Saturday, May 5, 2012

Americans Are Losing Trust In All U.S. Institutions

By: Washingtons Blog, via The Market Oracle:

The signs are everywhere: Americans have lost trust in our institutions.
The Chicago Booth/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index published yesterday shows that only 22% of Americans trust the nation’s financial system.Robert Shiller said Monday:
Our whole economy has been affected by variations in confidence. Central banks are sort of trusted, but the actions they have often affect people’s confidence by appearance rather than substance. We’re not in the most trusting mood now.”
The National Journal noted last week:
Seven in 10 Americans believe that the country is on the wrong track; eight in 10 are dissatisfied with the way the nation is being governed. Only 23 percent have confidence in banks, and just 19 percent have confidence in big business. Less than half the population expresses “a great deal” of confidence in the public-school system or organized religion. “We have lost our gods,” says Laura Hansen, an assistant professor of sociology at Western New England University in Springfield, Mass. “We lost [faith] in the media: Remember Walter Cronkite? We lost it in our culture: You can’t point to a movie star who might inspire us, because we know too much about them. We lost it in politics, because we know too much about politicians’ lives. We’ve lost it—that basic sense of trust and confidence—in everything.”
Read More @ TheMarketOracle.co.uk

 

 

A Whole Lot Of Uncivilized People Out There...

Charlie Munger: "gold is a great thing to sew onto your garments if you're a Jewish family in Vienna in 1939 but civilized people don't buy gold"
...and yet:
David Einhorn: "I will keep a substantial long exposure to gold -- which serves as a Jelly Donut antidote for my portfolio. While I'd love for our leaders to adopt sensible policies that would reduce the tail risks so that I could sell our gold, one nice thing about gold is that it doesn't even have quarterly conference calls
Kyle Bass: "Buying Gold Is Just Buying A Put Against The Idiocy Of The Political Cycle. It's That Simple!"
The uncivilized people have spoken, and the winner is...





Strategic Investment Conference: David Rosenberg

david-rosenberg
Stocks are currently priced for a 10% growth rate which makes bonds a safer investment in the current environment which cannot deliver 10% rates of returns. We are no longer in the era of capital appreciation and growth. The “baby boomers” are driving the demand for income which will keep pressure on finding yield which in turn reduces buying pressure on stocks. This is why even with the current stock market rally since the 2009 lows - equity funds have seen continual outflows. The “Capital Preservation” crowd will continue to grow relative to the “Capital Appreciation” crowd.... According to the recent McKinsey study the debt deleveraging cycles, in normal historical recessionary cycles, lasted on average six to seven years, with total debt as a percentage of GDP declining by roughly 25 percent. More importantly, while GDP contracted in the initial years of the deleveraging cycle it rebounded in the later years.




Tricks Of The Trade

Admin at Jim Rogers Blog - 2 hours ago

"When everybody goes to the same side of the boat, it's logical to take the opposite side of the trade." - *a famous quote * *Jim Rogers is an author, financial commentator and successful international investor. He has been frequently featured in Time, The New York Times, Barron’s, Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and is a regular guest on Bloomberg and CNBC.*




A Preview Of Monday Morning In Europe

While most will be following what appears to be an almost certain Hollande victory in the French presidential runoff elections tomorrow (InTrade odds around 10%), it is very likely that the Greek presidential election will have a greater acute impact on the political and financial facade of Europe, especially in the short term. As we noted in what we dubbed our first (of many) Greek election previews, the biggest problem facing the new political regime will be its near certain inability to form a coalition government (with just 32.6% of the vote going to PASOK and New Democracy)  that does not undo most of what has been achieved through popular sweat and tears over the past 2 years to assist Europe's bankers in transferring what little Greek wealth remains to fund the insolvent European bank balance sheets. This in turn could begin the latest cascading contagion waterfall, which coupled with an anti-austerity drive emanating from a newly socialist France will threaten to topple Angela Merkel's carefully constructed European hegemony.




One Simple Rule To Stop Unnecessary Wars

The trouble is that war is a great excuse for weapons contractors to make lots of money, and weapons contractors happily fund war-mongering politicians into power. That’s the self-perpetuating military industrial complex. So the problem then lies in differentiating the necessary actions from the unnecessary. I propose a simple heuristic for this purpose, one that if introduced would also render the war-mongering politician — the Congressman who votes to authorise, or the President who signs the authorisation into law — personally responsible:
If you start a war, you have to fight. If you cannot fight, then your nearest fit relative has to fight.
 





Berkshire Annual Meeting Highlights

While Charlie Munger has so far to comment on the 24K content of made in the basement tribalware, he and his partner have made quite a few other statements on items ranging far and wide, during the annual Berkshire Omaha convention, which year after year represents the annual pilgrimage for thousands to a crony capitalist Mecca, and which with the passage of time, has become increasingly more irrelevant. Why? Because with a $58 billion bet (on $37.8 billion in cash and equivalents) that asset prices will go higher, it is rather clear on what side of the 'bail out' argument, and its 'all in' fallback: central planning, Warren Buffett sits.




There Are 100 Million Working Age Americans That Do Not Have Jobs

from The Economic Collapse Blog:
The unemployment crisis in America is much worse than you are being told. Did you know that there are 100 million working age Americans that do not get up in the morning and go to work? No wonder why it seems like there are so many people that do not have jobs! According to the federal government, there are 12.6 million working age Americans that are considered to be “officially” unemployed, but there are another 87.8 million working age Americans that are not working either. The federal government considers those Americans to be “not in the labor force” so they are not included in the unemployment rate. In fact, this is one of the key ways that the government manipulates the unemployment numbers. The Obama administration would have us believe that the unemployment rate is going down and that that since the start of the last recession about as many Americans have left the labor force as we saw during the entire decades of the 1980s and 1990s combined. Of course that is a bunch of nonsense, but that is what the Obama administration would have us believe.
Read More @ TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com




Mans best Friend

[Ed. Note:With all of the continual unfolding events, in the "markets", in our communities and within the government, it seems a little reminder of our humanity may be appropriate. Thanks, Mr. Sinclair.]
by Jim Sinclair, JS Mineset:

Read More @ JSMineset.com




The Truth About Taxes? Big Governmnet Has Killed the Goose.

from JudgeNapolitanoFTW :

This video, produced in 2008, tells the blunt truth about how destructive our tax system is, impoverishing Americans and creating wealth for the government to destroy our freedoms.




BREAKING NEWS: Attempted GOP Election Fraud Against Ron Paul in Nevada?






If you trust Obama to veto CISPA or similar legislation you’re in for a rude awakening

by Madison Ruppert, Activist Post
It has become incredibly frustrating to deal with people who erroneously believe that Obama and his administration will live up to a single claim, promise, or statement. Especially since neither Obama nor his pals have given us a single reason to trust them while giving us tons of reasons not to, not the least of which being the fact that they claim they can kill you or me whenever they please, based on policies which they repeatedly have refused to justify in a court of law.
Back when the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 was being pushed through the House and Senate and making its way towards Obama’s desk I attempted to make it clear that the Obama administration’s supposed intention to veto the bill was nothing more than theater.
Read More @ Activist Post




MUST READ: Ron Paul Speech May 4, 2012 @ UCSD As Large As Barack Obama May 5, 2012 OSU: The Real 2012 Election

from Silver Vigilante:
On Friday night, as Ron Paul spoke to a crowd of thousands on the University of California, San Diego campus, the coastal sky turned a blue-gray to purple as the week faded into memory. Just after 7pm PST presidential candidate Ron Paul began his speech. In it, the three time candidate for President of the United States highlighted hallmark topics of his lauded career over which he laid out the reasons for the future. From Special Drawing Rights to coerced liquidity by the citizen to corporations friendly to government. Here is Ron Paul discussing the American Power Elite in a four part series at the end of the eighties, as he ran for president.
In San Diego on Friday, Paul covered a number of topics in his 45 minute speech from the Drug Enforcement Agency to the war on terror to the Federal Reserve and bankers. UCSD, as an aware and watching San Diego citizen might notice, is quite cozy with the military establishment hosting conventions of DARPA and perhaps even the CIA. Early in his speech he attacked federal officials, who he suggested should be held liable for their crime, for their handling of a 23 year-old engineering student left in a holding cell sans food or water for five days…
Read More @ SilverVigilante.com




Romney, Paul Supporters Clash at NV GOP – [the Fix Remains IN PLACE]

[Ed. Note: We are receiving word that Mittens supporters are dressing in RP gear and handing out a fake delegate slate, and that the fake one matches the Romney slate!]
from Las Vegas Sun:
Supporters of Republican Ron Paul’s unlikely presidential clashed with backers of presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney at Saturday’s state convention in Sparks in a showdown over selection of national convention delegates.
The convention comes days after a lawyer for the Republican National Committee suggested Nevada’s presence at the national convention in August could be jeopardized if Paul supporters swamp the state delegate contingent instead of proportioning representatives based on caucus results.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, won the Nevada caucus with half the vote, and under party rules delegates to the national convention are to be allotted proportionally to the caucus outcome. With Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum effectively out of the race, Romney is expected to get 20 of the state’s 28 delegates.
Read More @ LasVegasSun.com




Ron Paul Slugs At The Fed One More Time

from Testosterone Pit.com:
You just have to admire Ron Paul for his tenacity and non-flip-flopping straightforwardness—a breath of fresh air in the putrid morass of Washington—even if you disagree with his policies. And while he still can, before retiring from Congress, he is slugging at the Fed again. This time, as Chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology. The committee, which has oversight authority over the Fed, will convene on Tuesday to weigh six bills to “Reform or Abolish” the Federal Reserve, including his Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act. From the press release:
More and more people are beginning to understand just how destructive the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy has been. I hope that this hearing will kick start a serious discussion on the need to rein in the Fed,” said Chairman Paul. “100 years is far too long for Congress to have taken a hands-off approach. The Fed continues to reward Wall Street banks while destroying the dollar’s purchasing power and driving up the cost of living for average Americans. This reckless behavior must come to an end.
While his efforts to abolish the Fed have been fruitless, he scored a huge victory—after years of trying, and being shunted aside by members of Congress—when his legislation to slap the Fed with an audit was included in the Dodd-Frank Act.
Read More @ TestosteronePit.com




Americans Abandon MSM News in Droves: CNN Has Lowest-Rated Month In More Than A Decade In April

from Deadline.com:
It’s no April Fool’s joke — last month CNN delivered its lowest-rated month in total day in over a decade, since August 2001, the month before the September 11 attacks. The once-dominant cable news network posted decade-lows among both total viewers (357,000) and Adults 25-54 (108,000). Versus April last year, CNN was down 21% in total viewers and 29% in 25-54. In comparison, leader Fox News CHannel was up 2% in total viewers (1.1 million) and 1% in 25-54 (273,000) and No.2 MSNBC was flat in total viewers (425,000) and down 5% in 25-54 (139,000).
Read More @ Deadline.com.com




The Worst Yet to Come? Why Nuclear Experts Are Calling Fukushima a Ticking Time-Bomb

Experts say acknowledging the threat would call into question the safety of dozens of identically designed nuclear power plants in the U.S.
by Brad Jacobson, Alternet.org:
More than a year after the triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, the Japanese government, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) present similar assurances of the site’s current state: challenges remain but everything is under control. The worst is over.
But nuclear waste experts say the Japanese are literally playing with fire in the way nuclear spent fuel continues to be stored onsite, especially in reactor 4, which contains the most irradiated fuel — 10 times the deadly cesium-137 released during the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident. These experts also charge that the NRC is letting this threat fester because acknowledging it would call into question safety at dozens of identically designed nuclear power plants around the U.S., which contain exceedingly higher volumes of spent fuel in similar elevated pools outside of reinforced containment.
Reactor 4: The Most Imminent Threat
Read More @ Alternet.Org




Chief executive of GAVI wants to ‘immunize every kid on earth’

by Ethan A. Huff, Natural News:
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-backed group Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) is on a mission to forcibly vaccinate every single child on the planet against every single known “preventable disease.” And the group’s CEO, Seth Berkley, believes he can actually make this happen with enough cash, political force, and distribution systems in place.

Cloaked in a veil of humanitarianism, GAVI’s vaccination agenda has been spreading across the globe like a virus, as hundreds of millions of children around the world have already been vaccinated, and many more are on the way. But the group’s vaccination push will not stop until every child in the world is vaccinated, even if it means having to use force.
Read More @ NaturalNews.com




Alasdair Macleod: Why The Europe Situation is Certain to Get Worse





Two dead, 300 injured, 170 arrested as violence breaks out in Egypt

 

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