Ann Barnhardt & Warren Pollock Have an Open Conversation

Ann Barnhardt and I (Warren Pollock) have an open conversation organized to provide background to this crisis, the setting of legal precedent, netting, settlement, and future trends including a potential bank holiday. We talk about MF Global as it applies to savings and commercial banking, brokerage, insurance, and commodities. We talk about numeric impossibility of solving the problem, incest between government and finance, having the victim of the crisis pay rather than the fraudster. We explain how the MF Global bankruptcy process will define how customer funds will be treated in a bank holiday. We talk about the idea of having an honest bank holiday to root out fraud vs an economic crisis which plays to looting and criminal activity of vested interest. Source

Murder of The Constitution in Full Public View by Congress & Obama: Paul Craig Roberts

Alex talks with columnist and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration, Paul Craig Roberts. He is the author of How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds and other titles. Roberts official website is...http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/

The Cojones Defence of Jon Corzine - Wall Street Saints Above God & Law - Full Keiser Report

Big lies, big cojones and the government eating your homework. In the second half of the show, they discuss Obama's request for $3 from Stacy while signing an order allowing him to indefinitely detain her and the Princeton students mic checking JP Morgan. Source

European Deathwish Exposed: Greek Bailout Package Delayed By Three Months

Submitted by Tyler Durden: Looks like Europe plans (and we use the term very loosely) on pushing its fate literally to the wire. Yesterday we explained why for Greece March is D(eadline)-Day, and as Greece itself stated, absent bailout cash coming in, it is game over: for Greece, for the Eurozone, and for Europe as the serial chain of defaults and exits begins. Which is why we read with great surprise minutes ago that according to the European Commission, the entire Greek bailout package has been delayed by three months because of delays in payouts of the 2011 tranche! Naturally this is supposed to have the optics of punishing Greece for doing absolutely nothing to fix its fiscal situation but all it will do is send the market (the European one that is - America is still stuck in some idiotic limbo where it fools itself that it can exist in isolation from the world's biggest economy) even more into Risk Off mode, as the world will be forced to wait until the 11th hour and 59th minute to find out if the Euro and Eurozone will survive for a few more months. In the meantime, Mario Monti is off to Brussels to satisfy an unscheduled craving for Belgian beer and chocolate, or something.

From Reuters:

The next 5 billion euro tranche for Greece that was originally scheduled to be paid in December 2011 is now to be paid out in March 2012, Commission spokesman Olivier Bailly said.

A further 10 billion euros that Greece was originally to receive in March this year, will now be paid only in June and all of those sums can also be delayed if inspectors judge Athens is failing to deliver promised fiscal reforms.

"That cannot be changed," Bailly said, referring to the three month rhythm in paying out tranches of the first Greek rescue programme.

Last year, Athens repeatedly said it faced the risk of defaulting if the EU and IMF did not pay out scheduled tranches. Europe's political leaders have made it clear that as long as Greece meets criteria on reforms, it will be financed as necessary by the EU and IMF, but investors with money in Greek bonds are watching its cashflow closely.

The payouts are part of the aid that Athens has been promised under a 110 billion joint EU/IMF financing programme in 2010 in exchange for fiscal austerity and structural reforms that are to make public finances of the highly indebted country sustainable.

Out of the total, 73 billion euros have already been paid, and 37 billion remain to be disbursed.

The delay in the payout of the money last year, which meant 8 billion euros from September were only paid out in December, was caused by Greece's failure to keep up with its commitments to implement austerity and structural reforms.

Bailly said that if Greece fails to meet the aid conditions again, more delays in pay-outs would follow. A team of EU and IMF inspectors will visit Greece on January 14-16 to verify reform progress.

"If our mission in mid-January concludes that there is a delay in progress, we would have to review March (payment due then)," Bailly said.

Euro zone leaders agreed on a second, 130 billion euro financing programme for Greece in October to maintain the country's access to emergency financing for longer after initial expectations that Athens would be able to return to markets in March 2012 proved optimistic.

But details of the second programme, which includes a 50 percent haircut on Greek bonds held by private investors, are still under negotiation.

Sure enough, the EURUSD is now firmly under 1.28 as the printers are starting their warm up sequence. Source

M4.2 Earthquake Under Fukushima Plants Day 300, Radioactive Food NOW Sold South Korea, Radioactive Soil Fight

21:41 1/5/2012 (JST) an earthquake of magnitude 4.2 hit Japan. The epicenter is Fukushima Nakadori, where Fukushima plants are located. It’s shallower than 10km. No information about the plant is announced yet. JNN Fukushima live camera was down immediately after the quake.

Source

Apparently, everyone on the planet got a dose of Fukushima.

Dr Yusuf Shakir - Tripoli Now Full Of Intel Agents

Dr Yusuf Shakir is a long time Television presenter for Libyan television. He gives us an update; Sabha now has green flags. He says NATO has stopped bombing, but there are a couple of Apache helicopters there for support. No order at all in Tripoli. And there is a lot of violence escalating between militias. Misrata Brigades are trying to control the country, they have many prisoners and weapons.
Qatar has overstretched itself and will not last, it does not represent an Arab agenda.
He corrects me when I say "Greens" because the majority of Libyans are for the Jamariyah. The liberals have been thrown out. Prisoners (including Journalists) are tortured, and radicals have taken over, but they are fighting amongst themselves.
The Zintan Brigades are treating Saif Al Islam well and are on the right path, they control the Airport. There is some uncertainty about whether Gaddafi was indeed assassinated?
Libyan rebels are helping the Syrian militants.
All the organisations, UN, Amnesty etc are controlled by the superpower (US). Source

NDAA Flash Mob Protest and Arrests at Grand Central Station - #OWS

Being President Obama signed the National Defense Authority Act on December 31st, protesters from the Occupy Wall Street Movement took to Grand Central Station to inform commuters in the form of a flash mob where they used the Peoples Mic to disseminate the NDAA info. Source

Let Us Govern Our Own Country, Not EU - Nigel Farage

New Volcano Off Coast of Saudi Arabia

Foreign naval member posts video of new volcano here is his link

SOPHIA or SOPA, The End Of The Internet As We Know It?

The Stop Online Piracy Act will change the internet as we know it in an effort to censor and block the free flow of information. You would no longer be able to share, link to or post any videos, sounds or images on sites like Youtube Twitter and Facebook that have not been personally created by you! We have reached a fork in the road in regards to the direction the internet will go and we must do everything we can to make sure it continues down the path of being neutral open and free. Source


Angelo: Down with SOPA, up with SOPHIA! Support Online Piracy Humanity's Intellectual Awakening! Sophia is also Greek for wisdom, groovy;)

Libya: Collapse of justice leaves at least 7,000 behind bars

With their common enemy dead and gone, the uniting factor which bound Libya’s former rebels in their fight against Muammar Gaddafi has melted away. Now, in-fighting among the different armed factions is spilling onto the streets.

Meanwhile, thousands of Libyans remain behind bars waiting for the new rulers to try them for their crime of failing to jump ship.

One of the first amnesties of the new Libya was when hundreds of men and women, many of them sub-Saharan immigrants, were released from a makeshift prison. Most of them had spent several months in captivity for the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

While the new authorities were eager to paint the release as a goodwill gesture, both the detention and the parole seemed entirely arbitrary. Some of the dictator's supporters, as these people are alleged to be, were merely employees of government agencies. Others worked as domestic cleaners for government workers. All are now equal before the law, or rather – before the absence of it.

The Abu Salim prison was Tripoli's top detention facility under Gaddafi, notorious for mistreatment and arbitrary killings of inmates. While all its prisoners were set free in late August as rebels overran the capital, dozens, possibly even hundreds of makeshift detention centers sprang up around the country. According to the UN, around 7,000 alleged Gaddafi supporters are being held there with little hope of justice or a fair trial.

While many in the new Libyan government held positions of power under Gaddafi, those who failed to jump on the bandwagon early enough are now finding themselves stuck behind bars. And that’s a major concern for human rights groups, says Fred Abraham of Human Rights Watch.

“Now in Libya there are about 8,000 people in detention and the problem is, they haven’t had any legal review. They have not had access to a lawyer, they haven’t been brought before any independent judicial panel or judges, so that’s what we are calling for now is a quick and prompt legal review and rebuilding of the justice system,” Abraham told RT.

The violations are even more brutal outside Tripoli. The town of Tawerga that Gaddafi forces used to launch attacks against Misrata is still a ghost town. Many of its former residents live in refugee camps, and even there, extraordinary renditions by militias are common.

One former prisoner who spoke to RT said he was tortured before finally being released. “They beat you until you confess to things you haven’t committed, like entering homes or looting.”

More than a month since the capture of Gaddafi’s son Seif al-Islam, Libya's most famous prisoner still doesn't have access to a lawyer. While many doubt he will get a fair trial, Seif al-Islam appears to be much better off than many of his countrymen. At least, thanks to the media spotlight, he will not run the risk of being executed like his father. But many others still do. 

Mervat Mhani from the Free Generation Movement says the authorities need to do more to help.

“Children need their fathers and women need their husbands. The government isn't doing anything to find them. If they are dead we want to know where they are,” says Mhani.

It is a cruel dilemma which far too many families are having to confront – to pray for their loved one rotting in a prison, with torture being officially acknowledged, or to hope for their death. Source

34 Shocking Facts About U.S. Debt That Should Set America On Fire With Anger

We have all been lied to.  For decades, the leaders of both major political parties have promised us that they can fix our current system and that they can get our national debt under control.  As the 2012 election approaches, they are making all kinds of wild promises once again.  Well you know what?  It is all a giant sham.  The United States has gotten into so much debt that there will be no coming back from this.  The current system is irretrievably broken. 30 years ago the U.S. debt was a horrific crisis that was completely and totally out of control.  If we would have dealt with it back then maybe we could have done something about it.  But now it is 15 times larger, and we are adding more than a trillion dollars to the debt every single year.  The facts that you are about to read below should set America on fire with anger.  Please share them with as many people as you can.  What we are doing to our children and our grandchildren is absolutely nightmarish.  Words like "abuse", "financial rape", "theft" and "crime" do not even begin to describe what we are doing to future generations.  We were the wealthiest nation on earth, but it wasn't good enough just to squander all of our own money.  We had to squander the money of our children and our grandchildren as well.  America has been so selfish and so self-centered that it is hard to argue that we don't deserve what is about to happen to this country.  We have stolen the future of America, and yet we strut around as if we are the smartest generation that ever walked the face of the earth.

All of this prosperity that we see all around us is just an illusion.  It is a false prosperity that has been purchased by the biggest mountain of debt in the history of the world. Did you know that if you added up all forms of debt in the United States and divided it up equally that every single family in the country would owe more than $683,000? We are a nation that is absolutely addicted to debt, and the U.S. debt crisis threatens to destroy everything that our forefathers built. Yes, everything may seem fine for the moment, but what do you think would happen if the federal government suddenly adopted a balanced budget? 1.3 trillion dollars a year would be sucked right out of the economy and we would be looking at an "economic readjustment" that would be mind blowing. Enjoy this false prosperity while you can, because it is not going to last. Debt is a very cruel master, and our day of reckoning is almost here.

The following are 34 shocking facts about U.S. debt that should set America on fire with anger....

#1 During fiscal year 2011, the U.S. government spent 3.7 trillion dollars but it only brought in 2.4 trillion dollars.
#2 When Ronald Reagan took office, the U.S. national debt was less than1 trillion dollars.  Today, the U.S. national debt is over 15.2 trillion dollars.
#3 During 2011, U.S. debt surpassed 100 percent of GDP for the first time ever.
#4 According to Wikipedia, the monetary base "consists of coins, paper money (both as bank vault cash and as currency circulating in the public), and commercial banks' reserves with the central bank."  Currently the U.S. monetary base is sitting somewhere around 2.7 trillion dollars.  So if you went out and gathered all of that money up it would only make a small dent in our national debt.  But afterwards there would be no currency for anyone to use.
#5 The U.S. government spent over 454 billion dollars just on interest on the national debt during fiscal 2011.
#6 The U.S. government has total assets of 2.7 trillion dollars and has total liabilities of 17.5 trillion dollars.  The liabilities do not even count4.7 trillion dollars of intragovernmental debt that is currently outstanding.
#7 During the Obama administration, the U.S. government has accumulated more debt than it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that Bill Clinton took office.
#8 It is being projected that the U.S. national debt will surpass 23 trillion dollars in 2015.
#9 According to the GAO, the U.S. government is facing 34 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities for social insurance programs such as Social Security and Medicare.  These are obligations that we have already committed ourselves to but that we do not have any money for.
#10 Others estimate that the unfunded liabilities of the U.S. government now total over 117 trillion dollars.
#11 According to the GAO, the ratio of debt held by the public to GDP is projected to reach 287 percent of GDP by 2086.
#12 Others are much less optimistic.  A recently revised IMF policy paper entitled “An Analysis of U.S. Fiscal and Generational Imbalances: Who Will Pay and How?” projects that U.S. government debt will rise to about 400 percent of GDP by the year 2050.
#13 The United States government is responsible for more than a thirdof all the government debt in the entire world.
#14 If you divide up the national debt equally among all U.S. taxpayers, each taxpayer would owe approximately $134,685.
#15 Mandatory federal spending surpassed total federal revenue for the first time ever in fiscal 2011.  That was not supposed to happen until 50 years from now.
#16 Between 2007 and 2010, U.S. GDP grew by only 4.26%, but the U.S. national debt soared by 61% during that same time period.
#17 During Barack Obama's first two years in office, the U.S. government added more to the U.S. national debt than the first 100 U.S. Congresses combined.
#18 When you add up all spending by the federal government, state governments and local governments, it comes to 46.6% of GDP.
#19 Our nation is more addicted to government checks than ever before.  In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7% of all income.  Today, government transfer payments account for 18.4% of all income.
#20 U.S. households are now actually receiving more money directly from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes.
#21 A staggering 48.5% of all Americans live in a household that receives some form of government benefits.  Back in 1983, that number was below 30 percent.
#22 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid.  Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.
#23 In 1950, each retiree's Social Security benefit was paid for by 16U.S. workers.  According to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are now only 1.75 full-time private sector workers for each person that is receiving Social Security benefits in the United States.
#24 The U.S. government now says that the Medicare trust fund will run out five years faster than they were projecting just last year.
#25 Right now, spending by the federal government accounts for about24 percent of GDP.  Back in 2001, it accounted for just 18 percent.
#26 If the U.S. government was forced to use GAAP accounting principles (like all publicly-traded corporations must), the U.S. government budget deficit would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 trillion to $5 trillion each and every year.
#27 If you were alive when Christ was born and you spent one million dollars every single day since that point, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now.  But this year alone the U.S. government is going to add more than a trillion dollars to the national debt.
#28 If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.
#29 A trillion $10 bills, if they were taped end to end, would wrap around the globe more than 380 times.  That amount of money would still not be enough to pay off the U.S. national debt.
#30 If the federal government began right at this moment to repay the U.S. national debt at a rate of one dollar per second, it would take over 470,000 years to pay off the national debt.
#31 If Bill Gates gave every penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days.
#32 According to Professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff, the U.S. is facing a "fiscal gap" of over 200 trillion dollars in the future.  The following is a brief excerpt from a recent article that he did for CNN....

The government's total indebtedness -- its fiscal gap -- now stands at $211 trillion, by my arithmetic. The fiscal gap is the difference, measured in present value, between all projected future spending obligations -- including our huge defense expenditures and massive entitlement programs, as well as making interest and principal payments on the official debt -- and all projected future taxes.

#33 If you add up all forms of debt in the United States (government, business and consumer), it comes to more than 56 trillion dollars.  That is more than $683,000 per family.  Unfortunately, the average amount of savings per family in the U.S. is only about $4,735.
#34 The U.S. national debt is now more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was created back in 1913.

But do our leaders care about statistics such as these? No. In fact, Barack Obama says that we need to raise the debt limit by another 1.2 trillion dollars. The absurdity of raising the debt limit when we are already in so much debt is beautifully illustrated by the video posted below....

I just thought that video was so well done. The "huge cuts" that Congress has agreed to are absolutely meaningless when compared to how rapidly our debt is exploding. Calling those cuts "pocket change" would be an insult to pocket change. But it is not just U.S. debt that is the problem.  The European debt crisis threatens to completely unravel in 2012 and Japan actually has the highest debt to GDP ratio in the entire industrialized world.

In 2012, a total of 7,600,000,000,000 dollars of debt must be rolled over by the G-7 nations, Brazil, Russia, India and China. That doesn't even count new borrowing.  That number just represents old debts that are coming due that must be refinanced. Anyone out there that insists that this debt bubble can be fixed under our current system is lying. A massive amount of financial pain is coming. It is time for Americans to wake up from their television-induced comas. It is time for Americans to get very angry. Your future has been destroyed and the future of your children and grandchildren has been destroyed. You better take action while you still can. Source