Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Tombstone Austerity with Max Keiser & Alex Jones

TheAlexJonesChannel | Feb 14, 2012



Iranian war in Bangkok

Feb 14, 2012 by Euronews

Freedom dies in America

Judge Napolitano's Final Word on the Last Episode of Freedom Watch. A sad day for liberty everywhere.

Martin Armstrong on MF Global and Singapore trading

Click on image to access report
Click on image to access report

Martin Armstrong the Movie

I can't wait to see this movie, hopefully the powerz don't shut it down. Martin Armstrong's bio

psychogate on Feb 13, 2012

12 scary debt facts for 2012

Original source

1. The U.S. national debt on Jan. 1, 1791, was just $75 million dollars. Today, the U.S. national debt rises by that amount about once an hour.

2. Our nation began its existence in debt after borrowing money to finance the Revolutionary War. President Andrew Jackson nearly eliminated the debt, calling it a "national curse." Jackson railed against borrowing, spending and even banks, for that matter, and he tried to eliminate all federal debt. By Jan. 1, 1835, under Jackson, the debt was just $33,733.

3. When World War II ended, the debt equaled 122 percent of GDP (GDP is a measure of the entire economy). In the 1950s and 1960s, the economy grew at an average rate of 4.3 percent a year and the debt gradually declined to 38 percent of GDP in 1970. This year, the Office of Budget and Management expects that the debt will equal nearly 100 percent of GDP.

4. Since 1938, the national debt has increased at an average annual rate of 8.5 percent. The only exceptions to the constant annual increase over the last 62 years were during the administrations of Clinton and Johnson. (Note that this is the rate of growth; the national debt still existed under both presidents.) During the Clinton presidency, debt growth was almost zero. Johnson averaged 3 percent growth of debt for the six years he served (1963-69).

5. When Ronald Reagan took office, the U.S. national debt was just under $1 trillion. When he left office, it was $2.6 trillion. During the eight Regan years, the US moved from being the world's largest international creditor to the largest debtor nation.

6. The U.S. national debt has more than doubled since the year 2000.

  • Under President Bush: At the end of calendar year 2000, the debt stood at $5.629 trillion. Eight years later, the federal debt stood at $9.986 trillion.
  • Under President Obama: The debt started at $9.986 trillion and escalated to $15.3 trillion, a 53 percent increase over three years.
7. FY 2013 budget projects a deficit of $901 billion in 2013, representing 5.5 percent of GDP, down from a deficit of $1.33 trillion in FY 2012, which was the fourth consecutive year of more than $1 trillion dollar deficits.

8. The U.S. national debt rises at an average of approximately $3.8 billion per day.

9. The US government now borrows approximately $5 billion every business day.

10. A trillion $10 bills, if they were taped end to end, would wrap around the globe more than 380 times. That amount of money would still not be enough to pay off the U.S. national debt.

11. The debt ceiling is the maximum amount of debt that Congress allows for the government. The current debt ceiling is $16.394 trillion effective Jan. 30, 2012.

12. The U.S. government has to borrow 43 cents of every dollar that it currently spends, four times the rate in 1980.

Read more

Moody's negative outlook for the UK

AlJazeeraEnglish on Feb 14, 2012

Moody's slaps negative outlook on Britain's triple-A rating, saying eurozone crisis is intertwinned the country's fortunes.

Inside Story - Can the UN quell Syria's unrest?

AlJazeeraEnglish on Feb 14, 2012

An Arab League proposal to deploy peacekeepers in Syria, which is gathering momentum. Could this proposal work on the ground? Will Russia and China soften their positions in the UN?

Hyperinflation often starts with transport

Hyperinflation often shows up most obviously in public transport, in the case of Zimbabwe public transport cost rose to a point where the dilly bus fare exceeded the daily wage of government health workers. Of course this meant those workers refused to go to work at hospitals and clings resulting in the breakdown of public health and a cholera epidemic. The only ones that could save themselves were corrupt politicians and those that could pan enough gold to buy clean food and water.

AlJazeeraEnglish on Feb 14, 2012

Clarke and Dawe - Rattling Through the Key Issues

ClarkeAndDawe | Feb 8, 2012

Russian General - West May Strike Iran By Summer


From RT.com

Russia’s top military boss says an attack against Iran, which the west suspects of developing nuclear weapons, could begin as early as summer.

Thus far, tensions between Tehran and the west have been confined to the battlefield of heated rhetoric. Russia’s highest ranking military officer, however, predicts it may be just a matter of time before the verbal grenades get real.

The Russian General Staff is closely watching the situation, and is not ruling out the possibility of a coordinated attack on the Islamic Republic, General Nikolai Makarov, head of the Russian General Staff, told reporters on Tuesday.

"Iran is a sore spot,” Makarov noted.“I think a decision will be made by the summer."

If Makarov is correct in his estimations, the situation in the region – overwhelmed as it is with political crises and war – could spin rapidly out of control. Indeed, some are warning that an attack on Iran could trigger a dangerous game of dominoes across the Middle East, possibly even culminating in another world war.

In the slide towards escalating violence, there have been a string of disturbing incidents, including alleged cyber attacks against Iran, as well as the downing of a sophisticated US drone, which Iran says it guided to the ground after electronically hacking into the vehicle.

Then there are the mysterious assassinations.

In January, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, 31, who supervised a department at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, was killed by a car bomb in northern Tehran.

Exactly two years earlier, Masoud Ali Mohammadi, a senior physics professor at Tehran University, was killed when a bomb-rigged motorcycle exploded beside his car as he was about to leave for work.

Iran blamed Israeli intelligence for the killings.

In the latest ratcheting up of tensions, Israel on Monday blamed Iran for masterminding attacks against Israeli embassies in Tbilisi and New Delhi.

This game of tit-for-tat can readily explode into all-out conflict, which would be a worst-case scenario not just for the region, but for the entire world.

Read more

America's Lawless Empire: The Constitutional Crimes of Bush and Obama

HarvardLawSchool on Feb 9, 2012

Ralph Nader '58 and Bruce Fein '72 visited Harvard Law School for a talk sponsored by the HLS Forum and the Harvard Law Record. At the event, "America's Lawless Empire: The Constitutional Crimes of Bush and Obama," both men discussed what they called lawless, violent practices by the White House and its agencies that have become institutionalized by both political parties.

Chris Whalen: JPM and the Banks Have the MF Global Money And the Status Quo Is Protecting Them


A wonderful post from Jesse's Cafe Americain:

"But please, to our friends in the Big Media, could we stop saying that we don't know the location of the missing $1.6 billion of client funds from MF Global? The money is safe and sound at JPM and other counterparties. As with Goldman Sachs et al and American International Group, the banks have been bailed out at the cost of somebody else. And the various agencies of the federal government are complicit in the fraud...

The effort by former New Jersey governor and MF Global CEO Jon Corzine to save his firm by stealing customer funds seems to warrant further discussion, yet instead we have silence...

So why is it that the Large Media have such trouble reporting this story? The fact seems to be that the political powers that be in Washington are protecting JPM CEO Jamie Dimon from a possible career ending kind of stumble with respect to MF Global."

Chris Whalen, Institutional Risk Analyst

Chris Whalen at The Institutional Risk Analyst lays out the entire MF Global scandal in a few plain words, taking the Wall Street demimonde to task in the process.

It is nice to see that someone who occasionally appears on the mainstream media can tell the truth on this. Usually one has to look for sources overseas, small cafes, and the occasional economic maverick to hear what really happened.

But in quiet whispers, the Street knows the truth, that the money was stolen, not once but twice.   And even these hard cases are shocked.  The first time by MF Global and from the very top, and then afterwards in the courts and the regulatory bodies that used the bankruptcy to take the funds from the customers and give them to the creditors.

And it does stink to high heaven. But the clean up men are giving the evidence a thorough scrubbing while justice waits, Chicago-style.

It has placed a chill on those trading in the US markets. Even they are frightened of such lawlessness. They can't help but wonder, who's next?   And how far will they go?

Please distribute this as widely as possible.

"Where is the lost customer money? At JP Morgan Chase and other banks, or course. See, "How JP Morgan and George Soros Ended Up with MF Global Customer Money", www.clearingandsettlement.com.

So why is it that the Large Media have such trouble reporting this story? The fact seems to be that the political powers that be in Washington are protecting JPM CEO Jamie Dimon from a possible career ending kind of stumble with respect to MF Global. By stuffing the commodity customers of the broker dealer via an equity bankruptcy resolution supervised dutifully by SIPIC, JPM and Soros apparently get to benefit at the expense of the commodity customers of MF Global. This situation stinks to high heaven and everyone on the Street we've spoken to about the matter knows it. As the article above notes:
"Rather than being treated as a bankruptcy of a commodities brokerage firm under sub-chapter IV of the Chapter 7 bankruptcy law, MF Global was treated as an equities firm (sub-chapter III) for the purposes of its bankruptcy, and this is why the MF Global customer money in so-called segregated accounts "disappeared".
The effort by former New Jersey governor and MF Global CEO Jon Corzine to save his firm by stealing customer funds seems to warrant further discussion, yet instead we have silence.

Here's a question: When is Corzine going to be indicted for securities fraud and other high crimes and misdemenors? The answer seemingly is that the Obama Justice Department is afraid to go there. Thus the fraud at MF Global continues and Washington does nothing to inconvenience the banksters as customer funds are expropriated.

But please, to our friends in the Big Media, could we stop saying that we don't know the location of the missing $1.6 billion of client funds from MF Global? The money is safe and sound at JPM and other counterpartiesAs with Goldman Sachs et al and American International Group, the banks have been bailed out at the cost of somebody else. And the various agencies of the federal government are complicit in the fraud."

Chris Whalen, The Institutional Risk Analyst
"But where says some is the king of America? I’ll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter...that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other."

Thomas Paine, Common Sense


"And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that."

Lord Acton

Crucifixion is too good for them

Brilliant rant from Godfrey Bloom MEP, UKIP (Yorkshire & Lincolnshire), Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group.

Federal Reserve now holds $1.7 trillion in U.S. debt

Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) -- China is the biggest foreign holder of treasuries, but the Federal Reserve now holds $1.7 trillion in U.S. debt. Bloomberg's Scarlet Fu reports on Bloomberg Television's "Inside Track.



Silver and Platinum lead the way in 2012

Silver has taken the lead in year to date performance, followed closely by it's equally shinny cousin Platinum.


Iran war heats up on the streets of Bangkok

 





Surely you didn't think the war would be confined to an oversized sand pit with oil wells.

From the Bangkok Post:

The bombs that exploded in a busy Bangkok street yesterday were intended for "foreign nationals" in Thailand, national police chief Priewpan Damapong said.

He did not give further details but said only that the targets were not Thais.

The blasts injured five people including a bomb suspect carrying an Iranian passport who blew off his own legs.

Another Iranian suspect was arrested at Suvarnabhumi airport hours after the incident as he was about to leave for Malaysia. He is one of three suspects thought to be involved.

The United States and the United Kingdom yesterday reissued their travel warning for their nationals in response to the blasts.

Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak blamed the series of explosions on Iran.

Mr Barak was quoted in The Jerusalem Post as saying the bomb blasts were part of an attempted terrorist attack perpetrated by Iran.

"The attempted terror attack in Thailand proves once again that Iran and its proxies continue to operate in the ways of terror and the latest attacks are an example of that," Mr Barak said while on a state visit to Singapore.

The incident came one day after near simultaneous attacks on Israeli diplomats in Georgia and India. Israel pointed the finger at Iran for the attacks but Teheran denied responsibility.

Despite Mr Barak's accusations against Teheran, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said yesterday Israel was in contact with the authorities in Bangkok and was still awaiting confirmation that the man involved in the blasts was indeed Iranian.

Read more