13 Jan 2012

CNN contributor wants to pee on dead Afghans too

The video of US Marines urinating on dead Afghans has gone viral. Veterans have come forth denouncing the actions of the troops, but on the contrary, many Americans have backed the actions of peeing on the dead. Even members of the media have supported the troops' malevolent actions. Dana Loesch, a CNN contributor, has gone public saying she would join the troops to pee on the dead Afghans. Christopher Chambers, journalism professor at Georgetown University, joins us to analyze whether or not the members of the media are out of line. Source
Angelo: CNN.. Cunt News Network?

Iranian nuclear scientist's assassination - Comment

George: Another Iranian academic has been murdered in broad daylight in the main street in Tehran. Another Abu Ghraib scandal has broken; pictures have emerged apparently showing four US marines urinating on the dead bodies on what they describe in the news as Taliban. In Bahrain, where the US Fifth Fleet is placed and is home to thousands of US military personnel, the dictator continues to gun down the democracy protesters. Source

Free Thinking Human....or a Programmed Sheeple... David Icke - Alex Jones

LA Sheriff Punches Special Needs Woman In The Face On A Bus

A Metro passenger used his cell phone's video camera to capture a confrontation between a woman and two LA County sheriff's deputies on a bus in Bellflower. The over aggressive sheriff's punch, to a young woman's face wasn't even necessary!!! Damn shame! Then the dirty sheriff, wants to take the cell phone, of the soldier who recorded it!! Just imagine how much other dirt is hidden, and covered up by dirty cops!!! The world will never know!! HERE IS A CLEAR PIC OF THE SHERIFF, WHO PUNCHED THE YOUNG SPECIAL NEEDS WOMAN Source

10 Modern Methods of Mind Control


Nicholas West
Activist Post

The more one researches mind control, the more one will come to the conclusion that there is a coordinated script that has been in place for a very long time with the goal to turn the human race into non-thinking automatons.  For as long as man has pursued power over the masses, mind control has been orchestrated by those who study human behavior in order to bend large populations to the will of a small "elite" group.  Today, we have entered a perilous phase where mind control has taken on a physical, scientific dimension that threatens to become a permanent state if we do not become aware of the tools at the disposal of the technocratic dictatorship unfolding on a worldwide scale.

Modern mind control is both technological and psychological.  Tests show that simply by exposing the methods of mind control, the effects can be reduced or eliminated, at least for mind control advertising and propaganda.  More difficult to counter are the physical intrusions, which the military-industrial complex continues to develop and improve upon.



1. Education -- This is the most obvious, yet still remains the most insidious.  It has always been a would-be dictator's ultimate fantasy to "educate" naturally impressionable children, thus it has been a central component to Communist and Fascist tyrannies throughout history.  No one has been more instrumental in exposing the agenda of modern education than Charlotte Iserbyt -- one can begin research into this area by downloading a free PDF of her book, The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, which lays bare the role of Globalist foundations in shaping a future intended to produce servile drones lorded over by a fully educated, aware elite class.  

2. Advertising and Propaganda -- Edward Bernays has been cited as the inventor of the consumerist culture that was designed primarily to target people's self-image (or lack thereof) in order to turn a want into a need.  This was initially envisioned for products such as cigarettes, for example.  However, Bernays also noted in his 1928 book, Propaganda, that "propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government." This can be seen most clearly in the modern police state and the growing citizen snitch culture, wrapped up in the pseudo-patriotic War on Terror.  The increasing consolidation of media has enabled the entire corporate structure to merge with government, which now utilizes the concept of propaganda placement.  Media; print, movies, television, and cable news can now work seamlessly to integrate an overall message which seems to have the ring of truth because it comes from so many sources, simultaneously.  When one becomes attuned to identifying the main "message," one will see this imprinting everywhere.  And this is not even to mention subliminal messaging.
 

3. Predictive Programming -- Many still deny thatpredictive programming is real.  I would invite anyone to examine the range of documentation put together by Alan Watt and come to any other conclusion.  Predictive programming has its origins in predominately elitist Hollywood, where the big screen can offer a big vision of where society is headed.  Just look back at the books and movies which you thought were far-fetched, or "science fiction" and take a close look around at society today.  For a detailed breakdown of specific examples, Vigilant Citizenis a great resource that will probably make you look at "entertainment" in a completely different light.

4. Sports, Politics, Religion -- Some might take offense at seeing religion, or even politics, put alongside sports as a method of mind control.  The central theme is the same throughout: divide and conquer.  The techniques are quite simple: short circuit the natural tendency of people to cooperate for their survival, and teach them to form teams bent on domination and winning.  Sports has always had a role as a key distraction that corrals tribal tendencies into a non-important event, which in modern America has reached ridiculous proportions where protests will break out over a sport celebrity leaving their city, but essential human issues such as liberty are giggled away as inconsequential.  Political discourse is strictly in a left-right paradigm of easily controlled opposition, while religion is the backdrop of nearly every war throughout history.

5. Food, Water, and Air -- Additives, toxins, and other food poisons literally alter brain chemistry to create docility and apathy.  Fluoride in drinking water has been proven to lower IQ; Aspartame and MSG are excitotoxins which excite brain cells until they die; and easy access to the fast food that contains these poisons generally has created a population that lacks focus and motivation for any type of active lifestyle.  Most of the modern world is perfectly groomed for passive receptiveness -- and acceptance -- of the dictatorial elite.  And if you choose to diligently watch your diet, they are fully prepared to spray the population from the above.

6. Drugs -- This can be any addictive substance, but the mission of mind controllers is to be sure you are addicted to something.  One major arm of the modern mind control agenda is psychiatry, which aims to define all people by their disorders, as opposed to their human potential.  This was foreshadowed in books such as Brave New World.  Today, it has been taken to even further extremes as amedical tyranny has taken hold where nearly everyone has some sort of disorder -- particularly those who question authority.  The use of nerve drugs in the military has led to record numbers of suicides.  Worst of all, the modern drug state now has over 25% of U.S. children on mind-numbing medication.

7. Military testing -- The military has a long history as the testing ground for mind control.  The military mind is perhaps the most malleable, as those who pursue life in the military generally resonate to the structures of hierarchy, control, and the need for unchallenged obedience to a mission.  For the increasing number of military personal questioning their indoctrination, a recent story highlighted DARPA's plans for transcranial mind control helmets that will keep them focused.

8. Electromagnetic spectrum  -- An electromagnetic soup envelops us all, charged by modern devices of convenience which have been shown to have a direct impact on brain function.  In a tacit admission of what is possible, one researcher has been working with a "god helmet" to induce visions by altering the electromagnetic field of the brain.  Our modern soup has us passively bathed by potentially mind-altering waves, while a wide range of possibilities such as cell phone towers is now available to the would-be mind controller for more direct intervention.

9. Television, Computer, and "flicker rate"-- It's bad enough that what is "programmed" on your TV (accessed via remote "control") is engineered; it is all made easier by literally lulling you to sleep, making it a psycho-social weapon.  Flicker rate tests show that alpha brain waves are altered, producing a type of hypnosis -- which doesn't portend well for the latest revelation that lights can transmitcoded Internet data by "flickering faster than the eye can see."  The computer's flicker rate is less, but through video games, social networks, and a basic structure which overloads the brain with information, the rapid pace of modern communication induces an ADHD state.  A study of video games revealed that extended play can result in lower blood flow to the brain, sapping emotional control.  Furthermore, role-playing games of lifelike war and police state scenarios serve to desensitize a connection to reality.  One look at the WikiLeaks video Collateral Murder should be familiar to anyone who has seen a game like Call of Duty.

10. Nanobots -- From science fiction horror, directly to the modern brain; the nanobots are on the way.  Direct brain modification already has been packaged as "neuroengineering." A  Wired articlefrom early 2009 highlighted that direct brain manipulation via fiber optics is a bit messy, but once installed "it could make someone happy with the press of a button."  Nanobots take the process to an automated level, rewiring the brain molecule by molecule.  Worse, these mini droids can self-replicate, forcing one to wonder how this genie would ever get back in the bottle once unleashed. Expected date of arrival?  Early 2020s.

A concerted effort is underway to manage and predict human behavior so that the social scientists and the dictatorial elite can control the masses and protect themselves from the fallout of a fully awake free humanity. Only by waking up to their attempts to put us to sleep do we stand a chance of preserving our free will. Source

Santorum says there's a US program to kill Iranian scientists and dead ones are a wonderful thing

US Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has callously described the assassination of Iranian scientists as "wonderful," threatening that those who work for Iran's nuclear program "are not safe."

"On occasion, scientists working on the nuclear program in Iran turn up dead. I think that's a wonderful thing, candidly," said Rick Santorum addressing an election campaign in Greenville, South Carolina.

He added that, "I think we should send a very clear message that if you are a scientist from Russia, North Korea, or from Iran and you are going to work on a nuclear program to develop a bomb for Iran, you are not safe."

Santorum claimed that while Iran is "in the process of developing a nuclear weapon, it appears obvious to me that the [US] administration is doing little to nothing."

"We have done it; we have done it for American citizens. We are concerned when someone is producing a nuclear bomb that can be dropped on the state of Israel or provides a nuclear shield for a country which spreads terrorism with impunity and changes the face of the world," he said. Source

Agloves use silver for touch-screen friendly winter gloves

At ShowStoppers during CES 2012, Matt Hamblen chats with Agloves about their new silver-based winter gloves that allow touch-screen users (phones, tablets, etc.) to use their phones without taking off their gloves.

Marc faber: Most Europe, US Ratings Should Be Lower


Most of the European countries should be rated triple-C and the U.S. "should not be a "triple-A-minus but a triple-B or junk bond when you really analyze the unfunded liabilities that will come due in future," investor Marc Faber told CNBC Friday.

The editor of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report said France is not a very good credit risk, and Standard & Poor's one-notch downgrade announced by the French finance minister Friday was "insufficient." France had been rated at triple-A and now, like theU.S., is double-A-plus.
Germany, the strongest of the euro-zone members, "is ok," Faber said, "but Germany also has large, unfunded liabilities." He said he is "not interested in sovereign bonds except as a trade but longer term you’ll lose money in sovereign bonds."
He said he wouldn't buy French government bonds "and I wouldn't buy any U.S. bonds either."
He predicts the S&P downgrades in Europe will have little effect on the world's stock markets, just as S&P's one-notch downgrade of the U.S. credit rating had little effect.

"Much of any downgrades has [already] been priced in," he said of Europe.
Where they will have an effect will be on the value of the euro. "I think the euro is in a downtrend," said the man nicknamed Dr. Doom. The European corporate sector has a lot of  U.S. dollar-denominated debt and a lower euro "makes it more expensive to service these debts."
What could move the stock markets "is if some country would say, 'We’ve had enough, we’ll exit the euro,'" he said. "IfGreece does that it's not going to be a disaster. But if Greece, Portugal,SpainItaly do it, then it would have a huge impact" on the derivatives market.
He said European stock markets underperformed the U.S. market, but at some point that will change. When that happens, he said, companies likeNovartis [NVS  55.80    -0.93  (-1.64%)   ]Nestle [NSRGY  56.10    -0.42  (-0.74%)  ]and Total [TOT  49.63    -0.54  (-1.08%)   ] are "reasonably good value" although "not compelling values." Sectors in which he would invest include commodities, real estate and precious metals. Source

OfCom's pressure on Press TV-News Analsis


If you're not aware by now, OfCom has decided to remove the Iranian English-language news channel Press TV from the Sky platform under the pretext that Press TV made administrative errors in its application for a license in 2007.  It has also fined Press TV Limited in London a hundred thousand pounds. At the same time, Ofcom has made moves to revoke the license of Press TV Limited in the UK for what it calls Press TV Ltd's lack of control over the channel's broadcast.However, media observers say these charges are merely a pretext to remove the satellite channel off the air, as indicated in the WikiLeaks revelations. We will examine Ofcom's case and actions against Press TV in this edition of the Press TV News Analysis. Source

Thawing The Cold War: Russia Found To Be Supplying Syria With Weapons, US Not Amused


Tyler Durden's picture
Remember the cold war: evil Empire, 5 year plans, Lada cars, etc? It may very well be back, this time over the simple matter of a few million barrels of crude per day, after Russia was found to be quietly supplying an embargoed Syria with ammunition, in violation of a weapons embargo. Reuters reports: "A Russian-operated ship carrying a cargo of ammunition has reached conflict-torn Syria after being temporarily halted during a refuelling stop in Cyprus, sources in Russia and Cyprus said on Friday. A source in Cyprus, where the ship made an unscheduled stop for refuelling late on Tuesday, said the ship had given written assurances to authorities its destination would not be Syria but Turkey. It was allowed to sail a day later, whereupon it dropped off conventional tracking systems, switched course and reached Syria on Thursday. "It had bullets. There were four containers on board," a Cypriot official told Reuters." And here the plot thickens: we now have some war mongering deepthroat somewhere in Leningrad, pardon, St. Petersburg: "The ship was carrying a dangerous cargo," the source at St. Petersburg-based Westberg Ltd. said by telephone on condition of anonymity. "It reached Syria on Jan. 11th." Needless to say, the US is not very happy that Russia is doing precisely what it warned a few months ago it would do: namely protect its sphere of influence especially in light of the ever-encroaching NATO aspirations (yes, provocations go both ways as Ron Paul has long been warning): "The United States said on Friday it had raised concerns with Moscow over a Russian-operated ship that has arrived in Syria and which sources said contained a cargo of bullets. "With regard to the ship we have raised our concerns about this both with Russia and with Cyprus, which was the last port of call for the ship, and we are continuing to seek clarification as to what went down here," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said." Looks like the escalation in the Straits of Hormuz is about to shift to the backburner as we finally go back to where the real tension is and always has been: between West and East.
More from Reuters:
Russia has long been a major arms supplier to Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad has been trying to crush a 10-month-old wave of unrest by lethal armed force, raising an international outcry and triggering Western and Arab sanctions against Damascus that Moscow has refused to join.

In Russia, a source at the vessel's St. Petersburg-based firm said the ship Chariot had reached Syria, but declined to comment on reports the ship was carrying cargo from Russia's state weapons exporter Rosoboronexport.

The Chariot sailed from St. Petersburg on Dec. 9.

Rosoboronexport spokesman Vyacheslav Davidenko said on Friday the arms exporter would neither confirm nor deny the report. "We do not comment on where our deliveries go, when they leave port or how."

A Turkish foreign ministry official on Friday confirmed the ship had reached Syria.

"As of 10:15 a.m. (0815 GMT) yesterday the Turkish navy checked and confirmed that the ship in question was docked at the Syrian port of Tartus," ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal said.

Russia has voiced strong opposition to arms embargoes and has repeatedly promised to uphold arms contracts with Damascus, one of its top weapons customers, despite increasing international pressure.

Cyprus, an EU member with traditionally close ties to Russia, has maintained it was obliged to allow the vessel to go.

"Since it had changed destination, and (if) we would not have allowed it to go, the company could cite illegal detention of a ship," the Cypriot official said.

The island has bitter experience in dealing with confiscated arms destined from one sanction-hit country to another.

An unnamed military source was quoted as saying in December that Russia had delivered anti-ship Yakhont missiles to Syria.

Syria accounted for 7 percent of Russia's total of $10 billion in arms deliveries abroad in 2010, according to the Russian defence think tank CAST.
Why Syria?
The European Union said on Friday it was aware of the case and national authorities were responsible for making sure an EU arms embargo is upheld.

"We are instrumental in putting these measures in place but it's up to the national authorities to make sure they are implemented and as far as I'm aware the authorities in this case are confident that the embargo has not been broken," said Michael Mann, spokesman for Catherine Ashton, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs.

The Westberg official said the company had done nothing wrong as no Russian law prevented the delivery from being made at Syria's Tartus port, where Russia maintains a naval base.

"The ship went to Syria as there was nothing illegal in reaching its originally intended destination," he said.

In October, Russia and China vetoed a western European-led resolution on Syria that threatened sanctions for the bloodshed the U.N. says has killed 5,000 people, Russia tabled a new draft resolution last month.
And should the age old tensions between Russia and the US flare up again, take a wild guess on whose side China will be. The only question is the European wildcard which for now relies so very much on Fed bailouts. Yet one wonders: what happens when Russia shuts down the gas?

S&P Strips France of Triple-A Credit Rating

France’s rating has been downgraded by S&P, say French TV channels, citing government sources. The rumors of a possible downgrade have been circulating since the end of the year. There have also been reports that the agency could downgrade other countries. The move could weaken the country’s ability to borrow. France needs to find another 400 billion euro (US$506 billion) to stay afloat, covering its repayments of existing debt, interest owed and new borrowing. An extra 1% would cost French taxpayers 4 billion euro a year.
The French Channels say the eurozone’s leading economy is not likely to be downgraded, even though it was one of the 15 eurozone countries put on a credit watch negative list by S&P in December. The agency said then it was concerned by “systemic stresses” that the countries went through as credit conditions tightened.
Talk about an EU countries downgrade has caused nervousness through European and international markets, often outweighing attempts by EU leaders to put a positive spin on the economy. Source

Syria: Victim of Conspiracy - CrossTalk

Has Assad reached the point of no return? And who will take advantage of it? Will the opposition forces really be able to take a grip on power? Or are they too weak to defend Syria against Assad? And therefore will they continue to woo the international community? Is there a case for a no-fly zone, this time in Syria? And what are the expectations of those who spearhead military action? CrossTalking with Majid Rafizadeh and Ivan Eland Source

92-year-old's website leaves oil giant Shell-shocked

How online protesters are using 'gripe site' as the focus for their complaints about big business
At 92 years old, Alfred Donovan is an unlikely online campaigner. But he and his son John, 62, have been a painful thorn in the side of Royal Dutch Shell for more than a decade. 


The pair run one of the oldest and most effective "gripe sites", and the oil giant's army of well-paid lawyers do not know how to neutralise them.
The number of so-called "gripe sites", which exist to criticise, mock, and generally annoy companies, people, and institutions, has exploded in recent years, and the trend is set to continue. Take this month's campaign against the super-injunction obtained by the lawyers Carter Ruck on behalf of Trafigura. Thousands of Twitter users, empowered and astonished at the campaign's success, are expected to look afresh at how the internet can be used to fight against big business. "The anti-Trafigura campaign really brought home – even to someone like me – the power of the internet and new media," says John Donovan, a former marketing entrepreneur. "Once, you could never hope to take on companies that had loads of money and lawyers. Now there is an alternative to legal action. You can make a big impact with very little cost."
Last week the Donovans were leafleting outside Shell's London HQ to advertise their website, www.royaldutchshellplc.com. But they hardly need the publicity – the site had more than 2m hits last month – and leafleting was just another way of goading a company they have been at war with since the early 1990s. The site is so successful that Kremlin officials and US investigators have used it. Journalists, knowing that the site regularly receives juicy leaks from Shell employees, search it for stories. Since setting up his first anti-Shell site in 1995, Donovan estimates he has published about 24,000 articles about the company. One early and successful gripe site was www.mcspotlight.org, founded after the celebrated McLibel trial involving McDonalds in 1997. Another site, www.ihatedell.net, carved a niche as a forum for critics of the Dellcomputer company. Dell's answer was to engage with its critics rather than use legal muscle to close them down. In contrast the investment bank Goldman Sachs failed in a legal bid against www.goldmansachs666.com. Katy Howell, the director of Immediate Future, which specialises in social media, believes Dell made a textbook response to its gripe site. "Dell spoke to its critics and responded to their concerns. They turned a negative into a positive," she says. The Donovans' campaign was prompted by a grievance over claims that Shell stole intellectual property from their marketing company. The legal bills from four court cases in the 1990s almost crippled the two men. Shell fully investigated the Donovans' claims, and in 1999 agreed a "peace deal" under which the pair got an undisclosed sum. However, the payment was far less than the £1m they wanted. The Donovans claim Shell then breached the agreement by talking publicly about the case. Shell denies breaching any part of the agreement with the Donovans. Since then, Shell is thought to have contacted the Donavon at least once, using a middle man, to resolve the dispute. John Donovan will not comment on this but shows no sign of agreeing to mediation. Four years ago Shell was embroiled in a bitter dispute with Russia's environmental regulator over drilling for gas at Sakhalin Island. It was eventually forced to relinquish its majority stake in the project, costing Shell billions in lost revenue. Later, the regulator, Oleg Mitvol, publicly acknowledged the Donovans' help in getting information about alleged claims of environmental abuses by Shell. The company has denied breaking any environmental regulations. Earlier this year the site disclosed plans for thousands of Shell job losses. And now, Donovan says, he is helping US investigators looking into the award of oilfield drilling licenses, providing them with information leaked to his website. The site has broadened its coverage to include other stories about the oil and gas industry. "I knew when I started the site that if it was static – just with the same story – people would visit us once and never again," says Donovan. "So I brought in a news element, mixing negative but also positive stories about Shell." But "kicking" Shell is still the site's raison d'etre, and Donovan has no intention of easing up. "My father is 92. So if I live that long there's still plenty of years to pursue my little hobby." Shell says of the Donovans: "We disagree fundamentally with much of the information and basis on which they make their allegations." The Donovans live in Essex but the website is hosted in Dallas, Texas, and is incorporated in America as a non-profit operation. US laws offer better protection against closure attempts. Shell tried to regain the website name, calling the Donovans cybersquatters, but in 2005 the World Intellectual Property Organisation dismissed the application. Would Donovan stop if Shell waved a large cheque? "It's gone beyond money," he says, but he has no doubt that Shell's lawyers are watching closely, waiting for a slip-up that would give the company a chance to go on the attack. Source

22 Signs That We Are On The Verge Of A Devastating Global Recession


2012 is shaping up to be a very tough year for the global economy.  All over the world there are signs that economic activity is significantly slowing downMany of these signs are detailed later on in this article.  But most people don't understand what is happening because they don't put all of the pieces together.  If you just look at one or two pieces of data, it may not seem that impressive.  But when you examine all of the pieces of evidence that we are on the verge of a devastating global recession all at once, it paints a very frightening picture.  Asia is slowing down, Europe is slowing down and there are lots of trouble signs for the U.S. economy.  It has gotten to a point where the global debt crisis is almost ready to boil over, and nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next.  The last global recession was absolutely nightmarish, and we should all hope that we don't see another one like that any time soon.  Unfortunately, things do not look good at this point.
The following are 22 signs that we are on the verge of a devastating global recession....
#1 On Thursday it was announced that U.S. jobless claims had soared to a six-week high.
#2 Hostess Brands, the maker of Twinkies and Wonder Bread, has filed for bankruptcy protection.
#3 Sears recently announced that somewhere between 100 and 120 Sears and Kmart stores will be closing, and Sears stock has fallen nearly 60% in just the past year.
#4 Over the past 12 months, dozens of prominent retailers have closed stores all over America, and one consulting firm is projecting that there will be more than 5,000 more store closings in 2012.
#5 Richard Bove, an analyst at Rochdale Securities, is projecting that the global financial industry will lose approximately 150,000 jobs over the next 12 to 18 months.
#6 Investors are pulling money out of the stock market at a rapid pace right now.  In fact, as an article posted on CNBC recently noted, investors pulled more money out of mutual funds than they put into mutual funds for 9 weeks in a row.  Are there some people out there that are quietly repositioning their money for tough times ahead?....
Investors yanked money out of U.S. equity mutual funds for a ninth-consecutive week despite a bullish 2012 outlook from Wall Street and a December rally that’s carried over into the New Year.
#7 There are signs that the Chinese economy is seriously slowing down.  The following comes from a recent article in the Guardian....
Growth had slowed to an annual rate of 1.5% in the second and third quarters of 2011, below the "stall speed" that historically led to recession.
#8 The Bank of Japan says that the economic recovery in that country "has paused".
#9 Manufacturing activity in the euro zone has fallen for five months in a row.
#10 Germany's economy actually contracted during the 4th quarter of 2011.  At this point many economists believe that Germany is already experiencing a recession.
#11 According to a recent article by Bloomberg, it is being projected that the French economy is heading into a recession....
The French economy will shrink this quarter and next, suggesting the nation is in a recession as investment and consumer spending stagnate, national statistics office Insee said.
#12 There are a multitude of statistics that indicate that the UK economy is definitely slowing down.
#13 In the UK, the average price of a gallon of gasoline has risen to an astounding $9.67.
#14 It is being reported that the Spanish economy contracted during the 4th quarter of 2011.
#15 Bad loans in Spain recently hit a 17-year high and the unemployment rate is at a 15-year high.
#16 According to a recent article in the Telegraph, the Italian government is forecasting that there will be a recession for the Italian economy in 2012....
The Italian government predicts GDP will contract 0.4pc next year, but many economists fear the figure is optimistic.
"We can say without mincing words that we have already slipped into recession," said Intesa Sanpaolo analyst Paolo Mameli. "We expect GDP to keep contracting for the next 3-4 quarters."
#17 Italy's youth unemployment rate has hit the highest level ever.
#18 The unemployment rate in Greece for those under the age of 24 is now at 39 percent.
#19 Greece is already experiencing a full-blown economic depression.  About a third of the country is now living in poverty and extreme medicine shortages are being reported.  Things have gotten so bad that entire families are being ripped apart.  According to the Daily Mail, hundreds of Greek children are being abandoned because the economy has gotten so bad that their parents simply cannot afford to take care of them anymore.  The note that one mother left with her child was absolutely heartbreaking....
One mother, it said, ran away after handing over her two-year-old daughter Natasha.
Four-year-old Anna was found by a teacher clutching a note that read: 'I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her. Please take good care of her. Sorry.'
#20 In Greece, large numbers of people are simply giving up on life.  Sadly, the number of suicides in Greece has increased by 40 percent in just the past year.
#21 In many European countries, the money supply continues to contract rapidly.  The following comes from a recent article in the Telegraph....
Simon Ward from Henderson Global Investors said "narrow" M1 money – which includes cash and overnight deposits, and signals short-term spending plans – shows an alarming split between North and South.
While real M1 deposits are still holding up in the German bloc, the rate of fall over the last six months (annualised) has been 20.7pc in Greece, 16.3pc in Portugal, 11.8pc in Ireland, and 8.1pc in Spain, and 6.7pc in Italy. The pace of decline in Italy has been accelerating, partly due to capital flight. "This rate of contraction is greater than in early 2008 and implies an even deeper recession, both for Italy and the whole periphery," said Mr Ward.
#22 The major industrialized nations of the world must roll over trillions upon trillions of dollars in debt during 2012.  At a time when credit is becoming much tighter, this is going to be quite a challenge.  The following list compiled by Bloomberg shows the amount of debt that some large nations must roll over in 2012....
Japan: 3,000 billion
U.S.: 2,783 billion
Italy: 428 billion
France: 367 billion
Germany: 285 billion
Canada: 221 billion
Brazil: 169 billion
U.K.: 165 billion
China: 121 billion
India: 57 billion
Russia: 13 billion
Keep in mind that those numbers do not include any new borrowing.  Those are just old debts that must be refinanced. As I mentioned at the top of this article, things do not look good. The last thing that we need is another devastating global recession. As I wrote about yesterday, the U.S. economy is in the midst of a nightmarish long-term decline.  The last major global recession helped to significantly accelerate that decline. So what will happen if this next global recession is worse than the last one? Sadly, the people that will get hurt the most by another recession will not be the wealthy. The people that will get hurt the most will be the poor and the middle classSo what should all of us be doing about this? We should use the time during this "calm before the storm" to preparefor the hard times that are coming. As always, let us hope for the best and let us prepare for the worst. But things certainly do not look promising for the global economy in 2012. Source