21 Aug 2013

'There is no possible scenario where this ends well' - MIND BOGGLING CHART OF THE DAY

The Burning Platform: Luckily, the average American is so bad at math they can’t read this chart and understand the implications. They remain willfully ignorant of their plight. After a lifetime of working, the median Boomer household has managed to accumulate $12,000 of retirement savings. That means that 50% have even less than $12,000 for their retirement. These 55 to 64 year olds are up shits creek without a paddle. No wonder the percentage of over 55 people working is at an all-time high. Every age bracket has been living in a land of delusion. The entire country has bought into the ”live for today” mantra. We have trillions in unfunded Social Security obligations that won’t be paid. Cities and States have trillions in unfunded pension and health benefits that won’t be paid. The government and its citizens have lived above their means for decades and haven’t saved for a rainy day or their futures. Wait until the 40% stock market crash does a number on these figures in the next year. There is no possible scenario where this ends well or can be solved by another government solution. It’s too late. We’re fucked. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Beware the spooky servants of the secret state! From the PM to MI6 and their convenient police dummies. + Miranda CNN Interview - Glenn Greenwald "JOURNALISM IS NOT A CRIME AND IT'S NOT TERRORISM!"

The Guardian publication of stories based on leaked information from the former NSA apparatchik, and the unlawful arrest and detention of David Miranda by officials at Heathrow Airport is beginning to become a huge cause celèbre, and as is so often the case in these examples, the involvement of ministers and their shadowy servants begins to become clearer!

It now becomes clear that this grubby exercise in the abuse of power goes right up to the Prime Minister, and involves the Deputy Prime Minister and the Home Secretary!

The Guardian has been publishing articles which no doubt have the potential to be very embarrassing to ministers and officials, but as far as is yet known, the Guardian hasn't published anything that comes remotely close to containing information which might be of value to terrorists.

Misandry & Corruption in India - Renuka Chowdhary

St37One: The original video series has been removed from YouTube. Please feel free to mirror this.

NSA recommends physically removing iSight webcam from Apple laptops for security reasons

By Madison Ruppert: In an undated National Security Agency (NSA) factsheet, the agency recommends having the built-in iSight webcam on Apple computers physically removed as a security measure.
It is worth noting that surveillance software capable of hijacking a webcam and microphone in real time is marketed directly to governments, including the U.S. government.
Furthermore, the FBI has reportedly hired hackers to create malware capable of similarly hijacking a laptop microphone and the U.S. government is now the largest buyer of malware in the world.
Interestingly, an NSA factsheet on hardening techniques for Mac OS X includes going as far as having the iSight camera physically removed from a device.
The best way to disable an integrated iSight camera is to have an Apple-certified technician remove it,” the factsheet states.
The Atlantic points out that “if the NSA doesn’t trust a particular piece of hardware can’t be used for surveillance, it’s probably safe to assume an average user shouldn’t either.”

When “QE Infinity” Turns Into A Pipedream: Hot Money Evaporates, Rout Follows - See Emerging Markets

By Wolf Richter: Printing money and forcing interest rates to near zero, that’s how the Fed and other central banks papered over the Financial Crisis, duct-taped the bursting credit bubble back together, inflated new asset bubbles, and propped up TBTF banks. And in so doing, they accomplished a huge feat: a worldwide tsunami of hot money.

QE drove yield-seeking investors, whose livelihood was evaporating before their very eyes, to chase down yield wherever they could find it, no matter what the risks, and they found it in emerging markets and in junk. India, Indonesia, Thailand, Brazil, and other developing countries could suddenly borrow from the future at record low rates – much like developed countries – to goose growth. Companies, governments, and consumers ran up debts. Imports ballooned.
It had nefarious consequences. As the Fed was trying to devalue the dollar, other currencies rose. In September 2010, Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega denounced the “international currency war” that the money-printers in Washington and elsewhere were waging against his and other emerging countries where the hot money had washed ashore. “This threatens us because it takes away our competitiveness,” he warned.
But in early May, when the Fed penciled “taper” on the calendar as something to consider, the hot money got antsy. That month, interest rates started to soar globally. Junk bonds got slammed, as did the debt of emerging markets, particularly of countries that had splurged on imports and had to fund large current-account deficits.

Hundreds Dead In Syrian Chemical Attack As Even Impartial Experts Allege "False Flag" + Video, not for the faint of heart

Tyler Durden's picture Overnight, it wasn't Egypt but Syria that woke up to the latest massacre, this time in a chemical weapons-induced slaughter when more than 200 people were killed shortly after 3 am local time, in what would be by far the worst reported use of chemical arms in the two-year-old civil war. Naturally, Syrian activists promptly accused the President al-Assad of conducting the attack that killed numerous women and children even though it was their chemicial weapons warehouse in the Damascus area that was uncovered just over a month ago.
Not surprisingly the state TV and Syrian emissaries abroad promptly denied any responsibility for the attack. And, as on previous occasions, the traditional narrative of penning this wholesale murder of civilians on the ruling administration leaves much to be desired. So much so that even experts are now wondering if it wasn't merely the latest provocation attempt by the Zionist US (and Al-Qaeda) -supported rebels to push public opinion further against Assad and permit the greenlighting of an eventual military escalation.

How Sinister is the State? 'Welcome to Oceania!'

Sinister StateBy : Just how far have our countries gone in the so-called fight against terrorism that they have been waging every single second since 9/11? When we hear our politicians spouting out reams of reasons why we must have this law or that law to protect us every day, the sheeple sit back and listen with baited breath at the shock and horror that is spread out before them by their leaders. Then, what ensues is that those very same politicians that say that we need protection and state intervention actually destroy our world and our countries. Society was destroyed long ago with the lack of meritocracy that was instilled into people, making part of our countries assisted by the welfare state, living off the backs of those that actually wanted to work.
New Laws
But now, our countries have colluded together in a bid to destroy every last ounce of anything that might have been respectably constructed and compounded over the past centuries. Our countries have destroyed what has been built up over centuries in one foul swoop, in just a few years; a mere blink in the eye of the lifetime it took to get where we were. Terrorism didn’t destroy anything but lives and property on 9/11, and that was already far too much. It left the rest to our own states that have destroyed our freedom in the name of the fight against Bush’s axis of evil and the rogue states.
But the very heart of that axis of evil is our own elected governments.

Jerry-Rigged: Japan to radically raise the severity level of Fukushima leak

RT: Japan will drastically raise the gravity of the latest Fukushima leak to Level Three, which is considered a “serious radiation incident” on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES) for radiological releases. "Judging from the amount and the density of the radiation in the contaminated water that leaked...a Level Three assessment is appropriate," read the document used during Wednesday’s weekly meeting of Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) commissioners.
Earlier on Tuesday, TEPCO reported that another tank with highly radioactive water had leaked at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant. The NRA first classified the leak as a Level One "anomaly.”
The contaminated water contains an unprecedented 80 million Becquerels of radiation per liter – compared to the normal level of around 150 Bq/l.
This is considered to be the most serious setback to date for the clean-up of the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.

Perfect Storm: 18 Signs That Global Financial Markets Are Entering A Horrifying Death Spiral


By Michael Snyder: You can see it coming, can't you?  The yield on 10 year U.S. Treasuries is skyrocketing, the S&P 500 has been down for 9 of the last 11 trading days and troubling economic news is pouring in from all over the planet.  The much anticipated "financial correction" is rapidly approaching, and investors are starting to race for the exits.  We have not seen so many financial trouble signs all come together at one time like this since just prior to the last major financial crisis.  It is almost as if a "perfect storm" is brewing, and a lot of the "smart money" has already gotten out of stocks and bonds.  Could it be possible that we are heading toward another nightmarish financial crisis?  Could we see a repeat of 2008 or potentially even something worse?  Of course a lot of people believe that we will never see another major financial crisis like we experienced in 2008 ever again.  A lot of people think that this type of "doom and gloom" talk is foolish.  It is those kinds of people that did not see the last financial crash coming and that are choosing not to prepare for the next one even though the warning signs are exceedingly clear.  Let us hope for the best, but let us also prepare for the worst, and right now things do not look good at all.  The following are 18 signs that global financial markets are entering a horrifying death spiral...

“In a Guardian basement, officials from GCHQ gazed with satisfaction on a pile of mangled hard drives like so many book burners sent by the Spanish Inquisition.” ON DAVID CAMERON'S ORDERS!!! +

So the innocent have nothing to fear? After David Miranda we now know where this leads

The destructive power of state snooping is on display for all to see. The press must not yield to this intimidation
But it remains worrying that many otherwise liberal-minded Britons seem reluctant to take seriously the abuses revealed in the nature and growth of state surveillance.'

By Simon Jenkins: 'You've had your fun: now we want the stuff back. With these words the British government embarked on the most bizarre act of state censorship of the internet age. In a Guardian basement, officials from GCHQ gazed with satisfaction on a pile of mangled hard drives like so many book burners sent by the Spanish Inquisition. They were unmoved by the fact that copies of the drives were lodged round the globe. They wanted their symbolic auto-da-fe. Had the Guardian refused this ritual they said they would have obtained a search and destroy order from a compliant British court.
Two great forces are now in fierce but unresolved contention. The material revealed by Edward Snowden through the Guardian and the Washington Post is of a wholly different order from WikiLeaks and other recent whistle-blowing incidents. It indicates not just that the modern state is gathering, storing and processing for its own ends electronic communication from around the world; far more serious, it reveals that this power has so corrupted those wielding it as to put them beyond effective democratic control. It was not the scope of NSA surveillance that led to Snowden's defection. It was hearing his boss lie to Congress about it for hours on end.

'Troubled Currencies' with Mish

theprimeinterest: The Fed money is pouring - right back into the US. Over the last few years, Bernanke's cheap quantitative easing money flowed outward into developing countries. But countries such as India, Indonesia and Thailand have seen currency devaluation of up to 40%. Hedge funds are losing massive amounts of money on QE bets.

REVEALED: HOW TORY & LABOUR CORRUPTION HAS BURIED BRITAIN’S ENERGY FUTURE UNDER A MOUNTAIN OF BOLLOCKS

What Environmental and Oil interest lobbies don’t want you to know: 99% clean coal is here, and ready to go
Both major Parties to blame
Sensational evidence of coal alternative being rejected by ideologues and Party donations
The Slog: In a situation that ranks among the most disgracefully short-sighted, incompetent and corrupt energy policies on Earth – ours – the British people are being asked to live with unsightly, ineffective propellers and water-threatening shale extraction….when beneath the surface, we have a near infinite supply of potentially clean fossil fuel energy.
The Daily Telegraph reports today that a major punch-up is going on between Ed Davey’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), and the DEFRA Minister Owen Paterson. Patercake is for offshore turbines and against land turbines, on the grounds that turbines can harm rural areas. His forthcoming report offers “official confirmation” of this “fact”….although it’s a pity that the Coalition couldn’t just take umpteen Dutch reports showing that the turbines are a nightmare to maintain, are often made in materials unfit for salt water, are noisy and unsightly, and on some days generate enough juice to power one drill in Scunthorpe.