GREECE: Troika sequel to Die Hard: Die Harder.

Austerity becomes, finally, all Greek to the Greeks. Only Troika can do this, because it depresses the hearts other tears cannot reach.

(with heartfelt homage to the CDP Heineken campaign)

The Slog: A firm based in Tiptree UK – which manufactures and supplies body armour for military personnel and police forces across the world – has secured a deal worth more than £1.2million to supply the Greek police with bullet-proof vests. VestGuard UK’s commercial director Oliver Lincoln said the company was “absolutely thrilled” to have completed the order with the Greek police, at a time when the equipment “will really make a difference to the country”.

Not (on the surface of it) the most tactful of things to say there Ollie, but I think you were referring to our country, not Greece. I wish Oliver Lincoln all luck in his quest to find credit insurance for the deal: he’s going to need it. In the meantime, I see no signs of any difference in Greece, beyond further slide down a Helter-Troika into the cesspool of globalist madness.

The cradle of democracy itself has, sadly, been converted into a crèche, and occupied by a small number of mad political babies. The new ‘more fair’ taxation system about to be introduced will, once it has been passed by the Greek Parliament, call upon all employees, pensioners and self-employed to pay more tax in advance. The self-employed are being asked to stump up a ball-crunching 80%. Nothing like freeing up some working capital to get the economy moving, that’s what I say.

Terrifying Sheeple Video: Obama Supporters Sign Petition to Repeal the BILL OF RIGHTS to Support the President

MarkDice: Mark Dice asks California beach goers if they'll sign a petition showing support for Obama in his quest to repeal the Bill of Rights. ...Be Very Afraid!

Das Beste oder nichts: The Best Blinded By Optimism, German Economy Now Below Stall Speed

By Wolf Richter: The financial crisis was brutal for Germany, but the recovery was steep, and in 2011, the gloating started. They called it the German “success recipe,” a system that was somehow superior to any other. It would keep the economy growing even as Eurozone mayhem was breaking out all around. That optimism has endured, and stocks have hit new highs in May, but the German economy has diverged sharply from that scenario.
A key element in that “success recipe”- much to the chagrin of Germany’s beleaguered neighbors – is the relentless drive to export. The whole political and economic machine is geared that way. Foreign policy decisions are made on that basis. As are domestic policy decisions. In return, the economy has become dependent on exports.
But exports tumbled 4.8% in May from a year earlier, to €88.2 billion, the worst month so far this year. For the first five months of 2013, exports were below the same period last year. Exports to non-euro EU countries, such as the UK, dropped 2.4%. Exports to Eurozone countries – in a magnificent display of the fiasco that the euro has become – plummeted 9.6%.

Fight on salary men, fight on! - Max Keiser with Ian Williams

Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss the salary men foot soldiers in the financial war who refuse to surrender hope for an increase in allowance and the financial cannon fodder, like small businesses in Italy, who are sent to the front lines to be destroyed by the generals' bad debts and the deflation caused by ever expanding quantitative easing type policies. In the second half, Max talks to Ian Williams of Charteris Treasury about the precious metals bull market and the beginning of the bear market in bonds and what this means for the banks that hold these bonds. Source

Here’s Why “QE Isn’t Money Printing and Does Not Cause Inflation” Are Not Only Big Fat Lies, But Red Herrings

By Lee Adler: Here we go again with more self appointed experts repeating the big, pernicious misconceptions about what QE does and does not do. Let me put it bluntly. The ideas that QE does not cause inflation and that it’s not the equivalent of printing money are categorically false, regardless of how many times you see those points made, and on how many websites.  They are not true.
The idea that QE does not stimulate CPI inflation is correct. That is not the same thing as QE does not cause inflation and is not money printing. QE is money printing. It causes some kinds of inflation, but may not cause some types of inflation at a given time. Under other conditions it may. Under current conditions, it does not raise CPI.
QE stimulates inflation, only not the dumbed down definition of inflation encapsulated in CPI or PCE. If you dumb down inflation to exclude all the things that are inflating, then voila, there’s no inflation. However, QE is directly responsible for asset inflation. It was directly responsible for increasing money supply dollar for dollar, but it could not drive CPI inflation. Establishment economists and their supporting cast of lying shills deliberately exclude asset inflation from their definitions of inflation. So it appears that QE does not cause inflation as narrowly defined. If you believe that narrowly defined CPI is the only kind of inflation, then stop reading now. You’re in denial and presentations of fact and logic won’t change that.

Radioactive cesium level skyrockets 90-fold at Fukushima in just 3 days + Hero Fukushima ex-manager who foiled nuclear disaster dies of cancer

RT: Levels of radioactive cesium in a well at the Fukushima nuclear power plant are 90 times higher than just three days ago, and may spread into the Pacific Ocean. Meanwhile, 10 applications to restart closed reactors under stricter rules have been received.
Read RT’s article about a hero Fukushima ex-manager who died of cancer
TEPCO, the company that operated the plant and is now in charge of the cleanup and decommissioning, said that cesium levels of 27,000 Becquerel’s per liter, from a well on the seaward side of reactor Number 2 building, the highest cesium levels found since the March 2011 disaster.
“It is unclear whether the radioactive water is leaking into the sea. After gathering needed data, we will conduct analyses,” a TEPCO official told Japanese media.
Although the levels of cesium collected on July 8 were 90 times higher than those collected just three days earlier on July 5, levels of other radioactive materials, such as strontium, remained the same as three days earlier.
“We do not know why only cesium levels have risen,” a TEPCO spokesman said.

Let Labour Die: Start Now Build A New "Renaissance Society"

The Artist Taxi Driver
"I feel like John Cleese in 'The Life of Brian' ..The Popular Front of Fucking Judea, The Peoples Front of Fucking Judea!"

PRISM & ‘purity’: NSA follows Nazi tradition

“The scapegoats being marked for death and imprisoned this time are the poor.”

By Max Keiser: The NSA in America is following in the Nazi tradition in its attempt to discriminate based on data collection, modeled around their belief system - which justifies trashing the Constitution in pursuit of ‘pure’ data.

DNA is data. Thanks to the scientific work of Watson and Crick and their discovery of the double-helix and all its component parts in the DNA strands that make up all living cells, we know that humans are made up of data. To microbiologists and bio-engineers, this information means the development of drugs and treatments for illnesses - leading to more healthy, better lives. 

For dystopian, nightmarish autocrats and megalomaniacs, data can be interpreted as a way to segregate populations based on outward traits such as gender, skin color, physical appearance, family history and cultural affinities. The National Socialist Party in Germany back in the 1930s used this access and warehousing of data as the basis for their attempt to create a ‘pure’ race of people: unquestioning of authority, uniform in appearance - with homicidal and genocidal tendencies.

Hong Kong banker got fired for emailing that parody video of Hitler as Jamie Dimon #CrashJPM

Connor Simpson: On December 7, 2010, Grant Williams, the Asia equity trading head for global investment bank Jeffries, included a Downfall video mocking JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon in a company newsletter and the next day he was fired for unacceptable conduct. But a Hong Kong judge ruled today that the firing was "hypersensitive" and awarded Williams $1.86 million. 
Yes, someone will actually be paid $1.86 million for sending one of the Internet's most common memes to his coworkers. Bloomberg's Bei Hu reports Hong Kong's Deputy High Court Judge Conrad Seagroatt ruled that Jeffries must pay Williams for damages covering lost salary and bonuses between June 2011 until July 2013. According to Seagrott, Jeffries' decision to fire Williams for sending a funny video to his coworkers was "irrational," too. Here's the video in question: 

As the Arab Spring goes boing, short-term US thinking comes home to roost + 'US' dirty hands all over Egypt crisis'

MYOPIC US MIDEAST POLICY IS TURNING EGYPT INTO A BLOODBATH

54 people who no longer care about energy geopolitics

The Slog: “Yer see, that Joe – he’s a winner,” I heard an American corporate say once in a Chicago lift, “I ain’t so sure about Pete”.

“But Pete’s popular, the staff like him,” countered his companion, “he’s a nice honest guy”.

“Nice honest guys come last,” said the first man.
“Looks like it’s Joe then,” said the second bloke.
Contrary to popular European belief, this is not how most real Americans think. I realise we could argue up hill and down dale about how many ‘real’ Americans there actually are, but I’ve met plenty of them. And they do have better manners than us, by the way. Lest we forget, 48.5% of Americans, on average, vote Democrat. But as my chum Butch asks, “What do you call a Democrat with four million dollars?” to which the answer is, “A Republican”.
But the ‘looks like it’s Joe then’ bollocks is pretty much a universal belief among multinational corporatist America. Without question – and in a predictably American way – the US State Department plumped for the Muslim Brotherhood in late 2011 as the most likely winners in the Middle East – and the least of all evils.

Historic Inversion: Gold GOFO Rates Turn Negative For The First Time Since Lehman

Submitted by Tyler Durden: Today, something happened that has not happened since the Lehman collapse: the 1 Month Gold Forward Offered (GOFO) rate turned negative, from 0.015% to -0.065%, for the first time in nearly 5 years, or technically since just after the Lehman bankruptcy precipitated AIG bailout in November 2011. And if one looks at the 3 Month GOFO, which also turned shockingly negative overnight from 0.05% to -0.03%, one has to go back all the way to the 1999 Washington Agreement on gold, to find the last time that particular GOFO rate was negative.

Before we get into the implications of this rather historic inversion, let's review the basics:
What is GOFO (Gold Forward Offered Rates)?

Why I'm Thankful for Fucking Feminism

SparkyFister: I'm not.

Is $14 silver coming?

SilverFuturist: Nobody can predict the future. I really don't know what price silver will be at any certain date in the future. But my chickens are fun!

Booming Tear Gas Industry Continues To Lead Global Recession

The Onion: A dying kid in Houston is holding on until the Astros develop a player worth meeting, fossilized evidence reveals the Spazosaurus was the largest doofus ever to roam the earth, and a Facebook friend is apparently under the impression that Ron Paul is still running for a major federal office.