Submitted by Michael Snyder: When
you get into too much debt, eventually really bad things start to
happen. This is a very painful lesson that southern Europe is learning
right now, and it is a lesson that the United States will soon learn as
well. It simply is not possible to live way beyond your means forever.
You can do it for a while though, and politicians in the U.S. and in
Europe keep trying to kick the can down the road and extend the party,
but the truth is that debt is a very cruel master and at some point it
inevitably catches up with you. And when it catches up with you, the
results can be absolutely devastating. Greece, Italy, Spain and
Portugal all tried to just slow down the rate at which their government
debts were increasing, and look at what happened to their economies. In
each case, GDP is shrinking, unemployment is skyrocketing, credit is
freezing up and manufacturing is declining. And you know what? None of
those countries has even gotten close to a balanced budget yet. They
are all still going into even more debt. Just imagine what would happen
if they actually tried to only spend the money that they brought in?
I have always said that the next wave of the economic collapse would
start in Europe and that is exactly what is happening. So keep watching
Europe. What is happening to them will eventually happen to us.
The following are 17 signs that a full-blown economic depression is raging in southern Europe...
#1 The Italian economy is in the midst of a horrifying "credit crunch" that is causing thousands of companies to go bankrupt...
RT: Palestine has won UN recognition as being a sovereign state, and will
now be referred to as the “State of Palestine” on all future UN
documents. Palestine’s Mahmoud Abbas calls the move a “major
achievement.”
It’s led many to question whether Palestine can now take Israeli
crimes against Palestinians to international courts.
In an exclusive interview with RT, Abbas said that while Israel
has considered Palestine disputed territories for many years, Tel
Aviv will no longer be able to argue who the land belongs to.
And while Israel continues its illegal settlement activity on
occupied territories, Abbas says he is focused on coming to a
solution with Tel Aviv through peaceful means – because fighting
will only lead to Palestine’s destruction.
He added that all Arabs and Muslims are ready to have peace with
Israel, and said that Palestine must make sure that Israel and its
supporters do not have reason to continue with the current
situation.
Abbas spoke to RT Arabic correspondent Salam Musafir during an
official visit to Moscow. While in Russia, the leader received a
state friendship medal from President Vladimir Putin.
Monty Pelerin's World: The
stock market has now been up for ten straight days. Many on Wall Street
are singing “Happy Days Are Here Again.” For them, that is probably the
case. They finally have something to sell that will bring the rubes
back into the markets. We are not in Kansas anymore.
Fear is ebbing and greed is coming back. Those on the outside looking
in are rounding up cash so that they don’t get left behind. The shills
assist them with their pictures of economic recovery, new era crap and
whatever other nonsense they can peddle successfully. So the cycle goes,
as it has since the New York Stock Exchange came into existence. We are
in another game of musical chairs where the music is playing joyfully.
As in all such events, there are too few chairs to accomodate the
participants when the music stops. And it always does!
There is no economic justification for the level of these markets, at
least in the sense of improvements to the real economy. The economy is
in worse shape than it was several years ago, made so via massive
government interventions. Debt has been piled onto governments,
corporations and individuals. It is not serviceable, certainly not at
market-determined interest rates. Artificially low interest rates
prolong the game, but do so by further corrupting economic decisions and
the economy.
Abby Martin talks to Max Keiser, host of the 'Keiser Report', banks
that are 'too big to prosecute', Wall Street's influence over Washington
and the state of the global economy.
George Galloway "Triple dip depression UK can't pay its own bills but can always find money to set fire to other countries!" French President Francois Hollande has called on European leaders to
start officially arming Syria militants by removing bans on flow of
weapons into the violence-wracked country.
"We want Europeans to
lift the arms embargo....
By Michael Krieger: Surprise, surprise…the “most transparent administration ever” is, well, the least transparent.
Not that any of you are shocked by this revelation, but a new report
by the Associated Press demonstrates just how secret our government and
intelligence agencies have become. Not only did they claim “national
security” over and over like a bunch of drunk parrots, they also claimed
the need to protect “internal deliberations.” Specifically, the number
of times the government withheld or censored reports in 2012 was
479,000 times, up 22% from 2011. The CIA denied 60% of requests, up
from 49% in 2011. From the Associated Press:
The AP examined more than 5,600 data elements measuring the
administration’s performance on government transparency since Obama’s
election.
When the government withheld or censored records, it cited
exceptions built into the law to avoid turning over materials more than
479,000 times, a roughly 22 percent increase over the previous year.
By Simon Black: Reporting from Santiago, Chile - Five-year plans in the Land of the Free? Apparently it’s not that far off from reality.
Yesterday Senator Tom Harkin introduced S. 544, “a bill to require the President to develop a comprehensive national manufacturing strategy.”
In effect, Senator Harkin wants the President to centrally plan the
economy. Never mind that the President has zero experience in business
or manufacturing. But hey, this worked out so well for Stalinist Russia,
it’s no wonder Mr. Harkin wants to copy that model.
Not to be outdone by Mr. Harkin’s long-sighted vision, President
Obama is drawing up plans to turn over Americans’ financial data to the
nation’s spy agencies. So now, on top of everyone else, law-abiding
citizens in the Land of the Free can count on the CIA and NSA combing
through their bank statements.
Of course, it’s all for your protection against men in caves who wish to do you harm.
This is the same reason they irradiate and/or sexually assault
airline passengers. It’s why they have to be able to assassinate
Americans on US soil by remote control plane. It’s why they’ve
authorized military detention of US citizens. Etc.
When you step back and look at the big picture, it really makes one
wonder– how big of a piano needs to be dropped on people’s heads before
they notice what’s happening..?
Morris: Dylan is the Editor of a successful online magazine http://wakingtimes.com which showcases maverick ways of living, where science and spirituality meet. Alternative Health, Sustainability and the elevation of Human Consciousness. Advice in self help health curing. Source
Press TV: Passengers of the French boat Dignite Al Karma are taking legal action
against nazi-style apartheid Israel. They say Israel illegally attacked their boat in
international waters in 2011 as it set sail towards Gaza.
AJ: Alex welcomes independent researcher and co-founder of VaxTruth Marcella
Piper-Terry, and also vaccine truth crusader Shawn Siegel to speak
about the despicable behavior of the vaccine industry and the
suppression of volumes of information absolutely vital to inform the
consent of parents. We'll also cover other breaking news items and take
your calls. Source
Mark King: Speculators and safe-haven investors have ploughed hundreds of millions of pounds in to gold since the financial crisis began.
They were tumultuous days: Northern Rock had just been
nationalised, the UK was lurching into recession and in the US one of
Wall Street's biggest investment banks was on the brink of bankruptcy.
But one financial asset was soaring – gold.
It
is five years this week since the price of an ounce of gold shot
through the $1,000 level – and there have never been more private gold
traders and individual investors keen to keep their cash in the precious
metal.
According to BullionVault, which operates vaults in
London, New York and Zurich there has been a ninefold increase in the
number of gold bullion traders in the past five years, with Britons
among the most enthusiastic buyers. Most of them, say BullionVault,
choose to keep their heavyweight investment in Switzerland.
More
than 45,000 people have used the company to buy bullion, and between
them they now own 32.9 tonnes of gold bars, worth £1.11bn - with British
households accounting for £562m of the total, 10 times the value of
British holdings in their vaults five years ago.
Adrian Ash,
BullionVault's head of research in London, said: "Consumers decide to
put their hard-earned money into physical gold for many reasons. In the
main it's to diversify away from other investment markets, to hedge
against inflation or as a 'crisis insurance' if they fear global
financial instability. Whatever the reason it's clear that the last five
years has seen unprecedented demand for gold."
