2013-03-23

Herr Schäuble Sprechen

"Ich werde nicht erpresst werden."

 
"The danger of a European bank runs is latent because the banking world of Southern Europe is tarnished," said Hans-Werner Sinn, president of the Munich-based Ifo Institute, this newspaper. "Einige Länder und viele Banken sind eigentlich schon pleite und werden nur durch die Sonderkredite der EZB am Leben gehalten. Die Katastrophe ist schon längst eingetreten, aber die Öffentlichkeit verschließt die Augen davor." "Some countries and many banks are actually already broke and held only by the special loans to the ECB on life. The disaster has occurred long ago, but the public closes their eyes."

Chop Off Their Hands

[A]nd, without any deception or evil disposition towards those whose silver they accept for purifying, they should cleanse the silver, and without practicing any deception in weighing it, they should change the purified silver into denarii. If it be reported that any one has acted contrary to his oath, he will be tried by the judgment of God; and if it be proved that he acted contrary to his oath he will lose his hand...
/
Modern states gave control of monetary policy and markets to the barons of global finance. The experiment has resulted in the same disasterous outcomes as before. The barons have debased the coinage and corrupted the markets. The state lost control of the currency as central banks allowed the barons in banks and shadow banks to "create" money from securitisation and quantitative easing. The state lost control of markets as the SEC, FSA and others allowed those same barons to set up alternative trading platforms beyond any public scrutiny and to bastardise public exchanges with algorithmic trading and synthetic instruments priced against fraudulent reference rates.

Now that the whole system is falling apart, banks and bondholders - the robber barons and false coiners of our times - want to take more money from depositors and taxpayers to prop it up. The state, the taxpayers and the depositors should not be compelled to protect bank bondholders. Central bankers and market regulators should stop being complicit in debasement of the currency and corruption of the markets - taking the silver of the state and of the poor.

Enough already. Chop off their hands.
http://londonbanker.blogspot.com/2013/03/chop-off-their-hands.html

Cyprus Should Let the Banks Go Bankrupt


Taverne Frau Merkel Sprechen


The Moscow Times depicted the crisis in Cyprus and the Eurozone with the image of a faux Renaissance painting with all the major protagonists, with the focus on German Chancellor Angela Merkel dressed as a tavern woman. The picture has gone viral with thousands of reposts on social media and blogs
http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013/03/22/madame-merkels-rule-goes-viral/

2013-03-17

Letter to the Fed

A letter to the Federal Reserve asking about the wisdom of imposing a tax on bank deposits. And the Fed’s reply. From 1941
A letter to the Federal Reserve asking about the wisdom of imposing a tax on bank deposits. And the Fed’s reply. From 1941
http://www.edmundconway.com/2013/03/the-tragedy-of-cyprus/
 

2013-03-16

Commodity Fetishism



"In the 19th century, Karl Marx contradicted the artifice of Adam Smith's "naturalisation of the market's behaviour" as a politico-ideologic apology — by and for the capitalists — which allowed human economic choices and decisions to be misrepresented as fixed "facts of life", rather than as the human actions that resulted from the will of the producers, the buyers, and the sellers of the commodities traded at market."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_fetishism



 










The AAA notes that the average price for a gallon of regular gas nationwide has rise from $3.30 a month ago, to $3.52 today. That’s four cents more than it was last year, a record high price for the start of February, CNBC notes.
/
That means that U.S. households are paying the highest percentage of income for gas in almost 30 years. This comes even as gasoline consumption has fallen.
http://investorplace.com/2013/02/consumers-paying-record-gas-prices-for-february/

2013-03-12

Drones Over Amerika


Pilots Report Drone Interfering with Flights on Approach to JFK Airport
http://www.nycaviation.com/2013/03/pilots-report-drone-interfereing-with-flights-on-approach-to-jfk-airport/

Mexico

One would think five bodies dangling from a bridge outside of Mexico City, wrapped in sheets as a mummy, would get some news coverage in the U.S.
 
Five men were hung on the bridge of Valle Dorado early today in this city. Allegedly left them with a message that was retired by the Municipal police.
The five bodies were blindfolded and presented as Mummies and all were covered only by bands that were placed them all over your body.
Police from different corporations and the army cordoned off the place where the macabre discovery was made this morning in the capital of Coahuila.
At least two of the three bodies had his face covered with Grey Ribbon and the other two just with bands that put all over your body from head to toe.
Google translate from:

2013-03-09

Chart Porn

Show me the recovery

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvsYEds0KTlayncYIfBD8f6FXs6W_wp2335o7aWclOspmMpCfe7JyRAoFkowtFS8_l2GL3n0JC3aYv49vuGzCTR6ELupzDngh-IWedIPZU4xXr3RChFgjKoYumWfoC8NHXP8nLbDV9gVA/s1600/change-number-employed-since-nov-2007-thru-feb-2013.png

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?chart_type=line&s[1][id]=EMRATIO&s[1][range]=5yrs

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2013/03/College%20Tuition.jpg

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/HOUSTNSA

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2013/02/20130227_Bernanke.jpg

http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/content/2013/0211-foodstamp/14997667-1-eng-US/0211-foodstamp_full_600.jpg

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/WOTHAST_Max_630_378.png

http://twitpic.com/c5z9je

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/M2V?cid=32242

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2013/02/20130213_1894.jpg

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/GFDEBTN_Max_630_378.png

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?s%5B1%5D%5Bid%5D=TCMDO

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MZM

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/NILFWJN

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=2Xa

http://www.streettalklive.com/images/stories/1dailyxchange/PCE-Spending-MajCategories-Revisions-113012.PNG

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/HOUSTNSA.txt

2013-03-06

The Bernanke Puts


An average of more than 50,000 people slept each night in New York City's homeless shelters for the first time in January, a record that underscores an unsettling national trend: a rising number of families without permanent housing. Families have become a larger share of the nation's homeless population.
/
More than 21,000 children—an unprecedented 1% of the city's youth—slept each night in a city shelter in January, an increase of 22% in the past year.
/
"New York is facing a homeless crisis worse than any time since the Great Depression," said Mary Brosnahan
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324539404578340731809639210.html?mod=djemalertNEWS




 

Not Mr. Majestyk's Mexican Melon Farm

A group of gunmen attacked a company melonera workers in the community of San Pablo East Progress Ajuchitlán Township, and left 10 dead and two serious injuries are reported.
Mr. Majestyk es un muerto

A group of gunmen attacked a company melonera workers in the community of San Pablo East Progress Ajuchitlán Township, and left 10 dead and two serious injuries are reported.
The community is the first village in the mountains, with 400 inhabitants and is one hour from the county seat, in a complicated way between hillsides.
several

That company operates a melon that this Sunday was attacked by armed men who arrived just after 10 am and shot who found. Among the victims is Enrique Hernandez Rivas, melon field manager.
Neighbors gave the report to the police forces and the army, who came to town with prosecutors to conduct investigations. In total, we saw about 80 police officers of the state, ministerial and army soldiers.
The bodies were scattered in the melon field. Local people would not give information on why people came armed with several units and attacked. A group of army stayed to investigate the facts and find those responsible.
The same agency reported that investigates the facts based on the preliminary CUAU/SC/02/0052/2013.
Reforma news agency reported that the victims were executed by three individuals, police sources said yesterday between 10:00 and 10:30 in the morning.
Indicates that criminals armed with AK-47 rifles arrived melon field located between the communities of East St. Paul, The Hidden and Remance, and one by one were running farm workers and wounded two others shot and laborers.
A worker who is dedicated to take the water to the field realized the action from afar and to be discovered by the gunmen ran to safety of the shots that made ​​him, adds Reform.
According to police reports, the laborers have shot grace and the authorities ignore the reasons that this group has had to kill them.
When authorities arrived at the scene found ministerial pulled seven bodies, the other three family members were taken away.
One of the deceased was handed over to his family and the other six were transferred to the Attorney General of Arcelia and be taken to the Forensic Medical Service of the city of Iguala.
The same source says that the dead are Luis Fernando Ramirez, 16, a native of Mitlalcingo, Ahuacuotzingo; Zacarias Ramirez Abarca, 25, of Chilapa, Heriberto Ramirez Jimenez, Alfonso Huerta Cyril, Fidel Garcia Ramirez, 15, 22 and 25 years, the three neighbors of Ahuacuotzingo Amitlazingo.
Also killed Hermelindo “N” of Huetamo, Michoacán, Maria Luisa Ortuño, 54 of Las Juntas, Ajuchitlán; Elvis Ray Fields, St. Paul East and Alfonso Estrada, 15, of El Aguaje of Ajuchitlán.
Simón Díaz and Domingo Ramirez Abarca, Ajuchitlán and Chilapa, were shot.
The state attorney general’s office said in a bulletin that 40 Infantry Battalion of the Army gave the report of the ten executed.
Process news agency released the 10 people killed and the two injured are employees of the company Legumbrera San Luis, a native of Michoacan, and activities in other municipalities in the Tierra Caliente which is dedicated to producing melon, sources of the Attorney General of Guerrero.
He added that preliminary reports indicate that victims are laborers, and that it was a direct attack, and that no confrontation.
Indicates that according to some people, to place an armed group arrived in several trucks and opened fire on workers who were in a melon field and then fled to the mountainous part of the municipality.
The website of the newspaper Milenio spread that the victims were related to organized crime activities, and in the hills around the melon field poppy crops there. This publication discusses that there was a shootout between suspected criminal groups.
The community of St. Paul East is the gate of the mountain to reach the region of Tierra Caliente, their paths unite the municipalities of San Miguel Totolapan, Tlacotepec and the Costa Grande region.
Ajuchitlán is where more clashes have claimed the military and in which at the beginning of the year there were several executions and kidnappings.
Recently, the town located halfway between the municipal and Paul East, which is La Laja, reported the kidnapping of a primary school teacher, who took her from her classroom.

2013-03-03

Mexico

The bodies of three beheaded men were found this morning inside a unit of route 83 abandoned in the middle of Chicoloapan, while another was found 200 metres away.
Around 7:30 hours, neighbors reported to the municipal police who at the junction of the Lerdo Street and Manzano River, in the March 2, Cologne, was parked a Urvan van with a blanket on one side and three corpses wrapped inside.
"Square" is read in the blanket placed on the left side of the vehicle, while another was left on the floor with two heads.
A third head was found in the driver's cab and the fourth was found in a bag inside.
The victims, aged between 25 and 30 years old, have not been identified.
The bodies were raised by the service medical forensic of the Attorney's State of Mexico.
Meanwhile, the Nezahualcoyotl police reported the discovery of the body of a man identified as José García Godínez.
The corpse had three wounds produced by caliber 9 mm firearm and was lying on the street Petroleos Mexicanos, the colony large Vicente villada
 
Google translate from:
http://www.blogdelnarco.com/2013/03/decapitan-a-cuatro-en-chicoloapan-edomex/

From an earlier post:
Much of the nearly $2 billion in US aid and training provided to Mexico under the Merida Initiative has flowed to the quasi-military federal police force.
/
The report focuses on “enforced disappearances” of civilians at the hands of both Mexico's naval infantry and the militarized federal police — forces that have won favor and hefty funds from Washington during the six-year campaign against the gangsters.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/mexico/130222/mexico-drug-war-disappearances-human-rights-watch-report

2013-03-02

The Bernanke Put

Austerity Causes Greece to be Reclassified as Third World Nation

A major fund manager has reclassified Greece from a developed to an emerging market, in an unprecedented move reflecting the "unfortunate economic tailspin" of the Greek economy, which has threatened the future of the euro.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/9904969/Greece-reclassified-to-emerging-market-from-developed.html

Bernanke. The Lying Thief Coward

Bernanke: "You called me a dove, well maybe in some respects I am, but on the other hand my inflation record is the best of any Federal Reserve chairman in the postwar period."

Bernanke's term circled in red:
 

2013-03-01

Erdogan

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday declared that Israel and Islamophobia both are a “crime against humanity.”
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon sat non-responsively behind Erdogan as he spoke in Vienna.

 


Erdogan two weeks ago:
Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan calls Francis Joseph Ricciardone, the US’s new ambassador to Turkey, a ‘rookie’ regarding his remarks on press freedom in Turkey. ‘He does not know Turkey, he does not have any idea which laws there are, and then he walks into a trap and makes a statement,’ Erdoğan says
U.S. Ambassador is a rookie that walked into a trap

2013-02-26

Systemic Risk

Watch Bernanke squirm:

 

2013-02-25

Spain



A survey showed more than three quarters disapproved of Mr Rajoy as head of the government, while 85 per cent had "little or no faith in him".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/9845625/Spanish-Prime-Minister-Mariano-Rajoy-under-pressure-to-quit.html

MADRID, Feb 25 (Reuters) - A former treasurer of Spain's ruling party, at the heart of a corruption scandal that has hurt Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, was ordered to surrender his passport on Monday while judges investigate millions of euros he deposited in Swiss banks.
Luis Barcenas is accused of using his position to take bribes, evade taxes by hiding the proceeds in Switzerland and launder money through shell companies, charges that carry prison sentences of up to six years and fines
/
Ruz banned Barcenas from leaving Spain, seized his passport and ordered him to report to a court twice a month.
/
Public interest in the case had largely evaporated until January, when Ruz's investigation revealed Barcenas had Swiss bank accounts once worth as much as 22 million euros ($30 million).
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/25/spain-corruption-idUSL6N0BPBUH20130225

Meanwhile, monthly jobs data out later is unlikely to calm nervous markets. Unemployment in Spain now stands at a staggering 26% with no signs of falling.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21319639

Beppe


Beppe Grillo is the symbolic winner in the election. His MoVimento 5 Stelle (MS5 - Five Star Movement) is on the verge of becoming the largest party in Italy by popular vote
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2013/02/beppe-grillos-five-star-movement-on.html
 

2013-02-24

Not Part of the Solution but Part of the Problem

Much of the nearly $2 billion in US aid and training provided to Mexico under the Merida Initiative has flowed to the quasi-military federal police force.
/
The report focuses on “enforced disappearances” of civilians at the hands of both Mexico's naval infantry and the militarized federal police — forces that have won favor and hefty funds from Washington during the six-year campaign against the gangsters.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/mexico/130222/mexico-drug-war-disappearances-human-rights-watch-report

KABUL — Afghan President Ha­mid Karzai on Sunday ordered all U.S. Special Operations forces to leave a strategically important province in two weeks, alleging that they had been involved in the torture and murder of “innocent people.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/taliban-target-afghan-intelligence-agency-in-three-suicide-attacks/2013/02/24/559313fa-7e65-11e2-9073-e9dda4ac6a66_story.html

Sequestration



In fact, the final deal reached between Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in 2011 included an agreement that there would be no tax increases in the sequester in exchange for what the president was insisting on: an agreement that the nation’s debt ceiling would be increased for 18 months, so Obama would not have to go through another such negotiation in 2012, when he was running for reelection.
So when the president asks that a substitute for the sequester include not just spending cuts but also new revenue, he is moving the goal posts. His call for a balanced approach is reasonable, and he makes a strong case that those in the top income brackets could and should pay more. But that was not the deal he made.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bob-woodward-obamas-sequester-deal-changer/2013/02/22/c0b65b5e-7ce1-11e2-9a75-dab0201670da_story.html

2013-02-21

Stay Schemin



Las Vegas (CNN) -- A shooting and a fiery crash left three people dead in the neon heart of the Las Vegas Strip on Thursday, and police scrambled to find out who triggered the carnage.

The bloodshed closed the Strip for about a block and a half around some of its biggest draws, leaving tourists gaping at a wrecked Maserati, a burned-out taxi and four other vehicles.

One of those killed was Kenneth Cherry Jr. -- a rapper also known as Kenny Clutch
http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/21/us/nevada-las-vegas-deaths/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Markets Govern

There is a strong perception that countries that introduced austerity programs in the Eurozone were somehow forced to do so by the financial markets.
/
Note the two extremes. Greece was confronted with extremely high spreads in 2011 and applied the most severe austerity measures amounting to more than 10% of GDP per capita. Germany did not face any pressure from spreads and did not do any austerity
/
There can be little doubt. Financial markets exerted different degrees of pressure on countries. By raising the spreads they forced some countries to engage in severe austerity programs.
/
We observe two interesting phenomena in Figure 3. First, while the spreads declined, the debt-to-GDP ratio continued to increase in all countries after the ECB announcement. Second, the change in the debt-to-GDP ratio is a poor predictor of the declines in the spreads. Thus the decline in the spreads observed since the ECB announcement appears to be unrelated to the changes of the debt-to-GDP ratios. If anything, the fundamentalist school of thinking would have predicted that as the debt-to-GDP ratios increased in all countries, spreads should have increased rather than decline.
/
How well did this panic-induced austerity work?
http://www.voxeu.org/article/panic-driven-austerity-eurozone-and-its-implications

2013-02-20


Enraged by more coming pay cuts, tax hikes and slashed pensions, an estimated 60,000 people converged on the center of Athens on Feb. 21 during a 24-hour general strike that shut down services.
/
Beating drums and chanting “Robbers, robbers!” demonstrators marched to Parliament
http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013/02/20/strikes-to-shut-down-greece/#!lightbox/0/

Herr Schäuble Sprechen



...[w]arned Italians against voting for Silvio Berlusconi in general elections scheduled for Feb. 24 and 25. "Silvio Berlusconi may be an effective campaign strategist," the magazine quotes Schäuble as saying. "But my advice to the Italians is not to make the same mistake again by re-electing him."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/top-german-politicians-warn-italians-against-voting-for-berlusconi-a-884265.html

The German government has warned Silvio Berlusconi not to target Berlin in the run-up to elections early next year after the former Italian prime minister attacked the "German-centric" economic policies of his successor Mario Monti.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100303559/Berlusconi_Warned_Not_to_Target_Germany

It is unclear whether 76-year-old Berlusconi, a scandal-ridden media tycoon and four times prime minister, will win enough support to wield influence, but even the possibility of a comeback is a nightmare for German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/19/us-italy-vote-germany-idUSBRE91I0UD20130219

The comments are not surprising. In almost every campaign speech, Berlusconi rails against Germany. "Should we continue to allow Germany to dictate policies that ruin Italy?" he calls out. "Nooooo!" scream his followers. On Monday he told industrial leaders in Monza, a city north of Milan, that Chancellor Angela Merkel is "an East German bureaucrat, who grew up with its centralized economy." It would, however, be crazy to impose the rules of austerity on a country that isn't growing, he added.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/silvio-berlusconi-followers-loyal-as-ever-ahead-of-italian-elections-a-884532.html

Silvio responds:

Merkel is an unfuckable lard-arse

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/italy/110915/berlusconi-calls-merkel-unfuckable-lard-arse

2013-02-17

BEIRUT

“[A]t one point he turned and said ‘This is my face, can you remember my face? We don’t care; you can’t do anything.’ That’s when I thought they were going to kill me.”
/
“Then they said they were going to give me a gift to help me relax,” and they pressed a piece of hashish into his hand and dropped him off
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2013/Feb-18/206855-spate-of-robberies-in-fake-taxis-unnerves-commuters.ashx#axzz2LDYANyka


2013-02-16

20% Surcharge for Bacon, Eggs and Grits so you won't get Robbed, Shot as you Feed your Face with Grease

It’s now believed to be the first and only Waffle House in the country to charge customers a 20 percent surcharge on all checks. The extra money is being used to pay for an off-duty police officer to help secure the 24-hour facility, which serves up its fare in one of Atlanta’s high-crime areas.
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/waffle-house-smothers-customers-with-security-surc/nWQmX/

Zuckerberg


As a result of tax loopholes and deductions, the social media giant Facebook paid no income taxes for the fiscal year 2012, despite reaping $1.1 billion in US corporate profits, according to a new report.

While Americans have just been subjected to higher taxes, billion-dollar corporations like Facebook, General Electric, Boeing and Wells Fargo have all been able to avoid paying any corporate income taxes, reports Citizens for Tax Justice.
Assuming that the report is accurate, Facebook will collect $429 million in net tax refunds for the last fiscal year. On top of the $1.1 billion US corporate profits it made last year, the company continues to remain financially superior while poor and middle-class Americans struggle to pay back the national debt.
http://rt.com/usa/news/facebook-income-tax-year-342/

"We Make Money on Inflation, Stagnation and even Starvation"


2013-02-15

Cornel West: "Obama is a War Criminal."


"Let us not be deceived: Nixon, Bush, Obama, they're war criminals," West said. "They have killed innocent people in the name of the struggle for freedom, but they're suspending the law, very much like Wall Street criminals. The law is suspended for them, but the law applies for the rest of us."

Obama is the black mascot of Wall St, a War Criminal and a Rockefeller Republican in Black Face

Correction: Not a Meteor but a US Test of a New Weapon Over the Urals



“You’re like some primitive tribe. What meteorite?...universe that has its own laws. When something falls – it’s man-made. People are warmongers and provocateurs,”
http://rt.com/politics/zhirinovsky-meteorite-american-weapon-316/

Orwellian

"[B]ut sometimes that abuse is so extreme, so glaring, that it is worth taking note of, as it reveals its purported concern over national security to be a complete sham."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/14/cia-aclu-drone-secrecy

Meteor Explodes Over Chelyabinsk


2013-02-13

Jeff Immelt


Jeff Immelt Named Jobs Tsar by Obama


For General Electric Co., hawking subprime mortgages was a long way from making light bulbs and jet engines.
That didn't stop the industrial giant from jumping into the subprime business in 2004, lending blue-chip respectability to the market for risky home loans by paying roughly half a billion dollars to buy California-based WMC Mortgage Corp.
What GE got in the bargain, former WMC employees say, was a place where erstwhile shoe salesmen, ex-strippers and even a former porn actress could sign on as sales reps and make big money pushing home loans. WMC's top salespeople earned a million dollars a year or more and lived fast, swigging $1,000 bottles of Cristal and wheeling around in $100,000 Ferraris and Bentleys.
http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/01/06/7802/fraud-and-folly-untold-story-general-electric-s-subprime-debacle

Mexico






Today in Mexico:
The vicious, hours-long attack at a beach home on the outskirts of Acapulco before dawn Monday was latest chapter of violence that has tarnished the once-glamorous Pacific coast resort.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/mexican-police-hunt-masked-gunman-raped-6-spanish-tourists-acapulco-article-1.1256620


Here
Here
Here
and
Here








 

The New Amerikan Dream. $4K a Month to Live in a Room



2013-02-10

Drones Over America

POLICE plan to use spy drones in the hunt for a Rambo-style ex-soldier and policeman who has murdered three people and vowed to kill again.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/376732/Man-hunt-for-ex-soldier-who-shot-police-chief-s-daughter-and-killed-policeman

In a related story:
Some Torrance residents remain on edge days after police officers participating in the massive manhunt for ex-LAPD Officer Christopher Jordan Dorner mistakenly shot up two pickups being driven by people not matching the description of the murder suspect.
Two women in a blue pickup, who were delivering copies of the Los Angeles Times, came under fire by Los Angeles Police Department officers on Thursday morning in what Police Chief Charlie Beck has described as a case of “mistaken identity.”
Moments later, Torrance Police Department officers responding to the gunfire slammed their cruiser into a black truck being driven by David Perdue and opened fire. Perdue’s attorney described the shooting as “unbridled police lawlessness” in an interview with The Times on Saturday.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2013/02/dorner-manhunt-torrance-neighborhood-mistaken-identity.html

 

2013-02-05

Barack W. Obushma



"Obama has become the head of America's killing machine and proud of it." Dr. Cornell West

"A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaida or “an associated force” -- even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.
/
  “Basically, it argues that the government has the right to carry out the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen. … It recognizes some limits on the authority it sets out, but the limits are elastic and vaguely defined, and it’s easy to see how they could be manipulated.”
/
 “the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the executive branch of our government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws while keeping the reasons for the conclusion a secret.”
http://openchannel.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/04/16843014-exclusive-justice-department-memo-reveals-legal-case-for-drone-strikes-on-americans?lite

Sixteen page U.S. Department of Justice memo:
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/msnbc/sections/news/020413_DOJ_White_Paper.pdf
 

Ben Shalom Bernanke


Fuel costs are taking a big bite out of household budgets, according to separate reports Monday from the Energy Department and from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The Energy Department says U.S. households spent an average of $2,912 on gasoline, or almost 4 percent of their pretax income, the highest percentage in 30 years.
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/gasolines-drag-on-income-hits-30-year-high/nWGDj/

 

2013-02-03

Department of Energy: Taxpayers Dollars at Work

To make this the greenest Super Bowl, the New Orleans Host Committee has partnered with fans and the community to offset energy use across the major Super Bowl venues. The exterior of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome features more than 26,000 LED lights on 96 full-color graphic display panels, designed to wash the building in a spectrum of animated colors, patterns and images. The system draws only 10 kilowatts of electricity -- equivalent to the amount of energy used by a small home -- and the lights are expected to last for many years before needing replacement.
Off the football field, New Orleans is embracing energy efficiency with help from the Energy Department
http://energy.gov/articles/super-bowl-city-leads-energy-efficient-forefront

Snapshot of inside Super Dome just as second half began:
 

The Bernanke Put














 
Goldman Sachs made more than a quarter of a billion pounds last year by speculating on food staples reigniting the controversy over banks profiting from the global food crisis.
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Christine Haigh of the WDM said: "While nearly a billion people go hungry, Goldman Sachs bankers are feeding their own bonuses by betting on the price of food. Financial speculation is fuelling food price spikes and Goldman Sachs is the No 1 culprit."
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British consumers have not been spared the impact of rising food costs – prices have, on average, risen by nearly 40 per cent in the past seven years.
Rob Nash, Oxfam's private sector adviser, said: "Oxfam is very concerned about food speculation, especially in the light of increasingly extreme weather conditions which can reduce supply suddenly and severely deplete stocks. The last thing we need is for that volatility to be exacerbated by speculation and exploited for short-term profit."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/goldman-bankers-get-rich-betting-on-food-prices-as-millions-starve-8459207.html

Barclays has made as much as half a billion pounds in two years from speculating on food staples such as wheat and soya, prompting allegations that banks are profiting handsomely from the global food crisis.
Barclays is the UK bank with the greatest involvement in food commodity trading and is one of the three biggest global players, along with the US banking giants Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, research from the World Development Movement points out.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/barclays-makes-500m-betting-on-food-crisis-8100011.html

A measure of net-longs for 11 U.S. farm goods jumped 13 percent to 401,134 contracts, the biggest increase since July 10, CFTC data show. The S&P GSCI Agriculture Index of eight products climbed 1.2 percent last week. Corn positions climbed 8.5 percent to 164,434 contracts, and those for soybeans 7.4 percent to 105,017 contracts, the highest in five weeks.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-03/bulls-rewarded-with-best-january-rally-since-2006-commodities.html
 


2013-02-02

Joe Biden



"“I would like to see us moving towards the day when no single ally provides more than 50% of certain critical capabilities. This will require European allies to do more."
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...[b]ut Biden’s warning is unlikely to change policy in Europe anytime soon.
http://www.euronews.com/2013/02/02/joe-biden-balms-us-european-relations/

Pemex

Pemex estimated that in the first six months of 2012, the volume of oil removed illegally from its national pipeline system through clandestine taps reached 1,841,478 barrels, marking an 18 percent increase from the 1,557,569 barrels stolen during the same period last year.
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Several U.S.-based companies operating near the border have been accused of helping Mexican criminals refine stolen oil
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/mexico-s-state-run-oil-company-pipeline-network-practically-taken-over-organized-crime

According to Milenio, a Pemex official who had received death threats was killed, likely due to "revenge" (28 June 2009).
http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/50754bcd2.html

But what has also percolated just below the surface is an alarming intersection between the drug violence and Mexico’s energy sector. For Mexico and Pemex, the increased intensity of the drug war and its damage is but the latest in a string of challenges, and a twist that has seemingly linked two previously unconnected drags on the nation.
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Unofficial figures place thefts from the Pemex network at roughly $2 billion annually. And security experts point to this as an important source of revenue for drug cartels—especially as the Mexican government continues to crack down on them. Thefts from the Pemex network are not new, but the increase and the strain it is placing on the already-taxed company is important. And the illegal tapping has grown significantly in the areas where the drug war is the most pervasive.
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2011/03/perilous-intersection-of-mexicos-drug.html

Modern Monetary Theory


Greece


2013-01-30

Kombo Kolombia






MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) - Police pulled 17 bodies from a well in northern Mexico and 14 of them have been identified as members of a musical band kidnapped by gunmen last week, an official said Tuesday
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20130130/DA447SH03.html

2013-01-28

Aaron Tobey


At an airport to catch a flight, Mr. Tobey declined to walk through an x-ray machine and chose a pat down search instead where he removed his shirt to display part of the fourteenth amendment, the one about unreasonable search and seizure, to the constitution written on his chest. For this he was handcuffed and detained for 90 minutes by the TSA at the Richmond, Va., international airport.

While under interrogation Mr. Tobey was asked if he was a terrorist, affiliated with any terrorist organizations and what is his "goal"? Be afraid America, be very afraid.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/01/4th-amendment-chest-trial/

2013-01-24

Dr. Cornel West


Did the good doctor refer to Obama as:
A. The black mascot of Wall St.
B. A Rockefellar republican in black face
C. The head of America's killing machine and proud of it
D. All of the above

"We Live in a World Where the Architects of the Financial Crisis Regularly Dine at the White House."



[m]ost shameful failings of the Obama administration: the lack of even a single arrest or prosecution of any senior Wall Street banker for the systemic fraud that precipitated the 2008 financial crisis:
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What Obama justice officials did instead is exactly what they did in the face of high-level Bush era crimes of torture and warrantless eavesdropping: namely, acted to protect the most powerful factions in the society in the face of overwhelming evidence of serious criminality
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Worst of all, Obama justice officials both shielded and feted these Wall Street oligarchs (who, just by the way, overwhelmingly supported Obama's 2008 presidential campaign) as they simultaneously prosecuted and imprisoned powerless Americans for far more trivial transgressions
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The same Lanny Breuer was recently seen announcing that the banking giant HSBC would face no criminal prosecution for its money laundering of funds for designated terrorist groups and drug networks on the ground that the bank was too big to risk prosecuting
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Underlying all of that is what the Senate's second-highest ranking Democrat, Dick Durbin, admitted in 2009: the banks "frankly own the place
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/01/23-6

2013-01-21

Fiasco at Obama Inaguration Event


Lupe Fiasco from June, 2011:“To me,” Lupe began, “the biggest terrorist is Obama in the United States of America. I’m trying to fight the terrorism that’s causing the other forms of terrorism. You know the root cause of terrorists is the stuff the U.S. government allows to happen. The foreign policies that we have in place in different countries that inspire people to become terrorists.”
http://music-mix.ew.com/2011/06/08/lupe-fiasco-president-obama-terrorist/

Lupe's take on Obama from July 2012:
[w]ho is a great speaker, but kills little children - our President." He continued, "I'm talking about ordering a drone attack. Ordering drone attacks that go and kill mothers, innocent bystanders, children. Militants too, but the collateral damage. You're responsible for that, too."
http://www.complex.com/music/2012/07/lupe-fiasco-criticizes-president-obama-says-he-kills-little-children

Lupe today at the inaguration event:
"Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist/ Gaza Strip was getting bombed, Obama didn't say shit."

Senkaku

BEIJING--China has responded sharply to comments by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over the disputed Senkaku Islands.
Clinton expressed opposition to "any unilateral actions that would seek to undermine Japanese administration" over the territory during Japan-U.S. talks at foreign ministerial level in Washington on Jan. 18.
In response, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said on Jan. 20 that Clinton's warning against a move by China failed to acknowledge the rights and wrongs of the situation.
"The United States should be careful with its words," Qin said, and expressed "strong discontent" and "firm opposition" to the statement.
Qin said the U.S. side also bears its historical responsibility in the matter, apparently hinting that the United States did not clearly address the territorial issue when it returned Okinawa to Japan in 1972.
He also said current tensions between China and Japan over the islands stemmed from Tokyo escalating its provocation.
The Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea are administered by Japan, but claimed by China, which calls them Diaoyu.
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/asia/china/AJ201301210075

In a related story, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked what her husband's thoughts are on this sensitive matter. Madame's Secretary's reply below:
 

Mali

"So this whole thing bears the imprint of US Africom [US Africa Command] and an attempt to militarize the whole region and its resources. Mali is a strategic lynchpin in that. It borders Algeria which is one of the top goals of these various NATO interventions from France, the US and other sides. Mauritania, the Ivory Coast, Guinea, Burkina Faso. All of this area is just swimming in untapped resources, whether it be gold, manganese, copper."
http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/socom-manufactured-french-invasion-of-mali-training-the-man-behind-the-coup/

2013-01-20

Mega





[s]econds before a helicopter roared overhead and faux police agents rappelled down the side of his mansion. Dotcom eventually ordered everyone to "stop this madness!" before breaking out into a dance alongside miniskirt-clad "guards" as music boomed.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/indicted-megaupload-founder-launches-new-site-0

You Feel Lucky Punk

Japan says it may fire warning shots and take other measures to keep foreign aircraft from violating its airspace...
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[w]hich is to say if Japan fires the first shot, then China wouldn't stint on responding and not allow them to fire the second shot."
http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/politics/AJ201301200020

Bomb Explodes in Athens Mall

There was an explosion a little before 11 a.m. at The Mall commercial center in the upscale Athens neighborhood of Marousi
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Police said they believe new groups are forming in the wake of crushing austerity measures and those who are angry with government policies
http://greece.greekreporter.com/2013/01/20/bomb-explodes-in-athens-mall/#!lightbox/0/

In recent days, small explosive devices were planted outside the homes of journalists and of the government spokesman's brother, while others targeted bank ATM machines.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/International/2013/Jan-20/202997-explosive-device-at-shopping-mall-near-athens-injures-two.ashx#axzz2IYVigQg8

The jobs news from Greece continues to be relentlessly bad.
The latest official figures for the third quarter of the year show the jobless rate rose to 24.8 percent of the workforce. It was the highest quarterly unemployment rate since this data series started in 1998
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For young people the total was 56.6 percent and nearly two thirds of all unemployed have been looking for work for more than a year.
http://www.euronews.com/2012/12/13/greek-unemployment-climbs/