27 Feb 2012

Anonymous joins forces with OWS against NDAA-supporting politicians

America’s most powerful protest groups are joining forces to warn elected officials that they will be held accountable for their actions. The campaign is called Our Polls and its being launched with help from both Anonymous and the Occupy movement.
The AnonOps Communications website revealed details early Monday this week regarding the hacktivist collective’s latest campaign. Along with the nation-wide Occupy Wall Street movement, Anonymous says they are going after the politicians in America that supported legislation that both entities have largely advocated against.
Elected officials serve one purpose — to represent their constituents, the people who voted them into office,” reads a statement posted to the website. “Last year, many of our elected officials let us down by giving in to deep-pocketed lobbyists and passing laws meant to boost corporate profits at the expense of individual liberty.”

Engdahl: 'Greek bailout terms remind of Hitler epoch'

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is urging her lawmakers to support the new rescue package for Greece. This despite worries that Athens will need even more cash in the future, and suggestions from Germany's Interior Minister that it's time Greece left the Eurozone altogether.

Democide? - Killer Bird-Flu Blueprint Released!

In a move equivalent to releasing the plans for an atomic bomb, scientist are set to publish how the bird flu and designed it to cross over to humans more easily. In the above video I break down that this is part of a larger program to take already deadly pathogens and supercharge them all in the name of defense.

89% vote in favor of new Syrian Constitution

Syria’s Interior Minister has announced that 89 per cent of those who took part in the referendum have voted in favor of a new constitution. The new law puts an end to five decades of one-party rule among other reforms put forward by President Assad.
Interior Minister Ibrahim al-Shaar announced the results of the referendum at a press conference on Monday.­

According to the minister, out of 14,580,000 Syrians eligible to vote some 8,376,000, or about 57 per cent, actually came to the polling stations and voted,

Language Imperialism - Dr. Thorsten Pattberg on GRTV

As China, Russia, and the other so-called BRICS nations rise in economic and geopolitical power, interest in these countries' language and culture is increasing in the West. Dr. Thorsten Pattberg of Peking University examines the ways that translation of certain key concepts misrepresents history and culture. Source

Mountain Of Worry Shifts From Olympus To Zagros - "Perhaps Greece wasn't so bad after all."


Tyler Durden's picture
Like sands through the hour-glass, these are the fears of our lives. Just as we noted last week, the focus of risk is shifting from Greece (where while 'tail-risk' has perhaps receded for now, it is all-but certain that the insolvency predicament will resurface as a source of political, policy, and market tension in the not-too-distant future) to other foot-holds on the growing wall-of-worry. As UBS' Larry Hatheway notes this week, several candidates may replace Greece in the risk headlines, among them rising bond yields, French elections, or a Chinese hard landing. But his sense, and ours, is that oil prices will become the next risk item for market participants. Partly this is because oil prices are already approaching levels where worries have occurred in the past (and the velocity of the move is also empirically troublesome) and partly as the remedy for all global-ills (that of central bank printing) is implicitly impacting this 'risk' in a vicious circle. With global growth expectations already low, the 0.2ppt drop in Global GDP for each $10/bbl rise in oil will do nothing for Europe and US hope - and leaves Central Banks in that dangerous position of reinflating their low core inflation data while all around them is inflating rapidly. With modest schadenfreude, we remind readers of our comments from last week: "Alas, as noted previously, the central bank tsunami is only just starting. Watch for inflation, and concerns thereof, to slowly seep into everything". Given oil's potential 'real' impact, as SocGen notes: "Perhaps Greece wasn't so bad after all."

G20 Lines Up Second Global Bailout Worth $2 Trillion


The world's leading economies worked on Sunday to line up a deal in April on a second global rescue package worth nearly $2 trillion to stop the euro-zone sovereign debt crisis from spreading and putting at risk the tentative recovery. (What tentative recovery? (AA))

Germany said it would make a decision some time in March on strengthening Europe's bailout fund, a move other Group of 20 countries say is essential to clear the way for throwing extra funds into the International Monetary Fund.

The twin proposals would build up massive international resources by the end of April - when the G20 group next meets - and convince financial markets they can stem the euro-zone's deep problems.

It would mark their boldest effort since 2009, when the G20 mustered $1 trillion to help rescue the world economy.

British finance minister George Osborne said there would be no additional resources committed to the IMF until euro zone countries bolstered their own efforts to stop contagion.

"We are prepared to consider IMF resources but only once we see the colour of the euro zone money and we have not seen the colour of the euro zone money,"

How to Survive Financial Armageddon

About the author: JS Kim is the Chief Investment Strategist & Founder of SmartKnowledgeU, a fiercely independent investment research & consulting firm dedicated to exposing the fraud of Wall Street and the best ways to invest in gold and silver.

UK court sets deadline for St. Paul campers - The Real Deal

Occupy protesters in Britain have been camping out on the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral for the last four months but during the week they lost what seemed to be their last court case and they now face eviction. 

Meanwhile, the Royal bank of Scotland has been bailed out by the British government in the largest bank rescue for £45 billion which is over $70 billion with British government owning 82 percent of RBS (Royal Bank of Scotland).

Hans Blix: 'CIA feeds us bad info on Iran nukes' - IAEA ex-head

UN nuclear watchdog IAEA has been closely cooperating with the world's spy agencies, including on Iran, for years, former head of the agency, Hans Blix Source

George Osborne: UK has run out of money + Diesel over £1.50 per litre


The Government 'has run out of money' and cannot afford debt-fuelled tax cuts or extra spending, George Osborne has admitted.

In a stark warning ahead of next month’s Budget, the Chancellor said there was little the Coalition could do to stimulate the economy.
Mr Osborne made it clear that due to the parlous state of the public finances the best hope for economic growth was to encourage businesses to flourish and hire more workers.
“The British Government has run out of money because all the money was spent in the good years,” the Chancellor said. “The money and the investment and the jobs need to come from the private sector.”

Extend And Pretend Coming To An End


Tyler Durden's picture

Submitted by Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform, 
The real world revolves around cash flowFamilies across the land understand this basic concept. Cash flows in from wages, investments and these days from the government. Cash flows out for food, gasoline, utilities, cable, cell phones, real estate taxes, income taxes, payroll taxes, clothing, mortgage payments, car payments, insurance payments, medical bills, auto repairs, home repairs, appliances, electronic gadgets, education, alcohol (necessary in this economy) and a countless other everyday expenses. If the outflow exceeds the inflow a family may be able to fund the deficit with credit cards for awhile, but ultimately running a cash flow deficit will result in debt default and loss of your home and assets. Ask the millions of Americans that have experienced this exact outcome since 2008 if you believe this is only a theoretical exercise. The Federal government, Federal Reserve, Wall Street banks, regulatory agencies and commercial real estate debtors have colluded since 2008 to pretend cash flow doesn’t matter. Their plan has been toextend and pretend, praying for an economic recovery that would save them from their greedy and foolish risk taking during the 2003 – 2007 Caligula-like debauchery.

Death Spiral: 'Greece stranded, won't survive'

As Spain tightens its belt in the face of more cuts, the troubles reverberate across southern Europe. Source 
"There is no way that Greece can manage to bring together all of these cuts.. There is no possibility that Greece is going to survive in the Euro in the long term!"

Stratforgate: WikiLeaks releases ‘shadow CIA’ mail

Whistleblower website WikiLeaks has exposed more than 5 million emails apparently obtained by the hacking of Stratfor, the private intelligence company dubbed the “shadow CIA. The leak may be as high-profile as that of the State Department cables.
The emails, dated between July 2004 and late December 2011, give a glimpse on the inner workings of the company. They show how Stratfor gathers confidential information from paid insiders, including senior state officials, and provides it to large corporations and US governmental agencies.
The private correspondence confirms that Stratfor’s area of interests goes far behind those of a merely civilian firm. In one report, an insider in Russian defense revealed sensitive information on the tactical ballistic missile Iskander, including its development progress and the use during the August 2008 armed conflict with Georgia.
The think-tank is operating as an outsourced spy agency, recruiting sources and pumping them for insider information (and, as skeptics say, disinformation). It lacks capabilities that true special services have, like using spy drones or secretly raiding governmental archives James Bond-style. But otherwise Stratfor operates successfully, turning secrets into cash outside of the usual restrictions and need for accountability that their state counterparts face.

Critical Mass: The Mispricing of Derivatives Risk And How the Financial World Ends

Jim Sinclair does a good job of explaining the difference between the notional and real value of derivatives, and how that real value comes to bear on the financial system in the event of a default. You can read this here for a review of the basic concept if you do not understand it.

Within my own view of money, uncollateralized financial instruments like derivatives are credits, or potential money. When an event triggers them so that they become real, with a significant presence on the balance sheet and the income statement, then they become money.

Grant Williams On The Simplicity Of Owning Gold


Tyler Durden's picture
As we enter a week in which the expectations are high for yet another large expansion of central bank balance sheets, and ever more extreme monetary policy (thanks to the LTRO 2), we thought it appropos to listen to Grant Williams, of the famous "Things That Make You Go Hhhhm" newsletter, explain in its simplest terms, why it is still a good time to own gold. In two excellent and succinct presentations, Williams discusses the 'simplicity' of investing through the last four decades but ends by focusing specifically on the rotation to Gold at the start of the last decade (2000) and why the reason for rotating out of the precious metal has not occurred yet. Seeing the world of Gold as a battle between Too Much and Not Enough (and drawing on global supply, demand, and holdings flow) Williams lays out the reasons for owning gold, and how to know when to cover - as he narrows the five reasons to reconsider Buffett-and-Roubini's Barbarous Relic down to one simple rule - Central Bank Monetary Policy Changes.

Doug Wead Officially Confirms There's No Deal between Ron Paul and Mitt Romney + Speech at Central Michigan University



Additional:Speech at Central Michigan University "one day we will all be able to say, we are all Austrian free market economists..." "...we are now in the biggest dept chrisis in the history of the world.">>

Spanish revolt brews as national economic rearmament begins in Europe

Spain's new prime minister has looked into the abyss and recoiled.

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard


 Though he swept into office as an apostle of orthodoxy, Mariano Rajoy has since delved into Madrid’s ghastly accounts and concluded that it would be "suicidal" to try to slash the budget deficit from 8pc of GDP to 4.4pc of GDP this year, as demanded by Europe's fiscal Calvinists.
Such a policy would require a further €40bn or €50bn of cuts and accelerate the downward spiral already underway, beyond the 1.7pc contraction expected this year by the International Monetary Fund.
The unemployment rate would rise to well over 25pc with six million out of work by the end of the year, equivalent to 30pc under the old definition used in the last jobless crisis in the early 1990s.
A study by BBVA of 173 cases of fiscal squeezes in OECD countries over the last thirty years concluded that demands on Spain are almost unprecedented. They found only four such cases, and three were offset by devaluations. The fourth was Ireland in 2009. The country crashed into slump, culminating in a 54pc fall in Dublin house prices.
"We have reached the point where `taxes kill taxation'. The therapy is turning fatal