Fatboy sez: What. Me Worry?
2011-01-19
Burning For Bernanke?
The recent protests in the Middle East have mostly centered on high unemployment and the rapidly rising cost of basic necessities, like food. There has been at least thirteen cases of self immolation related to these protests. The initial act in Tunisia done by Mohamed Bouazizi was followed by seven in Algeria, four in Egypt and one in Mauritania.
"The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization recently announced that the food price index has now broken a previous record set in 2008, when food prices nearly doubled over the course of 18 months, leading to popular upheavals in dozens of countries.Rising food prices, which have shot up 25 percent in the past year, have precipitated riots and demonstrations in Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Mozambique and Yemen in recent weeks"
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jan2011/food-j19.shtml
The coward thief Bernanke strongly hinted near the end of last August that QE2 would soon be launched. Look at the end of August on the following chart and you'll see the spike, the increase in speculation of food prices soon followed Bernanke's announcement.
As the NY Fed's Brian Sack and the coward thief Bernake both said, the purpose of QE's 1 and 2 is to artificially increase asset prices. So not only is the US Federal Reserve creating an imitation, not a free market driven US debt and equity markets but these pigmen are also creating an artificial price for food and other commodities. Gas for your car and heating your home and electricity for your lights.
Of course, the world's poorest are the first to be hit by this artificial asset inflation. The larger percentage of one's income that is needed for necessities is obviously increased. See this chart for the percentage of income spent in Egypt on various items.
Note how much Egyptians spend on food, a whopping 40%. So, if an Egyptian see's his food costs, thanks to QE2 and other speculation, increase by 20%, that's a 8% cut in his wages, With very little, if any savings for the average Egyptian, this could be enough to force them to skip meals, for them and their children to go to bed hungry. Revolutions begin with empty stomachs.
Bernanke's attempt to redistribute wealth to the top is succeeding at the cost of the world's poorest going hungry. And don't think this isn't coming soon to the middle class, for it is. The pigmen care not who or what they devour. They just devour. The US once again is setting such a fine example.
Here's a theme song for the thief coward Bernanke:
"The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization recently announced that the food price index has now broken a previous record set in 2008, when food prices nearly doubled over the course of 18 months, leading to popular upheavals in dozens of countries.Rising food prices, which have shot up 25 percent in the past year, have precipitated riots and demonstrations in Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Mozambique and Yemen in recent weeks"
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jan2011/food-j19.shtml
The coward thief Bernanke strongly hinted near the end of last August that QE2 would soon be launched. Look at the end of August on the following chart and you'll see the spike, the increase in speculation of food prices soon followed Bernanke's announcement.
As the NY Fed's Brian Sack and the coward thief Bernake both said, the purpose of QE's 1 and 2 is to artificially increase asset prices. So not only is the US Federal Reserve creating an imitation, not a free market driven US debt and equity markets but these pigmen are also creating an artificial price for food and other commodities. Gas for your car and heating your home and electricity for your lights.
Of course, the world's poorest are the first to be hit by this artificial asset inflation. The larger percentage of one's income that is needed for necessities is obviously increased. See this chart for the percentage of income spent in Egypt on various items.
Bernanke's attempt to redistribute wealth to the top is succeeding at the cost of the world's poorest going hungry. And don't think this isn't coming soon to the middle class, for it is. The pigmen care not who or what they devour. They just devour. The US once again is setting such a fine example.
Here's a theme song for the thief coward Bernanke:
2011-01-17
Why is the Vampire Squid only Allowing Non-US Investors to Suck on it's Facebook Blood Funnel?
Less than two weeks ago, the headline writers were on their knees sucking the Vampire Squid's funnel with headlines raving about GS' mega deal for Facebook's IPO. First of all, screw Facebook. Secondly, the headlines contained words such as, "Blowout", "Mega-Deal" and "Huge Money" as the squidmen was offering the IPO to only it's mega-rich clients.
But now, only twelve days later, the deal is closed to US investors. Why? Goldman begins the explanation with, "concluded the level of media attention might not be consistent with the proper completion of a U.S. private placement under U.S. law." This makes no sense.
Then there's this from the WSJ:
It wasn't immediately clear from Goldman's statement exactly what led executives to limit the Facebook deal to non-U.S. investors. The company remained tight-lipped about the offering despite the frenzy unleashed when the deal surfaced two weeks ago. Prospective investors were repeatedly told by Goldman not to publicly disclose details about the private offering.
Private placements like the Facebook deal are subject to strict SEC guidelines, and Goldman's statement Monday suggested that executives grew concerned that huge interest in the offering could expose the securities firm to regulatory vulnerability. One Goldman client was told the deal is being offered only to non-U.S. clients because of regulatory concerns. Chinese demand is especially strong, said one person familiar with the offering.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703396604576087941210274036.html
Some drivel from the yahoo's at Yahoo: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110117/ap_on_en_ot/us_facebook_investors
Then there's this from the site owned by some 5' 3" Napoleonic complex ridden prick:
“Does this suggest that U.S. laws are prohibiting a certain group of investors from funding U.S. companies?” he said. “You might see some significant U.S. investors suggest that this is a negative for the U.S. economy.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-17/goldman-sachs-halts-facebook-share-sale-to-u-s-investors-on-rule-concerns.html
The moronic stock pumping weasels from Marketwatch have zero content to add:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/goldman-facebook-deal-for-foreign-clients-only-2011-01-17
So is this bizarre refusal to offer any US investors an attempt to tacitly threaten the masturbating, porn watching regulators at the SEC that if they pry to deep into the Squidmen dealings they will circumvent them by offering their bestest deals to only overseas investors? Being that the SEC are a bunch of masturbating, porn watching incompetent, conflicted and or corrupt regulators, I doubt it.
So why are they doing it? Is it to bow down to the US's largest creditor that exists outside the US border, Daddy Hu and company? Maybe.
Or is the Facebook deal that places a value of Facebook at over $50 billion not much different than the structured deals that were referred to as "Dog shit" by one of Goldman's VP's? probably
But now, only twelve days later, the deal is closed to US investors. Why? Goldman begins the explanation with, "concluded the level of media attention might not be consistent with the proper completion of a U.S. private placement under U.S. law." This makes no sense.
Then there's this from the WSJ:
It wasn't immediately clear from Goldman's statement exactly what led executives to limit the Facebook deal to non-U.S. investors. The company remained tight-lipped about the offering despite the frenzy unleashed when the deal surfaced two weeks ago. Prospective investors were repeatedly told by Goldman not to publicly disclose details about the private offering.
Private placements like the Facebook deal are subject to strict SEC guidelines, and Goldman's statement Monday suggested that executives grew concerned that huge interest in the offering could expose the securities firm to regulatory vulnerability. One Goldman client was told the deal is being offered only to non-U.S. clients because of regulatory concerns. Chinese demand is especially strong, said one person familiar with the offering.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703396604576087941210274036.html
Some drivel from the yahoo's at Yahoo: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110117/ap_on_en_ot/us_facebook_investors
Then there's this from the site owned by some 5' 3" Napoleonic complex ridden prick:
“Does this suggest that U.S. laws are prohibiting a certain group of investors from funding U.S. companies?” he said. “You might see some significant U.S. investors suggest that this is a negative for the U.S. economy.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-17/goldman-sachs-halts-facebook-share-sale-to-u-s-investors-on-rule-concerns.html
The moronic stock pumping weasels from Marketwatch have zero content to add:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/goldman-facebook-deal-for-foreign-clients-only-2011-01-17
So is this bizarre refusal to offer any US investors an attempt to tacitly threaten the masturbating, porn watching regulators at the SEC that if they pry to deep into the Squidmen dealings they will circumvent them by offering their bestest deals to only overseas investors? Being that the SEC are a bunch of masturbating, porn watching incompetent, conflicted and or corrupt regulators, I doubt it.
So why are they doing it? Is it to bow down to the US's largest creditor that exists outside the US border, Daddy Hu and company? Maybe.
Or is the Facebook deal that places a value of Facebook at over $50 billion not much different than the structured deals that were referred to as "Dog shit" by one of Goldman's VP's? probably
Bailout the People Movement
Citizens buying extra public transportation cards and using them to allow their poorer neighbors free subway rides. Grocery store managers sending their underpaid workers home with free bags of groceries because those workers and their families go hungry. Fast food restaurant managers in direct violation of their superiors padding the hours of their underpaid staff to allow for overtime pay, allowing their workers to eat something other than the greasy, cheap and unhealthy food they prepare daily. This makes me cry. To hell with the banks, the US based MNC's and our elected officials as they suck the blood from each of us. To hell with them all.
http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/disadvantaged-turn-to-disobedience-in-us-%e2%80%94-rt/
http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/disadvantaged-turn-to-disobedience-in-us-%e2%80%94-rt/
Don't Believe Evertything You Read. Unless You read it Here
But the reality of the situation is that those arrested and presented to us as al-Qaeda senior operatives are in fact members of the Iraqi armed resistance which the government has been fighting since the 2003-U.S. invasion.
The paradox is that after each operation and arrest campaign, we are more or less made to believe that the government has succeeded in rooting out all terror.
But on closer look at the identity of those shown on television as being al-Qaeda operatives, one finds that many of them are university professors, intellectuals and people of note whose social position as well as religious, intellectual and political orientations can in no way class them as ‘terrorists.’
We cannot claim that they are ‘innocent’ from the government’s perspective. For sure they have been arrested because the government is not happy about their practices, ideas and actions.
But little do we know that these people can also be part of a growing group of Iraqis who openly oppose corruption in the ranks of the government and its summary arrests and secret prisons.
Charges like these in government’s mind are enough to put them behind bars and exhibit them as successes of its security forces on television.
In case you weren't aware, Newsweek is a terrible source for information:
A top Taliban intelligence officer and several other knowledgeable insurgent sources tell NEWSWEEK that the insurgency’s top commanders named two replacements for Baradar last month at a shura—or senior council meeting—near the Pakistani frontier city of Quetta. The anointees: Abdul Qayum Zakir, a former Guantánamo inmate and ruthless field commander; and Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor, a portly financial and logistical expert who commands a large militia force…There’s a lot to unravel here. For one, I’d be curious as to what, exactly, a “top Taliban intelligence officer” really is. They do not, as best I know, have a formalized intelligence organization, even though I’d describe their intelligence gathering capability as highly complex. If they do have members dedicated to analyzing and acting on intelligence—if their organization is not, as most assume, so cellular and distributed that individual groups run their own, local collection—then that is actually very interesting information, and suggests a hierarchy I’d never really had reason to assume exists.
To this end, the Taliban are emphasizing that Zakir’s and Mansoor’s appointments were made with Mullah Omar’s explicit consent. But according to other fighters, few people truly believe Omar had any say in the matter. The mullah has not been seen or heard from since November 2001, when he fled Kandahar on the back of Baradar’s motorcycle. As a result, most Taliban are skeptical of claims or rumors that Zakir and Mansoor—or any Taliban commanders, for that matter—have had direct contact with their missing leader.
Secondly, if Mansoor’s appointment was only decided last month—December of 2010—then why was Syed Saleem Shahzad reporting on it last February? It could be that they were confirming, or re-upping Mansoor’s promotion, and maybe adding Zakir to the mix. But that description sounds damned fishy. The Taliban wouldn’t take 10 months to name a replacement for a senior official like this.
Lastly, there’s the claim that Mullah Omar hasn’t been seen or heard from since 2001. That is, flatly wrong...
http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/why-do-we-try-to-radicalize-the-taliban/
Fifty Years Ago Today Eisenhower Warned of the Military-Industrial Complex
It has been reported that in Eisenhower's original draft of this speech the phrasing was Military-Industrial-Congressional complex. At the unrelenting insistence of his aides, Eisenhower relented and dropped "Congressional" from his speech. Too bad he did. Excerpts:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
"Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded."
"Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society."
"Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."
"Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect."
Complete text: http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/indust.html
If you haven't watch the speech, it's worth your time. Where have the true leaders of this nation gone?
Here's a brief excerpt:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
"Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded."
"Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite.
It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society."
"Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."
"Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect."
Complete text: http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/indust.html
If you haven't watch the speech, it's worth your time. Where have the true leaders of this nation gone?
Here's a brief excerpt:
2011-01-16
Baghdad Citizens Receive 1/18th of the Amount of Electricity They had Received Seven Years Ago Under Sadaam. Average of Two Military/Security Leaders Assassinated Every Day.
Iraq’s capital, Baghdad, home to more than six million people, hardly gets one hour of non-interrupted electricity supplies every 24 hours.
The city has plunged into darkness with the country’s national grid still unable to increase supplies despite billions of dollars in investments.
Seven years after the 2003-U.S. invasion, power production in the country is still below levels reached under former leader Saddam Hussein.
Prior to his downfall, Baghdad used to have up to 18 hours of electricity supplies a day
The last two years saw an upsurge in insecurity due to an unprecedented hike in assassinations whether in Baghdad or other major Iraqi cities.
These assassinations, which have so far claimed more than 2,000 lives among the country’s security forces, are carried out in two major ways.
In the first, the assassins rely on silencer guns which are either imported or produced locally. In the second, the assassins rely on stick explosive charges most of which are imported.
The problem with these assassinations is two-fold. First, the assassins select their victims very carefully and make sure they have a role to play in the country’s armed forces and security ranks. Second, they have turned into an unstoppable contagious disease.
/snip/
There are no Wikileaks reports to reveal the secrets behind these terrifying killings. But one can say with certainty that both U.S. and Iraqi government claims of having succeeded to reinstate relative calm in the country are false and hollow.
Blaming them on al-Qaeda branch in Iraq, the so-called the Iraqi Islamic state, is the worst conspiracy theory-hatched scenario one can imagine. If the assassinations are truly of al-Qaeda making, then we the Iraqis and the whole world with us should lament not only our future but the future of our children.
Such an allegation, if true, it will mean that al-Qaeda is unbeatable and that the U.S. has cut and run in Iraq and that our shaky government will soon be overthrown with the terror group’s operatives taking over.
Who other than the world’s mightiest intelligence agencies is capable of carrying out such highly coordinated and well-targeted assassinations? How come that the mighty U.S. armed forces could not put an end to them?
The ongoing assassinations leave more than one question mark about whatever the U.S. and Iraqi government officials say in regard to conditions in Iraq.