economy. Now, nearly two years later, we find out that the Federal Reserve was buying back the mortgage-backed securities from European banks including Deutsche Bank and Credit Suiss. The reason this was kept secret was that the American people were being told that all these "bailouts" would be repaid, yet common sense tells us that profit cannot be made from an exposed fraud! The Fed could not admit to owning all those mortage-backed securities without being forced to answer the question of just exactly why they were not producing any earnings, with the usual "it was all the borrowers' fault" excuses wearing thin even then! As cash left the nations financial system to cover the repurchase of the fraudulent mortgage backed securities, banks found their balance sheets slipping into the red. The banks were being driven into insolvency making good on the bad paper and this is what triggered the epidemic of fraudulent foreclosures. Banks needed real assets on their balance sheets as quickly as they could to get their balance in the black and their banks out of insolvency. So shortcuts were taken which became known as "foreclosuregate". For some banks, it was too late. Hundreds of banks either dragged down by the fraudulent mortgage securities or made insolvent buying back the bad paper, have been shut down. For other major banks and financial institutions, the tactic worked and they stayed afloat, for which making millions of Americans homeless seemed a small price to pay! Indeed one might explain the hitherto unexplained reluctance by the Federal Government to stem the offshoring of American jobs as a deliberate policy of setting up Americans to lose their homes in order to preserve the capital structure of the banks!
In other words, the American people were looted to make good on the fraud perpetrated by Wall Street not only against American financial institutions, but bankers in the Eurozone as well.
The Wall Street Fraudsters should have gone to jail. But they walk free and clear, saved from the FDIC and prison, heading into a wonderful holiday with record-setting bonuses to spend while ordinary Americans have been made jobless, homeless, and hungry to keep the criminals out of prison.
The Mortgage Backed Securities fraud is the biggest fraud in the history of the United States, and as today's revelations make clear, we still do not know the full scale of the financial rape this nation has suffered.

World Bank Wants Control Of The High Seas

This past week, World Bank President Robert Zoellick made his organization’s intentions for oceanic regimentation known, at least in a candy coated way, at the Economist World Oceans Summit in Singapore. (Source)

Over the last several years, World Bank has seen fit to insinuate itself into the environmental movement as a “bastion” of green ideology. In reality, World Bank has long used the threats of environmental destabilization (some of them real, some of them fake) as tools for the centralization of resources into the hands of mega-corporations. In fact, if one was to attempt to sum up exactly what it is that World Bank actually does in a single phrase, it would probably be “resource domination”. This domination is achieved through the strict lending guidelines that sovereign countries have to commit to in order to attain financing from the supranational entity.

Like a greasy loan shark working for a hardboiled mob cartel, World Bank’s M.O. is to lend large capital packages (made with money or credit created out of thin air) which the target country and its government obviously cannot afford to pay back. These loans often stipulate that the country relinquish control of its natural resources, the true wealth of the nation, over to international corporate bodies for “management”. Through this process, World Bank removes competition from a market and hands designated companies (globalist front-companies) the keys to the kingdom.

Environmental manipulation has been used in the past by World Bank as a cover for resource piracy. Global corporations including Enron, Bechtel, GM, and Monsanto from the late 90’s onward have been handed coveted water rights to entire communities and nations under the guise of managing “water scarcity”. This control of the water supply has extended even to rainwater collection. World Bank’s argument in the case of water privatization was that monetizing the resource would create “incentives” for populations to conserve water. That is to say, the higher they could increase the cost of water, the more coveted it would become, and the more careful people would be when using it. This feudalistic idea was expressed clearly in a World Water Council (founded with the help of the Vice President of World Bank) document entitled “The Long Term Vision For Water, Life, And Environment”:

http://www.bvsde.paho.org/bvsaca/i/fulltext/mirh/education.pdf

In 1998 the World Water Forum expounded a need for control and regulation over the planet’s water supply. This meeting was packed with top multinational corporations and commissioned by a viper’s nest of global elites, including:

-Dr Ismali Serageldin (Commission Chair), Vice President, World Bank, and Chair of Global Water Partnership
-Margaret Catley-Carlson, President, Population Council
-Gordon Conway, President, The Rockefeller Foundation
-Mohamed T. El-Ashry, Chair and CEO of the Global Environment Facility
-Howard Hjort, former Deputy Director, FAO
-Enriquo Iglesias, President, Inter-American Development Bank
-Yolanda Kababadse, President, World Conservation Union
-Jessica Mathews, President, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, USA
-Robert S. McNamara, Co-Chair, Global Coalition for Africa
-Maurice Strong, Chair, Earth Council, member of Commission on Global Governance, and a chief adviser in charge of the UN reform process
-Wilfred Thalwitz, former Senior VP, World Bank
-Jerome Mondo, Chair of the Supervisory Board, Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux

In March of 2000, the forum made the following statement:

“Water is an economic good and its economic value should be recognized in the allocation of scarce water resources to competing uses. While this should not prevent people from meeting their basic needs for water services at affordable prices, the price for water must be set at a level that encourages conservation and wise use...”

http://www.waternunc.com/gb/secwwf11.htm

This methodology of artificially raising prices through the issuance of securities to enforce a particular environmentalist ideal, in the end, has NOTHING to do with protecting the environment. Essentially, it creates the derivitization of natural resources that is the calling card of globalized tyranny. Cap and Trade programs were designed to monetize air usage. Energy derivatives were used by Enron to allow easier manipulation of electric and oil prices. Water privatization was designed to corporatize a free flowing resource and create artificial scarcity. And now, World Bank wants to apply the same con game to one of the last economic commons; the ocean. The only beneficiaries in these schemes have always been large conglomerates, along with a smattering of stock investors who revel in the idea of erecting entire markets out of absolutely imaginary products with no real inherent value.

As with water privatization, the flood of massive bureaucracy in the guise of corporate management over oceanic usage will only create a mind boggling maze of red tape that will thwart all business interests except the largest. This is entirely deliberate.

Not only does it cause prices to rise to levels beyond what the impoverished (a global majority) can pay for a commodity, but it also squeezes out small business owners whose only advantage was the level playing field of an open resource. On the oceans of World Bank, a small fishing outfit will have no chance to make a living, because the permit process, new taxes, and new legal requirements, will empty their bank accounts before they ever get started, leaving only the big boys to ravage the seas at will, and legally, because they will have paid the exorbitant fees for the right to do so.

There is also a very good reason why Zoellick at the World Oceans Summit mentioned fishery issues so often, and why he is so keen on the idea of international regulations on their operations.

On dry land, companies like Monsanto are the slavemasters of food supply. The centralization of national farming infrastructures has given these companies unrivaled power over how we eat, and thus, how most of the populace survives. However, the ocean, an unparalleled food source, is still a decentralized region of production. Anyone can fish it, almost anywhere, without having to ask permission from the government, or a private company. This obviously does not sit well with World Bank, not because they fear overfishing, but because it provides a sovereign means of survival, allowing people to remain independent from the globalist system.

By utterly corporatizing resources that have through all of time been freely accessible to every human being, World Bank and the elitists they serve hope to build a framework for total centralization of all means of production and sustenance on Earth. Does this sound like mad scientist stuff? Absolutely. Does that make it any less factual or terrifying? Not a chance.

The real cleverness in using the environmental aspect of ocean management lay in the reality that there is, indeed, severe damage being done to many parts of the ocean’s ecosystems. Cap and trade is based on the lie of anthropomorphic global warming and highly misrepresented data on the effects of CO2 (just ask any global warming enthusiast why NASA and the CRU have never released the source data for their experiments to prove that their claims are true). The monetization of the air we breathe can be defeated in the minds of the general public for this reason. But with the oceans, legitimate pollution is occurring. This gives World Bank a much more tangible argument for supranational regulation in the name of environmentalism. What people must realize, though, is that this regulation will have no effect on the deterioration of the seas. In fact, it will likely hasten their destruction.

The international nature of how the oceans are utilized also opens the globalization door to World Bank. When a supranational entity is given de facto governance over a region that is used by all sovereign countries, it gives that entity the ability to interfere in the decision making processes of those nations without any input or respect to the people who live within them. For Americans, this means being susceptible to laws created by men far outside our borders who we cannot vote in, vote out, or chase down with our pitchforks when the voting is rigged. This has always been the goal of globalists; to create the most dominant and unaccountable ruling body in history, while at the same time convincing the masses that we cannot live without it.

At bottom, centralization is the foundation for the collectivist fallacy; that there is a “greater good” that must be maintained by the establishment. This process makes the establishment indispensable in the minds of the public. The elites in power today have chosen environmental dogma as their version of the “greater good”, because the “end of the world as we know” can be used to rationalize almost any brand of despotic behavior, from food and water rationing as a method for social conditioning, to population control or even depletion in the name of “saving the planet”. Always beware the true motivations of any governing institution that seeks to assert itself as the purveyor of all that is “best” for the people. Such groups are rarely if ever what they seem…

Moody's adjusts ratings of 9 European sovereigns to capture downside risks

As anticipated in November 2011, Moody's Investors Service has today adjusted the sovereign debt ratings of selected EU countries in order to reflect their susceptibility to the growing financial and macroeconomic risks emanating from the euro area crisis and how these risks exacerbate the affected countries' own specific challenges.
Moody's actions can be summarised as follows:
- Austria: outlook on Aaa rating changed to negative
- France: outlook on Aaa rating changed to negative
- Italy: downgraded to A3 from A2, negative outlook
- Malta: downgraded to A3 from A2, negative outlook
- Portugal: downgraded to Ba3 from Ba2, negative outlook
- Slovakia: downgraded to A2 from A1, negative outlook
- Slovenia: downgraded to A2 from A1, negative outlook

Growing Number Of Americans Can't Afford Food, Study Finds

Here in the United States, growing numbers of people can't afford that most basic of necessities: food.
More Americans said they struggled to buy food in 2011 than in any year since the financial crisis, according to a recent report from the Food Research and Action Center, a nonprofit research group. About 18.6 percent of people -- almost one out of every five -- told Gallup pollsters that they couldn't always afford to feed everyone in their family in 2011.

 

GE Paid Just 2.3 Percent in Federal Taxes Over Last 10 Years on More Than $81 Billion in Profits

Thanks to tax loopholes and deductions, General Electric (GE) was able to pay a mere 2.3 percent in federal taxes on over $81 billion in profits over the last 10 years, according to analysis of the corporation’s tax filings conducted by Citizens for Tax Justice.
The Citizens for Tax Justice, a non-partisan watchdog group, said that GE’s latest filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reveal that they were far under the supposed 35 percent corporate tax rate.
GE was able to rob taxpayers blind during years when their profits declined, all while paying taxes at a rate far below what most hardworking American individuals are saddled with.

Enough is Enough!' Spanish & Greeks unite in austerity rage

It's a day of mass protests across the EU, as people rail against austerity, cuts and economic hardships - which they say are not their fault. Fresh demonstration are brewing across Greece - as the government seeks to implement the drastic austerity measures that came with the latest EU bailout. The demonstrations will be synchronous with those in Spain - where people are angry at their own draconian cuts and bleak prospects.

24-hour general strike called in India

NEW DELHI, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- A one-day general strike, called by India's major trade unions, struck the country Tuesday to protest high inflation and other issues.

US Govt Covertly Ships Trillions to EU + Economic Collapse

Watch the entire 2012-02-24 broadcast here: http://www.justin.tv/michaelrivero/b/309629839
Low bandwidth torrent
http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/7056586/What_Really_Happened_-_2012_Feb...

Draghi buries European social model

At a time when the ECB is preparing to write a further €500 billion cheque for the banks, the ECB President has declared that over-indebted countries will have no option but to implement draconian austerity policies if they are to overcome the crisis. Shocking words, which, French business daily La Tribune argues, are nonetheless justified.
This is the New World Order. People worked to death, no services, just pouring the money into the pockets of the private central bankers, and even that will not be enough to repay the debt in a banking system that by design creates more debt than money.

'Europe is Pouring Money Into a Bottomless Barrel'

A German minister has broken with the official government line by saying Greece should be encouraged to quit the euro. The comment, made to SPIEGEL, comes ahead of Monday's parliamentary vote on the second bailout. Some newspapers, including the tabloid Bild, agree that it's time for Greece to leave.
Large corporate conglomerates have a trick they like to play on investors. When they get into financial trouble, they find a subsidiary that isn't performing and quietly transfer all negative assets and obligations into that subsidiary, which is then "spun off" into a separate company, and allowed to collapse, taking the debt with it. The investors to whom that debt is owed get screwed, the larger corporation survives and the executives write themselves huge bonuses.
It looks like the EU is playing the same game with Greece.

Britain on path of bankruptcy'

A prominent professor says UK's economic and financial model is a failure amid Chancellor George Osborne's announcement that the country has run out of money.

G20 to Europe: Show us the money

Leading economies told Europe it must put up extra money to fight its debt crisis if it wants more help from the rest of the world, piling pressure on Germany to drop its opposition to a bigger European bailout fund.
Are these people totally clueless? Europe is enslaved to a private central banks, which like all private central banks brings money into existence through lending. Europe cannot put up more money without increasing its aggregate debt, without more BORROWING, thereby worsening the debt situation. Aside from some covert transfers of US wealth into Europe via bearer bonds, Europe has no source of wealth other than the labor of its people, and given growing unemployment mandated by "Austerity", that source of wealth has collapsed.
Right now the European economy can be seen as a boat with ten holes in the bottom and only nine corks. Everything done to "save" Europe amounts to yanking a cork from one hole and pounding it into another in full view of the press cameras, all the while shouting "I am working on the problem!"

More bad news: U.S. water bills to triple

First high gas prices, now water. A shocking new report about the nation's crumbling drinking water system says that Americans should expect their bills to double or triple to cover repairs just to keep their faucets pouring. That means adding up to $900 a year more for water, nearly equal the amount of the newly extended payroll tax cut.
Fixing and expanding underground drinking water systems will cost over $1 trillion in the next 25 years and users will get socked with the bill, according to the American Water Works Association.

Durable goods orders drop by most in 3 years

WASHINGTON (AP) — Businesses slashed spending on machinery and equipment in January after a tax break expired, pushing orders for long-lasting manufacturing goods down by the largest amount in three years.
Orders for durable goods fell 4 percent last month, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.

REPEAT - DERIVATIVES: ISDA to determine Greece credit event on March 1

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association said it will hold a meeting on Thursday, March 1 at 11:00 a.m. GMT to determine whether a credit event occurred in respect to Greece. A general interest question was posed to ISDA’s EMEA Determinations Committee last week.
Collective action clauses (CACs) have been at the heart of determining whether a Greek credit event has occurred.
Remember that ISDA is made up of representatives from the Wall Street financial institutions that sold all those credit default swaps in the first place, so there is a vested financial motive for ISDA to say no event has occurred.

Fitch downgrades Greece

Fitch ratings agency downgrades Greece from CCC to C, indicating default 'highly likely'
"Dammit; start the war now. NOW, NOW, NOW!!!"

 

Fearless Prediction: On March 20, Greece Will Default

Last Monday, a deal seemed to have emerged: That’s what the announcement sounded like. In fact, it looked so much like a done deal—it was spun so decisively as a done deal—that I was all set to write something snarky like, Greece Takes It Greek Style: “Thank You Troika, May I Have Another” Bailout On Its Way. (What can I say: I’m a vulgar bastard.)
But then . . . then we all started looking at the fine print of the deal. And that’s when everyone who follows this stuff started to realize that the deal wasn’t a deal—merely the illusion of a deal.
Which explains the non-reaction by the stock market; investors were not fooled.

CBO: Longest Period of High Unemployment Since Great Depression

After three years with unemployment topping 8 percent, the U.S. has seen the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression, the Congressional Budget Office noted in a report issued today.
And, despite some recent good news on the economic front, the CBO is still predicting that unemployment will remain above 8 percent until 2014. The report also notes that, including those who haven't sought work in the past four weeks and those who are working part-time but seeking full-time employment, the unemployment rate would be 15 percent.
I don't believe these numbers for one second; my estimate would be that the US's unemployment figures are close to double what the CBO has stated, but real real numbers just aren't going to be released in an election year.

China Reduces Holdings of U.S. Treasuries to Lowest Level Since June 2010

China, the largest foreign lender to the U.S., reduced its holdings of Treasuries in December to the least since June 2010 amid efforts to assist Europe in addressing its debt crisis.
The world’s second-largest economy decreased its U.S. debt securities by $31.9 billion from November, or 2.8 percent, to $1.11 trillion, according to Treasury Department data released yesterday. Its position in longer-term notes and bonds also fell $32.5 billion, or 2.8 percent, to $1.1 trillion, the least since June 2010. Japan, the second biggest buyer, increased its holding by $3.5 billion to $1.04 trillion.
The Chinese economic leadership isn't stupid: they can see the writing on the wall in terms of the long-term problems with US treasuries.

Colonial Elite Rules China for the Rothschilds

Beijing -The Chinese elite is a merger between the Communist leadership, Hong Kong tycoons, and the criminal Triads. All three factions derive derive their power from Rothschilds collaboration.
China has appeared autonomous because the Illuminati developed the country internally, funding 'revolutionary' political parties spouting nationalist slogans. The reasoning was that the Chinese people would revolt against overt foreign domination, but embrace their place in the NWO if they believed they were in control.

How credit ratings agencies rule the world

Britain's credit rating took a knock this week, when Moody's expressed a 'negative outlook' for the national economy. But who are the mysterious agencies who take it upon themselves to grade everything from countries to corporations – and how much power do they really wield?

Along with Fitch, and Standard & Poor's (S&P), Moody's are one of the Big Three credit ratings agencies. They sound like a trio of preppy clothing companies, but in fact they are some of the most powerful players in world finance. Specifically, they rate the "creditworthiness" of companies and currencies. In the process, it is hoped that they give investors an idea which investments are safest to make.

My adviser will ideally come back to me with three particular letters: AAA. This is the highest rating Moody's offers. Then comes AA1, and the scale goes down to C. Anything below BBB is known as "junk".

"The UK has a rating of AAA," says Ms Moody. But then comes the hammer-blow: "We also have a negative outlook for the UK." This negative outlook – which Moody's announced on Monday – isn't quite AA1, but it's the preamble to it. The lower their outlook, the more likely Moody's thinks the UK government is to default on its debts – and the less likely it is that people such as me will want to lend it money. The lenders that do remain will be more nervous about the prospects of getting their money back – and so they'll charge higher interest rates. And the higher the interest rates, the steeper the government's debt repayments, and the more likely it is to default. And so it goes on. It is an Escherian cycle, and one in which the credit ratings agencies – many argue – play too powerful a role. "I am no fan of conspiracy theories," said Rainer Bruederle, a former German economic minister, after S&P threatened to downgrade 15 EU countries in December, "but sometimes it is hard to dismiss the impression that some American ratings agencies and fund managers are working against the eurozone."

The $15 TRILLION Money-Laundering Mystery

Where did it come from? Where did it go? These are the two principal questions being framed today, after Lord James of Blackheath (a member of the UK House of Lords) unveiled documentation (and accusations) concerning a mounting of illegitimate cash: $15 trillion USD.
What I think is happening with this mysterious $15 trillion, the billions in bonds seized in 2009, and the more recent seizure of another $6 trillion in Italy, is that the United State is covertly transferring bullion and bearer bonds payable in gold into Europe so that can be put on the balance sheets of Europe's banks without a corresponding debt obligation, to keep the European banks solvent to prevent triggering the trillions of dollars in Credit Default Swaps against the European debt sold by Wall Street banks. Once again the American people are being looted to pay for Wall Street's crimes. More detailed analysis tomorrow.

Papademos Says Agreement on New Aid for Greece Is ‘Historic ’

 

Greek Bailout Deal Fails To Bring Fireworks - What Gives?

 

Most European Stocks Drop After Agreement on Greek Bailout Deal

 

Ruble Weakens Against Euro After Greek Deal

Germany drawing up plans for Greece to leave the euro - The Telegraph

Plans for Greece to default, potentially leaving the euro, have been drafted in Germany as the European Union begins to face up to the fact that Greek debt is spiralling out of control - with or without a second bailout. "The idea instead is that the Greek government should officially declare itself bankrupt and begin negotiating an even bigger cut with its creditors. For Schäuble, it is more a question of when, not if."
The cuts, including a reduction in the minimum wage, mass redundancies within the public sector, and a slashing of the health and defence budgets, sparked rage on the streets of Athens last week, with buildings set on fire amid angry protests.

Spain: Hundreds of thousands of protesters march against austerity

Union organizers said around 1 million people had marched by mid-afternoon, but official figures were not released.

Spain's unemployment rate hits 22.9%

Greek farmers offload crops at cost price

Hammered by the financial crisis that has led to ever diminishing income, a group of residents in northern Greece have joined forces with potato farmers to slash consumer prices and ensure producers can get their crop to markets by cutting out the middle man.
Good move. Middle men just take a piece of other peoples' productivity while producing nothing themselves. If you buy an orange from your local farmer, it is fresh and inexpensive. But middlemen love to insert themselves into that commerce and buy oranges in California to ship to buyers in Florida while buying oranges in Florida to ship to California, with the result that people are paying more money for less-fresh food, plus paying for all that shipping and the huge salaries of the middlemen CEOs who bribe congress to outlaw those local farmer's markets. Greece is making the right move.

Greece shows us how to protest against a failed system

The violence of the reaction in Greece is a cry that goes out to the world. How long will we sit still and see the world torn apart by these barbarians, the rich, the banks? How long will we stand by and watch the injustices increase, see the health service dismantled, education reduced to uncritical nonsense, the water resources of the world privatised, communities wiped out and the earth torn up for the profits of mining companies?
Forget all illusions about living in peace. The money-junkies' lust for money is matched only by their lust for war as a means to more money. We face either a revolution against the money-junkies or a world war fought for the money-junkies. There is no third path, and since it is my life that may be forfeit in war I reserve the right to choose for myself who my targets will be!

How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the '1 Percent'

While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different.

Argentine Advice for Greece: ‘Default Now!’

Here in Argentina, when we watch the terrible things that are happening today in Greece, we can only exclaim, “Hey!! That’s exactly what happened in Argentina in 2001 and 2002…!”
­A decade ago, Argentina too went through a systemic Sovereign Public Debt collapse resulting in social turmoil, worker hardship, rioting and street fights with the police.
Some months before Argentina exploded, then-President Fernando de la Rúa – forced to resign at the height of the 2001 crisis – had called back as finance minister the notorious pro-banker, Trilateral Commission member and Rockefeller/Soros/Rhodes protégée Domingo Cavallo.

Greece's Lenders Have The Right To Seize National Gold Reserves

The Irish Times reported in November that EU finance ministers’ discussed a wider strategy by the ECB to sound out the possibility of gaining control over the gold reserves of the euro zone’s central banks.

Did we just solve the mystery of where Zeus's gold statue vanished to? :)

Projected PIIGS Pillage: 3233.5 Tons Of Gold To Be Confiscated By Insolvent European Banks

While hardly discussed broadly in the mainstream media, the top news of the past 24 hours without doubt is that in addition to losing its fiscal sovereignty, and numerous other things, the Greek population is about to lose its gold in a perfectly legitimate fashion, following amendments to the country's constitution by unelected banker technocrats, who will make it legal for Greek creditors - read insolvent European banks - to plunder the Greek gold which at last check amounts to 111.6 tonnes according to the WGC. And so we come full circle to what the ultimate goal of banker intervention in the European periphery is - nothing short of full gold confiscation. So just how much gold will be pillaged by the banker oligarchy (it is amusing how many websites believe said gold is sacrosanct by regional national banks, and thus the EUR is such a stronger currency as it has all this 'gold backing' - hint: it doesn't, as all the gold is about to be transferred to non-extradition countries)? As the World Gold Council shows in its latest update, between all the PIIGS, who will with 100% certainty suffer the same fate as Greece (which has shown that unlike during World War 2, it is perfectly willing to turn over and do nothing) there is 3234 tonnes of gold to be plundered. And likely more as further constitutional amendments will likely make the confiscation of private gold the next big step. how much does this amount to?

Greece: The Epicenter of Global Pillage

by Stephen Lendman
Predatory bankers make serial killers look good by comparison. Their business model creates crises to facilitate grand theft, financial terrorism, and debt entrapment.
They steal all material wealth and then some. They systematically rob investors and strip mine economies for self-enrichment.

Riots In Athens Could Be Just The Start For Europe

Greece today, Spain/Portugal/Italy tomorrow? According to the Daily Express it will be Italy next, followed by Spain, Portugal and then maybe even France.
... and then the United States.

Protests on eve of Greek bailout talks

Greek indignation threatens to spread
Riot police have shielded Greece's national parliament as demonstrators protested against austerity measures on the eve of talks in Brussel

Staring into the abyss: Inside a despairing Greek nation where families queue at soup kitchens and women threaten to jump to their deaths as job losses mount

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2102864/Staring-abyss-Faced-losing-job-Greek-woman-threatens-jump-death-desperate-despairing-nation-hungry-families-queuing-soup-kitchens.html

Violence: Riot police officers walk pass a fire as they clash protesters in front of the Greek Parliament in Athens last week

‘It is very worrying — we have to work out our reaction,’ said Christou. ‘We have not yet seen a humanitarian crisis here like in Sudan, but we have to be ready.’
This is a profoundly alarming scenario, conjuring up images not seen in modern Europe outside of war zones. ‘Even two years ago I never thought I would see these sorts of things here,’ he said.
‘The fear is that things could be about to get much worse for a large number of people.’

Less healthcare, but Greece is still buying guns

As Greece is forced by European leaders to abandon a referendum to allow the people the chance to vote on its latest bailout conditions, the country is preparing for yet another dose of austerity.
The conditions of the next €130bn rescue package will be severe, yet there is an elephant in the room: the extent to which the German but also the French military industries rely on Greece.
The small, crisis-hit nation, whose prime minister, George Papandreou, narrowly survived a vote of confidence on Friday, buys more German weapons than any other country. Some Greeks want to know why it is that France and Germany are demanding cuts in pensions, salaries and public services, but the buying of arms is allowed to continue unabated.

GREEDY EURO MPS DEMAND PAY RISE AS THE EU FALLS APART

As the eurozone teeters on the brink of catastrophe and Britain is forced to tighten its belt, the shameless demand added to the growing clamour for us to pull out of the EU. The basic salary of an MEP is already £82,915 a year, compared with £64,766 for an MP at Westminster. Euro MPs can also rake in £360,000 in expenses.
If the three per cent budget increase is ratified in Brussels next month, MEPs would receive an extra £2,500 in pay and more lucrative expenses and pension entitlements. It would also add the equivalent of an extra £45million a year to the hugely inflated parliamentary budget, just as debt-ravaged Greece faces financial ruin.
The increase would bring the total cost of the army of MEPs and their hangers-on to a staggering £1.55billion next year.

Vatican told to pay taxes as Italy tackles budget crisis

After several years of scandal in which the Catholic Church has faced allegations of financial impropriety, paedophile priests and rumours of plots to kill the Pope, the Vatican is now facing a new €600m-a-year tax bill as Rome seeks to head off European Commission censure over controversial property tax breaks enjoyed by the Church.
As the EC heads closer to officially condemning the fiscal perks enjoyed by the Catholic Church and introduced by the Berlusconi administration, Prime Minister Mario Monti has written to the Competition Commissioner, Joaquin Almunia, saying that the Vatican will resume property tax, or Ici, payments.

Rothschild Bank AND Goldman Sachs Are Both On The LIST Of Bondholders Getting U.S. Taxpayer Billions In Ireland

Rough sleeping on the rise in Britain

The number of people sleeping rough in England has increased by 23 percent in a year, according to new data provided by homelessness charity Crisis.
The people of Great Britain. like the people of the world, work hard and produce much. So where is the wealth their labors create? Where does the wealth vanish to and why is there so much debt? Because the world is in the grip of a slavery banking system that by design pumps wealth from the slaves to the masters by always creating more debt than money with which to pay that debt.
This is rule by compound interest, and it is no more legitimate a form of governance than rule by divine right or rule by chattel ownership of ones body.

The True Unemployment Rate: 36%

Since the concept of people who aren’t looking for work is so fluid, and some of those people have clearly been persuaded not to look for work because of job-destroying government policies, it might be more logical to measure unemployment using the standard incorrectly offered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the U-3 rate: “total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force.” That’s what the U-3 rate claims to measure, but it doesn’t, not by a long shot.
What is the current percentage of working-age Americans, eligible to participate in the civilian labor force, but not currently working? Answer: 36.3 percent.
That’s the worst labor participation rate in three decades, and it’s part of the worst employment picture we’ve seen since the Great Depression.

Congress set to hand our highways and freeways over to foreign corporations: New toll roads planned for all 50 states!

The efforts to parcel off and sell out entire sectors of America’s infrastructure to foreign interest continues daily. HR 7, the bill at issue here would put tolls on roads American taxpayers funded and paid for and which they continue to fund through gasoline taxes diverted to the Transportation and Highway Trust account at the IMF. Of course, that trust fund, just like Social Security has been raided continually by the federal government since its inception leaving a negative balance for that particular identified revenue stream. The money the federal government invested in the original construction of these highways and freeways was garnered from individual taxes and was not taken from some non-existent private account owned by the Fed. The Fed has no money of its own.
UNFLIPPING BELIEVABLE!!!

China buying Gold like cheap cabbage,

"People seem crazy about gold, snatching it up more like a cheap cabbage than such a precious metal," it quotes Beijing resident Miao Miao.
The value of sales at two of Beijing's top gold retailers, Caibai and Guohua, reportedly hit 600 million Yuan ($95.28 million) – a 49.7% rise on last year's sales, almost 50% increase in purchases! The gold price in Dollars meantime rose around 25% over the same period.

47 Signs That China Is Absolutely Destroying America On The Global Economic Stage

Have you ever watched a football game or a basketball game where one team dominates the other team so badly that calling it a "blowout" would be a huge understatement? Well, that is what China is doing to the United States. China is absolutely destroying America on the global economic stage.

20 Signs That Europe Is Plunging Into A Full-Blown Economic Depression`

An economic nightmare is descending on Europe. With each passing month, the economic numbers across Europe get even worse. At this point it is becoming extremely difficult for anyone to deny that Europe is plunging into a full-blown economic depression. In fact, some parts of Europe are already there.

Romania PM Emil Boc resigns after austerity protests

Romania's Prime Minister Emil Boc has stepped down to "defuse political and social tension" after a series of protests against austerity measures.
And another one bites the dust!

Spanish village goes back to peseta: Residents turn to old money they'd held on to in case the euro folded

A desperate Spanish village has turned back time and reintroduced the peseta in a bid to kick-start its ailing local economy.
Residents in Villamayor de Santiago, 80 miles south-east of Madrid, initially held onto the old money for fear the euro would fold.
In recent months their prediction, made when their national currency was phased out ten years ago, has inched closer to coming true.
"No, no, no, no, NO! You will use the Euro! You will get used to a life of permanent debt and poverty! You will learn to like it! Why do you think we set up all those private central banks? So losers like you could actually have a comfortable life? What is wrong with you slaves?!?" -- Gold in My Sacks

Hundreds of thousands rally in Portugal against austerity

He launched sharp attacks against the bailout conditions, calling them "a programme of aggression against workers and against the national interest."
"Austerity did not create wealth. The country needs the rope around its neck to be removed so that it can breathe, live and work," the unionist said, calling for a revision to the minimum wage of 485 euros gross.
"Net salary is at 432 euros, while the poverty line is at 434 euros, and that concerns currently ... 400,000 workers" in Portugal, he said.

Riot police beat students in Spain protest: witnesses

The clashes broke out in the mid-afternoon after students protesting against education budget cuts, which they say have left classrooms without heating, demonstrated outside a school and came up against police barricades.
Photographs and videos from the scene showed youths with bleeding faces and baton-wielding police in helmets and body armour chasing, beating and dragging people along the ground as the clashes continued after nightfall.
El Pais newspaper said on its website that police fired rubber bullets, and media reported numerous injuries.
Valencia regional police chief Antonio Moreno said police used “proportionate physical force” in comments to reporters broadcast on Spanish radio.
"...proportionate physical force...” ?!?!?!? Looking at these images, except for the clothing the students are wearing, one could reasonably imagine that Spain had devolved right back to the old times of Franco's fascist government.
If this is what "to protect and serve" looks like to Spanish police, Spain just got removed from my "bucket list" right the heck now!

Greece reaches austerity deal

Greece has reached a tentative agreement on new austerity cuts demanded by creditors to release a (euro) 130 billion ($173 billion) bailout

Greece "Only Hours Away" From Default Reuters

"Greece's prime minister scrambled Sunday to convince lenders and politicians to sign off on a 130 billion euro rescue, after his finance minister said just hours remained to clinch a deal to avoid a messy default.
"It is NOT a default! It is NOT a default. It's a ... temporary deferment of payments. Please do not attempt to cash in those credit default swaps you bought from Wall Street. Please do not attempt to cash in those credit default swaps you bought from Wall Street. You will be shot on sight if you try to do so" -- Official White Horse Souse

It is impossible to 'earn' interest without creating poverty.

GREEK DEFAULT EXCLUSIVE: SENIOR US BANKERS GIVEN EXPLICIT TIMETABLE FOR ATHENS DEFAULT

The document asserts that Greece will officially be declared in default by all the ratings agencies after the close of business on Friday march 23rd . At the weekend all Greek bank accounts will be frozen, with emergency measures detailed to prevent the flight of capital. Included in the paperwork is a list of very limited exceptions to the ‘no withdrawals’ order. All major banks ‘are instructed not to deal with euro exchange as of open of business in Greece on Monday 25th march. All Greek markets will close for one day ‘at least’.

Greece caves to pressure and cuts state jobs

Greece's coalition government has agreed to demands to cut civil service jobs, announcing 15,000 positions would go this year, amid mounting international pressure to agree on austerity measures needed to secure major new debt agreements.
So the people of Greece will basically send all their money directly to the private central bank and learn to get along without police, firefighters, teachers, etc. No sacrifice is too great to keep the bankers happy!

Greek Bailout May Have to Be $19.7 Billion Higher

Burning Banks: More footage of Greek chaos and riots

The First Dominoes: Greece, Reality, And Cascading Default

Greece is the epicenter of a drama that threatens to unwind with all the intrigue and subterfuge of ancient Greek myths and tragedies. As with the legend of Icarus, big, and now bigger, transnational banks provoked the gods with their wax-and-feather financial fabrications to create the appearance of soaring wealth. Now that they have flown too close to the sun and their wings have melted, these banks are being brought to earth by the obligations and consequences imposed by their fabrications.

Scandal: Greece To Receive "Negative" Cash From "Second Bailout" As It Funds Insolvent European Banks

Here is where it just got surreal. It turns out that not only will Greece not see a single penny from the Second Greek bailout, whose entire Use of Proceeds will be limited to funding debt interest and maturity payments, but the country will actually have to fund said escrow! You read that right: the Greek bailout #2 is nothing but a Greek-funded bailout of Europe's insolvent banks... and the Greek constitution is about to be changed to reflect this!

 

Greek deal leaves Europe on the road to disaster

If Europe’s new plan for Greece succeeds, nobody will be more surprised than the politicians who designed it. At best, the arrangement is a holding action, one that fails yet again to deal with the much larger confidence crisis facing the euro area.

European Banks Take Greek Hit After Deal

Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, Commerzbank AG (CBK) of Germany and France’s Credit Agricole SA booked losses on their Greek government debt two days after creditors agreed to the biggest sovereign restructuring in history.

BREAKING FROM GREECE: Greeks take over a TV Station!!

Greece riots: Athens burns, police fire tear gas as violence flares up

GREECE EXPLODES! - Greek Riots Video Feed

Latest from Twitter feeds. Senior Greek officials resign. Remainder of Cabinet approves EU/IMF "deal." Reports between 5 and 20 Government buildings being burned by protesters.

Buildings on fire	(Earlier) Police and protesters uder the shadow of the Acropolis
(Earlier) Crowd in front of Parliament	Crowd in front of Parliament
More Greek people marching into Athens.

Looks like that deal the Greek Cabinet made with the EU and IMF may be moot. When the Greek government falls, there is no way to keep those trillions in credit default swaps sold by Wall Street from triggering. That will destroy the US economy and the Federal Government with it. Greece, the birth place of democracy, might just halt the rush into WW3!
The Greeks have balls Americans only dream of! Like Iceland, they are showing the way to the future.
Which may explain why ABCNNBBCBSFOX think the death of yet another drugged-up has-been rock star is more newsworthy!

GREECE EXPLODES! - Greek Riots Video Feed

Looks like that deal the Greek Cabinet made with the EU and IMF may be moot. When the Greek government falls, there is no way to keep those trillions in credit default swaps sold by Wall Street from triggering. That will destroy the US economy and the Federal Government with it. Greece, the birth place of democracy, might just halt the rush into WW3!
The Greeks have balls Americans only dream of! Like Iceland, they are showing the way to the future.

Minute by minute report from Athens

http://www.athensnews.gr/portal/1/53244
20:22 We've heard that a branch of Starbucks and Eurobank are on fire on Korai Square, off Panepistimiou St.
The most recent updates are at the top. Please remember to hit the refresh button on your browser in order to see updates. Follow us on @athensnewseu for more updates.

More videos coming out of Greece.

24-hour general strike under way in Greece

A 24-hour general strike is under way in Greece against the Cabinet’s austerity policy. Railway and maritime traffic has come to a halt, and public transport disruptions have been reported.
Doctors, teachers and bank employees have also joined the strike that was organized by the largest national unions and timed for the ongoing talks in Athens between the Cabinet and international moneylenders.
The people of Greece are sending a message to the world that they will not pay for the financial mistakes of corporations and the criminality of the bankers. We need to listen to them.

Greek cabinet approves austerity deal amid resignations, general strike

Greece’s cabinet Saturday approved tough austerity measures demanded by EU and IMF creditors after the prime minister warned that a failed debt deal and default would spark “uncontrolled chaos”.
The coalition government, hit by defections on Friday, approved the belt-tightening measures on a day that saw renewed street clashes between protesters and police and the start of a two-day general strike.
Prime Minister Lucas Papademos had issued a stern warning after six members of his coalition government had resigned in protest at the new cuts.
I wouldn't bet against the Greek government falling, and with it, this austerity deal with the EU and IMF.
When and if that happens, the Euro itself may well crumble, and US financial institution exposure will roil American financial markets as well.

Greek "austerity" driving people to suicide.

Do not kill yourself. You do the world a much better service killing the money-junkies who make you want to kill yourself.

Indebted Greece still faces arms purchases

Ironically, some of the countries which have provided rescue loans to prevent Athens from being unable to pay back its debts -- and who have been pushing for Greece to implement harsh austerity measures -- also want the country to buy their expensive warplanes and ships.

'Greece being forced to buy arms'

A leading European parliamentarian has accused France and Germany of forcing Greece to buy billions of euros in arms in exchange for their bailout money.
France and Germany, while publicly urging Greece to make harsh public spending cuts, bullied its government to confirm billions of euros in arms deals, Franco-German lawmaker Daniel Cohn-Bendit alleged on Friday.
The accusation drew a stern denial from the French government.

Argentina limits daily financial transaction per person to 1.000 Pesos (230 dollars)

The government will restrict daily cash transactions to 1.000 Pesos (231 US dollars) per person, down from 10.000 Pesos,

Athens Is Burning and Angela Merkel Holds the Spent Match

Athens is besieged by riots, because ordinary Greeks understand what their leaders won't admit. The reforms imposed by Angela Merkel and Greek creditors will delay but not avoid a sovereign default. Those won't solve the nation's chronic economic problems, and ultimately will cause the ruin of Europe's most ancient civilization.

Spain as Western China

Following the ongoing European monetary crisis, European Union leaders visited Beijing this week seeking Chinese money to help bolster a planned fund of about 500bn euros ($665bn). The new fund would provide bailout financial guarantees to loans given by European national banks in the hope of kick-starting European economy. Yesterday, February 14, 2012, Premier Wen Jiabao offered co-operation to help stabilize debt-ridden EU nations, but made no specific promise to invest in the proposed European bailout fund.
So now they are going to blame China for the financial crash instead of the fatal design flaw in private central banking.

Italy and Netherlands slide into recession

Holland and Italy, two of the Eurozone’s largest economies, have gone into recession, new figures show.
The economies of both countries suffered a second successive quarter of shrinkage, each contracting by 0.7 per cent during the last three months of 2011.
Germany’s economy also contracted in the fourth quarter, down 0.2 per cent from the previous quarter. This was the country’s first shrinkage since 2009.
Together, all 17 nations making up the Eurozone witnessed a 0.3 per cent contraction in the fourth quarter, but have managed to avoid a collective recession with growth of 0.1 per cent in the third quarter.

 

Italy slides into recession official statistics show

Italy has slid into recession, preliminary figures from the national statistical agency confirmed today.
ISTAT said the eurozone's third-largest economy contracted a quarterly rate of 0.7% in the last three months of 2011 - that was the second quarterly decline in a row, which is the official definition of a recession.
The Italian economy registered growth of 0.4% last year, compared with 1.4% a year earlier.

Iceland's Viking Victory

Congratulations to Iceland.
Fitch has upgraded the country to investment grade BBB – with stable outlook, expecting government debt to peak at 100pc of GDP.
The OECD's latest forecast said growth will be 2.4pc this year, after 2.9pc in 2011.
Unemployment will fall from 7pc last year to 6.1pc this year and then 5.3pc in 2013.
The current account deficit was 11.2pc in 2010. It will shrink to 3.4pc this year, and will be almost disappear next year.

Good news from Europe X 2

Greek police want EU and IMF officials behind bars
Greece’s largest police union has threatened to issue a symbolic warrant for the arrest of key EU and IMF officials.
http://rt.com/news/line/2012-02-10/#id26309
Striking Brussels firemen soak cops, PM office (VIDEO)
When the Belgian government decided to pour cold water on the country’s firefighters and increase their retirement age, the men struck back with the same method…literally.
http://rt.com/news/firemen-belgium-hose-police-013/

Shakeup At Nokia: it's Laying Off 4,000, Moving Work to Asia

Nokia is moving more of its manufacturing to Asia, the company says, and it is laying off about 4,000 workers by year-end at three factories in Europe and Mexico.

Food bank use rises dramatically in Britain

Tens of thousands of Britons are struggling to make ends meet, forcing ever greater numbers to resort to the use of food banks.
There are now 163 food banks in the UK. In 2011 alone there was one opening every week.
The 99% are working harder than ever and yet the 99% are descending into poverty, hunger, and homelessness. Where is all that wealth created by the 99% vanishing to?

Elderly told: go back to work and downsize

Elderly people should be encouraged to go back to work and move into smaller homes, one of David Cameron’s key advisers said last night.
"Look, it's simple. If we spend the money we took from you while you were working to take care of you now, then we won't have money to wage war on Israel's enemies! Government is choosing! Government is prioritizing! And you smelly old people just aren't useful any more!" -- Number 9 3/4

Mind-Blowing Charts From the Senate's Income Inequality Hearing

1% US banks gamble $5 million per US household; $532 trillion total

*hyperlinks live at source*

Reuters and wanttoknow.info provide prima facie evidence that the US 1% runs Wall Street as rigged-casino gambling to transfer wealth from the 99% to themselves. The amount of money fraudulently gambled is not millions of dollars, not billions, not even tens of trillions, but over five hundred trillion ($532,000,000,000,000).

Look at Demonocracy’s images to get an idea of this magnitude of money.

Let this sink in: $532 trillion means that the 1% US banksters gamble over $5 million dollars for every US household and $1.7 million for every American.

OCC’s Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activities: Third Quarter 2011
December 2011, OCC (U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Administrator of National Banks)
http://www.occ.gov/topics/capital-markets/financial-markets/trading/derivatives/dq311.pdf
The OCC’s quarterly report on trading revenues and bank derivatives activities is based on Call Report information provided by all insured U.S. commercial banks and trust companies, reports filed by U.S. financial holding companies, and other published data. The notional amount of derivatives held by insured U.S. commercial banks decreased $1.4 trillion, or 0.6%, from the second quarter of 2011 to $248 trillion. Notional derivatives are 5.7% higher than at the same time last year. Derivatives activity in the U.S. banking system continues to be dominated by a small group of large financial institutions. Five large commercial banks represent 96% of the total banking industry notional amounts. Insured commercial banks have more limited legal authorities than do their holding companies.
Note: Graphs in this report show that the holding companies for the top five banks also control massive amounts of derivates totaling $326 trillion! The holding companies JPMorgan Chase, BofA, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs have over $311 trillion in derivates, 95% of the total U.S. market. So these banks and their holding companies combined own $532 trillion in derivates, equivalent to roughly $75,000 for every person on the planet. What are the bankers doing? If the above link fails, click here.

OTC derivatives market activity in the first half of 2011
November 16, 2011, Bank for International Settlements (Intergovernmental organization of central banks)
http://www.bis.org/press/p111116a.htm
After an increase of only 3% in the second half of 2010, total notional amounts outstanding of over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives rose by 18% in the first half of 2011, reaching $708 trillion by the end of June 2011.
Note: The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) is an intergovernmental organization of central banks which "fosters international monetary and financial cooperation and serves as a bank for central banks." It is not accountable to any national government. Their accounting shows a total global derivates market controlled by the banks of over $700 trillion. That's $100,000 for every man, woman, and child on the planet. As reported in Reuters, the derivates market is largely unregulated. Do you think there is any manipulation going on here? BIS helps the bankers to work together to keep their hidden power.

States seek currencies made of silver and gold
February 3, 2012, CNN
http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/03/pf/states_currencies/
A growing number of states are seeking shiny new currencies made of silver and gold. Worried that the Federal Reserve and the U.S. dollar are on the brink of collapse, lawmakers from 13 states, including Minnesota, Tennessee, Iowa, South Carolina and Georgia, are seeking approval from their state governments to either issue their own alternative currency or explore it as an option. Just three years ago, only three states had similar proposals in place. Unlike individual communities, which are allowed to create their own currency -- as long as it is easily distinguishable from U.S. dollars -- the Constitution bans states from printing their own paper money or issuing their own currency. But it allows the states to make "gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts." And since gold has grown exponentially more valuable, while the U.S. dollar continues to lose ground, the notion has become increasingly appealing to state lawmakers, he said. The states' proposals have been gaining steam among Tea Partyers and Republicans, many of whom also endorse a nationwide return to the gold standard, which would require the U.S. dollar to be backed by gold reserves.

Overall, about 5.6 million people moved their bank accounts in the last quarter of 2011
January 27, 2012, Reuters News
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/27/us-bank-transfer-idUSTRE80Q1TU20120127
More than 600,000 U.S. consumers have moved their money from big banks to community banks or credit unions, thanks to the much-publicized Bank Transfer Day last fall, according to an analysis released by Javelin Strategy & Research. The grassroots campaign to get people to shift out of big banks capitalized on the nationwide Occupy Wall Street movement, and picked up further momentum from a Bank of America plan in September to charge customers a $5 per month debit card fee. "It was a meaningful movement of people from big banks into small community banks and credit unions ..." said Jim Van Dyke, founder of Javelin. Historically, people don't switch banks easily, even if they are unhappy, Van Dyke says. Consumers have strong ties to their banks because of direct deposit, automated bill payments and habit -- making change more complex than simply going someplace else. "Individuals are really resistant to moving their money out of banks," Van Dyke says. Overall, about 5.6 million people moved their bank accounts in the last quarter of 2011, Javelin says. Account changes attributed to Bank Transfer Day represented about 11 percent of total moves.
Note: As the article mentions, people rarely change banks, so the fact that 6 million changed banks in three months is quite impressive!

Why Is Global Shipping Slowing Down So Dramatically?

If the global economy is not heading for a recession, then why is global shipping slowing down so dramatically? Many economists believe that measures of global shipping such as the Baltic Dry Index are leading economic indicators. In other words, they change before the overall economic picture changes.

Huge drop in gasoline deliveries point to economic bust?

There are no data-supported broad-based drivers for dramatically lower gasoline consumption other than austerity and lower economic activity. The code-word for "austerity and lower economic activity" that is verboten in the Mainstream Media is "recession." Indeed, if you examine the EIA data, the only causal factor that has backing in the data is recession--or if you prefer, austerity and lower economic activity.

From the U.S. Energy Information Administration: (EIA)

Retail gasoline deliveries, already well below 1980 levels, have absolutely fallen off a cliff. Is the plunge inventory-related, i.e. are storage facilities so full that retailers are simply putting off deliveries?

54% of Young Adults In US Have Jobs - Lowest in 64 Years!!!

Half a million savers' retirement plans shattered as payouts from 'crippled' with-profits pensions plunge

Hundreds of thousands of savers have had their retirement hopes dashed by the banking crisis and a crash in payouts on with-profits pensions.
Those reaching pension age now are getting £4,975 less a year than an identical saver who retired five years ago, Money Mail research has revealed.
They have been hit by a toxic combination of plunging payouts on with-profits pensions, and a fall in annuity rates — which turn pension savings into an income for life.
Pension funds around the world were suckered into buying Wall Street's fraudulent mortgage-backed securities, based on the Triple-A rating given the bundles by Wall Street's own ratings agencies.
This is the biggest financial swindle in all of history, compounded by the steadfast refusal of governments to acknowledge the crime, because they do not want to admit to having failed to stop it. The net results is that Wall Street's biggest crooks made billions of dollars in bonuses and pensioners are paying for the losses.

China's Share of Reserves in U.S. Dollar Dives

Fresh U.S. Treasury data suggest that China has lost its taste for investing as much of its $3.2 trillion in foreign-exchange reserves in U.S. dollars and may be increasing its holding of euro-denominated securities during a time that a debt crisis has roiled European markets.
Looking at what is going on with the US dollar and the Eurozone, it appears that Chinese leadership is playing this very intelligently.

Personal Finance: Bank Transfer Day saw 600,000 switch

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/27/us-bank-transfer-idUSTRE80Q1TU20120127

More than 600,000 U.S. consumers have moved their money from big banks to community banks or credit unions, thanks to the much-publicized Bank Transfer Day last fall, according to an analysis released by Javelin Strategy & Research.

SBSS 7. The Historical Case For $960 Silver

Report: Top Geithner Aide Headed To Goldman Sachs

Meanwhile, Geithner is rumored to be heading to Government Sachs in November...

Disclosed: Fed Prez Who Owns Over $1 Million in Gold

Earlier this week I reported that New York Fed President Bill Dudley owned over $1 million worth of Treasury securities whose interest climbs with increasing price inflation.
Now comes word that Dallas Fed president Richard Fisher owns over $1 million dollars of gold.
One has to ask, do these guys take themselves seriously as inflation fighters if they have these kinds of positions in their personal portfolios?

Drivers face chronic fuel shortages and soaring petrol prices as one of the UK's biggest refineries goes bankrupt

So of course telling Iran to shove their oil up their assets to please Israel makes a whole lot of sense right now.

Bankster Settlement Lays Bare Underlying Contempt Obama has for the Little People

This Fox News story says it all:
The nation’s five largest mortgage lenders have agreed to overhaul their industry after deceptive foreclosure practices drove homeowners out of their homes, government officials said Monday.
Those who lost their homes to foreclosure are unlikely to get their homes back or benefit much financially from the settlement, which could be as high as $25 billion. About 750,000 Americans — about half of the households who might be eligible for assistance under the deal — will likely receive checks for about $1,800.
$1800 compensation for having your home taken using deceptive tactics? I think the 750,000 Americans who got that deal ought to take that $1800 and buy an assault rifle with it.

Warning Signs That We Should Prepare For The Worst

Almost every single day there are more prominent voices in the financial world telling us that a massive economic crisis is coming and that we need to prepare for the worst. On Wednesday, it was the World Bank itself that issued a very chilling warning. In an absolutely startling report, the World Bank revised GDP growth estimates for 2012 downward very sharply, warned that Europe could be on the verge of a devastating financial crisis, and declared that the rest of the world better “prepare for the worst.”

Spain's unemployment total passes five million

The National Statistics Institute said 5.3 million people were out of work at the end of December, up from 4.9 million in the third quarter.

Portugal Restructuring Certain; Ireland, Spain Likely

A restructuring of Portugal's sovereign debt will inevitably follow that of Greece, and there is a very high probability that Ireland and Spain will have to do the same to the overloaded debt of their banks, according to U.S. academic economist Kenneth Rogoff.
"Okay, here is the new structure We take all the money form the people and give it to the banks, then we take all the debt from the banks and give it to the people. Problem solved! Right? Right? Right? ... Is this microphone working?"

The Silent Anschluss: Germany Formally Requests That Greece Hand Over Its Fiscal Independence

It was tried previously (several times) under "slightly different" circumstances, and failed. Yet when it comes to taking over a country without spilling even one drop of blood, and converting its citizens into debt slaves, Germany's Merkel may have just succeeded where so many of her predecessors failed. According to a Reuters exclusive, "Germany is pushing for Greece to relinquish control over its budget policy to European institutions [ZH: read ze Germans] as part of discussions over a second rescue package, a European source told Reuters on Friday."
Seriously, would you take out a loan from the bank if the bank made it a condition that you let them take charge of the checkbook and decide whether or not you get to eat every night from now on?

US CEO pay reaches new heights

And they continue to rake it in!
The argument that CEOs deserve fabulous salaries because they “grow” the economy was always specious, but now, in the face of the financial meltdown and mass unemployment, such a claim simply generates popular outrage.
Despite nervousness in the media and the political establishment about the vast social inequality, nothing short of social upheaval will stop America’s executives from gorging themselves.
USA Today reported January 23, for example, that 2011 “is shaping up as the year of the $50 million-plus CEO.” The newspaper cited Walt Disney’s Robert Iger as “the latest” member of that exclusive club. Iger received $31.4 million in pay and perks and took in $21.4 million more from exercising previously awarded stock options and shares.

Obama's top aides don't like to pay taxes

Three dozen aides working under US President Barack Obama — the same president who insisted on tougher taxes for the economic elite during Tuesday’s State of the Union — are guilty of forgetting to give the government their due share in taxes. Thirty-six members of the staff are delinquent with their federal taxes, Investor’s Business Daily reports. In all, the sum totals to a whopping $833,970.
Maybe they know that the 16th Amendment, which is what supposedly makes the personal income tax legal, was never actually ratified.

Page 23 from the transcript from "Sullivan Vs. United States". The comments in red are by Judge James C. Fox.

State Emergency Managers Usher in IMF-style Austerity and Soviet-style Governance

Brandon Turbeville
Activist Post
In what can easily be described as a Soviet-style law, Michigan’s Emergency Financial Management Law which was passed in March, 2011, essentially gives the Governor the authority to take over local governments and municipalities and appoint his own directors in place of elected leaders...

No Exit For Bilderbergers

I see No Exit Strategy For The Bilderbergers in which they win and we lose. As the Bilderbergers understand the situation of the world economy, there are just two solutions. One is Austerity and the other is Hyperinflation. And we are doing both right now. Austerity transfers wealth from us to the Uber Rich by selling off public assets we paid for and canceling programs we paid for so we can make payments on a fictional debt. When Argentina was forced by the bankers to sell of its state owned oil company, the bankers paid 4 cents on the dollar a national resource. Austerity merely accelerates the transfer of all assets to the Bilderbergers.
Hyperinflation does not cancel public debts by deflating its actual value. Double prices and cut your debt in half does not work in the real world.

Alternate Unemployment Charts

The seasonally-adjusted SGS Alternate Unemployment Rate reflects current unemployment reporting methodology adjusted for SGS-estimated long-term discouraged workers, who were defined out of official existence in 1994. That estimate is added to the BLS estimate of U-6 unemployment, which includes short-term discouraged workers.
The U-3 unemployment rate is the monthly headline number. The U-6 unemployment rate is the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) broadest unemployment measure, including short-term discouraged and other marginally-attached workers as well as those forced to work part-time because they cannot find full-time employment.

Closing Time: Postal Service May Cut 35,000 Jobs

Facing a financial crisis, the United States Postal Service announced that 223 processing facilities have been "found feasible for consolidation, all or in part." Of the 264 processing facilities studied, only 35 are set to remain open.
The Pony Express could deliver a letter from New York to San Francisco in ten days. I wonder is the new downsized post office will be able to match that.

When Will Silver Reach a New High?

In last week's Metals, Mining, and Money from Casey Research, Jeff Clark estimated that given the magnitude of the correction that started last September, it may take until May, 2012 for gold to reach a new high. Let's take a look at how long it may take for silver to rebound.

It's a commonly known fact that silver is more volatile than gold. Already in this decade, silver has risen by a factor of 12 from its ten-year low ($48.70 vs. $4.07), while gold has seen about a sevenfold climb ($255.95 vs. $1,895).

This volatility – as you'll see in a minute – holds for corrections as well. On average, silver's retreats have been deeper and longer than gold's. The three big gold corrections we looked at last week averaged 22.8%. Take a look at the three biggest for silver, along with how long it's taken to recover and establish new highs.

(Click on image to enlarge)

The three biggest silver corrections in the current bull market average to 42.1%.

Our recent correction is the second biggest on record since 2001, but what really makes it stand out is the duration. The 2004 and 2006 declines took only five and four weeks respectively to reach their low points. And it was 31 weeks after the crash of 2008 that silver bottomed. Our current decline, measured from the peak reached on April 28, 2011 to its December 29, 2011 low, spans 35 weeks… quite the determined downtrend.

It also takes silver longer to recover than gold: gold's three biggest corrections required an average of 57 weeks and 6 days to regain their old highs, while it's taken silver's three biggest falls an average of 98 weeks and 4 days to catch up.

So how long will it take to recover from the 2011 slump? We don't know the future, of course, but the current correction is close to the average of the three in the chart, so let's apply the average recovery time to our current situation. The average 42.1% correction took 98 weeks and 4 days to recover; using the same ratio, a 46.3% correction would take 108 weeks and 3 days. Counting from the previous peak of April 28, 2011, we wouldn't break the $48.70 high until May 26, 2013 (based on London PM Fix prices).

It shouldn't come as a surprise that silver will take longer to return to its old high than what we found with gold in last week's article. Why? Half of silver's use is industrial, so a weak economy can drag down its demand. We certainly saw that in 2008.

The Global Elite Are Hiding 18 Trillion Dollars In Offshore Banks

http://www.taxjustice.net/cms/upload/pdf/IMF_100315_Trillions.pdf

IMF finds "trillions" in undeclared wealth

http://www.wealth-bulletin.com/portfolio/tax-trust-and-legal/content/4058538961/

In recent days, the fact that Mitt Romney has millions of dollars parked down in the Cayman Islands has made headlines all over the world. But when it comes to offshore banking, what Mitt Romney is doing is small potatoes. The truth is that the global elite are hiding an almost unbelievable amount of money in offshore banks. According to shocking research done by the IMF, the global elite are holding a total of 18 trillion dollars in offshore banks.

And that figure does not even count any money being held in Switzerland.  That is a staggering amount of money.  Keep in mind that U.S. GDP in 2010 was only 14.58 trillion dollars.  So why do the global elite go to such trouble to hide their money in offshore banks?  Well, there are two main reasons.  One is privacy and the other is low taxation.  Privacy is a big issue for those that are involved in illegal enterprises such as drug running, but the biggest reason why people move money into offshore banks is in order to avoid taxes.  Some set up bank accounts in foreign nations because they want to legally minimize their taxes and others set up bank accounts in foreign nations because they want to illegally avoid taxes.  You would be absolutely amazed at what some large corporations and wealthy individuals do to get out of paying taxes.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of the rest of us don't have the resources or the knowledge to play these games, so we get taxed into oblivion.
So why do they call it "offshore banking"?

Well, the term originally developed because the banks on the Channel Islands were "offshore" from the United Kingdom.  Most "offshore banks" are still located on islands today.  The Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and the Isle of Man are examples of this.  Other "offshore banking centers" such as Monaco are actually not "offshore" at all, but the term applies to them anyway.
Traditionally, these offshore banking centers have been very attractive to both criminals and to the global elite because they would not tell anyone (including governments) about the money that anyone had parked there.
These days some governments (particularly the U.S. government) are trying to change this, but we certainly will not see the end of offshore banking any time soon.

The amount of money that goes through these offshore banks is absolutely astounding.
It has been estimated that 80 percent of all international banking transactions take place through these offshore banks.  $1.4 trillion is being held in offshore banks in the Cayman Islands alone.

Breakdown of the $26 Trillion the Federal Reserve Handed Out to Save Incompetent, but Rich Investors

There is one other matter I disagree with Congressman Grayson about in regard to the Fed’s actions. The Fed says most of the money it lent out has been paid back. That may not be true. If fact, it’s probably not true. The Fed may, or most likely, have simply cooked its own books to make it appear so. Maybe that’s why corporate profits are at record highs during this period of suppressed demand. How could they have record profits? How could they have paid back $26 trillion in loans in such a short time? That’s almost twice the domestic product of the entire United States. There’s only one answer. It’s not possible. They didn’t pay the money back, at least not most of it.

These were not bailouts but buybacks. In order to keep the Wall Street crooks behind the mortgage-backed securities fraud, the biggest financial crime in history, from being sent to prison (like their Icelandic counterparts) , Ben Bernanke is just printing up trillions in new dollars to buy back all that bad paper. In the process, Bernanke is devaluing the money you already worked for and saved, robbing Peter to pay ... Sven. In addition, this covert hyper0inflation in destroying trust in the dollar around the world leading to the ever expanding solar "exclusion" zone of nations no longer willing to trade in dollars, which in turn will eventually collapse the dollar itself.

Digging Deeper into Who Controls the World

Susan Jennings
Activist Post
As we delve deeper into world control, more information arises that helps us understand the current global situation. Many people are unaware of the interconnectedness between the largest global companies...

Eighty percent of the world's wealth appears to be earned by a "core" of 1,318 corporations, which in turn are being controlled by only 147 companies. Seventy-five percent of these companies are financial institutions -- and the top companies on the list are the Federal Reserve banks.

The Federal Reserve created 26 to 29 trillion dollars' worth of bailouts for their own companies between 2007 and 2010. This was revealed in their own audit statements, and confirmed by United States Congressmen and prominent financial analysts. (Source)  Please note that the Federal Reserve, created in 1913, is a private corporation controlled by international bankers. (Source)

Anytime the ‘Fed’ prints money-Federal Reserve Notes, the American taxpayer is charged interest on the amount printed.  Alan Greenspan admitted that “the Federal Reserve is an independent agency . . . there is no other agency of government who can overrule actions we take.”

As they understood the extreme dangers to our life and liberty, our founding fathers were adamantly opposed to a central privately controlled bank.

Occupy Congress on Jan. 17: ‘Largest Occupy protest ever’

In the two weeks since the New York Police Department cleared New York’s Zuccotti Park of its camping protesters, the Occupy Wall Street movement has increasingly turned its attention to Washington. Protesters say they hope to set up 1 million tents in front of the Capitol. “We’re taking the movement straight to their doorstep,” the protest’s Facebook page wrote.

 

Groups prepare to bring Occupy protests to Congress

Washington (CNN) -- Protesters from the Occupy movement and other groups are planning to converge on Capitol Hill Tuesday to air their grievances in front of members of Congress.
Members of a broad range of organizations, including unions and community groups, are expected to travel to Washington to take part in an event dubbed "Take Back the People's House."

FURY AS DAVID CAMERON REJECTS EU REFERENDUM

DAVID Cameron faced anger last night after rejecting referendum calls following a new Franco-German blueprint for overhauling the European Union.
The Prime Minister dismissed demands for a vote on Britain's ties with Brussels despite prospects of a major EU shake-up in a new desperate bid to tackle the euro crisis.
The Prime Minister dismissed demands for a vote on Britain's ties with Brussels despite prospects of a major EU shake-up in a new desperate bid to tackle the euro crisis.
This could very possibly generate a "no confidence" vote in Parliament, triggering a snap election in the UK.

Eurozone crisis: Britain's companies prepare for life after the single currency

Contingency planning for a breakup of the eurozone is already under way at UK-based multinationals.

Debt-hit Ireland unveils budget cuts

Ireland's government has unveiled 2.2 billion euros in spending cuts as part of a new austerity budget that it says will be the toughest of its five-year term.
Economic pain
His comments came a day after Ireland's prime minister made the first televised address to the nation in a quarter of a century to warn of economic pain ahead, saying the situation will get worse before it gets better.

People 0%
Bankers 100%
"There, we're done!"

VAT to rise to eye-watering 23% as debt-hit Irish look to save €3.8bn through tax rises and savage spending cuts

The Irish Taoiseach last night revealed tough new austerity measures including hiking VAT to 23 per cent in a bid to save €3.8billion.

A value added tax or value-added tax (VAT) is a form of consumption tax.

Enda Kenny has pledged to get Ireland's budget deficit under an EU limit of 3 per cent of GDP by 2015 and said this budget would be the toughest in a four-year run of belt-tightening.
The proposals are expected to include rises in indirect taxes - including a 2 per cent hike in VAT, increases in excise duty, cuts in social welfare and reduced child benefit.

More than 800 businesses a day collapsed last year... the largest number since records began

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2070644/800-UK-businesses-day-collapsed-year-largest-number-records-began.html

More than 800 British businesses a day collapsed last year - the highest number ever recorded.
It was the second year in a row in which more companies closed down than started up, according to the figures released by the Office of National Statistics.
The bleak economic outlook is discouraging entrepreneurs from taking a risk on a new venture, leaving the prospects for growth even more gloomy.

Bank of France debts jump tenfold on capital flight

French lenders lost €100bn (£86bn) in short-term deposits in September alone, mostly due to precautionary moves by US money market funds and Asian investors afraid of France's exposure to Italy. "There were huge net capital outflows," said Eric Dor from the IESEG School of Management in Lille.
The triple-trigger appears to have been a sudden drop in Club Med manufacturing orders, an ECB rate rise, and the EU's July summit – which led to haircuts on Greek bondholders and battered faith in EMU sovereign debt.

Bank of France debts jump tenfold on capital flight

The Bank of France faces surging debts to Germany's Bundesbank and fellow central banks in the EMU system as foreign investors pull large sums out of French accounts.

EU To Seize Control Over National Economies With Stroke of a Pen

Having repeatedly staged national referendums until they got the vote they wanted, the Lisbon Treaty was passed with a provision, the obscure ‘passerelle’ clause, Art. 126 (14) via protocol 12, that bestowed upon Brussels the power to change its terms without any kind of vote whatsoever – popular or parliamentary.
 “This decision does not require ratification at national level. This procedure could therefore lead to rapid and significant changes,” according to a confidential text issued by EU President Herman Van Rompuy.
This means that any effort to change the treaty in order to create a “fiscal union,” or in other words, impose centralized control over every member state’s economy from Brussels, would simply be accomplished with the stroke of a pen and would not involve votes from any national parliament or any MEP.
This would then empower the European Commission, “to impose austerity measures on eurozone countries that are being bailed out, usurping the functions of government in countries such as Greece, Ireland, or Portugal,” reports the Guardian.
It’s all part of the technocrats’ agenda to seize “intrusive control of national budgetary policies.”
“Why bother with the one true barbarous relic – democracy – when good ole’ fascism will suffice,” reports Zero Hedge. “And that is how a bunch of corrupt kleptocratic incompetent eurocrats usurp all power in a regime now entirely controlled by Goldman Sachs.”

Demise of the Euro: Part of a Long-term Plan for a Global "Super-currency" controlled by the Banksters

Global elites will do everything to keep the euro on its transitional path towards a global currency that will eventually replace both the euro and the US dollar. This entails engineering the controlled collapse of both currencies, whilst preparing the yellow brick road for a “Global Dollar” or some such new oxymoron.
The US dollar will be easy to collapse: all that is needed is for the mainstream media to yell, “The dollar is hyper-inflated!!” and the Naked Emperor Dollar will fall swiftly. The euro, in turn, will simply break up as its member nations revert to the old days of pesetas, lire, francs, escudos and drachmas…
Is the time ripe for that? Maybe not… yet.

Tyler Durden's picture Swiss, Germans Set To Unleash Capital Controls As European Companies Prepare For Euro End

As Bloomberg reports, in the aftermath of the Telegraph's latest report confirming what has been said here all about the collateral crunch in Europe, Europe's CEO are now actively preparing for the worst case outcome: the end of the Euro (despite UBS' and other banks' repeated calls that such an event would result in an end of the world).
It appears to be not a question of IF the Euro is going to be discarded, but WHEN.

Euro Zone Agreement Only Partial Solution: IMF

An agreement reached by European countries for deeper economic integration was a step in the right direction but not a complete solution for the euro zone's debt crisis, International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief economist Olivier Blanchard said on Sunday.
"I'm actually more optimistic than I was a month ago, I think there has been progress," Blanchard told the Globes business conference in Tel Aviv.
"What happened last week is important: it's part of the solution, but it's not the solution."
He did not say what further steps were needed.
There is no 11th marble!

Anxious Greeks Emptying Their Bank Accounts

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,802051,00.html

Many Greeks are draining their savings accounts because they are out of work, face rising taxes or are afraid the country will be forced to leave the euro zone. By withdrawing money, they are forcing banks to scale back their lending -- and are inadvertently making the recession even worse.
Georgios Provopoulos, the governor of the central bank of Greece, is a man of statistics, and they speak a clear language. "In September and October, savings and time deposits fell by a further 13 to 14 billion euros. In the first 10 days of November the decline continued on a large scale," he recently told the economic affairs committee of the Greek parliament.

A New Reason Gold Stocks Will Soar

Jeff Clark
Casey Research
There are a number of reasons why many of us believe gold stocks will shoot for the moon before this bull market is over – they've done so many times in the past… the gold price still has a long way to climb… and producers are generating record revenue and profits. But I think there's another reason why gold stocks will soar – one that hasn't dawned on many in the industry yet...

China the Savior: BRICS cementing Euro-deals

1. These could be tactical investments to prevent Europe from backing any US/Israeli war. If we're economically dependent on China, it's harder to gain European support for a war.
2. Italy has the world's 4th largest gold reserves... so China could take her gold rather than buying bad debt.
Either way, China wins.

The current Governor of the Bank of Canada is a Goldman Sachs disciple

VIDEO: How to take advantage of a slump if you've got dollars to begin with, and oh yes, Goldman Sachs rules the world.

Trader Alessio Rastani explains how Goldman Sachs rule the world, not the governments. He explains how the Eurozone crash will wipe out the savings of millions.

Here's another video that provides the names of current key banking figures and country leaders who came out of Goldman Sachs. Forget the Freemasonry stuff - it doesn't matter that these guys like to wear white gloves and cross-dress in silly aprons with roses on them to bond with other males, most of whom have alcohol problems and don't have a clue what their most wealthy members are up to - and just pay attention to the fact that this is a financial corporation that has trained and sent out disciples everywhere to manipulate global markets.

If you read French, a European journalists' club article offers more details.  If you don't, here's a Google translation.

The current Governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney, is a Goldman Sachs disciple, and has of course had his way smoothed by establishment publications like Time Magazine and the blatantly conservative Reader's Digest who named him "Most Trusted Canadian" just in case you had any doubts.

Readers Digest, by the way, is now owned by Ripplewood Holdings founded by Tim Collins, a Bilderberg darling, as is Stephen Harper and other Canadians (Last year, the meeting was in Greece. Now, Greece is burning). At least one Goldman Sachs representative is on the Steering Cttee of the Bilderberg group.

Carney is also the new Chair of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) in charge of global financial institutions, his predecessor having been Mario Draghi, now president of the European Central Bank, and a former Goldman Sachs Vice Chair and Managing Director. Draghi is also a fellow of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard from which Michael Ignatieff was dispatched to destroy Canada's federal Liberal Party.

These guys, no matter what their nationality, mostly studied at Yale, Oxford, Princeton, Harvard or a combination.  It's an incestuous club at the helm. There oughta be a law, eh? Yet despite (or because of) the collective wisdom of their hive minds* and hands-on ministration, things are not looking good:

Wealth gap hits 30-year high


"The social contract is starting to unravel in many countries," Gurría said. "This study dispels the assumptions that the benefits of economic growth will automatically trickle down to the disadvantaged and that greater inequality fosters greater social mobility."


People are being led to think that it's Canada making an impact on the world, when really it's Goldman Sachs.

Speaking of same, take a look at Harper on the subject of global governance and Canadian sovereignty (video).

Say, why do you suppose Harper is learning to speak Spanish? Once the North American Union becomes obvious to all, will he be rewarded by being appointed Governor of the new Bank of North America?

Bank-O-Meter

Last week, Bloomberg News reported that they had uncovered some interesting info on the Federal Reserve; after two years of digging and filing suits under the Freedom of information Act, they learned the Fed had doled out more than $7.7 trillion in almost zero-interest rate loans to banks – not the $700 billion dollar bailout figure most often reported in the mainstream media. This week, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said the Bloomberg new reports contained egregious errors. Bernanke said the loans weren’t $7.7 trillion, just more like $1.5 trillion at 0.1% interest.
It turns out that both Bernanke and Bloomberg are wrong, and this little brouhaha between the Fed Head and the NYC Mayor has distracted our attention from an even more interesting report.

It turns out that a couple of years ago some unlikely political bedfellows, Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders, and Alan Grayson called for an independent audit of the Federal Reserve. The Government Accounting Office conducted the audit, the first independent audit of the Fed in its 99-year history. I don’t think the audit was 100% complete but the GAO produced a 251-page report. If you want a link to the report, then drop me a email and I’ll send you the link. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11696.pdf

Former Congressman Alan Grayson was kind enough to highlight some of his favorite pages in the report, and it clearly documents that Wall Street Bailouts by the Fed that dwarf the $700 billion TARP, and everything else you’ve heard about.

Page 131 - The total lending for the Fed's "broad-based emergency programs" was $16,115,000,000,000. That's right, more than $16 trillion. The four largest recipients, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Bank of America, received more than a trillion dollars each. The 5th largest recipient was Barclays PLC. The 8th was the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, PLC. The 9th was Deutsche Bank AG. The 10th was UBS AG. These four institutions each got between a quarter of a trillion and a trillion dollars. None of them is an American bank.

About half-way down the page.

Divide widening between US rich, poor

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the income of the wealthiest one percent grew by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007 compared to just 18 percent for the bottom 20 percent of the income scale.
Income inequality in the United States is the highest it's been since the 1920s, with the 400 richest Americans - who are all billionaires - having as much wealth as the bottom 50 percent of American families.
The cumulative wealth of the Forbes 400 was over one and a half trillion dollars; the wealth of the top 1 percent is about 225 times greater than that of the typical family.
And we all remember what happened in the 20s, right?
A great depression, followed by a world war.
Sound familiar, in terms of the trajectory of current events?
Thought so.

Pulling Back the Curtain on the Wall Street Money Machine

We have been distracted here and in Europe by a sudden panic over our "sovereign debt" crises, when the real crisis is that our debt is NOT sovereign. We are indentured to a Wall Street money machine that creates our money and lends it back to us at interest, money our sovereign government could be creating itself, with full democratic oversight and accountability to the people. We have forgotten our roots, when the American colonists thrived on a system of money created by the people themselves, debt-free and interest-free. The continued dominance of the Wall Street money machine depends on that collective amnesia. The fact that this memory is surfacing again may be the machine's greatest threat -- and our greatest hope as a nation.

MF Global’s bankruptcy revelations concerning missing client money suggest that funds were not inadvertently misplaced or gobbled up in MF’s dying hours, but were instead appropriated as part of a mass Wall St manipulation of brokerage rules

In Past Week Americans Pull The Most Money From Stock Market Farce Since US Downgrade, Despite Market Surge

As if we needed another confirmation that the sad joke of a market has now succeeded in driving virtually everyone out courtesy of precisely the kind of bullshit we saw in the last 30 minutes of trading today, here comes ICI with the latest weekly fund flow data. It will not surprise anyone that in the week in which the S&P rose by a whopping 8 points on absolutely nothing but more lies, rumors and innuendo, US retail investors pulled a whopping $6.7 billion from domestic equity funds: the most since the week after US downgrade when a near record $23 billion was withdrawn. Only unlike then when the market bombed, this time it simply kept rising, and rising, and rising.
Intelligent people know what's coming, and don't want to be anywhere near it, when it happens.

LEAKED: Bank Of America Takes Occupy Foreclosure Actions Seriously, Warns Employees ‘We Need To Be Prepared’

At least one major mortgage lender is taking the Occupy Our Homes movement quite seriously.

Facing bankruptcy, US Postal Service plans unprecedented cuts to first-class mail next spring

The cash-strapped U.S. Postal Service says it wants to move quickly to close 252 mail processing centers and slow first-class delivery next spring, citing steadily declining mail volume.
At a news briefing Monday, postal vice president David Williams said the agency wants to virtually eliminate the chance for stamped letters to arrive the next day to help avert possible bankruptcy next year.
"Arrive the next day." That's a laugh! I live on a tiny island, 40 miles measured along the longest axis, and letters take 2-3 days to get anywhere on this rock.

Factories stall worldwide, U.S. jobless claims rise

Manufacturing activity is contracting across Europe and most of Asia, data showed on Thursday, and a Chinese official declared that the world economy faces a worse situation than in 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed.

Woman Who Exposed Robo-Signing Scandal Found Dead

Madison Ruppert, Contributing Writer
Activist Post
Tracy Lawrence, a 43-year-old notary who blew the whistle on the immense robo-signing scandal was found dead in her home on Monday morning after failing to appear in court.
Lawrence had plead guilty to one count of notary fraud last Monday after coming forward earlier this month and confessing to notarizing roughly 25,000 documents in a fraudulent foreclosure scheme...

Tracy Lawrence, Notary Public Who Blew The Whistle On Massive Foreclosure Fraud, Found Dead

Tracy Lawrence, the notary public who blew the whistle on a massive foreclosure fraud scheme, was found dead in her Las Vegas home on Nov. 28, MSNBC reported.
Cause of death has not yet been determined, but Officer Jacinto Rivera, a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department spokesman, said the case was not being investigated as homicide. She was 43.
Earlier this month, Lawrence came forward and admitted to the Nevada Attorney General's Office that she notarized 25,000 fraudulent documents for Lender Processing Services, a Florida company used by most major banks to process home repossessions. The documents were filed with the Clark County Recorder's Office between 2005 and 2008, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Regime Change: Vote Germany Out of Euro

The message from Germany is clear: there will be no bailout of the euro zone via monetizing debt through bond purchases by the European Central Bank. This stance, according to Chris Tinker, an equity strategist at Libra Investment Services in London, means higher borrowing costs acting as a mechanism for pushing through structural reforms.
The end game as far as Tinker is concerned is nothing short of re-molding Europe in Germany’s “Teutonic image.”
Oh yes, it's all Germany's fault, because they won't play by the rules that make the private central bankers rich and the people poor! So let us demonize those who wish to live free from serfdom to the private bankers! Let us call them bad names! Let us boycott them in order to destroy them and force them back into their rightful servitude to the private central bankers!
Of course, the bankers tried that once before in 1933, when Germany threw out the private central bank imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles and adopted a state issued value-based currency that transformed life for the German people so dramatically it was called "The German Miracle" by the media.

So the bankers tried to organize a global boycott of Germany, to destroy this upstart who wanted state issued value-based currency, which led to WW2, and that did not work out too well for anyone, except the private central bankers, who loaned both sides money for weapons, then more money for the reconstruction.

So here we are again with the German government trying to do what is best for the German people, and the global bankers once again call them bad names and push us one more step towards a world war.
I understand you can by nuclear weapons from Israel with no money down and easy perpetual payments!

CDU Escalates Plans For EU Treaty 'Adjustment': Wants Option For To Kick Habitually Broke Countries Out Of Eurozone

Yesterday we wrote that according to a Handeslblatt report, Angela Merkel is "investigating ways to enable countries to leave the Euro." Today Handelsblatt has a follow up with some very critical clarifications which change the equations of the European bailout all over again. Yesterday, the Handelsblatt reported that the CDU "wants to make it possible for European Union members to exit the euro area....A commission within the party, that is crafting a framework to be presented at a party meeting, has proposed allowing a euro member who doesn’t want to or isn’t able to comply with the common currency rules to leave the euro region without losing membership in the EU, the newspaper." In other words, the transition out would be "voluntary."

U.S. Banks Face Contagion Risk on European Debt

U.S. banks face a “serious risk” that their creditworthiness will deteriorate if Europe’s debt crisis deepens and spreads beyond the five most-troubled nations, Fitch Ratings said.
The six biggest U.S. banks -- JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Citigroup Inc. (C), Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC), Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley (MS) -- had $50 billion in risk tied to the GIIPS on Sept. 30, Fitch said. So-called cross-border outstandings to France for all except Wells Fargo were $188 billion, including $114 billion to French banks. Risk to Britain and its banks was $225 billion and $51 billion, respectively.
One has to wonder when the next downgrade of the US's credit rating is going to happen, between an unpayable Federal debt, and the crisis in the banking community.

Ireland: "Germany Is Our New Master"

Not only is Germany at the epicenter of the Italian-Spanish-French save-us 'discussion', they have now managed to add Ireland to their 'Uber Alles'. Reuters is reporting the leak of confidential Irish budget information by German lawmakers and Irish parliamentarians are seething - viewing the leak as 'incredible' and 'unprecedented'. Given the new laws, Germany now has the right to be fully informed about bailout countries' progress before new tranches of funds are paid out. As the Irish Daily Mirror put it perfectly "Germany is our new master." 


Reuters: Ireland cries foul after German budget leak
The Irish government has complained to European partners after confidential budget information shared with its EU-IMF lenders was leaked by German lawmakers, sparking a political storm at home.
The media and opposition reacted furiously at the fact that the details of the December budget were presented to German lawmakers before their Irish counterparts, heightening fears that its EU-IMF bailout has undermined Irish sovereignty.
 "Germany is our new master," ran a banner front-page headline in the Irish Daily Mirror.

 

US child poverty rate soars to 32%

In 2010, the Census survey indicated that over 32 percent of children across the country were living in poverty, compared to nearly 31 percent in 2009, bringing the number of poverty-stricken US children to 15.7 million from the previously recorded 14.7 million, Reuters reported on Thursday.
Unflipping believable.

Bank Of America Dumps $75 Trillion In Derivatives On U.S. Taxpayers With Federal Approval

Bloomberg reports that Bank of America (BAC) has shifted about $22 trillion worth of derivative obligations from Merrill Lynch and the BAC holding company to the FDIC insured retail deposit division. Along with this information came the revelation that the FDIC insured unit was already stuffed with $53 trillion worth of these potentially toxic obligations, making a total of $75 trillion.

 

The Broken Window Fallacy in War and Bailout Propaganda

What is a fallacy? A fallacy is basically a false idea that acts as an obstacle, which prevents someone from understanding a particular topic.
Fallacies are quite often used in arguments as deceptive maneuvers to mislead a person who is attempting to determine truth and make sense of a situation.
Within the studies of logic many of these fallacies are identified and given specific names, this way one can more easily spot a misleading idea before it enters their consciousness and becomes a part of their worldview.
In the case of the bailouts, our broken window is the untold trillions that were transferred from the general public to various quasi-state corporations just after the massive financial crash of 2008.  At this point no one can be sure of exactly how much money was transferred through these bailouts, but the official figure continues to climb as more independent research and investigation is carried out.
At first the government promised it would only be 700 billion dollars.  Then in 2010 when the fed was forced to reveal details of their “back door bailouts”, the public discovered that the number was actually 12.3 Trillion dollars.
Some other independent research even suggests that the number is much more than that, but either way 12.3 Trillion would almost be enough to cover the national debt, which passed 15 Trillion late last year.  Just something to think about.

Sixteen trillion here, fifteen trillion there, soon you're talking real money

Then comes this speech in the British upper house by Lord James Blackheath, a man of supposedly wide experience of banking and finance, in which the speaker claims to possess documents indicating that the US Fed was a participant in a fraud involving the transfer of $15 trillion dollars from an Indonesian potentate to the Royal Bank of Scotland.

But what of Bernanke's "secret," "not-to-be-repayed" "give away" to those undeserving banksters?

Thanks to an amendment by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Wall Street reform law passed in July 2010 directed the Government Accountability Office to conduct "the first top-to-bottom audit of the Federal Reserve."

"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 Sanders. "This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you're-on-your-own individualism for everyone else."

But what we also know from Page 137 of the Government Accountability Office report is that by last summer, every cent of the $16 trillion had been repaid. 

So perhaps what is most puzzling about the $sixteen trillion is that the US Fed does not do more to publicize the success of an operation that seems to have cost the US taxpayer nothing, while possibly saving the World from a total banking system collapse.

 

17 Quotes About The Coming Global Financial Collapse That Will Make Your Hair Stand Up

Is the world on the verge of another massive global financial collapse? Yes. The western world is drowning in an ocean of debt unlike anything the world has ever seen before, and our financial markets are gigantic casinos that are dependent on huge mountains of risk and leverage remaining very stable. In the end, this house of cards that has been built on a foundation of sand is going to come crashing down in a horrifying manner. Usually in this column I go on and on about why things will soon get much worse. But today I am going to take a bit of a break. Today, I am going to let some of the top financial professionals in the world tell you why things will soon get much worse. Many of the quotes that you are about to read just might make the hair on the back of your neck stand up.
There is a tremendous lack of leadership both in the United States and in Europe right now.  The financial world is more interconnected than ever before, and when the financial dominoes start to fall it is going to take a miracle to keep a complete and total disaster from unfolding.
So when the time comes, who is going to step forward and provide that leadership?
That is a really, really good question.
Right now, panic and fear are spreading like wildfire in the financial world and nobody knows for sure what is going to happen next.
But one thing is for certain.  Pessimism is growing stronger by the day.
The following are 17 quotes about the coming global financial collapse that will make your hair stand up….
#1 Credit Suisse’s Fixed Income Research unit: “We seem to have entered the last days of the euro as we currently know it. That doesn’t make a break-up very likely, but it does mean some extraordinary things will almost certainly need to happen – probably by mid-January – to prevent the progressive closure of all the euro zone sovereign bond markets, potentially accompanied by escalating runs on even the strongest banks.”
#2 Willem Buiter, chief economist at Citigroup: “Time is running out fast.  I think we have maybe a few months — it could be weeks, it could be days — before there is a material risk of a fundamentally unnecessary default by a country like Spain or Italy which would be a financial catastrophe dragging the European banking system and North America with it.”
#3 Jim Reid of Deutsche Bank: “If you don’t think Merkel’s tone will change then our investment advice is to dig a hole in the ground and hide.”
#4 David Rosenberg, a senior economist at Gluskin Sheff in Toronto: “Lenders are finding it difficult to finance their day-to-day operations with short-term funding. This is a lot like 2008 but with more twists.”
#5 Christian Stracke, the head of credit research for Pimco: “This is just a repeat of what we saw in 2008, when everyone wanted to see toxic assets off the banks’ balance sheets”
#6 Paul Krugman of the New York Times: “At this point I’d guess soaring rates on Italian debt leading to a gigantic bank run, both because of solvency fears about Italian banks given a default and because of fear that Italy will end up leaving the euro. This then leads to emergency bank closing, and once that happens, a decision to drop the euro and install the new lira. Next stop, France.”
#7 Paul Hickey of Bespoke Investment Group: “More and more, we are hearing anecdotal comments from individual and professionals that this is the most difficult environment they have ever experienced as the market is like a fish flopping around after being taken out of the water.”
#8 Bob Janjuah of Nomura International: “Germany appears to be adamant that full political and fiscal integration over the next decade (nothing substantive will happen over the short term, in my view) is the only option, and ECB monetisation is no longer possible. I really think it is that clear and simple. And if I am wrong, and the ECB does a U-turn and agrees to unlimited monetisation, I will simply wait for the inevitable knee-jerk rally to fade before reloading my short risk positions. Even if Germany and the ECB somehow agree to unlimited monetisation I believe it will do nothing to fix the insolvency and lack of growth in the eurozone. It will just result in a major destruction of the ECB‟s balance sheet which will force an ECB recap. At that point, I think Germany and its northern partners would walk away. Markets always want short, sharp, simple solutions.”
#9 Dan Akerson, CEO of General Motors: “The ’08 recession, which was a credit bubble that manifested itself through primarily the real estate market, that was a serious stress….This is much more serious.”
#10 Francesco Garzarelli of Goldman Sachs: “Pressures on Euro area sovereign bond markets have progressively intensified and spread like a wildfire.”
#11 Jim Rogers: “In 2002 it was bad, in 2008 it was worse and 2012 or 2013 is going to be worse still – be careful”
#12 Dr. Pippa Malmgren, the President and founder of Principalis Asset Management who once worked in the White House as an adviser to President Bush: “Market forces are increasingly determining what the options are and foreclosing on options policymakers thought they had. One option which is now under discussion involves permitting a country to temporarily leave the Euro, return to its native currency, devalue, commit to returning to the Euro at a better debt to GDP ratio, a better exchange rate and a better growth trajectory and yet not sacrifice its EU membership. I would like to say for the record that this is precisely the thought process that I expected to evolve,but when I proposed this possibility back in 2009, and again in September 2010, I had a 100% response from clients and others that this was “impossible” and many felt it was “ridiculous”. They may be right but this is the current state of the discussion. The Handelsblatt in Germany has reported this conversation, but wrongly assumes that the country that will exit is Germany. I think that Germany will have to exit if the Southern European states do not. Germany’s preference is to stay in the Euro and have the others drop out. The problem has been the Germans could not convince the others to walk away. But, now, market pressures are forcing someone to leave. Germany is pushing for that someone to be Italy. They hope that this would be a one off exception, not to be repeated by any other country. Obviously, though, if Italy leaves the Euro and reverts to Lira then the markets will immediately and forcefully attack Spain, Portugal and even whatever is left  of the already savaged Greeks. These countries will not be able to compete against a devalued Greece or Italy when it come to tourism or even infrastructure. But, the principal target will be France. The three largest French banks have roughly 450 billion Euros of exposure to Italian debt. So, further sovereign defaults are certainly inevitable, but that is true under any scenario. Growth and austerity will not do the trick, as ZeroHedge rightly points out. Ultimately, I will not be at all surprised to see Europe’s banking system shut for days while the losses and payments issues are worked out. People forget that the term “bank holiday” was invented in the 1930’s when the banks were shut for exactly the same reason.”
#13 Daniel Clifton, a policy strategist with Strategas Research Partners on the potential for more downgrades of U.S. debt: “We would expect further downgrades, a first downgrade from Moody’s and Fitch and possibly a second downgrade from S&P.”
#14 Warren Buffett on the problems in the eurozone: “The system as presently designed has revealed a major flaw. And that flaw won’t be corrected just by words. Europe will either have to come closer together or there will have to be some other rearrangement because this system is not working”
#15 David Kostin, equity strategist for Goldman Sachs: “The wide range of possible outcomes on both the super committee process and the unstable political economy in Europe drives our view that investors should assume the worst while hoping for the best.”
#16 Mark Mobius, the head of the emerging markets desk at Templeton Asset Management: “There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner”
#17 Gerald Celente, founder of The Trends Research Institute: “The whole system is going down. Pull your money out your Fidelity account, your Scwhab accout, and your ETFs.”
Are you starting to get the picture?
When so many top financial professionals are freaking out like this, perhaps the rest of us should start paying attention.
They are telling us that “time is running out”.
They are telling us that “there is definitely going to be another financial crisis”.
They are telling us that this “is going to be worse” than 2008.
They are telling us that “the whole system is going down”.
Yes, a devastating financial collapse really is coming.  Just like in 2008, it will seem like the “end of the world” while it is happening, but it won’t be.  It will severely damage our financial system and our economy, but it will not finish us off.
Think of it this way.  When you build a sand castle at the beach, it doesn’t get totally wiped out by the first wave or the second wave that hits it.  Each wave does significant damage, but the destruction of your sand castle is a process.
It is the same thing with the U.S. economy.  We once had the most incredible economic machine that the world has ever seen.  It is constantly being guttedand the financial crisis of 2008 hit us really hard, but we are still doing okay.
After this next financial crisis we will be in even worse shape.  But we will still be breathing.
More “waves” will come after this next financial crisis.  If we continue on the road that we are on, our economy will progressively get worse and worse.
Not everyone will agree with this analysis, and that is okay.  In the end, time will reveal the truth to all of us.
Right now, we all need to get ready for the next wave that is about to hit us.  A lot of people are going to lose their jobs over the next few years.  Hopefully you are prepared for that.

 

Here You Go: It's Over

We're done folks.
CNBC is reporting that there are now clients running out of the markets entirely because they do not believe their customer funds are safe.
That's the end of it. The belief that there are more MF Globals has now taken hold. The thieves have pushed it too far and now we've got the start of a global liquidity run, and with good reason.
The authorities both in the regulatory side and on the prosecutorial side have refused to put a stop to the thievery and now the risk factors have turned into realized risk.

This video from the Infowars Nightly News covers the gamut of
current scandals.

First, MF Global, the financial services company, raided some of
it's customers accounts stealing hundreds of millions in an
internal bank run just prior to declaring bankruptcy.

Moving on from there, Aaron Dykes covers the fact that the crackdown
on the Occupy Wall Street movement was organized federally by the
Department of Homeland Security, an agency created to fight
'terrorism'.

Video:

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/5797.html

MF Global - 1.2 BILLION Missing from Clients accounts - yet NO One has been arrested or accused of Stealing!?

This is what the Occupy Movement is about! There is one set of laws for us normal folks compared to banks and corporations!
This is so unbelievable and it is hard to understand how it is possible. How is it the most blatant stealing of money by a Wall Street Broker out of it's clients accounts and there have been no arrest or charges filed against anyone?
It is being found 1.2 Billion has been stolen from people's accounts at MF Global, not 600 Million!
No one at MF Global, including its former chief executive, Mr. Corzine, has been accused of wrongdoing.

 

Euro exits beckon

Money is on the move, and one is left pondering how the markets would have functioned had the European Central Bank (ECB) not been there with substantial ongoing support.
Troublingly, there was heightened focus on counterparty and derivative issues, including US bank exposure to European debt, the sovereign credit default swap marketplace and other counterparty exposures. Fear that EU governments will be forced to recapitalize their faltering banking systems has weighed heavily on already depleted confidence in the creditworthiness of sovereign credit. Increasingly, the credit standing of France, residing near the epicenter of Europe's "core", is imperiled by the possibility of a massive bank recapitalization program.
This could get very ugly, very quickly.

Futures Plunge As Fed Discloses New Stress Test: Fears US Banks Will Need To Raise Tens Of Billions In New Capital

It appears that the key news of the day was not the fluff about the IMF which as we said was total non-news, but adverse news from the Fed which just announced that it is launching its 2012 bank stress test which unlike previous iterations may actually demand capital raises from US banks.
Those banks are Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo.
The problem is that next steps will certainly involve tens of billions in capital raises demanded of the above six banks (and probably Jefferies) by the Fed. Not surprisingly, ES has collapsed on the news to just over 1180.
One has to wonder from just where and how those banks will raise their capital, after these tests, and what if they cannot?!?

 

Obama reads riot act to European leaders in late night phone calls and orders them to take more dramatic action on debt crisis

Barack Obama has read the riot act to the leaders of several European countries - saying more dramatic action is needed to avert a eurozone meltdown.
The U.S. President made telephone calls to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian President Giorgio Napolitano late last night.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the president had demanded faster action from Europe.
Obama recognises that if the European banks fail, it will have a disastrous effect on the US economy, and send it into an absolute full-tilt meltdown.
But the Eurozone may well collapse, and in the not very distant future, either.

 

Wall Street made more profits in two years of Obama, than eight years of Bush

A forty second news clip.."Morning Joe"

 

9 Final Ways The Bankster Occupied U.S. Government Is Waging War Against America

Part I: 9 Ways The Hijacked Federal Government Is Waging War Against The American People.
Part II: 9 More Ways The U.S. Government Is Waging War Against America.

1. Ideology.

There is a dictatorship of the mind and spirit in America. The official ideology of the U.S. totalitarian state is counter-terrorism and national security. All domestic and foreign crimes are justified under the umbrella of security and defense. The false flag September 11 attacks served as the catalyst that brought this totalitarian ideology into being on a world stage.

The attacks also had the effect of putting the American people into a psychological state of subservience towards the government and power elite. As a result, the free will of the American people has been destroyed. The minds of the people are directed at non-existent terrorists like Al Qaeda and non-threatening countries like Iraq and Iran for one single purpose: to generate insecurity in the individual so that he/she supports the false and permanent war on terror.

2. Paradigm.

What exists in Washington is one party dictatorship with two political factions. Super committee or no super committee, republican or democrat, the will of the power elite will prevail over the will of the people under the current system.

The false left-right political paradigm enables the power elite to remain in control and continue to loot America without being discovered as the real enemy of the American people.

The one party dictatorship also means that there is no accountability for the political leadership. Both Republicans and Democrats have stabbed America in the back. This political fact has led to the collapse of the American people's trust in the federal government and Congress.

What lies ahead is social unrest, political collapse, and revolution.

3. Militarization.

Militarized cities are occupied cities.

Urban space is regulated by the hijacked government not to defend the interests of the public but to acquire greater power for the treasonous elite and suppress patriotic dissent.

Essentially, the power elite have turned public space into an urban war zone. An atmosphere of war is created in the public mind, giving the mentally occupied individual two choices: either side with the loving and protective government, or the dangerous and scary domestic terrorists.

Will Grigg, author of "Liberty in Eclipse," has written about the militarization of the police in America for a number of years. In an interview with Scott Horton of Antiwar Radio on November 22, Grigg said:

"With respect to where we are now with the crackdown on Occupy Wall Street, take a look at the way the enforcers are garbed, take a look at the techniques they use. We're living in what is essentially a prison society."

In the prison society that Grigg talks about, the police officer is a guard and the citizen is an inmate who is considered guilty and a potential violent threat to the state. The rule of law is not defended. Instead, police officers are brainwashed and used to rape the public in the name of security.

4. Culture.

The manipulation of mass culture by the elite is part of a larger war against the mental integrity of the individual and the free will of the people. The whole edifice of mainstream culture in the West is designed to control thought and speech. As Terence McKenna said, "Culture is not your friend . . .It insults you, it disempowers you, it uses and abuses you. None of us are well treated by culture. And yet we glorify the creative potential of the individual, the rights of the individual. We understand the felt-presence of experience is what is most important. But the culture is a perversion."

The culture that is being produced creatively by the alternative media, underground music, and other cultural avenues is countering the official totalitarian culture that is handed down by authoritarian governments, corporate elites, and the treasonous media. The harm that the official culture is doing to the average individual cannot be overstated. State propaganda and predictive programming techniques are regularly used in T.V. programming and films to control behavior and thoughts. People have been turned into animals under this psychological prison system.

5. Drugs.

Pharmaceutical drugs are promoted and sold by the government and television, but natural drugs are suppressed and persecuted. Many of these natural drugs have the effect of opening the individual's minds to amazing experiences and new conceptions of life and the universe.

The mind is liberated from the routine of everyday life and everyday thoughts when natural drugs like mushrooms are taken, and this experience has political implications, as McKenna said. When people start seeing the world in a different light they don't go back to believing in the fictions and fantasies of the mainstream matrix. The road to intellectual discovery opens up, and the individual begins to search for answers to both personal and political questions.

6. Fear.

Creating fear and chaos is the modus operandi of the U.S. shadow totalitarian state, and of all totalitarian states. Keeping the people in a state of fear and mental insecurity enables political leaders and the criminal power elite to remain in a dominant position in society.

The pumping up of external enemies is the best way to keep the people submissive and scared. But enemies don't fall out of the sky. Enemies in modern totalitarian nations like Iran and America are made by political elites who painstakingly design a propaganda-oriented society that is constantly fed lies and disinformation.

Propaganda, however, is not enough to generate fear about an outside enemy. The manufacturing of dramatic events like the 9/11 attacks, 7/7 attacks, and the Iranian hostage crisis are necessary to create the image of the external enemy in the public mind of a nation.

There is nothing like drama and fear. 9/11 showed that slow-moving societies need explosive and dramatic acts of murder if they are to be moved in a certain direction by political elites in a short period of time. Without drama, without blood, without fear, without murder, without creating a public spectacle, elites cannot attain their dreams of war and revolution.

Fear shuts down critical thinking and makes people even more stupid than they already are, which is why the religious zealots in Iran and the globalist terrorists in the West both use fear as a political tool.

7. Language.

The thought police in the totalitarian state love the magic of words because it can shape public perceptions about major events, political figures, and dissidents.

McKenna said that language creates reality. This happened in the immediate hours and days after the 9/11 attacks, when American and Israeli politicians, "journalists," and national security experts went on television and used the power of the global communication system to put out the false narrative that Al-Qaeda was responsible for the terrorist act.

8. Stigma.

The power of social stigma, shame, and ridicule cannot be overstated. Society is governed in this matter by criminal rulers who don't like to use force to dominate the people and keep their privileges.

In totalitarian societies, truth-tellers are treated like outcasts and driven outside of the community while the biggest liars and mass murderers lead the nation. This is the case in America, Iran, Israel, England, and many other countries.

In a just world, unjust men like Khomeini, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Cheney, Bush II, and Obama would not just be shamed, but hanged, and buried in the sea.

But the reverse is happening.

Murderers and traitors like Reagan, Khomeini, Bush, and Obama are called saviors of the nation and defenders of freedom, while real heroes are shamed and ridiculed as "paranoid conspiracy theorists," and "domestic terrorists."

Millions of truth-tellers in America and the West are silenced and stigmatized.

9. Secrecy.

 

"How Could This Happen in America?" Why Police Are Treating Americans Like Military Threats

But where protest is peaceful -- maybe loud, maybe deliberately annoying, combative in its rhetoric, even possibly illegal, yet not actually violent or dangerous -- treating it the way a state normally treats an outside military threat will give many Americans, across a broad political spectrum, a gut problem.
Again, people with skills and kids, please consider getting out of the country while you still can; the window for such an escape is closing exponentially.
And if you think I'm an over the top Mrs. Chicken Little on this issue, please take a look at Senate Bill S 1253.
A sinister bill has quietly been introduced, so expansive in scope and dangerous in nature that it makes the PATRIOT Act look like the Bill of Rights.
By Madison Ruppert
Editor of End the Lie

Will we allow horrors like this to happen to Americans in the United States?

A sinister bill has quietly been introduced, so expansive in scope and dangerous in nature that it makes the PATRIOT Act look like the Bill of Rights.
This bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012, or S. 1253, has received tragically sparse coverage and I must admit that I was not aware of it until a reader emailed me about it.
If you think the PATRIOT Act is bad, just wait until you check out sections 1031, 1032, 1033, and 1036 of this horrific bill.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wrote a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 1^st of this year, addressed to the Chairman of the Committee, the “Honorable” Patrick Leahy, and Ranking Member of the Committee, the “Honorable” Charles Grassley which strongly decried the bill.
The title of the four page letter itself reveals the truly dangerous nature of this legislation, “Judiciary Committee Should Assert Its Jurisdiction Over Those Aspects of the Detention Authority Provisions in S. 1253, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (Sections 1031, 1032, and 1036), That Affect Civilians Who Are Otherwise Outside of Military Control, Including Civilians Within the United States Itself.”
If these provisions are enacted, it would give the federal government the explicit power to imprison civilians, including American citizens, indefinitely with no charges or trial.
This would include individuals apprehended both inside and outside of the United States, meaning that this could give the federal government the ability to openly detain American citizens for their entire lives without so much as a single charge.
While the federal government already murders American citizens abroad based upon the decision of an unlegislated secret death panel within the National Security Council, this would be the first time since 1950 that Congress has explicitly authorized indefinite detention of Americans without charges or a trial.
This provision includes people who had absolutely no role in the attacks of September 11^th, 2001, or any hostilities whatsoever and would mandate military detention of certain civilians.
This includes civilians arrested within the United States who would otherwise be outside of military control while also transferring all responsibilities to the Department of Defense.
Instead of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, National Security Division, or the United States Attorneys, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Prisons, the Marshals Service and/or the state attorneys general handling the prosecutorial, investigative, law enforcement, penal and custodial authority, the Department of Defense would handle it all.
That means that all control would be taken out of the hands of civilians and put into the brutal grip of the American military, essentially this would mean a military takeover of our so-called justice system.
All they would have to do is classify you as a terrorist, no need for actual charges or participation in hostilities; you could be locked up indefinitely for any reason or no reason at all if the Department of Defense saw fit under this NDAA.
This is so fundamentally un-American, the ACLU can’t help but right that the provisions are “inconsistent with fundamental American values embodied in the Constitution and in the country’s adherence to the rule of law.”
These provisions of the NDAA are so radical that they actually remove much of the protections American citizens have had since 1878 under the Posse Comitatus Act and the Non-Detention Act of 1971.
Section 1031 of S. 1253 would be the first time in more than 60 years that our so-called representatives in Washington would allow indefinite detention of American citizens with no charges or trial without Congressional authorization.
Since 1971 the Non-Detention Act has stipulated, “No citizen shall be imprisoned or otherwise detained by the United States except pursuant to an Act of Congress,” but S. 1253 could make this a thing of the past.
The ACLU points out that while Subsection 1031(c) of S. 1253 claims that it does not apply to lawful residents of the United States or citizens “on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States except to the extent permitted by the Constitution,” glaring loopholes remain.
If the government’s track record is any indicator, we can expect these loopholes to be exploited at every possible opportunity.
Just as the federal government has used the PATRIOT Act’s so-called “Sneak-and-Peek,” or delayed notice, warrants for over 1,600 drug cases and only 15 cases of terrorism in 2006-2009, we can expect the government to use S. 1253 for detaining people for completely illegitimate reasons.
These loopholes allow suspects to be imprisoned without charge or trial, especially citizens or lawful residents who are suspected of some sort of wrongdoing outside of the United States.
The most unsettling aspect  is that the deciding factor in determining if an individual can be detained indefinitely is not any proof of guilt, but instead entirely by officials in the Executive Branch, which, according to the ACLU would be “following some future agency regulations.”
This, just like the unlegislated death panel that resulted in the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16-year-old son, leaves it up to the Executive without any guidelines whatsoever.
It is quite shocking how much the federal government is attempting to push us towards a dictatorship with no legal protection whatsoever from being locked up with no hope of a fair trial or even charges.
Indeed the legislation would allow American citizens to be imprisoned “until the end of hostilities” under 2001′s Authorization for Use of Military Force, or S.J. Res. 23.
Yet this represents no concrete time frame whatsoever and Section 1031 would allow American citizens and non-citizen civilians who had no role in 9/11 or any other hostilities whatsoever to be detained who would otherwise not be detainable under the laws of war.
Section 1032 puts civilians who would otherwise not be subject to military control into military detention, thus removing the protections of the Posse Comitatus act.
Like Section 1031, this would include indefinite imprisonment of civilians apprehended inside of the United States, Section 1032 does not authorize the military to detain civilians without charge or trial, it in fact it mandates it.
The protection against the government using the military for law enforcement activities within the United States under Posse Comitatus would be eliminated under Section 1032 and the ACLU points out that, “all state and federal law enforcement would be preempted by the military.”
Previously the state and local law enforcement agencies and the Department of Justice had the primary responsibility to enforce anti-terrorism laws within the United States.
The NDAA would, in the case of many civilian suspects, remove federal state and local law enforcement from the process of investigation, arrest, criminal prosecution and imprisonment and hand said powers over to the military.
The ACLU “strongly urges” the Senate’s Judiciary Committee to conduct hearings on sections 1031, 1032, and 1036 and assert their jurisdiction to mark up these sections before the NDAA makes it to the Senate floor.
They say that the Judiciary Committee should assert their jurisdiction over these provisions in order to prevent civilian law enforcement against civilians who would otherwise be out of the purview of the military to fall into the hands of the military.
The ACLU’s letter does not, however, cover Section 1033 which Human Rights Watch claims would apply to the many detainees already being held for years without trial who have been cleared for release.
In a form letter with the subject, “Stop Militarization of Law Enforcement” they write that Section 1033 would, “force the administration, for example, to continue to hold a Guantanamo detainee simply because they were from a country of an accused terrorist.”
I highly recommend that you send out this form letter along with a note written by yourself to all of your supposed representatives, along with as many phone calls as you can afford to make it clear that you do not support the United States being turned into a total militarized police state.
While we are already in dire straights in terms of civil rights in this country, codifying indefinite military detention into law is one of the most dangerous developments since the introduction of the PATRIOT Act.
If you even remotely care about the principles of freedom, liberty and justice which this nation is supposed to stand for, you will do us all a favor and stand up against this wholly unacceptable legislation that could represent the end of America as we know it.

 

Greek Anti-Austerity Movement Lacks Electoral Strategy

Costos Panayotakis: Movement united in the streets but divided on how to take power.
The reason Papandreou is out is that the central bankers will never allow the Greek people to vote themselves free of the central bank.
That narrows down the options.

 

Greece turns to Iranian oil as default fears deter trade

Greece is relying on Iran for most of its oil as traders pull the plug on supplies and banks refuse to provide financing for fear that Athens will default on its debt.

 

'Alarm bells should be ringing for France': Fears for Eurozone's second-largest economy as borrowing costs soar

Eurozone bond markets suffered from a mass sell-off yesterday - with previously healthy economies finding themselves sucked into the debt crisis.
The yield on French government bonds climbed to 3.63 per cent. With the German equivalent at just 1.75 per cent, the difference between what it costs Paris and Berlin to borrow is at its highest level since the euro was established in 1999.
And an influential report added to market nerves with a claim that the French economy is the 17-member eurozone's second biggest but only the 13th healthiest.

Citigroup may cut 3,000 or more jobs

Citigroup Inc. is considering plans to cut 3,000 or more workers as part of an ongoing effort to control expenses.
That would amount to about 1 percent of the New York-based bank's work force. A person with knowledge of the situation says decisions haven't been finalized, but that the job cuts could exceed 3,000 in the next year or so.
This will only be a tip of the iceberg, if the American financial industry goes into full total meltdown.

 

Chinese ratings agency threatens US with new debt downgrade

The head of China's biggest ratings agency, Dagong Global Credit Rating, is warning that it may downgrade the US's sovereign debt rating again because of Washington's failure to tackle the federal budget deficit.
In August it downgraded US debt again, to A. Days later, Standard & Poor's followed in its wake, becoming the first western agency to downgrade US debt after the threat of a default was narrowly avoided following weeks of political squabbling in Washington over whether President Obama should be allowed to raise the US debt ceiling.
If Dangong makes this move, it may well have reverberations across the entire globe in terms of the US credit rating.
And Guan Jianzhong is absolutely correct, when he makes the statement to the effect that the US government has dug itself into a hole so deep financially, that the only tool left to is to do more quantitative easing (read: printing more money, which has absolutely zero backing), creating more inflation, and completely destroying the value of any savings US citizens may have.

 

The Fed Under Fire

“My concern about the legislation is that if the GAO is auditing not only the operational aspects of our programs, and the details of the programs, but is making judgements about our policy decisions, that would effectively be a takeover of the monetary policy by the Congress, a repudiation of the independence of the Federal Reserve, which would be highly destructive to the stability of the financial system, the dollar, and our national economic situation” -- Ben Shalom Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, from 2:05 to 2:32).
‘Article 1, Section 8, clause 5 of the Constitution: The Congress shall have power to coin money, [and to] regulate the value thereof and of foreign coin.’
Ben, Congress is SUPPOSED to be in charge of monetary policy, not a privately owned banking cartel! Furthermore., Congress cannot delegate that authority over monetary policy without a Constitutional Amendment.
Italy and Greece just had their civil governments put into the hands of private bankers. It appears that Ben Bernanke is of the opinion that this was already accomplished here in the United States back in 1913.

 

Audit of the Federal Reserve reveals 16 trillion dollars in secret bailouts

The first ever GAO(Government Accountability Office) audit of the Federal Reserve was carried out in the past few months due to the Ron Paul, Alan Grayson Amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill, which passed last year. Jim DeMint, a Republican Senator, and Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator, led the charge for a Federal Reserve audit in the Senate, but watered down the original language of the house bill(HR1207), so that a complete audit would not be carried out. Ben Bernanke(pictured to the left), Alan Greenspan, and various other bankers vehemently opposed the audit and lied to Congress about the effects an audit would have on markets.
Nevertheless, the results of the first audit in the Federal Reserve’s nearly 100 year history were posted on Senator Sander’s webpage earlier this morning:  http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3
What was revealed in the audit was startling: $16,000,000,000,000.00 had been secretly given out to US banks and corporations and foreign banks everywhere from France to Scotland. From the period between December 2007 and June 2010, the Federal Reserve had secretly bailed out many of the world’s banks, corporations, and governments. The Federal Reserve likes to refer to these secret bailouts as an all-inclusive loan program, but virtually none of the money has been returned and it was loaned out at 0% interest. Why the Federal Reserve had never been public about this or even informed the United States Congress about the $16 trillion dollar bailout is obvious — the American public would have been outraged to find out that the Federal Reserve bailed out foreign banks while Americans were struggling to find jobs.
To place $16 trillion into perspective, remember that GDP of the United States is only $14.12 trillion. The entire national debt of the United States government spanning its 200+ year history is “only” $14.5 trillion. The budget that is being debated so heavily in Congress and the Senate is “only” $3.5 trillion. Take all of the outrage and debate over the $1.5 trillion deficit into consideration, and swallow this Red pill: There was no debate about whether $16,000,000,000,000 would be given to failing banks and failing corporations around the world.
In late 2008, the TARP Bailout bill was passed and loans of $800 billion were given to failing banks and companies. That was a blatant lie considering the fact that Goldman Sachs alone received 814 billion dollars. As is turns out, the Federal Reserve donated $2.5 trillion to Citigroup, while Morgan Stanley received $2.04 trillion. The Royal Bank of Scotland and Deutsche Bank, a German bank, split about a trillion and numerous other banks received hefty chunks of the $16 trillion.
Americans should be swelled with anger and outrage at the abysmal state of affairs when an unelected group of bankers can create money out of thin air and give it out to megabanks and supercorporations like Halloween candy. If the Federal Reserve and the bankers who control it believe that they can continue to devalue the savings of Americans and continue to destroy the US economy, they will have to face the realization that their trillion dollar printing presses will eventually plunder the world economy.
The list of institutions that received the most money from the Federal Reserve can be found on page 131 of the GAO Audit and are as follows..
Citigroup: $2.5 trillion ($2,500,000,000,000)
Morgan Stanley: $2.04 trillion ($2,040,000,000,000)
Merrill Lynch: $1.949 trillion ($1,949,000,000,000)
Bank of America: $1.344 trillion ($1,344,000,000,000)
Barclays PLC (United Kingdom): $868 billion ($868,000,000,000)
Bear Sterns: $853 billion ($853,000,000,000)
Goldman Sachs: $814 billion ($814,000,000,000)
Royal Bank of Scotland (UK): $541 billion ($541,000,000,000)
JP Morgan Chase: $391 billion ($391,000,000,000)
Deutsche Bank (Germany): $354 billion ($354,000,000,000)
UBS (Switzerland): $287 billion ($287,000,000,000)
Credit Suisse (Switzerland): $262 billion ($262,000,000,000)
Lehman Brothers: $183 billion ($183,000,000,000)
Bank of Scotland (United Kingdom): $181 billion ($181,000,000,000)
BNP Paribas (France): $175 billion ($175,000,000,000)
and many many more including banks in Belgium of all places
View the 266-page GAO audit of the Federal Reserve(July 21st, 2011): http://www.scribd.com/doc/60553686/GAO-Fed-Investigation
Source: http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-696
FULL PDF on GAO server: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11696.pdf
Senator Sander’s Article: http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=9e2a4ea8-6e73-4be2-a753-62060dcbb3c3

 

Goldman faces lawsuits over $15.8 billion in mortgages

Goldman Sachs Group Inc faces lawsuits over $15.8 billion worth of mortgage securities, the bank said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday, a more than 30-fold increase from the amount disclosed three months earlier.
The aggregate figure, which is up from $485 million previously, does not represent how much money Goldman management estimates it may lose on the litigation. Goldman lifted that estimate of "reasonably possible" losses to $2.6 billion from $2 billion.
The bigger dollar figures come as investors in mortgage-backed bond deals have raced to take legal action or enter settlement negotiations before statutes of limitations expire, and as investors continue to worry about banks' exposure to big lawsuits.

 

Big Banks Plead with Customers Not to Move Their Money

650,000 customers moved $4.5 billion dollars out of the big banks and into smaller banks and credit unions in the last month.
But there is a myth making the rounds that the big banks don’t really care if we move our money. For example, one line of reasoning is that no matter how many people move their money, the Fed and Treasury will just bail out the giants again.
But many anecdotes show that the too big to fails do, in fact, care.

 

Billions of dollars moved in bank transfer demonstrations

Bank branches and ATMs across the country saw a surge in traffic during the last month, which pinnacled over the weekend as Americans from coast-to-coast accessed their accounts, withdrew their money and went elsewhere.
With November 5 being hailed as Bank Transfer Day, the final day in a month-long demonstration to move money from out of the big banks and into smaller, localized credit unions, the tally of those that took up the cause has come through and it shows that the movement was more than just a fluke. Leading up to November 5, $4.5 billion was taken out of major financial institutions.

MOVE YOUR MONEY - Bank Of America Branch Manager Begs Customer Not To Close Accounts

This is a must-read story - Bank of America is getting nervous.

 

Bank exodus from euro zone sovereign debt quickens

Banks including BNP Paribas and ING are ditching billions of euros of euro zone government bonds, cutting their exposure to the region's trouble spots.
More lenders are expected to retreat as the euro zone crisis deepens and leaders raise the possibility of the exit of Greece from the bloc, further damaging prices.
"The market value of the debt of the countries most under scrutiny is likely to decline further as banks unload sovereign bonds," Charles Dallara, managing director of the Institute of International Finance, warned on Wednesday.

Bank Transfer: 650,000 Answer the Call

s the social media-sparked Bank Transfer Day approaches, the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) reports that over 650,000 people have joined credit unions in the last four weeks.

 

Chinese Fund Managers Sentenced to Death after Cheating Investors out of 1 Billion USD

Two brothers and their father were sentenced to death on Monday for cheating 15,000 investors out of over $1.1 billion in east China’s Zhejiang province.
We need more of that here!

UKIP Nigel Farage - How dare you tell the Italian and Greek people what to do

Des gens qui ne sont même pas élus contrôlent l’économie européenne et dictent, prennent contrôle de la Grèce et de l’Italie.

 

12 Facts About Money And Congress That Are So Outrageous That It Is Hard To Believe That They Are Actually True

The following are 12 statistics about money and Congress that are so outrageous that it is hard to believe that they are actually true....
#1 The collective net worth of all of the members of Congress increased by 25 percent between 2008 and 2010.
#2 The collective net worth of all of the members of Congress is now slightly over 2 billion dollars.  That is "billion" with a "b".
#3 This happened during a time when the net worth of most American households was declining rapidly.  According to the Federal Reserve, the collective net worth of all American households decreased by 23 percent between 2007 and 2009.
#4 The average net worth for a member of Congress is now approximately 3.8 million dollars.
#5 The net worth of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi increased by 62 percent from 2009 to 2010.  In 2009 it was reported that she had a net worth of 21.7 million dollars, and in 2010 it was reported that she had a net worth of 35.2 million dollars.
#6 The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, saw his wealth grow by 29 percent from 2009 to 2010.  He is now worth approximately 9.8 million dollars.
#7 More than 50 percent of the members of the U.S. Congress are millionaires.
#8 In 2008, the average cost of winning a seat in the House of Representatives was $1.1 million and the average cost of winning a seat in the U.S. Senate was $6.5 million.  Spending on political campaigns has gotten way out of control.
#9 Insider trading is perfectly legal for members of the U.S. Congress - and they refuse to pass a law that would change that.
#10 The percentage of millionaires in Congress is more than 50 times higher than the percentage of millionaires in the general population.
#11 U.S. Representative Darrell Issa is worth approximately 220 million dollars.  His wealth grew by approximately 37 percent from 2009 to 2010.
#12 The wealthiest member of Congress, U.S. Representative Michael McCaul, is worth approximately 294 million dollars.
So how are members of Congress becoming so wealthy?
Well, there are lots of ways they are raking in the cash, but one especially alarming thing that goes on is that members of Congress often make investments in companies that will go up significantly if legislation that is being considered by Congress "goes the right way".
This is called a "conflict of interest", but it happens constantly in Congress and nobody seems to get into any trouble for it.

 

Unemployment for Young Vets: 30%, and Rising

Dig deeper into the pages of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data and it becomes apparent that while the job market is slowly improving for most Americans, it’s moving in the opposite direction for Gulf War II vets (defined by the BLS as those on active duty since 2001). The youngest of veterans, aged 18 to 24, had a 30.4 percent jobless rate in October, way up from 18.4 percent a year earlier. Non-veterans of the same age improved, to 15.3 percent from 16.9 percent. For some groups, the numbers can look a good deal worse: for black veterans aged 18-24, the unemployment rate is a striking 48 percent.
Military skills frequently do not translate into the civilian corporate world.
With very few exceptions, if these Vets were told anything to the contrary, when they were recruited, they were lied to just for the sake of recruiters reaching their quotas.

 

Property Prices Collapse in China. Is This a Crash?

Residential property prices are in freefall in China as developers race to meet revenue targets for the year in a quickly deteriorating market. The country’s largest builders began discounting homes in Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzhen in recent weeks, and the trend has now spread to second- and third-tier cities such as Hangzhou, Hefei, and Chongqing.

REPORT - Over 50% Of U.S. Homeowners Are Underwater

New report shows the number of US homeowners underwater is much higher than official government estimates.

New report shows the housing outlook is getting worse.

---

By CNBC's Diana Olick

Reprinted with permission.

A new report on still falling home prices today highlights the fact that the lower those prices go, the more American borrowers fall into an negative equity position; that is, they owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.

Many of those borrowers are already behind on their mortgage payments, and some are likely already in the foreclosure process. The rest of them are in danger of defaulting, not because they can't pay their mortgages, but because they either won't want to (seeing as they will never see any real appreciation in their investment) or because any change in their economic or personal situation might force them into default (change of job, divorce).

While 14.6 million might seem like a lot, it's not the real number when you consider negative equity in housing's recovery. That's because it doesn't factor in "effective" negative equity, which is borrowers who have so little equity in their homes that they cannot afford to move.

Consider the following from mortgage analyst Mark Hanson:

On US totals, if you figure average house prices use conforming loan balances, then a repeat buyer has to have roughly 10 percent down to buy in addition to the 6 percent Realtor fee to sell. Thus, the effective negative equity target would be 85%. You also have to factor in secondary financing, which most measures leave out.

Based on that, over 50 percent of all mortgaged households in the US are effectively underwater — unable to sell for enough to pay a Realtor and put a down payment on a new purchase without coming out of pocket. Because repeat buyers have always carried the market as the foundation, this is why demand has not come back. It's as if half the potential buyers in America died over a two-year period of time.

DEBT PARTY - Japan's Debt To Exceed 1 Quadrillion Yen

More than two decades of unabated government spending, and the end result is a $13 trillion national debt, a dead economy, and some very pissed-off young people. Are you paying attention Paul Krugman?

 

IMF very sad of losing Russia as its prey

IMF's Managing Director Christine Lagarde urged the Russian administration not to increase the public spending. Lagarde said that she was giving only friendly pieces of advice to Russia and added that she had received the Order of Friendship from the Russian administration.
According to her, public spending was not a very healthy phenomenon, especially before the elections. However, it is clear that Lagarde was not talking about the spending connected with the elections only. The IMF's chairwoman does not like the payments to weakly protected layers of the population, the increase of spending on defense and law-enforcement bodies. Aside from that, Christine Lagarde is concerned about the fundamental reorganization of Russia's entire road infrastructure.
IMF Director Christine Lagarde wants Russian not to spend their money on social projects benefiting Russians, but instead to privatize the national assets, and reduce public spending, forcing Russia to live on the mercy of IMF handouts, by buying food products from Western Europe.
Russia tried and failed that era of complete privatization which created the worst Oligarchs society on the planet (not unlike what Wall Street has done to the USA).
It was Putin who put Russia on the right track, and not IMF charity. Russia is a very rich country in resources and Lagarde is unhappy to see Russia lost as one of its potential treasure houses.
Of course, as recent history has shown, refusal to submit to private central banks like the Fed, the ECB, and the IMF, results in invasion by the United States.

 

Obama defies base, hires Wall Street lobbyist for re-election campaign

President Barack Obama’s new senior campaign adviser is a longtime Wall Street lobbyist, and has the potential to damage the president’s aspirations to appeal to the protesters currently “occupying” New York City’s Zuccotti Park.
Obama’s new adviser, Broderick Johnson, has an extensive history of lobbying for big banks and corporations, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In 2007, he lobbied for JP Morgan Chase and in 2008 Johnson lobbied for Bank of America and Fannie Mae. From 2008 through 2010, he lobbied for Comcast and in 2011 he lobbied for Microsoft.

 

Pentagon prepares for economic warfare

THE scene: the war games suite of the mightiest military power in the world.
The guests were assembled in the Warfare Analysis Laboratory, surrounded by uniformed officers from the highest levels of the Pentagon and a dizzying array of screens normally used to simulate nuclear world war.
The gentlemen were called to order and the games began.
"If you imagine the war room in Dr. Strangelove, you're not far off," says participant James Rickards.
Yet this was no traditional battle game, but rather the Pentagon's first economic war game, and the authorities are loath to talk about it.
Economic war? It sounds preposterous. Except it gets less so with every dollar of debt run up by the US.

Rickards is not a soldier but a banker. He was joined in the war game by dozens of his Wall Street colleagues, flown in from Manhattan to this bunker at the Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland for the two-day event in 2009, when the Pentagon started to get really alarmed.

The group was split into five teams: America, Russia, China, Pacific Rim, and a "grey team", representing shady outfits such as terrorist organisations. They were sent into "bunker rooms" and told to use financial or economic tools - currency, debt, stocks, gold - to bring their enemies to their knees. Everything was conducted via computer, and they could be as devious and ruthless as they liked. The bankers liked.
"These people would normally never come together. But there is nothing more fun than to take a Wall Street guy and tell him to be a bad guy," says Mr Rickards, a former senior executive who was involved in planning and executing the war game.

When the game was halted, the result left the military men quiet and sobered. Why did the bankers scare the soldiers? The answer lies in the way the world is now interconnected as never before.

Over the past few years, China has been buying up US government debt and is now its biggest holder. If China were to dump this debt, it would totally screw with the economy. China could, hypothetically, win any number of foreign policy objectives by making it impossible for you to pay your mortgage.

Paul Bracken is a professor and expert in private equity at the Yale School of Management who serves on government advisory committees at the US Department of Defence. He was one of the key players behind the 2009 economic war game, and the smaller versions that have been played out since.

"The atmosphere that day was one of surprise at the magnitude of the threat," he says.

"The Pentagon people were used to dealing in terms of military battles: how many ships, how many missiles. This opened up whole new strategies."

 

Catherine Austin Fitts: The Black Budget And The Leveraged Buyout Of The World Using Stolen Money

Catherine Austin Fitts said we are witnessing a Leveraged Buyout of the world that will permanently end democracy. The elite has bought all the politicians and the media. They have stolen enough money to earn 2 trillion dollars a year from their investments. She said 2 trillion dollars a year is sufficient to fund a world government.
Wall Street and the City of London have been given more money in Bailouts than the total amount of money the United States spent on all of its wars. Wall Street was also allowed to steal 4 trillion dollars from federal spending that we are not allowed to audit. When she was Housing Commissioner in the first Bush administration, she once saw on one city block ten government guaranteed loans on buildings that never existed.
Separately from that Jim Willie has said when the Federal Reserve sells Treasury bonds, they sell more than the deficit. This fraud has added trillions more to the LBO Buyout fund.
As I have said previously, the banks are allowed to launder a trillion dollars a year in drugs, 400 billion dollars a year in illegal weapons and 500 billion dollars in political bribes.
Catherine has written and spoken often of mortgage fraud. The bankers were allowed to sell each mortgage ten times. The Federal Reserve has been busy buying fraudulent mortgage backed securities to keep the bankers out of jail.
She said we were all heartened when the House voted against the Bailout in 2008. The bankers reversed that decision through three methods. They were able to donate money and give bribes which most voters are aware of. They are not aware of Control Files which have all the blackmail information on politicians. But with government databases run by private military contractors ...

 

Central banks top up gold reserves

Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Thailand spent a collective $1.52bn (£942m) buying 26.7 tons of gold. However, the Mexican central bank was a seller, reducing its holding by 0.1 ton, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

 

Venezuela scrambles to bring home gold reserves

CARACAS, Oct 26 (Reuters) - At the foot of a dimly lit spiral staircase far below Venezuela's Central Bank, workers prepare for an unusual arrival: 17,000 gold bars being shipped back on the order of President Hugo Chavez.

 

Hugo Chávez orders seizure of British company's land for Venezuelan state

Chávez said the company had demanded the government pay it in dollars for the previous expropriation of tens of thousands of acres. But the government insists in paying in bolivars, Venezuela's currency.

 

Vatican Promotes One World Central Bank - Occupy Vatican!!!

 

Silence on human rights...the price Europe must pay for China's billions

As EU officials flew to Beijing to beg for financial help last night, Brussels was accused of allowing China to ‘buy Europe’s silence’ over its appalling human rights record.
Campaigners spoke out after the head of Europe’s bailout fund arrived in the Chinese capital to discuss the terms on which the hardline regime might agree to inject billions into the struggling eurozone countries.
Campaigners fear EU negotiators will cave in to Chinese demands to tone down criticism of the regime’s human rights record.

 

Customers are dumping their banks in droves ahead of the nationwide "Move Your Money" and "Bank Transfer Day"

Bank dumping days begin

Move Your Money movement this Saturday

Customers are dumping their banks in droves ahead of the nationwide "Move Your Money" and "Bank Transfer Day" movements this Saturday.
Given the recent spotlight on attempts -- and ultimate failures -- by some of the nation's biggest banks to tack on new debit card fees, thousands of disgruntled consumers have already either left or pledged to leave their current bank for a community bank or credit union, which are known for having fewer and/or lower bank account fees.

 

Student fees protest in London

Thousands of students descend on the capital in the latest protest against tuition fees.

 

Unable to pay bill, Mich. city turns off lights

Associated Press
HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. (AP) -- As the sun dips below the rooftops each evening, parts of this Detroit enclave turn to pitch black, the only illumination coming from a few streetlights at the end of the block or from glowing yellow yard globes...

Big Sis To Monitor Twitter For Signs Of Social Unrest

The wave of civil unrest that has swept the globe over the past year has prompted the Department of Homeland Security to step up its monitoring of Twitter and other social networks in a bid to pre-empt any sign of social dislocation within the United States.
Twitter User“Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Caryn Wagner said the use of such technology in uprisings that started in December in Tunisia shocked some officials into attention and prompted questions of whether the U.S. needs to do a better job of monitoring domestic social networking activity,” reports the Associated Press.
Wagner announced that the federal agency would implement new guidelines that would focus on “gleaning information from sites such as Twitter and Facebook for law enforcement purposes.”

David Cameron Wanted Internet Shutdown During Britain’s Summer Riots

Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron wanted the internet shut-down during the riots that swept England in August in order to prevent rioters from communicating with each other over social media networks, according to media reports.
Fears grew at the time that the disturbances were largely organized by youths using their mobile phones.
However, Cameron was persuaded against taking any such drastic measures by the Foreign Secretary William Hague over worries that such steps would lead to accusations of hypocrisy over the rights of free speech in Britain.

Bank forecloses on homeowner ... three years after his house destroyed by a hurricane

In one man's world, your house can be destroyed, you can continue to make its mortgage payments, yet it can still be foreclosed.
That's the situation for Brad Gana, a Texas man whose home was washed away in 2008 by Hurricane Ike who continued to make its mortgage payments, before the bank arrived, confiscating whatever items they could get.
Hiring an attorney to stop the procedure, which was successful, Bank of America still arrived at his property, removing any personal items that were available like his tools and collectibles, all of which are now gone.
Reached for comment, a representative with Bank of America sent an email to the investigator, Ms Davis, admitting that the bank had 'incorrectly placed insurance' on a home that no longer existed.

Webmaster's Commentary: 

Money-junkies are like that. They are addicts and this is how addicts behave.

1899: "The greatest struggle the world ever witnessed will take place between the usurping banks on the one hand and the people on the other"

In 1899, MW Walbert published The Coming Battle: A COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL BANKING MONEY POWER IN THE UNITED STATES, still the definitive history of the takeover of America by the same forces we fight today, The Corporate-Banking Complex.
The introduction is reproduced below. This blogger strongly urges you to read the entire book and arm yourself with the knowledge that the Dogs of Money have done their best to keep from you.

Marine, Navy, Army and Airforce Vets and Police Vow to Protect Innocent Protesters

Marine, Navy, Army and Airforce Veterans and Police Vow to Protect Innocent Protesters

In response to the police brutality against peaceful American protesters – here, here, here, here, here and here – military and police groups are forming to protect American citizens.
In fact, many in the military support the protests (and see this).
As of today, OccupyMarines, Occupy Police, Occupy Navy, Occupy Airforce, and Occupy Army have formed to protect the people against police brutality.
After Veterans for Peace member Scott Olsen – a Marine Corps veteran twice deployed to Iraq – was critically wounded in the Occupy Oakland protest, Occupy Marines tweeted:
WHEN YOU SHOOT ONE MARINE, YOU SHOOT AT ALL OF US. OORAH. Do It Peacefully Occupy We Stand In Solidarity

San Francisco police arrest 100 in Bank of America protest - Officers end four-hour standoff after Occupy movement demonstrators, mostly UC students, take over a bank lobby

 

LIVE! Athens Greece prepares for massive anti-austerity protest

Thousands of police have been deployed in Athens to monitor an annual student march, which is likely to be swelled by thousands of Greeks angry over austerity measures and reforms.

ADL Training US Police Departments across the country…For What Purpose?

Are Abe Foxman and the Zionist ADL training US Police to be their private armies?
When your door gets kicked down at 3 am in the morning, you’d better have on your yarmulke, have a menorah visible and a Star of David Flag draped over one wall… or else!
Here’s a few samples on what the Zionists are teaching American cops to do:

Webmaster's Commentary: 

We are all Palestinians now!

Police who nearly killed Iraq vet at OCCUPY protests trained by Israeli military

The Oakland Police Department, who shot and critically injured an unarmed 24 year old U.S. Marine with a tear gas cannister last night, has placed 2nd only to Israel in "terrorism" training exersizes two years in a row.

Oakland Policeman Throws Flash Grenade Into Crowd Trying To Help Injured Protester

Webmaster's Commentary: 

This video shows the Oakland police (trained by Israel to deal with "terrorists", tossing a flash-bang grenade right into the middle of the people trying to help Scott Olson after he was shot in the face. At close range, flash-bang grenades can kill.

Local police chiefs head to Israel for antiterror training

Webmaster's Commentary: 

Learning how to treat Americans like Palestinians!

New Law By Obama To Jail 500,000 American Citizens Or More For The Crime Of Opposing Their Government.

Sparking the concern of Russian diplomats over the growing totalitarian bent of the Obama government is the planned reintroduction of what these reports call one of the most draconian laws ever introduced in a free society that is titled “The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act”.
Sparking the concern of Russian diplomats over the growing totalitarian bent of the Obama government is the planned reintroduction of what these reports call one of the most draconian laws ever introduced in a free society that is titled “The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act”.
First introduced in the US Congress in 2007 by Democratic Representative Jane Harmon, this new law passed the US House of Representatives by a secretive voice vote, but failed to pass the US Senate, after which it was believed dead until this past week when it was embraced by Obama who became the first American President to name his own citizens as a threat to his Nations security.
In what is called the National Security Strategy document, that is required of US Presidents by their Congress, that embraces the dictatorial ideals of the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act”, Obama has ordered his Federal police and intelligence forces to begin targeting Americans opposed to him and his radical socialist polices.
Obama’s top counter-terrorism advisor, John Brennan, in speaking to reporters about this new “strategy” says it makes the problem of home-grown terrorists a top priority because an increasing number of individuals in the US have become “captivated by extremist ideology or causes.”
The Times of London is further reporting that Obama’s new National Security Strategy “officially” ends America’s “War on Terror” in what they call “a sweeping repudiation of the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive military strikes.”
And as Obama begins re-focusing his forces from fighting America’s foreign enemies, to those opposed to him in his own country, it is important to remember the warning about this new law given by the former CIA official, Philip Giraldi, who had previously warned of the Bush-Cheney plan to attack Iran with nuclear weapons, and who said:
“The mainstream media has made no effort to inform the public of the impending Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act. The Act, which was sponsored by Congresswoman Jane Harman of California, was passed in the House by an overwhelming 405 to 6 vote on October 24th and is now awaiting approval by the Senate Homeland Security Committee, which is headed by Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.
Harman’s bill contends that the United States will soon have to deal with home grown terrorists and that something must be done to anticipate and neutralize the problem. The act deals with the issue through the creation of a congressional commission that will be empowered to hold hearings, conduct investigations, and designate various groups as “homegrown terrorists.”
The commission will be tasked to propose new legislation that will enable the government to take punitive action against both the groups and the individuals who are affiliated with them. Like Joe McCarthy and HUAC in the past, the commission will travel around the United States and hold hearings to find the terrorists and root them out.
Unlike inquiries in the past where the activity was carried out collectively, the act establishing the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Commission will empower all the members on the commission to arrange hearings, obtain testimony, and even to administer oaths to witnesses, meaning that multiple hearings could be running simultaneously in various parts of the country.
The ten commission members will be selected for their “expertise,” though most will be appointed by Congress itself and will reflect the usual political interests. They will be paid for their duties at the senior executive pay scale level and will have staffs and consultants to assist them.
Harman’s bill does not spell out terrorist behavior and leaves it up to the Commission itself to identify what is terrorism and what isn’t.

DHS Secret Police Make Arrests at OWS Portland

Demotix has posted photos showing that the Department of Homeland Security now operates as a secret police force that arrests people at political events, the hallmark of all totalitarian governments.
The Federal Protective Service (FPS) arrested a photographer at Portland’s Terry Shrunk Plaza, which is adjacent to both City Hall and the Edith Green-Wendall Wyatt Federal Building.
The Department of Homeland Security describes the FPS as “a federal law enforcement agency that provides integrated security and law enforcement services to federally owned and leased buildings, facilities, properties and other assets.”

NYPD blast LRAD Sonic weapon against OWS protest

Tested on Palestinians, Perfected on #OWS Protesters: Introducing the LRAD Sound Cannon

Yesterday, the New York Police Department deployed a strange new weapon against the tens of thousands of demonstrators who converged downtown for the largest protest in Occupy Wall Street’s two month history: the LRAD sound cannon. NYPD officers reportedly blasted Occupy protesters with rays from the LRAD cannon while they sang the American national anthem near Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park (photos here), establishing an atmosphere of fear and intimidation that lasted throughout the evening.

Police Crackdown on Occupy Wall Street Protest: “This Morning’s Action May Not Be What A Police State Looks Like, But It’s Certainly How One Begins”

Police State Tactics On Display Nationwide

In the last couple of days, police at Occupy protests:

• Bludgeoned peaceful protesters at Berkeley … and then said that the protesters’ locking of arms was “violent”

• Beat and reportedly broke the ribs of a peaceful protesting, 70-year old, Pulitzer prize winning literature professor at Berkeley (and see this).

• Hit in the head and arrested New York City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez

• Punched a woman in the face for showing a court order to the police stating that the protesters can be in the park

• Targeted reporters for harassment and arrest

The Guardian’s Laura Pennie notes:

Law enforcement is there to protect a wealthy elite from the rest of the population

***

A teenage girl holds a hastily written sign saying: “NYPD, we trusted you – you were supposed to protect us!”

***

The sentiment is a familiar one. Across Europe, over a year of demonstrations, occupations and civil disobedience, anti-austerity protesters have largely shifted from declaring solidarity with the police – as fellow workers whose jobs and pensions are also under threat – to outrage and anger at state violence against unarmed protesters. Following last month’s police brutality in Oakland, and today’s summary eviction of the Occupy Wall Street camp, American activists too are reaching the conclusion that “police protect the 1%”.

“Who do you guys work for?” Shouts one Manhattan protester, as police load arrestees into a van. “You work for JP Morgan Bank!”

And the Washington Post’s James Downie writes:

As hard as the NYPD and New York City’s government might try to obscure the truth though, one truth remains: At 1 a.m. this morning, in the heart of New York City, protesters exercising their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly were swept away by the state, while that state also did all it could to prevent media coverage. No matter what one may think of the occupiers or their cause, nothing they’ve done justifies blockading the press or ignoring court orders. Mayor Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and other New York leaders who ordered the eviction should take a long, hard look at their handling of the occupation. This morning’s action may not be what a police state looks like, but it’s certainly how one begins.

Homeland Security Coordinated 18-City Police Crackdown on Occupy Protest

According to Oakland Mayor Jean, 18 cities coordinated police crack downs on Occupy protests.
Wonkette reports that Homeland Security likely organized the crack downs:

Remember when people were freaking out over the Patriot Act and Homeland Security and all this other conveniently ready-to-go post-9/11 police state stuff, because it would obviously be just a matter of time before the whole apparatus was turned against non-Muslim Americans when they started getting complain-y about the social injustice and economic injustice and income inequality and endless recession and permanent unemployment?

The crackdown on Occupy protests and the criminalization of dissent

Throughout the United States, city administrations are moving to break up encampments of the Occupy protests, trampling underfoot the constitutionally protected right of assembly.
Police cleared out the Occupy camp in Oakland, California in a predawn raid on Monday, resulting in 32 arrests. This followed the shutting down of the Portland, Oregon encampment, in which 50 people were arrested. Last week, police used truncheons to hit unarmed students attempting to set up a camp at the University of California, Berkeley.
According to one tally, there have been over 3,600 arrests at Occupy protests, mostly in the United States, including 943 in New York City, 370 in Tucson, 352 in Chicago, 206 in Oakland and 153 in Boston.

Judge grants Occupy Toronto temporary reprieve

A lawyer for Occupy Toronto protesters has secured an injunction to stop the midnight eviction of those still camped out at the city's St. James Park.
Judge David Brown granted a temporary stay of the city's eviction notice, which would have allowed authorities to force occupiers out as of midnight Tuesday.
Brown will hear arguments for and against the city's plan on Friday, meaning protesters will not be forced out of the park in the meantime. The judge is expected to deliver a verdict by 6 p.m. ET Saturday.
Patrick Swayze's advice to Occupy Wall Street. Be nice. Until it's time not to be nice.

Defiant NYC Mayor Bloomberg To Occupy Protestors: "No Right Is Absolute"

A right is absolute. If it isn't absolute, it is not a right, but an indulgence granted by a master to a well-behaved slave.
Wall Street and the government are desperate to send a message to those other nations from whom they need to borrow more money that the American people have been driven back to their slave pens, and will obediently work themselves and their children and their children's children into early graves, accepting a life of poverty, in order to turn their work product over to those angry foreign investors who were cheated by the mortgage-backed securities fraud and demand that the bad paper be redeemed.
If you quietly accept Mayor Michael One-Percent Bloomberg's claim that the Bill of Rights is conditional on approval from the civil government, they will have won. The world's financiers will be convinced that you are indeed returned to a life of indentured servitude, with your lifetime of work the only thing of value behind the Federal Reserve Notes.
How you respond to Bloomberg's claim that civil government has an option on the Bill of Rights will determine the future course of this nation. Will you be free, or will you live the rest of your life as a debt-slave to the money-junkies whose crimes and corruptions have destroyed what was once the greatest nation on Earth?
Freedom or slavery. It is time to choose. There is no third course.

It's Official! Zio-Occupied White House + DHS Behind Nationwide #OWS Police Crackdowns

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan Admits 18 Cities Were Consulting on #Occupy Crackdowns

City Claims Occupy Wall Street Protesters Were Stockpiling Weapons, Fights Court Order To Reopen Park

Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway filed a motion on behalf of the city today opposing a court order requiring the NYPD to allow Occupy Wall Street demonstrators back into Zuccotti Park. In filing the motion, Holloway asserted that "people who have a known history of violent interaction with the police” have been gathering in the park, and “makeshift items” that he said could be used as weapons, "such as cardboard tubes with metal pipes inside, had been observed among the occupiers' possessions." He also noted that after the October 1st Brooklyn Bridge march, "knives, mace and hypodermic needles were observed discarded on the roadway."

LIVE STREAM FROM ZUCOTTI PARK - POLICE IGNORE COURT ORDER TO ALLOW PROTESTERS BACK IN.

UPDATE 2: #BLOOMBERG MAY BE TRYING TO PROVOKE A RIOT AT #OccupyWallStreet TO JUSTIFY MARTIAL LAW #OWS #OccupyAMERICA #revolution #OccupyEVERYWHERE
Online Trolls keep trying to claim the verdict is on favor of the protesters, so if the verdict goes against you, PLEASE DO NOT RIOT BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT BLOOMBERG AND OBAMA WANT!
UPDATE: JUSTICE LUCY BILLINGS has been "thrown off" the case as court administrators prepared to "randomly" choose a new judge.
Who is ordering the cops to refuse a court order? Three guesses.
Despite an iron-fisted shut down of overpasses to block protest signs here at APEC on Oahu, Asia has heard the people of the United States cry out that they will no longer pay for US Government mistakes or Wall Street's crimes.
As a result, Asia will buy no more US debt, and is openly worried about repayment of the debts they currently hold. Obama's insults to China show that he has thrown a tantrum, and desperate to borrow more money, he has to show the rest of the world that the people of the United States are chained down and unable to refuse to pay for the costs of Wall Street's Mortgage-backed Securities fraud, the biggest financial swindle in history, which is what has brought the global private banking network to the edge of collapse.
As this defiance of a court order demonstrates, the rule of law has ended in the USA. The police are being given orders to really start beating up the protesters before more of the world's financial centers realize that the US Government cannot make good on its promise, made and demonstrated during the S&L Bailout of the 1980s, to always have the taxpayers cover Wall Street's losses.
Sadly, we are entering a very bloody time in the nation's history, with the government willing to spill the people's blood to protect Wall Street's gold.

Live now NYC protest Video Stream + IRC Chat #occupywallst #ows

Apparently, from the live feed, the police are ignoring the TRO, which means the orders to shut down the protests probably came from DC. The police are spilling Americans' blood to protect Wall Street's gold.

 

WOO-HOO: Judge rules NYPD eviction of #OccupyWallSt ILLEGAL: the reoccupation begins!!

UPDATE: OWS obtains temporary restraining order against NYPD!!
heard on the OWS livestream (included) -- with source links

NYPD raze the #OWS library, throw out over 5,000 books

The Occupy Wall Street librarians tweeted the eviction all night: “NYPD destroying american cultural history, they’re destroying the documents, the books, the artwork of an event in our nation’s history … Right now, the NYPD are throwing over 5,000 books from our library into a dumpster. Will they burn them?

NEW CROWD CONVERGES ON ZUCOTTI PARK

live stream: A new crowd of about 500 people are marching to Zucotti Park to back up the OWS protesters as police continue to defy a court order allowing the protesters back in.
Police crackdowns are being reported in Toronto and Phoenix, so this is a nation-wide clamp-down by Obama to send a message to foreign creditors that the people of the United States are still happy little slaves who cannot refuse to continue to pay the losses from Wall Street's Mortgage-Backed Securities Fraud.

Occupy Wall Street Launching First Nationwide General Strike In America Since 1946

The strike will occur on November 2nd.
Occupy Wall Street in New York has also been considering a proposal for a general strike. And there are also rumors of a global general strike next year.

100,000+ Occupy Oakland, NOT 7,000 as Government Reports (Video Proof)

What was so amazing about the size of the crowd both inside the plaza and just outside of it, then marching to the Port of Oakland, was that it did not decrease in size; it increased. And that was with some people leaving it, and others coming in from BART and from around Oakland via foot or other parts of the Bay by car.
For that to happen all day long and considering the capacity of the plaza and the crowds outside of it points to 100,000 people. I’ve never seen anything like that in the entire history of this city.

BREAKING: Oakland General Strike Paralyzes City, Port

Huge crowds gathering and marching in solidarity with Occupy Oakland's branch of the Occupy Worldwide Movement have shut down the port of Oakland as of 5:30:pm:pdt. Crowds and marchers gathered as the day progressed and are mounting and surging at this hour.
Oakland city officials including Mayor Jean Quan and Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan are addressing the local television media, speaking in conciliatory terms and appealing for calm.
Chanting "Our streets! Our port! Power to the people!" crowds are swirling through the port area and are scattered through the streets of downtown Oakland all the way back to the city's civic center where the controversy began nearly a week ago with a police raid on the Occupy Oakland encampment at Frank Ogawa Plaza.

Photo: LARGE group of #OccupyOakland protesters still Heading towards the Port of Oakland.

RAW VIDEO: Chopper footage of 100,000+ Occupy Oakland Takes back Highway

The news media said there were only 3 thousand there , hahaha, FAIL!

Over 30,000 People Rally in New York City :November 17: Historic Day of Action for the 99%

Look familiar?

Bill would make wearing masks during riots a crime

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/11/17/pol-private-members-bill-masks.html

A private member's bill debated Thursday in Ottawa would make it a crime to cover your face with a mask or other means during a riot.
Which I presume includes those masks the cops wear as well! :)

DHS affiliated Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) has played a key role in crackdown of #OWS

PERF: Short for perfert.
PERF's executive director is Chuck Wexler, a former operations assistant to the Police Commissioner in the City of Boston. Mr. Wexler currently serves on DHS' Homeland Security Advisory Council alongside police officers, representatives from private corporations, university representatives, current and former governors and others, including Bonnie Michelman, a professor of criminal justice at Boston's Northeastern University, and Ray Kelly, police commissioner of the NYPD.

Occupy Maced: Police pepper spray unarmed youth, tear tents down

Police in the U.S. have used pepper spray against students taking part in an 'Occupy' campaign at the University of California. Demonstrators had been ordered to remove their camp, but after refusing, officers showed up and tore their tents down.

America’s Media War on OWS

Early reporting was scant, dismissive, and offensive. Much still belittles, denigrates and marginalizes a significant movement.
Fox News claims protesters don’t pay taxes or know what they want, are supported by Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei and Hugo Chavez, and represent the lunatic left wing.
Bill O’Reilly quipped, “Do we have all kinds of crackheads down there.” He added that Zuccotti Park is “dirty and filthy. There’s rats running all over. There’s dope all over the place. They’re having sex outside at night and all of this stuff.”
Fox News reporter Charles Gasparino accused protesters of embracing “communism and there is no doubt about it.”

Wall Street Lobbyist Target Occupy Movement.

MSBC Clip

Lobbying firm's memo spells out plan to undermine Occupy Wall Street

A well-known Washington lobbying firm with links to the financial industry has proposed an $850,000 plan to take on Occupy Wall Street and politicians who might express sympathy for the protests, according to a memo obtained by the MSNBC program “Up w/ Chris Hayes.”
The proposal was written on the letterhead of the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford and addressed to one of CLGC’s clients, the American Bankers Association.
CLGC’s memo proposes that the ABA pay CLGC $850,000 to conduct “opposition research” on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct “negative narratives” about the protests and allied politicians. The memo also asserts that Democratic victories in 2012 would be detrimental for Wall Street and targets specific races in which it says Wall Street would benefit by electing Republicans instead.
I warned you the money-junkies love to play dirty!

Rep. Joe Walsh: Veterans at ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protests are anti-American

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) on Saturday blasted the “Occupy Wall Street” movement and suggested it was a ploy to help re-elect Barack Obama in 2012.
“They don’t at all represent America and I think that the president and the White House and the Democrats kind of want to encourage it and now they’re scared because these folks are doing some pretty ugly things and now our Democratic politicians are conflicted,” he continued. “But its an anti-American, well funded left wing effort that may disrupt a lot of things next year, but they are clueless when it comes to what this country is all about and the rest of the country ought to educate them.”
Memo to Joe Walsh: sir, if it is anyone who is "clueless" about this movement, you are absolutely the poster child for this adverb by making these statements
And as an entrepreneur who has a very clear understanding of a 12 hour work day, I am certainly no "leftist"; I am a very hard-working, capitalistic individual who has never taken one unemployment check, or one welfare check in her entire life.
The Occupy Movement is sick and tired of jobs being outsourced; about the reality that Congress is primarily the acquisition of the large corporations. This is why when legislation is passed, it is generally great for the corporations, but generally lousy for we the people. So, most Americans are experiencing "deja vu all over again"; taxation without representation. You do remember where that little phrase came from, don't you?!?
And here are the largest contributors to YOUR campaign, Representative Walsh:
Representative Joe Walsh has reported a total of 351 contributions ($200 or more) totaling $465,869 in the current cycle. Search Don't even begin to tell me that these donations didn't sway the way you have voted on a number of issues.
the Occupy Movement is a leaderless, and generally peaceful resistance, who are angry that We the People wound up having to bail out the allegedly "too big to fail" financial institutions; they are angry about escalating wars overseas, which have bankrupted this country morally and fiscally; and they are angry at the way veterans are being treated after having laid their life on the line in defense of this country.
Apparently, you haven't quite gotten the memo that the old Left/Right paradigm no longer make any sense in this world.
Intelligent solutions o this country's problems don't make those solutions either Anti-American or Socialist.
And in case you don't understand how terrified the Obama Administration is about the Occupy Movement, and the message it sends, you really don't get it.
The message these demonstrations are sending, particularly to potential loan resources for the US government is, We the People will not pay off the odious debt with which the US Federal government stuck us, without our consent.

FBI hires spies to fake terror plots

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is reportedly giving money and weapons to poor criminals to carry out terrorist attacks on US soil on behalf of Muslim groups.
The Guardian reported that the terrorist plots "came from the FBI, and an informant paid to pose as a terrorist mastermind paying big bucks for help in carrying out an attack."
Drug dealer David Williams was one of the victims of the FBI plot. In May 2009, he was rearrested and handed a 25-year jail sentence.
Williams and three others were convicted of an Islamic terrorist plot to blow up Jewish synagogues and shoot down military jets with missiles.

OWS: Too Big to Fail

An idea whose time has come resonates globally. November 17 marked two months since beginning in New York. Earlier Middle East and European protests inspired it. Now it’s spreading everywhere across North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Oceania.
In America within weeks, hundreds of large and small cities in all 50 states got involved. Protesters weathered snow, rain, cold, pepper spray, tear gas, beatings, arrests, and evictions. Police confrontations, in fact, inspired larger turnouts.
Mother Jones magazine said participants represent “a horizontal, autonomous, leaderless, modified-consensus-based system with roots in anarchist thought.” In fact, they’re revolutionaries in the best sense of the term

#OccupyAirSpace: - Protesters Launch 'Robokopter' Drone

"Corporate America Is Using Our Police Departments As Hired Thugs" Ret Police Captain Ray Lewis

Occupy Wallstreet - Ray Lewis, Ret. Police Chief, arrested

Retired Philadelphia police Captain Ray Lewis, arrested yesterday after joining up with the Occupy Wall Street process, has quickly become one of the more iconic figures from the movement’s two month’s anniversary.

Arizona Police Officer Execute Man For Telling Them They Needed A Warrant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_rq1L48c3oM

Warrants? We don't need no stinking warrants.
OK, now admittedly, the mother invited the police officers into the home, but what happened next is simply unjustifiable.

According to his own partner, the police officer held a gun to the head of an unarmed man, quite literally saying "I don't need no warrant, mother******." After that the family dog was shot and killed as was the unarmed man.

G20 powers secure Italy deal but fears remain

CANNES, France (AFP) - The leaders of the world's economic powers forced Europe on Friday to take measures to stop Italy following Greece into the abyss of debt and agreed to boost the IMF's war chest...

NY Post Turns Up Smear Machine - Running Scared of #Occupywallstreet

 

Plutocrats Working to Undermine Growing Populist ‘OWS’ Uprising

In their latest attempt to smear the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post and other pseudo-conservative news outlets have exploited a minor dispute between the group’s finance committee and a few disgruntled protesters. AFP recently discussed the matter with one of the key spokesmen for OWS, who said Wall Street and Big Business are trying to undermine them by exaggerating what most activists consider to be a minor issue.

Greenspan: European Union Is Doomed To Fail

Alan Greenspan said in a CNBC interview that the European Union will break apart because of the great divide between northern and southern countries.

Bank Of America Derivatives Timebomb Shows System Is Corrupt To The Core

The Federal Reserve recently allowed Bank of America to move its massive derivative positions from the bank holding company to its banking subsidiary which is an FDIC insured depository institution. By allowing this transfer, the Federal Reserve has allowed Bank of America to shift the risk of loss on speculative derivative contracts from the non-bank affiliate. A failure of Bank of America could result in huge losses for the FDIC which would ultimately be passed on to the taxpayers.

Webmaster's Commentary: 

"But that is what the taxpayers are for! We're doing God's work here, buddy!" -- Money-junkies

US food prices are projected to increase

The U.S. government said food prices are expected to climb 3.5%-4.5% in 2011, an increase of one-half of a percentage point from its prior forecast, as higher commodity costs continue to filter down to consumers.
Food commodity and energy price increases over the past year, combined with a weak U.S. dollar, have caused most of the grocery store price increases observed in 2011.

Some 15% of U.S. Uses Food Stamps

Nearly 15% of the U.S. population relied on food stamps in August, as the number of recipients hit 45.8 million.
Food stamp rolls have risen 8.1% in the past year, the Department of Agriculture reported, though the pace of growth has slowed from the depths of the recession.

Wall Street Isn't Winning – It's Cheating

These nutty criticisms of the protests are spreading like cancer. Earlier that same day, I'd taped a TV segment on CNN with Will Cain from the National Review, and we got into an argument on the air. Cain and I agreed about a lot of the problems on Wall Street, but when it came to the protesters, we disagreed on one big thing.
Cain said he believed that the protesters are driven by envy of the rich.

Webmaster's Commentary: 

It isn't that they are rich, it is HOW some of them got rich that We The People object to.
Nobody objects to someone like Steve Jobs who gets rich by inventing a new product we all freely choose to purchase. Nobody objects to rich movie stars because after all, we had the choice whether or not to purchase tickets and DVDs.
What we do object to are people who turned Wall Street into a giant casino, got rich pulling the biggest financial swindle in history, then bribed the US Government to transfer the losses to the American people. That we do have a problem with, mostly because it was done without our free choice, indeed was done to us over our most strenuous objections!
The problem here is that Wall Street swindlers don't like to see themselves as acting in a criminal fashion. Long ago they have deluded themselves into thinking that their corrupted predatory behavior is the "Natural order", i.e. the way things are supposed to be. From this you get Lloyd Blankfein's comment that he is doing "God's Work" when he gets paid to sell California Bonds, then advises his clients to bet against them, wrecking California's economy.
So of course the Money-junkies cannot see where the Occupy Wall Street people have anything other that envy as a motive.

More Small Businesses Are Pulling Their Accounts Out Of Big Banks

Even in a tight credit market, David Meinert didn't think he'd have a problem getting funding from his bank. He was a model entrepreneur, with good credit and a profitable business earning $2 million in revenue. But when he applied for a relatively small $50,000 line of credit from Chase in late 2010, he got denied in 12 hours, with no explanation. "It was insulting and made no sense, even to the banker. And there was no one to even talk to about it," Meinert says. "It's frustrating that banks are getting billions of dollars in taxpayers' money and they're sitting on that money and not lending it to small businesses. If you're making less than $10 million, they don't care about you."

Webmaster's Commentary: 

Good for this guy, and for the thousands like him who are establishing their accounts other than with the behemoth banks.

Massachusetts Supreme Court rules that thousands of home foreclosures are invalid because banks do not have promissory notes

More than five million US homeowners and counting have had their homes foreclosed upon by banks since the "economic crisis" first began several years ago. But the Massachusetts Supreme Court recently ruled that the vast majority of the foreclosures that took place in the Commonwealth (and likely in most other states) within the past five years are illegitimate because the banks did not, and do not, actually hold the promissory notes for the properties.

Extreme Poverty Is Now At Record Levels – 19 Statistics About The Poor That Will Absolutely Astound You

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a higher percentage of Americans is living in extreme poverty than they have ever measured before.
In 2010, we were told that the economy was recovering, but the truth is that the number of the “very poor” soared to heights never seen previously. Back in 1993 and back in 2009, the rate of extreme poverty was just over 6 percent, and that represented the worst numbers on record. But in 2010, the rate of extreme poverty hit a whopping 6.7 percent.
That means that one out of every 15 Americans is now considered to be “very poor”. For many people, this is all very confusing because their guts are telling them that things are getting worse and yet the mainstream media keeps telling them that everything is just fine.

The number of children in the United States considered poor rose by 1 million in 2010

Introducing the 'Near Poor' - which now includes 51 million Americans

The net worth of all members of congress rose 25% over the last few years

Billions Lost in Secret Federal Reserve Funding of Iraq War

Webmaster's Commentary: 

But if you steal a six-pack from the 7-11, you will go to jail!

Wall Street banks getting NSA intel on foreign hackers

Amid fears of financial sabotage, one of the nation's top spy agencies is sharing intelligence on foreign computer hackers with Wall Street investment banks, Reuters is reporting.
The National Security Agency, a branch of the Defense Department, "is currently talking to financial firms about sharing electronic information on malicious software, possibly by expanding a pilot program through which it offers similar data to the defense industry," Reuters writes, citing the agency's director, Gen. Keith Alexander, who also heads the U.S. Cyber Command. He offered no details about the information sharing.

Webmaster's Commentary: 

I don't think there are any foreign hackers that are a greater threat to Wall Street than the current crop of domestic (and Israeli) hackers. Like most of the "Al Qaeda" we see in the media, they are propaganda fakes.
We all know a major economic crash is coming, because the deal to save the Eurozone has collapsed. But Wall Street and the US Government are traditionally loath to accept responsibility for their own failures, and even now search for a scapegoat to blame it all on.
And what better scapegoat than Occupy Wall Street, already linked in the public mind with those mean ol' hackers Anonymous!
So, what I think this story is really about is setting the stage for portraying the coming economic crash as a computer crash and blaming the protesters for it.

Feds Order You Tube To Remove Video For Containing “Government Criticism”

The number of takedown orders received by Google from authorities based in the United States rose dramatically over the past year, with demands to remove information, including videos containing “government criticism,” increasing by 70 per cent.
You Tube“In the US, Google received 757 takedown requests across its sites and services, up 70 per cent from the second half of last year,” reports technology website V3.co.uk.
“US authorities also called for the removal of 113 videos from YouTube, including several documenting alleged police brutality which Google refused to take down.”

“In the US, Google received 757 takedown requests across its sites and services, up 70 per cent from the second half of last year,” reports technology website V3.co.uk.

“US authorities also called for the removal of 113 videos from YouTube, including several documenting alleged police brutality which Google refused to take down.”
The figures are revealed in Google’s newly released transparency report, which also details how the number of “user data requests” by US authorities increased by 29 per cent compared to the last reporting period.

US cops tried to erase online evidence of brutality

EU official: banks agree 50 pct cut on Greek debt

Webmaster's Commentary: 

Proclamations of a Eurozone "solution" are total bovine excrement. Greece's debt could not be paid. All the "deal" amounts to is that the bondholders wrote off half the Greek bonds, but agreed not to call it a default! The Credit Default Swaps on those Greek bonds are now due and payable and guess who is on the hook for those!
The underlying problem of living under an economic system which by design produces more debt than money to pay the debt is still there, as is the policy of looting the people to enrich the bankers who created that system. All the European "deal" has done is push the next crash off (they hope) until after next year's election, while plunging the people of Europe (and possibly the United States) further into debt to the central bankers against their will! .
There is one bright spot.
The Greek rioters sent the message they would not pay a debt not of their own making, and the bankers backed down!
Americans need to do the same.

The New Reality For U.S. Cities: No Money For Street Lights, Roving Packs Of Wild Dogs And Open-Air Drug Markets

Right now, there are a number of major cities that are so broke that they cannot keep the street lights operating. Down in St. Louis, parents in some areas are carrying golf clubs with them as they walk their kids to school in order to fend off roving packs of wild dogs. In other major U.S. cities, open-air drug markets conduct business without fear.