From Daily Tech
''Raytheon Comp. (RTN)
has created a social networking tracking program called Rapid
Information Overlay Technology -- or "RIOT", for short -- which is
building a database of trillions of pieces of data on millions of users' social networking profiles. The software digs into the usual suspects -- Facebook, Inc.'s (FB)
ubiquitous social network, popular microblogging site Twitter, and
FourSquare, whose location-aware apps boast 25 million users.''
read more
Monday, February 11, 2013
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Jim Willie: ''Fever Pitched Currency War & USDollar Rejection in 2013''
The Latest from Jim Willie from Silver Doctors
''With Russia, South Korea, Japan, Iran, India, and Australia onboard with Chinese Yuan swap deals, one must suspect that a critical mass of perhaps half of global trade is conducted outside the USDollar shadow. This is a growing critical mass that acts much like scattered pylons on which to place a new trading platform. The key is that the collection of bilateral trade conducted by China is no longer done in USDollars. The objections are openly stated, that nations do not find it obligatory to settle trade in a third-party currency like the USDollar, especially when the US central bank is flooding the system with USDollars of highly suspicious origin but with very certain negative ramifications on the value of nationally managed reserve systems. The other big more recent hint is that Turkey is serving as a test site for trade settlement in Gold. Ankara bazaars are providing Gold in giant quantities, used in satisfying trade payments. So far the sleep Anglo bankers consider it minor, and operating in the Iranian shadows. They are wrong.''
read more
''With Russia, South Korea, Japan, Iran, India, and Australia onboard with Chinese Yuan swap deals, one must suspect that a critical mass of perhaps half of global trade is conducted outside the USDollar shadow. This is a growing critical mass that acts much like scattered pylons on which to place a new trading platform. The key is that the collection of bilateral trade conducted by China is no longer done in USDollars. The objections are openly stated, that nations do not find it obligatory to settle trade in a third-party currency like the USDollar, especially when the US central bank is flooding the system with USDollars of highly suspicious origin but with very certain negative ramifications on the value of nationally managed reserve systems. The other big more recent hint is that Turkey is serving as a test site for trade settlement in Gold. Ankara bazaars are providing Gold in giant quantities, used in satisfying trade payments. So far the sleep Anglo bankers consider it minor, and operating in the Iranian shadows. They are wrong.''
read more
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
''US media kept Saudi drone base secret for two years''
From The Telegraph
The revelation that the US has been operating a secret drone base in Saudi Arabia for the past two years came after a blackout on reporting agreed by American media and the Obama administration was broken by two US newspapers.''
read more
''It only came to light after a blackout on reporting agreed by the media and
the Obama administration was broken by two US newspapers.
The revelation that the US has been operating a secret drone base in Saudi Arabia for the past two years came after a blackout on reporting agreed by American media and the Obama administration was broken by two US newspapers.''
read more
Monday, February 4, 2013
''Iran’s Pars gas field pipeline''
From onlineopinion.au
''The U.S, U.K, Turkey, and the European Union are determined to save the ailing Petro-dollar by preventing the completion of Iran’s Pars gas field pipeline, through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean. Should the Pars pipeline go online and remain under Russian, Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian control, then Russia would control approximately 40 per cent of Europe’s gas consumption, and with a Russian allied Syria, Russia would also be able to take part in the development of major gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean Levantine Basin.
Neither Russia nor China will accept a repetition of NATO’s abuse of UNSC Resolution 1973 – 2011 on Libya, but neither will NATO compromise with Russia on Syria. NATO and the GCC are determined to install an anti-Iran/Russia government in Syria that will only provide gas from the GCC to Europe instead of Iranian gas. While the likelihood of the present conflict in Syria ending with a pro-GCC/NATO government ruling a docile Syrian population is negligible, there is a chance that if the Muslim Brotherhood gained control of a significant part of Syria then Western aims could be achieved. Even a chaotic Syria prevents Russian, Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian control of the gas lines to Europe and increases feasibility for the proposed U.S. backed Turkey–Austria Nabucco pipeline projectfor natural gas from Iraq, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.''
read more
''The U.S, U.K, Turkey, and the European Union are determined to save the ailing Petro-dollar by preventing the completion of Iran’s Pars gas field pipeline, through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean. Should the Pars pipeline go online and remain under Russian, Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian control, then Russia would control approximately 40 per cent of Europe’s gas consumption, and with a Russian allied Syria, Russia would also be able to take part in the development of major gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean Levantine Basin.
Neither Russia nor China will accept a repetition of NATO’s abuse of UNSC Resolution 1973 – 2011 on Libya, but neither will NATO compromise with Russia on Syria. NATO and the GCC are determined to install an anti-Iran/Russia government in Syria that will only provide gas from the GCC to Europe instead of Iranian gas. While the likelihood of the present conflict in Syria ending with a pro-GCC/NATO government ruling a docile Syrian population is negligible, there is a chance that if the Muslim Brotherhood gained control of a significant part of Syria then Western aims could be achieved. Even a chaotic Syria prevents Russian, Iranian, Iraqi and Syrian control of the gas lines to Europe and increases feasibility for the proposed U.S. backed Turkey–Austria Nabucco pipeline projectfor natural gas from Iraq, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.''
read more
''Pernicious influence: The world reserve currency – root of all evil?''
From Pakistan Tribune
''Dollar was as good as gold, just more liquid. Every country chose dollar treasury bills over holding gold, as holding T-bills paid interest. Gold didn’t.
The US started building its Military Industrial Complex and took on adventures like the Korean and Vietnam War, running huge fiscal and trade deficits, putting pressure on dollar’s fixed peg to gold. In 1971, Nixon was forced to close the gold window.
Dollar was no longer as good as gold, but it had already become a widely used reserve currency and the most liquid trading asset.''
read more
''Dollar was as good as gold, just more liquid. Every country chose dollar treasury bills over holding gold, as holding T-bills paid interest. Gold didn’t.
The US started building its Military Industrial Complex and took on adventures like the Korean and Vietnam War, running huge fiscal and trade deficits, putting pressure on dollar’s fixed peg to gold. In 1971, Nixon was forced to close the gold window.
Dollar was no longer as good as gold, but it had already become a widely used reserve currency and the most liquid trading asset.''
read more
Friday, February 1, 2013
F William Engdahl: ''Mali and AFRICOM’s Africa Agenda: Target China
From Phantom Report
By F William Engdahl
''On January 20 Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron announced his country’s curious resolve to dedicate itself to deal with “the terrorism threat” in Mali and north Africa. Cameron declared, “It will require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months, and it requires a response that…has an absolutely iron resolve…” [1] Britain in its colonial heyday never had a stake in Mali. Until it won independence in 1960, Mali was a French colony.''
''Mali itself, like much of Africa is rich in raw materials. It has large reserves of gold, uranium and most recently, though western oil companies try to hide it, oil, lots of oil. The French preferred to ignore Mali’s vast resources, keeping it a poor subsistence agriculture country. Under the deposed democratically-elected President Amadou Toumani Toure, for the first time the government initiated a systematic mapping of the vast wealth under its soil. According to Mamadou Igor Diarra, previous mining minister, Malian soil contains copper, uranium, phosphate, bauxite, gems and in particular, a large percentage of gold in addition to oil and gas. Thus, Mali is one of the countries in the world with the most raw materials. With its gold mining, the country is already one of the leading exploiters directly behind South Africa and Ghana. [6] Two thirds of France’s electricity is from nuclear power and sources of new uranium are essential. Presently, France draws significant uranium imports from neighboring Niger.''
read more
By F William Engdahl
''On January 20 Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron announced his country’s curious resolve to dedicate itself to deal with “the terrorism threat” in Mali and north Africa. Cameron declared, “It will require a response that is about years, even decades, rather than months, and it requires a response that…has an absolutely iron resolve…” [1] Britain in its colonial heyday never had a stake in Mali. Until it won independence in 1960, Mali was a French colony.''
''Mali itself, like much of Africa is rich in raw materials. It has large reserves of gold, uranium and most recently, though western oil companies try to hide it, oil, lots of oil. The French preferred to ignore Mali’s vast resources, keeping it a poor subsistence agriculture country. Under the deposed democratically-elected President Amadou Toumani Toure, for the first time the government initiated a systematic mapping of the vast wealth under its soil. According to Mamadou Igor Diarra, previous mining minister, Malian soil contains copper, uranium, phosphate, bauxite, gems and in particular, a large percentage of gold in addition to oil and gas. Thus, Mali is one of the countries in the world with the most raw materials. With its gold mining, the country is already one of the leading exploiters directly behind South Africa and Ghana. [6] Two thirds of France’s electricity is from nuclear power and sources of new uranium are essential. Presently, France draws significant uranium imports from neighboring Niger.''
read more
Thursday, January 31, 2013
''Meet the Global Corporate “Supra-Government”
From Market Oracle
By Andrew Gavin Marshall
''In the year 2000, of the world’s 100 largest economies, 51 were corporations, while only 49 were countries, based upon national GDP (gross domestic product) and corporate sales. Of the top 200 corporations in 2000, the United States had the largest share with 82, followed by Japan at 41, Germany at 20, and France at 17.
Of the world’s 100 largest economic entities in 2010, 42% were corporations; when looking at the top 150 economic entities, 58% were corporations. The largest corporation in 2010 was Wal-Mart, the 25th largest economic entity on earth, surpassed only by the 24 largest countries in the world, but with greater revenues than the GDP of 171 countries, placing it higher on the list than Norway and Iran.''
read more
By Andrew Gavin Marshall
''In the year 2000, of the world’s 100 largest economies, 51 were corporations, while only 49 were countries, based upon national GDP (gross domestic product) and corporate sales. Of the top 200 corporations in 2000, the United States had the largest share with 82, followed by Japan at 41, Germany at 20, and France at 17.
Of the world’s 100 largest economic entities in 2010, 42% were corporations; when looking at the top 150 economic entities, 58% were corporations. The largest corporation in 2010 was Wal-Mart, the 25th largest economic entity on earth, surpassed only by the 24 largest countries in the world, but with greater revenues than the GDP of 171 countries, placing it higher on the list than Norway and Iran.''
read more
''A Single Intelligence Network for a New World Order''
From Strategic Culture
By Wayne Madsen
''Just as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is becoming a global military past without a distinct enemy, the Central Intelligence Agency, Britain’s MI-6, and other intelligence agencies are increasingly pooling their intelligence and networking their information-sharing networks. To what purpose would such citadels of secrecy wish to cooperate? The answer is simple. In a world of the tiny minority «haves» and the super-majority «have nots», the intelligence agencies, like national armed forces, believe there is safety in numbers. In a conflict between the minority super-wealthy and the rest of society, intelligence agencies are increasingly protecting the interests of corporations and not countries. Intelligence agencies, therefore, have decided to become a global «Panopticon» where no one can hide and no secrets are held.''
read more
By Wayne Madsen
''Just as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is becoming a global military past without a distinct enemy, the Central Intelligence Agency, Britain’s MI-6, and other intelligence agencies are increasingly pooling their intelligence and networking their information-sharing networks. To what purpose would such citadels of secrecy wish to cooperate? The answer is simple. In a world of the tiny minority «haves» and the super-majority «have nots», the intelligence agencies, like national armed forces, believe there is safety in numbers. In a conflict between the minority super-wealthy and the rest of society, intelligence agencies are increasingly protecting the interests of corporations and not countries. Intelligence agencies, therefore, have decided to become a global «Panopticon» where no one can hide and no secrets are held.''
read more
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
''When Will the Lying Western Press Stop Using the Term “Al-Qaeda,” When Referring To Saudi Terrorism?''
From 'There are no Sunglasses'
Intro by Peter
''The all-encompassing term "al-Qaeda," is a descriptive term, used when referring to the principle of Saudi/Wahhabi oversight. There is no such animal as "al-Qaeda," the alleged international terrorist organization, but there IS a Saudi terrorist organization of global reach. The supposedly super-scary Algerian incident was NOT the work of an International Islamist, but simply the work of Algerian militant Muslims. The alleged "all-Qaeda" link is the Saudi/Wahhabi influence that makes news-bites from all such groups sound the same. That is all the Western press needs to create the myth of AL-Q. Every step taken over the years by the group of terrorists known as Al-Q is a step taken by the Saudi royals, to implement their own agenda (which is shared with the CIA), moving in an ocean of petrodollars, hoping to secure their own global empire. CIA patronage of this Saudi "Islamist" force for many decades, is the controlling power which allows the Saudis to keep expanding their subversive reach, while enabling them to direct where the Islamists are allowed to blow-off jihadi steam, without damaging Saudi/US interests.''
read more
Intro by Peter
''The all-encompassing term "al-Qaeda," is a descriptive term, used when referring to the principle of Saudi/Wahhabi oversight. There is no such animal as "al-Qaeda," the alleged international terrorist organization, but there IS a Saudi terrorist organization of global reach. The supposedly super-scary Algerian incident was NOT the work of an International Islamist, but simply the work of Algerian militant Muslims. The alleged "all-Qaeda" link is the Saudi/Wahhabi influence that makes news-bites from all such groups sound the same. That is all the Western press needs to create the myth of AL-Q. Every step taken over the years by the group of terrorists known as Al-Q is a step taken by the Saudi royals, to implement their own agenda (which is shared with the CIA), moving in an ocean of petrodollars, hoping to secure their own global empire. CIA patronage of this Saudi "Islamist" force for many decades, is the controlling power which allows the Saudis to keep expanding their subversive reach, while enabling them to direct where the Islamists are allowed to blow-off jihadi steam, without damaging Saudi/US interests.''
read more
''More than 300 UK troops set for Mali mission''
From The Telegraph
"We have an absolute duty to intervene wherever there is a threat to Britain's national security and the security of Britain's interests around the world and this is exactly such a case. This is a well-judged, well-leveraged intervention that will deliver efficiently a result that is in Britain's national interest."
British troops will be able to fire in "self defence" only during their deployment in Bamako, the Malian capital, where they are being protected by the French, Mr Hammond said.''
read more
"We have an absolute duty to intervene wherever there is a threat to Britain's national security and the security of Britain's interests around the world and this is exactly such a case. This is a well-judged, well-leveraged intervention that will deliver efficiently a result that is in Britain's national interest."
British troops will be able to fire in "self defence" only during their deployment in Bamako, the Malian capital, where they are being protected by the French, Mr Hammond said.''
read more
Sunday, January 27, 2013
''Apple shelters almost $1bn a week from US tax man''
From The Telegraph
''Technology giant Apple shuttled $11bn (£7bn) into offshore tax havens in the fourth quarter of 2012, an analysis of its corporate filings has revealed.''
read more
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
''The U.S. prepares for military action in Bolivia''
From Strategic Culture
''Along the borders with Bolivia, The U.S. Southern Command has established military bases in Iquitos (Peru), Concon (Chile), and Mariscal Estigarribia (Paraguay). The current Paraguayan President Federico Franco, who came to power in a US-backed plot, is working with the Pentagon and acts as a consistent enemy of the integration process on the continent, which is carried out by the countries of ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Latin America. Paraguay is considered by the Pentagon an important base from which to destabilize Bolivia.''
read more
''Along the borders with Bolivia, The U.S. Southern Command has established military bases in Iquitos (Peru), Concon (Chile), and Mariscal Estigarribia (Paraguay). The current Paraguayan President Federico Franco, who came to power in a US-backed plot, is working with the Pentagon and acts as a consistent enemy of the integration process on the continent, which is carried out by the countries of ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Latin America. Paraguay is considered by the Pentagon an important base from which to destabilize Bolivia.''
read more
Pepe Escobar: ''War on terror forever''
From Asia Times
...........''Thus, the first 100 US military "advisers" are being sent to Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Togo and Ghana - the six member-nations of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) that will compose an African army tasked (by the United Nations) to reconquer (invade?) the parts of Mali under the Islamist sway of AQIM, its splinter group MUJAO and the Ansar ed-Dine militia. This African mini-army, of course, is paid for by the West.
Students of the Vietnam War will be the first to note that sending "advisers" was the first step of the subsequent quagmire. And on a definitely un-Pentagonese ironic aside, the US over these past few years did train Malian troops. A lot of them duly deserted. As for the lavishly, Fort Benning-trained Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo, not only did he lead a military coup against an elected Mali government but also created the conditions for the rise of the Islamists.''
read more
...........''Thus, the first 100 US military "advisers" are being sent to Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Togo and Ghana - the six member-nations of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) that will compose an African army tasked (by the United Nations) to reconquer (invade?) the parts of Mali under the Islamist sway of AQIM, its splinter group MUJAO and the Ansar ed-Dine militia. This African mini-army, of course, is paid for by the West.
Students of the Vietnam War will be the first to note that sending "advisers" was the first step of the subsequent quagmire. And on a definitely un-Pentagonese ironic aside, the US over these past few years did train Malian troops. A lot of them duly deserted. As for the lavishly, Fort Benning-trained Captain Amadou Haya Sanogo, not only did he lead a military coup against an elected Mali government but also created the conditions for the rise of the Islamists.''
read more
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
''The One Chart That Explains the Massive Risk of Investing in Gold & Gold Stocks''
From smartknowledgeU via Zerohedge
''One of the main reasons why it is still likely that only 1% of all global invested assets are invested in gold is the psychological hatchet job that Wall Street and the global banking industry has performed on gold and gold stocks. For decades, bankers have repeated their false mantra that “gold and silver are incredibly risky”, using the strategy that if you tell a lie often enough, it may just be accepted as truth by the masses. The fact that millions of investors today still won’t even consider buying the top performing asset classes for more than the past decade (physical gold and physical silver, NOT the GLD and SLV), serves as testimony to the success of the bankers’ anti-gold, anti-silver propaganda campaign.''
read more
''One of the main reasons why it is still likely that only 1% of all global invested assets are invested in gold is the psychological hatchet job that Wall Street and the global banking industry has performed on gold and gold stocks. For decades, bankers have repeated their false mantra that “gold and silver are incredibly risky”, using the strategy that if you tell a lie often enough, it may just be accepted as truth by the masses. The fact that millions of investors today still won’t even consider buying the top performing asset classes for more than the past decade (physical gold and physical silver, NOT the GLD and SLV), serves as testimony to the success of the bankers’ anti-gold, anti-silver propaganda campaign.''
read more
William Engdahl: ''Mali a US operation with France as a junior partner''
From VoltaireNet.org
Author William Engdahl told RT the US was using France as a scapegoat to save face.
RT: At a time when France and the rest of the Eurozone are trying to weather the economic crisis, what’s Paris seeking to gain by getting involved in another conflict overseas?
William Engdahl: Well, I think the intervention in Mali is another follow-up to the French role in other destabilizations that we’ve seen, especially in Libya last year with the toppling of the Gadhafi regime. In a sense this is French neocolonialism in action.''
read more
''As French soldiers pour into Mali in the fight to
push back the advancing Islamist militants, questions have been raised
as to the motives behind the intervention.
Author William Engdahl told RT the US was using France as a scapegoat to save face.
RT: At a time when France and the rest of the Eurozone are trying to weather the economic crisis, what’s Paris seeking to gain by getting involved in another conflict overseas?
William Engdahl: Well, I think the intervention in Mali is another follow-up to the French role in other destabilizations that we’ve seen, especially in Libya last year with the toppling of the Gadhafi regime. In a sense this is French neocolonialism in action.''
read more
Friday, January 18, 2013
Pepe Escobar: ''Burn, burn - Africa's Afghanistan''
From Asia Times Online
...........''Mali is crucial to AFRICOM and to the Pentagon's overall MENA (Middle East-Northern Africa) outlook. Months before 9/11 I had the privilege to crisscross Mali on the road - and by the (Niger) river - and hang out, especially in Mopti and Timbuktu, with the awesome Tuaregs, who gave me a crash course in Northwest Africa. I saw Wahhabi and Pakistani preachers all over the place. I saw the Tuaregs progressively squeezed out. I saw an Afghanistan in the making. And it was not very hard to follow the money sipping tea in the Sahara. Mali borders Algeria, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Senegal, the Ivory Coast and Guinea. The spectacular Inner Niger delta is in central Mali - just south of the Sahara. Mali overflows with gold, uranium, bauxite, iron, manganese, tin and copper. And - Pipelineistan beckons! - there's plenty of unexplored oil in northern Mali.''
read more
...........''Mali is crucial to AFRICOM and to the Pentagon's overall MENA (Middle East-Northern Africa) outlook. Months before 9/11 I had the privilege to crisscross Mali on the road - and by the (Niger) river - and hang out, especially in Mopti and Timbuktu, with the awesome Tuaregs, who gave me a crash course in Northwest Africa. I saw Wahhabi and Pakistani preachers all over the place. I saw the Tuaregs progressively squeezed out. I saw an Afghanistan in the making. And it was not very hard to follow the money sipping tea in the Sahara. Mali borders Algeria, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Senegal, the Ivory Coast and Guinea. The spectacular Inner Niger delta is in central Mali - just south of the Sahara. Mali overflows with gold, uranium, bauxite, iron, manganese, tin and copper. And - Pipelineistan beckons! - there's plenty of unexplored oil in northern Mali.''
read more
Thursday, January 17, 2013
''A new Gold Standard is being born''
From The Telegraph
''Neither the euro nor the dollar can inspire full confidence, although for different reasons. EMU is a dysfunctional construct, covering two incompatible economies, prone to lurching from crisis to crisis, without a unified treasury to back it up. The dollar stands on a pyramid of debt. We all know that this debt will be inflated away over time – for better or worse. The only real disagreement is over the speed.
The central bank buyers are of course the rising powers of Asia and the commodity bloc, now holders of two thirds of the world’s $11 trillion foreign reserves, and all its incremental reserves.''
read more
''Neither the euro nor the dollar can inspire full confidence, although for different reasons. EMU is a dysfunctional construct, covering two incompatible economies, prone to lurching from crisis to crisis, without a unified treasury to back it up. The dollar stands on a pyramid of debt. We all know that this debt will be inflated away over time – for better or worse. The only real disagreement is over the speed.
The central bank buyers are of course the rising powers of Asia and the commodity bloc, now holders of two thirds of the world’s $11 trillion foreign reserves, and all its incremental reserves.''
read more
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
''Economics Professor Laurence Kotlikoff - Bernanke Playing With Fire''
$222 Trillion in debt
From USA Watchdog..
Published on Jan 15, 2013
http://usawatchdog.com/bernanke-playing-with-fire-laurence-kotlikoff/
- ''Economist Laurence Kotlikoff says, "We are actually in worse shape
than any developed country. . . We are using accounting that would make
Bernie Madoff blush." Kotlikoff thinks the Federal Reserve could easily
lose complete control of inflation and warns, "Ben Bernanke is playing
with fire here because we could have a tripling of the price level."
Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Boston University Economics
Professor Laurence Kotlikoff.''
Monday, January 14, 2013
Thursday, January 10, 2013
''The 9 Step Process Bankers Use to Force Global Slavery Upon Humanity''
From smartknowledgeU via ZeroHedge
''Simon Johnson wrote about how bankers have taken over governments in his excellent article "The Quiet Coup". These two excellent articles, here and here, explain how banks directed state police and government surveillance agencies to crush all dissent and opposition to their criminal activities. The fact that state police and government agencies bowed down to the bankers like subservient servants proves that these countries in which such incidences are taking place have long been far more fascist than democratic. Mussolini or Pinochet could not have asked for better cooperation and greater obedience from state police and government surveillance agencies than the bankers received.''
read more
''Simon Johnson wrote about how bankers have taken over governments in his excellent article "The Quiet Coup". These two excellent articles, here and here, explain how banks directed state police and government surveillance agencies to crush all dissent and opposition to their criminal activities. The fact that state police and government agencies bowed down to the bankers like subservient servants proves that these countries in which such incidences are taking place have long been far more fascist than democratic. Mussolini or Pinochet could not have asked for better cooperation and greater obedience from state police and government surveillance agencies than the bankers received.''
read more
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Friday, December 28, 2012
Quotes and Comments
Some of our favorite quotes and comments from around the web.......all relating to the dollar and the banking system............ENJOY
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From JR, and the ZeroHedge comments section...........read more
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From JR, and the ZeroHedge comments section...........read more
''The bankers own the currency, make as much as they
want, give it to whomever they want, start industries that they and
their friends want, and swoop down and stop any business they want…
By using a debt-based monetary system, the bankers
have dictated that all functions of the society are related to the use
of their currency – your job, your education, your family’s future, your
provisions for old age ---all depend on their currency. In the old
days, it depended primarily on your labor and the decisions you made
regarding your life.
The bankers use control of America’s money for
their own personal power. It’s so primitive: everything we the people
do, we must use their paper to do it.
It’s not banking, per se, it’s the criminal
families who control the money and decide who gets it. They are not
bankers; they are crass criminals who have designed this system to
produce for themselves wealth and power. They are only pretending to be
civil custodians of the currency.
What more evidence do we need? As Tyler puts it, ”Nuf said.”
Unfortunately for the banking elite, they are
destroying their own future by co-opting too many second stage criminals
taking advantage of the system – and a major group of those criminals
are the politicians.''
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a comment from Timothy from a (Gary North Article) mises.org................read more
''Fractional reserve banking is a dishonest system. It is responsible for (the cause of) almost every banking panic ever. It is dishonest, and it also causes rampant overspeculation and malinvestment. Why is that you ask? Because no one spends other people's money as carefully as they spend their own. How can you possibly, loan out money to one person and leave that same money in another persons account? According to everything I have ever known about the physical universe, there is no magic. When you loan out money from an account, it is gone until it is payed back. To pretend it is still in an account after it has been loaned to someone else is fraud and should not be allowed. In an honest system you would have to agree to allow the use of the money deposited for a certain amount of time in order for the bank to loan it out. Then they would have to split the profits with you for the permission of using the money for that time.''
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FOA....................... "My friend, debt is the very essence of fiat. As debt defaults, fiat is destroyed. This is where all these deflationists get their direction. Not seeing that hyperinflation is the process of saving debt at all costs, even buying it outright for cash. Deflation is impossible in today's dollar terms because policy will allow the printing of cash, if necessary, to cover every last bit of debt and dumping it on your front lawn! (smile) Worthless dollars, of course, but no deflation in dollar terms! (bigger smile)"
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Richard Russell......................read more
''They are the secretive bankers who created the Federal Reserve. The Fed was created by bankers and for bankers. As recently announced by Ben Bernanke, the Fed will buy $40 billion a month of mortgage-backed securities from the banks. In this way, the Fed will take these junk mortgage-backed securities from the banks and in return give the banks dollars. Thus, they will reliquify the banks with acceptable money, while taking these junk mortgage-backed securities off the hands of the banks.''
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from 'i fly me', Zerohedge comment.........read more
......''Fiat isn't the problem. Saving your excess production in the same thing being fractionalized and loaned is the problem.''
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from nuinut and a zerohedge comment.................read more
''The euro is not freegold; the euro is a currency compatible with freegold.
Freegold is simply the absence of gold denominated credit (aka paper gold) in the market.
The euro is compatible with this because (as you can easily see if you care to look at this week's ECB consolidated financial statement) market price gold values the euro, and the ECB (issuer of the euro) are publicly acknowledging this. This means the users of the euro value the euro, not the ECB. If the users of the euro think it is overvalued, they will buy gold with it, and in doing so bid up the price of gold in euros. Pretty straightforward.''
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From PUD, a Zerohedge comment...............read more
''It's all moot in a debt as money system when the cost of debt carry meets peak debt. The singular problem is debt based money and the requirement it has for perpetual compounding exponential growth. It's all math and has nothing what so ever to do with policy. This is why there is no fix.''
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Ben Bernanke.....................''As a scholar of the Great Depression, I honestly believe that September and October of 2008 was the worst financial crisis in global history, including the Great Depression …Out of maybe the 13 of the most important financial institutions in the United States, 12 were at risk of failure within a period of a week or two.''.........................from REPO Watch...............read more
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From Charles Hugh Smith via a ZeroHedge article.....................read more
''In my analysis, this is the direct consequence of the supremacy of a consumerism that is dependent on financialization: an economy dependent on debt-fueled consumption to power its "endless growth" is one that will necessarily implode from its internal contradictions: debt and leverage eventually exceed the carrying capacity of the collateral and the national income, and the narcissism of consumerism leads to social recession, a crippling state of "suspended animation" adolescence and great personal frustration and unhappiness.
The ultimate contradiction in this debt-consumption version of capitalism is this: how can an economy have "endless expansion and growth" when pay and opportunities for secure, high-paying jobs are both relentlessly declining? It cannot. Financialization, consumerist narcissism and the end of growth are inextricably linked.''
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
''When a national currency also serves as an international reserve currency conflicts between a country's national monetary policy and its global monetary policy will arise.
"In October of 1959, a Yale professor sat in front of Congress' Joint Economic Committee and calmly announced that the Bretton Woods system was doomed. The dollar could not survive as the world's reserve currency without requiring the United States to run ever-growing deficits. This dismal scientist was Belgium-born Robert Triffin, and he was right. The Bretton Woods system collapsed in 1971, and today the dollar's role as the reserve currency has the United States running the largest current account deficit in the world.
By "agreeing" to have its currency used as a reserve currency, a country pins its hands behind its back. In order to keep the global economy chugging along, it may have to inject large amounts of currency into circulation, driving up inflation at home. The more popular the reserve currency is relative to other currencies, the higher its exchange rate and the less competitive domestic exporting industries become. This causes a trade deficit for the currency-issuing country, but makes the world happy. If the reserve currency country instead decides to focus on domestic monetary policy by not issuing more currency then the world is unhappy.
Becoming a reserve currency presents countries with a paradox. They want the "interest-free" loan generated by selling currency to foreign governments, and the ability to raise capital quickly, because of high demand for reserve currency-denominated bonds. At the same time they want to be able to use capital and monetary policy to ensure that domestic industries are competitive in the world market, and to make sure that the domestic economy is healthy and not running large trade deficits.''
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From GoldNewsBullionVault................read more
...............''the US runs a trade deficit. It has done for decades. US trade deficits supply global liquidity. Excess US Dollars flow to Middle Eastern oil producers, Chinese widget manufacturers and Japanese car makers.
What do you think would happen if the US suddenly became competitive and financially prudent? What if it started producing trade surpluses? It would be disastrous for the global economy. Global liquidity would dry up...there would be a massive credit crunch.
So the system depends on US profligacy. The US may enjoy an 'exorbitant privilege' in the words of former French President Charles De Gaulle , but it's one that has benefitted - and we use that term loosely - the world in terms of delivering debt-based economic growth.
But for how much longer? Triffin identified the problem way back in the 1960s. Since then nothing has changed. The dilemma is now so big that it can't be undone or reversed. The dual role of the US Dollar as national and international currency is no longer viable.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From FOFOA...............read more
“Funny” quote from Casey Research.
"The world will soon wake up to the reality that everyone is broke and can collect nothing from the bankrupt, who are owed unlimited amounts by the insolvent, who are attempting to make late payments on a bank holiday in the wrong country, with an unacceptable currency, against defaulted collateral, of which nobody is sure who holds title."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Tyler Durden and ZeroHedge...........read more
''And hard evidence, or better yet a paper trail of inconsistencies, is absolutely paramount when juxtaposing the two most powerful forces of our times: i) the central banking-led status quo (which is de facto the banker-led oligarchy whose primary purpose in the past several centuries has been to accumulate as much as possible of the hard asset-based fruits of people's labor, who toil in exchange for "money" created out of thin air - a process which could be described as not quite voluntary slavery, but the phrase would certainly suffice), and ii) "everyone else", especially when "everyone else" still believes in the supremacy of democratic forces, accountability, and an impartial legal system (three pillars of modern society which over the past 4 years we have experienced time and again have been nothing but mirages).''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Chris Martenson Blog via Turd Ferguson...........read more
''My fav FOFOAism haha:
"There are four key aspects to Freegold. There are also many more, but these four are key. That's not to say they are all necessary. They are not. But it is to say that in order to understand Freegold you must at least understand the significance of these conditions:
1. The end of the dollar standard (the end of its timeline as the main global reserve currency)
2. The end of parity between paper gold price discovery and physical gold price discovery
3. The Euro-Freegold concept/project, (at least) 31 years in the making
4. The flow of oil "
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
a comment from 'pud' on a zerohedge article............read more
''Money as debt. The very fundamental nature of credit money is the root cause of everything. This is a fact which is totally absent from the thinking of everyone. All money is debt. Debt carries interest. Interest requires more debt money creation...it compounds...it goes exponential at some point of saturation. This is why things are as they are. Every other discussion from MMT to gold is a sidebar.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
from 'Pat Fields' and SilverDoctors...........read more
''That’s bulls**t. The underlying problem isn’t the American banknote, per se. It’s the whole banknote scheme itself. While the deprivation and turpitude that it engenders has reached a zenith of blatant proportions here, because ‘modern’ American culture is more driven by determination than anything resembling enlightened intelligence, the root cause isn’t truly a bent toward criminality, so much as what influence ENGENDERS that tendency and propels it to a cresendo.
Do I have to explain this till I’m ‘blue in the face’? I will if I must! Bannknotes are created as principal at interest. In this phase, where ALL principal amounts can ONLY be settled in banknotes, that interest service compels commensurate NEW principal to be created … at then complex compounding interest. Each side of the equasion is an exponentially growing feedback loop inflating the other. Banknotes driving debt driving banknotes, vice-versa, ad infinitum!
Readers … now, just stop and clear all the rhetorical crap from your heads and think! Given that scheme, where ‘currency’ is constantly … and increasingly … depreciating from automatically induced inflation, while the general capability to service systemically ballooning debt is relentlessly bearing down on a society … WHAT THE HELL ELSE CAN BE EXPECTED BUT CRIMINAL DESPERATION!!!!
Now, NONE of this is said to diminish the capital crimes these people comit! The overwhelming body of evidence is that they’re guilty as charged! The central point I’m making is that we can’t be so emotionally diverted in ‘punishing the criminals’ that we completely ignore the core force that steers us ALL in that direction! Hanging every banker on the planet will accomplish NOTHING if this stupid banknote scheme is left to again corrupt yet ANOTHER generation around the world.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
a comment from Timothy from a (Gary North Article) mises.org................read more
''Fractional reserve banking is a dishonest system. It is responsible for (the cause of) almost every banking panic ever. It is dishonest, and it also causes rampant overspeculation and malinvestment. Why is that you ask? Because no one spends other people's money as carefully as they spend their own. How can you possibly, loan out money to one person and leave that same money in another persons account? According to everything I have ever known about the physical universe, there is no magic. When you loan out money from an account, it is gone until it is payed back. To pretend it is still in an account after it has been loaned to someone else is fraud and should not be allowed. In an honest system you would have to agree to allow the use of the money deposited for a certain amount of time in order for the bank to loan it out. Then they would have to split the profits with you for the permission of using the money for that time.''
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOA....................... "My friend, debt is the very essence of fiat. As debt defaults, fiat is destroyed. This is where all these deflationists get their direction. Not seeing that hyperinflation is the process of saving debt at all costs, even buying it outright for cash. Deflation is impossible in today's dollar terms because policy will allow the printing of cash, if necessary, to cover every last bit of debt and dumping it on your front lawn! (smile) Worthless dollars, of course, but no deflation in dollar terms! (bigger smile)"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Richard Russell......................read more
''They are the secretive bankers who created the Federal Reserve. The Fed was created by bankers and for bankers. As recently announced by Ben Bernanke, the Fed will buy $40 billion a month of mortgage-backed securities from the banks. In this way, the Fed will take these junk mortgage-backed securities from the banks and in return give the banks dollars. Thus, they will reliquify the banks with acceptable money, while taking these junk mortgage-backed securities off the hands of the banks.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
from 'i fly me', Zerohedge comment.........read more
......''Fiat isn't the problem. Saving your excess production in the same thing being fractionalized and loaned is the problem.''
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
from nuinut and a zerohedge comment.................read more
''The euro is not freegold; the euro is a currency compatible with freegold.
Freegold is simply the absence of gold denominated credit (aka paper gold) in the market.
The euro is compatible with this because (as you can easily see if you care to look at this week's ECB consolidated financial statement) market price gold values the euro, and the ECB (issuer of the euro) are publicly acknowledging this. This means the users of the euro value the euro, not the ECB. If the users of the euro think it is overvalued, they will buy gold with it, and in doing so bid up the price of gold in euros. Pretty straightforward.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From PUD, a Zerohedge comment...............read more
''It's all moot in a debt as money system when the cost of debt carry meets peak debt. The singular problem is debt based money and the requirement it has for perpetual compounding exponential growth. It's all math and has nothing what so ever to do with policy. This is why there is no fix.''
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ben Bernanke.....................''As a scholar of the Great Depression, I honestly believe that September and October of 2008 was the worst financial crisis in global history, including the Great Depression …Out of maybe the 13 of the most important financial institutions in the United States, 12 were at risk of failure within a period of a week or two.''.........................from REPO Watch...............read more
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Charles Hugh Smith via a ZeroHedge article.....................read more
''In my analysis, this is the direct consequence of the supremacy of a consumerism that is dependent on financialization: an economy dependent on debt-fueled consumption to power its "endless growth" is one that will necessarily implode from its internal contradictions: debt and leverage eventually exceed the carrying capacity of the collateral and the national income, and the narcissism of consumerism leads to social recession, a crippling state of "suspended animation" adolescence and great personal frustration and unhappiness.
The ultimate contradiction in this debt-consumption version of capitalism is this: how can an economy have "endless expansion and growth" when pay and opportunities for secure, high-paying jobs are both relentlessly declining? It cannot. Financialization, consumerist narcissism and the end of growth are inextricably linked.''
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Triffin Dilemma.........
From Richard Mills and The Market Oracle ........................read more''When a national currency also serves as an international reserve currency conflicts between a country's national monetary policy and its global monetary policy will arise.
"In October of 1959, a Yale professor sat in front of Congress' Joint Economic Committee and calmly announced that the Bretton Woods system was doomed. The dollar could not survive as the world's reserve currency without requiring the United States to run ever-growing deficits. This dismal scientist was Belgium-born Robert Triffin, and he was right. The Bretton Woods system collapsed in 1971, and today the dollar's role as the reserve currency has the United States running the largest current account deficit in the world.
By "agreeing" to have its currency used as a reserve currency, a country pins its hands behind its back. In order to keep the global economy chugging along, it may have to inject large amounts of currency into circulation, driving up inflation at home. The more popular the reserve currency is relative to other currencies, the higher its exchange rate and the less competitive domestic exporting industries become. This causes a trade deficit for the currency-issuing country, but makes the world happy. If the reserve currency country instead decides to focus on domestic monetary policy by not issuing more currency then the world is unhappy.
Becoming a reserve currency presents countries with a paradox. They want the "interest-free" loan generated by selling currency to foreign governments, and the ability to raise capital quickly, because of high demand for reserve currency-denominated bonds. At the same time they want to be able to use capital and monetary policy to ensure that domestic industries are competitive in the world market, and to make sure that the domestic economy is healthy and not running large trade deficits.''
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From GoldNewsBullionVault................read more
...............''the US runs a trade deficit. It has done for decades. US trade deficits supply global liquidity. Excess US Dollars flow to Middle Eastern oil producers, Chinese widget manufacturers and Japanese car makers.
What do you think would happen if the US suddenly became competitive and financially prudent? What if it started producing trade surpluses? It would be disastrous for the global economy. Global liquidity would dry up...there would be a massive credit crunch.
So the system depends on US profligacy. The US may enjoy an 'exorbitant privilege' in the words of former French President Charles De Gaulle , but it's one that has benefitted - and we use that term loosely - the world in terms of delivering debt-based economic growth.
But for how much longer? Triffin identified the problem way back in the 1960s. Since then nothing has changed. The dilemma is now so big that it can't be undone or reversed. The dual role of the US Dollar as national and international currency is no longer viable.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From FOFOA...............read more
“Funny” quote from Casey Research.
"The world will soon wake up to the reality that everyone is broke and can collect nothing from the bankrupt, who are owed unlimited amounts by the insolvent, who are attempting to make late payments on a bank holiday in the wrong country, with an unacceptable currency, against defaulted collateral, of which nobody is sure who holds title."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Tyler Durden and ZeroHedge...........read more
''And hard evidence, or better yet a paper trail of inconsistencies, is absolutely paramount when juxtaposing the two most powerful forces of our times: i) the central banking-led status quo (which is de facto the banker-led oligarchy whose primary purpose in the past several centuries has been to accumulate as much as possible of the hard asset-based fruits of people's labor, who toil in exchange for "money" created out of thin air - a process which could be described as not quite voluntary slavery, but the phrase would certainly suffice), and ii) "everyone else", especially when "everyone else" still believes in the supremacy of democratic forces, accountability, and an impartial legal system (three pillars of modern society which over the past 4 years we have experienced time and again have been nothing but mirages).''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From Chris Martenson Blog via Turd Ferguson...........read more
''The vast bulk of the assets in our financial system are actually
forms of debt. One person’s debt is another person’s asset. I owe you
and you hold the debt note. The banking system in particular holds most
of the world’s debts as assets on its books. Your mortgage liability
is their asset.
Similarly, money market funds that invest your cash in corporate
and sovereign debt, insurance companies, endowments, and pension funds
all do this, too.
Just considering the debt side of this story, what would happen if
the world’s debts suddenly became worth less, or even 'worthless'?
Every entity in the list above would suffer losses and possibly
bankruptcy. Without asset inflation, it would all come crashing down:
Municipal pensions would be ruined and unable to meet their obligations
State pensions: ditto
Corporate pensions: ditto, again
Money market funds would 'break the buck'
Endowments would get eviscerated
Insurance companies would go bankrupt
Annuities would fail
And those are just some of the immediate financial impacts of a
deflationary spiral. The political and social impacts would be just as
great, with careers ruined and unpredictable national directions taken.
So keeping the debt and equity markets well and truly propped up is
right at the top of the list of ‘things to do’ for every central bank
on the planet.
The problem with the story, as I am sure you are aware, is that the
whole system of money and debt simply has to keep expanding
exponentially for all of this to work out.
Nobody in any position of power, at the Fed or elsewhere, has yet explained how infinite exponential expansion will be achieved.''
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From SPYKERSPEED and ZeroHedge...................read more
''While I love gold, and I think it will never go away as a store of value, Bitcoin is a superior money. It has several advantages over gold, including the fact it's instantly transmitable over distances (internet), impossible to fake (unlike gold which can be filled with tungsten), and most importantly it is impossible to steal with physical force. Bitcoin is protected by powerful 256 bit encryption. So a government can't simply break into your house and get your bitcoin like they can your gold. Other advantages of Bitcoin: it's extremely divisible (each bitcoin can be broken into 100 million parts, unlike a dollar which can only be broken into cents), it is impossible for any government to shut down the Bitcoin network because it's entirely decentralized P2P software, and there will only be 21,000,000 bitcoins - ever. The software makes it impossible to add more coins, and anyone who attempts to do this will be rejected by the network.''
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
from a comment (fredquimby) and a ZeroHedge article.............read more
From SPYKERSPEED and ZeroHedge...................read more
''While I love gold, and I think it will never go away as a store of value, Bitcoin is a superior money. It has several advantages over gold, including the fact it's instantly transmitable over distances (internet), impossible to fake (unlike gold which can be filled with tungsten), and most importantly it is impossible to steal with physical force. Bitcoin is protected by powerful 256 bit encryption. So a government can't simply break into your house and get your bitcoin like they can your gold. Other advantages of Bitcoin: it's extremely divisible (each bitcoin can be broken into 100 million parts, unlike a dollar which can only be broken into cents), it is impossible for any government to shut down the Bitcoin network because it's entirely decentralized P2P software, and there will only be 21,000,000 bitcoins - ever. The software makes it impossible to add more coins, and anyone who attempts to do this will be rejected by the network.''
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
from a comment (fredquimby) and a ZeroHedge article.............read more
''My fav FOFOAism haha:
"There are four key aspects to Freegold. There are also many more, but these four are key. That's not to say they are all necessary. They are not. But it is to say that in order to understand Freegold you must at least understand the significance of these conditions:
1. The end of the dollar standard (the end of its timeline as the main global reserve currency)
2. The end of parity between paper gold price discovery and physical gold price discovery
3. The Euro-Freegold concept/project, (at least) 31 years in the making
4. The flow of oil "
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
a comment from 'pud' on a zerohedge article............read more
''Money as debt. The very fundamental nature of credit money is the root cause of everything. This is a fact which is totally absent from the thinking of everyone. All money is debt. Debt carries interest. Interest requires more debt money creation...it compounds...it goes exponential at some point of saturation. This is why things are as they are. Every other discussion from MMT to gold is a sidebar.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
from 'Pat Fields' and SilverDoctors...........read more
''That’s bulls**t. The underlying problem isn’t the American banknote, per se. It’s the whole banknote scheme itself. While the deprivation and turpitude that it engenders has reached a zenith of blatant proportions here, because ‘modern’ American culture is more driven by determination than anything resembling enlightened intelligence, the root cause isn’t truly a bent toward criminality, so much as what influence ENGENDERS that tendency and propels it to a cresendo.
Do I have to explain this till I’m ‘blue in the face’? I will if I must! Bannknotes are created as principal at interest. In this phase, where ALL principal amounts can ONLY be settled in banknotes, that interest service compels commensurate NEW principal to be created … at then complex compounding interest. Each side of the equasion is an exponentially growing feedback loop inflating the other. Banknotes driving debt driving banknotes, vice-versa, ad infinitum!
Readers … now, just stop and clear all the rhetorical crap from your heads and think! Given that scheme, where ‘currency’ is constantly … and increasingly … depreciating from automatically induced inflation, while the general capability to service systemically ballooning debt is relentlessly bearing down on a society … WHAT THE HELL ELSE CAN BE EXPECTED BUT CRIMINAL DESPERATION!!!!
Now, NONE of this is said to diminish the capital crimes these people comit! The overwhelming body of evidence is that they’re guilty as charged! The central point I’m making is that we can’t be so emotionally diverted in ‘punishing the criminals’ that we completely ignore the core force that steers us ALL in that direction! Hanging every banker on the planet will accomplish NOTHING if this stupid banknote scheme is left to again corrupt yet ANOTHER generation around the world.
The
banknote scheme should have been irrevokably forsaken and condemned in
1929. While there’s still barely enough remaining genuine purchase power
left in these damnable stamps to warrant some kind of coin
not so tiny it isn’t handy, we ought to make a general clamor around the
world to end the DISEASE and not merely its SYMPTOMS.''
-----------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
'The Corporation'
If you like this film, please share it with your friends and support the makers by purchasing a full quality DVD at either of the two links below:
http://www.hellocoolworldstore.com/home.php?cat=281
http://www.amazon.com/The-Corporation-Milton-Friedman/dp/B0007DBJM8
Jim Willie: 'The Gold War'
From SilverDoctors
''The global financial crisis is better described as a global monetary war to defend the toxic USDollar, whose sunset can be seen.In the last 12 to 18 months, the monetary war has again morphed, this time into a far more serious and financially violent global Gold War. Nations are fast realizing that their only true liquid assets of value are their gold reserves, and even they have been tampered with or stolen in a vast re-hypothecation scheme.''
read more
''The global financial crisis is better described as a global monetary war to defend the toxic USDollar, whose sunset can be seen.In the last 12 to 18 months, the monetary war has again morphed, this time into a far more serious and financially violent global Gold War. Nations are fast realizing that their only true liquid assets of value are their gold reserves, and even they have been tampered with or stolen in a vast re-hypothecation scheme.''
read more
Saturday, December 22, 2012
''Strategies of a New Cold War: US Marines and the Drug War in Guatemala''
From TowardFreedom
''Fighting organized crime and drug trafficking is the most recent justification for US incursions in Guatemala, also serving to justify the increased activity of Guatemalan military around the country. This militarization is taking place in areas where there are fierce social and land conflicts related to the imposition of mega-resource extraction projects, such as in mining and oil industries. In addition, communities that resist displacement and the extractive industries have been tarred with accusations that they are involved in the organized crime; in some cases entire peasant villages have even been labeled “narco-communities.”
read more
''Fighting organized crime and drug trafficking is the most recent justification for US incursions in Guatemala, also serving to justify the increased activity of Guatemalan military around the country. This militarization is taking place in areas where there are fierce social and land conflicts related to the imposition of mega-resource extraction projects, such as in mining and oil industries. In addition, communities that resist displacement and the extractive industries have been tarred with accusations that they are involved in the organized crime; in some cases entire peasant villages have even been labeled “narco-communities.”
read more
''Pentagon Using Drug Wars as Excuse to Build Bases in Latin America''
fiscal cliff update...................From TruthOut
''Under the auspices of the drug war, the United States is returning to its historical pattern of using Central America and the Caribbean for its own military and strategic purposes.
Even as a growing chorus of voices throughout Latin America argue that military responses to drug trafficking are ineffective against the narcotics trade and exacerbate existing human rights abuses and official corruption, the U.S. military presence in the region is growing.''
read more
''Under the auspices of the drug war, the United States is returning to its historical pattern of using Central America and the Caribbean for its own military and strategic purposes.
Even as a growing chorus of voices throughout Latin America argue that military responses to drug trafficking are ineffective against the narcotics trade and exacerbate existing human rights abuses and official corruption, the U.S. military presence in the region is growing.''
read more
Argentina: ''Humanitarian Relief or Military Intelligence? The US Base in Chaco''
fiscal cliff update..................From The Argentina Independent
''Money donated by the United States Southern Command (USSC) is being put towards the construction of a ‘humanitarian relief centre’ at the Resistencia Airport in Chaco Province, Argentina. The project is now in the final stages of construction and drawing heavy criticism.
The centre is the latest in a string of USSC funded projects popping up across Latin America. The USSC currently operates bases in Paraguay, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Colombia, and Peru.
''Despite its express purpose as a ‘relief centre’ to be manned and operated by Argentina, those against have been outspoken in dubbing it a façade for USSC intelligence in Argentina and the Tri-Border Area (TBA).''
read more
''Money donated by the United States Southern Command (USSC) is being put towards the construction of a ‘humanitarian relief centre’ at the Resistencia Airport in Chaco Province, Argentina. The project is now in the final stages of construction and drawing heavy criticism.
The centre is the latest in a string of USSC funded projects popping up across Latin America. The USSC currently operates bases in Paraguay, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Colombia, and Peru.
''Despite its express purpose as a ‘relief centre’ to be manned and operated by Argentina, those against have been outspoken in dubbing it a façade for USSC intelligence in Argentina and the Tri-Border Area (TBA).''
read more
Chile: ''U.S. expands military presence with base in Chile''
fiscal cliff update.................From AllVoices
''The U.S. global empire of military bases has been a continuing aspect of U.S. hegemony since World War II. See this site.
"Global military bases have been a constant in U.S. foreign policy since World War II. Currently, there are over seven hundred of them worldwide, serving as home for over 2,500,000 military personnel [3]. On top of America’s permanent base structure, the U.S. Navy’s eleven aircraft carriers can also be taken as impromptu military bases insofar that they can be rapidly deployed to project American military power anywhere in the world.''
read more
''The U.S. global empire of military bases has been a continuing aspect of U.S. hegemony since World War II. See this site.
"Global military bases have been a constant in U.S. foreign policy since World War II. Currently, there are over seven hundred of them worldwide, serving as home for over 2,500,000 military personnel [3]. On top of America’s permanent base structure, the U.S. Navy’s eleven aircraft carriers can also be taken as impromptu military bases insofar that they can be rapidly deployed to project American military power anywhere in the world.''
read more
''Chile-U.S. base a boon for defense firms''
fiscal cliff update................From UPI
''What began as a joint Chilean-U.S. base for training peacekeepers before their dispatch to the wider world is growing into a major destination for regional military trainers and defense industry contractors.
The $460,000 facility is a burgeoning site for what the U.S. Army South calls a training ground for Military Operations on Urban Terrain. When completed the MOUT base will support the Chilean Joint Center for Peace Operations and the U.S. Department of State's Global Peace Operations Initiative.''
''What began as a joint Chilean-U.S. base for training peacekeepers before their dispatch to the wider world is growing into a major destination for regional military trainers and defense industry contractors.
The $460,000 facility is a burgeoning site for what the U.S. Army South calls a training ground for Military Operations on Urban Terrain. When completed the MOUT base will support the Chilean Joint Center for Peace Operations and the U.S. Department of State's Global Peace Operations Initiative.''
''The Pentagon's New Generation of Secret Military Bases''
fiscal cliff update......................From MotherJones
''Unknown to most Americans, Washington's garrisoning of the planet is on the rise, thanks to a new generation of bases the military calls "lily pads" (as in a frog jumping across a pond toward its prey). These are small, secretive, inaccessible facilities with limited numbers of troops, spartan amenities, and prepositioned weaponry and supplies.
Around the world, from Djibouti to the jungles of Honduras, the deserts of Mauritania to Australia's tiny Cocos Islands, the Pentagon has been pursuing as many lily pads as it can, in as many countries as it can, as fast as it can. Although statistics are hard to assemble, given the often-secretive nature of such bases, the Pentagon has probably built upwards of 50 lily pads and other small bases since around 2000, while exploring the construction of dozens more.''
read more
''Unknown to most Americans, Washington's garrisoning of the planet is on the rise, thanks to a new generation of bases the military calls "lily pads" (as in a frog jumping across a pond toward its prey). These are small, secretive, inaccessible facilities with limited numbers of troops, spartan amenities, and prepositioned weaponry and supplies.
Around the world, from Djibouti to the jungles of Honduras, the deserts of Mauritania to Australia's tiny Cocos Islands, the Pentagon has been pursuing as many lily pads as it can, in as many countries as it can, as fast as it can. Although statistics are hard to assemble, given the often-secretive nature of such bases, the Pentagon has probably built upwards of 50 lily pads and other small bases since around 2000, while exploring the construction of dozens more.''
read more
''What's behind Obama's new military base in Chile?''
fiscal cliff update....................From Aljazeera
...........''the White House has become increasingly more assertive in pushing for a global network of US military bases. Indeed, if the progressive community was paying attention, it might be somewhat surprised to find that Obama has been even more militaristic in some ways than predecessor George Bush, the long-time bane of the US left. In particular, Obama has been quietly constructing American bases in the remote Southern Cone. It's an intriguing news story which has received scant attention in the US media, much less the so-called progressive media.''
read more
...........''the White House has become increasingly more assertive in pushing for a global network of US military bases. Indeed, if the progressive community was paying attention, it might be somewhat surprised to find that Obama has been even more militaristic in some ways than predecessor George Bush, the long-time bane of the US left. In particular, Obama has been quietly constructing American bases in the remote Southern Cone. It's an intriguing news story which has received scant attention in the US media, much less the so-called progressive media.''
read more
''United States adds bases in South America''
fiscal cliff update...............From People's World
''Until recently, the United States has operated 22 U.S. military bases in Latin America, 800 worldwide. Now there are two more, one in Chile and another in Argentina, the first in either country. The purported justification is humanitarian.
U.S. diplomats and Chilean military chiefs gathered April 5 at the Fort Aguayo naval base in Concón, 90 miles northwest of Santiago, Chile's capital, to inaugurate a recently completed eight-building complex intended as a training prop for mock urban battles. The U.S. military's Southern Command provided $460,000 for construction. Training will be consistent with U.S. military doctrine known as Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain (MOUT).''
read more
''Until recently, the United States has operated 22 U.S. military bases in Latin America, 800 worldwide. Now there are two more, one in Chile and another in Argentina, the first in either country. The purported justification is humanitarian.
U.S. diplomats and Chilean military chiefs gathered April 5 at the Fort Aguayo naval base in Concón, 90 miles northwest of Santiago, Chile's capital, to inaugurate a recently completed eight-building complex intended as a training prop for mock urban battles. The U.S. military's Southern Command provided $460,000 for construction. Training will be consistent with U.S. military doctrine known as Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain (MOUT).''
read more
''U.S. Bases in Colombia Rattle the Region''
fiscal cliff update................From The Progressive
''The main purpose of expanding these bases is to take strategic control of Latin America,” opposition senator Jorge Enrique Robledo of the Polo Democrático Alternativo told me over the phone from Bogotá.
Every president in South America outside of Colombia is against the bases agreement, with Hugo Chávez of neighboring Venezuela being the most critical. Chávez said that by signing the deal the United States was blowing “winds of war” over the region, and that the bases were “a threat against us.''
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''The main purpose of expanding these bases is to take strategic control of Latin America,” opposition senator Jorge Enrique Robledo of the Polo Democrático Alternativo told me over the phone from Bogotá.
Every president in South America outside of Colombia is against the bases agreement, with Hugo Chávez of neighboring Venezuela being the most critical. Chávez said that by signing the deal the United States was blowing “winds of war” over the region, and that the bases were “a threat against us.''
read more
''Seven New US Military Bases in Colombia Is Hardly a Move to the Left''
fiscal cliff update..................From Common Dreams
''In a recent edition of the Wall Street Journal, Mary Anastasia O'Grady laments an apparent shift left in the Obama administration's Latin America policy. Clearly, O'Grady hasn't been keeping up to date with current events. If she had been, she would have heard about negotiations underway between the U.S. and Colombia to establish at least seven U.S. military bases in Colombia. Last I heard, folks on the left tend to oppose increased militarization; it's tough to see seven new military bases as a move to the left.
Why is the Obama administration pushing for these bases, despite having previously criticized Colombia's human rights record?''
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''In a recent edition of the Wall Street Journal, Mary Anastasia O'Grady laments an apparent shift left in the Obama administration's Latin America policy. Clearly, O'Grady hasn't been keeping up to date with current events. If she had been, she would have heard about negotiations underway between the U.S. and Colombia to establish at least seven U.S. military bases in Colombia. Last I heard, folks on the left tend to oppose increased militarization; it's tough to see seven new military bases as a move to the left.
Why is the Obama administration pushing for these bases, despite having previously criticized Colombia's human rights record?''
read more
Friday, December 21, 2012
VOLCKER: ''The Triumph of Persistence''
''A Discussion of VOLCKER: The Triumph of Persistence featuring Paul A. Volcker, Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board and Professor William L. Silber, Marcus Nadler Professor of Finance and Economics
Moderated by Francesco Guerrera, Editor, Money & Investing, The Wall Street Journal''
October 15, 2012
LPS: '7.12% of U.S. loans are delinquent'
From Housing Wire
''Mortgage delinquencies ticked up in November even though the nation continued to experience declining distressed inventory levels and fewer delinquencies year-over-year, according to data firm Lender Processing Services.''
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''Mortgage delinquencies ticked up in November even though the nation continued to experience declining distressed inventory levels and fewer delinquencies year-over-year, according to data firm Lender Processing Services.''
read more
''No 'Happy New Year' For UK As Gloom Worsens''
From 'Here is the City'
''With gloomy economic forecasts, falling consumer confidence and poor retail figures adding to concerns over talk of the U.K. leaving the European Union, 2013 is set to be a tough year for the country, analysts say.''
read more
''With gloomy economic forecasts, falling consumer confidence and poor retail figures adding to concerns over talk of the U.K. leaving the European Union, 2013 is set to be a tough year for the country, analysts say.''
read more
''Vladimir Putin goes on offensive against US''
From The Telegraph
''During a four and a half hour question and answer session, the president said Russian
MPs had acted "emotionally, but reasonably" in approving the
legislation, a retaliation for a new US law that bans alleged Russian human
rights abusers from visiting the country.
Gold: 'Independent Money'
''Short animation arguing for re-introduction of gold as money because of its independence. Written and narrated by Dominic Frisby. Animated by Pola Gruszka. Sponsored by Gold Resource Corporation.''
'UVIC 2012: A Conversation with Kyle Bass'
.................'' the bottom line is the total credit market debt-to-GDP globally is 350 percent. It's 200 trillion dollars' worth of debt against global GDP of roughly 62 trillion.''
''Top Ten Reasons Why Fiat Currency Is Superior to Gold (or Silver) Money''
From Financial Sense
By John Butler
''In the spirit of the holidays and hope for a more prosperous 2013, I thought my readers might appreciate a little humor to partially offset the relentless doom and gloom associated with the Amphora Report. So please, don’t take this edition too seriously. But if you happen to stumble across a ‘paperbug’ or two over the holidays, perhaps you could share some of the points made here. Humor sometimes helps people realize just how hopelessly misguided they are. Cheers!''
read more
By John Butler
''In the spirit of the holidays and hope for a more prosperous 2013, I thought my readers might appreciate a little humor to partially offset the relentless doom and gloom associated with the Amphora Report. So please, don’t take this edition too seriously. But if you happen to stumble across a ‘paperbug’ or two over the holidays, perhaps you could share some of the points made here. Humor sometimes helps people realize just how hopelessly misguided they are. Cheers!''
read more
Thursday, December 20, 2012
''Pentagon quietly pays Pakistan $700m for troops on border''
From Stratrisks
''The Pentagon quietly notified Congress this month that it would reimburse Pakistan nearly $700 million for the cost of stationing 140,000 troops on the border with Afghanistan, an effort to normalise support for the Pakistani military after nearly two years of crises and mutual retaliation, The New York Times reported.''
read more
''The Pentagon quietly notified Congress this month that it would reimburse Pakistan nearly $700 million for the cost of stationing 140,000 troops on the border with Afghanistan, an effort to normalise support for the Pakistani military after nearly two years of crises and mutual retaliation, The New York Times reported.''
read more
''Doctor Goes On An Epic Rant Against The Food Industry''
From Business Insider
''When Yoni Freedhoff, a doctor and professor
at the University of Ottawa, was uninvited to a food industry breakfast
three days before it was slated to happen, he got a little upset.
So, instead of presenting his talk to the food industry he made a video of it and posted it to his Weighty Matters blog, in which he writes about all things food and obesity. In the video he discusses "what the food industry can do to improve public health, why they're not going to do it and what we can do about it."
''When Yoni Freedhoff, a doctor and professor
at the University of Ottawa, was uninvited to a food industry breakfast
three days before it was slated to happen, he got a little upset.So, instead of presenting his talk to the food industry he made a video of it and posted it to his Weighty Matters blog, in which he writes about all things food and obesity. In the video he discusses "what the food industry can do to improve
public health, why they're not going to do it and what we can do about it."''Device Fools Face Recognition System To Protect Privacy''
From Nikkei
''Near-infrared rays are invisible to the naked eye but appear in pictures taken with digital cameras. In the group's experiment, the rays altered a face's balance of light and dark, disrupting the operation of facial recognition software to the point that it could not identify the image as a face.''
read more
''Near-infrared rays are invisible to the naked eye but appear in pictures taken with digital cameras. In the group's experiment, the rays altered a face's balance of light and dark, disrupting the operation of facial recognition software to the point that it could not identify the image as a face.''
read more
''Financial Armageddon: The Corruption of Our Currency''
Book Review
''What is money? Is it the all-too-common dollar bill? Coins made by the U.S. mint? A credit card or checkbook? Our founding fathers did not think so, and unfortunately, we the people have bought into the idea that items other than gold and silver can be used as money. How do we avoid the inevitable and survive the economic collapse that will occur, perhaps in the near future? The anwer is simple: we must return to the system of "just weights and measure" as is outlined in the Constitution and the scriptures.''
read more
''What is money? Is it the all-too-common dollar bill? Coins made by the U.S. mint? A credit card or checkbook? Our founding fathers did not think so, and unfortunately, we the people have bought into the idea that items other than gold and silver can be used as money. How do we avoid the inevitable and survive the economic collapse that will occur, perhaps in the near future? The anwer is simple: we must return to the system of "just weights and measure" as is outlined in the Constitution and the scriptures.''
read more
''NATO and the Neo-Mujahedeen: Enemies of Yesterday, Friends of Today''
From Mathaba
''One of the rarest occasions when Hamad Bin Jassim Al Thani, the current prime minister of Qatar, was seen nervous, was on the 9th of March 2004 in the famous British think-tank Chatham House; when he answered my question about the contradictory presence of both Al Qaida and the US military bases in his country. Hamad denied any presence of any terrorist groups in Qatar, and showed a full engagement of his government in the war against terrorism. I was congratulated for my question by several politicians from the Gulf countries including the current Foreign Minister of Bahrain who was in 2004 Ambassador in London.''
read more
''One of the rarest occasions when Hamad Bin Jassim Al Thani, the current prime minister of Qatar, was seen nervous, was on the 9th of March 2004 in the famous British think-tank Chatham House; when he answered my question about the contradictory presence of both Al Qaida and the US military bases in his country. Hamad denied any presence of any terrorist groups in Qatar, and showed a full engagement of his government in the war against terrorism. I was congratulated for my question by several politicians from the Gulf countries including the current Foreign Minister of Bahrain who was in 2004 Ambassador in London.''
read more
''Slavery's Global Comeback''
From The Atlantic
''The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates the number of slaves in the world today at around 21 million. Kevin Bales, of Free the Slaves -- the U.S. affiliate of the world's oldest human-rights organization, the U.K.-based Anti-Slavery International -- (and the author of Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy) puts it at 27 million. Siddharth Kara of Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy says more than 29 million.''
read more
''The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates the number of slaves in the world today at around 21 million. Kevin Bales, of Free the Slaves -- the U.S. affiliate of the world's oldest human-rights organization, the U.K.-based Anti-Slavery International -- (and the author of Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy) puts it at 27 million. Siddharth Kara of Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy says more than 29 million.''
read more
''The Russia-EU-US drama''
From EU Observer
''Interestingly enough, as the EU is preparing for a trade spat, US Senate has moved forward to grant permanent normal trade relations with Russia, after overwhelming support from the House for the measure to lift Cold War-era trade restrictions and President Obama’s pledge to sign the bill.
In Washington, the measure is seen as a way to support US jobs as American multinationals seek participation in new markets amidst stagnation at home. In addition to strengthening economic relations with Russia, US policymakers will seek to cooperate with Moscow on regional issues, including in the Arctic and the North Pacific, while trying to reach an agreement on US-NATO cooperation in missile defence.''
read more
''Interestingly enough, as the EU is preparing for a trade spat, US Senate has moved forward to grant permanent normal trade relations with Russia, after overwhelming support from the House for the measure to lift Cold War-era trade restrictions and President Obama’s pledge to sign the bill.
In Washington, the measure is seen as a way to support US jobs as American multinationals seek participation in new markets amidst stagnation at home. In addition to strengthening economic relations with Russia, US policymakers will seek to cooperate with Moscow on regional issues, including in the Arctic and the North Pacific, while trying to reach an agreement on US-NATO cooperation in missile defence.''
read more
''The Big Mac And Your Financial Health: Rising Burger Prices Show A Worrying Trend''
From Seeking Alpha
By Doug Short
''The rise in the price of a Big Mac is faster than the official rise in consumer prices and has been since the late 90's. In 1998, the average price of a Big Mac was about $2.50. Today, the average Big Mac is $4.33. If we were using the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the price of a Big Mac today would be about $3.35. See the graph below. The price hikes represented by this popular burger will impact individuals more than the saturated fat content that Big Macs bear.''
read more
By Doug Short
''The rise in the price of a Big Mac is faster than the official rise in consumer prices and has been since the late 90's. In 1998, the average price of a Big Mac was about $2.50. Today, the average Big Mac is $4.33. If we were using the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the price of a Big Mac today would be about $3.35. See the graph below. The price hikes represented by this popular burger will impact individuals more than the saturated fat content that Big Macs bear.''
read more
''2-yr slog ends as SEC approves first U.S. physical copper-backed ETF''
From MineWeb
''The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the first physical copper exchange-traded fund, over the concerns of copper fabricators who contend it will hurt their industry by putting too much copper in investors’ hands.
The proposed JPM XF Physical Copper Trust will be listed on NYSE Arca and will initially be backed by 61,800 tonnes of copper (30% of the copper available for immediate delivery globally), compared to current copper ETFs, which are backed by futures.''
read more
''The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the first physical copper exchange-traded fund, over the concerns of copper fabricators who contend it will hurt their industry by putting too much copper in investors’ hands.
The proposed JPM XF Physical Copper Trust will be listed on NYSE Arca and will initially be backed by 61,800 tonnes of copper (30% of the copper available for immediate delivery globally), compared to current copper ETFs, which are backed by futures.''
read more
“Watching your money disappear”
From Detlev Schlichter
''In fact, throughout history, every experiment with complete paper money systems – systems in which the money supply is not restricted by the available stock of a scarce commodity such as gold or silver but in which it is entirely unconstrained –, every experiment with totally elastic money ended in failure.''
read more
''In fact, throughout history, every experiment with complete paper money systems – systems in which the money supply is not restricted by the available stock of a scarce commodity such as gold or silver but in which it is entirely unconstrained –, every experiment with totally elastic money ended in failure.''
read more
''The Economic Hunger Games''
From ZeroHedge
''Borrowing future standards of living to enhance current standards of living is all credit is about. Here the currency is energy (or water resources, or industrial metals) rather than financial credit – but the consequences are essentially the same.''
read more
''Borrowing future standards of living to enhance current standards of living is all credit is about. Here the currency is energy (or water resources, or industrial metals) rather than financial credit – but the consequences are essentially the same.''
read more
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
''Deutsche Bank Slides into a Swamp of Scandal''
From SpiegelOnline
''Deutsche Bank was once Germany's proudest financial institution. Now, though, the giant is facing myriad investigations, legal troubles, scandals and accusations of malfeasance. Its current leadership has pledged a new beginning, but several executives are tainted as well.''
read more
''Deutsche Bank was once Germany's proudest financial institution. Now, though, the giant is facing myriad investigations, legal troubles, scandals and accusations of malfeasance. Its current leadership has pledged a new beginning, but several executives are tainted as well.''
read more
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