Feds Hold Hearing On Whether They Should ‘Regulate’ Sites Like Zero Hedge and We The Sheeplez...

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/12/2015 - 15:57
As America continues to drift toward totalitarianism, it is only a matter of time before political speech on the Internet is regulated.  It is already happening in other countries all around the globe, and control freak politicians in the US have begun a renewed push to regulate independent news websites. People are hungry for the truth, and an increasing number of Americans are waking up to the fact that they are not getting the truth from the corporate-controlled media.  But as the alternative media has grown, it was only going to be a matter of time before the establishment started cracking down on it.

The "Catastrophic Shutdown Of America's Supply Chain" Begins: Stunning Photos Of West Coast Port Congestion

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/12/2015 - 11:20
 

DANGER: One Of The Most Heavily Watched Indicators In The World Just Hit An 80-Year High!

from KingWorldNews:
Crude Storage Capacity – Trading desks and Wall Street watering holes are abuzz with chatter about how fast crude oil storage capacity is being used up. … Two days ago, another good friend and fellow trading veteran, Jim Brown, of Option Investor, also wrote on the topic. Here’s a bit of what he wrote:
Oil inventories are at 80 year highs and global storage is filling up fast. Once available storage is at capacity the impact to oil prices is going to be dramatic. Crude inventories in the U.S. have risen over 30 million barrels in the last four weeks to 413 million barrels. That is an 8% rise in inventories in just four weeks and this can’t continue forever. According to the EIA the U.S. has 373 million barrels of storage capacity in various tank farms plus 70 million barrels at the Cushing Oklahoma futures delivery hub. Refineries have another 148 million barrels of capacity.
Art Cashin continues @ KingWorldNews.com

What do you think will happen after the economy collapses?

Caught On Tape: What Happens When You Don't Pay Minimum Wage

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/12/2015 - 20:26 Presented with little comment aside to note that a robot burger-flipper would never react like this were he (or she) to be fired from their job at McDonalds...
 

But don't worry... We have this...

Meanwhile, Inside The White House

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/12/2015 - 16:25
 
 

2015 US Economic Data Is Worst Since 2009

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/12/2015 - 20:40 As Steve Ricchiuto explained to a stunned CNBC audience, the US economy is not as awesome as the narrative would proclaim. In fact, based on the underlying data (as opposed to anecdotal perspectives like Jim Cramer this morning dismissing hard data - "I am no longer using these aggregate retail sales reports" - in favor of rose-colored glass half-full CEO expectations from earnings calls) 2015 has seen US macro data deteriorate and disappoint the most since 2006... and weakest absolute start to the year since 2009.
 

Great Britain Creates a Cyber Brigade to Manipulate Public Opinion

by Vladimir Platov, Activist Post:
With each passing day Great Britain is losing its reputation as a proud international power since becoming widely recognized for what it is – an obedient servant of Washington that is losing credibility at a record pace. Therefore, British authorities have been seeking ways to “achieve greatness.” At the same time, they realize perfectly well, given the deepening economic and social crisis in the United Kingdom, it could hardly aspire to achieve success in the reconstruction of its image as a great industrial power, a champion of naval warfare or a flourishing cultural center. No wonder then, that over the last decade Britain’s focus has been devoted to purely destructive activities, such as establishing conditions for new conflicts around the globe and providing “assistance” to the White House in its quest for military and political interventions in the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Hong Kong, and the list goes on.
It’s no coincidence then that the White House advised London to establish a special unit within its military structure – the British Cyber Command, transferring up to 1500 officers under its command just “for starters”. One must note that Washington has already created its own special unit for cyberwarfare back in 2009. This unit goes under the name of United States Cyber Command, with its headquarters being located at Fort Meade (Maryland).
Read More @ Activist Post

The New-Normal Down-Under

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/12/2015 - 20:16 If you thought the utter insanity of the new-normal's central-planner-driven "bad news is great news" inflate-a-thon was reserved for The Fed, think again... This week Australia has had the dubious honour of seeing a huge 'surprise' surge in its unemployment rate to a 13-year high at 6.4% (from 6.1%) - which was largely ignored by the cognoscenti as anomalous data, but really just shows the utter farce that seasonal adjustments have become on government data. Tonight something else happened... the Australian stock market has soared 11% in the last 2 weeks to its highest sincee May 2008. Welcome to the farcical world of modern finance...
 

U.S. Falls Again in World Press Freedom Index – Now Ranked #49 Globally

from Liberty Blitzkrieg:
In the United States, 2014 was marked by judicial harassment of New York Times investigative reporter James Risen in connection with the trial of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer charged under the Espionage Act with giving him classified information. US journalists are still not protected by a federal shield law that would guarantee their right not to name their sources or reveal other confidential information about their work. Meanwhile, at least 15 journalists were arbitrarily arrested during clashes between police and demonstrators protesting against black teenager Michael Brown’s fatal shooting by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.
– From Reporters Without Borders’ 2015 World Press Freedom Index
The greatest myth we Americans collectively like to tell to ourselves is that we live in the “land of the free.” We particularly pride ourselves on “freedom of the press” — enshrined in the U.S. Constitution — but how free is this press really?
Read More @ Libertyblitzkrieg.com

Central Banks Buy The Second Most Gold In 50 Years: A Look At Who's Buying

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/12/2015 - 19:18 After significant buying in recent years, some may have questioned if this would continue in 2014. The answer was loud and clear: central bank net purchases amounted to 477t over the year, 17% above 2013’s impressive 409t. This represents the second highest year of central bank net purchases for 50 years, after the 544t addition to global gold reserves reported in 2012.  Russia had by far the greatest appetite amongst those who raised gold reserves. The country accumulated an additional 173t (36% of total central bank demand in 2014) over a turbulent 12 months. 2014 was bookended by tension and uncertainty for the country: geopolitical antagonism with the Ukraine, and the resulting international sanctions, at the beginning of the year was followed by severe economic distress towards the end.
 

Financial Markets: Pinocchio’s Enchanted Island

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/12/2015 - 18:55 We have been living in a new era of “fantasy finance” since the Fed officially intervened massively, in 2009, and since the non-official control of the gold price, in 2013. Investors are now thinking that everything is possible: stocks rising into infinity, oil being given to us by producers and refiners almost for free (it sells cheaper than mineral water), countries that can borrow at historically ri-di-cu-lous rates, and, no later than just a few days ago, a bank in Denmark that pays people to contract a real estate loan (negative rates) ! The financial world, with its lies and immoral management, has been transformed into a Pinocchio’s Enchanted Island... for adults !
 

The Central Planners Are Failing Fast

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/12/2015 - 18:20 For the last few years, the mantra of central planners around the world has been "if at first you don't succeed... buy a bigger printing press." However, as Citi's Matt King notes, the following four charts show the monetary experiments are having less and less impact (on the real economy and the pretend stock-market-based one) as peak debt overhangs swamp anything but financial asset inflation.
 

Is a Strong Dollar Good or Bad for the U.S. Economy?

by Pam Martens and Russ Martens, Wall Street on Parade:
The “thriving” U.S. economy as reported in a Bloomberg News headline this morning – a characterization which supports the U.S. central bank’s position and little else – was further undermined by the 8:30 a.m. release of retail sales for January, which dramatically undercut analysts’ estimates and came in at a decline of 0.8 percent. January’s drop followed a negative 0.9 percent reading in December. Consumer spending represents roughly 70 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in the U.S. If the consumer is retrenching, despite all the prognostications for all that extra money sluicing through their bank accounts from cheaper gas at the pump and lower heating fuel bills, the economy can hardly said to be “thriving.”
The troublesome headline at Bloomberg News this morning was this: “Who’s Afraid of the Rising Dollar? Not the Thriving U.S. Economy.” The article, by Shobhana Chandra and Christopher Condon, delivered the comforting message that you needn’t “believe everything you hear about the corrosive effect a more expensive dollar has on corporate America. U.S. businesses and the world’s largest economy can handle the greenback’s strength just fine.”
Read More @ WallStreetonParade.com

Now On The Endangered Species List: Bond Traders

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/12/2015 - 17:10 The bond market may have gotten so fragmented in recent months that even Bloomberg was amazed at how little trading volume it necessary to make a price impact, the amount of bond traders (and certainly salesmen), and certainly their bonuses, appeared to only go up. "Appeared" being the key word, however, because as Bloomberg reports, "the average number of dealers providing prices for European corporate bonds dropped to a low of 3.2 per trade last month, down from 8.8 in 2009, according to data compiled by Morgan Stanley."
 

Dijsselbloem Pours Cold Water On Greek Compromise: "Don't Get Your Hopes Up"

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/12/2015 - 16:59 Just over an hour ago, what appears to have been a strawman now was issued by Bloomberg via leaked sources from Greek and German officials that proclaimed talk of a "compromise" deal that makes everyone happy in Europe. However, as the leaders exited today's summit, the tone of their responses did not exactly sound compromise-prone:
*DIJSSELBLOEM SAYS GREECE PROCESS GOING TO BE V. DIFFICULT, "DON'T GET YOUR HOPES UP YET" ON GREECE
*MERKEL URGES GREECE TO MAKE UP ITS MIND SOON ON FINANCING
Hardly the resoundingly positive spin we saw earlier. Poland's Tusk, Finland's Stubb, and good old Juncker also chimed in with the latter commenting on Greece's "anti-social" behavior. Tsipras made some neutral statements, then came out swinging, "The MoU as we knew it is over. The same goes for the troika. All these years, the burden fell on the poorest. Our aim is to restore the sense of justice."

Is Russia Planning A Gold-Based Currency?

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/12/2015 - 16:35 The “perfect-storm” of geopolitical instability, diplomatic isolation, severe currency depreciation, and economic decline now confronting Russia has profoundly damaged Moscow's international standing, and possibly for the long-term. Yet, it is precisely such conditions that may push the country’s leadership into taking the radical step that will secure its world-player status once and for all: the adoption of a gold-exchange standard.
 

A Neo-European Marshall Plan for Europe Is Not a Good Idea

from The Daily Bell:
For the third time in a century, America will have to ride to Europe’s rescue … From the sidelines, the US is watching the unfolding Greek tragedy with growing horror. It must stand ready to assist as the euro breaks apart. It would be the third time in a century. Will America once more end up having to save the fratricidal Europeans from themselves? – UK Telegraph
Dominant Social Theme: The US always protects the free world.
Free-Market Analysis: This article proposes that the US ought to get involved in European affairs as it has “twice before” in the past century. When the article talks about “involvement,” what is considered necessary is apparently a large sum of US cash that will allow Greece in particular to survive an otherwise implosive austerity.
Read More @ TheDailyBell.com

Central Banks Buy 75 Boeing Dreamliners Worth Of Gold In 2014

by Dave Kranzler, Investment Research Dynamics:
Please note – And this is extremely important – the amount of gold purchased by Central Banks in 2014 DOES NOT include any amount of gold that was accumulated by China’s Central Bank, the Peoples Bank of China. This is a fact that mainstream media or the World Gold Council will not report.
The World Gold Council is reporting that Central Banks purchased 477.2 metric tonnes of gold in 2014. Apparently this would be enough to purchase 75 Boeing 787 Dreamliners. Governments added 477.2 metric tons to their reserves, the second-biggest increase in 50 years and 17 percent more than a year earlier, the World Gold Council said in a report Thursday. Based on the average price of gold in 2014, central banks probably paid about $19.4 billion. A Boeing 787-9 has a $257.1 million retail price, according to the company’s website. – Bloomberg News
Read More @ Investmentresearchdynamics.com

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