On the heels of gold and silver continuing to consolidate recent gains ahead of the release of this Friday's Non-Farm Payrolls report, which traditionally is used to smash gold, below is a famed short seller's take on the gold and silver pullback, plus must-see gold, silver and GLD sentiment charts!
The post Famed Short Seller On The Gold & Silver Pullback, Plus Must-See Gold, Silver & GLD Sentiment Charts! appeared first on King World News.
The US faces a massive debt problem. We all know it. But politicians and government officials are either unwilling or incapable of doing anything about it. David Stockman mentioned the burden of debt in a recent interview with Neil Cavuto […]
Illinois Budget Debacle Proves Politicians Can’t Fix the Problems They Create
On the heels of wild start to the 2016 trading year, today the man who has become legendary for his predictions on QE, historic moves in currencies, and major global events, warned that the coming crisis will be totally devastating for the world economy and humanity.
The post Legend Warns The Coming Crisis Will Be Totally Devastating For The World Economy And Humanity appeared first on King World News.
from The Alex Jones Channel:
from Antonius Aquinas:
On May 19, the House of Reprehensibles passed a proposal that would essentially ban the display of Confederate flags from national cemeteries. The amendment was added to a Veteran Affairs spending bill.
Not surprisingly, House Speaker Paul Ryan allowed the measure to be voted upon in hopes of not disrupting the appropriations process. Yes, by all means Paul, the redistribution of taxpayers’ confiscated wealth should take precedent over a draconian attempt to eradicate a heroic symbol of the country’s past. Hopefully, Ryan will be ousted this November as both Speaker and Congressman for not only his consistent sell out to Obummer and the Democrats on the budget, but his lack of understanding and appreciation of what is arguably the most important period of American history.
In a certain sense, the Confederate flag should not be displayed in national cemeteries or for that matter flown alongside those of the Union. The two are representations of dramatically opposed political ideologies. Liberals and political opportunists of all sorts have deliberately smeared the South’s attempt at secession as being entirely over the issue of slavery. The “Civil War” (which that struggle has become known by) is now seen through Politically Correct hindsight.
A civil war, in the truest sense, is a conflict between factions attempting to gain control of a government typically for their own aggrandizement. The bloody conflict between the North and South was not that, nor was it solely over slavery although the institution played a role in it.
The Confederacy wanted no part of the Washington establishment at the time, which it believed had become too tyrannical, and attempted to secede from it. The remaining states of the North, under the “leadership” of Abraham Lincoln, prevented this at the cost of more than 600,000 lives, the vast destruction of property, and the impoverishment of a people who simply sought to rule themselves.
Read More @ AntoniusAquinas.com
from vengencefrom1979:
“It started with an innocent question about 9/11. And that lead to more innocent questions. And after a while, I completely changed my opinion of the official story of that day.”
by Rimin Dutt, Huffington Post India:
There’s been plenty of talk and sermonising directed at Indian banks to clean up their pile of bad loans. But the latest quarterly results ending March show exactly how gruesome the picture is after banks were forced to report their bad loans and non-performing assets by the Reserve Bank of India. Here’s a recap:
1) The combined gross bad loans for 38 out of 39 listed banks nearly doubled to about ₹5.8 trillion at the end of the March quarter compared to the same period last year, an analysis by Mint showed. The quarters ending March, and December 2016 added over ₹1 trillion each in bad loans. Public sector banks account for about 90 per cent of all bad loans.
2) For the latest quarter ending March, 15 out of 25 public sector banks swung to combined net losses of about ₹23,493 crores, compared to combined net profit of ₹8,500 crores in the same quarter last year. The biggest losses were posted by Punjab National Bank (at ₹5,367 crores), Canara Bank (₹₹ ₹3,905 crores), Bank of India ( ₹3,587 crores), and Bank of Baroda ( ₹3,230 crores). The reported net losses excluded any tax-related benefits.
3) There is a silver lining, however, as the private sector banks didn’t report net losses in the latest quarter. But even private sector banks saw net profits slip 14 percent from a combined ₹10,254 crores last year. The private sector banks have fared better in part because of the higher interest income they earn compared to the public sector banks.
4) The combined net losses and red ink can be attributed to the ‘provisions’ that the banks have had to do to account for their bad loans and non performing assets. Data analysis by Mint’s research bureau showed such provisions rose 87 per cent in 2016—from ₹93,698 crore to ₹1.75 trillion.
Banks have had to clean up their balance sheets and report non-performing assets (NPAs) or bad loans as part of a massive clean-up drive, also known as ‘asset quality review,’ which was prompted RBI last year. RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan has often referred to the clean-up as “deep surgery” necessary to stabilise the Indian financial system.
However, the situation at Indian banks could get worse –- 8 out of 15 bankers and market analysts that Mint surveyed expect further declines in the asset quality of banks for the next two quarters. An analyst at India Ratings and Research, an affiliate of credit ratings agency Fitch, told Reuters recently that he estimates that India’s bad loans could be bigger than New Zealand’s $170 billion economy.
Separately, an important safety net that guards liquidity at banks appears to have shrunk over the last two decades. Indian banks’ cash reserve ratio (CRR), or the portion of deposits that commercial banks are required to keep with RBI–-and which in turn help banks hedge against liquidity crunch–has come down to 4 per cent currently compared to 14.5 per cent in 1993.
from AmericanCoinHunting:
by Bernie Suarez, Activist Post:
As most people know Memorial Day is a federal holiday here in America dedicated to the memory of those who have died serving the military in past US wars of aggression. It’s wrapped in the lie that the US has fought legitimate moral wars which history proves it has not. From World War One and Two to Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and all the illegal wars of today; the list goes on and on. Evidence, documents, papers, testimonies and accounts, all point to false flag events, US funding of terror and dictators and outright lies to set up these wars that ultimately benefited the ruling elite and their long-term global agenda.
Despite all of this, here in America even amongst truth seekers we often traditionally honor those who have fallen while fighting on behalf of the US military because, I suppose, if for no other reason they (those who have died) were in a sense even greater victims of US imperialism, lies and global terrorism because they willingly entered these wars actually believing America represents the “good guys” fighting just and moral wars. As a former military person myself I can appreciate this perspective held by those who have lost their lives in combat. However, anyone awakened to the truth about the ugly political reality we live in today knows nothing can be further from the truth. There is nothing moral or just about US wars of the past and present.
So instead of dwelling on the memory of fallen soldiers who have paid the price of deliberate US war propaganda, today I want to focus on another set of fighters who have lost their lives or have been highly suspected of losing their lives trying to get truth out to the general public about what they knew. Some of the people I will pay tribute to today are known to many Americans but many are not and many died silently standing for truth. If you could interview some of these people who died for upholding truth or for the truth they knew I’m sure they would not describe themselves as heroes; they would probably describe themselves as ordinary people with a conscience simply trying to do and say what they felt at the time was true and correct. Unfortunately, some of these people didn’t realize the level of evil they were up against. And they didn’t realize that the simple truth they wanted to get out to the general public was also a major threat to the ruling elite. Obviously, this random list could be much longer than ten and I’ve chosen to highlight these ten stories arbitrarily. Nonetheless, the following fallen individuals lost their lives in a different kind of war, the modern-day information war – and love them or hate them, they deserve attention today on this Memorial Day.
1 – Barry Jennings
On September 11, 2001 Barry Jennings, who was the Deputy Director of Emergency Services Department of New York City Housing Authority, spoke with ABC News explaining exactly what he experienced on that day while trapped inside of World Trade Center Building 7. Jennings described in detail how the lobby of the building was blown up by explosives taking out the very ground he was standing on. Jennings gives a detailed description of how the explosives left many dead bodies on the floor which he and other rescue workers were forced to literally step on. Most importantly Jennings confirms how all of these “explosions” took place BEFORE either towers (1 and 2) were blown up (or as the sheep say “collapsed”). Jennings’ testimony was a direct contradiction and damaging blow to the official story and to the federal government’s NIST report which completely ignored the explosions and the controlled demolition of WTC 7. The direct firsthand testimony that Jennings offered humanity that day, in combination with his obvious credibility as the Deputy Director of Emergency Services for the NYC Housing Authority was an obstacle that scared the 9/11 conspirators so much that Jennings is highly suspected of being murdered on August 19, 2008, amazingly just 2 days prior to the release of the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) report on the destruction of WTC 7 which directly contradicted Jennings’ firsthand eyewitness credible testimony.
A website is dedicated to the story and memory of Barry Jennings and outlines his story in a brief synopsis:
Warns that ‘dummy lightweights’ must be countered with party unity.
by Steve Watson, Infowars:
GOP nominee Donald Trump has blasted Weekly Standard Editor and arch neocon Bill Kristol, calling him an “embarrassed loser” after Kristol promised there would be a third party challenger to Trump in the presidential race.
Kristol took to Twitter Sunday, suggesting that he is in the process of grooming an independent candidate to challenge Trump in November.
“Just a heads up over this holiday weekend,” Kristol wrote. “There will be an independent candidate–an impressive one, with a strong team and a real chance.”
Kristol has already spent time and money heading up an anti-Trump movement, and was one of 22 elitists who met in secret and signed an anti-Trump manifesto earlier this year.
Kristol has been linked with Mitt Romney, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse and even billionaire businessman Mark Cuban as potential spoilers for the general election.
Trump fired back at Kristol, also calling him a “dummy” and warning that a lack of party unity within the GOP could affect the ideological composition of the Supreme Court.
from Mark Dice:
by Mac Slavo, SHTFPlan:
OK, I know it isn’t anywhere near winter, and there aren’t many people reading this site who live in or even visit the remote tundras of the extreme north and south of this planet.
However, I find it fascinating how people have figured out how to survive and thrive with next to nothing.
Shaping an igloo out of blocks of ice cut from the snow covered surface is a great example, and has many survivalist and SHTF applications for those who find themselves in extreme climates. Besides that, it is just cool.
This man shows how it can be done by anyone – even alone:
Traditional development of igloos by Inuit tribes migrating across a vast frozen wasteland no doubt followed a formative conversation sometime early on addressing how desolate was their setting, and how little there was to work with.
“But we have nothing but snow and ice.”
“Then we shall build with ice and snow.”
And so the idea occurred to someone that with nothing else around, the ice itself offered a valuable resource as protection against the blinding winds and extreme conditions of the area. Clearly, it was born out of necessity, but became beautifully mastered over time.
from Truthstream Media:
by SGT, SGT Report.com:
Bill Holter from JS Mineset.com is back to help us document the collapse for the fourth week of May, 2016. And as physical gold and silver moves East and into the strong hands of more than a billion Chinese, and as foreign banks publicly settle global trade in the Yuan, Bill reminds us that “Every step forward by China, is one or two steps backward for the US and the Dollar, that’s what’s happening. For instance, if the Yuan is backed by gold, then why would someone accept the Dollar in lieu of the Yuan if the Dollar’s not backed by anything?”
The build out of the infrastructure for the world to move completely away from the Dollar is almost complete. You have been warned.
from The Daily Bell:
Speculative traders abandon gold in latest week … Gold prices fell Monday, moving in the opposite direction of the U.S. dollar, which soared after comments by Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen last week indicated an interest-rate hike could come this summer. –MarketWatch
Today, gold prices have been clinging to around $1,200 against the dollar. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the Federal Reserve has two goals.
One is to keep the dollar strong against gold and the other is ensure that the world’s quasi-depression continues.
Yellen doesn’t say so, but this will be the result of her actions.
“It’s appropriate — and I have said this in the past—for the Fed to gradually and cautiously increase our overnight interest rate over time,” Yellen said in a recent speech at Harvard University where she received an award. “Probably in the coming months such a move would be appropriate.”
But it’s probably not appropriate. Nothing in the US economy is signaling “recovery.” US statistics are endlessly optimistic anyway.
We’ve reported previously on this: Yellen is raising rates because she wishes to raise rates not because of any particular financial evolution that is forcing her hand.
In a recent CNBC article, “The Fed could be blindsided by ‘stagflation’,” contributor Michael Pento went even further.
from Dahboo7:
The increase in this birth defect, in which the baby is born with an abnormally small head and often has brain damage, was quickly linked to the Zika virus by the Brazilian Ministry of Health. However, according to the Physicians in the Crop-Sprayed Towns, the Ministry failed to recognise that in the area where most sick people live, a chemical larvicide that produces malformations in mosquitoes was introduced into the drinking water supply in 2014. This poison, Pyriproxyfen, is used in a State-controlled programme aimed at eradicating disease-carrying mosquitoes.
from Telesur:
To prove his relatives in Spain wrong, Otxotorena published a series of photographs of fully-stocked markets in upper class neighborhoods in Caracas.
Agustin Otxotorena, a Basque executive living in Caracas, grew tired of constant calls from friends and relatives in Spain telling him that there was no food in Venezuela, so on May 20 he began publishing photos on Facebook of supermarkets in upscale sectors of Caracas filled with goods.
In addition to showing evidence of plenty of food stuffs, Otxotorena also analyzed the situation. He concluded that there are two countries in Venezuela—one where “there are many people having a hard time, who don’t have the money to live,” and another where there is “an upper class that has a living standard higher than Europe.”
The exclusive Fresh Fish Gourmet Market in the upscale Altamira neighborhood in Caracas has plenty of food.
“If you have money there is champagne … vodka, Belgian chocolates … lobster, brand-name clothes, exclusive restaurants … nightclubs, beaches … yachts, golf clubs—a whole country within a country where there are no poor, women and children are blond, go to exclusive schools, exclusive universities, and vacation, where Blacks or poor are the waiters … ,” he posted on his Facebook page.
In his analysis he stated that the phenomenon stems from corruption in import processes, subsidies by the government, and the existence of buying, re-selling and smuggling of subsidized essential goods by “bachaqueros”, linked to Colombian paramilitary groups.
He explained that large retail chains such as Makro, Excelsior Gama or Plaza’s have their own import mechanisms, “They import directly and work with the strongest private importers.”
These chains are then able to set their own prices to the value of the dollar, they are not regulated by the government.
All other shops must turn to wholesalers and small importers, which are regulated and distributed by the Bolivarian government and sold at subsidized prices. The basic basket products are regulated in bolivars at very low prices and are accessible to the working class.
Otxotorena explained, “While oil prices held, the Venezuelan government brought and brought food in and everything, and gave dollars to importers, who basically defrauded the government by putting premiums in dollars and a thousand ways and means, corrupting officials to certify, for example, that they had brought in three containers of auto parts … when they had only brought one in and passed it through customs three times.”
When the Venezuelan government closed the border with Colombia in 2015, the “bachaqueros” began to buy subsidized commodities to re-sell to Venezuelans and to take out of the country.
“I post these photos because I’m tired of all who call or write me saying that in Venezuela there is no food and we live like Ethiopia or Somalia.”
He adds that these bachaqueros, are directed and controlled by Colombian mafia organizations, with the complacency of the Venezuelan opposition, and have made a career of standing in lines to buy, hoard, re-sell and smuggle goods out of the country.
This is what has lead to the lack of foodstuffs in working class and poor neighborhoods of the country. It is estimated that 40 percent of these products, are taken out of the country.
Colombian paramilitaries earn more money from these Venezuelan goods than from the production and marketing of cocaine, Otxotorena added.
Otxotorena’s conclusion is that indeed there is a war against the Venezuelan people, whose criminal and coup character is encouraged by some international media “that would not bear or endure a 10th of these behaviors if they occurred in their countries.
by Ben Fulford, via The Phaser:
When Baron Jacob Nathaniel Rothschild, hiding out at Mark Rich’s house on the hill in Zog, Switzerland was identified as the head of the Khazarian mafia, Rothschild reached out to the White Dragon Society via a nephew to negotiate a peace settlement involving and exchange of gold for money and the establishment of a future planning agency. This is now on hold because the New York branch of the Khazarian mafia, headed by the Cohen crime family, blocked it, Rothschild family sources say.
The final Khazarian mob hold outs are trying to present WDS plans for the world economy as socialist or Stalinist. They are hoping to use either Vice President Joe Biden, Democratic Party hopeful Bernie Sanders or US Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump as people who will reform the existing system enough that they can avoid rebooting the system all together as the WDS proposes. What these people need to understand is that on May 2nd , 2016 the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CORPORATION went bankrupt when its Puerto Rico subsidiary defaulted on a 422 million dollar payment.
from Bill Still:
According to the Huffington Post, Hillary Clinton will be indicted on federal racketeering charges. According to Huff Post contributor Frank Huguenard, James Comey will present evidence to Attorney General Loretta Lynch that the Clinton Foundation is: “… an ongoing criminal enterprise engaged in money laundering and soliciting bribes in exchange for political, policy and legislative favors to individuals, corporations and even governments both foreign and domestic.”
by Shepard Ambellas, Intellihub:
LITTLE ST. JAMES, U.S. Virgin Islands (INTELLIHUB) — If you can name it — it has likely taken place on this lavish private island east of Puerto Rico. The island boasts a beautifully landscaped plush luxury estate complete with its own helipad, which is privy only to certain members of the global elite.
Owned by Jeffery Epstein, a wealthy American financier and convicted sex offender, Little St. James Island appears to be somewhat of a gathering place and is a well desired hangout amongst key figureheads, actors and royalty, such as former U.S. President Bill Clinton, Kevin Spacey and even Prince Andrew.
However, the people attending the lavish residence likely do not go there to discuss “cutting edge scientific and medical research” as the Epstein VI Foundation would like one to believe, but rather go there to experience full-on sexual encounters with underage girls as young as fourteen.
That’s right, just like a scene out of the Hollywood blockbuster film Eyes Wide Shut, starring Tom Cruise, from wild parties to prostitution, orgies and even underage sex, Little St. James reportedly has it all and is seemingly a gathering point frequented by prominent jet-setters.
Back in 2005 police conducted an 11-month-long undercover investigation on Jeffery Epstein and his estate after the mother of a 14-year-old girl went to the police after suspecting her daughter was paid $300 for at least one sexual act on the island in which she was ordered to strip, leaving on just her panties while giving Epstein a massage.
Although police found tons of photos of young women on the island and even interviewed eyewitnesses, Epstein was hit with a mere slap on the wrist after “pleading to a single charge of prostitution.” Epstein later served 13-months of his 18-month service in jail.
In 2008 Epstein was hit again, this time with a $50 million civil suit after another victim, a woman, made a filing in a federal court claiming that she was “recruited” by Epstein to give him a “massage” but was essentially forced into having sexual intercourse with him for $200, which was payable upon completion.
Additionally it is important to point out that former U.S. President Bill Clinton has been mentioned by the press often over the years — and not just for his controversial relationship with Monica Lewinsky, but rather his friendship with Jeffery Epstein.
In fact, flight records indicate that ol’ Billy-boy would frequent the island paradise around the 2002 and 2005 era, while Hillary, Bill’s wife, was a Senator in New York.
The Daily Mail wrote about another woman’s experience on the island:
‘I remember asking Jeffrey what’s Bill Clinton doing here kind of thing, and he laughed it off and said well he owes me a favor,’ one unidentified woman said in the lawsuit, which was filed in Palm Beach Circuit Court.
The woman went on to say how orgies were a regular occurrence and she recalled two young girls from New York who were always seen around the five-house compound but their personal backstories were never revealed.
“At least one woman on the compound was there unwillingly” and was an actual sex slave, according to the Daily Mail.
by Mike Adams, Natural News:
Factually speaking, the CDC is a malicious, criminally-run anti-science quackery front group for the vaccine industry. As part of its criminal activity, it has long insisted that the vaccine preservative thimerosal is not tied to autism. But once-secret documents, now forced to be revealed by the CDC, prove the agency knew that thimerosal causes autism but deliberately hid that evidence from the public in exactly the same way the EPA hid the truth about lead poisoning of the public water supply in Flint, Michigan.
“A vaccine industry watchdog has now obtained CDC documents that show statistically significant risks of autism associated with the vaccine preservative,” reports Health Advice, which also reports:
Dr. Hooker, a PhD scientist, worked with two members of Congress to craft the letter to the CDC that recently resulted in his obtaining long-awaited data from the CDC, the significance of which is historic. According to Hooker, the data on over 400,000 infants born between 1991 and 1997, which was analyzed by CDC epidemiologist Thomas Verstraeten, MD, “proves unequivocally that in 2000, CDC officials were informed internally of the very high risk of autism, non-organic sleep disorder and speech disorder associated with Thimerosal exposure.”
While the mainstream media — largely funded by pharmaceutical corporations — ridiculously continues to claim any link between autism and vaccines is a “conspiracy theory,” the link actually turns out to be evidence-based FACT.
From the Health Advice story linked above:
When the results of the Verstraeten study were first reported outside the CDC in 2005, there was no evidence that anyone but Dr. Verstraeten within the CDC had known of the very high 7.6-fold elevated relative risk of autism from exposure to Thimerosal during infancy. But now, clear evidence exists. A newly-acquired abstract from 1999 titled, “Increased risk of developmental neurologic impairment after high exposure to Thimerosal containing vaccine in first month of life” required the approval of top CDC officials prior to its presentation at the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) conference.
Thimerosal, which is 50% mercury by weight, was used in most childhood vaccines and in the RhoGAM shot for pregnant women prior to the early 2000s.The CDC maintains there is “no relationship between Thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism rates in children,” even though the data from the CDC’s own Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) database shows a very high risk. There are a number of public records to back this up, including this Congressional Record from May 1, 2003. The CDC’s refusal to acknowledge thimerosal’s risks is exemplified by a leaked statement from Dr. Marie McCormick, chair of the CDC/NIH-sponsored Immunization Safety Review at IOM. Regarding vaccination, she said in 2001, “…we are not ever going to come down that it [autism] is a true side effect…” Also of note, the former director of the CDC, which purchases $4 billion worth of vaccines annually, is now president of Merck’s vaccine division.
As you read all this, remember that I personally acquired and tested flu shots for mercury in my laboratory — now called CWC Labs — via ICP-MS instrumentation.
Those tests revealed that flu shots contain over 50,000 ppb mercury — more than 25,000 times the EPA’s mercury limit in drinking water.
Any person believing that injecting children with mercury has no biological consequences is either delusional or scientifically illiterate. Mercury is one of the most toxic elements known to modern science, and it causes neurological damage in all its forms (ethyl, methyl, organic, inorganic and elemental).
As explained in Health Advice:
Thimerosal-Derived Ethylmercury in vaccines is now well established as a mitochondrial toxin in human brain cells.
There are dozens of scientific inquiries and studies on the adverse effects of thimerosal, including gastrointestinal abnormalities and immune system irregularities.
Thimerosal, is metabolized (converted) into the toxic and “harmful” methylmercury. And then in turn, the harmful methylmercury is metabolized (converted) into the most harmful, long-term-toxic, “inorganic” mercury that is retained in bodily tissue.
“Inorganic” mercury is the end product of mercury metabolism. Methylmercury subject groups confirm that the metabolic pathway for mercury in the human and animal body consists in the reduction/conversion of the harmful methylmercury into a more harmful “inorganic” mercury which is tissue-bound, and long-term-toxic. Hence, both the originating substance (methylmercury) and its conversion/reduction, inorganic mercury are found.
Based on published findings by Dr. Paul King, the metabolic pathway for organic mercury involves the conversion of Ethylmercury (Thimerosal) into “methylmercury” and then the further reduction of “methylmercury” into inorganic mercury.
Watch my interview with mercury expert Chris Shade to learn even more about mercury toxicity.
The upshot of all this is that the CDC knowingly allowed the lives of countless children to be destroyed by deliberately covering up the links between mercury in vaccines and autism.
from Suspicious Observers:
by Michael Snyder, End Of The American Dream:
Starting on June 7th, FEMA will be conducting a large scale drill that has been named “Cascadia Rising” that will simulate the effects of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone and an accompanying west coast tsunami dozens of feet tall. According to the official flyer for the event, more than “50 counties, plus major cities, tribal nations, state and federal agencies, private sector businesses, and non-governmental organizations across three states – Washington, Oregon, and Idaho – will be participating”. In addition to “Cascadia Rising”, U.S. Northern Command will be holding five other exercises simultaneously. According to the final draft of the Cascadia Rising drill plan, those five exercises are entitled “Ardent Sentry 2016″, “Vigilant Guard”, “Special Focus Exercise”, “Turbo Challenge” and “Joint Logistics Over-The-Shore”. The primary scenario that of all of these participants will be focusing on will be one that involves a magnitude 9.0 earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone followed by a giant tsunami that could displace up to a million people from northern California to southern Canada.
We have never seen such a disaster before in all of U.S. history.
Do they know something that the rest of us do not?
It is funny that they are preparing to deal with the effects of a magnitude 9.0 earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone, because that is precisely the size of earthquake that I warned about in an article back in March.
The San Andreas Fault in southern California gets more headlines, but the Cascadia Subduction Zone is a much larger threat by far. This fault zone is where the Juan de Fuca plate meets the North American plate, and it stretches approximately 700 miles from northern Vancouver Island all the way down to northern California.
If a magnitude 9.0 earthquake were to strike, the immense shaking and subsequent tsunami would cause damage on a scale that is hard to even imagine right now. Perhaps this is why FEMA feels such a need to get prepared for this type of disaster, because the experts assure us that it is most definitely coming someday. The following comes from the official website of the “Cascadia Rising” exercise…
A 9.0 magnitude earthquake along the Cascadia Subduction Zone (CSZ) and the resulting tsunami is the most complex disaster scenario that emergency management and public safety officials in the Pacific Northwest could face. Cascadia Rising is an exercise to address that disaster.
June 7-10, 2016 Emergency Operations and Coordination Centers (EOC/ECCs) at all levels of government and the private sector will activate to conduct a simulated field response operation within their jurisdictions and with neighboring communities, state EOCs, FEMA, and major military commands.
If you don’t think that the scenario that they are studying is realistic, perhaps you should consider the fact that the largest earthquake in the history of the continental United States stuck along the Cascadia Subduction Zone back in 1700. The following comes from CNN…
In fact, “the Cascadia” already has made history, causing the largest earthquake in the continental United States on January 26, 1700. That’s when the Cascadia unleashed one of the world’s biggest quakes, causing a tsunami so big that it rampaged across the Pacific and damaged coastal villages in Japan.
Read More @ EndOfTheAmericanDream.com
from WeAreChange:
Gary Johnson Acceptance Speech After Winning Libertarian Nomination.
by Sayer Ji, The Sleuth Journal:
The GM farming system has made exposure to Roundup herbicide a daily fact of our existence, and according to the latest US Geological Survey study its probably in the air you are breathing…
A new study from the U.S. Geological Survey, accepted for publication online ahead of print in the journal Enviromental Toxicology and Chemistry, titled, “Pesticides in Mississippi air and rain: A comparison between 1995 and 2007,”[i] reveals that Roundup herbicide (aka glyphosate) and its still-toxic degradation byproduct AMPA were found in over 75% of the air and rain samples tested from Mississippi in 2007.
The researchers evaluated a wide range of pesticides currently being used through weekly composite air and rain sampling collected during the 1995 and 2007 growing seasons in the Mississippi Delta agricultural region.
The researchers discovered the following:
Thirty-seven compounds were detected in the air or rain samples in 2007; 20 of these were present in both air and rain.
Glyphosate was the predominant new herbicide detected in both air (86%) and rain (77%) in 2007, but were not measured in 1995.
Decreased overall pesticide use in 2007 relative to 1995 generally resulted in decreased detection frequencies in air and rain, but observed concentration ranges were similar between years even though the 1995 sampling site was 500 m from active fields while the 2007 sampling site was within 3 m of a field.
Mean concentration of detections were sometimes greater in 2007 than in 1995 but the median values were often lower.
Seven compounds in 1995 and five in 2007 were detected in ≥50% of both air and rain samples. Atrazine, metolachlor, and propanil were detected in ≥50% of the air and rain samples in both years.
Total herbicide flux in 2007 was slightly greater than in 1995, and was dominated by glyphosate.
According to the report, 2 million kilograms of glyphosate were applied statewide in 2007, or 55% of the total herbicide flux for that year (~129 μg/m2), leading them to state the high prevalence of glyphosate in air and water “was not surprising.” Even though glyphosate was only tested in 2007, based on the 1995 figures on glyphosate use (147,000 kg state-wide) the researchers estimated that glyphosate added 3% of the total herbicide flux for 1995, or approximately 7 micrograms per centimeter (~7 μg/m2) per sample. This estimate, if correct, reveals that there has been an ~ 18 fold increase in glyphosate concentrations in air and water samples in only 12 years (1995-2007).
The researchers pointed out that, “the 2007 weekly air concentration pattern for glyphosate was similar to those of other commonly detected herbicides in both 1995 and 2007 in that the highest concentrations occurred in April and May. However, there were detectable concentrations of glyphosate over the entire growing season, which is consistent with how glyphosate is used on GM crops, including for post-emergent weed control throughout the growing season.” The longer period of exposure adds to growing concern that this ubiquitous toxicant represents an unavoidable body burden and that even small daily environmental exposures may be causing significant harm through their cumulative and synergistic effects with other toxicants.
So, what is the toxicological significance of the discovery of glyphosate in most air samples tested? In the month of August, 2007, if you were breathing in the sampled air you would be inhaling approximately 2.5 nanograms of glyphosate per cubic meter of air. It has been estimated the average adult inhales approximately 388 cubic feet or 11 cubic meters of air per day, which would equal to 27.5 nanograms (billionths of a gram) of glyphosate a day. Of course, when one considers the presence of dozons of other agrichemicals found alongside glyphosate in these samples, the interactions between them are incalculably complex and produce far more harm together than glyphosate alone (i.e. synergistic toxicity). Also, now that recent cell research has shown that glyphosate may act as an endocrine disrupter exhibiting estrogenic-like carcinogenicity within the part-per-trillion range, there is all the more reason to raise the red flag of the precautionary principle — especially since inhaled toxicants evade the elaborate detoxification mechanisms of ingested toxicants which must pass through the microbiome, intestinal lining and liver before entering the blood and only a long time later the lung far downstream.
This study brings to the surface the extent to which GM farming has altered our daily exposure to chemicals, such that even the rain and air we now breath contains physiologically relevant levels of glyphosate ‘fall out’ from the war against any plant not part of the monocultured, genetically engineered system of production. With a significant body of research now available today showing that glyphosate and its components are far more toxic than believed at the time of its widespread approval, the implications of ubiquitous glyphosate exposure should be carefully considered.
Read More @ TheSleuthJournal.com
by Jeff Berwick, The Dollar Vigilante:
Bitcoin has risen more than 25% in the last week, from near $430 to a high over $545 today. In that time, it has been pronounced dead at least once and is now at a 20-month high. We gave these three main reasons in the last year for why we thought it would go much higher:
1. Bitcoin and Blockchain are the Future of Money and Banking
Still to this day most other financial analysts either ignore bitcoin or, even stupider, deride it as being some sort of scam or ponzi scheme.
The dollar and government “services” like Social Security are scams and ponzi schemes… but bitcoin clearly is not. It is open source and so anyone who cares to look can see there is nothing nefarious about it. Therefore, anyone who says it is a scam or ponzi scheme is just showing willful ignorance as they could very easily look at it themselves and see it is not.
More than $1 billion was invested into bitcoin or blockchain related companies in 2015 from some of the biggest financial institutions in the world. They realize that bitcoin and the blockchain have changed the world of money and banking. They are just trying to keep up now.
Bitcoin is the biggest thing to be developed since the internet itself. And, in fact, blockchain related technologies, like The DAO, which just raised $132 million and became the biggest crowdfund in history, are creating the next generation of the internet itself… a more decentralized one.
It has now risen more than 100% since last summer when we said it was a screaming buy.
1. Bitcoin and Blockchain are the Future of Money and Banking
Still to this day most other financial analysts either ignore bitcoin or, even stupider, deride it as being some sort of scam or ponzi scheme.
The dollar and government “services” like Social Security are scams and ponzi schemes… but bitcoin clearly is not. It is open source and so anyone who cares to look can see there is nothing nefarious about it. Therefore, anyone who says it is a scam or ponzi scheme is just showing willful ignorance as they could very easily look at it themselves and see it is not.
More than $1 billion was invested into bitcoin or blockchain related companies in 2015 from some of the biggest financial institutions in the world. They realize that bitcoin and the blockchain have changed the world of money and banking. They are just trying to keep up now.
Bitcoin is the biggest thing to be developed since the internet itself. And, in fact, blockchain related technologies, like The DAO, which just raised $132 million and became the biggest crowdfund in history, are creating the next generation of the internet itself… a more decentralized one.
2. Capital Control Crackdowns, Bank Bail-Ins and Worldwide Taxation Schemes to Drive Bitcoin Growth
We have been one of the biggest sites following the War on Cash, bank bail-ins and the move towards a one world taxation system.
We said that governments will continue to crack down on capital and its flow across borders. In the US, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) continues to cause massive problems for banks worldwide that often end up opting out of the US dollar system.
Bank bail-in clauses have now been written into law in every major Western country in advance of the next great crisis. And schemes like the Panama Papers are making it harder to operate in offshore jurisdictions.
We said that this will lead a lot of people to bitcoin which cannot be sequestered, controlled or regulated.
Speculation on the latest breakout on bitcoin has to do with demand from China, which continues to be subject to heavy capital controls.
3. The Coming Debt Jubilee Could Send Bitcoin Easily above $10,000… Maybe $100,000… Maybe More
Probably the biggest reason we will see bitcoin go exponential in the coming months and years is due to the coming debt jubilee. All Western governments are bankrupt and all Western banks are bankrupt.
As this comes to a head and we have a crisis that makes 2008 look like a wonderful time we will see currencies collapse, banks collapse and potentially the entire financial and monetary systems collapse. It’s actually all been planned as we have shown in our Shemitah and Jubilee video series (see here).
When that collapse happens there is no telling how high bitcoin will rise as people panic and try to salvage some of their wealth… but for most it will be too late.
Read More @ TheDollarVigilante.com
from The Money GPS:
from TRU News:
Analysis of data seized by investigators in last week’s raid of Google’s Paris headquarters could possibly take years, French financial prosecutor Eliane Houlette said on Sunday.
Dozens of French police raided Google’s offices on Tuesday, escalating an investigation over suspected tax evasion. “We have collected a lot of computer data,” Houlette said in an interview with Europe 1 radio, TV channel iTele and newspaper Le Monde, adding that 96 people took part in the raid.
“We need to analyze (the data) … (it will take) months, I hope that it won’t be several years, but we are very limited in resources”.
by F. William Engdahl, New Eastern Outlook:
I don’t want to discuss the musical merits of who should have won the recent Eurovision amateur song contest in Stockholm. It’s brazenly clear that the Ukrainian ethnic Tatar Jamala won in a rigged contest to make a political intervention. As she subsequently openly admitted, it was between the actions of Stalin in World War II against Crimean Tatars and the actions of Moscow in 2014 in Crimea. The song of Jamala was blatantly political and by Eurovision rules ought to be grounds to strip her of the title regardless of her singing talent or lack of same. What is conspicuously absent from Western media coverage in what is seen by many as a blatant politicization of the music festival is who those 1944 Crimean Tatars were fighting in the mourning song of Jamala. The answer may surprise some.
Jamala’s song, 1944, mourns the hardship suffered by Crimean Tatar Muslims who were deported in the thousands by Stalin to Central Asia. The image left by Jamala is of barbarian cruelty by the Soviet dictator against innocent Tatars. Hoever to give an historically accurate picture, the Tatars of Crimea during that war were hardly innocent civilians. Tens of thousands of them had been organized on orders from Hitler into Crimean Tatar SS brigades.
The issue at hand is not whether Stalin reacted to the Tatar situation in 1944 with brutality. Even the Soviet Union acknowledged that was so after Stalin’s death. What the current media scrupulously ignores is what was the historical reality in 1944 that the song of the 32-year-old Crimean Tatar Jamala leaves out.
Nazi-occupied Crimea
After Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June of 1941, Crimea fell under Nazi occupation. Its population then consisted of ethnic Tatars and ethnic Russians.
According to an archive account by the Russian newspaper Pravda Report, the background to the deportation of tens of thousands of Crimean Tatars in 1944 by Stalin was motivated by the fact that the Nazi Wehrmacht and Nazi occupation forces had organized thousands of Crimean Tatars to armed resistance to liberation of Crimea by the Red Army: “In April-May of 1944, the Crimean Tatar battalions took part in battles against the Red Army in the Crimea. The units that were evacuated from the Crimea in June 1944, were compiled into the Tatar mountain-Jaeger three-battalion SS Regiment. A month later, the group became the first Tatar-mountain-Jaeger SS Brigade (2,500 troops) under the command of SS Standartenführer Fortenbah. On 31 December 1944, the unit was disbanded to become a part of the East Turkic branch of SS as the Crimea battle group: two infantry battalions and one hundred horses.”
In his Nüremburg Tribunal testimony, German Field Marshal Erich von Manstein testified about the usefulness to the Nazis of the ferocious Tatar batallions: “Most of the Crimean Tatar population was very friendly to us. We could even form armed self-defense companies from the Tatars, whose task was to protect their villages from guerrillas that were hiding in the mountains. The powerful guerrilla (pro-Soviet-w.e.) movement appeared in the Crimea from the very start, and it was causing us great trouble. The reason for the movement to appear was the fact that there were many Russians among the population of the Crimea.”
Von Manstein continued, “The Tartars stood on our side at once. In December 1941, Muslim Tatar committees supporting the German occupation administration were established in the Crimea. The Central Crimean Muslim Committee started working in Simferopol. Their organization and activities were carried out under the direct supervision of SS.”
Crimean Tatar soldiers of the Muslim SS brigades who fought the Russians from 1941 until the Red Army recaptured Crimea in 1944 and Stalin ordered deportation of 240,000 Muslim Tatars (Source: Bundesarchiv)
The SS’ Radical Muslim Terrorists
In my newest book, The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy, I describe the little-known but highly important background history of the relations of the Third Reich with certain Muslim groups. At the beginning of the war, in 1941, the leading Muslim Brotherhood figure, Amin al-Husseini, then the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, was welcomed in Berlin by Hitler and Himmler. He spent the duration of the war there organizing anti-Jewish propaganda and forming pro-Nazi brigades of fanatical Muslims in the eastern parts of the Soviet Union, in Egypt and Palestine and elsewhere to fight on behalf of the Third Reich.
In Berlin, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Grand Mufti played one of the least-known and most gruesome roles in the Nazi extermination of millions of Jews. He became close friends with Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the dreaded Nazi death cult known as Schutzstaffel (SS). Himmler was the one perhaps most directly responsible for the Third Reich’s implementation of the Holocaust.
The Grand Mufti shaking hands with Himmler in 1943.
from The Mind Renewed:
“Remain” or “Leave”? What does the UK’s EU Referendum—scheduled 23rd June—really amount to? Is it simply the opportunity for UK citizens to decide if Britain should stay in the European Union? Or is it something of greater significance, with broader and more serious implications? And just what is this thing called the EU anyway?
from InfoWars:
“I don’t think we should make a federal case over it,” exclaimed the 82-year old senator
California Democrat Dianne Feinstein says it is time to forget about Hillary Clinton’s misuse of a private email server when she was secretary of state.
“Hillary Clinton is going to win this primary. I say enough is enough. Let’s get to the major problems facing this nation,” she told ABC News on Sunday.
The scandal is not about Clinton’s comprising national security or thumbing her nose at State Department security protocol, according to the 82-year old senator.
Instead of a national security issue, the email scandal is about Clinton’s personal life.
“I think this is a woman who wants a little bit of a private life,” she said. “She wants to be able to communicate with husband, with daughter, with friends and not have somebody looking over her shoulder into her emails.”
In fact, people were looking over her shoulder. According to Inspector General Steve Linick, Clinton’s unsecured email server was hacked on several occasions. Clinton violated department rules by failing to report the attacks.
“Notification is required when a user suspects compromise of, among other things, a personally owned device containing personally identifiable information,” investigators wrote in a report. “However, OIG found no evidence that the Secretary or her staff reported these incidents to computer security personnel or anyone else within the Department.”
After Romanian hacker Marcel Lehel Lazar, aka “Guccifer,” gained access to the email of Clinton confident Sidney Blumenthal, the FBI initiated an investigation into Clinton’s misuse of the email server to determine if classified information was mishandled. “It was like an open orchid on the Internet. There were hundreds of folders,” Lazar told NBC News before he was extradited to the U.S.
According to Feinstein, however, Clinton did nothing wrong. She blamed the State Department for the scandal.
“I read all 42 pages of the report. The conclusion of the report does not say that. What it says is that the department does not handle these electronic platform operations well and needs to do better,” Feinstein said.
“I mean, what do people want?” Feinstein asked. “Having said that, it is what it is and, you know, I don’t think we should make a federal case over it.”
Feinstein did not address the fact Clinton violated Executive Order 13526 and 18 U.S.C Sec. 793(f) of the federal code stating it is unlawful to send or store classified information on personal email. Moreover, she is in violation of Section 1236.22 of the 2009 National Archives and Records Administration requirements.
Feinstein’s forgiveness, however, does not extend to government whistleblowers. In 2013, she accused NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden of treason.
“I don’t look at this as being a whistleblower. I think it’s an act of treason,” she said. “He violated the oath, he violated the law. It’s treason.”
from Zero Hedge:
“I don’t buy gold, I own it. I don’t buy gold at $1,100 because I think it’s going to go to $1,200. I buy it for what it does, not what the price is, the price is the last consideration for me. It’s not just an asset anymore it’s the answer to a lot of people’s questions.. the most important stage of this is next and that is the resolution between the paper price and the physical asset. I think when we get to that point where people want to own gold, ETF’s won’t suffice anymore.”
Grant Williams, strategy advisor to Vulpes Investment Management and co-founder of Real Vision Television is always worth the read or listen, and he sat down for an interview during his time at this year’s Mauldin Strategic Investment Conference to discuss his views on gold, and why physical cash is being eliminated.
On the subject of gold, Williams is very quick to point out that he doesn’t buy gold for the price, he owns it for what it does. He goes on to say that once people realize the value of owning physical gold, ETF’s will no longer be what investors want to own.
“I don’t buy gold, I own it. I don’t buy gold at $1,100 because I think it’s going to go to $1,200. I buy it for what it does, not what the price is, the price is the last consideration for me. I think the way the picture has been developing over the last eight years, it’s like when you take a polaroid, you take a picture and you sit there and you watch this thing and it slowly comes into focus, and that’s what it’s been like for me watching gold, we’re watching this picture slowly develop.”
“We’re getting to the point where people are going to be able to see the picture, and at that point gold is the answer. It’s not just an asset anymore it’s the answer to a lot of people’s questions. When that happens, I think the most important stage of this completes itself and that is the resolution between the paper price and the physical asset. I think when we get to that point where people want to own gold, ETF’s won’t suffice anymore. A promise to deliver three months hence is not going to be sufficient anymore, people are going to want to own the asset. At that point you realize that there are multiple hundreds of claims per ounce, and those claims won’t be worth anything anymore it’s going to be the asset, and that’s the end game.”
“The picture is becoming clearer, and everything the central banks are doing is bringing that day forward a little bit.”
When asked the question how to hedge the many risks that investors face today, Williams shifts the conversation to holding cash. As people hoard cash it negates what the central banks are trying to do so they’re discouraging holding cash, but he rightly points out that any time someone is telling you ‘you really shouldn’t do that, we’re going to discourage you from doing that’ often times that’s where people want to (and should) go.
“The thing you’re being discouraged most to own is cash. If people hoard cash it negates what the Fed is trying to do; lower interest rates, get people spending, bring the velocity of money up. You can see, the results are all in the opposite direction. You look at the savings rate which bottomed in 2006, we had the sharp spike in ’08 which is a perfectly natural thing to do in a crisis, it came back a little bit but the trend is now such that the savings rate has tripled. That is not something that you would expect as a Federal Reserve governor to be the outcome of taking rates to zero, the idea is let’s make it unattractive to hold cash.”
“Any time someone is telling you, ‘you really shouldn’t do that, we’re going to discourage you from doing that’, often times that’s where people want to go and so I think holding cash, the optionality that you have inherent in owning cash now has certainly not been higher since going in to 2008.“
On the push to eliminate physical cash, Williams notes that it’s just the logical next step in a plan for the governments to be able to take from those that have money, and give to those who do not. He also accurately points out that the media is helping the government accomplish this task with its constant narrative that only drug dealers and other bad guys use cash.
by Don Quijones, Wolf Street:
After three years of relative calm and one month before yet another round of do-or-die general elections, the words “banking” and “crisis” are back on the front pages of Spain’s newspapers. Despite the untold billions of euros of public funds lavished on “cleaning up” their balance sheets and the roughly €240 billion of provisions booked against bad debt since December 2007, the banks are just as weak and disaster-prone as they were four years ago.
Francisco González, the President of Spain’s second biggest financial institution, BBVA, was the first to raise the alarm, warning a few days ago that the ECB’s negative interest rate policy “is killing” European banks.
Now, it seems González’s prophecy is already coming true.
Spain’s sixth largest financial institution, Banco Popular, on Wednesday evening announced that it was urgently seeking to raise €2.5 billion in capital in order to shore up its finances. The news took many of the firm’s investors by surprise given that just a month ago the bank’s CEO Francisco Gomez had breezily reported that the bank had a very comfortable core capital level above the regulatory minimum and “one of the best” leverage ratios in the sector.
The market’s response to the latest news was emphatic. The bank’s shares plunged 25% Thursday morning. There was not even the barest flicker of a recovery on Thursday afternoon. On Friday, the stock dropped another 8.2%, to close at €1.59 per share, its lowest in 26 years. Over the three days, the stock plummeted 32%.
For the bank’s shareholders, it’s the second time this has happened in the last four years. In 2012, the bank’s management — virtually man-for-man the same management team as today — pulled the exact same stunt in an effort to stabilize the bank’s finances. The slogan the bank chose to sell that capital increase was “Our Past and Our Present Guarantee Our Future.”
The guarantee didn’t last very long. Now, Banco Popular has laundry list of problems:
Recent financial regulations raising the minimum capital buffer have had the effect of tightening the operating margins of many institutions, including Banco Popular.
The ECB’s “magic people” have coaxed interest rates in Europe to the lowest point in human history. Already tight margins have got even tighter. As Gónzalez says, it’s “killing” banks.
According to an auspiciously timed report from JP Morgan Chase, Banco Popular would need to provision up to €6.7 billion to comply with the new accounting rules, a lot more than the €2.5 billion it hopes to raise. And Popular has already seen €1.3 billion wiped off its share value in the last two days’ trading alone.
from Palisade Radio:
Ken Berry is a Founding Director of Northern Vertex Mining Corp (TSX-V:NEE) and Kootenay Silver Inc. (TSX-V:KTN). Since inception, both companies have made incredible strides forward, despite poor market conditions. Kootenay Silver has delineated millions of ounces of silver in Mexico and Northern Vertex is in the midst of transition from development into production.
by John Rubino, Dollar Collapse:
One of the defining traits of the past few years’ “recovery” has been the torrent of money flowing from big banks to favored clients, and from there into trophy properties like high-end real estate, superyachts, and fine art. This might be the first financial bubble to completely bypass the 99%.
And now it’s ending. Falling oil prices and negative interest rates (rich people own a lot of government bonds) seem to have sucked the animal spirits out of the 1%, leading to stories like this:
A Worrisome Pileup of $100 Million Homes
(New York Times) – One of the latest symbols of the overinflated luxury housing market is a pink mansion perched above the Mediterranean on the French Riviera.
The 13,000-square-foot property, built and owned by the fashion magnate Pierre Cardin, is composed of giant terra cotta orbs arranged in a sprawling hive. The home’s name befits its price. “Le Palais Bulles,” or “the Bubble Palace,” is being offered for sale at approximately $450 million.
The listing is part of a global pileup of homes listed for $100 million or more. A record 27 properties with nine-figure prices are officially for sale, according to Christie’s International Real Estate. That is up from 19 last year and about a dozen in 2014.
If you add in high-priced “whisper listings” that are offered privately, brokers say the actual number of nine-figure listings worldwide could easily top 40 or 50.
“It’s a bumper crop,” said Dan Conn, chief executive of Christie’s International Real Estate. “It’s just a new world in terms of what people are building and offering for sale.”
The rise in nine-figure real estate listings comes just as sales of luxury real estate have cooled. Many say the sudden surge in hyperprice homes — often built and sold by speculative investors — is the ultimate bubble signal.
“When you have a record number of homes for sale at a price point of $100 million or more, that tells you these homes aren’t selling,” said Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel Inc., a real estate appraisal and research firm. “It’s not as deep a market as some might hope.”
Still more nine-figure homes are on the way. Real estate agents and developers say a home under construction in Bel Air is likely to have more than 50,000 square feet of living space, with finishes rivaling a superyacht’s. The price will be yacht-like, too, at around $300 million. Among the home’s amenities: the world’s largest safe.
And this…
Trophy Corporate Jets Were All the Rage, Until They Weren’t
(Bloomberg) – The private jet Janine Iannarelli is selling for a Russian client has leather seats, wood paneling, a satellite phone and can fly nonstop from Tokyo to Los Angeles. The price has dropped $3 million since September and is still falling.
Iannarelli today is hawking the 10-year-old Bombardier Global 5000 for $14.5 million but recommends that her client cut the price further as the market for large-cabin business jets keeps weakening. A new Global 5000 lists for $50.4 million.
“There’s absolutely no evidence of a recovery on the horizon,” says Iannarelli, founder of Houston-based aircraft brokerage Par Avion Ltd. “None of the jet models has hit bottom.”Rarely seen bargains abound for big corporate aircraft as tumbling oil wealth, a stronger dollar and a downturn for emerging-market giants from Brazil to Russia cripple demand. As owners from foreign tycoons to Archer-Daniel-Midlands Co. try to sell their planes, Bombardier Inc., General Dynamics Corp.’s Gulfstream unit and other planemakers are cutting output and chopping list prices to cope with a glut of new and used business jets.
Former Prize
The slump extends even to the Gulfstream G650 — just two years ago an aircraft so coveted by well-heeled buyers that some would pay $10 million above list for a used jet rather than wait four years for a new model. Now there are 19 G650s for sale, about 11 percent of the global fleet in operation. One 2013 plane that first was posted for sale in June at $68 million has had its asking price cut twice, to $58.8 million.
Read More @ DollarCollapse.com
from Sputnik News:
Robert W. Merry, author and political editor of The National Interest, has named five reasons why Donald Trump, whose presidential campaign was first considered a joke, not only didn’t disappear with the start of actual voting, but now has high chances of actually becoming president.
In his article for The National Interest Merry mentioned several people who became president despite conventional wisdom that they would never reach office, including Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. Once the “unthinkable” happened, it became commonplace. Now the same scenario can work with Trump, who emerged out of nowhere but is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Merry opined.
There are several factors to why the real estate mogul has been leading in polls since he launched his presidential campaign and why his popularity hasn’t faded, Merry wrote.
The first factor is that Trump has expressed the frustration of many Americans with the forced political correctness, the “bludgeon of right thinking” that has “practically destroyed free speech and free thought” in the US. According to Merry, political correctness has successfully narrowed the range of political discourse by labeling as illegitimate certain views that were considered entirely acceptable only a few years ago. Trump has stood up to that.
Although Trump was criticized by both Democrats and some Republicans for his call to temporarily ban entry of Muslims into the country, exit polls during the primary season revealed that significant numbers of Americans agreed with his rhetoric.
Another factor is Trump’s determination to deal with the issue of sealing the US border. Nobody in Washington had previously demonstrated a credible seriousness about the problem. Trump has shown disdain for political correctness, which had enveloped the debate, and has made it clear he would do something about illegal immigration. He hasn’t just transformed the terms of the debate but also the dynamics of the issue.
Merry also noted that although America’s elite institutions, such as media, corporations, finance, Hollywood, think tanks and other entities are dominated by globalists, nationalist sentiment is still widespread in America. Now, frustrated nationalists have a figure to turn to and vote for — Donald Trump.
Another explanation for Trump’s success is the decline of the middle class, people who once were considered the engine of the country’s growth and progress.
According to a 2015 report by the Pew Research Center, the American middle class has shrunk to less than half the population, compared to 61 percent in the late 1960s. The economic decline has brought along significant increases in divorce, alcoholism, drug use and suicide.
Now the people who feel like they have been left behind by the political elites, which are “focused on helping the poor and bringing in immigrants,” have someone who speaks to them and their plight. His name is Donald Trump.
Finally, the “coarsening of American culture” has also come into play, Merry believes. A decades-long assault on traditional mores and values relating to sex, drug use, everyday language, marriage, ethics, etc. has made acceptable a behavior once frowned upon by society. “The vulgarization of American culture” has paved the way for Trump’s brand of “tawdry politics”, Merry concluded.
from WeAreChange:
In this video Luke Rudkowski takes you behind the scenes to one of Donald Trump’s intense rallies in San Diego. We cover the full day of events as they unfolded and show you everything that happened.
As people continue to digest breaking news from around the world and the United States celebrates Memorial Day, included in this piece is one of the most tragic images you will ever see.
The post One Of The Most Tragic Images You Will Ever See appeared first on King World News.
by Kerry Lutz, Financial Survival Network:
Wolf Richter is one of the best traveled guests we’ve ever had on FSN. One day he up and quit his job, thinking he’d travel to France for an extended 7 week vacation. That trip turned into three year, over 100 country odyssey that left him profoundly changed. Upon his return to the States, he started blogging and hasn’t stopped yet. He’s busy confronting the lies and distortions that the media perpetrates upon the public. Hopefully he’ll never stop!
Click HERE to Listen
by Mark O’Byrne, GoldCore:
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned his Group of Seven counterparts today that the world may on the brink of a global financial crisis on the scale of Lehman Brothers.
The Japanese Prime Minister presented data yesterday at the G7 summit he is hosting, showing that commodities prices have fallen 55 percent since 2014, the same margin they fell during the global financial crisis, interpreting this as “warning of the re-emergence of a Lehman-scale crisis”.
The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe failed in his attempt to have the G7 leaders warn of the risk of a global economic crisis in a communique issued as their summit wrapped up today in Japan.
The final statement failed to address the scale of the financial crisis facing the world today and instead gave the impression that the worst is over with somewhat Orwellian language which declared that G-7 countries “have strengthened the resilience of our economies in order to avoid falling into another crisis.”
The communique gives the impression that there is little risk due to strengthened, resilient economies when the truth is that there are significant risks facing the global financial system and the global economy. Some of which include:
• The global economy remains vulnerable to recessions and new debt crises. There are fragile recoveries in the Eurozone, UK and U.S. while Japan remains in a recession
• Financial and banking systems remains vulnerable as seen in the very sharp falls in bank shares in recent weeks. Spanish, Italian, Greek and German banks have seen sell offs
• Geopolitical risk in the Middle East (Syria, Saudi, Iran etc.), increasing tensions amongst Russia, China and western powers and the increasing spectre of terrorism and war
• The Eurozone crisis is far from resolved and there is the risk of debt crises in China, the U.S., the Eurozone and indeed the UK
• BREXIT causes a short term risk but the real risk is the poor financial fundamentals of the UK economy – total debt to GDP ratio (public and private) is over 450% and completely unsustainable.
Japan had pressed G-7 leaders to note “the risk of the global economy exceeding the normal economic cycle and falling into a crisis if we did not take appropriate policy responses in a timely manner.” However, leaders again failed to take leadership and opted for spin and again lulling their electorates into a false sense of security about the financial and economic outlook.
Rather than doing the responsible thing in this regard, there appears to have been an attempt to focus on BREXIT and to scare UK voters into not voting for a UK exit from the EU. German Chancellor Angela Merkel went as far as to say that BREXIT had not even been discussed but that there was a consensus that they wanted the UK to stay in the EU.
Yet, a 32-page declaration putatively from the G7 leaders declared that “A UK exit from the EU would reverse the trend towards greater global trade and investment, and the jobs they create, and is a further serious risk to growth.” Brexit was listed alongside geopolitical conflicts, terrorism and refugee flows as a potential shock of a “non-economic origin”.
from WallStForMainSt:
Jason Burack of Wall St for Main St had on first time guest, former reporter, money researcher and Bitcoin and Crypto Currency Expert, David Seaman.
THE DEED: Eve & Adam + Serpent = Cain [PARTS 1 – 5]
from The Phaser:
WARNING: You’re probably not going to like this. It’s very dark. But then again, so are the plans of the world’s Satanic elite. The agenda of the Rockefeller-Rothschild NWO cabal is playing out for all to see. We know that 9/11 was a contrived false flag event. We know the elite worship the Beast. We know they want to bring the one they serve out into full public view. Their Satanic agenda is no longer hidden, it’s on display for anyone with the eyes to see and the ears to hear. In his latest detailed analysis, Jonathan Kleck brings us up to speed on the dark agenda that goes all the way back to the Garden. The Luciferian doctrine unveiled.
EXITUS ACTA PROBAT – The outcome justifies the deed. Satan impregnated Eve with Cain (KAIN) and she ALSO bare his TWIN Abel (HABEL) [from Adam]. GENESIS 4:1 “And Adam knew Hava his wife, who had desired the Angel; and she conceived, and bare Kain; and she said, I have acquired a man, the Angel of the Lord. And she added to bear from her husband Adam his twin, even Habel (ABEL).”
by Justin Gardner, Activist Post:
Two years after Colorado began its first retail sales of cannabis, towns and cities across the state are enjoying the benefits in a number of ways. With sales this year expected to reach $1 billion, local governments are seeing windfalls of tax revenue, which is funding education, recreation, infrastructure improvements, and even aid to the homeless.
The small town of Mountain View may be able to dispel its reputation for collecting revenue through speeding tickets, now that two pot shops reside there.
“We have such a small tax base,” said Mayor Jeff Kiddie, who opposed pot stores. “Medical and retail marijuana have definitely helped the town’s bottom line. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t.”
Similar stories abound in the 22 counties and 62 cities that allow retail cannabis sales.
In Aurora, which has collected millions in sales taxes and fees since October 2014, the City Council keeps the money in a separate fund so it can show the public exactly where cannabis revenue is spent. $1.5 million will be used to address the homeless issue, $2.8 million will go toward a recreation center, and $3.8 million will fund an Interstate 225 crossing.
Northglenn uses the money for capital projects and to purchase water rights. Adams County will spend $500,000 on scholarships for low-income students. Filling potholes and fixing roads is a common theme in other towns.
“There’s a lot of money left over to address safety issues that come up or really take on projects that these local communities do not necessarily have the funds to deal with,” said Mike Elliott, executive director of the Marijuana Industry Group. “For some communities, this tax revenue has made a huge difference.”
Denver collected $29 million last year through taxes and licensing fees; the capitol city prefers to spend this revenue on “ramped-up regulation, enforcement, public health and education efforts.”
While bureaucrats both honest and crooked are reveling in the flush of cash, more importantly, Colorado citizens are reveling in their newfound freedom. Judging by the immense market impact of retail sales, cannabis is a popular product.
Perhaps people are finding it a better and safer alternative than alcohol. There is evidence that people are giving up prescription painkillers in favor of medical cannabis.
A fifth major benefit of legal cannabis sales is the dwindling black market. The federal government’s own statistics show that since 2012, when Washington and Colorado voted to legalize cannabis, trafficking offenses have fallen sharply.
Violence is less of a concern in cannabis trafficking than the issue of unknown origin and handling. With legalization, consumers know exactly where their product comes from and what is in it, including the THC content.
Competition that can operate in the open, instead of having to hide from a senseless drug war, is able to produce the highest quality product using responsible environmental practices.
The temptation of tax revenue is certainly one reason why lawmakers in Colorado and other states have endorsed recreational cannabis sales. But taxation should not be the guiding force for legalization.
by Valentin Katasonov, The News Doctors:
Many believe that the US dollar and the Chinese yuan could soon be engaged in a fierce battle for top honors in the world of international finance.
However, John Williams, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank (FRB) of San Francisco, stated on May 10 that the yuan could not edge out the dollar as the primary global reserve currency. And I am inclined to think that this banker is correct.
The transformation of the yuan into an official reserve currency
Last fall the International Monetary Fund made a very welcome decision for Beijing when it added the yuan to what is called the SDR basket (SDR – Special Drawing Rights, a supranational currency issued by the IMF in limited quantities). This means that the yuan now has the status of an official reserve currency, along with the dollar, euro, British pound sterling, and Japanese yen.
2nd Paragraphs of textAfter the financial crisis of 2007-2009, the yuan became competitive with the British pound and Japanese yen, due to the large volume of yuan transactions in the foreign exchange market and its use in international trade and other international payments. However, the yuan is quite different from the other four reserve currencies included in the IMF basket. Primarily this is because the Chinese currency is still not freely convertible. In addition, right on the eve of the IMF’s decision in August 2015, the yuan’s exchange rate slumped significantly enough to indicate instability.
During congresses of the Chinese Communist Party, the government has often reiterated that the yuan must become an international currency. De jure it is already halfway there (halfway because the IMF decision will not actually take effect until October). But there are big questions about the de facto part.
The means by which the yuan is being internationalized
Almost every month reports emerge that China has signed another currency swap agreement (regarding the exchange of national currencies between central banks) with some country or other. By early September 2015 China had 33 currency swap agreements in place. The total value of the limits of these agreements regarding China’s currency amounted to 3.16 trillion yuan.
Another issue tied to the internationalization of the yuan is China’s creation of overseas offshore clearing centers («yuan hubs»). A «yuan hub» is a type of «terminal» through which non-residents have access to the Chinese currency, as well as a variety of financial instruments denominated in yuan. These hubs oversee payments and settlements in yuan with Chinese companies and banks, including clearing services. Leading Chinese banks are appointed to be the institutions that service the «yuan hubs», working through the banks’ branches and offices in other countries.
Twenty «yuan hubs» were already in service or slated to open by early 2016. The largest of these are currently operating in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Seoul, London, Frankfurt, Paris, and Luxembourg.
Ambitious projects intended to raise the yuan’s international prestige are being launched in country after country. For example, in mid-2014, local companies in Malaysia issued Chinese-currency bonds worth 4.4 billion yuan. And the events that occurred in October 2015 in London were even more electrifying. The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) offered one-year bonds – denominated in Chinese currency – for sale on the stock exchange of that international financial center. The debt on offer was worth five billion yuan ($787 million). But bids were tendered for six times that amount – for 30 billion yuan (about $4.4 billion). The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the British bank HSBC were the primary coordinators of the debt sale. The Chinese banks ABC, Bank of China, Bank of Communications, CCB, and the English bank Standard Chartered were also involved in the deal.
The yuan is not utilized in transactions between third countries
Early last year, the newspaper Financial News, which is owned by the People’s Bank of China, reported that in 2014 cross-border payments in Chinese currency totaled 9.95 trillion yuan ($1.6 trillion). China’s foreign trade that year was worth 26.34 trillion yuan (exports and imports). According to official Chinese data, in 2014 25% of China’s total international trade employed the yuan. The yuan was also pressed into service in some of China’s other cross-border transactions, such as the exchange of investments, financial remittances, the distribution of dividends and other investment income, etc. In other words, the yuan is only playing the part of an international currency for China in its bilateral relations with other countries. First of all – with neighboring Asian countries. Second – with the nations of Latin America. And then third – with European countries (especially those outside the EU). The yuan is still almost never used with some of China’s biggest trading partners. Such as in trade with the US, for example.
The use of the yuan in trade and economic relations between third countries is still quite exotic. According to our estimates, such external transactions with the yuan are equal to one percent (or 2-3% at most) of China’s total cross-border yuan transactions, which is in striking contrast to the role of the dollar: approximately 2/3 of the total supply of dollars circulate outside their country of origin (the US) and are used in transactions between legal entities and private individuals in third countries.
The scope of the transactions in the offshore «yuan hubs» should not be overstated. The vast majority of the yuan found there (what are known as «offshore yuan») are held in bank deposits. According to PBoC, at the end of 2013 there were about 1.5 trillion of these offshore yuan stowed in deposit accounts. But experts claim that that number could grow to 2.8-3.0 trillion yuan by the end of 2015. According to various estimates, from 80 to 90% of all offshore yuan deposits are concentrated in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore. Some industry insiders call these centers China’s «financial provinces». Other centers where offshore yuan are amassed include London, Frankfurt, and Luxembourg. Now let’s compare offshore yuan deposits with the deposits in Chinese banks. According to PBoC, the latter amount to approximately 100 trillion yuan. The ratio between offshore and onshore yuan deposits is about 1.5-3%. And if one looks only at offshore deposits outside of the «financial provinces» (Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore), then that proportion shrinks to a fraction of 1%. To further illuminate how modestly the yuan in deposit accounts have been internationalized, let’s compare that currency with the US dollar. Deposits of «greenbacks» outside the United States are equal to approximately 30% of the dollar deposits inside the US.
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