Arguing on austerity, Paul Krugman, Guy Verhofstadt, Matthew Hancock

liarpoliticians2: Arguing on austerity, or more credit fuelled debt spending binge. With Keynesian spendaholic economist Paul Krugman, MEP Guy Verhofstadt, and Conservative MP Matthew Hancock. The quality of debate was poor. Recorded from Channel 4 News Source

Kyle Bass On Japan and Two Key Slides

By Jesse: I was listening to Kyle Bass' forecast of what he sees as the coming financial collapse of Japan.  A link to that presentation at the Booth School is included below.
Herein are two key charts that I obtained from Wikipedia that weigh on the economic situation in Japan.  They are a bit particular to that country.
Japan has a largely homogeneous population sharing a common racial heritage and language.  There is little immigration other than a few guest workers, and a shortage of natural resources.  It does have a strong store of intellectual human capital, a highly motivated and capable work force, and a remarkably strong central planning structure.  The public is unusually cohesive and oriented towards the common good. 
I think that although it is packed with facts, Kyle Bass's analysis is a little overly simplistic, and not completely fungible to other countries as he implies in the Q&A as indicated in the talk below. 
I am a little disappointed that Mr. Bass deals with the externalities through the numbers, but never discusses the structure of Japan's economy and the keiretsus, which is very important, and far from incidental.  He also gives a nod to Japanese culture and then dismisses it.  That also is an error, but it is a very common Western error, and he has plenty of company.  After all, inside every foreigner is a greedy, self-serving American style plutocrat just waiting to get out, right?

Let's Stop Fooling Ourselves: Americans Can't Afford the Future

By Adam Taggart: The American spirit is rooted in the belief of a better tomorrow. Its success has been due to generations of men and women who toiled, through both hardship and boom times, to make that dream a reality.
But at some point over the past several decades, that hope for a better tomorrow became an expectation. Or perhaps a perceived entitlement is more accurate.
It became assumed that the future would be more prosperous than today, irrespective of the actual steps being taken in the here and now.
And for a prolonged time – characterized by plentiful and cheap energy, accelerating globalization, technical innovation, and the financialization of the economy – it seemed like this assumption was a certain bet. 
But these wonderful tailwinds that America has been enjoying for so many decades are sputtering out. The forces of resource scarcity, debt saturation, price inflation, and physical limits will impact our way of life dramatically more going forward than living generations have experienced to date.
And Americans, who had the luxury of abandoning savings and sacrifice for consumerism and credit financing, are on a collision course with that reality. Like the grasshopper in Aesop's fable, they have partied away the fair seasons and winter is now on the way, which they are not prepared for.
The prudent thing to do here would be to have an honest, adult-sized conversation with ourselves about our level of (un)readiness and how best to use the resources and time we have left while the system still works more or less the way we're used to. There are certainly strategies and steps we can take in the here and now to best match priorities to needs, and meet the future as prepared as possible.
But you won't find this discussion in the national media.

Walmart Prison - Max Keiser with Gail 'The Actuary' Tverberg

Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss ripple effects and sinkholes in the 'just in time poverty' model in which Walmart's empty shelves could be turned into 'Love Hotels' for Japanese tourists. In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Gail 'The Actuary' Tverberg of OurFiniteWorld.com about peak credit and the sinkholes of ever increasing capital required to just maintain our economies. Source

The children of Eric Holder’s “We’re afraid to prosecute banksters” are awake and fighting back in Ireland

RealityIreland: A quick comment from Tom Darcy before entering the Supreme Court for his case against A.I.B on Friday 22nd Feb. This man represents many more like him in Ireland. Please stand behind him as he fights the criminals in the banks and courts.

Syrian Girl - They Are Trying To Partition Syria + UK MIC Shill Government Feeding WAR in Syria

Morris: NATO likes to partition countries: Sudan, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Cyprus ....

LADY CLARE SHORT OPENS THE BROWN / BLAIR WAR CRIMES PANDORA’S BOX

The Slog: Lady Clare Short took the lid off the Brown/Blair succession revelations last night, when she told the Sunday Times of Gordon Brown’s personal career fears during 2003.
She told The Sunday Times: “Gordon said that the Blairites were hoping for a quick and victorious war, after which they would be much strengthened. He would be offered a job which he couldn’t accept and he would be joining me on the back benches.”
The Slog exclusively revealed the timing of Clare Short’s Chilcot slot last week. There were hot denials from Labour MPs last night that Short was also the colleague to whom Robin Cook allegedly revealed during 2006 that he had radioactive information on Blair’s secret roles and agreements surrounding the Iraq war. (Another Slog exclusive in the last week)
Short was close to Brown in 2003. She claims Brown ‘listened sympathetically’ to her grave doubts about the War. It’s therefore not surprising that she has chosen to dump on Blair not Brown: she has always -like Sir Roderic Lyne – felt betrayed by Blair’s perfidy on the issue of the Government’s WMD dossier.
However, Ms Short knows perfectly well that – assuming she enlarges on this claim at Chilcot next Tuesday – she has done exactly what Nick Clegg’s cabal want: to get the Brown/Blair relationship firmly on the Chilcot agenda. For this could pave the way for Brown (along with several re-interviewees) to be questioned about what Iraq ‘sleaze’ may have been used by Brownites to oust Tony Blair as Prime Minister.

Staggering Bullish Indications for Gold - Jim Willie

By Greg Hunter: Jim Willie, who holds a PhD in statistics, says, “There are staggering bullish market indications for gold.  The primary cylinder is negative real interest rates for the past 10 years.”  Dr. Willie says other bullish factors include “phony accounting at insolvent global banks” being propped up by massive money printing.    Dr. Willie contends, “In January alone, the European banks were the beneficiaries of $1.2 trillion from dollar swap facilities as directed by the U.S. Fed.  That’s what’s keeping these bonds floating and the banks alive.  They’re zombies.”  Dr. Willie says, “Europe is on the verge of collapse.”  When it does, Dr. Willie says a new “Gold Trade Finance System” is already in place to take over for the dollar.  Dr. Willie’s sources say, “The trade finance system has already agreed on a gold price of $7,000 to $8,000.  Silver would be $150 to $200 per ounce.”

Managerialism: Nazi-type eugenics introduced in the UK as ‘health service’ consigns patients – even babies –to death row!

By Richard Cottrell: It sounds innocent enough. Incurable patients are gently and peacefully eased from this world into the next, in the lap of loving care.  This is a comforting label for a license to kill which is now being adopted in many British hospitals – the Liverpool Care Pathway.  However, we discover from heart-rending reports in the UK media that end-of-life care can mean that patients – including seriously retarded new born babies – are starved and dehydrated until they pass away, in torment.
If this were a story about National Socialist death camps, instead of the United Kingdom in the 21^st century, people would shake their heads at the horrors of the past. Yet authenticated reports demonstrate that in some admittedly rare cases, patients who were not terminally ill found themselves on the Pathway, without their consent or knowledge. Moreover, in one just such distressing instance reported in the Daily Mail, a sick man was placed on the Pathway in exactly those circumstances. Despite the protests of his family, he was cut off from all medical treatment, food and fluids and unsurprisingly died rather horribly.

Quadruple Dip: 'UK must unfurl global bankers' grip on economy'

UK Banned Press TV: To avoid further recession, the UK must challenge the global bankster elite by breaking free from the system that controls European countries with austerity measures, an economic expert says. Britain is heading for a triple-dip recession as new official figures reveal an unexpected fall in the country's manufacturing activity.

Hackers release financial records of first lady, vice president, att’y general, others

RT: Hackers are continuing to leak the alleged personal finance records of US politicians and celebrities. The list of those supposedly exposed now includes First Lady Michelle Obama, Donald Trump, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Britney Spears.
When Gossip website TMZ first reported the leak on Monday, without disclosing the hacking site’s name, the list contained sensitive information for 11 prominent Americans: Celebrities Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Mel Gibson, Ashton Kutcher, Jay-Z and Beyonce, as well as public figures Joe Biden, Robert Mueller, Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder and LAPD Chief Charlie Beck. 
The number of victims of the hacking has increased by 6 over the day, with Michelle Obama now topping the list. The site does not explain why these particular individuals had their personal data leaked.
The website in question is Exposed.su, RT has learned.
The ‘.su’ domain was country code for USSR for only a short period – from 1990 to 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. The hackers’ website is linked to a twitter account partly written in bad Russian, as though the messages were translated by machine.

Inflation: China's "Hogwash" Getting Worse As Floating Dead Pigs Rise To 3300, Pig Virus Found

Submitted by Tyler Durden: When we first reported on China's "hogwash" yesterday, the number of floating pigs in Shanghai's water supplying Huangpu River was a "modest" 1200. It has since tripled to 3300. From SCMP: "The agriculture and environmental protection departments in Shanghai's Songjiang district have pulled more than 3,300 dead pigs out of the Huangpu River, which flows through the municipality, in the past week." What is worse is that at least one pig-related virus has been found in a water sample: "Porcine circovirus, a common hog disease that is not known to be infectious to humans