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bestmsit01

Buy Etsy Seller Account​ - 100% Best Quality & Full Verified Account - 0 views

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    Buy Etsy Seller Account​ Buy an Etsy seller account to jumpstart your online business with an active, trusted store. Whether you're selling handmade goods, vintage items, or digital downloads, a pre-made account saves time and effort. Gain instant access to Etsy's global audience without starting from scratch. Choose accounts with positive history and verified details for better results. With a ready-to-use Etsy seller account, you can focus on growing your brand and making sales right away. Why will you purchase my service? ➤ Authentic Personal Information ➤ Gmail Account & Password Access ➤ Valid Phone Number ➤ 100% secure and full verified accounts ➤ Verified Bank Account Include ➤ Other Payments Methods Included [Depending on Demand] ➤ Replacement guaranteed within 30 days ➤ Accessing Your Etsy Shop Manager ➤ Customer support 24 hour ➤ Money back guarantee 100% If You Want To More Information Just Contact Now. 24 Hours Reply/Contact Email : bestmsit@gmail.com Skype : Best MS IT Telegram : @bestmsit
bestmsit01

Buy Walmart Seller Account - 100% Ready to use walmart store - 0 views

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    Buy Walmart Seller Account Buy a verified Walmart seller account to start selling on one of the largest online marketplaces in the U.S. Our accounts are approved, ready to use, and ideal for dropshipping, private labeling, or expanding your e-commerce brand. Skip the long application process and get instant access to a trusted platform with high buyer traffic. Each account comes with fast delivery and reliable support. Start scaling your business today with a secure, high-quality Walmart seller account. Why will you purchase my service? ➤ Attached with bank card ➤ SSN and Router number verified ➤ 100% genuine account ➤ 100% customer satisfaction ➤ No transaction problem required ➤ Money Transfer without limit ➤ Replacement guaranteed ➤ Fast and short time delivery ➤ 24 hour customer support and reply ➤ Money back guarantee 100% If You Want To More Information Just Contact Now. 24 Hours Reply/Contact Email : bestmsit@gmail.com Skype : Best MS IT Telegram : @bestmsit
bestmsit01

Buy eBay Seller Account​ - 100% Best & Old Verified Account - 0 views

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    Buy eBay Seller Account​ Buy a real eBay seller account and start selling today. The accounts are old, trusted, and ready to use. They work well for dropshipping, reselling, or growing a small shop. Each one has a sales history and is sent fast. You don't need to start from zero. Get into a big market fast. Build trust and begin selling with a safe, strong eBay account. Why will you purchase my service? ➤ Attached with bank card ➤ SSN and Router number verified ➤ 100% genuine account ➤ 100% customer satisfaction ➤ No transaction problem required ➤ Money Transfer without limit ➤ Replacement guaranteed ➤ Fast and short time delivery ➤ 24 hour customer support and reply ➤ Money back guarantee 100% If You Want To More Information Just Contact Now. 24 Hours Reply/Contact Email : bestmsit@gmail.com Skype : Best MS IT Telegram : @bestmsit
Paul Merrell

Central asset bubbles, currency wars are destroying emerging markets | Sunday Guardian - 0 views

  • as the out-of-control cabal of central banks inflated grotesque asset bubbles in global property, stock, and fixed-income markets? Or are we to believe traditional media’s “fake news” mantra of “it’s different this time?” Well, bad news, folks. It’s never different, not this time, not anytime, never.  Capitalism is being destroyed The US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, and the European Central Bank have become gargantuan, out-of-control, rogue hedge funds. They are loaded with non-elected academics operating in opaque groupthink bubble chambers, repeating the broken Keynesian economic mantra of “whatever it takes, more debt is good”. They have magicked-up 100s of trillions in debt and guarantees, while the US Federal Reserve has gobbled up over 90% of the US mortgage market. Global stock market valuations are buoyed by stock buybacks, funded by record corporate debt, and enabled by reckless central bank zero-interest-rate policies. Pay no attention to the fact that in the past few years, US stock indices have surged over 70% to new all-time highs, while profits have only risen an anaemic 2%. Today’s record amount of corporate debt is cannibalising corporations, by bringing future earnings forward, which makes future stagnation and collapse into bankruptcy a certainty. For the near term, CEOs will continue to receive record pay packets for out-performing the market, as their stock prices bubble like a rocket ship into outer space, while these actions decimate any long-term growth prospects.
  • In 2005, preceding the credit crisis and the subsequent nationwide property price collapse, US Federal Reserve chairman, Dr Ben Bernanke was asked about risks associated with a dangerous subprime housing bubble that could destabilise the economy.  Bernanke stated that “I disagree with your premise. We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilise: might slow consumption spending a bit. I don’t think it’s going to drive the economy too far from its full employment path, though.” So, what led to history’s biggest financial crisis in 2006? Too much debt, credit, and leverage—proving that Fed Chair Ben Bernanke was dead wrong. What did we learn? Nothing, a big fat zero. In fact, property prices have recently eclipsed previous 2006 highs, bubbling to frothy new all-time highs, while real wages declined and high-paying jobs have disappeared. 
  • Real estate is an asset but not an asset class because it lacks liquidity. It takes time to sell property and the difference between what a buyer is willing to pay and what a seller is willing to sell for may be huge. For example, a buyer may be willing to pay $750,000, but the seller will only sell at $900,000. In good times, frenzied buyers create “bidding wars” on coveted properties, sometimes rocketing the price 30% above the original offer. This is terrific if you are a property owner or property seller, but not so much if you are a first-time buyer. In bad times, prices collapse and the only price a buyer is willing to pay for the $900,000 home above is $90,000. Great for buyers, but not so great for the owner, who holds a mortgage of $700,000 that must be repaid to a bank.  During these boom times, optimism bias creeps into the minds of buyers, allowing them to pay off the charts, wildly inflated, irrational prices for fear of “missing out”. Optimism bias is a cognitive bias that causes a person to (mistakenly) believe nothing negative could ever happen to them. It is a “close your eyes and buy at new all-time highs” belief system. If the prices collapse, the banks can require more capital. If you do not have more capital, the bank can take your property. If the government wants to increase your taxes, you must pay or they will confiscate your property. In fact, property confiscations are already happening in Greece and Italy.  Commercial and residential real estate are now grotesque asset bubbles ready to explode. 
Gary Edwards

The Project To Restore America - 0 views

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    Yes, it's a confusing proposal - but not when compared to what we have now; a financial industry run by "To-Big-To-Fail Banks" able to loot the public treasury at will.  Never to Big to Bail, and taxpayers voted for four more years of looting.  Limited Purpose Banking is based on equity.  Which is quite different from the fractional-reserve-lending model used by the To-Big-Fail Banksters. "The history of banking is a long and sorry record of promises that can't be kept - promises that were either overly optimistic or outright fraudulent. Since banks are leveraged, failing to deliver on their promises leads them to collapse. But unlike standard bankruptcies, bank failures produce enormous economic fallout.   There's a reason. Banks not only market financial products. They also make financial markets. Markets, be they for apples or loans, constitute critical public goods whose provision should not be jeopardized.     Making a market -- getting buyers and sellers to meet at the same time and place always represents a feat of coordination. The main purpose of banks is to effect financial coordination - to bring together borrowers and lenders and investors and savers.     When banks fail, particularly large ones, this coordination breaks down. Moreover, bank failures can be contagious. Any given bank's failure raises the prospect that fraud or very poor judgment was at fault and that other banks are engaged in the same practice. This leads to runs on, actually away from, banks in general. In addition, since banks borrow and lend to one another, the failure of bank A can bring bank B down if A owes money to B.     Worst of all, financial collapse, even by a few major financial players can coordinate non-financial companies as well as households on the belief that times are bad. And when millions of separate firms and tens of millions of households start expecting bad times, they take actions to make bad times happen. Thus, the state of confidence, what Key
Gary Edwards

Accidentally Released - and Incredibly Embarrassing - Documents Show How Goldman et al ... - 0 views

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    Incredible.  Take your time reading this because we now have legal evidence of outrageous Bankster criminality.  Read carefully. excerpt: The lawsuit between Overstock and the banks concerned a phenomenon called naked short-selling, a kind of high-finance counterfeiting that, especially prior to the introduction of new regulations in 2008, short-sellers could use to artificially depress the value of the stocks they've bet against. The subject of naked short-selling is a) highly technical, and b) very controversial on Wall Street, with many pundits in the financial press for years treating the phenomenon as the stuff of myths and conspiracy theories. Now, however, through the magic of this unredacted document, the public will be able to see for itself what the banks' attitudes are not just toward the "mythical" practice of naked short selling (hint: they volubly confess to the activity, in writing), but toward regulations and laws in general. "Fuck the compliance area - procedures, schmecedures," chirps Peter Melz, former president of Merrill Lynch Professional Clearing Corp. (a.k.a. Merrill Pro), when a subordinate worries about the company failing to comply with the rules governing short sales. ...................... If this sounds complicated, just focus on this: naked short selling, in essence, is selling stock you do not have. If you don't have to actually locate and borrow stock before you short it, you're creating an artificial supply of stock shares. ................ The process of how banks circumvented federal clearing regulations is highly technical and incredibly difficult to follow. These companies were using obscure loopholes in regulations that allowed them to short companies by trading in shadows, or echoes, of real shares in their stock. They manipulated rules to avoid having to disclose these "failed" trades to regulators. The import of this is that it made it cheaper and easier to bet down the value of a stock
Gary Edwards

Robosigning Credit Cards: The Next Major Bank Scandal? | The Reformed Broker - 0 views

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    This article is definately a "must read".  The summary is that the credit card debt mess is far worse than the mortgage foreclosure mess.  The Banksters are guilty of massive illegal activities in foreclosure gate, including forging documents and signatures.  Apparently the same thing has happened with Credit Card Debt Collection!!!! excerpt:   From American Banker: "If sloppy record keeping and problems with false affidavits is a problem with mortgages, it's 100 times bigger in credit card accounts," says Michelle Weinberg of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Metropolitan Chicago. Worse than mortgages, even? Let's just review the mortgage situation: Robosigning consists of blatantly illegal practices in which banks and mortgage companies had their employees sign affidavits and other documents without verifying the information therein; forge signatures on documents; backdate documents; falsely notarize documents; create new documents to replace missing ones; or some combination of all the above. Did I mention that all of this is illegal? Contrary to what the banks would have you believe, robosigning was not a one-off - it happened on a systematic level. So much so that some of the nation's largest banks (including Bank of America Corp. and  JPMorgan Chase & Co., ) were forced to halt foreclosures to "review" these practices in late 2010. The companies that did this claimed that they had to cut corners because they couldn't keep up with all of the paperwork created by the housing boom last decade. But we now know that this is not true - there's evidence that robo-signing goes back all the way to at least 1998. This all means that thousands of Americans were foreclosed upon erroneously and that even homebuyers and sellers in good standing may be unable to prove their rightful ownership. The problem is so big that Sheila Bair, the former head of the FDIC, acknowledged that they don't even know how big it is. It's so big that the b
Gary Edwards

Mortgages - Unbelievable: The big banks are becoming desperate to avoid foreclosures - 0 views

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    Just days prior to the Obama Foreclosure Settlement Act, Bloomberg filed this stunning report demonstrating that, if left alone, the markets have a way of working things out.  Looks to me like Obama and the big Banksters have found a way to stop the wave of successful short sales.  The door is now open for the big Banksters to go full tilt boogey on Foreclosures.  Even without legal documentation or fix of illegal document mills.  It's foreclosure time in America! From Bloomberg: Banks, accelerating efforts to move troubled mortgages off their books, are offering as much as $35,000 or more in cash to delinquent homeowners to sell their properties for less than they owe. Lenders have routinely delayed or blocked such transactions, known as short sales, in which they accept less from a buyer than the seller's outstanding loan. Now banks have decided the deals are faster and less costly than foreclosures, which have slowed in response to regulatory probes of abusive practices. Banks are nudging potential sellers by pre-approving deals, streamlining the closing process, forgoing their right to pursue unpaid debt and in some cases providing large cash incentives, said Bill Fricke, senior credit officer for Moody's Investors Service in New York. Losses for lenders are about 15 percent lower on the sales than on foreclosures, which can take years to complete while taxes and legal, maintenance and other costs accumulate, according to Moody's. The deals accounted for 33 percent of financially distressed transactions in November, up from 24 percent a year earlier, said CoreLogic Inc., a Santa Ana, California-based real estate information company.
Gary Edwards

What the hell just happened? 'Tyranny By Executive Order' | by Constitutional Attorney ... - 0 views

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    "What the hell just happened? That is the question that many Americans should be asking themselves following the news conference where Obama unveiled his plan for destroying the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution. At first glance it appeared to be a case of Obama shamelessly using the deaths of innocents, and some live children as a backdrop, to push for the passage of radical gun control measures by Congress. Most of these have no chance of passing, yet, Obama's signing of Executive orders initiating 23 so called Executive actions on gun control seemed like an afterthought. Unfortunately, that is the real story, but it is generally being overlooked. The fact is that with a few strokes of his pen Obama set up the mechanisms he will personally use to not only destroy the Second Amendment to the Constitution, but also the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments. It will not matter what Congress does, Obama can and will act on his own, using these Executive actions, and will be violating both the Constitution and his oath of office when he does it. Here are the sections of the Executive Order that he will use: "1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background-check system." What exactly is relevant data? Does it include our medical records obtained through Obamacare, our tax returns, our political affiliations, our military background, and our credit history? I suggest that all of the above, even if it violates our fourth Amendment right to privacy will now be relevant data for determining if we are allowed to purchase a firearm. "2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background-check system." This should be read in conjunction with section 16 of the order that says: "16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors
Gary Edwards

The Great Deceiver - The Federal Reserve - 0 views

  • From November 2013 through January 2014 Belgium with a GDP of $480 billion purchased $141.2 billion of US Treasury bonds. Somehow Belgium came up with enough money to allocate during a 3-month period 29 percent of its annual GDP to the purchase of US Treasury bonds. Certainly Belgium did not have a budget surplus of $141.2 billion. Was Belgium running a trade surplus during a 3-month period equal to 29 percent of Belgium GDP? No, Belgium's trade and current accounts are in deficit. Did Belgium's central bank print $141.2 billion worth of euros in order to make the purchase? No, Belgium is a member of the euro system, and its central bank cannot increase the money supply. So where did the $141.2 billion come from?
  • There is only one source. The money came from the US Federal Reserve, and the purchase was laundered through Belgium in order to hide the fact that actual Federal Reserve bond purchases during November 2013 through January 2014 were $112 billion per month. In other words, during those 3 months there was a sharp rise in bond purchases by the Fed. The Fed's actual bond purchases for those three months are $27 billion per month above the original $85 billion monthly purchase and $47 billion above the official $65 billion monthly purchase at that time. (In March 2014, official QE was tapered to $55 billion per month and to $45 billion for May.) Why did the Federal Reserve have to purchase so many bonds above the announced amounts and why did the Fed have to launder and hide the purchase? Some country or countries, unknown at this time, for reasons we do not know dumped $104 billion in Treasuries in one week.
  • What are the reasons for this deception by the Federal Reserve?
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  • The Fed realized that its policy of Quantitative Easing initiated in order to support the balance sheets of "banks too big to fail" and to lower the Treasury's borrowing cost was putting pressure on the US dollar's value. Tapering was a way of reassuring holders of dollars and dollar-denominated financial instruments that the Fed was going to reduce and eventually end the printing of new dollars with which to support financial markets. The image of foreign governments bailing out of Treasuries could unsettle the markets that the Fed was attempting to soothe by tapering.
  • A hundred billion dollar sale of US Treasuries is a big sale. If the seller was a big holder of Treasuries, the sale could signal the bond market that a big holder might be selling Treasuries in large chunks. The Fed would want to keep the fact and identity of such a seller secret in order to avoid a stampede out of Treasuries. Such a stampede would raise interest rates, collapse US financial markets, and raise the cost of financing the US debt. To avoid the rise in interest rates, the Fed would have to accept the risk to the dollar of purchasing all the bonds. This would be a no-win situation for the Fed, because a large increase in QE would unsettle the market for US dollars.
  • Washington's power ultimately rests on the dollar as world reserve currency. This privilege, attained at Bretton Woods following World War 2, allows the US to pay its bills by issuing debt. The world currency role also gives the US the power to cut countries out of the international payments system and to impose sanctions.
  • As impelled as the Fed is to protect the large banks that sit on the board of directors of the NY Fed, the Fed has to protect the dollar. That the Fed believed that it could not buy the bonds outright but needed to disguise its purchase by laundering it through Belgium suggests that the Fed is concerned that the world is losing confidence in the dollar. If the world loses confidence in the dollar, the cost of living in the US would rise sharply as the dollar drops in value. Economic hardship and poverty would worsen. Political instability would rise. If the dollar lost substantial value, the dollar would lose its reserve currency status. Washington would not be able to issue new debt or new dollars in order to pay its bills.
  • Its wars and hundreds of overseas military bases could not be financed.
  • The withdrawal from unsustainable empire would begin. The rest of the world would see this as the silver lining in the collapse of the international monetary system brought on by the hubris and arrogance of Washington.
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    Incredible.  Since 2009, the Fed has been pumping $85 Billion per month into the Wall Street hedge funds of it's member banks.  Economist Paul Craig Roberts noticed some funny business the past few months regarding the Fed's numbers.  It turns out that while the Fed has been trying to convince the world that they are tapering off on their $85 Billion per month debt printing spree, the truth is just the opposite.  They have increased the debt spree to $112 Billion per month; with the help of a secret money laundering operation involving Belgium! Incredible!
Gary Edwards

Porter Stansberry : This key gov't statistic is signaling crisis - 0 views

  • These obligations aren't future promises to pay. This isn't Medicare spending projected out until 2040. These are all obligations that either have known maturities or will come due in the next two or three years.
  • What's a reasonable rate of interest on these debts? Right now, it costs the U.S. government almost 5% to borrow for 30 years. Let's assume the blended borrowing cost goes to that amount – which is well below the government's average borrowing costs since 1980. That would equal $1 trillion in interest payments due, per year. That's 100% of all income taxes paid in 2009.
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    Key Stat: The amount of the government's revenues that must go towards paying interest. The U.S. already has more debt than it can afford, which puts it at an enormous risk of a debt and currency collapse.  ... Our "short term" debt means we'll have to "roll over" roughly $4 trillion in the next 30 months. That's in addition to funding another $3 trillion or so in additional annual deficits. As of today, China is a net seller of Treasury debt. If we can't fund our debts in the bond market, the Federal Reserve will be forced to monetize our deficits by buying Treasury bonds. If that happens, inflation will soar and the price of gold will double or triple almost overnight. By the end of OBAMA!'s first presidency (2013), I believe the U.S. will owe roughly: $17.8 trillion in federal debt, $2 trillion in GSE debt/guarantees, $500 billion in FDIC obligations, and $500 billion in FHA obligations. My only big assumption is $1.5 trillion in additional deficits each year, which is what the president's budget also predicts.  Right now, it costs the U.S. government almost 5% to borrow for 30 years. Let's assume the blended borrowing cost goes to that amount - which is well below the government's average borrowing costs since 1980. That would equal $1 trillion in interest payments due, per year. That's 100% of all income taxes paid in 2009. This amount of debt isn't sustainable. Felix Zulauf, one of Europe's top money managers, "Eventually the U.S. will arrive at the point where, as Marc Faber says, interest payments on government debt all of a sudden go to 20%, 25%, 30% of tax revenue. And once you go above 30%, you are done. You go into default or your currency breaks down and your system collapses."  act now to protect yourself. If you wait until the last minute to get your assets out of the U.S., you'll never make it.
Paul Merrell

Chilcot report will be 'devastating' says No 10 | Daily Mail Online - 0 views

  • Thirty people, including Tony Blair, are set to be heavily criticised by the Chilcot Inquiry in its ‘devastating’ attack on the Iraq War.Well-placed sources say that ‘approximately 30’ people have been sent letters by chairman Sir John Chilcot warning them that they will be criticised in his report into the 2003 invasion.They include the former Prime Minister and ex-Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, as well as a host of other Labour politicians, Whitehall mandarins, diplomats and intelligence officials.The Mail on Sunday understands that Chilcot’s million-word report on the conflict is ‘largely finished’.
  • Sources close to the inquiry say its strongly worded criticisms of the way the war was handled make a nonsense of claims that it will be a ‘whitewash’.Downing Street insiders expect the report to be a ‘devastating’ indictment of the Blair Government and large sections of the Whitehall establishment.Among the most explosive parts will be the details of 30 secret letters, notes and conversations between Blair and former US President George W. Bush in the run-up to war.Contrary to earlier claims, full details of the way that Blair privately promised Bush that he would go to war against Saddam – without telling MPs and British voters – will be published. Blair and Bush are said to have ‘signed in blood’ their agreement to oust Saddam Hussein in secret talks at the President’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, a year before the start of the war.
  • Equally surprising is the disclosure of the severity of the criticism meted out to those responsible for the war. A source said: ‘The suggestion that it is going to be a whitewash is quite wrong. Downing Street expects it to be devastating.
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  • ‘It is also wrong to say Chilcot will only publish the gist of what Blair said. His words will be published word for word.’‘There will be redactions where appropriate but it will be quite clear to see what he said and what he meant. Bush’s comments will be less detailed but that is necessary as it is not up to Britain to publish details of what a US President says.’ Sir John fought a dogged battle with Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell and his successor Jeremy Heywood to win approval to publish the comments. O’Donnell refused to give way and it took Sir John a year to force Heywood to agree.
  • The dispute over publishing the confidential communications between the two leaders is the main reason for the delay in publishing the findings of the inquiry, which was set up in 2009.It meant Sir John could not fulfil until recently his duty to send so-called ‘Maxwell letters’ to those whom he intends to criticise in his report. Some of the 30 or so have received letters running into hundreds of pages. One individual is said to have received a 1,200-page letter from the inquiry.
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    This is starting to sound like a best-seller.
Paul Merrell

Crucial Background to New Redford Movie on Bush and Rather, Part 1 - WhoWhatWhy - 0 views

  • George W. Bush sent thousands of Americans to their deaths in wars that could have been avoided — while he himself dodged the draft as a young man. Dan Rather’s reporting on how Bush allegedly got away with it led to the famed television news anchorman’s spectacular downfall.A new film, Truth, starring Robert Redford as Rather, and Cate Blanchett as his producer Mary Mapes, claims to show what really happened. The film is about to open, and we haven’t seen it yet. But we thought you’d be interested in WhoWhatWhy editor Russ Baker’s own discoveries on the tricks behind the scenes to rewrite history — including indications that a trap was laid for Rather and Mapes, with the goal of scaring all media off the investigative trail. Here, from his best-seller Family of Secrets , are related excerpts. (This is the first of a two-part series.)
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    First of a 2-part series. Deep look at the cover-up of George W. Bush's abysmal military record.   
Paul Merrell

Crucial Background to New Redford Movie on Bush and Rather, Part 2 - WhoWhatWhy - 0 views

  • George W. Bush sent thousands of Americans to their deaths in wars that could have been avoided — while he himself dodged the draft as a young man. Dan Rather’s reporting on how Bush allegedly got away with it led to the famed television news anchorman’s spectacular downfall.A new film, Truth, starring Robert Redford as Rather, and Cate Blanchett as his producer Mary Mapes, claims to show what really happened. The film is about to open, and we haven’t seen it yet. But we thought you’d be interested in WhoWhatWhy editor Russ Baker’s own discoveries on the tricks behind the scenes to rewrite history — including indications that a trap was laid for Rather and Mapes, with the goal of scaring all media off the investigative trail. Here, from his best-seller Family of Secrets, are related excerpts. (This is the second of a two-part series. Please go here to see Part 1.)
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    Part 2
Paul Merrell

Legally required video surveillance - The Washington Post - 1 views

  • Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has proposed an ordinance that would compel all gun dealers to video-record sales (“to discourage traffickers and buyers who use false identification”). Presumably the video recordings would have to be kept for an extended time, since future investigations that would use the video recordings could happen years after the sale. A similar New York state bill would require that the videos be kept for one year. Likewise, two weeks ago, Minnesota enacted a law — with much less fanfare — that would require video- or photo recording of people who come to sell cellular phones, with each recording to be kept for at least 30 days:
  • The ostensible focus of the law is on people who sell the phones (presumably in order to deter phone theft), but any video cameras — which “must be turned on at all times” — will also capture all cell phone buyers as well. The Center for Democracy & Technology has more on this statute. Likewise, last year, Minnesota enacted a similar law applicable to people who sell scrap vehicles, presumably aimed at sellers of stolen vehicles. I suspect that, especially if the gun sales videorecording bills are enacted, similar laws will be proposed for sales of alcohol (which is often sold to underage buyers who have fake IDs, or to straw purchasers who are buying on behalf of an underage buyer), for sales of marijuana in places where it has been legalized, for sales of legal substances that are nonetheless potential drug or bomb precursors, and so on.
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    And of course it's only a hop from the video surveillance database to the facial recognition database. This is straight out of George Orwell's "1984" novel. Big Brother wants to watch you at all times, whether your conduct is legal or not. But note that because these measures do not discriminate between the lawful and unlawful conduct there's a strong argument that a prohibited Fourth Amendment search and seizure is involved, without particularized suspicion of a particular crime, i.e., without "probable cause." 
Paul Merrell

Canadian government attempts to end free speech and silence this list | The Fifth Column - 0 views

  • The Canadian government, under Prime Minister Harper, is signaling that it intends to use Hate Crime laws against those that would boycott Israel, meanwhile the blockade of Gaza remains intact and this empty suit says nothing.  What this boils down to is the fact that the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) coalition has been too effective in placing pressure on Israel for their actions in the occupied territories.
  • For a government to bar its citizens from peacefully asking other citizens to not shop at a location is nothing short of tyrannical. It is an affront to free speech. It is an attack on the natural rights of every Canadian. No free nation can exist without the right to express an opinion, even if it is a negative opinion about a lobby that provides you with money
  • You wanted to craft a legacy on the back of Israel. Well, you’re going to be able to do that. You will succeed in bringing media outlets around the world together to accomplish two things: to publicize the list of companies that should be boycotted that you want suppressed so badly and to mock the arrogant wannabe dictator that believes he has the authority to tell people where they can shop. Your political handlers didn’t think this one through. Banning free speech only fans the flames of its message as it spreads. It’s a unwritten rule of publishing that if a book is banned, it becomes a best-seller. You’ve succeeded in making a list that is relatively unknown outside of the activist community into dinner conversation for every Canadian and every American.
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  • The staff of The Fifth Column will spend the day contacting every media outlet in our phone books to make this the story of the day. We will do our best make the list of companies to be boycotted viral on every social media outlet in existence. Instead of silencing free speech, you’re going to learn what it is. The companies currently on the BDS list are listed below:
Gary Edwards

The Daily Bell - Doug Casey on the Continuing Debasement of Money, Language and Banking... - 0 views

  • This isn't going to last because the way you get wealthy is by producing more than you consume and saving the difference – not by consuming more than you produce, and borrowing the difference. With the Fed keeping interest rates at artificially low levels, hoping to increase consumption, they're making it very foolish to save – when you get ½% or 1% on your savings. So people are saving less and they're borrowing more than they otherwise would. This is a formula for making things worse, not better.
  • They are, idiotically, doing exactly the opposite of what they should be.
  • In point of fact, the Fed should be abolished; the market, not bureaucrats, should determine interest rates. We wouldn't be in this pickle to start with if the government wasn't involved in the economy.
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  • The Chinese, the Japanese – everybody is selling, trying to pass the Old Maid card of US Government debt, which represents return–free risk. Nobody other than the Fed is buying, and interest rates would skyrocket if they stopped. The more QE there is, the more distortions it will cause, however, making for a bigger disaster the longer it goes on.
  • Will the Fed continue to inflate the money supply? Doug Casey: They have to, because with the huge amount of debt in the world – and the amount of debt in the world has increased something like 40 or 50% just since the Greater Depression started – if they don't keep increasing the amount of money in the world then nobody's going to be able to service the huge amount of debt that is out there. So I don't see anything changing in the years to come. They've truly painted themselves into a corner. They're caught between Scylla and Charybdis, and we don't have Odysseus steering the ship of state.
  • Let me say, again, that the Fed serves no useful purpose and it should be abolished. Central banks create "super money" by buying government or other debt with new currency units that they credit to the sellers' accounts at commercial banks. That's the actual engine of inflation.
  • But it's greatly compounded in the commercial banking system through fractional reserve lending – which would not be possible without a central bank. Fractional reserve lending allows banks to multiply the money supply several times.
  • If $100 of Fed super money, freshly created, is deposited in a commercial bank like Chase or Citibank, then $90 can be lent out with a 10% reserve, the current number. That money is redeposited. They'll then lend out 90% of that $90, or $81, and then 90% of that $81, so it multiplies.
  • Central banking and fractional reserve lending go hand-in-hand.
  • Without a central bank, any bank that engaged in fractional reserve banking would be considered guilty of fraud and, when discovered, would be punished by a bank run, followed by criminal charges. The point to be made here is that the entire banking system today is totally unsound and totally corrupt.
  • In a sound banking system you have two types of deposits – checking account (or demand) deposits, and savings account (or time) deposits. They are completely different businesses. With demand deposits, you pay the bank to store your money securely, and write checks against it. A bank should no more lend out demand deposit money than Allied Storage should lend out the furniture you're paying them to store.
  • Savings accounts are completely different. Here you lend money to a bank, perhaps at 3%, and they relend it at 6%, making 3% to cover costs, risks and profits. A sound bank not only has to match the maturities of its deposits with the maturities of its loans, but must insure loans are both highly secured and self-liquidating.
  • These principles have been totally lost. Today banks operate as hedge funds.
  • As an aside, if someone were to set up a well-capitalized 100% reserve bank in a tax haven, especially using gold as an alternative currency, it would be immensely successful in the years to come – when most all conventional banks will fail.
  • By all historical, normal parameters, the stock market is greatly overvalued.
  • The trillions of new currency units that the Fed is creating are creating bubbles, and one of them is in the stock market. The biggest bubble, of course, is in the bond market – that's a super bubble.
  • Not only does the dollar have no real value but the banks you keep it in are all insolvent.
  • There are few sound investments out there. Today there are no investments; there are only speculations.
  • From the economist's point of view, the bubbles created by central banking are a disaster, but from a speculator's point of view they're a godsend. It's becoming harder and harder to be an investor; I define an investor as someone who allocates capital to productive business. It's hard to be an investor because you now have to spend more money on lawyers than on engineers and workers if you want to produce something. You're increasingly forced to be a speculator in today's climate.
  • Stock and bond markets all over the world are overpriced – with the exception of Russian stocks right now; they could be a very interesting speculation. I wouldn't touch anything in China yet, because all the Chinese banks are going to go bust.
  • The Chinese have been more profligate inflating the yuan than the Americans have been with the dollar. It's fantastic what the Chinese have done since Deng liberalized the economy in the early '80s, but now's not a time to be in their markets.
  • You've got to remember there are two types of people in the world: people who want to control material reality and people who want to control other people.
  • It's that second type who go into politics. They play games – here it's called the Great Game, which dignifies it in a way it shouldn't be – with other people's lives and property. It's been this way ever since the state was created about 5,000 years ago, and I don't think you should play games with other people's lives.
  • On the bright side, there are more scientists and engineers alive today than in all of human history put together, and so technology is advancing more rapidly than ever for that reason. That's a huge plus.
  • The second good thing is that the average person, at least those who aren't on welfare, tries to produce more than he consumes. That creates capital.
  • But I'm afraid that Western civilization reached its peak before World War I. World War I destroyed a huge amount of capital and, more importantly, it changed the moral bases of so many things.
  • Then World War II institutionalized the State as the most important part of society – which is perverse, because the state is actually the enemy of civil society.
  • I think Western civilization reached its peak in 1913, when it reached its maximum geographical extent. That was coincidental with the peak of its technological and philosophical influence on the world, much the way the Roman Empire reached its peak at about the end of the first century, then went down, slowly at first and then quickly. That's what's happening to the West.
  • Relative to the rest of the world, and contribution to world production, our piece of the economic pie is getting smaller and smaller. If we have another serious war it would be absolutely smaller, and the final nail in the coffin. Meanwhile, the US, with its bloated military, is just itching for another war. It's out of control, and unlikely to change at this point. That's a big trend that is in motion that I think is going to stay in motion.
  • Europe is in particularly bad shape. The place is a fascist/socialist disaster.
  • It was possible for the average European to keep his head above water through tax evasion in the past, but now those governments have broken bank secrecy everywhere, and it will destroy a lot of capital.
  • The "nation-state" is a really stupid and dysfunctional idea, and I'm glad it's on its way out.
  • That said, even the US, which from a cultural point of view is as much of a country as any place in the world, should actually break up into at least five or six regions.
  • Canada should break up into at least five or six regions initially.
  • I don't think politically; politics is the problem, not the solution. I think that the ideal solution is for every individual to opt out of the current system. When they give a war, you don't come. When they give a tax, you don't pay. When they give an election, you don't vote. You even try not to use their currency and their banking system. T
  • he ideal thing is to let the system collapse under its own weight as opposed to starting a new political party and then continuing to act politically, which is to say to use force on other people.
  • Market risk is huge today, but political risk is even bigger. One indication of that was, when the banks in Cyprus went bust some months ago, the government essentially confiscated everybody's account above 100,000 euros, in what they called a "bail-in."
  • You need several options. It seems like people haven't learned anything from what happened in Russia in 1917, Germany in 1933, China in 1948, Cuba in 1959, or Vietnam in 1975. Rwanda, Cambodia, Yugoslavia, Zimbabwe, Ukraine, Syria ... there are lots of examples and these things can and will eventually happen almost everywhere. When the chimpanzees go crazy, you don't want to be where they are. You've got to have a Plan B. You've got to have a crib out of that political jurisdiction. Acting like a plant, and staying put, isn't a good survival strategy for a human.
  •  
    "Doug Casey: I don't see a real recovery until they stop debasing the currency, radically cut government spending and taxation and eliminate most regulation. In other words, cease doing the things that caused this depression. And that's not going to happen until there's a collapse of the current order. Things have cyclically improved since the height of the crisis of 2008-09. The trillions of currency units created by the Federal Reserve have jammed the stock market higher and kept the big banks from going under. What surprises me is that retail prices have not moved as significantly as I would have expected. The reason, I believe, is that most of that money is still sitting in financial institutions. It has gone into cash out of fear, into stocks because they represent real wealth with earning power and into various speculative assets like artwork and collectible cars. Real estate has recovered somewhat, not because of strong fundamentals but strictly because of money creation. This isn't going to last because the way you get wealthy is by producing more than you consume and saving the difference - not by consuming more than you produce, and borrowing the difference. With the Fed keeping interest rates at artificially low levels, hoping to increase consumption, they're making it very foolish to save - when you get ½% or 1% on your savings. So people are saving less and they're borrowing more than they otherwise would. This is a formula for making things worse, not better. They are, idiotically, doing exactly the opposite of what they should be. Although, I hasten to add, I hate to pontificate on what the Fed "should" do. In point of fact, the Fed should be abolished; the market, not bureaucrats, should determine interest rates. We wouldn't be in this pickle to start with if the government wasn't involved in the economy. In fact, if it wasn't for the state, I suspect we'd all have a vastly higher standard of living, and would be colonizing the Moon, Mars and
Paul Merrell

Russia Just Pulled Itself Out Of The Petrodollar | Zero Hedge - 0 views

  • Back in November, before most grasped just how serious the collapse in crude was (and would become, as well as its massive implications), we wrote "How The Petrodollar Quietly Died, And Nobody Noticed", because for the first time in almost two decades, energy-exporting countries would pull their "petrodollars" out of world markets in 2015.  This empirical death of Petrodollar followed years of windfalls for oil exporters such as Russia, Angola, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. Much of that money found its way into financial markets, helping to boost asset prices and keep the cost of borrowing down, through so-called petrodollar recycling. We added that in 2014 "the oil producers will effectively import capital amounting to $7.6 billion. By comparison, they exported $60 billion in 2013 and $248 billion in 2012, according to the following graphic based on BNP Paribas calculations."
  • The problem was compounded by its own positive feedback loop: as the last few weeks vividly demonstrated, plunging oil would lead to a further liquidation in foreign  reserves for the oil exporters who rushed to preserve their currencies, leading to even greater drops in oil as the viable producers rushed to pump out as much crude out of the ground as possible in a scramble to put the weakest producers out of business, and to crush marginal production. Call it Game Theory gone mad and on steroids. Ironically, when the price of crude started its self-reinforcing plunge, such a death would happen whether the petrodollar participants wanted it, or, as the case may be, were dragged into the abattoir kicking and screaming. It is the latter that seems to have taken place with the one country that many though initially would do everything in its power to have an amicable departure from the Petrodollar and yet whose divorce from the USD has quickly become a very messy affair, with lots of screaming and the occasional artillery shell. As Bloomberg reports Russia "may unseal its $88 billion Reserve Fund and convert some of its foreign-currency holdings into rubles, the latest government effort to prop up an economy veering into its worst slump since 2009." These are dollars which Russia would have otherwise recycled into US denominated assets. Instead, Russia will purchase even more Rubles and use the proceeds for FX and economic stabilization purposes. 
  • "Together with the central bank, we are selling a part of our foreign-currency reserves,” Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in Moscow today. “We’ll get rubles and place them in deposits for banks, giving liquidity to the economy." Call it less than amicable divorce, call it what you will: what it is, is Russia violently leaving the ranks of countries that exchange crude for US paper.
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  • Bloomberg's dready summary of the US economy is generally spot on, and is to be expected when any nation finally leaves, voluntarily or otherwise, the stranglehold of a global reserve currency. What Bloomberg failed to account for is what happens to the remainder of the Petrodollar world. Here is what we said last time: Outside from the domestic economic impact within EMs due to the downward oil price shock, we believe that the implications for financial market liquidity via the reduced recycling of petrodollars should not be underestimated. Because energy exporters do not fully invest their export receipts and effectively ‘save’ a considerable portion of their income, these surplus funds find their way back into bank deposits (fuelling the loan market) as well as into financial markets and other assets. This capital has helped fund debt among importers, helping to boost overall growth as well as other financial markets liquidity conditions. ... [T]his year, we expect that incremental liquidity typically provided by such recycled flows will be markedly reduced, estimating that direct and other capital outflows from energy exporters will have declined by USD253bn YoY. Of course, these economies also receive inward capital, so on a net basis, the additional capital provided externally is much lower. This year, we expect that net capital flows will be negative for EM, representing the first net inflow of capital (USD8bn) for the first time in eighteen years. This compares with USD60bn last year, which itself was down from USD248bn in 2012. At its peak, recycled EM petro dollars amounted to USD511bn back in 2006. The declines seen since 2006 not only reflect the changed global environment, but also the propensity of underlying exporters to begin investing the money domestically rather than save. The implications for financial markets liquidity - not to mention related downward pressure on US Treasury yields – is negative.
  • Considering the wildly violent moves we have seen so far in the market confirming just how little liquidity is left in the market, and of course, the absolutely collapse in Treasury yields, with the 30 Year just hitting a record low, this prediction has been borne out precisely as expected. And now, we await to see which other country will follow Russia out of the Petrodollar next, and what impact that will have not only on the world's reserve currency, on US Treasury rates, and on the most financialized commodity as this chart demonstrates...
  • ... but on what is most important to developed world central planners everywhere: asset prices levels, and specifically what happens when the sellers emerge into what is rapidly shaping up as the most illiquid market in history.
Paul Merrell

This might be the most controversial theory for what's behind the rise of ISIS - The Wa... - 0 views

  • A year after his 700-page opus "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" stormed to the top of America's best-seller lists, Thomas Piketty is out with a new argument about income inequality. It may prove more controversial than his book, which continues to generate debate in political and economic circles. The new argument, which Piketty spelled out recently in the French newspaper Le Monde, is this: Inequality is a major driver of Middle Eastern terrorism, including the Islamic State attacks on Paris earlier this month — and Western nations have themselves largely to blame for that inequality. Piketty writes that the Middle East's political and social system has been made fragile by the high concentration of oil wealth into a few countries with relatively little population. If you look at the region between Egypt and Iran — which includes Syria — you find several oil monarchies controlling between 60 and 70 percent of wealth, while housing just a bit more than 10 percent of the 300 million people living in that area. (Piketty does not specify which countries he's talking about, but judging from a study he co-authored last year on Middle East inequality, it appears he means Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Saudia Arabia, Bahrain and Oman. By his numbers, they accounted for 16 percent of the region's population in 2012 and almost 60 percent of its gross domestic product.)
  • This concentration of so much wealth in countries with so small a share of the population, he says, makes the region "the most unequal on the planet." Within those monarchies, he continues, a small slice of people controls most of the wealth, while a large — including women and refugees — are kept in a state of "semi-slavery." Those economic conditions, he says, have become justifications for jihadists, along with the casualties of a series of wars in the region perpetuated by Western powers. His list starts with the first Gulf War, which he says resulted in allied forces returning oil "to the emirs." Though he does not spend much space connecting those ideas, the clear implication is that economic deprivation and the horrors of wars that benefited only a select few of the region's residents have, mixed together, become what he calls a "powder keg" for terrorism across the region.
  • Piketty is particularly scathing when he blames the inequality of the region, and the persistence of oil monarchies that perpetuate it, on the West: "These are the regimes that are militarily and politically supported by Western powers, all too happy to get some crumbs to fund their [soccer] clubs or sell some weapons. No wonder our lessons in social justice and democracy find little welcome among Middle Eastern youth." Terrorism that is rooted in inequality, Piketty continues, is best combated economically. To gain credibility with those who do not share in the region's wealth, Western countries should demonstrate that they are more concerned with the social development of the region than they are with their own financial interests and relationships with ruling families. The way to do this, he says, is to ensure that Middle eastern oil money funds "regional development," including far more education.
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  • He concludes by looking inward, at France, decrying its discrimination in the hiring of immigrants and the high unemployment levels among those populations. He says Europe must turn away from "austerity" and reinvigorate its model of integration and job creation, and notes that the continent accepted a net 1 million immigrants per year before the financial crisis. The argument has not gained much notice in the United States thus far. It rests on some controversial principles, not the least of which is the question of how unequal the Middle East is compared to the rest of the world — a problem rooted in the region's poor quality of economic statistics. In his paper last year, Piketty and a co-author concluded inequality was in fact quite high. "Under plausible assumptions," the paper states in its abstract, "the top 10% income share (for the Middle East) could be well over 60%, and the top 1% share might exceed 25% (vs. 20% in the United States, 11% in Western Europe, and 17% in South Africa)."
  • Those would, indeed, be jarring levels. They are the high end of the scenarios Piketty lays out in the paper. Whether they are a root cause of the Islamic State is a debate that is very likely just beginning.
Paul Merrell

Manipulation of the Gold Market: China has Imported 2400 Tons of Gold and the... - 0 views

  • We will no doubt look back upon the current era as the “crime of the century” for so many different reasons. Actually, current times represent the worst financial crimes of ALL TIME! The various crimes and how they are operated are too numerous to list and would probably fill a three volume set of books, let’s concentrate on just one. Central to everything is the U.S. issuing the global reserve currency by fiat knowing full well it truly means “non payment”. The absolute cornerstone to the dollar retaining confidence and thus value has been the suppression of the price of gold. Before getting to specifically what I’d like to point out, let’s look at a couple common sense points which beg questions. How is it China has been importing 2,400 tons of gold over the past two and a half years without any upward push to the gold price? This amount equals almost EXACTLY the TOTAL amount of gold mined annually around the world! How is it possible that ALL production has been purchased by China and yet the price goes down? The answer of course is quite simple unless you purposely close your eyes or disingenuously “apologize”.
  • The argument from the apologists is that “traders” on COMEX and LBMA believe gold will go lower so they are sellers and this is where the downward pressure has come from. You as a reader already know that much of the “selling” is done at midnight (or off hours) in the U.S. which is the lunch break in Asia, China specifically. The massive selling (as much as total global production in less than two trading days) has usually taken place during off hours when the volume is lightest and price moves the most, especially with any significant volume. The result has been gold now trades at or very near the cost of production and silver well below production costs. None of this is new, only a refresher. The reaction in the actual physical markets is backwardation, premiums over spot prices and actual shortages. Put simply, low price has brought out additional physical demand. To the point, the following is a snapshot of inventory movement (or the lack of) within the COMEX gold vaults this month:
  • Yes, yes, the open interest ALWAYS collapses and delivery “always gets made”. But doesn’t it seem strange to you that a market with less than $200 million worth of inventory is the pricing to a $5 trillion monetary asset? In comparison, a single ranch in Texas just got sold for nearly 4 times the size of what COMEX claims they have available for delivery. It used to be the tail was wagging the dog. Now, COMEX inventory has been bled down so far it can be said just a few hairs on the tail is wagging the dog! Surely I will receive comments like “this will go on forever” or “don’t worry, nothing ever comes of these delivery months”. It should be pointed out, as it stands right now a single trade of 1,820 contracts represents the entire deliverable inventory and we have seen on multiple occasions where 3,000-6,000 contracts have been sold (in one trade) to collapse the price. I ask, how does COMEX keep this in the box when something very “REAL” happens? “Real” meaning a mere push of our financial system by China? Or a military shove by Russia? Or something as simple as a “truth bomb” being released on the American public? Can an inventory of less than $200 million fiat dollars make good and keep hidden the core crime to the crime of the century? Is this why China is moving toward a physical exchange? Once they “take it out …they will take it up”!
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