Truly "Exceptional" And Dumber Than Ever: US Verbal SAT Scores Plunge To Fresh Record Low

Submitted by Tyler Durden: Having followed this tragic development year after year, it is amazing that we are still surprised by what the chart below shows, yet here we are: surprised. Although judging by recent social, fiscal and monetary developments (and the complete lack thereof as the same old broken approaches are tried with a lunatic's intensity and an idiot's resolve that this time will be different), we can certainly believe it. In brief: another year, another record low for the average verbal SAT score, and another sad achievement for a nation that is getting fatter, dumber and ever more in debt

How one man took China’s gold

By Jan Skoyles: The story of China and their obsession with gold has been revived this year as monthly data shows the phenomenal volumes imported through Hong Kong and being traded on the Shanghai Gold Exchange.

However, given how much we gold commentators report on China’s inherent love for gold, it’s surprising that very few realise that less than one-hundred years ago the country lost thousands of years’ worth of reserves.

Whilst the 1930s saw the Shanghai Gold Business Exchange as one of the biggest gold centres in the Far East. China’s love for gold left them vulnerable to two separate accounts of looting. The first was in 1937 when Japan invaded China, thus helping themselves to 6,600 tonnes of gold from the then capital Nanking.

"A Structuraly Misandrist Society." UCL Debate: Feminism Is Sexist

manwomanmyth: Video of the entire debate featuring Tom Martin held on 28th February 2012 at University College London. At the time, Tom Martin was suing the LSE for sex discrimination.

Seven Gripping Photos Will Change The Way You Look At Homeless + Define Our Age - "Dead Dad"

HUFFPOST: Photographer Michael Pharaoh is only 22 years old. Yet already, he possesses the uncanny ability to capture the story written on a stranger's face.

Merkel’s election bullshit revealed: it was a bear-faced pack of lies

Grizzly truth about Europe breaks free

The Slog: The symbol-cum-mascot for Berlin is a bear…..und Mein Gott, the bad news bears are now working overtime to cram in all the evidence of disaster held back behind the dam until Fraud Oktor Merkel was back in command of the Bunker.

Deustche Bank’s share value dived off a cliff after 1.30 pm CET this afternoon, from €49 to 45.60 at the close. This followed a major revenue warning earlier, a warning that didn’t come at any point at all between September 5th and September 22nd. Wissen-Sie, how is ziss happenink? All voss Quiet on ze Western Front and then Achtung – Donner und Blitzen! – all Hell is loose gebreaking.

Barry the Black Dude (having bet the farm on Germany some time ago) did his best to provide the same “Don’t mention the Scheise” media blackout, although towards the end there Mr Bernanke let a few feral cats out of the carpet-bag. But since Tuesday am this week, the sluice gates have been set at Full Open All….what with Draghi’s LTRO and Monte del Paschei followed by Deutsche Bank’s Üntergang, and now private pension funds being raided by the government in Poland.

Statist Shill's Understanding Of The Impact Of Legalized Recreational Marijuana On State Tax Revenue

By Tony Nitti: Writing in today’s sissified, politically correct environment ain’t easy. In the old days, you could just tell it like it was, and if people got mad, so be it. But now, make a comment about one certain group of individuals, and it’s immediately, “Boo-Hoo, I’m being repressed.”  Constantly crying discrimination, these people have become so hyper-sensitive that they will twist the most innocuous comment in order to brand me a bigot.
I’m talking, as a statist shill of course, about pot smokers. Who did you think I was referring to? (Angelo: Feminazis?)
See, every time I write about the tax implications of the recent recreational marijuana revolution – with Washington and my home state of Colorado becoming the first states to approve the sale and use of the drug for non-medicinal purposes – my obligatory slew of tired, predictable pothead jokes are met with a backlash that is far more intense than one would expect from what should be a laid-back weed-smoking community.
The argument goes like this: “Why do you have to perpetuate the same tired clichés by painting cannabis users as futon-dwelling watchers of inane television? Do a little bit of research, and you’ll find that there are millions of cannabis users who are high functioning members of society:  lawyers, teachers, politicians and yes, even doctors.”
Well, Spicolli, I’ve got three things to say to you.

Quantitative Easing Worked For The Weimar Republic For A Little While Too

By Michael Snyder: There is a reason why every fiat currency in the history of the world has eventually failed.  At some point, those issuing fiat currencies always find themselves giving in to the temptation to wildly print more money.  Sometimes, the motivation for doing this is good.  When an economy is really struggling, those that have been entrusted with the management of that economy can easily fall for the lie that things would be better if people just had "more money".  Today, the Federal Reserve finds itself faced with a scenario that is very similar to what the Weimar Republic was facing nearly 100 years ago.  Like the Weimar Republic, the U.S. economy is also struggling and like the Weimar Republic, the U.S. government is absolutely drowning in debt.  Unfortunately, the Federal Reserve has decided to adopt the same solution that the Weimar Republic chose.  The Federal Reserve is recklessly printing money out of thin air, and in the short-term some positive things have come out of it.  But quantitative easing worked for the Weimar Republic for a little while too.  At first, more money caused economic activity to increase and unemployment was low.  But all of that money printing destroyed faith in German currency and in the German financial system and ultimately Germany experienced an economic meltdown that the world is still talking about today.  This is the path that the Federal Reserve is taking America down, but most Americans have absolutely no idea what is happening.

How the making of most banksters involved making everything complicated.

The Slog: I’m obliged as always to Butch in New Mexico for sending me the latest output from the astonishingly bright Izabella Kaminska. Here’s a telling extract:
‘A while ago we speculated that because of the ongoing bifurcation of the eurozone market, Eonia rates could rise, and liquidity once again concentrate in core economies, as banks pay back their LTRO funds. Even if it appeared that the system could handle the repayments, banks in core economies would still be inclined to take advantage of extremely cheap negative rates available in collateral markets, so as to earn a spread on the deposit facility in a way that arguably encumbered the remaining liquidity. That would make it less available to periphery institutions.
Meanwhile, without the additional layer of ECB liquidity in the system — which acts as a type of system-wide insurance mechanism — periphery banks would consequently be forced to make ever more competitive bids for Eonia funds, lifting rates across the board.’
What Ms Kaminska is saying here, by the way, is that Draghi had no choice but to pump in more eurozone liquidity….if he wanted to avoid a rise in rates. Now fair enough, she’s writing here in the Financial Times, and in the headline she gets the key point over with commendable immediacy: ‘The ECB’s very own tapering problem’.

Energy Companies paid £7 Billion in dividends last year - The BBC Sucks O Cocks News

The artist taxi driver

Misandry: Ending The Left Right Paradigm and The White Night

RazorBladeKandy: Video on why left vs right political discussion hurts the men's rights movement.

Hidden Secrets Of Money 3 - Dollar Crisis To Golden Opportunity

whygoldandsilver: You may have heard stories on the news lately that suggest an international move away from the US Dollar is underway...but have you ever seen these events listed on a timeline?

20 Ordinary Americans Talk About The Economic Despair That Is Growing Like A Cancer All Around Them

By Michael Snyder: There are hundreds of formerly prosperous communities all over America that are being steadily transformed into rotting, decaying hellholes.  The good paying middle class jobs that once supported those communities are long gone, and they have been replaced with low paying service jobs if they have been replaced at all.  When you visit those communities, it is almost as if all of the hope has been sucked right out of the air.  It can be absolutely heartbreaking to look into the hollow eyes of someone that has totally given in to despair, but unfortunately the number of Americans that are giving up on the economy continues to grow.  Today, the labor participation rate is the lowest that it has been in 35 years, and more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program.  It is easy to say that they should just "get a job", but as I have written about repeatedly, our economy simply is not producing enough jobs for everyone anymore.  The percentage of working age Americans with a job has remained at the same level that it was at during the worst days of the last recession, and meanwhile the quality of our jobs has continued to steadily decline.  Median household income has fallen for five years in a row, but the cost of living continues to rise rapidly.  The middle class is being systematically shredded, and poverty is growing at an alarming rate.  The U.S. economy has been in decline for a long time, and the really bad news is that it appears that this decline is about to accelerate.