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TISA: Another Secret Treaty in the Works

“This Wednesday evening there is to be a “Public Information Session and Discussion” (pdf) about TISA: the Trade in Services Agreement. If, like me, you’ve never heard of this, you might think it’s a new initiative. But it turns out that it’s been under way for more than a year: the previous USTR, Ron Kirk, informed Congress about it back in January 2013 (pdf). Aside from the occasional laconic press release from the USTR, a page put together by the Australian government, and a rather poorly-publicized consultation by the European Commission last year, there has been almost no public information about this agreement. A cynic might even think they were trying to keep it quiet.

Perhaps the best introduction to TISA comes from the Public Services International (PSI) organization, a global trade union federation representing 20 million people working in public services in 150 countries. Last year, it released a naturally skeptical brief on the proposed agreement (pdf):

At the beginning of 2012, about 20 WTO members (the EU counted as one) calling themselves “The Really Good Friends of Services” (RGF) launched secret unofficial talks towards drafting a treaty that would further liberalize trade and investment in services, and expand “regulatory disciplines” on all services sectors, including many public services. The “disciplines,” or treaty rules, would provide all foreign providers access to domestic markets at “no less favorable” conditions as domestic suppliers and would restrict governments’ ability to regulate, purchase and provide services. This would essentially change the regulation of many public and privatized or commercial services from serving the public interest to serving the profit interests of private, foreign corporations.

The Australian government’s TISA page fills in some details:

The TiSA negotiations will cover all services sectors. In addition to improved market access commitments, the negotiations also provide an opportunity to develop new disciplines (or trade rules) in areas where there has been significant developments since the WTO Uruguay Round negotiations. There negotiations will cover financial services; ICT services (including telecommunications and e-commerce); professional services; maritime transport services; air transport services, competitive delivery services; energy services; temporary entry of business persons; government procurement; and new rules on domestic regulation to ensure regulatory settings do not operate as a barrier to trade in services.

If that sounds familiar, it’s because very similar language is used to describe TAFTA/TTIP, which aims to liberalize trade and investment, to provide foreign investors with access to domestic markets on the same terms as local suppliers, to limit a government’s ability to regulate there by removing “non-tariff barriers” — described above as “regulatory settings” — and to use corporate sovereignty provisions to enforce investors’ rights.

 

Those similarities suggest TISA is part of a larger plan that includes not just TAFTA/TTIP, but TPP too, and which aims to cement the dominance of the US and EU in world trade against a background of Asia’s growing power. Indeed, it’s striking how membership of TISA coincides almost exactly with that of TTIP added to TPP:….”

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State of the Union: Mind Your Own Beeswax

“Americans in large numbers want the U.S. to reduce its role in world affairs even as a showdown with Russia over Ukraine preoccupies Washington, a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.

In a marked change from past decades, nearly half of those surveyed want the U.S. to be less active on the global stage, with fewer than one-fifth calling for more active engagement—an anti-interventionist current that sweeps across party lines.

The findings come as the Obamaadministration said Tuesday that Russia continues to meddle in Ukraine in defiance of U.S. and European sanctions. Pro-Russian militants took over more government buildings in eastern Ukraine, while officials at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said satellite imagery showed no sign that Russia had withdrawn tens of thousands of troops massed near the border.

The poll showed that approval of President Barack Obama’s handling of foreign policy sank to the lowest level of his presidency, with 38% approving, at a time when his overall job performance drew better marks than in recent months…..”

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Marc Faber: U.S. Equities Still Have a High Valuation & We Have Not Had the Big Correction Yet

“Technology stocks may have suffered a sell-off in the last few weeks, but the U.S. market as a whole is still set for a dramatic correction this year, Marc Faber, the market watcher known as “Dr. Doom” told CNBC Wednesday.

The editor and publisher of The Gloom, Boom and Doom Report said that he personally favors emerging market securities that are still “cheap,” adding that he had even made investments in Iraq last year.

marc-faber

 

“We had already a big break in the market but we haven’t had yet the big break in the overall market,” he said.

In early April, the wider technology sector was hit by a selloff in momentum stocks which saw the Nasdaq Composite Index fall below 4,000 points for the first time since early February. Momentum stocks are fast-rising stocks which can unexpectedly reverse when investors fear they have overshot and a bubble is brewing. The Nasdaq Composite suffered its worst weekly hit since June 2012, and recorded its longest weekly losing streak since late 2012.

Telecommunication, social media, and biotechnology companies were all part of the move lower, but Faber believes this selling will eventually hit the wider indexes, with energy and utility companies seeing a sharp pullback. Faber reiterated his concerns that equities were facing a crash that could be worse than the financial world saw in 2008.

“I believe it is too late to buy the U.S. stock market,” he said. Faber questioned the future returns of these U.S. stocks, highlighting that record low interest rates and high valuations mean companies will not be able to give back bumper returns to their investors….”

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Mortgage Applications Hit Their Lowest Levels Since December 2000

“NEW YORK (Reuters) – Applications for U.S. home mortgages fell last week to their lowest level since December 2000 as both refinancing and purchase applications declined, an industry group said on Wednesday.

 

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and home purchase demand, fell 5.9 percent to 333.2 in the week ended April 25. That was the lowest level since December 2000, the group said.

“Purchase application volume remains weak despite other data which indicated the overall pace of economic growth is picking up…..”

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Will the Real Cliven Bundy Please Stand Up

“Related – WATCH – CNN Talks To Black Bundy Bodyguard: ‘He Is Not A Racist. He’s Pretty Much Treating Me Just Like His Own Family

Follow @PatDollard/PatDollard.com on Twitter, to keep up with the truth you won’t get elsewhere

SEE THAT CLIVEN BUNDY IS ACTUALLY AN ADVOCATE FOR BLACKS, HISPANICS

Watch Bundy explain how we need to keep things from going backwards for blacks, and how the Federal government has created a neo-slave class via entitlement dependency that is so bad it is arguably worse than plantation slavery was…..”

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Original clip

[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agXns-W60MI 450 300]

Edited clip

[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbnRnhrNFEY 450 300]

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On the Matter of Artificial Neural Networks

“Imagine a major city completely covered by a video surveillance system designed to monitor the every move of its citizens. Now imagine that the system is run by a fast-learning machine intelligence, that’s designed to spot crimes before they even happen. No, this isn’t the dystopian dream of a cyber-punk science fiction author, or the writers of TV show “Person of Interest”. This is Boston, on the US East Coast, and it could soon be many more cities around the world.

In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon Bombings in April of last year, as law enforcement and the world’s media struggled to make sense of the tragedy, the Boston Police Department contacted a company well-known for developing innovative and cutting-edge surveillance technology based on advanced artificial intelligence.

Behavioral Recognition Systems, Inc. (BRS Labs) is a software development company based out of a nondescript office block in Houston Texas, with the motto: “New World. New security.”

Headed by former Secret Service special agent John Frazzini, the company brings a crack team of security gurus to bear on its ambitious artificial intelligence projects. With the heavy traffic of Houston’s West Loop South Freeway churning out fumes and noise just outside, BRS Labs has developed one of the most advanced, and perhaps most sinister, surveillance platforms known to man.

Reason-based analysis

AISight (pronounced “eyesight”), works by using a particular form of reason-based analysis of video footage that promises to change the way humans conduct their surveillance of other humans.

Artificial intelligence is already in use across surveillance networks around the world. At high security sites like prisons, nuclear facilities or government agencies, it’s commonplace for security systems to set up a number of rules-based alerts for their video analytics. So if an object on the screen (a person, or a car, for instance) crosses a designated part of the scene, an alert is passed on to the human operator. The operator surveys the footage, and works out if further action needs to be taken.

This method of detecting suspicious behaviour has a number of drawbacks: it’s labour-intensive for the operators, each rule has to be programmed by a technician, and routinely generates more false positives than anything useful. What’s more, it means you can’t move the camera or change the environment without having to reprogram all your rules.

BRS Labs’ AISight is different because it doesn’t rely on a human programmer to tell it what behaviour is suspicious. It learns that all by itself.

The system enables a machine to monitor is environment, and build up a detailed profile of what can be considered “normal” behaviour. The AI can then determine what kind of behaviour is abnormal, without human pre-programing.

Artificial neural networks….”

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El-Erian: What to Expect From the Fed This Week

“By Mohamed A. El-Erian

There are four major things to keep in mind when the U.S. Federal Reserve’s policy-making committee meets this week to decide what, if anything, to change in its approach to supporting the economic recovery.

1. The Context

The majority view at the Fed is that a healing U.S. economy is gradually approaching “liftoff,” and that the economic weakness experienced earlier this year can be attributed largely to unseasonably cold weather. Because policy makers believe the pickup in growth is likely to happen in an economy that has been operating below potential, the Fed isn’t very concerned about inflationary pressure. If anything, the worry is that inflation could be too low.

The Fed’s post-meeting statement will provide updated insights on officials’ comfort with this contextual characterization, with a fuller picture emerging when the minutes of the meeting are released three weeks later. In the meantime, don’t expect any dramatic changes in the Fed’s assessment of the economy, positive or negative. And don’t expect much talk of either “secular stagnation” — the idea that the U.S. has entered an extended period of slow growth and persistently high unemployment — or the threat posed by Ukraine’s deepening geopolitical crisis.

2. Policy Decisions

Given the Fed’s relatively sanguine outlook, expect it to continue the gradual phasing out of its extraordinary bond-buying program, known as quantitative easing. Specifically, it will probably announce a $10 billion reduction in its monthly purchases of U.S. Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities, to $45 billion a month. Although the Fed will undoubtedly reiterate its willingness to change course if necessary, this will do little to dislodge consensus market expectations of a total exit from quantitative easing later this year. Indeed, only a major economic surprise — and, I stress, major — would alter the current policy course.

Look for the Fed to hold its short-term interest-rate near zero, and to provide additional guidance on the future course of interest rates as part of its broader goal of enhancing transparency. Such forward guidance includes more holistic measures of the labor market, as opposed to the unemployment rate alone, and a move toward putting greater emphasis on inflation metrics. All this will be done in the context of an important pivot from a target-based approach, such as the calendar guidance the Fed was providing not long ago, to an objective-based one.

3. Market Reactions….”

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Confirmed: U.S. Armed Al Qaeda to Topple Libya’s Gaddaffi

“We reported in 2012 that the U.S. supported Al Qaeda in Libya in its effort to topple Gadaffi:

The U.S. supported opposition which overthrew Libya’s Gadaffi was largely comprised of Al Qaeda terrorists.

According to a 2007 report by West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center’s center, the Libyan city of Benghazi was one of Al Qaeda’s main headquarters – and bases for sending Al Qaeda fighters into Iraq – prior to the overthrow of Gaddafi:


The Hindustan Times reported last year:

“There is no question that al Qaeda’s Libyan franchise, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, is a part of the opposition,” Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer and a leading expert on terrorism, told Hindustan Times.

It has always been Qaddafi’s biggest enemy and its stronghold is Benghazi.

Al Qaeda is now largely in control of Libya.  Indeed, Al Qaeda flags were flown over the Benghazi courthouse once Gaddafi was toppled.

(Incidentally, Gaddafi was on the verge of invading Benghazi in 2011, 4 years after the West Point report cited Benghazi as a hotbed of Al Qaeda terrorists. Gaddafi claimed – rightly it turns out – that Benghazi was an Al Qaeda stronghold and a main source of the Libyan rebellion.  But NATO planes stopped him, and protected Benghazi.)

The Daily Mail reported yesterday:

A self-selected group of former top military officers, CIA insiders and think-tankers, declared Tuesday in Washington that a seven-month review of the deadly 2012 terrorist attack has determined that it could have been prevented – if the U.S. hadn’t beenhelping to arm al-Qaeda militias throughout Libya a year earlier.

‘The United States switched sides in the war on terror with what we did in Libya, knowingly facilitating the provision of weapons to known al-Qaeda militias and figures,’ Clare Lopez, a member of the commission and a former CIA officer, told MailOnline….”

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Economist: Fed Taper Will Create Recession and Destroy the Wealth Effect

“The Federal Reserve’s move to eliminate its monthly asset purchasing program will cause a “collapse in asset prices and a severe recession,” according to economist Michael Pento.

It will be all part of the end of the so-called wealth effect touted by former central bank Chairman Ben Bernanke, who asserted that rising asset prices in the stock market and elsewhere would help boost confidence and generate economic activity, Pento charged in a blog post Monday.

The longtime Fed critic said the withdrawal of quantitative easing will cause a sharp decrease in housing prices and stocks despite consensus predictions that the effects will be minimal.

Very soon the amount of QE will be close to, if not exactly at zero. And without banks supporting asset prices by consistently creating new money at the behest of the Fed, stocks and home prices have nowhere to go but down…..”

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Unelected Neo Nazis Begin a Killing Spree in Ukraine

“Deadly clashes broke out as the unelected regime occupying Kiev attempted to restart what it is calling “anti-terror” operations in eastern Ukraine where anti-fascist protesters have begun rising up. Several have been killed during clashes in the eastern Ukrainian town of Slavyansk where Kiev has set armored vehicles and helicopter gunships upon its own population.

The Western media continues to refer to those opposing the unelected regime in Kiev as “pro-Russian,” and continues to insist that the uprising in the east is either backed by Moscow or in fact, being carried out directly by Russians operating in Ukrainian territory. However, the US and EU have failed categorically to prove such claims with evidence, and have since been caught circulating falsified images and news in attempts to bolster their claims.

The current regime in Kiev came to power at the height of the so-called “Euromaidan” protests where admittedly armed Neo-Nazi militants seized power, ransacking the headquarters of their political opponents and driving out the elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych. While the armed, violent seizure of power was initially covered up by the Western media, the BBC itself would later admit in a short video report that indeed armed Neo-Nazi militants spearheaded the coup.

The nature of the regime in Kiev is also being papered over by the Western media, covering up the fact that the two main opposition parties that seized power, Svoboda and “Fatherland,” are in fact led by a collection of Neo-Nazis, bigots, racists, and anti-Semites. In a desperate attempt to cover up this lack of legitimacy, the West has sent many high level officials including a leading US Senator and the US Vice President to Kiev to lend both political and material support.

The latest visit by Vice President Joseph Biden appears to have been timed specifically to help coordinate a renewed push into eastern Ukraine, after Ukrainian troops surrendered en masse last week – refusing to carry out operations against their fellow countrymen. Reports indicate that Kiev has now turned to fanatical ultra-right militant groups in an attempt to put down growing unrest against the unelected regime. The Voice of Russia reported in its article, “Ukrainian Right Sector says it will join crackdown on pro-federalization protesters,” that:

The ultranationalist Ukrainian Right Sector movement said Thursday members of organization will join paramilitary units currently being formed to crackdown on pro-federalization protests in eastern Ukraine. The movement said in a statement on its website that its members will join so-called “battalions of territorial defense” and military units.

Right Sector was an important force at the Euromaidan protests that began in November in Kiev. Its members were notorious for using clubs, Molotov cocktails, and firearms against Ukrainian police during the protests, and for wearing Nazi-inspired insignia.

The use of fanatical, irregular forces, armored vehicles, and aircraft including warplanes and helicopter gunships, signifies an escalation of violence by Kiev against its own people through the use of clearly disproportionate force aimed at terrorizing the population. That the United States and European Union have spent the past 3 years engaged in what they called the “responsibility to protect” in both Libya and Syria, and are now backing a regime that is arraying military forces against its own people, marks a new low in both the impartial application of “international law” and the perceived legitimacy of the Western nations now increasingly involved in Ukraine’s political crisis.

West’s Hypocrisy: Libya vs. Ukraine 

In March of 2011, US President Barack Obama said the following regarding America’s military intervention in Libya (emphasis added):

In the face of the world’s condemnation, Qaddafi chose to escalate his attacks, launching a military campaign against the Libyan people.Innocent people were targeted for killing. Hospitals and ambulances were attacked. Journalists were arrested, sexually assaulted, and killed. Supplies of food and fuel were choked off. Water for hundreds of thousands of people in Misurata was shut off. Cities and towns were shelled, mosques were destroyed, and apartment buildings reduced to rubble. Military jets and helicopter gunships were unleashed upon people who had no means to defend themselves against assaults from the air.

Confronted by this brutal repression and a looming humanitarian crisis, I ordered warships into the Mediterranean. European allies declared their willingness to commit resources to stop the killing. The Libyan opposition and the Arab League appealed to the world to save lives in Libya. And so at my direction, America led an effort with our allies at the United Nations Security Council to pass a historic resolution that authorized a no-fly zone to stop the regime’s attacks from the air, and further authorized all necessary measures to protect the Libyan people.

Of course, years before the “Arab Spring” in 2011, regime change in Libya was a long-standing geopolitical goal of the West. The charges President Obama made in his speech regarding the situation in Libya were based on intentionally falsified evidence exposed by the very so-called “human rights” organization who fabricated them. Worse yet, those “innocent people” President Obama cited in his 2011 speech were later confirmed to be heavily armed militants from the US State Department designated terrorist organization, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) – Al Qaeda’s Libyan franchise who would later, with NATO backing, travel to fight in Syria as well.

As heavy weapons are now being turned against the Ukrainian people by the unelected regime in Kiev – led by literal Neo-Nazis, bigots, racists, and anti-Semites – the US and EU through NATOhave signaled their full unflinching support for Kiev, going as far as offering weapons, training, and the backing by NATO troops of Kiev’s so-called “anti-terror” operations now unfolding tentatively in eastern Ukraine. NATO troops have been deployed to nearby Poland while naval forces have been shifting into the Black and Baltic seas, all an attempt to pressure Russia.

Paradoxically, NATO is helping Kiev do in reality what it falsely accused Libya of doing in 2011 – before applying sanctions, a no-fly zone, and eventually full spectrum bombardment of Libya while it armed and funded proxy militant forces on the ground to overthrow the government. NATO’s overt contradiction undermines its perceived authority and endangers further its already strained legitimacy.

As NATO’s failure and deceit continues to come to light in Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan, its ability to project its power and execute its agenda across Eastern Europe is becoming increasingly tenuous…..”

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Large U.S. Banks Move Swaps Offshore to Hide From Regulators

“Updated April 27, 2014 4:52 p.m. ET

 

As regulators tighten rules on the U.S. swaps market, large American banks are maneuvering to take some of the business overseas.

Banks including Bank of America Corp. BAC -2.51% , Citigroup Inc., C -1.20% Goldman Sachs Group Inc., GS -1.62% J.P. Morgan Chase JPM -0.87% & Co. and Morgan Stanley MS -1.16% are changing the terms of some swap agreements made by their offshore units so they don’t get caught by U.S. regulations, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

The changes have generally focused on new trades between the London affiliates of U.S. banks, or between those units and non-U.S. banks, which combined constitute a large portion of swaps trading, the people said.

The moves mean the U.S. parent bank is no longer the guarantor of some swaps issued by its foreign affiliate. Instead, any liability for those swaps lies solely with the offshore operation.

Without that tie to the U.S. parent, those contracts won’t fall under U.S. jurisdiction and so won’t be subject to new, stricter rules that include reporting and a requirement that the historically telephone-traded contracts be traded on U.S. electronic platforms.

Having swaps come under European oversight is more attractive because derivatives trading rules on the Continent aren’t likely to be implemented until 2016 at the earliest, allowing the swaps mostly sold in London to be conducted in relative secrecy. Even then, some bankers anticipate the European rules won’t be as strict.

While a seemingly arcane shift, the unusual step of removing the parent guarantees could shift more of the $700 trillion swaps market to London, Europe’s financial hub.

U.S. regulators are aware that banks are making these changes and so far haven’t raised objections, according to the people. The moves are legal, and some officials have argued that the severing of guarantees could even help reduce the risk to the U.S. parent bank should a counterparty to an offshore contract renege on their agreement, some people said.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission would become concerned if banks moved a substantial portion of their swaps business offshore, a more blatant attempt the skirt the rules, one official said.

Still, detractors say that the U.S. parent bank may still ultimately choose to bear responsibility for any losses, as some did during the financial crisis.

The changes could “come back to haunt the American taxpayer,” said Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, which describes itself as an advocate for public interest in financial markets. Mr. Kelleher said he and others had warned lawmakers that banks may stop guaranteeing swaps sold by their offshore affiliates…..”

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Economic Expansion Threatened by Falling Asian Exports

“For decades, Asia fueled its development by selling products to the West. That engine is now sputtering, threatening to sap the region’s economic expansion.

Combined exports from Asia’s four export powerhouses—China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan—slid 2% in the first three months of this year from the same period last year.

China’s drop is particularly striking. Beijing reported Friday that its first-quarter current-account surplus, which measures all trade and one-time transfers, shrank to a three-year low.

Toyota Aqua hybrid vehicles sat parked ahead of shipment at the port of Sendai, Japan, on March 7.Bloomberg News

Exports have seen sharp downturns over the past two decades, after the 1997 Asian financial crisis and the 2001 bursting of the dot-com bubble. But they quickly rebounded to double-digit growth after little more than a year as the world’s economy healed.

Not this time. Exports jumped in 2010 in the wake of the global financial crisis. But they have slumped since and now are barely in positive territory, even as the U.S. economy has stirred back to life.

This sluggishness reflects a sharp shift in the global economy. For decades, going back to the 1960s, Asian economies led by Japan, then South Korea, Taiwan and China, became the world’s factory floor, marshaling cheap labor to propel a wave of exports.

Today, it is unclear whether exports can still provide that oomph. Overall growth is slowing in many Asian nations, forcing policy makers to ponder whether demand from their own consumers can fill the void.

“That model that Asia had of relying on the trade channel—that’s gone,” said Markus Rodlauer, deputy director for Asia and the Pacific at the International Monetary Fund in Washington.

 

Theories for the shift proliferate. Prominent among them: The U.S. recovery this time is different. In the five years since emerging from recession, growth in all goods and services in the U.S. has averaged just 1.8%, half the pace of the previous three expansions.

The recovery is gathering steam, but is being powered by capital investment in areas like oil-and-gas exploration that don’t rely much on imports…..”

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Documentary: The Collective Evolution

Cheers on your weekend!

[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H70kaRvVeUs 450 300]

global.consciousness

 

[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rD78i6eoGkM 450 300]

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United States is No Longer Home to World’s Richest Middle Class

“The US middle class, long a symbol of the nation’s economic might and proof that the “American Dream” was more than just a dream, is no longer the world’s wealthiest.

Citizens of other advanced nations have received “considerably larger raises” over the past 30 years, with after-tax middle class incomes in Canada, which lagged substantially behind the US in 2000, now surpassing those south of the border, the New York Times reports. Also, poor individuals in much of Europe are now earning more than poor Americans.

Although US economic growth equals or surpasses that of most other nations, a smaller percentage of American households are enjoying the benefits. In 2010, median Canadian income caught up to the US, at approximately $18,700. It has since very likely surpassed it, based on continuing trends. Median household income in Western Europe still lags behind Canada and the US, with nations such as Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden fast closing the gap.

In European nations suffering economic crises, like Greece and Portugal, incomes have fallen dramatically in recent years.

But poor Americans are faring worse than the poor in most of Europe, the researchers found. An American family at the 20th percentile of income distribution earns much less than a similar family in Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland or the Netherlands. In 1979, the opposite was true.

“The idea that the median American has so much more income than the middle class in all other parts of the world is not true these days,” Harvard University economist Lawrence Katz told the Times. “In 1960, we were massively richer than anyone else. In 1980, we were richer. In the 1990s, we were still richer.”

The Times figures, which are based on surveys conducted over the past 35 years, compared incomes in 20 nations. The research was carried out by LIS, which publishes the Luxembourg Income Study Database. Researchers from LIS and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York collected data on household income in the surveyed nations. Sample sizes ranged from 5,000 to 120,000 households.

The researchers found three main factors influencing the decline of the US middle class.

-Educational attainment has risen much more slowly in the United States than in much of the developed world over the past 30 years, making it more difficult for the US economy to retain highly skilled, higher-paying jobs.

-Income inequality is much more pronounced in the United States. The American middle and lower class enjoy a smaller slice of the proverbial income “pie.” Corporate executives reap a much larger share of that “pie” in the United States than in other advanced nations, the minimum wage is lower in the US and labor unions are weaker. Raises are also lower for middle and lower class Americans, even as executive bonuses soar to record amounts. Meanwhile, the rich pay lower taxes in the United States, allowing them to keep — and invest — more of their income….”

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Real Gangsters Run the World, FUCK WHAT YOU BELIEVE

“Suppressed Details of 9/11 Criminal Insider Trading lead directly into the CIA`s Highest Ranks

CIA Executive Director “Buzzy” Krongard managed Firm that handled “put” Options on UAL

by Michael C. Ruppert

FTW Publications, 9 October 2001, Centre for Research on Globalisation, globalresearch.ca, 20 October 2001

Although uniformly ignored by the mainstream U.S. media, there is abundant and clear evidence that a number of transactions in financial markets indicated specific (criminal) foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That evidence also demonstrates that, in the case of at least one of these trades — which has left a $2.5 million prize unclaimed — the firm used to place the “put options” on United Airlines stock was, until 1998, managed by the man who is now in the number three Executive Director position at the Central Intelligence Agency. Until 1997 A.B. “Buzzy” Krongard had been Chairman of the investment bank A.B. Brown. A.B. Brown was acquired by Banker’s Trust in 1997. Krongard then became, as part of the merger, Vice Chairman of Banker’s Trust-AB Brown, one of 20 major U.S. banks named by Senator Carl Levin this year as being connected to money laundering. Krongard’s last position at Banker’s Trust (BT) was to oversee “private client relations.” In this capacity he had direct hands-on relations with some of the wealthiest people in the world in a kind of specialized banking operation that has been identified by the U.S. Senate and other investigators as being closely connected to the laundering of drug money.

Krongard (re?) joined the CIA in 1998 as counsel to CIA Director George Tenet. He was promoted to CIA Executive Director by President Bush in March of this year. BT was acquired by Deutsche Bank in 1999. The combined firm is the single largest bank in Europe. And, as we shall see, Deutsche Bank played several key roles in events connected to the September 11 attacks.

The Scope of Known Insider Trading

Before looking further into these relationships it is necessary to look at the insider trading information that is being ignored by Reuters, The New York Times and other mass media. It is well documented that the CIA has long monitored such trades – in real time – as potential warnings of terrorist attacks and other economic moves contrary to U.S. interests. Previous stories in FTW have specifically highlighted the use of Promis software to monitor such trades.

It is necessary to understand only two key financial terms to understand the significance of these trades. “Selling Short” is the borrowing of stock, selling it at current market prices, but not being required to actually produce the stock for some time. If the stock falls precipitously after the short contract is entered, the seller can then fulfill the contract by buying the stock after the price has fallen and complete the contract at the pre-crash price. These contracts often have a window of as long as four months. “Put Options,” purchased at nominal prices of, for example, $1.00 per share, are sold in blocks of 100 shares. If exercised, they give the holder the option of selling selected stocks at a future date at a price set when the contract is issued. Thus, for an investment of $10,000 it might be possible to tie up 10,000 shares of United or American Airlines at $100 per share, and the seller of the option is then obligated to buy them if the option is executed. If the stock has fallen to $50 when the contract matures, the holder of the option can purchase the shares for $50 and immediately sell them for $100 – regardless of where the market then stands.

A “call option” is the reverse of a put option, which is, in effect, a derivatives bet that the stock price will go up.

A September 21 story by the Israeli Herzliyya International Policy Institute for Counterterrorism, entitled “Black Tuesday: The World’s Largest Insider Trading Scam?” documented the following trades connected to the September 11 attacks:

  • Between September 6 and 7, the Chicago Board Options Exchange saw purchases of 4,744 put options on United Airlines, but only 396 call options… Assuming that 4,000 of the options were bought by people with advance knowledge of the imminent attacks, these “insiders” would have profited by almost $5 million.
  • On September 10, 4,516 put options on American Airlines were bought on the Chicago exchange, compared to only 748 calls. Again, there was no news at that point to justify this imbalance;… Again, assuming that 4,000 of these options trades represent “insiders,” they would represent a gain of about $4 million.
  • [The levels of put options purchased above were more than six times higher than normal.]
  • No similar trading in other airlines occurred on the Chicago exchange in the days immediately preceding Black Tuesday.
  • Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., which occupied 22 floors of the World Trade Center, saw 2,157 of its October $45 put options bought in the three trading days before Black Tuesday; this compares to an average of 27 contracts per day before September 6. Morgan Stanley’s share price fell from $48.90 to $42.50 in the aftermath of the attacks. Assuming that 2,000 of these options contracts were bought based upon knowledge of the approaching attacks, their purchasers could have profited by at least $1.2 million.
  • Merrill Lynch & Co., which occupied 22 floors of the World Trade Center, saw 12,215 October $45 put options bought in the four trading days before the attacks; the previous average volume in those shares had been 252 contracts per day [a 1200% increase!]. When trading resumed, Merrill’s shares fell from $46.88 to $41.50; assuming that 11,000 option contracts were bought by “insiders,” their profit would have been about $5.5 million.
  • European regulators are examining trades in Germany’s Munich Re, Switzerland’s Swiss Re, and AXA of France, all major reinsurers with exposure to the Black Tuesday disaster. [FTW Note: AXA also owns more than 25% of American Airlines stock making the attacks a “double whammy” for them.]

On September 29, 2001 – in a vital story that has gone unnoticed by the major media – the San Francisco Chronicle reported, “Investors have yet to collect more than $2.5 million in profits they made trading options in the stock of United Airlines before the Sept. 11, terrorist attacks, according to a source familiar with the trades and market data.

“The uncollected money raises suspicions that the investors – whose identities and nationalities have not been made public – had advance knowledge of the strikes.” They don’t dare show up now. The suspension of trading for four days after the attacks made it impossible to cash-out quickly and claim the prize before investigators started looking.

“… October series options for UAL Corp. were purchased in highly unusual volumes three trading days before the terrorist attacks for a total outlay of $2,070; investors bought the option contracts, each representing 100 shares, for 90 cents each. [This represents 230,000 shares]. Those options are now selling at more than $12 each. There are still 2,313 so-called “put” options outstanding [valued at $2.77 million and representing 231,300 shares] according to the Options Clearinghouse Corp.”

“…The source familiar with the United trades identified Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown, the American investment banking arm of German giant Deutsche Bank, as the investment bank used to purchase at least some of these options…”

As reported in other news stories, Deutsche Bank was also the hub of insider trading activity connected to Munich Re. just before the attacks.

CIA, the Banks and the Brokers

Understanding the interrelationships between CIA and the banking and brokerage world is critical to grasping the already frightening implications of the above revelations. Let’s look at the history of CIA, Wall Street and the big banks by looking at some of the key players in CIA’s history. Clark Clifford – The National Security Act of 1947 was written by Clark Clifford, a Democratic Party powerhouse, former Secretary of Defense, and one-time advisor to President Harry Truman. In the 1980s, as Chairman of First American Bancshares, Clifford was instrumental in getting the corrupt CIA drug bank BCCI a license to operate on American shores. His profession: Wall Street lawyer and banker.

John Foster and Allen Dulles – These two brothers “designed” the CIA for Clifford. Both were active in intelligence operations during WW II. Allen Dulles was the U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland where he met frequently with Nazi leaders and looked after U.S. investments in Germany. John Foster went on to become Secretary of State under Dwight Eisenhower and Allen went on to serve as CIA Director under Eisenhower and was later fired by JFK. Their professions: partners in the most powerful – to this day – Wall Street law firm of Sullivan, Cromwell…..”

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[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeE3-rOG7i4 450 300]

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2007 & 2014 Parallels

“The similarities between 2007 and 2014 continue to pile up.  As you are about to see, U.S. home sales fell dramatically throughout 2007 even as the mainstream media, our politicians andFederal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernankepromised us that everything was going to be just fine and that we definitely were not going to experience a recession.  Of course we remember precisely what followed.  It was the worst economic crisis since the days of the Great Depression.  And you know what they say – if we do not learn from history we are doomed to repeat it.  Just like seven years ago, the stock market has soared to all-time high after all-time high.  Just like seven years ago, the authorities are telling us that there is nothing to worry about.  Unfortunately, just like seven years ago, a housing bubble is imploding and another great economic crisis is rapidly approaching.

Posted below is a chart of existing home sales in the United States during 2007.  As you can see, existing home sales declined precipitously throughout the year…

Existing Home Sales 2007

Now look at this chart which shows what has happened to existing home sales in the United States in recent months.  If you compare the two charts, you will see that the numbers are eerily similar…

Existing Home Sales Today

New home sales are also following a similar pattern.  In fact, we just learned that new home sales have collapsed to an 8 month low

Sales of new single-family homes dropped sharply last month as severe winter weather and higher mortgage rates continued to slow the housing recovery.

New home sales fell 14.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 385,000, down from February’s revised pace of 449,000, the Census Bureau said.

Once again, this is so similar to what we witnessed back in 2007.  The following is a chart that shows how new home sales declined dramatically throughout that year…

New Home Sales 2007

And this chart shows what has happened to new homes sales during the past several months.  Sadly, we have never even gotten close to returning to the level that we were at back in 2007.  But even the modest “recovery” that we have experienced is now quickly unraveling…

New Home Sales Today

If history does repeat, then what we are witnessing right now is a very troubling sign for the months to come.  As you can see from this chart, new home sales usually start going down before a recession begins.

And don’t expect these housing numbers to rebound any time soon.  The demand for mortgages has dropped through the floor.  Just check out the following excerpt from a recent article by Michael Lombardi…”

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S&P 500 Profit Outlook is Looking Up

“Corporate America is letting the sun shine in on second-quarter profit outlooks, raising hope that the first quarter’s storms are past.

Second-quarter outlooks for S&P 500 companies so far are much more optimistic than the past two quarters. Fewer companies are cutting estimates and those that are reducing forecasts haven’t done so as aggressively as in the past.

As a result, the market has rebounded from its recent selloff. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has climbed 3.5 percent in the last eight trading sessions, leaving it less than 1 percent from its all-time closing high.

“The downward revisions for the second quarter right now are very, very mild,” said Nick Raich, chief executive officer of The Earnings Scout, an independent research firm specializing in earnings trends, in Cleveland.

“That’s the positive for this earnings season.”

Negative outlooks still outnumber positive ones for the second quarter, but at a ratio of 2.9 to 1, they are well below the 4.7-to-1 ratio at a similar point in the previous earnings period and the 7.8-to-1 ratio for the one before that, Thomson Reuters data showed.

Surprisingly strong results have come from many high-profile names, including Apple, Caterpillar, Netflix and United Technologies.

That’s offset what Wall Street had expected to be a lackluster first quarter. Estimates were slashed, heading into this earnings period as the unusually harsh winter hampered transportation, kept people out of stores and raised heating costs….”

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