(KurtNimmo) – CFR member, United Nations propaganda asset and “special envoy” Angelina Jolie has been sent to Jordan to bring attention to the squalid conditions at the Zaatari refugee camp. Read the rest of this entry »

(KurtNimmo) – A British court has ruled that intelligence asset Haroon Rashid Aswat will not be extradited to the United States to face terrorism charges. According to The Telegraph, a deportation appeal was adjourned because of concerns over Aswat’s mental health. He is said to be suffering from schizophrenia and is currently interned at the Broadmoor Hospital, a high-security psychiatric hospital in Berkshire, England. Read the rest of this entry »

FLASHBACK: CIA agent alleged to have met Bin Laden in July 2001

FLASHBACK: Bin Laden Family ‘Evacuated’ From US

FLASHBACK: Bush Senior Met With Bin Laden’s Brother on 9/11

FLASHBACK: Latest Bin Laden Tape: Another of the NeoCons’ “Greatest Hits”

FLASHBACK: October Surprise Bin Laden Appears Right On Cue

(LondonGuardian) – Fidel Castro has more reason than most to believe conspiracy theories involving dark forces in Washington. After all, the CIA tried to blow his head off with an exploding cigar.

But the ageing Cuban revolutionary may have gone too far for all but the most ardent believer in the reach and competence of America’s intelligence agency. He has claimed that Osama bin Laden is in the pay of the CIA and that President George Bush summoned up the al-Qaida leader whenever he needed to increase the fear quotient. The former Cuban president said he knows it because he has read WikiLeaks. Read the rest of this entry »

(PaulWatson) – Primary justification behind internet takeover bill that would hand Obama power to shut down world wide web is completely fraudulent Read the rest of this entry »

(PaulWatson) – Type the keywords “Internet censorship” into Google News and you will immediately understand to what degree the world wide web is under assault from attempts by governments globally to regulate and stifle free speech. From Australia to Belarus, from Turkey to Vietnam, from Pakistan to Egypt, from Afghanistan to Iran, huge chunks of the Internet are going dark as the Chinese model of Internet regulation is adopted worldwide.

But why should Americans concern themselves with countries halfway across the globe adopting Chinese-style net censorship? Because under Senator Joe Lieberman’s 197-page Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, the United States would formally mimic China’s “great firewall” of web censorship.

When Lieberman himself attempted to debunk claims that the bill provides Obama, and any following President for that matter, with a figurative ‘kill switch’ to disable certain parts of the Internet, he explained that the government was merely seeking to emulate powers over the Internet already enjoyed by the Communist Chinese.

Firstly, despite Lieberman’s spin, the text of the bill clearly gives Obama the power to shut down the Internet for at least four months without Congressional oversight. Read the rest of this entry »

(PaulWatson) – President Obama will be handed the power to shut down the Internet for at least four months without Congressional oversight if the Senate votes for the infamous Internet ‘kill switch’ bill, which was approved by a key Senate committee yesterday and now moves to the floor.

The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, which is being pushed hard by Senator Joe Lieberman, would hand absolute power to the federal government to close down networks, and block incoming Internet traffic from certain countries under a declared national emergency. Read the rest of this entry »

(PaulWatson) – Senator Joe Lieberman, co-author of a bill that would give President Obama a ‘kill switch’ to shut down parts of the Internet, attempted to reassure CNN viewers yesterday that concerns about the government regulating free speech on the web were overblown, but he only stoked more alarm by citing China, a country that censors all online dissent against the state, as the model to which American should compare itself.

During an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley, Lieberman characterized concerns that his 197-page Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (PDF) legislation represents an attempt to hand Obama “absolute power” over the Internet as “total misinformation,” adding that people were “intentionally peddling misinformation”. Read the rest of this entry »

(Rense) – FIRA – The 800 LB Gorilla In The Financial ‘Reform’ Bill – Joel Skousen

The lackluster Republican opposition to Senator Dodd’s Financial Reform bill is focused on whether or not the Democratic proposal allows for or prohibits additional bailouts. A secondary hot topic is the supposed derivative limitations. Frankly, these are both red herrings. They serve to mask an even larger danger that no one is talking about: a huge new government agency that will control all financial institutions in the US–and not just the “too big to fail” ones. Read More Here

(BBC) – UK unemployment increases to 2.5 million

The number of people unemployed in the UK rose by 43,000 to 2.5 million during the three months to February, official figures have shown. Read More Here

(BBC) – UK borrowing hits record £163.4bn – Read More Here

(WSJ) – 2nd UPDATE: US Regulators Close Seven Illinois Banks – Read More Here

(EPJ) – Understanding Just How Dangerous a Value-Added Tax Is – Read More Here

(EconomicPolicyJournal) – Here’s the Serious Situation that Could Blow Goldman Sachs Out of the Water – Read More Here

(WSWS) – Collapse of the Standard of Living in the USA

Studies Reveal Declining Living Standards and Increasing Anger Read More Here

(NPR) – Goldman Sachs Boasted As The Meltdown Unfolded

E-mails released Saturday morning show top executives at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. boasting about the money the firm was making as the national housing market collapsed in 2007. Read More Here

(MyBudget360) – The Futile Act of Saving in America Today – No Money Down Car Purchases, Low Down Payment for a big Mortgage, and High Interest Credit Cards for Everyday Spending – Read More Here

(BigGovernment) – IndyMac Attack: Did Schumer, Paulson, Soros, and the CRL Kill the Bank and Profit From Its Collapse? – Read More Here

(WSWS) – Obama Reassures Wall Street on Bank Regulation Bill

President Barack Obama went to lower Manhattan Thursday to deliver a message to Wall Street: Your profits and bonuses will not be disturbed by the regulatory overhaul making its way through Congress. Read More Here

(ZeroHedge) – Greece Welcomes Its New IMF Overlords With Day Of Rioting And National Strikes – Read More Here

(WashingtonPost) – For nations living the good life, the party’s over, IMF says

In the lingo of the International Monetary Fund, the future of the world hinges on “rebalancing and consolidation,” antiseptic words that would not seem to raise a fuss.

Who doesn’t want more balance in their life? Read More Here

(InfoClearingHouse) – Six Banks Control 60% of Gross National Product

Is the U.S. at the Mercy of an Unstoppable Oligarchy? Read More Here

(GlobalResearch) – Mortgage Madness: Financial Fraud in the Housing Market – Mike Whitney – Read More Here

(TruthDig) – The Story of the Financial Debacle: Goldman Plays, We Pay

The story of the financial debacle will end the way it began, with the super-hustlers from Goldman Sachs at the center of the action and profiting wildly. Never in U.S. history has one company wielded such destructive power over our political economy, irrespective of whether a Republican or a Democrat happened to be president. Read More Here

(WashingtonPost) – The best financial reform? Let the bankers fail

The trouble with Wall Street isn’t that too many bankers get rich in the booms. The trouble, rather, is that too few get poor — really, suitably poor — in the busts. Read More Here

(BoomBustBlog) – What We’re Looking For To Go Splat!

We have started picking new companies for forensic analysis, along with the ongoing study of the Pan-European Debt Crisis. Below you will find a sneak peak of what we have unearthed but first, the obligatory romp through recent news… Read More Here

(GoldScents) – On The Bring of an Asset Explosion II

Let me start off by saying the market should be correcting. Sentiment has reached ridiculous bullish extremes, the kind of extremes that led to the January /February correction. Read More Here

(CNN) – Video: SEC Watching Porno Not Wall St! – Jack Cafferty Read the rest of this entry »

(Goldseek) – Several weeks ago I speculated that we were “On the Brink of an Asset Explosion” . So far events are unfolding about as expected.  I might even say they are moving more aggressively than I thought.  Well actually, there’s no doubt this cyclical bull is unfolding much more aggressively than anyone expected.

Compare the angle of assent of this cyclical bull to the last one. Read More Here

(Reuters) – President Barack Obama complained about “fat-cat bankers” and sharply criticized Wall Street banks for paying out big bonuses to executives in a television interview to air on Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »

(Reuters) – President Barack Obama complained about “fat-cat bankers” and sharply criticized Wall Street banks for paying out big bonuses to executives in a television interview to air on Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »

(CNBC) – The US economy is mired in an economic crisis that shows only scant signs of abating, economist David Rosenberg told CNBC. Read the rest of this entry »

(PaulWatson) – Congressman Michael Burgess scalded Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner during a fiery hearing on Capitol Hill this morning, telling the former New York Fed chief that he should never have been hired and demanding that the TARP program come to an abrupt end, shortly after GOP Rep. Kevin Brady had called on Geithner to resign. Read the rest of this entry »

Interest rates. The Fed does not need slinky women in plunging necklines to peddle money. All it needs is low interest rates. When rates are pushed lower than the rate of inflation, the Fed provides a subsidy for borrowing. This is not as hard to grasp as it sounds. If I offered to give you $1.00 for very 90 cents you gave me in return, you would buy as many dollars from me as you could. The Fed operates the same way. Read the rest of this entry »

(WashingtonsBlog) – On September 25th, I wrote:

Paul Volcker and senior Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron both testified to Congress this week that the government is trying to make bailouts for the giant banks permanent. Read the rest of this entry »

There goes oil, surging past $80-a-barrel. That’s up 150 percent from the December low, in case you’re keeping score. Read the rest of this entry »

Financial insider and commentator Yves Smith wrote an essay last week entitled “MSM Reporting as Propaganda” arguing that the government has been using propaganda to make people think that things are getting better, no one is angry, and – therefore – no one should get upset: Read the rest of this entry »

(HuffingtonPost) – The federal government has devoted $4.7 trillion to help the financial sector through its crisis, a level of assistance equal to about one-third of the overall U.S. economy, a watchdog report said Monday. Read the rest of this entry »

(CNBC) – This global recession will turn into a “full-blown depression,” Nicu Harajchi, CEO of N1 Asset Management, said Friday, adding that global stimulus hasn’t come down to Main Street. Read the rest of this entry »

(CNBC) – This global recession will turn into a “full-blown depression,” Nicu Harajchi, CEO of N1 Asset Management, said Friday, adding that global stimulus hasn’t come down to Main Street. Read the rest of this entry »

In a new report, Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), reveals that then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and key federal regulators forced the nation’s nine largest financial institutions to take billions in taxpayer bailout dollars in October 2008, threatening that if the banks refused, the government would take their stock shares anyway. Read the rest of this entry »

(WATimes) – Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. misled the public about the financial weakness of Bank of America and other early recipients of the government’s $700 billion Wall Street bailout, creating “unrealistic expectations” about the companies and damaging the program’s credibility, according to a report by the program’s independent watchdog. Read the rest of this entry »

For the last few months I have been casting around looking for bullish data points as counterfactuals to my more bearish long-term outlook. I have found some, but not enough. If you recall, early this year, I stated that we are in depression, making the case for the ongoing downturn as a depression with a small ‘d.’

Read the rest of this entry »

So now it turns out that the whole Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) was a flop or more likely a scam. Remember Bush Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson telling us last September that credit markets had locked up, and then, after half of the $750 billion that he extorted out of Congress was handed out to Wall Street firms, new President Barack Obama justifying the spending of the second half of the money because we needed to “get the banks lending again”? Read the rest of this entry »

“The entire federal government,” laments Congressman Ron Paul in his newest book, End the Fed, “is one giant toxic asset at the moment. It certainly has no business telling the private sector how to run its affairs. It is in worse financial shape than all the companies in the private sector put together.” Read the rest of this entry »

The slight rebound in housing looks a lot different when one considers how much the Fed is meddling in the market. Fed chair Ben Bernanke has purchased $240 billion in US Treasuries to keep long-term interest rates artificially low while–at the same time–buying $740 billion in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities (MBS) to provide the financing for new home buyers. It’s the double-whammy; and that’s not all. Read the rest of this entry »

(Dprogram Exclusive) – Maybe it’s the smoke from Mt. Vesuvius that keeps Arianna Huffington and the financial community from seeing that the economic collapse has nothing to do with the Fed “missing” the warning signs leading up to the October meltdown. Read the rest of this entry »

In an August 12th CNBC interview, PhD economist Marc Faber slammed central banks: Read the rest of this entry »

(C-SPAN -July 21, 2009) – U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio, 10th District) questions Neil M. Barofsky, the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, about interest payments made to banks that keep their TARP funds and other government (taxpayer) bailout money with the Federal Reserve, instead of making loans to struggling Americans (the original intent of the TARP, remember?) The Fed makes generous interest payments to the banks for “parking” their “excess reserves” at the Fed. Read the rest of this entry »

In 1992, George H.W. Bush signed Executive Order 12803, which gave D.C. the authority to sell America’s infrastructure. They called this authority “Infrastructure Privatization.” E.O. 12803 tells us this power cleared the way for the “disposition or transfer of an infrastructure “asset” such as by sale or by long-term lease from a State or local government to a private party.” Read the rest of this entry »

Since the global financial meltdown seems to be the main concern with our corporate world, let’s begin with this topic. Read the rest of this entry »

The Obama administration announced Wednesday that it opposed any government-imposed limits on the salary and bonuses of the CEOs and other top officials of major banks that have received trillions of dollars in federal handouts and guarantees over the past eight months. Read the rest of this entry »

Last October, then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson ordered nine banks that the Treasury Department described as “healthy” financial institutions to surrender ownership interests to the government or else face regulatory action that would force them to surrender ownership interests to the government, according to an internal Treasury Department document. Read the rest of this entry »

Last October, then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson ordered nine banks that the Treasury Department described as “healthy” financial institutions to surrender ownership interests to the government or else face regulatory action that would force them to surrender ownership interests to the government, according to an internal Treasury Department document. Read the rest of this entry »

Santayana’s maxim – those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it – has grown threadbare from heavy use. But it unavoidably comes to mind this week, as President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill blithely put the final touches on the chief executive’s proposed 2010 federal budget. Read the rest of this entry »

Rep. Alan Grayson asks the Federal Reserve Inspector General about the trillions of dollars lent or spent by the Federal Reserve and where it went, and the trillions of off balance sheet obligations. Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman responds that the IG does not know and is not tracking where this money is. Read the rest of this entry »

President Obama showed his hand this week when The New York Times wrote that he is considering converting the stock the government owns in our country’s banks from preferred stock, which it now holds, to common stock. Read the rest of this entry »

(Bloomberg) – The Obama administration’s bank- rescue efforts will probably fail because the programs have been designed to help Wall Street rather than create a viable financial system, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said. Read the rest of this entry »

The Plan will leave the same Amount of Toxic Assets In the System, but with Taxpayers now liable for most of the Losses Read the rest of this entry »

The Plan will leave the same Amount of Toxic Assets In the System, but with Taxpayers now liable for most of the Losses Read the rest of this entry »

Why Hasn’t Obama Targeted The Ongoing White Collar Crime Wave? Read the rest of this entry »

After ten years of wholesale financial deregulation, bad policies and unsound banking practices, and facing a worsening recession, over the last year and a half the U.S. government has been pumping trillions of dollars in order to deleverage and recapitalize banks that were on the brink of insolvency. But the banking crisis is of such a magnitude, and the damage done to the financial system so widespread, that each pumping of money into the system has never seemed to be enough. Read the rest of this entry »

Wells Fargo & Co. Chairman Richard Kovacevich criticized the U.S. for retroactively adding curbs to the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which he said forced the bank to cut its dividend, and called the administration’s plan for stress-testing banks “asinine.” Read the rest of this entry »

The Kremlin published its priorities Monday for an upcoming meeting of the G20, calling for the creation of a supranational reserve currency to be issued by international institutions as part of a reform of the global financial system. Read the rest of this entry »