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Planned Layoffs Spike 17% in April Do to M&A Activity

“Global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas says planned layoffs surged in April.

The firm’s monthly survey of businesses found that employers announced more than 40,000 job cuts, 17 percent more than in March. And it’s up six percent from April a year ago.

John Challenger, CEO of the outplacement company, blames an increase in mergers and acquisitions. 

He notes that “companies don’t need two corporate headquarters” when they combine resources…..”

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DOJ Now Pressuring Banks to Refuse Service to Gun Stores

“Under the program, the DOJ, headed by Attorney General Eric Holder, is attempting to shut down various legal businesses, including firearm dealers, dating services, purveyors of drug paraphernalia and pornography distributors, by coercing financial institutions to close the bank and merchant accounts associated with these businesses.

The businesses targeted follow a 2011 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation bulletin which lists all of the above legal activities and others as “merchant categories that have been associated with high-risk activity” involving “disreputable merchants.”

“Although many clients of payment processors are reputable merchants, an increasing number are not and should be considered ‘high risk,’” the bulletin reads. “These disreputable merchants use payment processors to charge consumers for questionable or fraudulent goods and services.”

In other words, the FDIC, and now the DOJ, are trying to demonize gun shops by causing banks to view legal firearm dealers as no different than pushers of “ponzi schemes” and “get rich products,” two “high-risk” activities that are also listed in the bulletin.

In 2012, Bank of America told a gun company, McMillan Group International, that because the company was expanding into firearms manufacturing, the bank no longer wanted McMillan’s business.

“We have to assess the risk of doing business with a firearms-related industry,” the bank’s representative told operations director Kelly McMillan.

Last month, BitPay, a U.S.-based bitcoin processor, likewise refused to do business with gun dealerMichael Cargill of Central Texas Gunworks due to a similar policy.

And also in March, a Florida couple who own a gun store received a letter from BankUnited informing them that the bank was closing their business account, which they opened seven years prior, and gave them three days to transfer their money elsewhere.

“I was very angry,” Elizabeth Liberti told the Miami New Times. “They were very inconsiderate. We had all our credit cards going through that bank.”

“All of a sudden, we had to run and find another bank to keep our business going. We shut down for two weeks, and they wouldn’t even tell us why.”

BankUnited finally gave them a reason some time later.

“This letter in no way reflects any derogatory reasons for such action on your behalf, but rather one of industry,” wrote branch manager Ricardo Garcia. “Unfortunately your company’s line of business is not commensurate with the industries we work with.”

And it isn’t just gun stores that the Justice Dept. is targeting.

Last week, Xbiz, a news outlet pertaining to adult entertainment, reported that Chase Bank was sending out letters to hundreds of porn stars notifying them that their accounts would be terminated.

“I got a letter and it was like please cancel all transactions, please fix your automatic pay account and make sure everything’s taken care of by May 11,” actress Teagan Presley told Xbiz. “I called them and they told me that because I am, I guess, public and am recognizable in the adult business, they’re closing my account.”

“Even though I don’t use my account, it’s my personal account that I’ve had since I was 18, when it was Washington Mutual before Chase bought them out.”

And when Presley went to Bank of America to open a new account, the bank also turned her away….”

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Yellen: Fed Will Seek to ‘Tailor’ Oversight of Community Banks

“Thank you for inviting me to ICBA’s policy summit. I am pleased to have this opportunity to share my views on some of the key issues facing community banks and how I see the community banking model fitting into the financial system in the years ahead. In particular, I will discuss steps the Federal Reserve has taken to address the “too-big-to-fail” problem and how these steps affect community banks; I will describe how the Fed strives to improve our understanding of the unique role that community banks play in the economy; and then I’ll show how we are using this knowledge to better tailor our supervisory expectations and approaches to community banks.

As you may know, before I rejoined the Federal Reserve Board as Vice Chair in 2010, I had the privilege of serving for six years as president and chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. The 12th district is the largest of the Fed’s districts, covering nine western states, and it is home to a significant number of community banks, the majority of which are supervised by the San Francisco Fed directly or indirectly through bank holding companies. Community bankers helped me, when I served as president, to take the pulse of the local economy and also to understand how regulatory and policy decisions in Washington affect financial institutions of different sizes and types, sometimes in very different ways. During the financial crisis, I saw firsthand the challenges that community banks faced in a crisis they did little to cause, and I have felt strongly ever since that the Fed must do what it can to ensure that the actions taken following the crisis do not place undue burdens on your institutions.

I believe a healthy financial system relies on institutions of different sizes performing a variety of functions and serving different needs. In some communities, your banks are actually situated on Main Street, but all community banks serve Main Street by providing credit to small business owners, homebuyers, households, and farmers.

Because of their important role, I am pleased that the condition of many community banks has been improving. Although there is still considerable revenue pressure from low margins, earnings for most community banks have rebounded since the financial crisis. Asset quality and capital ratios continue to improve, and the number of problem banks continues to decline. Notably, after several years of reduced lending following the recession, we are starting to see slow but steady loan growth at community banks. While this expansion in lending must be prudent, on balance I consider this growth an encouraging sign of an improving economy.

Addressing Too Big to Fail
Let me begin by discussing an issue that I know has been on the minds of many community bankers: how policymakers are addressing the problem of banks that are perceived to be too big to fail.1 Community banks share the interest we all have in reducing the systemic risk posed by firms that are large, complex, and interconnected, and also in reducing any potential competitive advantages that such firms may enjoy as a result of too-big-to-fail.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) addresses the too-big-to-fail issue through steps intended to limit both the likelihood that systemically important firms would fail and the potential damage from any that do. The Federal Reserve and the other financial regulatory agencies have issued a number of regulations to implement the requirements set forth in the legislation and to enhance the supervision of the largest financial firms.

But even before Dodd-Frank became law, the Federal Reserve began to strengthen its oversight of the largest, most complex banking firms and require these firms to materially improve their capital adequacy. For example, in 2009, we conducted the first stress tests of the largest 19 U.S. bank holding companies. That test has subsequently evolved into our annual Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review, known as CCAR, which requires all bank holding companies with total assets of $50 billion or more to submit annual capital plans for review by the Federal Reserve. CCAR helps ensure that the largest banking organizations will have enough capital to continue operating through times of economic and financial stress.2 To be clear, as the federal banking agencies have stated previously, these stress testing and capital planning requirements do not, and should not, apply to community banks.3

In addition to strengthening requirements for stress testing and capital planning, the agencies have also strengthened capital requirements for the largest firms by approving more robust risk-based and leverage capital requirements. Because the financial crisis demonstrated the importance of having adequate levels of high-quality capital at banks of all sizes, many elements of the revised capital framework apply to all banking organizations. In designing the revised capital rules, however, the agencies considered financial stability risks and adjusted the final rules to make the requirements substantially more rigorous for the largest, most systemically important banking organizations than for community banks.4

While we have taken a number of steps to address too-big-to-fail concerns, our work is not finished. Because the failure of a systemic institution could impose significant costs on the financial system and the economy, the Board recently finalized a requirement for the eight large, globally systemic banks to meet a significantly higher leverage requirement than other banking organizations. And we are working to implement risk-based capital surcharges for these systemically important firms. We also need to ensure that the new rules are embedded in our supervision of the largest firms; and, we must continue to watch for emerging sources of systemic risk and take steps as appropriate to address these risks.

One such risk that the Federal Reserve has been monitoring closely is the reliance of some firms on potentially volatile short-term wholesale funding.5 We are carefully considering the systemic vulnerabilities that may be posed by overreliance on short-term wholesale funding and are weighing potential policy responses. While it would be premature to indicate whether or how we might address these vulnerabilities, I can say that few, if any, community banks are reliant on levels of short-term wholesale funding that could raise concerns about systemic risk, and regulators would carefully consider the ramifications of any action, including the effect on community banks.

Improving Our Understanding of Community Banks
In carefully considering how our actions affect community banks, the Federal Reserve is committed to understanding your institutions and the challenges you face. We continue to try to improve that understanding in two important ways–research and outreach. The Fed is uniquely positioned to employ these two methods because of our traditional strength as a research institution and because of our structure, with Reserve Banks that have deep roots in communities in every region of the country…..”

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Jobless Claims Rise More Than Expected

“Jobless claims hit 344,00.

Consensus was for 320,00, down from revised 330,000.

The four-week moving averaged also claimed back to 320,000, an increase of 3,000.

A Labor Department official said claims tend to be more volatile around Easter….”

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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

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

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

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