5 Oct 2013

Working Class Debt Slaves - Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert with Michael Hudson + The Truth About Markets

Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert, discuss David Cameron as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) which causes the wealth of the nation to drop. They also discuss Continuous Payment Authorities as a metaphor for our financial systems continuously taking toll payments, whether via interest fees or inflation. Max also notes that David Cameron claims 'profits' is not a dirty word; and yet, to every major, successful corporation on Earth "profits' is, indeed, a word to be avoided at all costs.

Swiss May Grant Unconditional Income For All

RT: Swiss citizens are demanding a crucial change in the constitution, pushing for the introduction of a guaranteed income for everyone. Peter Oliver is in Bern where supporters of the basic income idea have gathered for a rally.

Time for the Blogosphere to Fight the Establishment on its own terms

Maybe the Resistance needs to be less virtual and more litigious
The Slog: In the last few days, The Slog passed 8 million hits alltime, having started up in January 2009. It continues to add core, loyal users….but its average daily readership ticks over at around 8,500. Although its highest ever figure was over 42,000 last year, the site remains very much a niche one. I think there are a number for reasons for this.
One is undoubtedly that I have pulled back dramatically from investigation-generated news of an exclusive nature. Not only was it becoming very expensive and time-consuming, I found that it attracted rubber-neckers for a day or two, who then drifted off again. Above any other consideration influencing my decision, however, is the essentially transient, generic nature of ‘news’: news rarely explains, it merely records. News-junkies devour it voraciously but usually have little interest in overall socio-cultural change. The loyal, regular followers The Slog attracts today stand at around 6-7000 in number. By and large, they are people who know the human race is facing a potentially catastrophic crisis – very probably the collapse of personal liberty, genuine democracy, material well-being, and the rule of egalitarian Law for most of us. That is still, let’s face it, the view of a tiny minority.

Jesse Ventura Calls For "American Revolution" Against The "Corrupt System"

JesseVenturaOfficial: Government shutdown, Jesse Ventura piers Morgan talks running for president in 2nd segment. JFK conspiracy video. Jesse Ventura Piers Morgan FULL Interview. Government Shutdown. Jesse Ventura joined Piers Morgan Tuesday night to react to the government shutting down, bashing both the Republicans and Democrats as "gangs" who have effectively legalized bribery in the American legislature. Ventura said the two-party system has to go and party unaffiliated candidates have to start getting elected. Ventura asked if the government's shut down, "That should mean we shouldn't have to pay any taxes, right?" He called for another American revolution to push back against the "corrupt system" created by Democrats and Republicans in Washington.

Nazi Rhetoric? Ecuador slams 'baby bomber' Obama's exceptionalism stance

RT: In a recent speech, Barack Obama expressed his belief in America's exceptional role in world's affairs, something that gives it the right to get involved in conflicts around the globe. But, in an exclusive interview with RT, Ecuador's President says Obama's rhetoric resembles that of the Nazi leadership during the second world war.

Apple, After 2-Year Fight, Fails to Squash Little Café in Germany

By Wolf Richter: In addition to developing and marketing (better than anyone else) a series of cool products and services, Apple has become a legal juggernaut. It's taking on everyone and everything for anything, including for presumed violations of its patents and trademarks. Billions are at stake in these entanglements. Its bitten-into-apple logo is sacred. The color red is sacred. And so are red apples of any kind, apparently.
If Apple keep going down the same track, it may soon file a trademark case against the most revered painters, such as Albrech Dürer, whose famous Adam and Eve, with fig leaves at just the right spots but otherwise naked, are both holding, to Apple’s chagrin, an apple; Adam by its stem and Eve sensuously between her fingers. And if Apple could ever figure out the logistics, it would sue the Old Testament for having used the concept of an apple in Genesis.

But when it came to a small cafe in the town of Bonn, the former capital of former West Germany, Apple figured it out very quickly.

A gal named Christin Römer opened her café in May 2011 and called it “Apfelkind,” German for apple child, the name of a nearby orchard. Its logo was a red apple, not bitten into, but with the silhouette of a girl’s head ingeniously superimposed. A cute logo, feminine, playful, and not at all reminiscent of Apple’s bitten-into apple, other than that both were playing on the theme of an apple.

PERSONAL SPACE: Why this decade will be remembered as the one where privacy went public

It will never be fully clear which was the chicken and which the egg when the history of liberty’s destruction finally comes to be written. But the two co-operative factors involved are, without doubt, the State’s obsessive desire to control the citizen; and the arrival of technology to make it possible as never before.
The Slog: By one means or another – retail customer information files, EFTPOS, the internet, Satnav, social networking sites, ISP deals done with national security agencies, and the merging of visual, written and aural media – IT has ensured that everyone now is a target. From here on, all we are looking at is target practice: a training programme for snoopers that will one day ensure those in charge will be advising us when to take a dump and ordering us to buy stuff, or else.
The European Parliament – the sole and tiny bit of the EU that is elected – has decided to probe claims that the UK’s central spying control centre GCHQ launched a cyber attack on a Belgian telecom firm. Allegations that GCHQ attempted to hack into Belgacom – whose customers include the EU’s own offices in Brussels – were revealed in documents leaked by Edward Snowden.
This next bit will knock you dead: Britain said the EU “did not have the power to investigate”. And GCHQ claimed it “works within a strict legal framework.”

The “Hyper-meritocracy” – an Oxymoron Led by Criminal Morons

By William K. Black: This column was prompted by William Galston’s review of Tyler Cowen’s new book Average is Over.  Galston’s column worries about the huge, permanent underclass that Cowen envisions will grow in the United States.  I write to challenge Cowen’s assumption that winners will prevail through a process of “hyper-meritocracy.”  Cowen’s embrace of Social Darwinism assumes that the winners have a selective advantage that arises from “merit” – which Cowen conflates with the ability to create wealth.  This is passing strange as we are still suffering from an orgy of wealth destruction led by the “winners.”  The people who grew wealthiest were often the people must responsible for the largest destruction of wealth in history.  In this first column I show that it is the most anti-meritocratic system.  We do not live in a “winner-take-all” Nation.  We increasingly live in a “cheater-take-all” system.

Unarmed Woman Executed In Front of (US) Nation's Capitol

AJ: US Police acted "heroically" in gunning down frightened woman with baby. A video shows members of Congress giving a standing ovation to Capitol police for executing an unarmed mother with a baby who was brutally gunned down after driving erratically at a checkpoint near the White House. Source

30 Statistics About Americans Under The Age Of 30 That Will Blow Your Mind (Europeans Too)


Young Adults - Photo by Linda Goldstein, reporter for IIT Tech NewsBy Michael Snyder: Why are young people in America so frustrated these days?  You are about to find out.  Most young adults started out having faith in the system.  They worked hard, they got good grades, they stayed out of trouble and many of them went on to college.  But when their educations where over, they discovered that the good jobs that they had been promised were not waiting for them at the end of the rainbow.  Even in the midst of this so-called "economic recovery", the full-time employment rate for Americans under the age of 30 continues to fall.  And incomes for that age group continue to fall as well.  At the same time, young adults are dealing with record levels of student loan debt.  As a result, more young Americans than ever are putting off getting married and having families, and more of them than ever are moving back in with their parents.
It can be absolutely soul crushing when you discover that the "bright future" that the system had been promising you for so many years turns out to be a lie.  A lot of young people ultimately give up on the system and many of them end up just kind of drifting aimlessly through life.