The New Improved Ukraine

"[P]resident Barack Obama called the deal a “major step forward” that will “meet the needs of Ukrainian people over the long term.”
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"Instead, the IMF recipe hinges on cuts to subsidies and social services and a floating exchange rate that will sink purchasing power even further. Kiev has already started to implement all of these measures. According to economists, the result will be growing poverty, reduced social benefits and an extended recession.
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In the first “prior action” for the IMF loan, Ukraine’s state-controlled natural gas provider Naftogaz raised its subsidized gas prices for consumers by 50 percent starting May 1. (Gas and heating prices will increase by 120 percent over the next four years, Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk said last week.) According to Kiselyov, even more painful will be the accompanying 40 percent gas price hike for local heating companies. Starting on July 1, this will raise the average cost of heating a standard fifty-square-meter apartment from about 200 hryvnia to 280 hryvnia (from $18 to $25) per month. It’s a significant hit, considering that the average monthly wage in Ukraine is only about 3,150 hryvnia ($275), more than half of which typically goes toward food, Kiselyov said.
http://www.thenation.com/article/179212/will-imf-bailout-turn-ukraine-another-greece#
 

When Enforcement Goes to the Penthouse, Good Manners are Paramount

Comments by James Kidney. Former trial attorney for the SEC.

"[T]he SEC has become an agency that polices the broken windows on the street level and rarely goes to the penthouse floors,”
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“On the rare occasions when enforcement does go to the penthouse, good manners are paramount. 
My superiors were more focused on getting high-paying jobs after their government service than on bringing difficult cases. The agency’s penalties have become at most a tollbooth on the bankster turnpike.”
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“I have had bosses, and bosses of my bosses, whose names we all know, who made little secret that they were here to punch their ticket. They mouthed serious regard for the mission of the commission, but their actions were tentative and fearful in many instances.”
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-08/sec-goldman-lawyer-says-agency-too-timid-on-wall-street-misdeeds.html

Obushma

[O]bama’s position is irrelevant, notes Professor Cohen. "While Washington is insisting that Russia invaded Crimea, the facts indicate that Russia was acting according the law."
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“What’s happening inside Ukraine is scary and it can provoke a war, a horrible war."

 Stephen F. Cohen. Professor emeritus at New York University and Princeton University
http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_04_03/US-is-responsible-for-escalation-of-crisis-in-Ukraine-Stephen-Cohen-1822/

Video Allegedly Showing Armenians in Syria Assassinated by Islamists Funded by Israel, Saudi Arabia and US Taxpayers

US Economic Recovery: Part X

https://twitter.com/Not_Jim_Cramer

Quality Issues?

"[C]harbonneau said Lowe’s quit buying Denver Global’s premier product – a $3,000 Raven hybrid gas-electric lawn tractor/generator- because of quality issues
http://www.denverncnews.com/?p=7205

 

December 26, 2008

via Google translate:
Under the new U.S. President Barack Obama in the Crimea will be implemented scenario of armed conflict.  "It is the American scenario, and under Obama the probability is much higher than under McCain,"
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"It became clear when it was announced that what people will represent the Obama team. These are people whose professional registration - Wall Street. These people are engaged in a technology called" technologies of controlled chaos. "
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"The first time the Ukrainians may be neglected by the United States, as Obama will be busy with internal problems the United States. But in the long term efforts of the U.S. Obama will resume his authority in Europe, and in the long term, the new U.S. administration will pay particular attention to Ukraine, which could be a counterbalance to Russia in the region, and in the future - even counterbalance the old Europe example of modern Poland. "
Obama Begins the Third World War in the Crimea

Cambodia

Cambodia's largest export industry is facing its biggest crisis, with garment workers and security forces engaged in a series of ongoing clashes. One recent protest left five people dead and scores injured.
The violence comes after weeks of political and labour unrest crippled Cambodia's garment industry.
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2014/03/dying-fashion-2014317102854441156.html

 

 

The Wrong Nigga To Fuck wit

This video reportedly shows far-right members of the Ukrainian parliament beating up the CEO of one of the country's state TV channels and forcing him to resign his post.
 

Lucifer was God's Favorite Angel

Monetary Policy and Leverage

에드워드 베르 나이스

US Economic Recovery: Part IX

https://twitter.com/Not_Jim_Cramer

Chapala

"In recent years, because of the benign prevailing climate and attractive scenery, a substantial colony of retirees, including many from the United States and Canada, has established itself on the lake's shore, particularly in the town of Ajijic, Jalisco, located just west of the city of Chapala."
Chapala

May 9, 2012
"Police on Wednesday morning recovered the bodies, some of them dismembered, of at least 10 people stuffed into two small SUVs near the highway connected Guadalajara with the American and Canadian expatriate havens on the shores of Lake Chapala."
Chapala

December 2, 2013
An official in Mexico's federal government says the total number of bodies found in mass graves in western Mexico is 64.
He says authorities finished searching the graves Saturday. He says many of the remains had been bound or gagged and some showed signs of torture.
The official spoke Monday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case
The graves are in La Barca, a town in a remote area by Lake Chapala
Chapala

February 10, 2014
Edward Kular, 84, and Nina Discombe, 72, were found dead Sunday by their gardener in a pool of blood in the living room of their home, Mexican authorities said.
Chapala

Once Upon a Time in Mexico

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexican officials have discovered hundreds of skeletal remains scattered on ranches in a stretch of towns along the U.S.-Mexico border as they carried out a wide search to locate missing people.
Coahuila state prosecutors' spokesman Jesus Carranza said Monday that the remains were burned and extremely hard to identify.News of the grisly finds came at the same time 12 bodies were unearthed from clandestine graves in the southern Mexico state of Guerrero and about two months after 67 bodies were found in western Mexico. Such discoveries remain common despite government claims that the number of killings has gone down in the past year.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20140211/DABSNMOG2.html

A Dead Whale and 1,000 lbs. of Dynamite

US Economic Recovery: Part VIII

https://twitter.com/Not_Jim_Cramer

Smedley D. Butler - A Man Ahead of His Time

From 1935:
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
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"It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war. The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labour before the nation's manhood can be conscripted. … Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our steel companies and our munitions makers and our ship-builders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted — to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get"

MyRA

"Tomorrow, I will direct the Treasury to create a new way for working Americans to start their own retirement savings: MyRA. It's a new savings bond that encourages folks to build a nest egg. MyRA guarantees a decent return with no risk of losing what you put in."

Ben's buying less debt, who knows what China's doing. Sell US debt to the proles. Let the interest rate blow up on them.

Davos to Focus on Income Inequality

IMF’s Lagarde warns wealth gap is not a recipe for stability and sustainability
http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/davos-to-focus-on-income-inequality-1.1661028

"A few magnums of Bollinger, some finger food and before long your Davos party bill is $90,000."

https://twitter.com/ErikSchatzker/status/427410870478462976