Dollar rise hits oil, gold; euro sags on ECB cut bets

By Marc Jones

LONDON (Reuters) - The dollar continued to power higher on Monday, leaving oil and gold prices in its wake, after the Group of Seven gave a green light to Japan's efforts to spur growth with aggressive monetary easing.
Comments from Italy's central bank governor that the ECB could push one of its key interest rates below zero also put pressure on the euro and lifted benchmark German Bunds as investors started to think about more profitable options.
The dollar (.DXY) has risen 5 percent against a basket of top currencies since February and its strength looked unlikely to wane after top officials at a G7 meeting in the English countryside showed little concern about the yen's ongoing slump.
The greenback had hit a new 4-1/2 year high of 102.15 yen in Asian trading and but dipped back to 101.69 yen and $1.2964 against the euro by 0915 GMT as traders locked in some of the recent gains.
"Yen selling will have been encouraged by the outcome from the G7 meeting where officials reiterated that they will tolerate yen weakness as long as it results from the use of domestic instruments to stimulate the Japanese economy," said Bank of Toyko-Mitsubishi currency analyst Lee Hardman.
The dollar's strong performance also had a broad impact on commodity markets where raw materials are mainly priced in the currency and therefore its rise effectively makes them cheaper.
Brent oil prices slipped back below $103 a barrel (O/R), while spot gold fell as much as 1.5 percent to a low of $1,426.40. (GOL/)
London copper climbed, however, after China's April factory data fell short of expectations and raised hopes monetary authorities in the world's biggest metals consumer may embark on further easing, underpinning demand.
Annual industrial output grew 9.3 percent in April, up from a seven-month low of 8.9 percent hit in March but still missing market expectations for a 9.5 percent expansion.
POSITIVE TREND
European shares had started the week at five-year highs and their elevated levels gave investors a reason to cash in some gains ahead of key first quarter economic growth figures due on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The continent's top stocks on the FTSEurofirst 300 index (.FTEU3) were 0.3 percent lower by mid-morning as London's FTSE 100 (.FTSE), Paris's CAC-40 (.FCHI) and Frankfurt's DAX (.GDAXI) slipped 0.3 to 0.4 percent.
MSCI's global index <.miwd00000pus> was flat at 374.22 points, while futures prices (SPc1) pointed to some profit taking on Wall Street following its recent highs. (.N)(.L)(.EU)
Strategists at Deutsche Bank said the longer-term trend remained positive, citing stronger data from the United States and early signs of a turnaround in Europe. "We remain both strategically and tactically positive on euro area equities," they wrote in a note.
The comments from Italian Ignazio Visco, one of the ECB's top policymakers, lifted benchmark German Bund futures away from their lowest in more than a month after last week's sell-off on upbeat economic euro zone and U.S. data.
A 5 billion euro auction of Italian three- and 13-year debt created little noise as the backstop of promised ECB support continued to bolster demand for the bonds of the euro zone's more indebted members.
If the ECB compliments a cut to its 0.5 percent main rate by pushing its zero percent deposit rate into negative territory, banks would effectively be charged for parking any spare cash they don't lend.
Analysts believe that would prompt investors to look for other more profitable ultra-safe options such as Bunds.
"We all agreed in the council that we have to look with care and in that case we may reduce the rate," Visco told CNBC in an interview.

"We think that - and I personally think that, this is effective - the economy now is capable of taking it on board."

(Editing by Catherine Evans)

Ex-judge warns Chinese of Malay backlash for betrayal against BN

BY CLARA CHOOI
ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR

KUALA LUMPUR, May 12 — Former Court of Appeal judge Datuk Mohd Noor Abdullah today warned the Chinese community to prepare for a backlash from the Malays for their alleged "betrayal" against the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) in Election 2013. At a forum this afternoon, the high-ranking judge reportedly accused the Chinese of plotting to "seize political power" from the Malays, despite already having benefited economically from the "Malay's hand of friendship".
"For the Malays, the 'pantang larang' (taboo) is to be betrayed, because when they are betrayed, they will react and when they react, their dendam kesumat tidak tersudah-sudah (wrath will be endless).
"When Malays are betrayed, there is a backlash and the Chinese must bear the consequences of a Malay backlash," he was quoted as saying on independent news portal Malaysiakini today at the forum titled "GE13 post-mortem: Muslim leadership and survival" organised by the UiTM Malaysia Alumni Association and Gabungan Melayu Semenanjung.
To stress his position, Mohd Noor, who currently sits on the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) complaints committee, said the Malays have always been on the defensive but if the community were to move to the offensive, they should demand for the creation of more Malay rights, including larger reserve lands and a higher Bumiputera equity target.
"The nice term would be called 're-organising society' but the crude term would be for Malays to emigrate into the cities so that we will own the houses together with others and not only be able to just look at them."
"Arrange it in such away, that from today on, every businesses would have a 67 percent share ready for Malays to be taken up at any time," he was quoted saying.
Post-Election 2013 has seen scores of BN and BN-friendly leaders take pot shots at the Chinese community for their clear backing of federal opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) during the tumultuous polls last week.
But while they argue that it had been a "Chinese tsunami" that had cost BN to bleed seats, analysts and PR leaders have denied this, pointing to the 51 per cent in popular vote that the opposition had won against BN's 48 per cent.
Instead, they have argued that the vote trend did not reflect a Chinese vs Malay contest but rather an urban vs rural divide that has resulted in the emergence of two Malaysias.
Umno-owned daily Utusan Malaysia has been pushing the view that the election results had been because the Chinese had voted against BN, publishing daily news and editorials to expound this point, which has been backed by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
After its controversial "Apa lagi Cina mahu (What more do the Chinese want?)" headline earlier this week, the paper continued again today to question Chinese voters over their switch from BN to PR in last week's polls, claiming that they had been cheated by DAP, which it labelled as the country's "most racist party".
The Umno-linked daily's editors wrote today that most of the Chinese community had rejected BN in Election 2008 despite controlling the country's economy and purportedly being the richest ethnic group in Malaysia.
"In the 13th GE, the Chinese community once again chose to trust DAP more, which plays up thick racial sentiments. The Chinese tsunami is larger this time," the editors going by the name of Awang Selamat wrote in a weekly analysis carried in the paper's weekend edition Mingguan Malaysia.
"As far as Awang knows, the Chinese are not easily fooled repeatedly. But why allow themselves to be cheated by DAP that is the most racist party," the editors wrote.
They further claimed that the Chinese community appeared to be giving their blessings for the "extremism" displayed by DAP leaders, alleging that some Chinese employers had threatened their staff to support DAP.
Najib had used the term "Chinese tsunami" after the results showed that the BN retained power but had its worst showing in elections, winning only 133 federal seats after it ceded an additional seven seats to PR.
Last night at the 67th Umno anniversary celebration last night, the Umno president defended his party against accusations labelling it as racists.
He also appeared to blame the DAP for the loss of BN seats.
"Umno was not defeated, in fact it added more seats. If not for some quarters playing race issues, we would have won more seats."
"We are not a racist party, we are a party that is moderate. We have been serving other races for a long time," Najib said yesterday.
The incessant play on racism and apparent blame on the Chinese for causing BN's loss of seats last Sunday has raised concerns among the country's second largest ethnic community of further racial polarisation in multiracial Malaysia.
The opposition and thousands of largely urban and middle to upper-class Malaysians have expressed their disdain for the racial slant to BN's dissection of Election 2013's results, turning up in droves to protest against the polls outcome at two rallies so far - in Petaling Jaya on Wednesday and last night, in Penang. A third rally will be held in Perak tonight.

A World Run by Monsters, Pimps and Prostitutes (Part 1)

From a distance, this world is a beautiful place. The closer you look though, the uglier it gets. I still remember watching documentaries as a kid showing in gruesome detail how predatory animals kill, rip and swallow their prey. When I asked my parents why the filmmakers didn't save the poor prey animals, the answer was something like, “Well those predator animals need to eat too.”
Fair enough, lions, eagles and sharks probably wouldn’t survive on a vegetarian diet and they only kill as many animals as they need to survive. Even if they overeat or hoard food at times, they only do so to the extent needed to survive the next hunger period.
There is one species though that kills and hoards more than it needs for its own survival: humans. How many millions do you need for you and your children never ever having to worry about money? 5 million? 25 million? 50 million? So why do people who are already that rich keep chasing more money? Even after 100 million, 500 million, 1 billion they still want to hoard more.
And how do they acquire such fortune? Through honest work? Nobody gets that rich without the use of unethical methods, or, as Honoré de Balzac once wrote, "Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.”
We live in a world run by monsters, pimps and prostitutes. They try very hard to hide their pathological lack of empathy, but the fact remains that they are just a bunch of mild-mannered mass-murderers and soft-spoken psychopaths. Who cares whether their condition is caused by nature or nurture?!
You can’t just blame it all on the Jews. Sure, it was Sephardic Jews that were behind the Portuguese efforts to circumvent the Venetian-Arab monopoly on spice import to Europe, bringing misery and death on tens of millions of Africans and Asians. It was the Sephardic Jew Cristobal Colombo and his brother who slowly roasted to death millions of Native Americans on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. It was Sephardic Jews who controlled the slave trade between African and the American colonies. It was Sephardic Jews that were behind the genocidal Dutch spice trade that wiped out entire islands in SE Asia to ensure their production monopoly. It was Sephardic Jews from Iraq and India who flooded China with Opium from Afghanistan. It was Ashkenazi Jews who exploited and mistreated Russian and Ukrainian peasants to an extent that their life was no better than that of a prisoner in a Stalinist Gulag. It is Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews that are running the show in the United States, leading it to war after war for the benefit of Jewish controlled multi-national corporations and investment banks. But it is always equally greedy and psychopathic “Christians” who are making those Jewish crimes possible by providing them with the necessary legal, political and military support.
Jews make up less than 0.25% of the world’s population. They can hold as many key positions in whatever area of society they want; they cannot control us without a sufficient number of us collaborating with them. Those pimps and prostitutes within our ranks are an even bigger problem than those parasitic monsters themselves.
Part 2: Money Is Evil
Rebel of Oz is the editor/publisher of the dissident therebel.org site.

GOLDMAN: College-Educated Americans Are More Unemployed Than You Think

It's no secret that the unemployment rate for those with college degrees is much lower than the rate for those without.  And the fluctuations in the their respective unemployment rates have been very similar for as long as we can remember.
However, comparing the unemployment rates alone ignores some significant deterioration in the dynamics of the college-educated population.
Goldman Sachs economist Jan Hatzius examines this in a brief note to clients.
First, here's a look at the unemployment rates for college grads and those who didn't make it out of high school.  No surprises here:

Goldman Sachs

One worrying trend in the labor market has been the drop in the labor force participation rate.  Intuitively, one might think that the labor force participation rate would fall more for the those with less education due to lack of skills (i.e. the skills mismatch issue). However, this assumption is just wrong.

Harvard's Feldstein: 'Economy Is Limping Along' Since Fed's Easing Has Failed

The Federal Reserve's effort to boost the economy with quantitative easing (QE) has failed, says Harvard economist Martin Feldstein.

"[T]he evidence suggests that the program has done little to raise economic growth while saddling the Fed with an enormous balance sheet," he writes in The Wall Street Journal.

The central bank has added more than $2 trillion to its balance sheet since 2007.

Video: Economist Predicts 'Unthinkable' for 2013

QE is supposed to help the economy by lifting stock prices, says Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan. The idea is that those higher share prices lead to greater household wealth, which then sparks increased consumer spending.

Despite the Fed's action, "the economy is limping along with per capita gross domestic product rising at less than 1 percent a year," Feldstein says.

"Even if all of the rise in the value of household equities since quantitative easing began could be attributed to the Fed policy, the implied increase in consumer spending would be quite small," he adds.

"At best, the Fed's long-term asset purchases reduced the extent to which the federal deficits crowded out equity purchases," Feldstein suggests.

"Although it is impossible to know what would happen without the central bank's asset purchases, the data imply that very little increase in [gross domestic product] can be attributed" to the Fed's effort to juice stock prices.

"The time has come for the Fed to recognize that it cannot stimulate growth and that a stronger recovery must depend on fiscal actions and tax reform by the White House and Congress," Feldstein writes.

Economist Gary Shilling says investors are so caught up with the benefits to assets prices of the Fed's easing, that they aren't even paying attention to economic problems.

“The reality is that investors are only enamored with what the Fed and other central banks are doing,” he tells Yahoo.

“Their attitude is don’t fight the Fed. As long as the money is there, I’ve got to own stocks. They couldn’t care less about what’s happening to economies on the ground."

Video: Economist Predicts 'Unthinkable' for 2013

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Thirdworldizing America

Dees Illustrations

Stephen Lendman
Activist Post

Center for Economic and Policy Research co-director Dean Baker calls poverty America's "new growth industry." The state of today's America is deplorable.

In his latest May 3 analysis, economist John Williams said "April "employment and unemployment data were nonsense: the economy remains in serious trouble."

About 23% of Americans wanting work can't find it. Most jobs are temp or part-time low pay/poor or no benefit service ones with no futures. Conditions are getting worse, not better.

Federal, state and local government jobs were lost. Construction shed 6,000 jobs. Zero manufacturing jobs were created. Most good ones are overseas. They've been offshored to low-wage countries.

Economist David Rosenberg called April a "potemkin payroll report. Where's the income hiding," he asked? Average wage-based income declined 0.4%. It was the biggest drop since last October.

Market analyst Graham Summers discussed "a truly horrible economic reality" beneath April's headline job numbers. The average workweek declined by 0.2 hours. The average manufacturing workweek was down 0.3%.

Fewer overall hours worked subtracts 15 minutes per week. Applied to private sector employment, it's "the equivalent of over 21 million work hours lost in one month."

It's the biggest decline since April 2009. At that time, the economy was "absolutely imploding. It's numerical equivalent of firing 718,000+ people."

It's how companies begin dealing with downturns. "They don't start laying people off en masse.they start cutting work hours bit by bit."

Mass layoffs arrive during "full-blown recessions. The first stage is already happening." Clear signs show it.

Markets are euphoric. They're hitting new highs. Economic contraction is ignored. It happened in 2000 and 2008. Warning signs look ominously like earlier.

Peter B. Edelman co-directs Georgetown University's Center on Poverty, Inequality, and Public Policy. He calls "low-wage work" in America "pandemic."

America "descended into poverty," said Paul Craig Roberts. Growing millions struggle to get by. Many are "one medical problem or lost job away from homelessness."

Some colleges and universities offer adjunct professorships. They pay "$10,000 per year or less." Education was once "touted as the way out of poverty." Increasingly it reflects it. So do military enlistments. They're a desperate way to find work.

America's wealth disparity is deplorable. The top 1% owns over half the nation's wealth. The bottom 90% has a decreasing share. Social inequality defines today's America. It's unprecedented or close to it.

It matches or exceeds 19th century harshness. Protracted Depression conditions affect growing millions. Poverty, unemployment, homelessness and hunger approach record levels.

Socially destructive government policies bear full responsibility. Wealth and privilege alone matter. Ordinary households are sacrificed. Popular needs go begging.

Inequality is institutionalized. Around 100 million working age Americans are jobless. Most others are underemployed. Millions struggle to pay rent, service mortgages, cover medical bills, heat homes, and manage other daily expenses.

America’s 1% has more wealth than the bottom 95%. Income inequality is greater than in all other developed countries. Over three-fourths of Americans live from paycheck to paycheck.

Neoliberal harshness is policy. Bipartisan complicity force-feeds it. It's institutionalized when vital aid is needed. Doing so wages financial war on millions.

Obama exceeds the worst of George Bush. He's wrecking growing millions of households. He's doing so to serve monied interests. They own him. Whatever they want they get.

Obama's thirdworldizing America. He's ideologically over-the-top. He's waging war living standards. He's targeting the nation's social contract.

He's dismissive of growing needs. He's heading America for tyranny and ruin. He's banana republicanizing it.

It's already a kleptocracy. It's run by corporate crooks. Bipartisan complicity lets them have things their way. Profits are privatized. Losses are socialized. Bankers are at the top of the pecking order.

Ordinary people are exploited. A democratic facade masks New World Order harshness. Its holy trinity is eliminating public services, predatory capitalism writ large, and cracking down hard on non-believers.

Freedom's fast disappearing. Inside the bubble, it's paradise. Outside it's dystopian hell. America never was beautiful. It's worse than ever now in modern times.

Monied interests run things. Electoral politics doesn't work. Washington is too pernicious, corrupt and dysfunctional to fix. Privilege is institutionalized. Beneficial social change isn't tolerated. Police state harshness prevents it.

Force-feeding inequality defines immorality. It's also destructive economics. America's been declining for years. Private wealth is pitted against popular interests. It's been winning for decades.

Younger generations are worse off than older ones financially. Wages haven't kept up in real terms. High-paying jobs disappeared. Low-paying ones replaced them.

Deplorable social inequality exists. A race to the bottom continues. Future prospects look grim. America appears headed for what most of humanity faces.

At least 80% live on less than $10 a day. Over three billion people live on less than $2.50 a day. More than 80% live in countries where income disparity is increasing.

The poorest 40% of world population has 5% of global income. The bottom fifth has $1.5%. The top 20% has 75%.

According to UNICEF, 22,000 impoverished children die daily. They "die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death."

An estimated 28% of children in developing countries are underweight, malnourished and/or stunted.

Tens of millions of impoverished children aren't in school. At the start of the new millennium, nearly a billion people were illiterate.

Less than 1% of what's spent on weapons globally can provide universal primary education.

Preventable infectious diseases claim millions of lives annually. Unsanitary water and lack of basic sanitation affect half the world's population.

Diarrhea and other water-related illnesses claim at least 1.8 million child deaths annually.

Nearly half the population in developing countries, at any given time, experience water and/or sanitation related health problems.

Around one-third of children in developing countries have inadequate shelter. One in seven have no access to health care. Most with it get too little.

In 2003, 10.6 million children died before age five.

Rural areas account for 75% of people living on less than $1 dollar a day. About half the world's population live in urban communities. In 2005, about one-third lived in slum conditions.

Around 1.6 billion people have no electricity. Billions lack basic necessities overall. It's reflected in lower than average life expectancy, as well as high infant and child mortality rates.

America's future may resemble what most of the world now faces. Its race to the bottom assures it for growing millions.

Force-fed austerity increases their numbers annually. Things keep getting worse, not better.

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Shut Them Down! – Payday Loan Companies Are Making Billions Preying On The Misery Of The Poor

by Michael

Would you take out a loan that has an annual percentage rate of 391 percent?  Yes, I know that sounds absolutely crazy, but millions of Americans do it every single year.  The typical payday loan requires borrowers to pay about 15 dollars for every $100 that they borrow for two weeks.  That comes out to a yearly rate of about 391 percent.  And the payday loan companies know exactly who to target.  They have set up thousands of shops in the poorest communities all over the nation over the last several decades.  Each year, approximately 12 million Americans take out payday loans and they pay approximately 7.4 billion dollars in interest and fees on those loans.  Sadly, once you get hooked on payday loans they are very hard to stop.  In fact, one study found that only 13 percent of payday borrowers get two loans or less per year.  All other borrowers take out more loans than that.  In fact, more than a third of all payday borrowers take out between 11 and 19 loans during the course of a single year.  And as was mentioned earlier, the interest rates on these loans are beyond exorbitant.  Payday loans are estimated to be about  20 times more expensive than bank loans, with annual interest rates that are sometimes as high as 500 percent.  The payday loan companies circle the poor like vultures, because they know that the poor are the only ones desperate enough to agree to such terms.  This is why we need to shut them down.  The payday loan companies are making billions preying on the misery of the poor and it needs to be stopped.
And it just isn’t small, disreputable banks that are involved in these practices.  The truth is that some of the largest banks in Americaare now making payday loans…

Some, including U.S. Bank, Fifth Third Bank and Wells Fargo, offer payday loans under names such as Ready Advance, Fast Loan and Early Access, according to the Center for Responsible Lending (CRL). They can carry interest rates averaging between 225 and 300 percent, CRL said.

Others major banks not making such loans directly, but instead they are investing millions of dollars in the companies that do make the loans.  Bank of New York Mellon Corp., JPMorgan Chase and Bank of Americaare just some of the major banks that have invested large amounts of money in the payday loan industry.
These financial institutions are making billions of dollars by exploiting the people in our society that are the most vulnerable.  As I showed the other day, the bottom 90 percent of America is systematically getting poorer, and many Americans in desperate financial situations have found  the easy cash provided by the payday loan companies to be irresistible.  The following are some statistics about payday loans from a recent Pew Research study...

-Fifty-eight percent of payday loan borrowers have trouble meeting monthly expenses at least half the time. These borrowers are dealing with persistent cash shortfalls rather than temporary emergencies.
-Only 14 percent of borrowers say they can afford to repay an average payday loan out of their monthly budgets.
-Seventy-eight percent of borrowers rely on information from lenders—who sell these loans as a safe, two-week product—when choosing to borrow money. This reliance reinforces the perception that payday loans are unlike other forms of credit because they will not create ongoing debt. Yet the stated price tag for a two-week, $375 loan bears little resemblance to the actual $520 cost over the five months of debt that the average user experiences.
-While payday loans are often presented as an alternative to overdrafting on a checking account, a majority of borrowers end up paying fees for both.

-Some borrowers ultimately turn to the same options they could have used instead of payday loans to finally pay off the loans. Forty-one percent need an outside cash infusion to eliminate payday loan debt– including getting help from friends or family, selling or pawning personal possessions, taking out another type of loan, or using a tax refund.
-By almost a three-to-one margin, borrowers favor more regulation of payday loans. A majority of borrowers say the loans both take advantage of them and that they provide relief. Despite feeling conflicted about their experiences, borrowers want to change how payday loans work.

But those statistics don’t really convey the real world consequences that these predatory loans have.  Many Americans have lost everything that they had after they turned to payday loans.  In fact, it is estimated that at least 50,000 Americans a year go bankrupt due to payday loans.
A recent NBC News article profiled Raymond Chaney, a 66-year-old military veteran that had his life totally destroyed by these predators…

For Raymond Chaney, taking out a payday loan was like hiring a taxi to drive across the country. He ended up broke — and stranded.
The 66-year-old veteran from Boise lives off of Social Security benefits, but borrowed from an Internet payday lender last November after his car broke down and didn’t have the $400 for repairs. When the 14-day loan came due, he couldn’t pay, so he renewed it several times.
Within months, the cash flow nightmare spun out of control. Chaney ended up taking out multiple loans from multiple sites, trying to to stave off bank overdraft fees and pay his rent. By February, payday lenders — who had direct access to his checking account as part of the loan terms — took every cent of his Social Security payment, and he was kicked out of his apartment. He had borrowed nearly $3,000 and owed $12,000.
“I’m not dumb, but I did a dumb thing,” said Chaney, who is now homeless, living in a rescue mission in Boise.

Is there anyone out there that still wants to argue that we should not shut these predators down?
Sadly, many Americans in poor communities have very few alternatives to the payday loan companies.  In recent years, the large banking chains have been systematically closing down branches in poor neighborhoods while expanding in wealthy neighborhoods at the same time.  Since the Federal Reserve is paying banks not to lend money, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for them to make high-risk loans to poor Americans who may not be able to pay them back.  And recent regulations passed by Congress have made it not very profitable to offer checking accounts to poor people.  In many poor communities all over the country, it has now gotten to the point where it is becoming extremely difficult to find a bank branch anywhere.
So payday loan companies have been more than happy to fill the void.
But don’t look down on those that have taken out payday loans.  The truth is that almost all of us have willingly allowed ourselves to become enslaved to the system at one point or another.
For example, in a previous article entitled “Money Is A Form Of Social Control And Most Americans Are Debt Slaves“, I pointed out the utter foolishness of constantly carrying a balance on a credit card.  In that article, I included a great explanation from a former Goldman Sachs banker about how incredibly crippling credit card debt can be…

On the debt side of things, how much does your credit card company earn if you carry just an average of a $5,000 credit card balance, paying, say, 22% annual interest rate (compounding monthly) for the next 10 years?
In your mind you owe a balance of only $5,000, which is not a huge amount, especially for someone gainfully employed.  After all, $5,000 is just a quick Disney trip, or a moderately priced ski-trip, or that week in Hawaii.  You think to yourself, “how bad could it be?”
The answer, including the cost of monthly compounding, is $44,235, or about 9 times what it appears to cost you at face value.

This is why one of the top things that I recommend for getting prepared for the economic crisis that is coming is to get out of debt.
You do not want to be enslaved to financial predators when everything starts falling apart all around you.
So do any of you have any payday loan or credit card horror stories to share?  Please feel free to share what you have to say by posting a comment below…

THE COUNTDOWN TO WORLD WAR 3 – The Petrodollar System Is Teetering On The Brink of Collapse As China Moves Against The U.S. Dollar

China has just made several moves against the U.S. dollar, and currency wars with the U.S. have a way of turning into real wars.

Four Big Nations Have Signed A Currency Deal With China IN LESS THEN 2 MONTHS!! Yuan Reaches Record High Against The US Dollar!!
7 Of 10 Asian Countries Move From Dollars To Yuan!! China Persists In Refusing To Buy US Paper, And Fed May Buy $85 Billion in Bonds Per Month. We Are On The Verge Of A Major Currency War!!
China Is Actively Working To End The Petro-Dollar

Petrodollar Collapse – Economic disaster on the horizon

World War 3 Economic Collapse Happening NOW ? Fiat Petrodollar Hyperinflation False Flags

Here It Comes – Australia to Abandon the U.S. Dollar
Australia’s announcement that it is abandoning the U.S. dollar for trade with China is the latest broadside in the global currency war.
Year of the yuan: China’s explosive currency goes global
The ‘people’s currency’ of China is redefining the global economic monetary system. The closed-capital pariah is
blossoming into a reserve standard and is hedging appeal against the indebted dollar and the untested euro, piquing
foreign interest.
Degenerating credit quality across the board has prompted asset managers to shy away from the dollar, euro, Japanese
yen, British pound, and Swiss franc. And some are turning to the yuan, a currency that 10 years ago was completely off
limits to foreign investors.

Will the US Dollar Collapse in May?
John Williams, founder of Shadowstats.com, predicts the US dollar will collapse by May 2013 from a massive self-off
(i.e. the value of the dollar will crash because other countries will dump dollars in favor of other currencies) by May 2013. 

10 Reasons Why The Reign Of The Dollar As The World Reserve Currency Is About To Come To An End 
March 26th, 2012

The U.S. dollar has probably been the closest thing to a true global currency that the world has ever seen.  For decades, the use of the U.S. dollar has been absolutely dominant in international trade.  This has had tremendous benefits for the U.S. financial system and for U.S. consumers, and it has given the U.S. government tremendous power and influence around the globe.  Today, more than 60 percent of all foreign currency reserves in the world are in U.S. dollars.  But there are big changes on the horizon.  The mainstream media in the United States has been strangely silent about this, but some of the biggest economies on earth have been making agreements with each other to move away from using the U.S. dollar in international trade.  There are also some oil producing nations which have begun selling oil in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, which is a major threat to the petrodollar systemwhich has been in place for nearly four decades.  And big international institutions such as the UN and the IMF have even been issuing official reports about the need to move away form the U.S. dollar and toward a new global reserve currency.  So the reign of the U.S. dollar as the world reserve currency is definitely being threatened, and the coming shift in international trade is going to have massive implications for the U.S. economy.
A lot of this is being fueled by China.  China has the second largest economy on the face of the earth, and the size of the Chinese economy is projected to pass the size of the U.S. economy by 2016.  In fact, one economist is even projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040.
So China is sitting there and wondering why the U.S. dollar should continue to be so preeminent if the Chinese economy is about to become the number one economy on the planet.
Over the past few years, China and other emerging powers such as Russia have been been quietly making agreements to move away from the U.S. dollar in international trade.  The supremacy of the U.S. dollar is not nearly as solid as most Americans believe that it is.
As the U.S. economy continues to fade, it is going to be really hard to argue that the U.S. dollar should continue to function as the primary reserve currency of the world.  Things are rapidly changing, and most Americans have no idea where these trends are taking us.
…

Warning U.S. Dollar Collapse Underway, Massive Shortages in Gold and Silver
I’ve been pointing out for several months now that the recent rally in the dollar was a mirage, an illusion generated by the yen, euro, pound, and Canadian dollar all dropping into yearly, or intermediate cycle lows together. This selling pressure in the four major currencies that make up the dollar index spawned what looked like a strong dollar.
With Bernanke printing 85 billion of them a month, there is no such thing as a “strong dollar”. I’ve been saying for months that once these four currencies completed their bottoming cluster it would be the dollar’s turn to crash. The recent collapse in the yen was 23%. The Pound 9%. I think the dollar will be somewhere in between with a loss of 9-12% as it drops down into its yearly cycle low.
As this process starts to accelerate over the next couple of months the dollar bulls are going to get a rude awakening, as our currency shows its true colors. The acceleration began today as the dollar has now completed a lower low and a lower high.

Exclusive - Airbus to China: We support you, please buy our jets

By Barbara Lewis

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - China's decision to ease a boycott of some $11 billion in Airbus jet orders followed a high-level appeal from the planemaker urging Beijing to recognize its support over a trade row with Europe, a letter seen by Reuters shows.
It gives a glimpse into the intensity of the lobbying in the dispute, which helped persuade the European Union to freeze a law on regulating international aviation emissions.
China partly lifted a blockade on 45 long-haul A330 jet orders during a visit by French President Francois Hollande last month.
Behind the scenes, Airbus claimed partial credit for the EU climb-down and cheered what its chief executive described to Beijing as "joint efforts" to limit damage to Chinese airlines.
Writing to China's top aviation official shortly after the EU back-pedaled on its Emissions Trading Scheme last November, Fabrice Bregier said Airbus had been "very active" in supporting China's preference for a broader global system.
"Through our joint efforts, we have managed to ensure that Chinese airlines are not unfairly impacted by the scheme as previously planned," Chief Executive Fabrice Bregier said.
"I hope we at Airbus have been able to clearly demonstrate our strong support to Chinese aviation."
Airbus, which also got backing from European leaders, says the blocked orders alone put 2,000 jobs at risk.
"Since I became president of Airbus in June (2012), I have made this issue one of the top priorities for the company," Bregier wrote to Li Jiaxiang, the government official in charge of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).
A spokesman for Airbus declined to comment on the letter but reiterated that the company, a subsidiary of EADS, welcomed the EU's decision to pause the scheme for a year.
Bregier signed the two-page letter on November 16, four days after EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard agreed to "stop the clock" for a year on plans to make all airlines using EU airports pay for their emissions through a trading scheme.
The proposal unleashed a volley of international criticism and China - which viewed it as a breach of sovereignty - froze orders for aircraft worth up to $230 million each.
Bregier urged China to respond to the European Union's decision by swiftly granting approvals for all 45 aircraft.
While Beijing approved 18 orders worth $4 billion, more valuable deals remain on hold as China awaits the outcome of international talks on the problem of managing borderless emissions without infringing sovereignty.
PRESSURE TO ORDER PARTS
Bregier's letter sheds light on frantic efforts to unblock the orders as Airbus reached the deadline for ordering parts for the jets. According to his letter, the first aircraft was tentatively scheduled to be delivered in the summer of 2013.
Industry sources say a golden rule of the aerospace industry is that planes are never built without a firm order and deposit.
However, the schedule suggests Airbus may have been willing to show some flexibility, given China's role as the world's fastest-growing aviation market and a strategic trade partner.
Longest-lead-time components are ordered around a year in advance, meaning that if the planes are indeed to be delivered this summer, some parts would have been ordered last year.
The letter also gives the first available breakdown of the A330 orders, details of which have mostly been kept secret pending final approval from the Chinese government.
They include 10 aircraft for Air China, 10 for Hainan Airlines, 10 for China Southern and 15 for China Eastern. The letter said first deliveries were tentatively scheduled for mid-2013.
Airbus has not said which of these are included in the approvals for 18 aircraft announced on April 25.
It is not the first time high-profile plane orders have become swept up in trade tensions between China and Europe or the United States, home to Airbus's arch-rival Boeing.
Supported by India and the United States, China objected to the EU airlines plan on the grounds that it based charges on the whole trip, including China's jealously protected airspace.
The European Union says it was forced to act after more than a decade of inaction by the international community.
For internal EU flights the EU scheme remains in place and the European Union says it will re-impose the scheme for all flights using EU airports if global talks do not progress.
In practice, diplomats say that places the onus on the United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organization to reach a breakthrough during its general assembly from September 24.
The absence of a deal would raise the prospect of further deadlock over Airbus orders.

Aviation executives are expected to tackle the issue on Monday in Montreal, home to ICAO, where they are attending an Airbus-sponsored environment workshop.

(Additional reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Louise Heavens)

Sorry, We The People Are No Machines

We the people … are human beings with a soul. It is by far the most neglected element in the theory of the Keynesian economics, while at the same time the core in the Austrian view.
The Keynesian propaganda machine is turning at full speed in a relentless way. But do we see an increasing number of  signs of unsustainability in their theory?
Former Economy Noble price winner Paul Krugman, propagator of ultra weak money policies,  has a powerful position in the mainstream media. Apart from his TV appearances he is a columnist on NYTimes.com, one of the most visited financial sites. He has his ties into the highest échelon of the establishment. The power to influence (in our own simple words: perception management) is significant. But when realism has faded away, every new effort to justify things becomes questionable. We believe that is what happened in his latest column “Bernanke, Blower of Bubbles?” The writer obviously went too far. His commentary was really unrealistic, and almost unanimously every reaction in the comments section carried deep frustration. The most frustrating part for readers is probably the growing consensus that when the next bubble will burst both Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Krugman will not be hit. “We the people” will be the victims. We believe the direction of the evolution is becoming a serious concern amongst people, and it is having a profound impact on policy effects.
One possible outcome of this is that the harder policy makers try the further they could get from their objective. It is almost a fact right now that monetary stimulus has not proved to be effective. It has profoundly increased the gap between the top 1% and the rest of society. It has accelerated the decline of moral values in the financial industry. It has incited a worldwide destructive competition in currency debasements. It has undermined the credibility of our leaders and the establishment. It has created a false sense of stability while people experience the opposite in their daily lives (primary example: the real inflation rate as discussed here and here). But all those effects are not measured so they are simply neglected by our policy makers.
Even the German Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann today reiterated that monetary policy cannot tackle structural problems and said the longer the period of low interest rate continues the greater the stability risks (source: Reuters).
The following chart shows the impressive amount of liquidity that was pumped into our system in a very short period of time. Clearly, the explosion in the monetary base did not have a significant effect on credit expansion, which is the core of our debt and credit based economy.

It is only through growth of loans (credit) that the banking system can grow. It is through loans that new money is created (source: Positivemoney.org). Fresh new money is one of the ways to expand GDP.
Now what do central planners conclude from the above? Simple, the scale of monetary easing should be magnified. More easing is required to get things rolling.

But wait a minute. Suppose, just suppose, that we reached a kind of limit in this whole system. Suppose we are at a point where central planners cannot expect more lending and spending from people. Suppose that people are looking for balance and not for additional growth. This assumption could be true or false, nobody has the answer right now. But if it were true, then it would mean that central planning has gone too far, or that central planning simply has reached its boundaries. There are increasingly more signs that we could have reached such a point.

With that in mind, we believe that the following figures could support this thesis. Although more research, data and particularly time is needed to make such a case, the most basic behaviour of people should provide an indication. That is in contrast with the macro economic models that Keynesians are using in their decision making and key performance monitoring. In our opinion, disposable income in real terms per person and savings rate of individuals could be reliable indicators for our purpose. The focus in the following chart is on the US because it offers the most up-to-date figures (Q1 2013, courtesy of St Louis Fed Research). The blue line represents the real disposable personal income per capita with the scale in the left axis. The red line represents the personal savings rate with the scale in the right axis. The grey bars indicate official US recessions.

Not coincidentally did we chose the start date; our readers will understand why. What we see on the chart is that during the crisis in the 70’s the savings rate (red line) did rise to +10%. During the financial boom that followed people had been saving steadily less as the opportunity cost of saving was simply too high. Nowadays the savings rate has reached a point where it could almost only go up more from here. That implies less spending.
The real disposable income per citizen (blue line) seems to be topping in the last years. There is not too much room left for additional spendings.

Are we right to conclude that consumers (at least in the US, and very likely in Europe as well) do not have the ability AND willingness to take on more debt in order to spend more? Maybe there is some spending fatigue occurring. As the French use to say: c’est trop.

Eric Sprott presented an economic viewpoint to look at this. He wrote the following in “solution is the problem”:

High levels of debt, or debt overhangs, cause more problems. Recent work by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff (Harvard University) demonstrates that banking crises are strongly associated with large increases in government indebtedness, long periods of unemployment and, ultimately, some form of default. They identify a threshold of 90% debt-to-GDP as the trigger to a debt crisis.

Looking at the same phenomenon from another angle Darryl Schoon discussed in his latest video message a possible end game scenario of the debt and credit based economy:

Credit and debt based economies must constantly expand because the money fed into it goes in the form of DEBT. All money created in capitalist economies comes in the form of loans. There is so much debt because that phantom of money is nothing but a debt machine with a happy face plastered on it loaning you money so you can pursue your dreams. Where does the money come from? It is nobody’s money; it is money that they made up out of thin air!
Banking is a Ponzi scheme put in place to drain off the productivity of all human beings. It is a Ponzi scheme that was once put in place, and that is now reaching the end of its lifespan. Now it is collapsing. Capitalism works as long as it is expanding. Why? That is why the focus is on GROWTH. Because time itself has become valuable and everything has become monetized and tied to a loan. The longer the loan is outstanding the more interest has to be paid on that loan which compounds CONSTANTLY. The reason why economies have to expand is because the aggregate amount of debt is constantly expanding. So to pay off that constantly compounding aggregate amount of debt, credit has to go into the system hoping that it will induce enough new economic activity and profits to pay off the constantly compounding aggregate debt that is constantly growing larger.

Whatever the reality is, only time will tell if humanity has arrived at a critical point. As usual, there will be no black-and-white answers, and perception management techniques will be used to play with the facts. But we cannot ignore the growing number of signs that “we the people” are suffering from bubble fatigue. An increasing number of people is looking for more balance in different area’s in their lives. Maybe, just maybe, this could be a factor that central planners did not take into account in their calculations and theories, and one with serious implications. Only time will tell.

European Banking – It Is Getting Scary

The past week was not only characterized by US equity markets making one all-time high after another. Much less excitement was associated with one frightening message after another related to the state and prospects of the (European) banking sector.
On Thursday, Reuters announced that G7 finance chiefs are coming together to discuss a bank reform push. We do not know the real agenda and underlying motives of the G7 meeting but put in our own simple words: this stinks. Reuters writes: “Some of the world’s most powerful finance chiefs will meet on Friday and Saturday to try to speed up banking and finance reforms, with Cyprus’ near meltdown fresh in their minds.” Today, Saturday May 11^th, a reaction appeared on Reuters in which the German finance minister points to Japan being the big risk. Weren’t the talks supposed to be about the banking reform in Europe? Apparently there is something worse going on which is revealed by the title of the piece euro zone crisis no longer main risk to the global economy. So we were correct when we wrote back in February that the currency war had officially started with Japan’s announcements about their monetary stimulus.
Earlier this week, Iris Times wrote that Ireland which has the presidency of the European Council, will propose the ‘bail-in’ of large depositors in case of European bank collapses. “Discussions on the controversial bank resolution regime, which is likely to see savers with deposits over €100,000 “bailed in” as part of future bank wind-downs, are due to intensify this week in Brussels, ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, which will be chaired by Minister for Finance.”
The following quote proves there is almost a full consensus among European leaders about the bail-in confiscation of its citizens. A German site reported the following (translated):

Part of the ECB, the EU and central banks agree when it comes to depositors’ role in saving the European banks. Jörg Asmussen (…) made clear in the EU Parliament they will “obtain” access to savings account holders.
Based on the lessons learnt from Cyprus, Asmussen believes “we urgently need a European framework for the operation of financial institutions.” This framework should contain some rules related to refinancing of banks by their depositors. Asmussen points to bail-in rules, the possible confiscation of assets and preferred creditors.

So we should have had trust in Mr. Dijsselbloem’s statement when he said that Cyprus was a template for the future, although he admitted the day after not knowing what the word “template” means (source). Good citizens should have confidence (emphasis added) in their leaders, right?

On a more serious note now. All the evidence is there. Cyprus was indeed a “pilot” to determine the resistance against a bail-in from savers. Apparently the reaction of the Cypriot people and savers in the rest of the world, was too weak. The path of less resistance was the most likely one for decision makers.
This is truly frightening. Up until this point the suspicion was too high to ignore but still – let’s be honest – we all somehow hoped this was not true. So far our hope.
Now this brings up the question what exactly is going wrong with the banking system. It is a fact that banks can borrow at almost zero percent interest from the central bank and lend out at 4 to 8 percent (applies for most loans). Apparently this cannot make up for the damage. It is a fact that banks had got unprecedented amounts of liquidity to recapitalize themselves. It did not bring a solution neither. So then what is the real problem?
Clearly the core business of banks (i.e., creation of credit) is not growing. Rather, in Europe and the US, it seems like particularly private sector credit is contracting. Only the US has a small growth in credit their expansion (although apparently driven by consumer loans and car loans according to Zerohedge).

It was Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann today who reiterated that monetary policy cannot tackle structural problems and said the longer the period of low interest rate continues the greater the stability risks (source: Reuters).
With the disclosure of not being experts in the matter but only observers, we believe it is reasonable to assume that the banking sector is still being confronted with structural problems, which were not solved after the 2008 collapse followed by unprecedented liquidity. It seems very likely to us that insolvency of an overleveraged banking system is the core of the issue. Too much debt. And the issue clearly became worse since 2008.
By the way, in case readers missed this, Reggie Middleton’s research shows that the Irish banking sector is the next one … to be bailed out or get Cyprus’d.
Please feel free to participate in the discussion by leaving a reaction in the comments below. Our site has a very international audience. Do not hesitate to express your thoughts, even if not your native language is not English, as this topic is critical for all of us!
Thinking about holding precious metals outside the banking system? Click to learn more.

IRS Admits To Targeting Conservative Groups; Calls For Investigation Soar

http://shar.es/Zn8CO 

Australia has a new program that offers millionaires residency in return for a portion of their wealth

Australia said that so far it has attracted 170 applicants to a new program to develop foreign investment by offering overseas millionaires the right of residency in return for a portion of their wealth, in a bid to help the country compete better against other nations for money and expertise from abroad.

The so-called significant investor visa was launched in November. If all those made so far are accepted, the applications, believed to be mostly from China, would translate into inbound investment of at least 850 million Australian dollars (US$877 million).

The program lets foreigners settle in Australia for up to four years, then seek permanent residency, in exchange for a minimum A$5 million investment during their stay. The money can be placed in federal or state bonds, managed funds, Australian companies, or in a combination of those assets.

The push by Australia to start attracting foreign investors by offering them residency comes as the country faces what Finance Minister Penny Wong terms a new reality, as a decadelong mining boom evaporates amid a slowing global economy.

The country is also playing catch-up with others offering visas to the wealthy investors. Its neighbor New Zealand, offers visas to those willing to invest as little as 1.5 million New Zealand dollars (US$1.3 million). And the U.S., a magnet for Chinese investors, grants green cards to qualifying foreign nationals for investing as little as $500,000 in a qualified U.S. business that creates a minimum number of jobs. In the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, more than $1.8 billion was raised by the U.S. this way and 7,641 foreign nationals were issued visas, 80% of them Chinese.

In Australia, successful applicants are allowed later to apply for permanent visas. There is no upper limit on the number of special visas the government can grant. Consultants at Deloitte expect the total to climb to around 700 a year, potentially at least A$3.5 billion in fresh foreign investment.

But not all applications are guaranteed to succeed.

The department of immigration said it had granted the first significant-investor visa to a Chinese toy manufacturer and his family. A spokesman for the department said that following a four-month assessment of the his application, the candidate made a A$5 million investment in Victoria state bonds. The government declined to identify the successful applicant.

"Australia is in active competition with other countries across our region for successful, high-wealth individuals and the capital and business acumen that comes with them," Immigration Minister Brendan O'Connor said last week.

While the program is open to all, Chinese nationals are likely to be among the biggest takers, according to people involved with the program.

Indeed, the ranks of China's wealthy have risen. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates China has more than a million millionaires and about 60,000 "super rich," or people with more than A$15 million to their name. The special Australian visa has a unique identifier number "188," making it distinct from the traditional "457" visa given to most temporary foreign workers.

Adding to the allure of the investor visa, the government has created a new subclass of permanent visa to go along with the program, "888," a number many Chinese associate with wealth.

"Clearly, the whole thing has been targeted at China so far," said Bill Fuggle, Sydney-based head of financial services Baker & McKenzie, which advises clients, including many Chinese, on significant-investor visas.

The government's openness to wealthy foreigners contrasts with its approach more generally to immigration, a polarizing topic in Australia, particularly ahead of an election only four months away. Prime Minister Julia Gillard has pledged to clamp down on the "457" temporary work visas.

The Labor government, which opinion polls suggest will lose the Sept. 14 election to the center-right Liberal Nationals, has proposed changes to the 457 temporary work visa system and has said it would "put Aussie workers first" as the nation's economy has slowed, led by a cooling in the mining sector.

Foreign investment, particularly from China, is a hot-button topic in Australia. Last year, conservative lawmakers, particularly from rural areas, attacked the government for allowing the takeover of a large cotton farm, Cubbie Station, by a Chinese-led consortium.

Treasurer Wayne Swan labeled their views as "xenophobic claptrap" at the time.

In 2011, the government rejected a takeover of Australia's main bourse operator, ASXLtd., by Singapore's main exchange, saying the deal was against the national interest.

Scared Americans and “The US Terror State”

Syria, Libya and other US crimes invisible to financially scared Americans.  
Watch Out, World! Even America’s Wealthy Are Losing Ground.
Cognitive dissonance among the US sub-elite means more war and death for everyone else.
Occasionally the tip of the iceberg pokes through, and the reported facts corroborate the experience of most of the people. The recent Pew Center report that has now reached broad circulation shows that a full 93% of US households *lost* ground in the much vaunted recovery of 2009-2011.
This just validates what we are all living through, glossed over by averages, smoke and mirrors. There is no “recovery.” Sectors *within* the top quintile are holding on, barely.
This is the starkest portrayal I’ve seen in black and white; I had previously been telling anyone who would listen that, while there seems to be a pickup for those in the $250,000 and up range, it is clearly not the case for the bottom 4 quintiles [i.e. $100,000 combined household income 2010]. It should be shocking enough to most middle class types that the real picture is so different from what they believe to be living–that is, that they are actually in the top 8-10%… BUT the data shows even worse. Even families up to $500,000 (!) are losing ground.
This bespeaks the desperation in the political outlook of what Zinn called The Guards and what Chomsky called The Priesthood: people who are doing just fine in the current system but think it needs a few tweaks. As this sector shrinks, the internal contradictions will become more apparent and the response of the state becomes harsher and less elastic. So households with “two good jobs” say $100,000 plus each, are prone to seeing some hope, the famous ‘green shoots’ mantra that fell on deaf ears for most of us a few years ago. Come on, guys–it *can* work! We all need to just be a bit more patient! Etc.
The political ramifications are quite alarming. This sector is crucial to the viability and perceived legitimacy of the system, and their panic has far reaching consequences. It may just beginning to dawn on them that they, too, will ultimately be left behind in the wealth shift, and that it was never really about them. Slowly but surely, and to varying degrees, they are recapitulating Judas’ epiphany [the Andrew Lloyd Weber version, at least]: “My god I’m sick. I’ve been used–and you knew all the time!” They are just beginning to see that they are facing an uphill battle in a rigged game against the House with a stacked deck–and any other cheesy analogies you want to cram in there–but there is nowhere for them to go.
Paradoxically, the initial wave of reaction to this newfound betrayal by their patrons in the ruling class is not to turn on their masters. It is to express this anger at those below, in the age-old game of shooting the messenger. Consequently, they become even better “shushers,” the Seinfeld term for viewers who keep order in a theater. Border collies, gatekeepers… they have always been there, but they were more consciously part of the professional ‘left,’ an icon of the political class. In the current period, their anger is more desperate and more diffuse: They have always been more inclined, for example, to trust the police, to believe the official version of events, to avoid sources of information considered by their class position and experience to be beyond the Pale. Having rarely, if ever, been on the wrong side of Officialdom, or had to bail relatives out of jail, or had any race-tinged experiences themselves, they are primed and pampered to be the intellectual shock troops of Acceptable Discourse. In the face of increased perfidy on the part of their class betters, they can’t (yet) bring themselves to bite what they still perceive as the hand that feeds them. Consequently, they will lash out at the incongruously labeled ‘parasites’ who they feel are ruining their banquet, even as the din of cognitive dissonance grows inside their heads.
The brutal fallout from this game is apparent all around us, as the body counts rise and the single minded state terrorism of the state apparatus grows ever more horrific in its attempt to maintain their bloated lifestyles through hegemony over the world’s resources. This transaction is completely lost on the Shushers–rather, they become its ghoulish cheerleaders, with or without acknowledgement. They are capable, somehow, of rationalizing the complete destruction of country after country–even as they are shown they are being lied into doing so. It is inconsequential to them that their government is funding, arming and training the very Islamic terrorists in Syria and Libya that they are primed to fear elsewhere. The simple mathematical rule of balance and scale demands that they acknowledge and reject the 1000 : 1 ratio of violence ravaging the world in their name, with their money, with their silence at best and enthusiastic endorsement at worst. They just don’t give a shit, and their macabre privileging of the relatively few victims among their own–as awful as these surely are–is lost outside the bubble, where the rest of the world grieves for their victims.
The economic consequences of their loss of station “scares the sh..t” out of them: while logic and basic morality dictate that they should wake up every morning with the bloody carnage of their own drone army foremost in their minds, they are instead preoccupied with how they can no longer afford an annual pilgrimage to Disney, or that they may have to postpone the kitchen/bath/boat/car upgrade they have been contemplating. If this makes them sound like monsters, it should. There is something epic about the horror of simultaneously having no power over a political system that wreaks such destruction and yet defending that very system as acceptable and benign, without at the very least having been the proverbial canary in the coal mine, the littlest Who shouting ‘We are here!’ from the tallest available tower. It is more than a sham and a shame. It is a moral crime, a breach of ethical duty that will yield unimaginable consequences when the balance is eventually righted. And yes, for international readers, I do realize the self-absorption of focusing on the internal American experience, and hear your cries of “Who gives a shit!’ inside my head.” If you have stuck with me this long, much respect. Sometimes I feel it necessary to speak to and about my American countrymen from the perspective of one who shares, albeit sometimes tangentially, their experience.
I believe we are living in the time of tremendous turmoil. It may take a year or two or ten, but in historical terms we are living in that instant, that one day where, looking back, it will become apparent that everything changed. It is the pivotal moment so brilliantly enacted by the montage at the end of Les Miserables where all social actors, no matter their role or position, sense that something momentous is on the horizon: “Tomorrow we’ll discover what our God in heaven has in store. One more dawn. One more day. One day more!”

Anwar: Ex-judge’s ‘racist’ warning to Chinese would make Hitler proud

BY CLARA CHOOI
ASSISTANT NEW EDITOR

KUALA LUMPUR, May 13 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has slammed former Court of Appeal judge Datuk Mohd Noor Abdullah for warning the Chinese of a Malay backlash, saying the latter’s “racist” remarks would make German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler proud.
The Pakatan Rakyat (PR) de facto leader wrote in a brief blog posting last night that unlike Umno, leaders in his pact would not spread such racial discord but propagate peace and mutual respect among the country’s many races.
“How long more are we to tolerate such hate mongering and race baiting from the illegitimate Najib government?” Anwar (picture) asked.
“Former appeal court judge Datuk Mohd Noor Abdullah’s racist speech puts the Ku Klux Klan to shame and makes Hitler proud,” he said, referring to Germany’s World War II leader Adolf Hitler whose Nazi party perpetrated the Holocaust, the genocide of an estimated six million European Jews.
The Ku Klux Klan or KKK is a secret society organised in the United States after the Civil War to reassert white supremacy, white nationalism and anti-immigration, expressed through terrorism.
“Let’s all stand shoulder to shoulder and remain united. To Malaysians — thank you for coming out tonight in Ipoh and showing these zealots what being Anak Malaysia means,” Anwar added.
He was responding to remarks made by Mohd Noor at a forum yesterday where the latter warned the Chinese community to prepare for a backlash from the Malays for their alleged “betrayal” against the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) in Election 2013.
The former high-ranking judge reportedly accused the Chinese of plotting to “seize political power” from the Malays, despite already having benefited economically from the “Malay’s hand of friendship”.
“For the Malays, the pantang larang (taboo) is to be betrayed, because when they are betrayed, they will react and when they react, their dendam kesumat tidak tersudah-sudah (wrath will be endless).
“When Malays are betrayed, there is a backlash and the Chinese must bear the consequences of a Malay backlash,” he was quoted as saying on independent news portal Malaysiakini at the forum titled “GE13 post-mortem: Muslim leadership and survival” organised by the UiTM Malaysia Alumni Association and Gabungan Melayu Semenanjung.
To stress his position, Mohd Noor, who currently sits on the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) complaints committee, also said the Malays have always been on the defensive but if the community were to move to the offensive, they should demand for the creation of more Malay rights, including larger reserve land and a higher Bumiputera equity target.
“The nice term would be called ‘re-organising society’ but the crude term would be for Malays to emigrate into the cities so that we will own the houses together with others and not only be able to just look at them.”
“Arrange it in such a way that from today on every business would have a 67 per cent share ready for Malays to be taken up at any time,” he was quoted as saying.
Post-Election 2013 has seen scores of BN and BN-friendly leaders take potshots at the Chinese community for their clear backing of federal opposition PR during the tumultuous polls last week.
But while they argue that it had been a “Chinese tsunami” that had cost BN to bleed seats, analysts and PR leaders have denied this, pointing to the 51 per cent in popular vote that the opposition had won against BN’s 48 per cent.
Instead, they have argued that the vote trend did not reflect a Chinese-vs-Malay contest but rather an urban-vs-rural divide that has resulted in the emergence of two Malaysias.
Umno-owned daily Utusan Malaysia has been pushing the view that the election results had been because the Chinese had voted against BN, publishing daily news and editorials to expound this point, which has been backed by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

We’re On the Verge of the Biggest Bond Implosion of All Time

by Phoenix Capital Research

Japan should serve as a lesson to central planners around the world.
Japan’s stock market/ real estate bubble burst in the early ‘90s. Since that time Japan has launched NINE QE efforts equal to roughly 25% of its GDP. And GDP growth has worsened despite these efforts from 2% to 1%. Ditto for employment.
Japan elected a new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in September 2012. Since that time, his primary belief has been that Japan hasn’t engaged inenough stimulus. He threatened the Bank of Japan to get working… and it did, announcing a $1.4 trillion stimulus last month.
Since that time, the Yen has positively imploded. It broke below 100 yesterday for the first time in years. It’s now fast approaching the long-term trend line. When we take this out, it’s GAME OVER for the great monetary experiment of Japan.



Japan has a Debt to GDP of over 200%. Japan’s demographics are terrible (the country sells more adult diapers than child diapers). Its economy has been imploding for 20 years, and now its truly epic bond bubble is on the verge of collapse as well.
If you thought Greece was bad for the financial system, wait until you see what Japan will do to it.
If you are not already preparing for a potential market collapse, now is the time to be doing so.


We produced 72 straight winning trades (and not a SINGLE LOSER) during the first round of the EU Crisis. We’re now preparing for more carnage in the markets… having just seen another SIX trade winning streak…
To join us…


Best Regards,
Graham Summers