Congress Finds AG Holder In Contempt
Equities
did it again - and no matter what narrative a mainstream media channel
needs to comprehend the monkey-hammering that occurs every second in
our 'market', it seems a fat-finger 50k block of S&P 500 e-mini
futures (or around $3.3bn notional equivalent) was enough drive the
nominal price index up 1% to close the day-session almost green (and
rather notably right at yesterday's closing VWAP). All the highly
correlated sectors of the equity market surged with them (led by Energy
and leaving financials just in the red) and while Treasury
yields did leak higher and EURUSD did rally, the moves were miniscule in
comparison to someone's desire to own $3.3bn equivalent equity market
risk into the close. Silver and Oil plunged early but
recovered some into the close as stocks surged but tracked each other
tick for tick for tick in general. Equities end the day modestly lower
with VIX modestly higher as they saw average volume (thanks to the
surge) but a drop in average trade size (algo tickler). Financials were saved by this
as most recovered some of their losses with JPM limping up to close at
Tuesday's closing VWAP. Credit and equity closed generally in line as
IG/HY were very quiet and just being reracked along with stocks as
opposed to seeing heavy flow.
"Mistakes
are what superior investing is all about" is how Oaktree's Howard
Marks begins his latest treatise, adding that for a trade to turn out
to be a major success, the other side has to have been a big mistake.
In any trade it is generally safe to say that one side has to be wrong
(since win/win transactions are far less common than win/lose) leaving
the buyer and seller unequally happy. Marks believes it is highly
desirable to focus on the topic of investing mistakes. First, it serves
as a reminder that the potential for error is ever-present, and thus
of the importance of mistake minimization as a key goal. Second, if one
side of every transaction is wrong, we have to ponder why we should
think it’s not us. Third, then, it causes us to consider how to
minimize the probability of being the one making the mistake. From the
real-world 'issues' with the efficient market hypothesis, to behavioral
sources of investment error, Marks concludes: "In the end,
superior investing is all about mistakes... and about being the person
who profits from them, not the one who commits them."
OBAMA: No. That’s not true, George. The — for us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it’s saying is, is that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase. People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I’m not covering all the costs.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But it may be fair, it may be good public policy…
OBAMA: No, but — but, George, you — you can’t just make up that language and decide that that’s called a tax increase. Any…
* * *
Nobody, except for the Supreme Court that is...
Americans
are either celebrating or damning the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling that
the individual mandate is constitutional. It is puzzling that the
individual mandate to purchase healthcare might be deemed
unconstitutional when the collective mandate to collect taxes to
purchase next-to-everything (including both healthcare and broccoli)
has been considered constitutional for the best part of a century. If
America wants to overturn current legal norms America needs to elect
different politicians. But with a greater and greater welfare-bound
population, it seems inevitable that more and more Americans will vote
themselves greater and greater quantities of free stuff.
What’s stopping Congress from mandating that patriotic Americans with
any spare cash dump it into government securities (or even flagging
equities)? One day, Atlas may shrug. Until that day, Congress just acquired a powerful new funding tool.
While no-one knows exactly what the 'whale' trade was (we suspect a senior tranche trade tail-risk hedge whose risk-management hedging went pear-shaped), how much was done ($150bn notional seems consensus), and what the losses are likely to be
(approximately $4bn is easy to see given the moves in IG9 10Y alone;
though $9bn seems a stretch - albeit the kitchen-sink nature and perhaps
inclusion of the losses from the long-book that this was supposed to
be hedging - and the other positions that were used to hedge - may push
it up to $6bn plus); we prefer to fall back to what has been a tested
and true arbiter of JPM's underlying value (ex equity exuberance) - the
CDS market. Given the current moves in prices, CDS appear to be looking for another 5-10% downside here before JPM's equity price is back in line with the credit market
(of course this could also mean CDS needs to tighten aggressively or
both). In the meantime, this message was brought to you by the acronyms
DVA, LLP, and DV01; the number '9'; and the word 'book-value'.
The
strawmen are coming thick and fast from the EU Summit as they break
for an evening snack. Between banking union 'plans' by year-end and ESM
credit seniority exemptions for Spain, the Finnish Minister for
European Union Affairs, Alexander Stubb, just suggested that EU rescue funds (ESM/EFSF) could potentially partly guarantee Italy's and Spain's bonds if the two countries provide collateral.
Such 'covered bonds' reduced his country's borrowing costs during an
economic crisis in the 1990s, and now "could be a solution which would
bring down the interest rates of Spain and Italy." As Bloomberg notes,
the proposal was "a halfway house" between no help at all for weaker eurozone members and full debt mutualization,
and a response to those "trying to say that governments such as
Finland, Germany and the Netherlands keep on (only) saying no."
Unfortunately, as we are all too well aware, despite this being a "constructive proposal from the Finnish government", there is no quality collateral
(and certainly trusting earmarks on tax revenue is unlikely to spur
demand) leaving the only government asset worth thinking about - Gold
- which leads us back to Germany's uber-solution the whole time. "At
the end of the day, EU Summits are always some kind of compromise" Stubb
added, by which we assume the periphery compromises its sovereignty
(and gold) and the Core compromises its taxpayers.
I'm PayPal Verified
Concluding this week's series of very weak Treasury auctions is today's $29 billion auction of 7 year paper which
despite pricing at a third consecutive record low yield (as more and
more are frontrunning the Fed's implicit desire to buy up every US
Treasury above 3 years in circulation) was actually merely the third
consecutive auction to price with a tail. With the When Issued trading
at 1.063%, the final high yield was 1.075%, sending off the first red
light. Then the Bid To Cover dropped to the lowest since October at
2.64, which was not good either. Finally, the Primary Dealers once again
were stuck holding more than half of the bag, or a take down of
51.48%, which was the highest since January, leaving just 42% to the
Indirects and a very low 6.49% to the Direct bidders - the lowest since
February 2011, and one can see why many are scratching their heads at
the seeming strength of the secondary US bond market and the
increasingly weak primary one.
In
a brief clip this morning, CNBC's Rick Santelli said a lot in a few
words. His critical insight was that today's decision is about process
and not preference and that the real decisions will be made in November
when it becomes 'the people's choice'. He is a big believer in the
'pragmatic process' we should all enjoy and suggests today's SCOTUS
decision (doing what they do best in comprehending the law) should be
'taken with respect' but notes the analogy to Europe: "You can try to have the mighty above tell the people below how they should live their lives, what they should get,
and 'the government big enough to give you everything you want, and',
in the words of Thomas Jefferson, 'big enough to take away everything
you have.' But what are we left with really? We are left with an issue that should, by all indications be voted on by the American public.
No matter how the Supreme Court decision worked out; no matter what the
legislative process tells us; no matter how ugly this process was to
get passed; in the end, I think it's more than appropriate that this will be, in my opinion, part of the referendum in November as to whether the public wants this or not."
It’s official. President George Bush’s Supreme Court appointee Chief
Justice John Roberts has sided with the liberal-leaning members of the
court and upheld the key provisions of the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act.
While the government can’t force Americans to buy any particular good or service, the Supreme Court’s landmark decision essentially says that your failure to purchase health care will require a tax penalty, thus leaving you with no other option if you want to avoid being taxed.
As bad as this is, a long-time White House Insider doesn’t necessarily see this is a complete loss for individual responsibility and liberty, but rather, a motivator that will catalyze opposition to Obama’s reelection hopes:
“I Lived. I Died. Now Mind Your Own Business.” That’s how I want my tombstone to read.
What do I have to hide? Everything! Which is to say, every piece of personal information someone or something demands to know is something I don’t want to tell because no one has the right to demand access to my life.
The right to privacy rests largely on a presumption of innocence. It assumes that — in the absence of evidence of wrongdoing — an individual has a right to shut his front door and tell other people (including government) to mind their own business.
Today, this assumption has been twisted inside out so that a desire for privacy means you have something to hide. You are expected to prove your innocence by revealing every financial transaction, by filling in pages of government paperwork, by allowing state agents to frisk your person and property when you board a plane or enter a public building. These invasions rest upon the presumption of guilt.
Privacy is also is the single most effective means of preserving freedom against an encroaching state. The act of closing your front door expresses the key distinction between the private and public spheres.
The private sphere consists of the areas of life over which you, as a peaceful human being, exert absolute authority and into which the government or any other uninvited party cannot properly intrude. Traditionally, the home or family is viewed as the private sphere. But it also includes the food you eat, your sex life, the books you read, your opinions of life.
Read More @ WhiskeyAndGunpowder.com
In a day full of political news, here is the latest fixture to the
soap opera to keep the electorate happy with water cooler talk.
HOUSE HAS ENOUGH VOTES FOR HOLDER CITATION; VOTE CONTINUES
House
votes 255-67 to hold AG Eric Holder in criminal contempt of Congress
for withholding documents in the Fast and Furious probe
Now, if only someone, somewhere can tell us the answer to the only
question that matters in a world that just happens to have run out of
money: who will pay for everything in this increasingly insane world,
we would be very grateful. Or is everyone too distracted by meaningless
flashing headlines, and ideological agenda to actually care?
Eurobeggars Continue To Be Choosers
Today's edition of the Eurosummit is over. There was some news, however, as always happens, there is a twist:
- EU LEADERS HAVE AGREED A GROWTH PACKAGE OF 120 BLN EUROS BUT ITALY AND SPAIN NOT PREPARED TO SIGN OFF ON IT - EU OFFICIALS - *DJ
- ITALY WON'T SIGN ONTO GROWTH PACT UNTIL BOND BUYING DEAL
In other words, beggars continue to be choosers, as Italy and Spain
will not agree on getting aid (!) until Germany relents on buying their
bonds. There was a reason why in the summer of 2011 we said that as
the Game Theory equilibrium shifts to defection, he who defects first,
defects best. Well, Greece is now leaps and bounds ahead of everyone as
the global ponzi unravels. And so the posturing for second place is
now on. We can't wait for the official German response, to both this,
and to the loss by Italy in Euro2012.
Peak idiocy.
In a day full of political news, here is the latest fixture to the soap opera to keep the electorate happy with water cooler talk.
HOUSE HAS ENOUGH VOTES FOR HOLDER CITATION; VOTE CONTINUES
House votes 255-67 to hold AG Eric Holder in criminal contempt of Congress for withholding documents in the Fast and Furious probe
Now, if only someone, somewhere can tell us the answer to the only question that matters in a world that just happens to have run out of money: who will pay for everything in this increasingly insane world, we would be very grateful. Or is everyone too distracted by meaningless flashing headlines, and ideological agenda to actually care?
Eurobeggars Continue To Be Choosers
Today's edition of the Eurosummit is over. There was some news, however, as always happens, there is a twist:- EU LEADERS HAVE AGREED A GROWTH PACKAGE OF 120 BLN EUROS BUT ITALY AND SPAIN NOT PREPARED TO SIGN OFF ON IT - EU OFFICIALS - *DJ
- ITALY WON'T SIGN ONTO GROWTH PACT UNTIL BOND BUYING DEAL
Peak idiocy.
from The Washington Examiner:
Republican governors are planning to ignore the Supreme Court’s
decision Thursday to uphold Obamacare hoping that the issue will drive
voters to dump President Obama in favor of Mitt Romney who has vowed to
kill the Affordable Care Act.
After the decision, the Republican Governors Association said that nothing should be done by the states until after the election, a clear signal that they believe a GOP president, House and Senate will kill the health care reform pushed through by Democrats and opposed by Republicans.
RGA Chairman Bob McDonnell said, “Today’s ruling crystallizes all that’s at stake in November’s election. The only way to stop Barack Obama’s budget-busting health care takeover is by electing a new president. Barack Obama’s health care takeover encapsulates his presidency: Obamacare increases taxes, grows the size of government and puts bureaucrats over patients while doing nothing to improve the economy.”
Read More @ WashingtonExaminer.com
Republican governors are planning to ignore the Supreme Court’s
decision Thursday to uphold Obamacare hoping that the issue will drive
voters to dump President Obama in favor of Mitt Romney who has vowed to
kill the Affordable Care Act.After the decision, the Republican Governors Association said that nothing should be done by the states until after the election, a clear signal that they believe a GOP president, House and Senate will kill the health care reform pushed through by Democrats and opposed by Republicans.
RGA Chairman Bob McDonnell said, “Today’s ruling crystallizes all that’s at stake in November’s election. The only way to stop Barack Obama’s budget-busting health care takeover is by electing a new president. Barack Obama’s health care takeover encapsulates his presidency: Obamacare increases taxes, grows the size of government and puts bureaucrats over patients while doing nothing to improve the economy.”
Read More @ WashingtonExaminer.com
from Politico:
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Thursday that the Republican-led House will vote on repealing the health care law soon after the July 4 recess.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Thursday that the Republican-led House will vote on repealing the health care law soon after the July 4 recess.
SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Apply Paint to Tape In Afternoon For End of Quarter
With Germany Down 2 Goals To Italy, Merkel Cancels Press Conference
No, we are not making this up:- MERKEL CANCELS SUMMIT PRESS CONFERENCE TONIGHT
- MERKEL SPOKESMAN SAYS TALKS ON GROWTH ACCORD ONGOING
The Research In Downward Stock Motion Continues As RIMM Misses Everything
For any RIMM shareholders expecting a miraculous deus ex, somewhat like Europe's broker beggars who still are choosers, to come out of left field in today's earnings reports, there was nothing but epic disappointment.- Revenues came in at $2.81 billion on expectations of $3.1 billion, and down from $4.91 billion a year prior
- EPS were $(0.37) on expectations of just a 7 cent miss.
- The outlook is just as horrible, with RIMM announcing it expects a Q2 operating loss
- It also see lower shipment volumes, and delayed the launch of Blackberry 10 to Q1 2013
- Finally, the firm will cut 5,000 jobs
Just A Very Visible Fat Finger?
Equities
did it again - and no matter what narrative a mainstream media channel
needs to comprehend the monkey-hammering that occurs every second in
our 'market', it seems a fat-finger 50k block of S&P 500 e-mini
futures (or around $3.3bn notional equivalent) was enough drive the
nominal price index up 1% to close the day-session almost green (and
rather notably right at yesterday's closing VWAP). All the highly
correlated sectors of the equity market surged with them (led by Energy
and leaving financials just in the red) and while Treasury
yields did leak higher and EURUSD did rally, the moves were miniscule in
comparison to someone's desire to own $3.3bn equivalent equity market
risk into the close. Silver and Oil plunged early but
recovered some into the close as stocks surged but tracked each other
tick for tick for tick in general. Equities end the day modestly lower
with VIX modestly higher as they saw average volume (thanks to the
surge) but a drop in average trade size (algo tickler). Financials were saved by this
as most recovered some of their losses with JPM limping up to close at
Tuesday's closing VWAP. Credit and equity closed generally in line as
IG/HY were very quiet and just being reracked along with stocks as
opposed to seeing heavy flow.Howard Marks On Mistakes, Biases, And The Efficient Market Fallacy
"Mistakes
are what superior investing is all about" is how Oaktree's Howard
Marks begins his latest treatise, adding that for a trade to turn out
to be a major success, the other side has to have been a big mistake.
In any trade it is generally safe to say that one side has to be wrong
(since win/win transactions are far less common than win/lose) leaving
the buyer and seller unequally happy. Marks believes it is highly
desirable to focus on the topic of investing mistakes. First, it serves
as a reminder that the potential for error is ever-present, and thus
of the importance of mistake minimization as a key goal. Second, if one
side of every transaction is wrong, we have to ponder why we should
think it’s not us. Third, then, it causes us to consider how to
minimize the probability of being the one making the mistake. From the
real-world 'issues' with the efficient market hypothesis, to behavioral
sources of investment error, Marks concludes: "In the end,
superior investing is all about mistakes... and about being the person
who profits from them, not the one who commits them."Bubbles Always Go Longer Than Most People Expect
Admin at Jim Rogers Blog - 2 hours ago
I’m absolutely convinced we’ll see higher interest rates. Of course, I was
convinced of that last year but rates went down. Bubbles always go longer
than most people expect and higher than people expect. That’s the
definition of a bubble. I have no idea how much longer it will last but I’m
not playing. - *in ETF Trends*
Related: iShares Barclays 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT), ProShares
UltraShort 20+ Year Treasuries ETF (TBT), iShares Lehman 7-10 Year Treasury
Bond ETF (IEF)
*Jim Rogers is an author, financial commentator and successful
international investor. He has been freque... more »
Animal Farm
Dave in Denver at The Golden Truth - 4 hours ago
*ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL. BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS* -
George Orwell, "Animal Farm"
There's not a lot to say about the SCOTUS decision on Obamacare other than,
"okay, now how does the Government pay for this?" That plus now that the
SCOTUS has upheld the ability of the Government to "mandate" how you have
to live your life by calling the individual mandate a "tax," where exactly
will our Government draw the line on regulating everything you do?
Quite honestly this is probably one of the most depressing events I have
witnessed with respect to the abdication of in... more »
Stephanopoulos: "You Reject That It’s A Tax Increase? " Obama: "I Absolutely Reject That Notion"
STEPHANOPOULOS: [The individual mandate] is still a tax increase.OBAMA: No. That’s not true, George. The — for us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it’s saying is, is that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase. People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I’m not covering all the costs.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But it may be fair, it may be good public policy…
OBAMA: No, but — but, George, you — you can’t just make up that language and decide that that’s called a tax increase. Any…
* * *
Nobody, except for the Supreme Court that is...
Congress just acquired a powerful new funding tool...
Americans
are either celebrating or damning the Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling that
the individual mandate is constitutional. It is puzzling that the
individual mandate to purchase healthcare might be deemed
unconstitutional when the collective mandate to collect taxes to
purchase next-to-everything (including both healthcare and broccoli)
has been considered constitutional for the best part of a century. If
America wants to overturn current legal norms America needs to elect
different politicians. But with a greater and greater welfare-bound
population, it seems inevitable that more and more Americans will vote
themselves greater and greater quantities of free stuff.
What’s stopping Congress from mandating that patriotic Americans with
any spare cash dump it into government securities (or even flagging
equities)? One day, Atlas may shrug. Until that day, Congress just acquired a powerful new funding tool.How Much Further For JPM?
While no-one knows exactly what the 'whale' trade was (we suspect a senior tranche trade tail-risk hedge whose risk-management hedging went pear-shaped), how much was done ($150bn notional seems consensus), and what the losses are likely to be
(approximately $4bn is easy to see given the moves in IG9 10Y alone;
though $9bn seems a stretch - albeit the kitchen-sink nature and perhaps
inclusion of the losses from the long-book that this was supposed to
be hedging - and the other positions that were used to hedge - may push
it up to $6bn plus); we prefer to fall back to what has been a tested
and true arbiter of JPM's underlying value (ex equity exuberance) - the
CDS market. Given the current moves in prices, CDS appear to be looking for another 5-10% downside here before JPM's equity price is back in line with the credit market
(of course this could also mean CDS needs to tighten aggressively or
both). In the meantime, this message was brought to you by the acronyms
DVA, LLP, and DV01; the number '9'; and the word 'book-value'.Finland's Proposal: Cash For Collateral
The
strawmen are coming thick and fast from the EU Summit as they break
for an evening snack. Between banking union 'plans' by year-end and ESM
credit seniority exemptions for Spain, the Finnish Minister for
European Union Affairs, Alexander Stubb, just suggested that EU rescue funds (ESM/EFSF) could potentially partly guarantee Italy's and Spain's bonds if the two countries provide collateral.
Such 'covered bonds' reduced his country's borrowing costs during an
economic crisis in the 1990s, and now "could be a solution which would
bring down the interest rates of Spain and Italy." As Bloomberg notes,
the proposal was "a halfway house" between no help at all for weaker eurozone members and full debt mutualization,
and a response to those "trying to say that governments such as
Finland, Germany and the Netherlands keep on (only) saying no."
Unfortunately, as we are all too well aware, despite this being a "constructive proposal from the Finnish government", there is no quality collateral
(and certainly trusting earmarks on tax revenue is unlikely to spur
demand) leaving the only government asset worth thinking about - Gold
- which leads us back to Germany's uber-solution the whole time. "At
the end of the day, EU Summits are always some kind of compromise" Stubb
added, by which we assume the periphery compromises its sovereignty
(and gold) and the Core compromises its taxpayers.
We The Sheeplez... is intended to reflect
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contribution.
I'm PayPal Verified Despite Third Consecutive Record Low Yield, Today's 7 Year Auction Prices Surprisingly Weak
Concluding this week's series of very weak Treasury auctions is today's $29 billion auction of 7 year paper which
despite pricing at a third consecutive record low yield (as more and
more are frontrunning the Fed's implicit desire to buy up every US
Treasury above 3 years in circulation) was actually merely the third
consecutive auction to price with a tail. With the When Issued trading
at 1.063%, the final high yield was 1.075%, sending off the first red
light. Then the Bid To Cover dropped to the lowest since October at
2.64, which was not good either. Finally, the Primary Dealers once again
were stuck holding more than half of the bag, or a take down of
51.48%, which was the highest since January, leaving just 42% to the
Indirects and a very low 6.49% to the Direct bidders - the lowest since
February 2011, and one can see why many are scratching their heads at
the seeming strength of the secondary US bond market and the
increasingly weak primary one.Santelli And The November Obamacare 'Referendum'
In
a brief clip this morning, CNBC's Rick Santelli said a lot in a few
words. His critical insight was that today's decision is about process
and not preference and that the real decisions will be made in November
when it becomes 'the people's choice'. He is a big believer in the
'pragmatic process' we should all enjoy and suggests today's SCOTUS
decision (doing what they do best in comprehending the law) should be
'taken with respect' but notes the analogy to Europe: "You can try to have the mighty above tell the people below how they should live their lives, what they should get,
and 'the government big enough to give you everything you want, and',
in the words of Thomas Jefferson, 'big enough to take away everything
you have.' But what are we left with really? We are left with an issue that should, by all indications be voted on by the American public.
No matter how the Supreme Court decision worked out; no matter what the
legislative process tells us; no matter how ugly this process was to
get passed; in the end, I think it's more than appropriate that this will be, in my opinion, part of the referendum in November as to whether the public wants this or not."
by Mac Slavo, SHTFPlan:
It’s official. President George Bush’s Supreme Court appointee Chief
Justice John Roberts has sided with the liberal-leaning members of the
court and upheld the key provisions of the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act.While the government can’t force Americans to buy any particular good or service, the Supreme Court’s landmark decision essentially says that your failure to purchase health care will require a tax penalty, thus leaving you with no other option if you want to avoid being taxed.
As bad as this is, a long-time White House Insider doesn’t necessarily see this is a complete loss for individual responsibility and liberty, but rather, a motivator that will catalyze opposition to Obama’s reelection hopes:
And the initial reports I’m getting are telling me there was a lot more clever going on inside that decision than the initial reaction will indicate. It’s the Obama Tax now. And states were given an out. The entire law is a big ass convoluted mess and the ruling has reinforced that fact. Obama will have to defend something he doesn’t understand, and Romney can now sit back and just repeat over and over again “repeal-repeal-repeal”.Read More @ SHTFPlan.com
by Wendy McElroy, Whiskey and Gunpowder:
“I Lived. I Died. Now Mind Your Own Business.” That’s how I want my tombstone to read.
What do I have to hide? Everything! Which is to say, every piece of personal information someone or something demands to know is something I don’t want to tell because no one has the right to demand access to my life.
The right to privacy rests largely on a presumption of innocence. It assumes that — in the absence of evidence of wrongdoing — an individual has a right to shut his front door and tell other people (including government) to mind their own business.
Today, this assumption has been twisted inside out so that a desire for privacy means you have something to hide. You are expected to prove your innocence by revealing every financial transaction, by filling in pages of government paperwork, by allowing state agents to frisk your person and property when you board a plane or enter a public building. These invasions rest upon the presumption of guilt.
Privacy is also is the single most effective means of preserving freedom against an encroaching state. The act of closing your front door expresses the key distinction between the private and public spheres.
The private sphere consists of the areas of life over which you, as a peaceful human being, exert absolute authority and into which the government or any other uninvited party cannot properly intrude. Traditionally, the home or family is viewed as the private sphere. But it also includes the food you eat, your sex life, the books you read, your opinions of life.
Read More @ WhiskeyAndGunpowder.com
by Louis James, Casey Research:
(Interviewed by Louis James, Editor, International Speculator)
L: So Doug, you’re off to FreedomFest 2012 shortly, where people will be able to hear your latest thoughts on many subjects. Maybe you can give us a sneak preview on whatever is uppermost on your mind today.
Doug: FreedomFest should be especially outrageous, since I’ll be tag-teaming with my friend Jeff Berwick of the Dollar Vigilante for a featured lunch. I’m not sure exactly what topics we’re going to discuss, but I hope we aren’t prosecuted for breaking too many federal, state, and local statutes at one sitting.
Anyway, lately I’ve been thinking about the EU’s rising tide of troubles. We talked about this last January, when I said it was coming, but it seems to me that at this point it’s rapidly coming to a head. A major financial and economic catastrophe in Europe is unavoidable. From there, it’s likely to spread out to the whole world.
L: I fear you’re right, but the latest headlines have it that the EU bigwigs are taking measures to make it easier for Greece’s new pro-bailout government to honor its austerity obligations. Doesn’t that mean the EU has dodged the bullet for now?
Doug: As far as I can tell, they’re doing absolutely nothing except print up more currency, in hope that will move the problem further into the future, when a deus ex machina device will magically appear.
Read More @ CaseyResearch.com
(Interviewed by Louis James, Editor, International Speculator)L: So Doug, you’re off to FreedomFest 2012 shortly, where people will be able to hear your latest thoughts on many subjects. Maybe you can give us a sneak preview on whatever is uppermost on your mind today.
Doug: FreedomFest should be especially outrageous, since I’ll be tag-teaming with my friend Jeff Berwick of the Dollar Vigilante for a featured lunch. I’m not sure exactly what topics we’re going to discuss, but I hope we aren’t prosecuted for breaking too many federal, state, and local statutes at one sitting.
Anyway, lately I’ve been thinking about the EU’s rising tide of troubles. We talked about this last January, when I said it was coming, but it seems to me that at this point it’s rapidly coming to a head. A major financial and economic catastrophe in Europe is unavoidable. From there, it’s likely to spread out to the whole world.
L: I fear you’re right, but the latest headlines have it that the EU bigwigs are taking measures to make it easier for Greece’s new pro-bailout government to honor its austerity obligations. Doesn’t that mean the EU has dodged the bullet for now?
Doug: As far as I can tell, they’re doing absolutely nothing except print up more currency, in hope that will move the problem further into the future, when a deus ex machina device will magically appear.
Read More @ CaseyResearch.com
by Brit Dee, Activist Post
In a dystopic world of constant propaganda,
it makes a refreshing change when a member of the establishment draws
attention to the absurdity of the vastly overexaggerated threat from
terrorism.
David Anderson QC, a barrister and the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, has done just that by pointing out as many people are killed each year in the UK by hornets, wasps and bees, as they are by terrorists.
The average number of deaths annually from terrorism in the UK this century has been a miniscule five – the same number as those who die of bee stings each year.
In a report published Wednesday Anderson said that in the 21st century terrorism had been “an insignificant cause of mortality in the United Kingdom” – whilst in 2010 alone in England and Wales, 29 people had drowned in the bath.
Read More @ Activist Post
In a dystopic world of constant propaganda,
it makes a refreshing change when a member of the establishment draws
attention to the absurdity of the vastly overexaggerated threat from
terrorism.David Anderson QC, a barrister and the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, has done just that by pointing out as many people are killed each year in the UK by hornets, wasps and bees, as they are by terrorists.
The average number of deaths annually from terrorism in the UK this century has been a miniscule five – the same number as those who die of bee stings each year.
In a report published Wednesday Anderson said that in the 21st century terrorism had been “an insignificant cause of mortality in the United Kingdom” – whilst in 2010 alone in England and Wales, 29 people had drowned in the bath.
Read More @ Activist Post
by Mike Adams, Natural News:
Breaking news: According to two Merck scientists who filed a False
Claims Act complaint in 2010 — a complaint which has just now been
unsealed — vaccine manufacturer Merck knowingly falsified its mumps
vaccine test data, spiked blood samples with animal antibodies, sold a
vaccine that actually promoted mumps and measles outbreaks, and ripped
off governments and consumers who bought the vaccine thinking it was
“95% effective.”
See that False Claims Act document at:
www.naturalnews.com/gallery/documents/Merck-False-Claims-Act.pdf
According to Stephen Krahling and Joan Wlochowski, both former Merck virologists, the Merck company engaged in all the following behavior:
• Merck knowingly falsified its mumps vaccine test results to fabricate a “95% efficacy rate.”
• In order to do this, Merck spiked the blood test with animal antibodies in order to artificially inflate the appearance of immune system antibodies. As reported in CourthouseNews.com:
Read More @ NaturalNews.com
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Breaking news: According to two Merck scientists who filed a False
Claims Act complaint in 2010 — a complaint which has just now been
unsealed — vaccine manufacturer Merck knowingly falsified its mumps
vaccine test data, spiked blood samples with animal antibodies, sold a
vaccine that actually promoted mumps and measles outbreaks, and ripped
off governments and consumers who bought the vaccine thinking it was
“95% effective.”See that False Claims Act document at:
www.naturalnews.com/gallery/documents/Merck-False-Claims-Act.pdf
According to Stephen Krahling and Joan Wlochowski, both former Merck virologists, the Merck company engaged in all the following behavior:
• Merck knowingly falsified its mumps vaccine test results to fabricate a “95% efficacy rate.”
• In order to do this, Merck spiked the blood test with animal antibodies in order to artificially inflate the appearance of immune system antibodies. As reported in CourthouseNews.com:
Read More @ NaturalNews.com
by Brittany Stepniak Wealth Wire:
India’s Reserve Bank (RBI) is about to clamp down on gold sales from
banks to customers. Rising bullion imports have been weakening the rupee
and “adding pressure to the current account deficit,” says the RBI.
Some experts believe the RBI’s attempt at market manipulation will merely increase the black market gold prices and speed up the decline of the Rupee when compared to other assets like gold and silver.
Banning gold sales to customers will do little to restore consumer confidence in the Rupee. Since last August, the Rupee’s value has fallen by at least 30 percent due to the euro zone sovereign debt crisis.
Read More @ WealthWire.com
India’s Reserve Bank (RBI) is about to clamp down on gold sales from
banks to customers. Rising bullion imports have been weakening the rupee
and “adding pressure to the current account deficit,” says the RBI.Some experts believe the RBI’s attempt at market manipulation will merely increase the black market gold prices and speed up the decline of the Rupee when compared to other assets like gold and silver.
Banning gold sales to customers will do little to restore consumer confidence in the Rupee. Since last August, the Rupee’s value has fallen by at least 30 percent due to the euro zone sovereign debt crisis.
Read More @ WealthWire.com
by Susanne Posel, Occupy Corporatism:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke
with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Muslim Brotherhood’s
takeover of the Egyptian government with the presidential “election” of
Mohammed Morsi.
Netanyahu said: “We expect to work together with the new administration on the basis of our peace treaty. I believe that peace is important to Israel. I believe that peace is important to Egypt. I believe that peace is a vital interest for both countries and I believe that peace is the foundation of stability in our region.”
Morsi has been speaking with Iran, one of Israel’s enemies, claiming to want to forage “closer relations [to] create a balance of pressure in the region, and this is part of my program.”
In March of this year, the Obama administration ensured the permanency of the Israeli agenda here in the US by the House passage of the United States – Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012 (USIESC). Through the executive order (EO), Obama laid out just how the US will support Israel:
• Production of military grade weapons
• Production and procurement of defense systems
• Allocate US military to assist Israeli forces
• Train Israeli forces
• Protection against common threats
• Expansion of NATO in Israel
• Provide intelligence
Read More @ OccupyCorporatism.com
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke
with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the Muslim Brotherhood’s
takeover of the Egyptian government with the presidential “election” of
Mohammed Morsi.Netanyahu said: “We expect to work together with the new administration on the basis of our peace treaty. I believe that peace is important to Israel. I believe that peace is important to Egypt. I believe that peace is a vital interest for both countries and I believe that peace is the foundation of stability in our region.”
Morsi has been speaking with Iran, one of Israel’s enemies, claiming to want to forage “closer relations [to] create a balance of pressure in the region, and this is part of my program.”
In March of this year, the Obama administration ensured the permanency of the Israeli agenda here in the US by the House passage of the United States – Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012 (USIESC). Through the executive order (EO), Obama laid out just how the US will support Israel:
• Production of military grade weapons
• Production and procurement of defense systems
• Allocate US military to assist Israeli forces
• Train Israeli forces
• Protection against common threats
• Expansion of NATO in Israel
• Provide intelligence
Read More @ OccupyCorporatism.com
by Michael Krieger, Liberty Blitzkreig
As if we needed another story to further solidify the running joke
that has become the U.S. stock market. In this article from Bloomberg
we find out that:
High-frequency trading firms are drawing scrutiny from U.S. regulators seeking evidence that they may be distorting market prices by conducting transactions with themselves, said two people with knowledge of the matter.
But fear not America, the SEC is on the case!
The Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission have sharpened their focus on high- frequency and algorithmic trading since May 6, 2010, when about $862 billion was erased from stock values in 20 minutes before share prices recovered from the plunge.
Wow, that makes me feel a lot better. Two years “sharpening their focus.”
Oh well, perhaps the CFTC will do something?
The CFTC has been considering issuing a so-called concept release, a step prior to a formal rulemaking, which could lead to new testing, supervision and oversight requirements for high- frequency and automated trading.
They are “considering a concept release!” Must be busy working on the Jon Corzine case right? Which beach is he laying out on this week?
Read More @ LibertyBlitzkreig.com
As if we needed another story to further solidify the running joke
that has become the U.S. stock market. In this article from Bloomberg
we find out that:High-frequency trading firms are drawing scrutiny from U.S. regulators seeking evidence that they may be distorting market prices by conducting transactions with themselves, said two people with knowledge of the matter.
But fear not America, the SEC is on the case!
The Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission have sharpened their focus on high- frequency and algorithmic trading since May 6, 2010, when about $862 billion was erased from stock values in 20 minutes before share prices recovered from the plunge.
Wow, that makes me feel a lot better. Two years “sharpening their focus.”
Oh well, perhaps the CFTC will do something?
The CFTC has been considering issuing a so-called concept release, a step prior to a formal rulemaking, which could lead to new testing, supervision and oversight requirements for high- frequency and automated trading.
They are “considering a concept release!” Must be busy working on the Jon Corzine case right? Which beach is he laying out on this week?
Read More @ LibertyBlitzkreig.com
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