“When the shit goes down you better be ready”
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7RMKq8RQj4 450 300] [youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eFgbaKAlRg 450 300] Comments »Another Reason to Thank Your Banker for Fucking Up the Country
Drug Pushers Use Fear as a Weapon
Funny how we are literally one of 2 maybe 3 countries that allow for drug advertisement on prime time tele’
Predatory drug pushing or disease mongering is on the rise…
Comments »CME CEO Duffy Potentially Blows Up Corzine in His Testimony
So Corzine got grilled a little bit today, but the real fun came from the CME CEO Terrence Duffy who might have implicated Corzine in knowing of at least one instance where customer funds were used for a bond purchase. The language is seemingly clear, but Corzine may have an out until further investigation can determine if the transfer of funds was actually illegal.
Comments »About Fricken Time: Regulators Try to Limit Pain Killer Abuse
Now they should arrest the doctors at these so called pain clinic drug mills and make sure every state in the nation is registering prescriptions into the federal drug monitoring database…
Comments »Coffee Break: Why is #OWS Being Harassed ?
A great account of an #OWS experience
Obama in Regards to a Lack of Criminal Cases on Wall St: :They didn’t do anything illegal”
Coordinating incentives to push high risk mortgages, packaging loans to hide the nature of toxic risk, rating the SIVs, pushing the SIVS on mom, pop, pensions, and then betting against the SIVs with CDS was not illegal ?
Perhaps individually this may be the case, but there had to be coordination, collusion, agreement, etc which allowed this to occur for so many years.
By having FRE and FNM take on the paper it actually enabled Wall St to continually play the game.
Oh and let’s not forget the banks payed more money for favorable ratings on their toxic asset vehicles.
Furthermore, all the whistle blowers were fired, black listed, excommunicated, and ignored.
The RICO ACT explains the crime committed & Danny Schechter does a good job of showing how it was pulled off.
Comments »A Swedish Bank Suffers a Bank Run in Latvia
Is MF Global the Tip of the Iceberg When it Comes to Rehypothication ?
Youtube Porn: EU Collateral Crunch Explained
Russian Protestors Turn Up the Heat on Scumbag Putin
ens of thousands of Russians turned out in central Moscow and across the country Saturday to protest what they believe were rigged parliamentary elections.
United Russia, the party of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, suffered big losses in the election, but retained its parliamentary majority. On Saturday, protesters chanted “Putin out,” according to a correspondent from state-run RIA Novosti news agency.
Between 20,000 and 25,000 protesters had gathered in the capital, Moscow, Ria Novosti said Saturday, citing police. There have been no reports of unrest and security has been tight.
Comments »DOWNSIZED SUPERPOWER: Army Cuts 8,700 Jobs
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta has warned that the federal budget cuts could be “devastating” for the Pentagon. (Jonathan Ernst – Reuters)
With deeper budget cuts looming, the Pentagon is starting to cut back by trimming the Defense Department’s civilian workforce.
The Army said Thursday it is moving forward with plans announced in July to cut about 8,700 positions, using a mix of early retirement offers, buyouts and attrition to trim the jobs by the end of the fiscal year in late September.
“Army commands and agencies are continuing to take necessary actions to reduce their civilian on-board strength to meet funded targets established by the secretary of defense and reflected in the President’s budget,” Thomas R. Lamont, assistant secretary of the Army for manpower and reserve affairs, said in a statement. “To the maximum extent possible, the Army will rely on voluntary departures to achieve these manpower reductions.”
The cuts will come in 37 states at 70 different locations across eight commands and agencies with nearly 90 percent of the cuts taking place within the Installation Management Command, Army Materiel Command and the Training and Doctrine Command. Most of the cuts are likely to occur in Virginia and Texas, where most of the DOD’s civilian workers are located.
In addition to eligible workers who retire, commanders will be able to use voluntary early retirement offers and buyouts to cut jobs, the Army said.
The failure of the bipartisan debt supercommittee means the Pentagon budget could be cut by a total of $1 trillion over the next decade — what defense leaders warn is a “huge” cut that would amount to a 23 percent reduction in the defense budget, resulting in furloughs and layoffs of “many” civilians and a reduction in the size of the military. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta has warned that the cuts could be “devastating” for the Pentagon, creating a “substantial risk” that the country’s defense needs might not be met.
Comments »Merkel-Sarkozy pact doomed to failure?
Comments »BOSTON (MarketWatch) — If you want to understand the latest Franco-German proposal to “save” the euro, imagine this.
Imagine the governments of China and Japan demanding they be given the legal right to override the U.S. budget’s legislative process if needed, and to impose tax hikes and spending cuts on the American people as needed.
After all, China and Japan are our biggest creditors. The U.S. government owes them trillions. We’re not quite as deeply in debt as a share of our economic output, as Europe’s naughtiest Nellies. But we’re not far behind either.
Markets rallied this week on hopes that the leaders of the European Union will at long last solve the region’s budget crisis. Center stage is the new proposal from Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. They want to turn Europe into, effectively, a federal government, with the power to impose budget discipline on wayward members.
Their proposal is preposterous. Anything can happen in this life, but it would be remarkable indeed if this idea got off the ground. Anyone pinning their hopes that this will solve the crisis needs to think it through.
Why would the Portuguese accept the right of Germany to impose budget cuts on their country? Why would the Greeks?
Would we accept that role for the Chinese and the Japanese, the biggest holders of Treasury debt? How would you feel if you opened the paper to be told that the new Sino-Japanese “Fiscal Stability Commission” in Washington had just slashed your grandma’s Social Security checks by one-third, scaled back federal highway repairs, and that it would impose a 10% national sales tax?
That is, after all, effectively what is being offered to the people of Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland.
It’s absurd. There is no reason why these countries should have to surrender sovereignty. They can simply, where necessary, default. A default by, say, Louisiana would not destroy the dollar. Neither did the bankruptcy of Enron or Lehman.
The British look smarter and smarter for staying out of the euro area in the first place. Prime Minister John Major, and then, later, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, each took the decision to keep the British pound free. At the time fashionable opinion predicted disaster for the Brits. So much for that.
(Predictably, fashionable opinion now says the Brits look “isolated” for staying out. Really, you couldn’t make it up).
It has long been clear the Franco-German duo wanted to use their shared currency to bludgeon the continent into something closer to a federal system.
Any investor pinning their hopes on this bird flying needs to be aware it looks a lot more like a turkey than an eagle.
This week’s meeting of European leaders already marks the fifth “summit” to solve the region’s debt crisis since early 2009.
My favorite comment this time: “After a series of ‘final’ summits, it would be nice this time to have a real ‘final’ summit.” That was from Standard & Poor’s chief European economist, appropriately-enough named Jean-Michel Six. What’s the betting Mr. Six will be attending Summit No. Six in the new year?
EU split on treaty
Comments »BRUSSELS (AP) — The leaders of the 17 countries that use the euro, plus six others, have tentatively agreed to a new treaty that enforces stricter budget rules seen as crucial to solving Europe’s debt crisis and holding the currency-bloc together.
The effort by Germany and France to persuade all 27 European Union countries to agree to treaty changes failed, in large part because of Britain’s refusal to give up some powers.
Following marathon all-night talks, the 23 decided to back a new treaty with strict oversight over national budgets, as they try to convince markets that the euro has a future. An agreement on fiscal discpline is considered a critical first step before the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and others would commit more financial aid to help countries like Italy and Spain, which have large debts and unsustainable borrowing costs.
ECB President Mario Draghi praised the tentative deal as a good result for the eurozone.
The immediate market response was lukewarm, with stock markets in Europe fairly steady — the Stoxx 50 of leading European shares was trading 0.1 percent lower while the euro was down 0.1 percent at $1.3336.
Markets may be worried that the failure of the EU to get unanimous support for more stringent budgetary rules may rattle the foundations of a union created to foster peace and prosperity across Europe following World War II.
Even after Friday’s long-awaited deal, watched by governments and markets worldwide, the European leaders have huge hurdles still ahead. They are meeting again later Friday to work out what exactly their new treaty will contain and how violators of its strict budget rules will be policed. They want it written by March.
Britain, which doesn’t use the euro, led the push against a revised treaty tying all 27 EU countries to tighter fiscal union. The others that didn’t sign on were Hungary, the Czech Republic and Sweden.
Britain’s leaders argued that the revised treaty would threaten its national sovereignty and London’s esteemed financial services industry.
Most EU countries had pushed for an EU-wide accord to avoid a split, but Germany and France, the eurozone’s biggest economies, quickly made clear that a deal among the 17 euro countries and whoever else wanted to join was better than nothing.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy laid the blame at the feet of British Prime Minister David Cameron.
“David Cameron made a proposal that seemed to us unacceptable, a protocol to the treaty that would have exonerated the United Kingdom from a great number of financial service regulations,” Sarkozy said shortly before dawn, after what he called a “difficult” dinner meeting had dragged through the night.
Cameron defended his stance.
“What was on offer is not in Britain’s interest so I didn’t agree to it,” he told reporters in Brussels.
“We’re not in the euro and I’m glad we’re not in the euro,” he said. “We’re never going to join the euro and we’re never going to give up this kind of sovereignty that these countries are having to give up.”
FLASH: GERMANY ALSO REJECTS RUMOR OF SIMULTANEOUS ESM AND EFSF AND COMMON EUROZONE DEBT ISSUANCE
HAHAHAHAHA
Comments »FLASH: ANOTHER MASSACRE HAPPENING AT VIRGINIA TECH–POLICE OFFICER SHOT
BREAKING: Va. Tech: Police officer has been shot; potential 2nd victim reported at parking lot -ldh
Virginia Tech says gunshots have been reported on campus, and authorities are seeking a suspect.
The campus-wide alert at 12:36 p.m. said: “Gun shots reported- Coliseum Parking lot. Stay Inside. Secure doors. Emergency personnel responding. Call 911 for help.”
The suspect is described as white male wearing gray sweat pants, gray hat with neon green brim, maroon hoodie and backpack.
A message left with the university wasn’t immediately returned. Campus police referred all questions to the university.
A student gunman killed 32 students and faculty and then shot himself on the campus in 2007.
SOURCE: AP
Comments »Cyber Attacks Could Wreck Global Oil Supply
Hackers are bombarding the world’s computer controlled energy sector, conducting industrial espionage and threatening potential global havoc through oil supply disruption.
Oil company executives warned that attacks were becoming more frequent and more carefully planned.
“If anybody gets into the area where you can control opening and closing of valves, or release valves, you can imagine what happens,” said Ludolf Luehmann, an IT manager at Shell Europe’s biggest company .
“It will cost lives and it will cost production, it will cost money, cause fires and cause loss of containment, environmental damage – huge, huge damage,” he told the World Petroleum Congress in Doha.
Computers control nearly all the world’s energy production and distribution in systems that are increasingly vulnerable to cyber attacks that could put cutting-edge fuel production technology in rival company hands.
“We see an increasing number of attacks on our IT systems and information and there are various motivations behind it – criminal and commercial,” said Luehmann. “We see an increasing number of attacks with clear commercial interests, focusing on research and development, to gain the competitive advantage.”
He said the Stuxnet computer worm discovered in 2010, the first found that was specifically designed to subvert industrial systems, changed the world of international oil companies because it was the first visible attack to have a significant impact on process control.
But the determination and stamina shown by hackers when they attack industrial systems and companies has now stepped up a gear, and there has been a surge in multi-pronged attacks to break into specific operation systems within producers, he said.
“Cyber crime is a huge issue. It’s not restricted to one company or another it’s really broad and it is ongoing,” said Dennis Painchaud, director of International Government Relations at Canada’s Nexen Inc. “It is a very significant risk to our business.”
“It’s something that we have to stay on top of every day. It is a risk that is only going to grow and is probably one of the preeminent risks that we face today and will continue to face for some time.”
Luehmann said hackers were increasingly staging attack over long periods, silently collecting information over weeks or months before attacking specific targets within company operations with the information they have collected over a long period.
“It’s a new dimension of attacks that we see in Shell,” he said.
NOT IN CONTROL
In October, security software maker Symantec Corp said it had found a mysterious virus that contained code similar to Stuxnet, called Duqu, which experts say appears designed to gather data to make it easier to launch future cyber attacks.
Other businesses can shut down their information technology (IT) systems to regularly install rapidly breached software security patches and update vulnerable operating systems.
But energy companies cannot keep taking down plants to patch up security holes.
“Oil needs to keep on flowing,” said Riemer Brouwer, head of IT security at Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations (ADCO).
“We have a very strategic position in the global oil and gas market,” he added. “If they could bring down one of the big players in the oil and gas market you can imagine what this will do for the oil price – it would blow the market.”
Hackers could finance their operations by using options markets to bet on the price movements caused by disruptions, Brouwer said.
“So far we haven’t had any major incidents,” he said. “But are we really in control? The answer has to be ‘no’.”
Oil prices usually rise whenever tensions escalate over Iran’s disputed nuclear program – itself thought to be the principal target of the Stuxnet worm and which has already identified Duqu infections – due to concern that oil production or exports from the Middle East could be affected by any conflict.
But the threat of a coordinated attack on energy installations across the world is also real, experts say, and unlike a blockade of the Gulf can be launched from anywhere, with no U.S. military might in sight and little chance of finding the perpetrator.
“We know that the Straits of Hormuz are of strategic importance to the world,” said Stephan Klein of business application software developer SAP.
“What about the approximately 80 million barrels that are processed through IT systems?,” said Klein, SAP vice president of oil and gas operations in the Middle East and North Africa.
Attacks like Stuxnet are so complex that very few organizations in the world are able to set them up, said Gordon Muehl, chief security officer at Germany’s SAP said, but it was still too simple to attack industries over the internet.
Only a few years ago hacking was confined to skilled computer programmers, but thanks to online video tutorials, breaking into corporate operating systems is now a free for all.
“Everyone can hack today,” Shell’s Luehmann said. “The number of potential hackers is not a few very skilled people — it’s everyone.”
Comments »Citi: Euro Collapse Would Spark Global Depression, Push Unemployment Above 20%
In one of the gloomiest predictions about the fallout from a breakup of the euro, Citigroup’s chief economist on Thursday warned a collapse of the currency will result in years of a global depression that could send unemployment spiking above 20% in the West.
The comments, from Citigroup chief economist Willem Buiter, underscore the growing concern that policymakers won’t be able to forge a credible solution that will keep the currency union intact.
Buiter, previously a professor at the London School of Economics, said the ensuing chaos caused by the unlikely event of a disorderly sovereign default and exit by all five periphery nations would trigger a financial catastrophe and global depression. The disaster, he said, would send GDP plummeting more than 10% and unemployment in the West surging to 20% or more.
“If Spain and Italy were to exit, there would be a collapse of systemically important financial institutions throughout the European Union and North America and years of global depression,” Buiter wrote.
Thankfully, Buiter sees little chance of these worst-case scenarios actually coming to fruition. He forecasts a 5% or lower chance of a disorderly default and exit by all five periphery states.
Likewise, Buiter believes the likelihood of an exit by Germany and other fiscally strong countries is even less likely, attributing a less than 3% probability of such an event. That’s a good thing because he believes this outcome would perhaps be even more disastrous and extremely messy from a legal standpoint.
Still, the financial markets appear to be bracing for at least the possibility that the eurozone will no longer have 17 nations.
Hurt by comments from the ECB, the euro slumped nearly 1% against the dollar and fell below $1.33 on Thursday. Individual European bank stocks like Deutsche Bank (DB: 28.25, -1.28, -4.32%) and Barclays (BCS: 11.36, -0.67, -5.57%) suffered steep selloffs as well.
According to The Wall Street Journal even some central banks are take precautionary steps to prepare for life without the euro, including central banks in Ireland, Greece, England and Switzerland.
If the only nation to leave the currency and suffer a disorderly sovereign default was Greece, Buiter said it would be “manageable” because it accounts for just 2.2% of euro-area GDP.
Ultimately, Buiter said the potential for economic ruin should present a compelling argument for keeping the eurozone intact as much as possible.
“The case for keeping the Euro Area show on the road would seem to be a strong one: financially, economically, and politically, including geopolitically,” he wrote.
Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/2011/12/08/citi-euro-collapse-would-cause-global-depression-send-unemployment-above-20/#ixzz1fy0fqlhN
NOT AGAIN! Virginia Tech Sends Out Alert About Gunshots on Campus
Virginia Tech just sent out an alert about a report of gun shots being fired on campus, at the Coliseum parking lot.
Tech advising people to stay inside, lock doors.
