Fatboy sez: What. Me Worry?
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
/
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
/
“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/
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/
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
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/14/cia-aclu-drone-secrecy
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
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
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
2013-02-09
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/
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/
