What Do Europe's Pirate Parties Stand for?

What kind of country would put pirates in charge of the government? The answer is: a country like Germany. Last fall, voters in Berlin elected members of the German Pirate Party to state parliament. In March, the party won further seats in the tiny state of Saarland. According to a recent poll, it’s poised to continue storming the ship of state. With national support at 13 percent, it has overtaken the Green Party to become the country’s third most popular party. All without ever having decided on a clear party platform.

Indeed, given its name, the German Pirate Party is appropriately anarchic, with a history of hammering out policy disagreements via venomous (and public) Twitter spats. Its hierarchy is largely flat and often evolving. Founded in 2006 as an offshoot of a similar party in Sweden, on a platform of defending copyright infringement and illegal downloads, it has since cast about for something more to stand for. Civil liberties remain central, including calls for drug legalization, digital privacy, and the separation of church and state, but so are such issues as free public transport and Wi-Fi

In Vietnam They Will Pay You To Store Your Gold

Submitted by Simon Black of Sovereign Man

They Will Actually Pay You To Store Your Gold

Here’s something you don’t see every day: Banks in Vietnam will actually pay YOU to store your gold in one of their safe deposit boxes. I was pretty surprised to find this out for myself; neither Simon nor I have seen it anywhere else in the world except here.

This is actually how banking used to be. The original bankers were goldsmiths– big burly guys who worked with gold on a daily basis. They had the security systems already established, and, for a fee, they were willing to let you park your gold in their safes.

Eventually, goldsmiths got into the moneylending business; instead of charging a security fee, they would pay depositors a rate of interest for the right to loan out the gold at a higher rate of interest.

Goldsmiths’ reputations lived and died based on the quality of their loan portfolios, and their consistency of paying back depositor savings.

Today that’s all but a footnote in history. Except in Vietnam.

$8,250/oz Silver and ONE BANK!

The silver markets are rigged. Every day. Every trade. Every option. Every derivative. The silver markets have been rigged since the early 1970's when Alan Greenspan introduced computer market trading systems to the world beginning the long term commodity market rigging operation. http://www.roadtoroota.com/public/101.cfm

Since that time there has not been a day when the silver markets have been "freely traded". Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, knows the true "Fair Market Value" of silver!

But like all price suppression schemes, the silver manipulation must come to an end and we are on the brink of that moment. The only remaining question should be "What is the true value of silver in terms of money?"
First a little background to set the stage.
Computer Commodity Trading

Impeach Obama 2012! Join the National Campaign! +

Kurt Nimmo, Film director, producer, actor and writer Sean Stone has thrown his weight behind a resolution introduced in the House last month by North Carolina Republican Walter Jones. Resolution 107 states that should the president use offensive military force without the authorization of Congress that such an act would be "an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor."

'Israel conspires to destabilize Syria'

UN-Arab League envoy to Syria Kofi Annan has warned against the familiarization of the situation in Syria, insisting that the issue cannot be solved through military approaches. Press TV has conducted an interview with Kevin Barrett, author and Islamic Studies expert from Madison, to further explore the issue. Source

The Economics Spring - Krugman v Keen

For economics nerds like me the last week has been riveting. Paul Krugman, a Nobel-prizewinning member of the economics establishment, has been debating with Steve Keen, a radical who’s long argued that the conventional economics taught in universities is woefully unrealistic because it ignores important features of the real world like uncertainty, the role of banks, debt and how money is created.

The Tipping Point

I may be wrong, but it looks like a tipping point. A host of concerned economy-watchers are beginning to understand that most economists failed to understand or predict the global economic crisis, and should therefore be deposed.
Just as the despots of north Africa and the middle East crumbled in the face of a critical mass of popular opposition, so too mainstream economics is looking shaky in the fresh-faced glare of laymen.

TSA Security Theater Described In One Simple Infographic

from the theater-of-the-absurd dept

Didier J. MARY points us to an infographic highlighting why the TSA's security theater has been such a huge waste of taxpayer money

City Bullies Man to Death Over His Backyard Chickens to make way for Green Zone?

An innocent man who had legally been raising a few dozen chickens and other small birds in the backyard of his suburban Atlanta home is now dead, following a crusade of terror perpetrated against him by the City of Roswell in Georgia.

Leaked Video Shows US Contractors Randomly Killing Civilians

Employees of the US military contracting group Academi (formerly Xe, Blackwater USA and Blackwater Worldwide) are seen in new leaked video shooting their machine guns at random while driving through the streets of Baghdad, crashing into other cars and even running over a pedestrian without hesitation. Academi received a $250 million contract by the Obama administration to provide military services in Afghanistan.

"Casino Jack" Abramoff breaks down how Government is Sold to the Highest Bidder

Barack Obama makes the case in Florida for the Buffett rule -- a minimum tax rate for millionaires. Then, he reportedly heads to a 15,000 dollar a head campaign fundraiser. So how does that work exactly? The presumably wealthy people paying 15 thousand dollars for dinner with Obama are giving him money so that he can raise their taxes?