Every family in Britain will have to pay £300 to bail out the Irish

• Irish government in crisis as Greens call for election
  
• Osborne: Helping Ireland is in national interest
  
• He confirms UK contribution will be around £7bn
• Critics insist Britain should not prop up euro
• Markets are buoyed and euro also strengthens
  

Bailing out the ailing Irish economy to the tune of billions is in Britain's 'national interest', George Osborne insisted today.

The Chancellor described Ireland as a 'friend in need' as he defended plans to pay more than £7billion into an international bailout worth up to £85billion.

British taxpayers will be landed with an increase in the colossal debt burden - already £952billion - at a time of desperate cost cutting.

They will be stung three times because Ireland will receive funds from the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and direct loans from Britain.

Dark days: Police guard Irish Government buildings as a protester waves the tricolour

The £7.5billion liability for British taxpayers is the equivalent of £288 for every household in the UK.

If Ireland were to default on its debts, losses of around £5billion on toxic bank debts held by Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group would push the liability to British taxpayers up to £12.5billion - though the bailout should prevent that happening.

George Osborne at Millbank this morning

Critics argue Britain should not be involved in propping up a currency it does not support.

John Mann, a Labour member of the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee, called for MPs to be given a vote on the Irish bailout.

'What George Osborne has chosen to do is use money from the average taxpayer to bail out the bankers - including British bankers - yet again,' said Mr Mann.

But Mr Osborne said today: '"I told you so" is not much of an economic policy.'

He told the BBC: 'What we have committed to do is to be partners, as shareholders in the International Monetary Fund, in an international rescue of the Irish economy.

'But we have also made a commitment to consider a bi-lateral loan that reflects the fact we are not part of the euro and don't want to be part of the euro.

'Ireland is our very closest economic neighbour. I judged it to be in our national interest to be part of the international efforts to help the Irish.'

However, he did stress that Britain does not want 'to be part of a permanent bail-out mechanism for the euro'.

Asked to confirm the £7billion estimate for Britain's contribution , the Chancellor added: 'It's around that. It's in the billions, not the tens of billions.'

Mr Osborne, who will make a statement to MPs in the Commons later, said: 'Ireland is a friend in need and we are here to help.'

The final bailout total is expected to be between £68billion and £76billion, but it could be as high as £85billion. Britain’s contribution will be between £6billion and £7.5billion.

On one of the darkest moments in recent Irish history, Prime Minister Brian Cowen last night bowed to a week of EU pressure and said the once-mighty Celtic Tiger requires a humiliating Greek-style handout to prop up the government and its basket-case banks.

‘The government has today decided that Ireland apply for financial assistance to the European Union,’ he said. ‘European countries have agreed to our request. A formal process of negotiation will commence that will lead to assistance.'

We DO need a bailout: Irish PM Brian Cowen and Finance Minister Brian Lenihan last night

European shares and the euro both rose in value this morning as markets welcomed the developments.

The FTSE 100 was up 0.5 per cent, Germany's Dax up 0.6 per cent and the euro had strengthenned to $1.376, while Japan's Nikkei closed at a five-month high after rising 0.9 per cent.

However, experts have warned that the humiliation of Ireland will have a domino effect, threatening the future of the euro.

Fears are rising that Portugal might also need to be saved as the debt crisis tears across Europe, with Spain not far behind. Foreign Secretary William Hague claimed the single currency might not survive.

Mr Osborne and fellow G7 finance ministers held a conference call to agree the basics of the deal.
EU Treasury ministers later issued a statement confirming that the EU as a whole, the IMF and the 16 eurozone countries will all contribute while Britain and Sweden have offered the Irish direct loans.

EU ministers will meet in Brussels this week to thrash out the precise details of who pays what.

But senior Treasury sources revealed that one third of the bailout cash will come from the IMF at a cost of £1.5billion to Britain.

Ireland has become the second EU nation to ask for a multi-billion bailout to help stabilize its debt-ridden banks

Britain looks likely to contribute £3billion to the EU fund but will not make any contribution to the eurozone pot of cash because it is not in the single currency bloc.

Instead, the UK is poised to lend ‘small handfuls of billions’, thought to be another £3billion in direct loan.

While the EU fund money has already been paid to Brussels, the loans will add to the Government’s debts, though they will not add to the deficit because they will be paid back.

Opponents of the bailout point out that the UK is trying to save £7billion in cuts this year, with 25 per cent reductions in many departments over the next four years.

The Dublin government will be forced to copy Britain in announcing a new budget tomorrow, which will include cuts of £13billion by the end of 2014. The Republic currently spends about £16billion more than it receives in taxes.

David Cameron said the UK must play its part because of the ‘incredibly close economic relationship’ between the countries.

‘Ireland is not just our neighbour and friend,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘We export more to Ireland than we do to Brazil, Russia, India, China combined. Our banking systems are linked, our finances and economies are very linked so of course we stand ready to help.’

European leaders have been open about their desire to prop up the Irish to save the euro. The Dublin bailout follows the £94billion rescue of Greece over the summer – to which Britain did not contribute.

Tory MP Douglas Carswell said: 'We shouldn't be paying to help keep Ireland in the euro. If we are going to pay to solve this crisis, we should be helping to pay Ireland to quit the euro.

'Ireland's misery is only going to end when it has its own currency again. At a time of austerity, again we are paying vast sums to the European Union.'

Leading Eurosceptic and former Tory cabinet minister John Redwood also said Britain had no responsibility to contribute to the fund.

He said: ‘I don’t think it’s Britain’s problem, I think it is a euro area problem. Why should Britain have to do it when we are not part of the euro area?’

DEFIANCE OVER LOW TAX ON FIRMS

Despite its economic woes, Ireland has managed to cling on to its incredibly low rate of Corporation Tax.

EU bosses argued that raising the levy would create revenue to plug the black hole in Ireland’s debts and reduce the amount paid by others to bail them out.

But Irish ministers insisted the rate of 12.5 per cent - lower than every major European economy - is a sacred cow which could not be sacrificed.

It has been heavily criticised by other EU nations who argue it gives the country too much of an advantage in attracting overseas investment.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy said this weekend: ‘It’s obvious that when confronted with a situation like this, there are two levers to use: spending and revenues. They have a greater margin for manoeuvre than others, their taxes being lower than others.’

But the Dublin government has fiercely resisted an increase as the low rate is credited with attracting companies to set up shop in Ireland, fuelling the Celtic Tiger’s boom of the past decade.

Multinational firms had already warned they could move elsewhere if ministers decided to increase the tax, which could imperil the Irish economy and in turn cost British business billions in lost exports.

Corporation Tax in Britain is currently 28 per cent, although the Coalition is reducing it to 24 per cent this parliament.

Sam Bowman, head of research at the Adam Smith Institute, said: 'The proposed bail-out for Ireland is a bad deal for the UK. It puts the interests of the European Union and the eurozone before the interests of Ireland, and the British Government should have no part in paying for it.

'Asking the British taxpayer to cough up £7billion shows just how audacious the European Union has become in its desperation to keep the eurozone project afloat.

'The UK successfully avoided entering the eurozone. Ireland was not so lucky, but it entered in full knowledge of the risks involved.

'Bailing out Ireland now would undo much of the benefits that Britain has yielded from keeping the pound and would make a mockery of the spending cuts announced by the coalition last month.

'In the end, Ireland will have to choose its own path out of this crisis. But the British taxpayer should not be held responsible for past mistakes by Irish politicians.'

A source close to Mr Osborne said: ‘We have a very high level of confidence that we will be paid back.’

The developments marked a day of infamy for Ireland after less than 90 years of independence and weeks of denial that any help would be needed at all.

Irish Prime Minister Cowen insisted the bailout did not amount to a ‘loss of sovereignty for Ireland’.

But he faced questions about his own future after being forced to go cap in hand to international financiers - a move which shattered the economic reputation of the Labour government in the 1970s when Britain received an IMF bailout.

With fears mounting over the health of Portugal, Spain and even Italy, the rescue of Ireland might not be enough to save the euro.

The opposition party in Lisbon claims that Portugal’s debt mountain is even bigger than the government admits.

Florida's Unemployment Crisis To Wreak Havoc On State's Economy

The Other Side of Deception by Victor Ostrovsky

{p. 32} It seemed that the whole building was going berserk. Everybody and his dog were looking for information that could stop Jordan's King Hussein's efforts for a peace initiative. ...

The American Jewish community was divided into a three-stage action team. First were the individual sayanim (if the situation had been reversed and the United States had convinced Americans working in Israel to work secretly on behalf of the United States, they would be treated as spies by the Israeli government). Then there was the large pro-Israeli lobby. It would mobilize the Jewish community in a forceful effort in whatever direction the Mossad pointed them. And last was B'nai Brith. Members of that organization could be relied on to make friends among non-Jews and tarnish as anti-Semitic whomever they couldn't sway to the Israeli cause. With that sort of one-two-three tactic, there was no way we could strike out.

{p. 113} "It's the old Trojan dick trick." He lit a cigarette.

"What's that?" I couldn't help smiling; I'd never heard it called that before.

"I knew that would get your attention," he said, grinning. "Shimon activated Operation Trojan in February of this year." {the only Shimon in the index is Shimon Peres}

I nodded. I'd still been in the Mossad when that order was given, and because of my naval background and acquaintance with most of the commanders in the navy, I participated in the planning for the operation as liaison with the navy.

A Trojan was a special communication device that could be planted by naval commandos deep inside enemy territory. The device would act as a relay station for misleading transmissions made by the disinformation unit in the Mossad, called LAP {footnote: LAP: LohAma Psicologit. Psychological warfare, or, as it's known in the West, disinformation}, and intended to be received by American and British listening stations. Originating from an IDF navy ship out at sea, the prerecorded digital transmissions could be picked up only by the Trojan. The device would then rebroadcast the transmission on another frequency, one used for official business in the enemy country, at which point the transmission would finally be picked up by American ears in Britain.

The listeners would have no doubt they had intercepted a genuine communication, hence the name Trojan, reminiscent of the mythical Trojan horse. Further, the content of the messages, once deciphered, would confirm information from other intelligence sources, namely the Mossad. The only catch was that the Trojan itself would have to be located as close as possible to the normal origin of such transmissions, because of the sophisticated methods of triangulation the Americans and others would use to verify the source.

In the particular operation Ephraim was referring to, two elite units in the military had been made responsible for the delivery of the Trojan device to the proper location. One was the Matkal {footnote: Matkal: Top military reconnaissance unit of the Israeli army} reconnaissance unit and the other was Flotilla 13, the naval commandos. The

{p. 114} commandos were charged with the task of planting the Trojan device in Tripoli, Libya.

On the night of February 17-18, two Israeli missile boats, the SAAR 4-class Moledet, armed with Harpoon and Gabriel surface-to-surface missiles, among other weaponry, and the Geula, a Hohit-class mlsslle boat with a helicopter pad and regular SAAR 4-class armament, conducted what seemed like a routine patrol of the Mediterranean, heading for the Sicilian channel and passing just outside the territorial waters of Libya. Just north of Tripoli, the warships, which were visible to radar both in Tripoli and on the Italian island of Lampedusa, slowed down to about four knots - just long enough to allow a team of twelve naval commandos in four wet submarines nicknamed "pigs" and two low-profiled speedboats called "birds" to disembark. The pigs could carry two commandos each and all their fighting gear. The birds, equipped with an MG 7.62-caliber machine gun mounted over the bow and an array of antitank shoulder-carried missiles, could facilitate six commandos each, while towing the empty pigs. The birds brought the pigs as close to the shore as possible, thus cutting down the distance the pigs would have to travel on their own. (The pigs were submersible and silent but relatively slow.)

Two miles off the Libyan coast, the lights of Tripoli could be seen glistening in the southeast. Eight commandos slipped quietly into the pigs and headed for shore. The birds stayed behind at the rendezvous point, ready to take action should the situation arise. Once they reached the beach, the commandos left their cigar-like transporters submerged in the shallow water and headed inland, carrying a dark green Trojan cylinder six feet long and seven inches in diameter. It took two men to carry it.

A gray van was parked on the side of the road about one hundred feet from the water, on the coastal highway leading from Sabratah to Tripoli and on to Benghazi. There was hardly any traffic at that time of night. The driver of the van seemed to be repairing a flat tire. He stopped working as the team approached and opened the back doors of the van. He was a Mossad combatant. Without a word said, four of the men entered the van and headed for the city. The other four returned to the water, where they took a defensive position by the submerged pigs. Their job was to hold this position to ensure an escape route for the team now headed for the city.

At the same time, a squadron of Israeli fighters was refueling south of Crete, ready to assist. They were capable of keeping any ground forces away from the commandos, allowing them a not-so clean getaway. At this point, the small commando unit was divided {p. 115} into three details - its most vulnerable state. Were any of the details to run into enemy forces, they were instructed to act with extreme prejudice before the enemy turned hostile.

The van parked at the back of an apartment building on Al Jamhuriyh Street in Tripoli, less than three blocks away from the Bab al Azizia barracks that were known to house Qadhafi's headquarters and residence. By then, the men in the van had changed into civilian clothing. Two stayed with the van as lookouts and the other two helped the Mossad combatant take the cylinder to the top floor of the five-story building. The cylinder was wrapped in a carpet.

In the apartment, the top section of the cylinder was opened and a small dishlike antenna was unfolded and placed in front of the window facing north. The unit was activated, and the Trojan horse was in place.

The Mossad combatant had rented the apartment for six months and had paid the rent in advance. There was no reason for anyone except the combatant to enter the apartment. However, if someone should decide to do so, the Trojan would self-destruct, taking with it most of the upper part of the building. The three men headed back to the van and to their rendezvous with their friends on the beach.

After dropping the commandos at the beach, the combatant headed back for the city, where he would monitor the Trojan unit for the next few weeks. The commandos wasted no time and headed out to sea. They didn't want to be caught in Libyan waters at daybreak. They reached the birds and headed at full speed to a prearranged pickup coordinate, where they met with the missile boats that had brought them in.

By the end of March, the Americans were already intercepting messages broadcast by the Trojan, which was only activated during heavy communication traffic hours. Using the Trojan, the Mossad tried to make it appear that a long series of terrorist orders were being transmitted to various Libyan embassies around the world (or, as they were called by the Libyans, Peoples' Bureaus). As the Mossad had hoped, the transmissions were deciphered by the Americans and construed as ample proof that the Libyans were active sponsors of terrorism. What's more, the Americans pointed out, Mossad reports confirmed it.

The French and the Spanish, though, were not buying into the new stream of information. To them, it seemed suspicious that suddenly, out of the blue, the Libyans, who'd been extremely careful in the past, would start advertising their future actions. They also found it suspicious that in several instances Mossad reports were worded similarly

{p. 116} to coded Libyan communications. They argued further that, had there truly been after-the-fact Libyan communications regarding the attack, then the terrorist attack on the La Belle discotheque { La Belle discotheque: The terrorist attack on this location was said to have been linked to the Libyans and was the catalyst for the April 14 bombing of Libya by the Americans} in West Berlin on April 5 could have been prevented, since surely there would have been communications before, enabling intelligence agencies listening in to prevent It. Since the attack wasn't prevented, they reasoned that it must not be the Libyans who did it, and the "new communications" must be bogus. The French and the Spanish were right. The information was bogus, and the Mossad didn't have a clue who planted the bomb that killed one American serviceman and wounded several others. But the Mossad was tied in to many of the European terrorist organizations, and it was convinced that in the volatile atmosphere that had engulfed Europe, a bombing with an American victim was just a matter of time Heads of the Mossad were counting on the American promise to retaliate with vengeance against any country that could be proven to support terrorism. The Trojan gave the Americans the proof they needed. The Mossad also plugged into the equation Qadhafi's lunatic image and momentous declarations, which were really only meant for internal consumption. It must be remembered that Qadhafi had marked a line in the water at that time, closing off the Gulf of Sidra as Libyan territorial waters and calling the new maritime border the line of death (an action that didn't exactly give him a moderate image). Ultimately, the Americans fell for the Mossad ploy head over heels dragging the British and the Germans somewhat reluctantly in with them. Operation Trojan was one of the Mossad's greatest successes. It brought about the air strike on Libya that President Reagan had promised - a strike that had three important consequences. First, it derailed a deal for the release of the American hostages in Lebanon, thus preserving the Hizballah (Party of God) as the number one enemy in the eyes of the West. Second, it sent a message to the entire Arab world, telling them exactly where the United States stood regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. Third, it boosted the Mossad's image of itself, since it was they who, by ingenious sleight of hand, had prodded the United States to do what was right. It was only the French who didn't buy into the Mossad trick and

{p. 117} were determined not to ally themselves with the aggressive American act. The French refused to allow the American bombers to fly over their territory on their way to attack Libya.

On April 14, 1986, one hundred and sixty American aircraft dropped over sixty tons of bombs on Libya. The attackers bombed Tripoli international airport, Bab al Azizia barracks, Sidi Bilal naval base, the city of Benghazi, and the Benine airfield outside Benghazi. The strike force consisted of two main bodies, one originating in England and the other from flattops in the Mediterranean. From England came twenty-four F-111s from Lakenheath, five EF-111s from Upper Heyford, and twenty-eight refueling tankers from Mildenhall and Fairford. In the attack, the air force F-111s and the EF-111s were joined by eighteen A-6 and A-7 strike and strike support aircraft, six F\A-18 fighters, fourteen EA-6B electronic jammer planes, and other support platforms. The navy planes were catapulted from the carriers Coral Sea and America. On the Libyan side, there were approximately forty civilian casualties, including Qadhafi's adopted daughter. On the American side, a pilot and his weapons officer were killed when their F-111 exploded.

After the bombing, the Hizballah broke off negotiations regarding the hostages they held in Beirut and executed three of them, including one American named Peter Kilburn. As for the French, they were rewarded for their nonparticipation in the attack by the release at the end of June of two French journalists held hostage in Beirut. (As it happened, a stray bomb hit the French embassy in Tripoli during the raid.)

Ephraim had spelled it all out for me and confirmed some of the information I'd already known. He then went on. "After the bombing of Libya, our friend Qadhafi is sure to stay out of the picture for some time. Iraq and Saddam Hussein are the next target. We're starting now to build him up as the big villain. It will take some time, but in the end, there's no doubt it'll work."

"But isn't Saddam regarded as moderate toward us, allied with Jordan, the big enemy of Iran and Syria?"

"Yes, that's why I'm opposed to this action. But that's the directive, and I must follow it. Hopefully, you and I will be done with our little operation before anything big happens. After all, we have already destroyed his nuclear facility, and we are making money by selling him technology and equipment through South Africa."

{p. 254} In the following weeks, more and more discoveries were made regarding the big gun and other elements of the Saddam war machine. The Mossad had all but saturated the intelligence field with information regarding the evil intentions of Saddam the Terrible, banking on the fact that before long, he'd have enough rope to hang himself. It was very clear what the Mossad's overall goal was. It wanted the West to do its bidding, just as the Americans had in Libya with the bombing of Qadhafi. After all, Israel didn't possess carriers and ample air power, and although it was capable of bombing a refugee camp in Tunis, that was not the same. The Mossad leaders knew that if they could make Saddam appear bad enough and a threat to the Gulf oil supply, of which he'd been the protector up to that point, then the United States and its allies would not let him get away with anything, but would take measures that would all but eliminate his army and his weapons potential, especially if they were led to believe that this might just be their last chance before he went nuclear.

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Video - Conservative Peer Norman Lamont thinks bondholders should not be punished for risky investments, instead that UK and Irish taxpayers should graciously acquiesce and give the banksters what they want...

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Video - Norman Lamont gets fisted in Westminister

Lamont gets abused by onlookers during a live television interview.

« Ambrose Evans Pritchard - Shut Down The Fed »

Scroll down for video on QE2...

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Reprinted with permission.

Originally published at the UK Telegraph

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

I apologise to readers around the world for having defended the emergency stimulus policies of the US Federal Reserve, and for arguing like an imbecile naif that the Fed would not succumb to drug addiction, political abuse, and mad intoxicated debauchery, once it began taking its first shots of quantitative easing.

My pathetic assumption was that Ben Bernanke would deploy further QE only to stave off DEFLATION, not to create INFLATION. If the Federal Open Market Committee cannot see the difference, God help America.

We now learn from last week’s minutes that the Fed is willing “to provide additional accommodation if needed to … return inflation, over time, to levels consistent with its mandate.”

NO, NO, NO, this cannot possibly be true.

Ben Bernanke has not only refused to abandon his idee fixe of an “inflation target”, a key cause of the global central banking catastrophe of the last twenty years (because it can and did allow asset booms to run amok, and let credit levels reach dangerous extremes).

Worse still, he seems determined to print trillions of emergency stimulus without commensurate emergency justification to test his Princeton theories, which by the way are as old as the hills. Keynes ridiculed the “tyranny of the general price level” in the early 1930s, and quite rightly so. Bernanke is reviving a doctrine that was already shown to be bunk eighty years ago.

So all those hillsmen in Idaho, with their Colt 45s and boxes of krugerrands, who sent furious emails to the Telegraph accusing me of defending a hyperinflating establishment cabal were right all along. The Fed is indeed out of control.

The sophisticates at banking conferences in London, Frankfurt, and New York who aplogized for this primitive monetary creationsim – as I did – are the ones who lost the plot.

My apologies. Mercy, for I have sinned against sound money, and therefore against sound politics.

I stick to my view that Friedmanite QE ‘a l’outrance‘ is legitimate to prevent a collapse of the M3 broad money supply, and to prevent outright deflation in economies with total debt levels near or above 300pc of GDP. Not in any circumstances, but where necessary, and where conducted properly by purchasing bonds outside the banking system (not the same as Bernanke “creditism”).

The dangers of tipping into a debt compound trap – as described by Irving Fisher in Debt-Deflation Theory of Great Depresssions in 1933 – outweigh the risk of an expanded money stock catching fire and setting off an inflation surge later. Debt deflation is a toxic process that can and does destroy societies as well as economies. You do not trifle with it.

But deliberately creating inflation “consistent” with the Fed’s mandate – implicitly to erode debt – is another matter. Nor can this be justified at this particular juncture. M3 has been leveling out. M2 has begun to rise briskly. The velocity of money has picked up. The M1 monetary mulitplier has jumped.

We have a very odd world. The IMF has doubled its global growth forecast to 4.5pc this year, and authorities everywhere have ruled out a serious risk of a double dip recession.

Yet at the same time the Bank of Japan has embarked on unsterilised currency intervention, which amounts to stimulus, and both the Fed and the Bank of England are signalling fresh QE.

You can’t have it both ways. If the US is not in deep trouble, the Fed should not be thinking of extra QE. It should step back and let the economy heal itself, if necessary enduring several years of poor growth to purge excess leverage.

Yes, U6 unemployment is 16.7pc. But as dissenters at the Minneapolis Fed remind us, you cannot solve a structural unemployment crisis with loose money.

Fed is trying to conjure away the hangover from the last binge (which Greenspan/Bernanke caused, let us not forget), as if to vindicate its prior claim that you can always clean up painlessly after asset bubbles.

Are the Chinese right? Are the Americans and the British now so decadent that they will refuse to take their punishment, opting to default on their debts by stealth?

Sooner or later we may learn what the Fed’s hawkish bloc of Fisher, Lacker, Plosser, Hoenig, Warsh, and Kocherlakota really think about this latest lurch into monetary la la land, with all that it implies for moral hazard and debt contracts.

If I have written harsh words about these heroic resisters, I apologise for that too.

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QE2 for Dummies...

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Who's who of the insider trading bust

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US to spend $413bn more on Afghan war as Obama extends to 2014

A decision by US President Barack Obama to extend the presence of American troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014 is likely to increase the remaining cost of the unpopular war to USD 413 billion.

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Shut Down the Fed (Part II) - Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

I apologise to readers around the world for having defended the emergency stimulus policies of the US Federal Reserve, and for arguing like an imbecile naif that the Fed would not succumb to drug addiction, political abuse, and mad intoxicated debauchery, once it began taking its first shots of quantitative easing.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100007777/shut-down-the-fed-part-ii/

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Hedge Funds Raided in Probe

FBI Agents Seize Documents in 3 Cities as Insider-Trading Investigation Widens

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FBI Visit Exposes Insider Trading Tactics

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's attempt to pressure an independent analyst to record his calls with a client offers a window into how the government is trying to build what could become one of the most far-reaching insider-trading cases ever.

John Kinnucan says he was sipping wine on his front porch in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 25 when a gray sedan pulled up and two men in business suits jumped out, identifying themselves as FBI agents.

The two men accused Mr. Kinnucan, 53 years old, of passing inside information to his hedge-fund and mutual-fund clients, he says. He says they threatened to arrest him and asked him to cooperate with their investigation by tape-recording his calls with a client. Mr. Kinnucan declined the offer, and later that night he sent out a blast email to his clients detailing the visit.

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Top banks face $100 billion Basel shortfall

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Scandal Bruises a Star Investor

Joseph F. "Chip" Skowron III was in a hurry to try his hand in finance, such a hurry that he quit a prestigious Harvard University orthopedic-surgery residency to begin a career trading health-care stocks.

Dr. Skowron's decision in 2001 disappointed a Harvard adviser who tried to persuade him to finish his medical training, but it paid off handsomely. That same year, Dr. Skowron became a health-care analyst for the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors LP before quickly moving on to another well-known hedge fund, Millennium Partners LLC. By 2003, he had joined FrontPoint Partners LLC, a hedge fund where he soon would co-manage more than $1 billion in health-care investments.

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TSA abuse and strip-search 3 year-old boy...

Text below from the youtube page...

Lets get the facts straight first. Before the video started the boy went through a metal detector and didn't set it off but was selected for a pat down. The boy was shy so the TSA couldn't complete the full pat on the young boy. The father tried several times to just hold the boys arms out for the TSA agent but i guess it didn't end up being enough for the guy. I was about 30 ft away so i couldn't hear their conversation if there was any. The enraged father pulled his son shirt off and gave it to the TSA agent to search, thats when this video begins.

******* THIS VIDEO OCCURRED AT SALT LAKE CITY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT ON NOVEMBER 19TH AT AROUND THE TIME OF 12:00 PM **********

***Insertion of what happened after the video (full story)****

After I finished videotaping the incident I went through the check point myself. I collected my things and went over to talk to the father and son. Before I could get to them a man in a black suit who had been talking with the other TSA officials approached me. He asked to speak to me and I obliged, wondering what was to come. He then proceeded to interrogate me about why I was videotaping the "procedures of the TSA". I told him that I had never seen such practices before on a young child and decided to record it. The man being frustrated at this point demanded to know my plans with the video, of which I didn't respond. Repeatedly he asked me to delete the video, hoping his mere presence could intimidate me to obey, but I refused. By this point it became obvious that he felt TSA had done something wrong and that I caught it on tape. After the interview, I left for my gate. I called my brother who told me I should put the tape on YouTube because this had been a recent hot topic in the news.
My gate was a long way off, but about 15 minutes after arriving 2 TSA agents came and sat 15 feet or so away from me. I stood up and moved so that they were in front of me and then took a picture. A 3rd and then a 4th agent came and sat down with the others. They would occasionally glance at me and talk on their walkie-talkies. I don't know why they were there or if it was a huge coincidence but they stayed for 30-45 minutes and left just before I boarded the plan. Interesting to say the least, intimidating? Maybe a little...

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Post the links you're reading in comments. Does anyone out there still support the Afghanistan War besides the Washington-captured politicians doing the business of the military-industrial complex. Tell me what you think in comments below.