US government spending $500k to push HPV vaccine that keeps killing young women

(NaturalNews) Amid all the budget cuts and sequestration measures being taken by the federal government these days, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has somehow procured more than half a million taxpayer dollars to spend on pushing more people to get vaccinated for human papillomavirus (HPV). As reported by CNSNews.com, NIH recently awarded $544,188 to the University of California (UC) school system to research new propaganda tactics that may help sway more mothers to have their underage daughters vaccinated with Merck & Co.'s Gardasil jab.

Even though countless thousands of young girls around the world have been seriously injured or killed as a result of being poked with Gardasil, according to the latest available statistics, NIH is concerned that not enough young girls in California's Los Angeles County are getting the shot -- the vaccine industry is presumably concerned as well. So, the federal agency has tasked UC with evaluating new methods that might convince more mothers of underage girls to have their daughters vaccinated, all on the taxpayer's dime.

According to the study, entitled Increasing HPV Vaccine Uptake in a Low Income Ethnic Minority Population, when mothers of so-called "age-eligible" girls between the ages of 11 and 18 call the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (LACDPH) for information about anything, operators will be instructed to engage in an "intervention," during which time they will explain to the mothers how and where to get the vaccine. These same mothers will be told about the "benefits" of being jabbed for HPV.

"You can't directly do this for minors," says Dr. Roshan Bastani, who is leading the trial, about the program's agenda. "So when the mothers call in, we ask the women who call in if they have an age-eligible daughter, and if they do, then they go into giving them the information on why it's (HPV vaccine) important."

"When they call in, not only do we tell them about the HPV, we also make a specific referral close to the girl's school, the mom's work, wherever, where they can take the daughter to get the free vaccine," he adds, as quoted by CNSNews.com.

Federal government using your tax dollars to indoctrinate minorities into getting deadly vaccines

Just like with most other studies, there will also be a "control" group of mothers who are not indoctrinated into the lies of Gardasil, and rates of vaccination between the two groups will be compared in the end to see if the campaign is successful. Ultimately, the goal is to determine whether or not scaring mothers over the phone about HPV infection and instructing them on where to have their daughters vaccinated will be enough to increase uptake of Gardasil.

None of the cash, of course, will be used to inform mothers about the potential side effects that may result from getting the jab. These include serious and possibly permanent neurological damage, anaphylactic shock, mental retardation, paralyzation, cancer, and even death. Some of the latest statistics on Gardasil's rate of side effects and death can be found at SaneVax.org.

"The efficacy of Gardasil remains unsubstantiated since the vaccine hasn't been adequately tested on the primary age group to which it is currently given," explains a 2011 study out of the University of British Columbia (UBC). "Since 2006 when it was first approved, Gardasil has been associated with 20,915 adverse reactions in the U.S. alone," it adds, citing now-outdated numbers. "These included 89 deaths, over 1,000 cases that required emergency hospitalization, and 382 abnormal pap tests."

You can read the full results of this study here:
http://sanevax.org

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/041429_Gardasil_HPV_vaccines_government_spending.html#ixzz2ankO2u23

Hiding Economic Depression With Spin

Paul Craig Roberts
Activist Post

Time is running out for the US economy and the American people. The financial press and economic commentators, with few exceptions, do a good job of keeping this fact from the public.

Consider for example the spin put on the “advance estimate” of the real GDP growth rate for the second quarter announced on July 31. The annual rate of 1.7 percent real GDP growth for the second quarter of 2013 was presented optimistically as an acceleration in real GDP from the first quarter’s 1.1 percent growth rate. However, the reason for the “acceleration” in growth is that the first quarter’s estimate was revised down from 1.8 percent to 1.1 percent. The second quarter GDP growth rate is also subject to revised estimates. Most likely, the final number will be lower.

Consider also that the reason that real GDP is positive is that nominal GDP is deflated with an understated measure of inflation. The measure of inflation has been manipulated in order to deny Social Security recipients cost of living adjustments. Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) reports that if deflated by previous official methodology, GDP growth has been negative since the downturn in 2007. In other words, the “recovery” is just another government hoax.

Another failure of the financial press and economic commentators is the interpretation of the Federal Reserve’s policy of Quantitative Easing. The Fed is said to be keeping interest rates low in order to stimulate business investment and the housing market. This explanation is nothing but cover for the real purpose of QE, which is to drive up and keep high the debt related derivatives on the books of the banks too big too fail. Low interest rates pull up the prices of all debt instruments, and the higher prices raise the values on the banks’ balance sheets, making the banks look more solvent or less insolvent.

The Fed has continued QE for years, despite the policy’s failure to revive the economy, in order to hold the banks’ collapse at bay in the hopes that the banks would succeed in boosting their earnings sufficiently to get out of trouble.

The Fed’s QE policy has been costly for important areas of the economy. Retirees have been denied interest income. This has reduced consumer expenditures and, thereby, GDP growth, and it has forced retirees to draw down their savings in order to pay their bills.

The Fed’s QE policy has also jeopardized the US dollar because of the several-fold increase in the number of dollars over the last few years. In order to support bond prices, the Fed has created 1,000 billion new dollars annually over the last several years. The supply of dollars has out grown the demand for dollars, putting the dollar’s exchange value under pressure. To protect the dollar from QE, the Fed and its dependent bullion banks have engaged in ruthless shorting of gold in order to suppress the price of gold. The rapidly rising gold price indicated falling confidence in the dollar, and the Fed feared that this lack of confidence would spread into the currency markets.

By printing dollars to support the banks, the Fed has created a bond market bubble, a stock market bubble, and a dollar bubble. If the Fed stops printing money, not only will the banks’ balance sheets take a hit, but so will the bond, stock, and real estate markets. Wealth would be wiped out. No one could any longer pretend that there is an economic recovery.

The impact on the dollar is less clear. On the one hand, curtailment of the dollar’s rapid increase in supply would help the currency. On the other hand, the drop in values of dollar-denominated assets, such as stocks, bonds, and real estate could cause the demand for dollars to decrease. Foreigners for example who sell dollar-based assets might also convert their dollar proceeds into their domestic currencies.

The failures of the financial press require the explanation that I have provided of QE, the bubble economy, and the manipulated measures of real GDP, inflation, and unemployment. However, although these explanations are necessary, they are themselves a diversion.

The real reason that the US economy cannot recover is that it has been moved offshore. Millions of US manufacturing and tradable professional service jobs such as software engineering have been moved to China, India and other countries where wages and salaries are a fraction of those in the US. Using “free trade” as a cloak, corporations have turned labor costs into a profits center. The drop in labor costs raises profits, which are then distributed to executives as “performance bonuses” and to shareholders as capital gains. The impact on US employment can be seen from the BLS monthly payroll jobs data and from the declining US labor force participation rate. The participation rate is not falling because consumer incomes are rising and fewer family members are needed in the work force. The rate is falling because discouraged workers have given up looking for employment and have left the work force.

The use of foreign labor in place of US labor is beneficial to executives and shareholders in the short-run, but it is detrimental in the longer-run. The long-run effect is to destroy the US consumer market.

When jobs offshoring halted the rise in US consumer income, in order to keep the economy going the Federal Reserve substituted a growth in consumer debt for the missing growth in consumer income. For example, the housing bubble created by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan allowed home owners to spend the inflated equity in their homes by refinancing their mortgages. The substitution of consumer debt for the missing growth in real wages and salaries is limited by the burden of debt on households. Unlike the government, American citizens cannot print the money with which to pay their bills. Once consumers were unable to take on more debt, the consumer economy ceased to expand.

The government can print money with which to pay its bills, but if history is a guide, governments cannot forever print money without serious consequences. The real economic crisis will hit when the bubble economy can no longer be supported by the printing press.

It should be obvious to economists, but apparently is not, that Walmart-type jobs of the “New Economy” do not pay sufficiently to support a consumer-dependent economy. As Obamacare is phased in, consumer purchasing power will suffer another blow. Even the subsidized premiums are expensive, and the cost of using the policies in terms of deductions and co-pays will be prohibitive for most. As employer-provided benefits and Medicare are cut back, the health care crisis will worsen in the midst of an economic crisis.

The scary part of the pending economic crisis occurs when the federal budget deficit widens as the economy contracts and the Fed finds itself in a situation where it cannot print yet more dollars without causing a loss in confidence in the dollar and US Treasury bonds. What does a desperate government do in such a situation? It confiscates what remains of private pensions, piles on taxes, and drives the people and the economy deeper into the ground.

This is the path that US economic policy is on. What is the solution?

Capitalism could be allowed to work and the banks to fail. It is cheaper to bail out depositors than to bail out the banks.

Corporations could be taxed on the basis of the geographical location at which value is added to their product. If corporations create the goods abroad that they market to Americans, they would have a high tax rate. If they create value domestically with US labor, they would have a low tax rate. The tax difference could be used to offset the labor cost advantage of offshored production.

It would take time, but jobs would come back to the US. Cities, states, and the federal government would slowly see their tax bases rebuilt. Consumer incomes would again rise with productivity, and the economy could be put back together.

As for the federal deficit, it could be significantly reduced by ending Washington’s wars. As various experts have established, these wars are extremely expensive, adding trillions of dollars to the financing needs of the US government. As other experts have shown, the wars do not benefit anyone but a narrow clique of military/security industries. Obviously, it is not democratic to destroy a people’s future for the sake of special interests.

Can these solutions be implemented or are the entrenched special interests too strong and too short-sighted?

There is no prospect of finding out as long as the financial press and economic commentators are immune to reality. Until the real situation is understood, nothing can be done. It is difficult to sell a solution when the problem is not recognized and understood. That is why I focus on explaining the problems.

This article first appeared at Paul Craig Roberts' new website Institute For Political Economy.  Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His Internet columns have attracted a worldwide following.

'All that'll be left is Costa, Tesco and charity shops': Lament of chocolate maker forced to close after rent, rates and VAT cut his profits to only £100 a week

Simon Dunn was forced to close his chocolate shop in Wilmslow, Cheshire

He said rising costs saw him left with only £100 profit 'on a good week'

Mr Dunn has appealed to the Chancellor, his MP, to help business owners

He said British high street will soon be: 'Tesco, Costa and charity shops'

A Chocalatier forced by soaring costs to shut his flagship shop has warned that the British high street is almost dead.

Simon Dunn, whose store was in Chancellor George Osborne’s constituency, says small businesses are being forced out as their profits are squeezed.

He was left with £100 for himself ‘in a good week’ after paying rent, business rates and wages, leading him to warn:  ‘Before long all that will be left on the British high street is Tesco, Costa and charity shops – it’s just impossible for people like me to keep our heads above the water.’

Scroll down for video

Simon Dunn, a chocolatier, has had to shut his shop in Wilmslow, Cheshire, because it became too expensive to run and ate up all of his takings

Mr Dunn taped a goodbye letter to the shop window in Wilmslow, Cheshire, to explain to customers how he had nothing left once he'd covered his business costs

‘I’m afraid independent traders on the high street just don’t have a chance these days in this tough current economic climate.

‘My shop was in George Osborne’s constituency [Tatton]. He ought to know the importance of independent businesses and try to do something to help us. It’s the rising cost of everything that is affecting business owners like me.

 

More...

• £500m tax on drivers by greedy town halls: Parking charges soar as councils flout law
• Controversial £3billion insulation scheme will push up energy bills for millions of families warns British Gas

‘The sad part of it is that we’re not the only business that’s having to do this. It’s a national problem that is affecting every high street.

'On a good week we were left with £100 a week profit and it was just not worth it. There seems to be no incentive to operate as an independent on the high street these days.

‘I have to turn over a certain amount just to keep moving, but if I go over that amount suddenly I find myself in a position where I can be taxed more. It’s as though business owners are punished for being successful.’

The store, which opened in 2007, was one of seven run by Mr Dunn and his family in the North West, with a further franchise in Bridport, Dorset. His daughter, Camilla, 25, runs one branch and his brother Gary another, while his son Oliver, 28, organises chocolate parties in customers’ homes.

Forced-to-close boutique chocolate maker demonstrates his art

'The Wilmslow shop was the busiest and all of our customers were regulars,’ said Mr Dunn, who lives with his wife Anne, 52, in Disley, Cheshire. ‘We were always busy, and to the outsider looking in the business was doing great.

‘Sir Alex Ferguson and his wife were regular customers as were a lot of footballers and Coronation Street stars.

‘When the recession started taking hold we soon started to notice the difference. Chocolate prices have more than doubled since we opened the shop.

‘On top of that I had to pay £5.50 a day just to park the car. People were so shocked when they read the letter but people don’t realise how costly things can be.’

Mr Dunn wrote that the closure might have come as a shock because the shop was always busy

Mr Dunn, whose Wilmslow shop was inside George Osborne's constituency, said the Chancellor should do more to help independent retailers

He will now concentrate on the business’s online operation.

Simon Carr, vice chairman of Wilmslow Business Group, said: ‘It is a huge loss to see an independent retailer struggling in this way and that they have to make the decision to pull out of the town.’

A Treasury spokesman said: ‘Small businesses are the backbone of the British economy.

‘We know for many that times have been tough. The Government has focused what help we can give on small businesses.’

Mr Dunn said his customers were 'furious' and couldn't believe that the shop had to close

Now Mr Dunn is clearing out his Wilmslow shop, one of the seven in his franchise

Mr Dunn, seen removing his branding frmo the wall, said the price of chocolate has doubled since he opened his shop in 2007

Local area: Mr Dunn has warned that only charity shops will remain - such as the Red Cross store, left

Parade: Other shops in the area are pictured, including an Oxfam next door (left)

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2382352/All-thatll-left-Costa-Tesco-charity-shops-Lament-chocolate-maker-forced-close-rent-rates-VAT-cut-profits-100-week.html#ixzz2anjo8GB0
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Rove's Warning: GOP Will 'Get Blamed for any Government Shutdown'

Political strategist Karl Rove warned Republicans Thursday in strong terms that it would be a big mistake to shut down the government over budget disagreements with President Barack Obama. 

"It's an iron law," he said, "that Republicans get blamed for any government shutdown, no matter who controls the White House or Congress." 

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Rove urged GOP lawmakers not to "overreach" in their efforts to curb government spending and prevent another increase in the national debt limit. 

"For congressional Republicans, the challenge is to keep the upper hand provided by their strategy of passing continuing resolutions at current levels to fund the government," the Republican strategist wrote in his weekly column. 

In this year's budget battle, Obama has requested more than $1 trillion in discretionary outlays for fiscal 2014, $91 billion more than is permitted under the 2011 budget agreement, Rove noted in his piece, adding that Republicans want to hold the line on spending at $967 billion. 

"Spending disputes," he said, "almost always work to the advantage of Republicans, since Americans believe there's plenty of waste in Washington." 

Rove cited a Feb. 18 Pew Research Center/USA Today poll to back up that observation. The survey found that 54 percent of Americans believe the government should focus "mostly on spending cuts," while only 16 percent think the emphasis should be "mostly on tax increases." 

He said Obama claims to be a deficit hawk, but under his administration the deficit "is still a larger share of the economy than in 62 of the last 68 years since World War II."

That reality, Rove suggested, may force Obama to accept more spending cuts in return for a borrowing increase on the debt, despite the fact that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has said the president will not negotiate with Congress on the debt limit. 

"Mr. Obama understands he may be stuck taking further spending restraint in return for an increase in the limit on federal borrowing," Rove said. 

Adding to Obama's problem, Rove continued, is the fact that his approval ratings on his handling of the economy are continuing to drop. As his approval falls, the Democrats' hopes of retaking the House and holding the Senate in next year's midterm elections will also suffer. 

So Republicans, Rove stressed, must resist any attempt by Obama to turn the tables by "baiting" them into forcing a government shutdown.

"Mr. Obama is baiting Republicans to overplay their hand by forcing a government shutdown or failing to offer a constructive conservative agenda," Rove writes. "He must change the dynamic, or face Republican control of the House and Senate his last two years in office."


© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.


Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/rove-gop-blame-shutdown/2013/08/01/id/518235?s=al&promo_code=14622-1#ixzz2anjNN7x3
Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!

Richmond Threatens Eminent Domain To Address Foreclosure Crisis

RICHMOND (KCBS) – Richmond city leaders were moving ahead with a plan to head off the foreclosure crisis, a plan that is not without controversy.
The city has offered to buy more than 600 underwater mortgages at below the homes’ current value.
“If they are unwilling to negotiate a sale of the loans, which we want them to do, then we will consider using eminent domain as another option to purchase these loans at fair market value,” said Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin.

play

• Richmond Threatens Eminent Domain To Address Foreclosure Crisis
• Melissa Culross

00:00

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

Download

Richmond is the first city in the country to take the controversial step of threatening to use eminent domain, the power to take private property for public use. But other cities have also explored the idea.

Banks, the real estate industry and Wall Street are vehemently opposed to the idea, calling it “unconstitutional” and a violation or property rights, and something that will likely cause a flurry of lawsuits.

Richmond has partnered with San Francisco-based Mortgage Resolution Partners on the plan. Letters have been sent to 32 servicers and trustees who hold the underwater loans. If they refuse the city’s offer, officials will condemn and seize the mortgages, then help homeowners to refinance.

Richmond resident Morris LeGrande, who is currently underwater on his mortgage, said the foreclosure crisis continues to have a big impact on the city.

“We have a large percentage of homes here that are underwater and the effect that it’s having on the community is kind of devastating in the fact that we are always behind in what we need in terms of revenues for our city,” he said.

Mortgage Resolutions Partner will receive a flat fee per mortgage and has said it will handle all legal costs.

(Copyright 2013 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

Jim Rogers: Gold To Make A Bottom Over 1-2 Years, I'm Not Selling

UPDATE: OIL ALERT… HUNDREDS FEARED DEAD AFTER ALLEGED ISRAELI AIR STRIKE ON CHEMICAL WEAPONS SITE NEAR HOMS!!! Reports of over 500 killed!!!

Gregor Peter ‏@L0gg0l 2 min
Fireworks RT @LebanonLucy: Huge explosions down by port #beirut anyone close? What is it?
https://twitter.com/LebanonLucy/status/362978959153057793/photo/1
Gregor Peter ‏@L0gg0l 7 min
More angles of the #Homs blast
https://twitter.com/Partisangirl/status/362987291909697538/photo/1
Gregor Peter ‏@L0gg0l 8 min
Huge explosion at weapons depot in #Homs, #Syria
https://twitter.com/NMSyria/status/362917303073005568/photo/1

Dylan ‏@ProSyriana 1 m
@L0gg0l here it is with better resolution 
https://twitter.com/ProSyriana/status/362989263672971264/photo/1
Gregor Peter ‏@L0gg0l 15 s
SEVERAL U.S EMBASSIES TO BE CLOSED ON AUG 4 DUE TO TERROR THREAT, STATE DEPT SAYS
Gregor Peter ‏@L0gg0l 2 min
POTUS birthday RT @nicolegaouette: U.S. embassies will be closed Aug, 4. “It is possible” that will be extended in certain places
Gregor Peter ‏@L0gg0l 56 s
@russian_market Putin met with Saudi intelligence chief yesterday. No coincidences here

Gregor Peter ‏@L0gg0l 3 min
I forgot RT @BcnFox: @L0gg0l < Saudi-Putin meeting today GP…people expected action…
Gregor Peter ‏@L0gg0l 5 min
NYT piece on Israeli missing Yakhont missile + sudden U.S embassies closure + OSINT / RUMINT … just put 1 and 1 together $CL_F
Gregor Peter ‏@L0gg0l 9 min
HUNDREDS FEARED DEAD AFTER ALLEGED ISRAELI AIR STRIKE ON CHEMICAL WEAPONS SITE NEAR HOMS — WITNESSES
http://syriadirect.org/sas/categories/reports/693-regime-ammo-sites-hit-in-homs-death-toll-rising-and-israel-suspected

Gregor Peter ‏@L0gg0l 3 min
Just in time #Syria RT @IDFSpokesperson: #IDF and US Euro Command finished two weeks of exercises between their air forces and navies
Russian Market ‏@russian_market 2 min
Crude goes nuts #Syria #US
https://twitter.com/russian_market/status/363009715199959040/photo/1

Al Arabiya English ‏@AlArabiya_Eng 1m
#BreakingNews TV: #Jordan’s border guards near Syria seize large amount of weapons
Luis

Mises Institute Video Explains Federal Reserve’s Role in Perpetuating Inflation, Economic Decline

Mises Video Reveals Fed’s Role in Inflation, Decline
Mises Institute Video Explains Federal Reserve’s Role in Perpetuating Inflation, Economic Decline

Wall Street Engineering Is Back In The Housing Market

Wolf Richter   www.testosteronepit.com   www.amazon.com/author/wolfrichter
Wall Street engineering is back in the housing market. Its newest product is one heck of a contraption, a synthetic structured security of the type that helped blow up the financial system back in 2008. It’s like those triple-A rated mortgage-backed securities that became toxic waste in your “money-market-equivalent” bond fund or elsewhere in your 401(k) or in the portfolio of a town in Norway – only worse.
To get that deal done, private-equity giant Blackstone Group is conniving with too-big-to-jail Deutsche Bank, which is already buried under an avalanche of legal problems, scandals, and write-offs in Germany.
Blackstone has been on the forefront in the housing market, gobbling up 32,000 single-family homes for $5.5 billion, helter-skelter, at foreclosure auctions on courthouse steps scattered around the country, hoping for capital appreciation and rental income. Deutsche Bank has been on the forefront funding this binge and leading the issuance of $3.6 billion in loans.
There were other players. American Homes 4 Rent bought 19,000 single-family homes, Colony American Homes nearly 18,000, Silber Bay Realty Trust 5,370, Waypoint Homes 4,620, American Residential Properties 2,530…. In total, private-equity firms, rental REITs, and hedge-funds have raised over $17 billion to buy over 100,000 vacant, foreclosed single-family homes since 2011 [my take on what is happening to their ugly sisters, mortgage REITs.... Mother Of All Bubbles Pops, Mess Ensues].
Countless smaller companies, mom-and-pop operations, and individual investors have jumped into the fray, buying out of foreclosure whatever they can get their hands on. Frenzied radio ads once again promise untold wealth in real estate. Flipping is in vogue again. All the insanity that had been flushed out of the system during the crash is back, but this time, big firms with access to the Fed’s free money are the prime players.
They’re all chasing after foreclosed homes. Every time they buy one, it is moved from the highly scrutinized inventory-for-sale list to the mercifully ignored inventory-for-rent list. And now home prices are spiking in the double digits year-over-year just like in 2006 – at the cusp of the crash.
But the second phase of this magnificent buy-to-rent strategy – renting out the house – has experienced a hiccup. Overall, rental vacancy rates fell to 8.2% in the second quarter, the lowest since 2001. But that report is dominated by apartments. Single-family homes that had been bought out of foreclosure, often as stripped-down wrecks, are in an entirely different space. As of June 30, only 48% of the properties of American Homes 4 Rent were leased, according to a regulatory filing, Bloomberg reported. A similar debacle was staring other firms in the face.


“The headline occupancy numbers for this space, roughly 50%, is not yet enough to give evidence that this business model works,” said Jade Rahmani, an analyst with Keefe Bruyette & Woods Inc.
So how do you extract some moolah while you still can? Sell the homes into a market where first-time buyers have become rare – 29% in June, down from the 40% of a healthy market – just when higher mortgage rates are beginning to slam into bubbly home prices? Not a good idea. Instead, let’s dump some paper. In that spirit, Blackstone is planning to bundle monthly rental payments of about 1,500 to 1,700 of its homes into structured synthetic products to be hawked by Deutsche Bank to its hapless clients, “people familiar with the matter” told theWall Street Journal.
This being a new phenomenon, there is no data on how well these tenants pay or how long they stay in those homes before they move out, leaving them vacant once again. Blackstone, normally a PE firm, has become a landlord with 32,000 properties scattered around the country. Now it has to fix heaters and roofs and plumbing, and collect late rent payments. If renters are upset with the maintenance, or if they run out of money, they stop paying rent, and others will move out without apparent reasons. Renters are a lot more fickle than homeowners.
But yield-hungry investors have been driven to the edge of exasperation, and they’re willing to take risks, practically any risk, to get some yield, and apparently they’re willing to hold their nose and pick up some of this stuff, and this would be the first deal of its kind, so the yield might be a tad higher. An irresistible siren call. Odysseus, when he was in a similar quandary, put wax into his ears and had his crew tie him to the mast of his ship.
According to “people familiar with the matter,” the starter deal isn’t huge, maybe $275 million. The top tranche could be rated as high as single-A by the very credit rating agencies that slapped tipple-A ratings on toxic mortgage-backed securities even as the housing market was crashing. The paper might be backed by up to $350 million in equity and properties – at current bubble valuations. Mortgage-backed securities were also backed by properties.
Housing Bubble II is upon us. With a twist. This time it is the big money that jumped into it, drove up prices, and moved affordability out of reach for first-time buyers. Now that the risks are piling up, driven by vacancy rates in that space of 50%, while interest rates are rising globally, the big money is starting to get antsy. Time to shift risk to someone else. It’s the kind of impeccably timed Fed-induced Wall Street engineering that we have seen so many times before. It will work out for a while, and then someone else will end up holding the bag.
One of the Fed’s other big beneficiaries, Amazon, shifted its promotion machine into high gear to tout President Obama’s visit to one of its warehouses where he unveiled his “better bargain” for “middle class jobs.” The visit was artfully synced with Amazon’s announcement that it would create 7,000 jobs. Out of nothing. One of the ongoing lies in America’s jobs crisis. Read…. The American Jobs Curse At Amazon (And Obama Stepped Right Into It)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Is Forced To Eliminate the Mass Layoff Statistics program. NO MORE REPORTING Bad News!

On March 1, 2013, President Obama ordered into effect the across-the-board spending cuts (commonly referred to as sequestration) required by the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act, as amended. Under the order, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) must cut its current budget by more than $30 million, 5 percent of the current 2013 appropriation, by September 30, 2013. In order to achieve these savings and protect core programs, the BLS is taking the steps listed below:

1. Eliminate the Measuring Green Jobs products.
   The BLS produces data on employment by industry and occupation for businesses that produce green goods and services. The BLS also conducts special employer surveys to provide data on the occupations and wages of jobs related to green technologies and practices, as well as develops and disseminates career information related to green jobs.
2. Eliminate the Mass Layoff Statistics program.
   The Mass Layoff Statistics program provides information that identifies, describes, and tracks the effects of major job cutbacks in the economy.
3. Eliminate the International Labor Comparisons program.
   The International Labor Comparisons (ILC) program adjusts foreign data to a common framework of concepts, definitions, and classifications to facilitate data comparisons between the United States and other countries. ILC data are used to assess United States economic performance relative to other countries, as well as to evaluate the competitive position of the United States in international markets.
4. Freeze hiring and curtail spending.
   The quality and quantity of some BLS data likely will be diminished, as fewer resources are available to collect and review data or to perform data analysis. This may result in lower response rates, fewer published estimates, and a loss of detail in some data series. The reduced funding level also may result in a decline in customer service, as fewer Federal and State staff will be accessible to respond to data inquiries from the public, other Federal government agencies, and Congress.

Through these measures, the BLS expects to preserve to the extent possible the quality of its remaining products; however, the actions described above will reduce somewhat the ability of the BLS to supply timely and accurate information on the economy and labor market, and halt implementation of critical data improvements that were planned for this year.
http://www.bls.gov/bls/sequester_info.htm
When Bad Government Policy Leads to Bad Results, the Government Manipulates the Data … Instead of Changing Policy

Manipulating Bad Financial Data

Bad government policy has created a years-long unemployment problem. But instead of fixing the problem, the government is trying to paper over it. We’ve known for a long time that the Bureau of Labor Statistics fudges the numbers to make unemployment look lower than it is really is. BLS itself has admitted that its “adjustments” skew unemployment data during recessions. Indeed, the former head of the BLS recently said BLS statistics are B.S. … and that unemployment is much higher than the government is letting on.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis is revising 84 years of economic history … which will make the economy magically look better.

The U.S. and British governments encouraged interest rate manipulation. And central banks have beendirectly manipulating interest rates for hundreds of years.
Government agencies have helped banks manipulate commodities prices for decades.
The government twisted statistics and intentionally lied when it pretended that the banks it was bailing out were solvent
The government has long ignored energy and food prices when reporting on inflation.
Fraud is Wall Street’s business model, which is – unfortunately – being supported by the government.
The government helped cover up the crimes of the big banks, used claims of national security to keep everything in the dark, and changed basic rules and definitions to allow the game to continue. See this,this, this and this.
It is not only a matter of covering up fraud that has already happened. The government also created an environment which greatly encouraged fraud.Here are just a few of many potential examples:

• The SEC has shredded financial documents for decades, to help cover up financial shenanigans

• The government-sponsored rating agencies committed massive fraud (and see this)

• The Treasury department allowed banks to “cook their books”

• Business Week wrote on May 23, 2006:

“President George W. Bush has bestowed on his intelligence czar, John Negroponte, broad authority, in the name of national security, to excuse publicly traded companies from their usual accounting and securities-disclosure obligations.”

• Regulators knew of and allowed the use of debt-hiding accounting tricks by the big banks

…
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/07/when-bad-government-policy-leads-to-bad-results-the-government-manipulates-the-data-instead-of-correcting-the-policy.html
Gonviral

Deutsche Bank In trouble? ‘Constant Overnight Risk of Failure’!!! Deutsche Bank Trouble Said To Be Connected To Currency Swaps!!!

With Euro-zone banks showing renewed signs of crisis (Deutsche Bank deleveraging by a massive €425 billion over the past year- the fastest pace since the 2011 near-Euro collapse, and Barclays admitting a £12.8bn capital shortfall Tuesday) and fundamental indicators in the gold market screaming financial crisis (GOFO rates remain negative for nearly 20 days and massive inventory draw-downs at the COMEX & LBMA), The Doc  spoke with Jim Willie Tuesday in an explosive MUST READ interview.
Willie, who recently stated that Deutche Bank is under major duress and could be the first major bank to collapse in the next stage of the banking crisis, informed The Doc that unlike the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 which the Western Central banks were able to contain thanks to $13 T in bailout funds, a failure of Deutsche Bank would trigger a systemic banking contagion the likes of which the Western world has never seen.

When asked by The Doc how Deutsche Bank differs from Lehman Brothers in 2008, and what events could lead to a renewed banking crisis, Willie responded:
My best German source informs me that 3 major banks are in trouble, and these 3 banks are fighting every single night to fight off insolvency and failure.  He says CitiGroup in New York, Barclays in London, and Deutsche Bank in Germany- every single night are in trouble.  
The important thing to keep in mind about Deutsche Bank is that it won’t go down alone if it goes down at all.  If it fails, it will take along with it 3,4,5,6 or 10, or 15 other banks!   It will be 1 or 2 quickly, then a 3rd and 4th a few weeks later, another, then before you know it, all of Italy and their major banks would be kaput.
My belief is that Deutsche Bank and its constant overnight risk of failure is somewhat tied to derivatives related to LIBOR, and also a risk related to their FOREX derivatives.   In other words, derivatives that the banks use to balance off the currencies.


Believe it or not, in the derivatives world, gold is treated like a currency.  Isn’t that ironic?
The FOREX derivatives that the banks are involved in are very much tied to gold.

Read more: http://www.silverdoctors.com/jim-willie-if-deutsche-bank-goes-under-it-will-be-lehman-times-five/
One chart says it all:

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2013/04/German%20GDP%20vs%20DB%20Derivatives_1_0.jpg
Gregor Peter ‏@L0gg0l 5 h 
Deutsche Bank trouble said to be connected to currency swaps
” It Won`t Be Soon Before Long “
Deutsche spelled out moves to reduce leverage by reducing its notional derivatives exposure by some €250 billion. (It is hard to imagine any other industry where you could lose a quarter of a trillion in assets and not have a material impact on earnings, but that’s banking for you.)
http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2013/07/european-banks?zid=300&ah=e7b9370e170850b88ef129fa625b13c4

Care for some gopher with the Bigger picture,Hans?

Gangsta Banksters

According to the Reserve Bank of India, “the traded amount of ‘paper linked to gold’ exceeds by far the actual supply of physical gold: the volume on the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) OTC market and the major Futures and Options Exchanges was OVER 92 TIMES that of the underlying Physical Market.”
http://www.silverdoctors.com/the-coming-shortage-of-physical-gold-that-will-change-everything/

Bailout Fallout: Germans fed up with ongoing Greek cash injections

Just days after paying another bailout loan to Greece, the international lenders have found out Athens is going to need billions more. The IMF says the debt-ridden Greek economy is facing an additional financial shortfall of nearly 11 billion euros over the next two years. And that’s bad news to German taxpayers, who as part of the Eurozone’s strongest member bear a large burden of the Greek rescue. RT’s Peter Oliver has more.

Eurozone unemployment rate alarming: Bruges Group director

“Unemployment is alarmingly high within the eurozone. It will signal that the economic problems will continue,” Robert Oulds said in a Press TV interview on Wednesday.
The analyst went on to say that the economic “catastrophe” in the eurozone would never be solved by “a quick resolution.”
On Wednesday, the Eurostat data agency reported that the overall unemployment rate in the eurozone stayed at a record high of 12.1 percent in June for the fourth consecutive month.
The agency published new jobless data for the eurozone, which has seen its unemployment rate increase constantly since April 2011.
The 12.1 percentage translates into more than 19 million Europeans without a job in the eurozone.

Oulds also slammed the European Union for its handling of the financial crisis, and the austerity measures imposed by the EU governments, saying that the “solutions that the eurozone has had to take so far are not helping, they are actually hurting – such as the government cutbacks, the tax rises.”
“It takes money away from the least well-off in society and that is the wrong way to solve economic problems at this time.”

On July 16, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said that the eurozone unemployment rate would continue to increase until it reaches a new record high of 12.3 percent by the end of 2014.
Europe plunged into financial crisis in early 2008.
The worsening debt crisis has forced the EU governments to adopt harsh austerity measures and tough economic reforms, which have triggered incidents of social unrest and massive protests in many European countries.

Big jobs number coming? Data firm TrimTabs says just 23,000

Before anyone gets too excited about job prospects for July, a data firm is reporting that payroll growth was much slower than expected.
TrimTabs estimated Wednesday that employment slowed to a trickle, with just 23,000 positions added for the month.

That came the same day ADP and Moody's Analytics put private payroll gains alone at 200,000, a number that could drive up economists' expectations that the total economy created 183,000.
(Read more: Jumping jobs! Private sector makes big hiring move)
TrimTabs bases its monthly estimates on income tax deposits to the U.S. Treasury, and its counts often veer—sometimes sharply—from the government's official total that comes out the first Friday of each month.
In June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the economy added 195,000, while TrimTabs put the number at a relatively close 182,000. In May, though, the disparity was far greater, with the government asserting 195,000 while TrimTabs estimated 135,000.
David Santschi, the firm's CEO, attributed the slow July to an increase in mortgage rates that he said slowed the economy.
The payrolls number is critical in that it is part of the baseline the Federal Reserve uses in devising monetary policy.
(Read more: Wall St.: Fall taper mostly priced in)
The U.S. central bank currently is creating money to buy $85 billion a month in mortgage-backed securities and Treasurys. Fed officials have said, though, that the purchases likely will be tapered this year if the economic data continue to improve.
Gross domestic product grew a better-than-expected 1.7 percent in the second quarter, according to preliminary figures released Wednesday, though the the first quarter growth was reduced to a scant 1.1 percent.
(Read more: Doomsayers begone!US growth beats by a mile)
"The economy is much weaker than most investors realize," Santschi said in a statement. "Most Wall Street economists expect the Fed to scale back the pace of money printing in September, but I suspect any changes will be very modest because the economy is so fragile."

TrimTabs isn't the only outfit with a dim view of July jobs, though.
Small-business payroll firm SurePayroll said hiring actually decreased 0.1 percent for the month.
That also comes in sharp contrast with the findings from ADP, which said firms with fewer than 50 employees actually led hiring, with 82,000 new positions.
(Read more: Markets focused on Fed policy? Nope, it's on this)
In fact, SurePayroll president Michael Alter called the current state a "jobless recovery" in which small companies are being helped more by technological improvements.
"We've seen this trend for a while now, and our data this month really supports the idea that small businesses are leveraging technology to be more efficient, and so they're able to grow without hiring," Alter said.

In addition to slow payroll growth, Alter said salaries fell 0.2 percent. TrimTabs said wages and salaries grew just 0.4 percent in June, the slowest of the year.
—By CNBC's Jeff Cox.

121% of the gains in real income during Obama's recovery have gone to the top 1%; more than Bush (65%) and Clinton (45%)

The president has been decrying the growing gap between rich and poor in the U.S. to help sell his retread tax-and-spend proposals. But those policies have already produced record levels of income inequality.

In his speech in Illinois last week, and at events since, Obama described income inequality in the starkest terms. "This growing inequality is morally wrong," he said, and "undermines the very essence of America."

To be sure, income inequality is a standard trope for liberals, who always use it to advocate more wealth redistribution.

And Obama's latest focus neatly coincides with his plans to push for more federal spending and taxes on the "rich" in coming budget battles.

But what Obama conveniently leaves out of his sermons is that income inequality has grown faster on his watch than any time in the past two decades, at least.

Research by University of California economist Emmanuel Saez shows that since the Obama recovery started in June 2009, the average income of the top 1% grew 11.2% in real terms through 2011.

The bottom 99%, in contrast, saw their incomes shrink by 0.4%.

As a result, 121% of the gains in real income during Obama's recovery have gone to the top 1%. By comparison, the top 1% captured 65% of income gains during the Bush expansion of 2002-07, and 45% of the gains under Clinton's expansion in the 1990s.

The Census Bureau's official measure of income inequality — called the Gini index — shows similar results. During the Bush years, the index was flat overall — finishing in 2008 exactly where it started in 2001.

It's gone up each year since Obama has been president and now stands at all-time highs.

It's worth underscoring that the growing income gap under Obama isn't the result of the rich getting fabulously richer. Nor is it any sort of indictment of "trickle down" economics.

Instead, it is the direct result of Obama's historically weak economic recovery, which has left the rest of the country falling behind while the wealthy have managed to make gains.

Census data show, for example, that the poorest 20% of families saw their real average income continue to fall each year from 2009 to 2011 — the last year for which the Census has data — while the top 20% recouped losses suffered in the recession.

The evidence of decline among the nation's most vulnerable shows up elsewhere. There are 2.7 million more people in poverty than there were in 2009.  And 14 million more are on food stamps today than in 2009. And after four years of economic recovery, there are still 4.3 million long-term unemployed.

Meanwhile, researchers have found that high-paying jobs lost during the recession are being replaced, if at all, largely by low-paying jobs in the Obama recovery.

All this is in stark contrast to previous economic recoveries, which generally saw at least some income gains across the Census Bureau's income groupings.

Despite this record, Obama's answer is simply to increase the dose of the very same treatments — more government spending, more taxes, more intrusions into the marketplace in the name of "shared prosperity" — that hobbled the recovery and produced the very misery he now claims he can fix.

In other words, Obama is selling snake oil. And that's what's morally wrong.

 Source

Our Leaders In Washington Continue To Cater To Greedy Corporations Instead Of Protecting U.S. Freedoms!

For some reason many of our leaders have some weird fixation with job-killing “free trade” agreements that cater to the corporatists of society. We saw it with the presidents of the past — Reagan, Clinton, and both of the Bushes. Now we’re beginning to see it with our current President, Barack Obama.
President Obama’s apparent love with “free trade” is a bit odd considering that fact that, before becoming president, he was opposed to “free trade” agreements such as CAFTA and NAFTA. In fact, he claimed as a Senator that “free trade” is bad for America! Then he became president and suddenly his true feelings were revealed. Read More....

Banks use databases to turn many customers away

The Kansas City Star – New York Times

Mistakes like a bounced check or a small overdraft have effectively blacklisted more than a million low-income Americans from the mainstream financial system for as long as seven years as a result of little-known private databases that are used by the nation’s major banks.

The problem is contributing to the growth of the roughly 10 million households in the United States that lack a banking account, a basic requirement of modern economic life.  
Unlike traditional credit reporting databases, which provide portraits of outstanding debt and payment histories, these are records of transgressions in banking products. Institutions like Bank of America, Citibank and Wells Fargo say that tapping into the vast repositories of information helps them weed out risky customers and combat fraud.
But consumer advocates and state authorities say the use of the databases disproportionately affects lower-income Americans, who tend to live paycheck to paycheck, making them more likely to incur negative marks after relatively minor banking missteps like overdrawing accounts, amassing fees or bouncing checks.
When the databases were created more than 20 years ago, they were intended to help banks guard against fraud artists, like those accused of writing bogus checks. Since then, the databases have ensnared millions of low-income Americans, according to interviews with financial counselors, consumer lawyers and more than two dozen low-income people.
Rejection for would-be bank customers can come as a shock. Tiffany Murrell of Brooklyn says a credit union denied her checking account application in September 2012 even though she had a job as a secretary and was up to date on her bills.
The obstacle, it turned out, was a negative report from ChexSystems, a consumer credit reporting firm that provides customer data to virtually every major bank and credit union in the nation. The black mark stemmed from an overdraft of roughly $40 in June 2010, according to a copy of a letter that Murrell, 31, later received from ChexSystems. While she repaid the amount, plus interest and fees, before applying for a new account, the incident, she says, has barred her from opening an account at nearly every bank she has tried.
The largest database, founded in the 1970s, is run by ChexSystems, a subsidiary of FIS, a financial services company in Jacksonville, Fla. Subscribers — Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank and Wells Fargo among them — “regularly contribute information on mishandled checking and savings accounts,” ChexSystems says on its website.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has fielded complaints about the databases and is determining whether they comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/07/31/4381209/banks-use-databases-to-turn-many.html#storylink=cpy