Bitcoin ponzi scheme exposed 'pirateat40 is digital world’s own Bernie Madoff'

The decentralized, digital Bitcoin currency has caught the attention of people around the globe who are unhappy with how national bank mismanagement is impacting the world economy. It has also, apparently, caught the eye of one very clever schemer.
An invite-only online hedge fund that promised lucrative returns for investors called the Bitcoin Savings & Trust has shut down, and with it have disappeared the service’s administrator — a user known in the digital currency community as pirateat40 — as well as millions of dollars’ worth of the cryptocash, currently valued at around $11 USD per coin.
Pirateat40 claimed that Bitcoin Savings & Trust had collected from investors roughly 500,000 worth of the currency, or around $5.49 million in US dollars, but not before disappearing off the face of the Web. The virtual hedge fund went offline this month following pirateat40’s announcement that the site would be shutting down soon, but the investors that had their own Bitcoins tied up in BS&T say that they think the e-bankster in charge has bolted with their money.
When pirateat40 first announced the service would be shutting down, the administrator said, “The decision was based on the general size and overall time required to manage the transactions,” adding, “As the fund grew there were larger and larger coin movements which put strain on my reserve accounts and ultimately caused delays on withdraws and the inability to fund orders within my system.”
“On the 14th I made a final attempt to relieve pressure off the system by reducing the rates I offered for deposits,”pirateat40 wrote in a post on the Bitcointalk.org forum last edited August 17. “In a perfect world this would allow me to hold more coins in reserve outside the system, but instead it only exponentially increased the amount of withdrawals overnight causing mass panic from many of my lenders.”
Pirate adds that the process of paying out his investors would be finished within a week, but ten days later the service’s clients claim that they have been duped.

A Holiday Treat - Grilled Jackass

Grilled Jackass audio interview link

OK, so here's the deal. We've made it through the doldrums. For over 100 days, gold and silver have based and consolidated and, this week, they have finally broken out. Now, before the fireworks begin, we have a 3-day weekend. Knowing that you've got some time to kill over the next few days, I figured that today was the perfect time to give the mic to The Jackass. 
But here's the deal: This is not your usual podcast. Knowing that you had all weekend to listen, I let Jim go and responded with an interview that clocks in at an hour and ten minutes! If that seems like a lot, please break it up into parts. Jim covers an extraordinary amount of information here and it is imperative that you listen to the entire thing. And, what the heck? You've got three days. This should help you to kill the time.
One last thing, Jim and I struggled all day to get a good Skype connection. This recording was made while we had the best connection we could make but it still wasn't perfect. You'll notice several intervals where Jim disappears for a few seconds. Please be patient and hang in there. The podcast resumes each time.
Have a great weekend!
TF Source

The Rulers And The Ruled

From Bill Buckler, author of The Privateer: The truth that without property rights, no other rights are possible has been known for millennia. In the formalised study of politics, it is more than 300 years old, having been articulated with great care by John Locke in the late 17th century. The modern study of economics is well over 200 years old. Adam Smith’s Wealth Of Nations was published in 1776 - the same year as Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration Of Independence. The great work which finally integrated money with politics and economics celebrates its centennial this year. Ludwig von Mises published his Theory Of Money And Credit in 1912 - the year before the US inaugurated an income tax and a central bank. Ten years after that in 1922, von Mises published Socialism - a book which established beyond refutation the fundamental truth that any form of central planning and/or government control of the means of production cannot work because it makes economic calculation impossible. Picture if you will the state of ANY other branch of human endeavour if ALL the knowledge about it gained over the past three centuries had been summarily dismissed. Property rights are a prerequisite for any kind of exchange - direct or indirect. The ability to exchange is fundamental to any type of viable economic activity. The efficiency of exchange is fundamental to the success of that economic activity and the resultant prosperity of the nation that engages in it. Indirect exchange using a MEDIUM of exchange or money is hugely more efficient than direct exchange or barter. That makes money the most important economic good in existence. The tragedy of our present global plight is the simple fact that money is also the least understood economic good in existence.

Black Report: Majority of Wall St. Money Now Goes to Romney

Bill Black: Even though many on Wall St. understand need for regulation, most want a free-for-all and damn the consequences.

Affluent People Less Likely to Reach out to Others in Times of Trouble?

By Yasmin Anwar: Crises are said to bring people closer together. But a new study from UC Berkeley suggests that while the have-nots reach out to one another in times of trouble, the wealthy are more apt to find comfort in material possessions.

"In times of uncertainty, we see a dramatic polarization, with the rich more focused on holding onto and attaining wealth and the poor spending more time with friends and loved ones," said Paul Piff, a post-doctoral scholar in psychology at UC Berkeley and lead author of the paper published online this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
These new findings add to a growing body of scholarship at UC Berkeley on socio-economic class -- defined by both household income and education -- and social behavior.
Results from five separate experiments shed new light on how humans from varying socio-economic backgrounds may respond to both natural and human-made disasters, including economic recessions, political instability, earthquakes and hurricanes. They also help explain why, in times of turmoil, people can become more polarized in their responses to uncertainty and chaos.
For example, when asked if they would move across the country for a higher-paying job, study participants from the lower class responded that they would decline in favor of staying close to friends, family and colleagues. By contrast, upper class participants opted to take the job and cut ties with their community.
Although the study does not provide a definitive reason for why the upper class, when stressed, focuses more on worldly goods than relationships, it posits that "material wealth may be a particularly salient, accessible and preferred individual coping mechanism … when they are threatened by perceptions of chaos within the social environment."

Prince Harry in Vegas & an MI5 Informer - Afshin Rattansi

Press TV Obama and Romney debate the pros and cons of chickens crossing roads. Britain's Prince Harry tries to pay off his gambling debts. We also talk to Reda Hassaine, former MI5 UK security service informer, about protecting Britain from terrorist attacks. These and much more are all reviewed in this edition of Double Standards with Afshin Rattansi.

Norway writes down 90% of populations mortgage debt. Why not UK?

In 1997, Norway instituted Debt Forgiveness and “Wrote Down” 90% of the Countries Mortgage Debt. It’s been done, documented, and completely hidden from the World, through the World Media, until 19 April 2012.

Complete and Total Censorship of anything Debt Forgiveness Related, World Wide.

IMF SAYS TARGETED DEBT REDUCTION POLICIES CAN WORK

The IMF has said that targeted household debt reduction policies can deliver significant economic benefits.

Latest IMF report notes link between high levels of household debt and the effect on economic recovery
The IMF has said that targeted household debt reduction policies – including mortgage write-downs – can deliver significant economic benefits.

The International Monetary Fund made the comments in its latest World Economic Outlook.

The IMF said such policies can substantially mitigate the negative effect of household deleveraging on economic activity.

The report noted the well established link between high levels of household debt run up during a housing boom, and the effect of a high debt overhang on economic recovery.

It found that countries, like Ireland, that saw house prices and household borrowing skyrocket, saw a longer than average period of recession after the bursting of the housing bubble.

A large part of this protracted recession it said is due to households trying to reduce their debt levels, which in turn leads to less spending in the economy, driving the recession deeper and further.

Russia's GeoStrategic Ways - Orthodox Warrior

See all video interviews at Morris108 channel
Another bright Tweeterer guides us through Putin's path.
Syria, Iran, Afghanistan Source

Israeli officials, first victims of attacking Iran: IRGC commander

A senior commander of Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) says in case of an Israeli attack against Tehran, the Tel Aviv regime’s officials will be the first victims of the assault.

“In case of Israel’s military attack against Iran, the officials of the Zionist regime [of Israel] will be among first victims of such an attack,” Brigadier General Mohammad Ali Asoudi said on Saturday. 

Asoudi said Israel’s warmongering policies have induced hatred among the residents of the occupied lands towards Israeli officials. 

Referring to the return of a large number of Jewish people to their homelands in Europe, the Iranian military official said that “These people returned to their countries because of economic, social and political crises” in Israel. 

“This is while some of the residents of the occupied lands have set themselves ablaze due to economic problems,” Asoudi said. 

Four Israelis have self-immolated in protest at poverty and economic problems since mid-July when a 57-year old man set himself on fire during a “social protest" in Tel Aviv. 

Moshe Silman, who died from his wounds a week after, criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a note, saying "the state of Israel robbed me out of everything and left me with nothing." 

The Gold Solution - Bill Still

Will the Republicans at their national convention pass a gold money plank in their platform? Source

UK Control freaks consider ‘spy in the sky’ plan

The UK government is considering plans to deploy unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones, on the British skies by 2020, new reports say.

The move is part of a plan introduced by the British police to spy on the public more efficiently and more effectively in a country where its people are already the most spied upon in the world, British media reported. 

Drones have already been used in such countries as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen where the US government and its allies decided to intervene militarily. 

Now, the drone technology is being studied upon by the police to be deployed on the British skies by 2020. 

The drone spyware enjoys the capability to put every corner of the citizens’ lives under surveillance, with a potentially serious violation of their civil rights and right to privacy. 

The government had initially planned to use drones during Olympic Games but it was not proved to be cost-effective for widespread use. 

The remote-controlled system dubbed “spy in the sky” has already been tried by some forces in the UK, but it has been cancelled after a £13,000 drone was lost in the River Mersey following a successful launch.

Undercover police admittedly infiltrated Occupy Austin USA and acted as provocateurs

By Madison Ruppert: Court documents and interviews compiled by the Austin Statesman reveal a disturbing plot cooked up by the Austin Police Department to assign no less than three undercover police officers to not only infiltrate the Occupy Austin encampment but even go as to act as provocateurs.
Unfortunately, this is hardly surprising given that undercover police also infiltrated the offshoot of Occupy Wall Street which emerged in Los Angeles, California last year.
Considering the fact that multiple cities engaged in a coordinated crackdown on the protests, I would not be at all surprised to learn that Austin was employing similar tactics as those used in other cities like Los Angeles.
Related - Agent-Provocateurs:  
In the UK ‘Snatch squads’ caught on camera at London student rally
Rome In Chaos - Protests Turn Violent  
Another False Flag Syrian slaughter by agent provocateurs - Up to 100 bound & slain in Hama massacre

One of the most troubling revelations, however, is not that undercover officers “camped with other participants in the movement, marched in rallies and attended strategy meetings.”
It is much more concerning to know that police actually encouraged the use of so-called lockboxes or “sleeping dragons.” These are essentially a homemade device which makes it more difficult for police to break up protests by allowing “Occupy members to tie themselves together during a protest in Houston, according to interviews and court records.”
The devices essentially make the task of breaking up human chains more difficult and actually resulted in the Houston police filing felony charges against a whopping seven protesters related to an attempt to block a port entrance on December 12.
While police officials would confirm that undercover officers had infiltrated Occupy Austin, they would not comment on the role of the officers in the lockboxes.
However, the court proceedings appeared to make it very clear who was responsible for this practice: Austin Police Detective Shannon Dowell, known to Occupiers as “Butch.”