Censored: Poverty Report in Germany

By Wolf Richter: On September 17, the German Labor Ministry sent a draft report “on Poverty and Wealth” to the other ministries to be rubber-stamped. Only the final report, once sanctified by Chancellor Angela Merkel, would be made public. The draft was supposed to remain hidden. But it seeped to the surface almost immediately. And it was hot. Too hot.
The massive data (PDF, 535 pages) described the tough reality that many people faced in Germany—a reality that got tougher every year. For example, in 1998, the lower 50% of the population owned 4% of all private wealth, while the upper 10% owned 45%. By 2008, the lower 50% owned only 1%, but the upper 10% had increased its share to 53% (at the expense also of the in-between 40%). Other reports have painted similar pictures.
The poverty report by Germany’s statistical agency showed that the “poverty rate” in Germany has been creeping up: in 2008, it was 15.5%; in 2009 it was 15.6%, and in 2010 it was 15.8%. Particularly hard-hit were people under 65 who lived alone. Their poverty rate was 36.1%. For single-parent households, it was 37.1%. The city of Munich issued its own poverty report. By taking into account Munich’s high cost of living, it found that nearly a fifth of its residents lived in poverty.

The Most Powerful Psychopaths In The World

There are many incredibly powerful psychopaths in our society. They're respected and loved and honored. You can spot them simply by looking at their bank accounts.

The Fiscal Cliff and the Grand Bargain - Charles Hugh Smith

The Grand Bargain is unraveling, and a new arrangement will take the place of the Status Quo--whether we like it or not.

Correspondent Arnold suggested that I address the fiscal cliff, so here goes.

The first step is to set aside ideological blinders and confirmation bias, i.e. only looking for data that supports our current beliefs.

The second step is to look at the foundation of everything: household income.Household income is the foundation of taxes paid, consumption (spending) and savings/investment. If household income is declining, that means the pie of money that can be divided up into taxes paid, consumption and investment is shrinking.

If taxes go up, there is less pie left for spending or investment. And since the economy ultimately depends on private-sector spending and investment, then reducing those to fund government spending means there will be less private spending and investment.

If the government spent the taxes on investments that yielded a higher return than private investments, higher taxes would not devastate the economy. But the problem is that there are no feedbacks on government spending that favor efficiency or high yields.

Government spending decisions are made solely on the basis of constituency pain:the constituencies that create the most political pain for politicos and Upper-Caste government bureaucrats get funding. Efficiency and high-yielding investments are not in the political equation at all; there is no feedback in monopolies except those that favor expansion of budgets and constituencies.

Turk - Current Financial System To Implode Within 24 Months

Eric King:  “By 1971 we had abandoned the gold standard.  So when say we are getting very close to the end of the system blowing up, what should we expect going forward?  You’re saying within 24 months the system may very well blow up here?”

Turk:  “Yes, but it could happen (even) sooner.  My long-term view, Eric, has been that sometime between 2013 and 2015 we are going to see $8,000 on gold.  This goes back to an interview I did in Barrons back in 2003....

They (central planners) are running out of ammunition and they are running out of excuses for this system they are keeping together.  Ultimately that is going to be reflected in a higher gold price.  It (gold) is going to go up in the same way it went up in the 1970s when the US threw in the towel (on gold suppression) back then.  Gold is going to go up by a much higher and rapid rate than any of us can envision. Source audio interview KWN

MAX DOES WESTMINSTER

"MAX DOES WESTMINSTER." Directed & Edited by Jeff Angel and featuring Max Keiser and George Galloway. This film was funded, shot, edited & distributed (online) within 10 days.

We’re All Currency Manipulators Now - azizonomics

Aziz:

The BBC reports: The US has decided not to declare China as having manipulated its currency to gain an unfair trade advantage.

But the Treasury did say that China’s currency, the yuan, remains “significantly undervalued” and urged China to make further progress.
In its semi-annual report, it said Beijing did not meet the criteria to be called a currency manipulator, which could have sparked US trade sanctions.
Critics of China say it keeps the yuan low to keep its exports cheap.

There’s a point that no-one in the establishment will admit.
Every country with a central bank is by definition and without exception a currency manipulator.
Every country that devalues its currency to boost exports is a currency manipulator.
Every country that bails out banks is a currency manipulator.
Every central bank purchase of treasury securities, mortgage-backed securities or equities is currency manipulation.
Every central bank that inflates away treasury debt is a currency manipulator.
And that is why America would look clownish and absurd to label China a currency manipulator, when China can throw back the exact same accusation even more forcefully. China holds trillions and trillions of dollar-denominated assets. Source

Mind Control - The Age Of Push - Morris

By Morris: We are all nurture, yet we are led to believe otherwise. The massive advertising industry proves how gullible we are. Why are Jews reduced to quoting intellectual research documents to prove their racial uniqueness? Because it is all spin. The Money Lenders never lose! Source

THE INCREDIBLE COLLAPSE OF THE VALUE OF SILVER COINS IN THE 19TH CENTURY ̶ DON’T BLAME COMSTOCK! ̶

Antal E. Fekete

An Address Delivered at the Conference Held at the University of Padova

on November 30, 2012

“Coin Finds and Historical-Economic Processes in the Ancient World:

Ten Years of Research 2002-2012”

The silver standard did not die a natural death. It was deliberately killed. A proper search for the assassins was never carried out. There was never a post-mortem. In this paper we focus on the conspiracy as it might have unfolded between the two dates: April 9, 1865 (the day General Lee of the Confederacy surrendered at Appomattox to General Grant of the Union marking the end of the War Between the States) and January 1, 1879 (Resumption Day, when payment of the victorious Union’s currency, the greenback was resumed in gold specie ̶ but not in silver).

China has been on the silver standard since time immemorial. The Chinese did not use coins for monetary purposes such as bank reserves until the end of the 19^th century; they used the sycee, a shoe-shaped ingot of approximate size 5⤫3⤫3 inches, weighing approximately 50 taels or about 5 pounds (avoirdupois). No one can pretend to know, however approximately, how much monetary silver has gone into hiding in China and in India, these two most populous countries also known as the world’s sink for silver, over the millennia. In comparison estimates of monetary gold having gone into hiding over the same period of time are far more reliable. Be that as it may, the amount of monetary silver unaccounted for is probably greater than any estimate ever made.

Benghazi-Gate: What exactly is the FBI hiding?

By Richard Cottrell: On Christmas Eve 1975, Richard Skeffington Welch, freshly installed station chief at the CIA post in Athens, was shot dead in front of his horrified family as they returned from the ambassador’s traditional festive party. Skeffington seemed to drop from the catalogue of classic assassination candidates.

The Gerald Ford White House rapidly swung into action. Welch’s body was flown back to Washington, the plane circled the Air Force One landing field to make sure it touched down live for mass audience TV shows. Ford waived aside all formalities and allowed Welch to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, alongside the nation’s fallen heroes. Master of ceremonies for these obsequies was none other than Dick Cheney, Ford’s Chief of Staff. [See my new book Gladio, below]

Almost immediately the CIA-baiting congressional inquiry convened by Democratic Senator Frank Church (aka the Church Committee) collapsed, on the specious grounds that Welch was the victim of whistle-blowers who outed him to sabotage the CIA. Colby stated the patent truth that the CIA generated bad PR wherever it went, so he got the order of the boot. Down the line, David Patraeus is ejected from the agency because he could not keep his pants on, but it amounts to the same thing.

FAA delaying selection of cities to host drones over privacy concerns, industry still avoiding the issue

By Madison Ruppert: Citing privacy concerns, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has delayed the selection of six cities in the United States which are slated to test unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), better known as drones.

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has embraced small spy drones and is set to begin new testing programs, a new drone training facility is being built, last year the Pentagon identified 110 sites from which drones can operate and the military is already sharing information captured by drones inside the United States with law enforcement.

This decision is especially surprising given that the heads of 20 of the nation’s largest aviation industry groups got together to sign a letter calling on the FAA to simply ignore the privacy issues surrounding drones.

Yet last week it was reported that the acting administrator of the FAA, Michael Huerta, sent a letter to members of the Unmanned Systems Congressional Caucus which “singled out the need to first address privacy concerns that come with increasing the use of drones in the nation’s airspace.”

God Hates Bankers - Max Keiser with Steve Keen

Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the water and fire signalling the arrival of the paper apocalypse as ever more analysts warn of the debt and credit bubble as governments put their faith in share traders who, a new study shows, are more manipulative than psychopaths. In the second half, Max Keiser talks to professor and economist, Steve Keen, about the fiscal cliff and private sector deleveraging. They also discuss the possibility of a currency collapse in Japan. Source