ADP Says the Private Sector Picked Up 191k Jobs :)

“The U.S. economy created nearly 200,000 new private-sector jobs last month, a closely watched economic indicator reported on Wednesday, feeding hopes about the economic recovery and a thaw in labor markets.

The ADP National Employment report said total private payrolls jumped by 191,000 in March, but sharply revised upward February’s figure, to 178,000 from 139,000. Analysts in a consensus estimate had expected a gain of 195,000 jobs.

Small business created 72,000 total jobs, ADP said…..”

Full report 

“An economic slowdown in China, elevated geo-political tensions between Russia and Ukraine, and the Fed’s tapering of its stimulative asset purchase program are some of the biggest events in markets.

But there are so many more market stories we need to be watching.

In it’s latest 52-page Global Economic Outlook and Strategy report, Citi’s Willem Buiter and his team give us a sense of where the world’s major economies are headed.

The economists expect the global economy to expand 3.1% this year and 3.4% in 2015.

Citi’s Michael Saunders writes that they continue to cut their emerging market growth forecasts, though “this month’s revision largely reflects a large cut to our Russia GDP forecast, reflecting heightened uncertainty and the CBR’s recent rate hike.”

In China, Saunders expects policymakers to react to slower growth by “renewed credit easing.”

Among developed economies, Citi expects higher growth from the euro area, UK, and Sweden raising their forecasts, but cut Japan’s growth forecast. In the U.S., Citi expects the recent winter weakness to be reversed and thinks rate hikes won’t come till mid-2015.

We highlight a few of their viewpoints for each of the world’s most important economies including GDP forecasts through 2018….”

Full update 

“The Non-Farm Payrolls report — AKA The Jobs Report – comes out on Friday, and people are starting to get excited.

The Wall Street “consensus” estimate is in the 200K range, but optimism is building that the number could come in significantly higher.

Here’s Dan Greenhaus of BTIG (@danBTIG) relaying his talk with clients:

While the median estimate stands at 200K — up from 150K just one month ago — BTIG thinks job growth could be on the order of 225K while many with whom we’re meeting have been speaking of a much stronger snapback. If you believe, as we do, that weather was instrumental in weighing on the economy more generally, then this number should provide evidence for just such a belief. Conversations with clients suggest we’re not alone in the “possibly stronger” camp. On that front, [today’s] ADP report should be closely watched…..”

Full article 

“While everyone was gushing over the spectacle on TV of a pro-HFT guy and anti-HFT guy go at it, yesterday afternoon we reported what was by far the most important news of the day, one which was lost on virtually everyone if only until this morning, when we reported that “Monetary Blockade Of Russia Begins: JPMorgan Blocks Russian Money Transfer “Under Pretext” Of Sanctions.” This morning the story has finally blown up to front page status, which it deserves, where it currently graces the FT with “Russian threat to retaliate over JPMorgan block.” And unlike previous responses to Russian sanctions by the West, which were largely taken as a joke by the Russian establishment, this time Russia is furious: according to Bloomberg, the Russian foreign ministry described the JPM decision as “illegal and absurd.”  And as Ukraine found out last month, you don’t want Russia angry.

More:

The biggest U.S. bank thwarted a remittance from the Russian embassy in Astana, Kazakhstan, to Sogaz Insurance Group “under the pretext of anti-Russian sanctions imposed by the United States,” the ministry said yesterday in a statement on its website. Sogaz lists OAO Bank Rossiya, a St. Petersburg-based lender facing U.S. sanctions over the Ukrainian crisis, as a strategic partner on its website.

Interfering with the transaction was an “absolutely unacceptable, illegal and absurd decision,” Alexander Lukashevich, a ministry spokesman, said in the statement.

U.S. President Barack Obama announced the action against Bank Rossiya last month as part of a broadening of sanctions that targeted government officials and allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose associates own Rossiya. The embassy’s transaction was for less than $5,000 dollars, a person with knowledge of the dispute said, asking not to be identified because such transfers aren’t public.

Did JPMorgan just move the second Cold War into semi-hot status? Very possibly:

“Any hostile actions against the Russian diplomatic mission are not only a grossest violation of international law, but are also fraught with countermeasures that unavoidably will affect activities of the embassy and consulates of the U.S. in Russia,” Lukashevich said.

As we reported yesterday, for now the JPM party line is to plead ignorance, as it does not want to incur the wrath of the US government, because apparently lying to Congress is less of an issue than transacting with Russian oligarchs.

JPMorgan could still process the embassy payment if U.S. regulators approve, the person familiar with that dispute said.

“As with all U.S. financial institutions that operate globally, we are subject to specific regulatory requirements,” New York-based JPMorgan said in a statement. “We will continue to seek guidance from the U.S. government on implementing their recent sanctions.”

Russia’s Finance Ministry has done business with JPMorgan. It picked the lender to improve the country’s standing among U.S. credit-rating firms. Putin said in 2011 the rankings given to Russia were an “outrage” that increased borrowing costs for domestic companies and the government. JPMorgan also was among banks selected to advise Russia on a 1 trillion ruble ($28.5 billion) privatization program.

There’s that. And then there’s this, which we also said yesterday…..”

Full article 

In the ongoing debate of climate change we must sift through all the data and theories to come to a reasonable conclusion. Granted this is posted by an oil and gas investment bulletin and i have yet to check on the money bank rolling this bulletin; but  there is something to be said for the science presented in the article. At any rate, thank you to Neil for forwarding this news worthy report.

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“Three months ago, it snowed in Cairo, Egypt for the first time in 112 years.

2013 was the largest one-year temperature drop ever recorded in the United States.

The extent of the Antarctic sea ice is at record highs.

It’s the Real Inconvenient Truth—right now the world is getting colder.  And it’s likely to get even colder for the next 20 years—before a new, stronger cycle of sunspots begins, as they have for eons.  They are statistically very, VERY accurate.

But there’s more, and it’s A Sad Truth: there is ample evidence that suggests private scientists and public servants have been manipulating the basic raw data that most everyone relies on to calculate climate change.  (This story has great timing as the IPCC–International Panel on Climate Change–just released Part 5 of their most recent major assessment on climate science (even they can’t bring themselves to call it Global Warming anymore).)

There are some investment trends that come out of this new Truth, and some of it is as simple as get long snowmobile makers and get short lawn mowers.  One trend is that Global Cooling should bring more seasonality in oil and gas prices, making energy ETF and commodity traders happy.

All of this is part of a new ground-breaking study completed by Unit Economics, an investment think-tank from Boston.  They are a non-partisan group with no axe to grind on this issue; like me, they are here to make money for their clients.  Show us a trend and we’ll figure out how to profit from it.

In Part I, you’ll understand the big swings in temperature the earth has experienced in the last million years, and the last thousand years, and the last 50 years.  In Part II I’ll explain how sunspot activity directly correlates to ALL these temperature changes.  And I’ll give you a hot, near-term investment trend to capitalize on this cool idea.

And in Part III, I’ll show you how some original research by Unit Economics has uncovered some disturbing data about the integrity of Global Warming science.  And really, all they’re doing is adding to an already big pile.

BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT

Satellites first started measuring earth’s temperature in 1979. Over the next 20 years, temperatures did rise, by roughly 0.5 degrees Celsius (0.9°F). In the 15 years since, that trend has reversed–rendering the total temperature increase since 1979 a mere 0.35°C (0.6°F), well within the range of statistical noise.

The real culprit for climate change is simply—the sun, through a complicated but predictable set of cycles.

Those cycles predicted today’s cooling trend – and they predict it will continue for another two decades and may well lead to the coldest period on earth in the last 1,200 years.

The Earth, the Sun, and the Temperature

The earth’s cycle around the sun stretches and contracts, creating 100,000-year temperature cycles. Our planet also slowly tilts one way and then the other, resulting in 41,000-year temperature cycles.

We know this because scientists have several methods to estimate historic weather, an effort that has produced this general result:

A few things jump out.

1.    The 100,000-year temperature cycles are very apparent – and the current one is peaking.
2.    The timeframe of this chart covers ice ages and tropical periods, which means it takes only a small change in global temperatures – only two to four degrees – to separate a very warm world from a very cold one.
3.    Through the cycles of the last 800,000 years, the average global temperature is creeping upwards.
4.    The magnitude of each cycle seems to be increasing.

Now, this chart should be taken with a grain of salt because the methods we use to conjure these numbers are not perfect.  But at least the chart lets us put recent climate changes into historic context – a context that deserves a closer look.

The key takeaway is that the earth has been through some very warm periods and some pretty cold ones. Take the years between 800 and 1200 AD, for example.  During these 400 years it was so warm that vineyards spread across central England and bountiful harvests almost doubled Europe’s population.

Then it all changed. By the mid-1300s England’s vineyards were gone and sea ice expanded so much that polar bears crossed to Greenland. This short cold snap was truncated in about 1400, when warmer weather returned for 150 years.  Get the idea? Up, then down, then up, then down.  And then came the Little Ice Age.

Lasting from 1550 right until 1850, the Little Ice Age froze Austria’s vineyards, forcing parched Austrians to switch from wine to beer. Winter fairs were held on the frozen Thames River for 20 years (you’ve all seen the paintings) and Hudson Bay was littered with ice chunks in mid-summer.

This period of time was so cold it earned the moniker The Dalton Minimum—a reference to the very low number of sunspots then.  In the year 1816, storms dumped snow across New England and Quebec in June, lake ice lasted until August in Pennsylvania, and failed crops led to food riots in Britain and France.

So when you get asked, is the world warmer over the last 200 years, since the Industrial Revolution started? Yes, but it has squat to do with industry.  That just happens to co-incide with the smallest sunspot activity in “modern” times.

Eventually the world started to warm again. From 1890 to 1934 central Europe barely saw any snow. Another warm spell from 1942 to 1953 had scientists predicting the death of Europe’s glaciers, a forecast invalidated when the world once again cooled.

Here’s some interesting data as we get closer to the present day:

1.    Temps continued to fall from 1953 until the mid-1970s – despite rising CO2 levels.  This was during the single most industrializing time on earth—and temperatures fell while CO2 levels rose.

2.    Another point: if CO2 emissions cause global warming the layer of the atmosphere 5 to 10 km (3-6 miles) above the earth where CO2 interacts with sunlight should be warming more quickly than the earth’s surface. In fact, temperatures at these levels have been unchanged since accurate balloon measurements became available 50 years ago.

3. ……”

Full article

“At an emotional press conference this morning, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, strongly rejected the Keynesian economic policies he endorsed and implemented during his tenure at the Federal Reserve. He stated that he deeply regrets his part in prolonging the economic crisis and pledged to be a vocal supporter of reform and sound money policies. Bernanke also tearfully read from an apology letter he wrote to the American people.

A tearful Ben Bernanke reads an apology letter to the American people.

“I would like to apologize to the citizens of the United States whose wealth I stole through the Federal Reserve’s careless easy money policies that unfortunately I endorsed and supported at the time,” said Bernanke. “I wrongly believed that printing money and giving it to big banks and the government would help the average American. I was wrong. I have seen the errors of my ways and pledge to spend the rest of my life fighting for reform at the world’s most powerful institution.”

In a surprising turn of events, Bernanke also endorsed Congressman Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed legislation….”

Full article

In a TV address to a torn nation, Ukraine’s PM Yatsenyuk first implied heating prices would rise incrementally, and then later confirmed a plan to increase prices 100% in the next two years (and nearly 200% by 2017) as the cost of imported Russian gas is expected to rise to $500 from the current $84.

Not only did the Ukrainians have the hard rug of the consequences of statism pulled out from underneath them, but the move was followed with tougher capital controls, which restricted cash purchases to $1,300 per person per day after the Central Bank said “amid a tense situation in money markets” it is now broke. (We covered a reported shipment of gold out of Ukraine a couple of weeks ago)

“:The Ukraine Central Bank implements capital controls:

• Sets limits on foreign currency purchases.
• Limits purchasees to 15,000 Hryvnia per person per day ($1,300).
• Ukraine central bank limit purchases to 150,000 Hryvnia per person per month ($13,000).

Oh yeah and they’re broke…

In a joint European Union/United States statement the two powers said Ukraine “requires consolidation of all reform efforts.” The austerity measures came the day before it was announced Ukraine had “won” a $27 billion international financial credit line. From Reuters:

The International Monetary Fund announced a $14-18 billion standby credit for Kiev in return for tough economic reforms that will unlock further aid from the European Union, the United States and other lenders over two years, effectively pulling Kiev closer to Europe.

Russian gas prices to Ukraine are expected to increase as Russia has grown less-interested in providing the once Russian-facing Ukraine with gas subsidies. The IMF stated one of its first goals would be “cleaning up Ukraine’s opaque energy giant Naftogaz, which imports gas from Russia’s Gazprom.” Naftogaz’s chief executive was arrested last week in US a corruption probe.

A COMPARISON OF THE UKRAINE TO THE US

Many in the US may think that tremendously rising prices and overt capital controls cannot happen there. Let’s compare Ukraine’s total debt to GDP … a country considered to be bankrupt … with the US.

That’s right. The US has more than double the debt to GDP than the Ukraine.

How is it that there aren’t riots in the streets and a government in the US on the verge of a collapse? Mostly media and institutionalized brainwashing has so far limited the riots. As for a collapse of the US government? The only thing keeping its entire evil empire functioning is a still widely accepted US dollar.

And that is all changing dramatically now too. Russia and China have made very vocal statements about their desire to stop using the US dollar. Of course, many oil producing countries such as Iraq and Libya wanted to also move off the petro dollar. We all know what happened there. And, the prince of peace, Barack O’Bomber is currently in Saudi Arabia likely making threats and bribes to ensure they stay onside with the dollar.

In any case, the end of this gargantuan US government and the US dollar are nigh. With a debt of over $17 trillion all it would take is for interest rates to rise to 10% and almost every penny of extorted money (taxes) that the US government collects would go to interest payments on the debt alone.

During the last similar time in history this happened, the 1970s, interest rates were allowed to actually go to their market levels and topped out at 18%.

That is why Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen must manipulate interest rates as low as possible for as long as possible. There is a massive amount of debt in the US now and even an interest rate of 5% would likely implode the entire financial system and the government itself.

Keeping rates near 0% and printing money via Quantitative Easing in order to fund the government will eventually lead to hyperinflation.

THE END OF THE MONETARY SYSTEM AS WE KNOW IT (TEOTMSAWKI)

All of the actions pertaining to the Ukraine today are all symptomatic of the end stages of TEOTMSAWKI……”

Full article 

“William Patalon writes: There’s an old French proverb that says: Achetez aux canons, vendez aux clarions. That’s “buy on the cannons, sell on the trumpets.”

As a dyed-in-the-wool Contrarian investor, I’m a firm believer in the precept. In fact, back in the late 1990s, when New York money manager Anthony M. Gallea and I penned our book Contrarian Investing: Buy and Sell When Others Won’t and Make Money Doing It, one of the opening lines was “Gloom makes us glad.”

Bad news, you see, can create some of the biggest profit plays that you’re going to find. Most retail investors just about stampede their way out of “bad-news” stocks. Those stocks get hammered down to ridiculously cheap levels.

For shrewd investors, this kind of situation creates a double-barreled winner because:

• Well-chosen “bad-news” stocks can often recover their way to their former highs, meaning you have a built-in profit that you don’t enjoy with most other stocks.

• And, believe it or not, you also often face lower risks – since “bad-news” stocks have reached severely “oversold” levels. That means that the risk of additional downside moves has been minimized. This kind of terrific “high-reward/low-risk” stock can be the best kind of Contrarian play to find. And the best kind of “bad-news” stock to find is one where “external events” (those not related to the company’s own operations or businesses) are the culprit behind the sell-off.

Now you see why I spend a lot of my time perusing the headlines and getting the “story behind the story” with some of the world’s scariest news headlines.

You see, I know that, hidden in the “background noise,” are some huge potential profits.

That’s why I often look at the biggest negative news stories out there – and then look behind the headlines to see all the appealing investments the bad news is creating.

And right now, one of the splashiest “bad-news stories” you’ll find is Russia…

And all that stuff about Ukraine, the Crimea, and Vladimir Putin has investors just about trampling one another to get out of Russian stocks.

And that’s a big mistake.

In fact, Russian stocks – especially Russian tech stocks – offer some of the biggest profit opportunities we see today.

And there’s one in particular that offers a massive potential upside.

And, best of all, it’s a tech stock.

And since it is a tech stock, I called in our resident tech expert, Radical Technology Profits Editor Michael Robinson. I often consult with him in my Private Briefing column.

And so you can reap the maximum benefit from our discussion, I’m offering a partial transcript of the interview that I conducted with Michael late last week:

A Conversation with Michael Robinson

Patalon: As you know, Michael, I’m a longtime Contrarian. And there’s an old French proverb that tells us to “buy on the cannons, sell on the trumpets.”

So when I see what’s happening in Russia right now, I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t perhaps worth a look.

Late last week, for instance, a White House spokesman was quoted as saying: “I wouldn’t, if I were you, invest in Russian equities right now.” When I see someone in a position of authority telling everyone that something isn’t an investment… well, that gets me reallyinterested. So let’s take a look at Russia as an investment play. And Michael: Let’s get into your wheelhouse… technology.

So let me start by asking you a basic question: What’s happening in Russia, and why is that scaring investors?

Michael: The media, of course, is focused on what’s happening in Ukraine and the Crimea, which Russia just annexed. It’s one of the most significant changes to Europe’s political map since the fall of the old Soviet Union.

But the real threat of an ascendant Russia isn’t just political – it’s about the shifting balance of power with a nation that has vast deposits of oil and gas. The fear is that Russia could become so energy-dominant that it could dictate political decisions to the rest of Europe.

I don’t think that’s going to happen, but you’ll notice that Germany’s [Chancellor Angela] Merkel has had a thing or two to say lately about [Russian leader] Vladimir Putin. She has a good reason to be worried: Germany gets 35% of its oil and gas supplies from Russia.

Unfortunately for Russia, this development is obscuring the fact that the country is working double-time to transition from an economy based solely on energy to one that is also high-tech, particularly in areas related to computing, where Russia has traditionally lagged the West.

That’s heady stuff, Michael. What has all of that done to the shares of Russian-based companies, and why?

Quite frankly, it’s been a disaster. But savvy investors can profit from all that fear out there. Wall Street is worried because Russia is such a huge and powerful country. In particular, the Street is down on Russia right now. S&P just downgraded the nation, citing geopolitical risks and the fear of sanctions from the West.

As a result, Russian stocks have generally been getting hammered. To keep the data clean and discrete, I ran the charts over the last three months. In that period, energy giants Gazprom OAO (OTC: OGZPY) and CNOOC Ltd. (ADR) (NYSE: CEO) are both off more than 18%. The steel companyMechel OAO (ADR) (NYSE: MTL) is off 24%.

Let’s turn specifically to tech… I’ve said many times that I consider you to be one of the very best tech-newsletter gurus in the market today. Tell us about Russia’s tech sector. Is it vibrant? Are there areas of specialization? Is there a “Silicon Valley” equivalent, like you have here in the U.S. and in countries like Israel and India?

Great question. To understand what’s happening with Russian tech today, you have to go back to the old Soviet Union in the Cold War. This is where I have an advantage over other tech analysts.

Fact is, I’ve been following this area for nearly 40 years. My Dad was the senior military editor at Aviation Week & Space Technology, and he covered the Soviet military and aerospace industry. It’s a subject that he and I have been talking about since I was in high school.

The Soviets/Russians actually had some great science and technology in areas like missile warheads and rocket boosters, aerospace engineering, and the electromagnetic pulses that can knock out electronics.

And let’s not forget that the U.S. space program right now relies heavily on Russian rocket booster tech – without which we would have no way to get our astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS).

As someone who grew up following the Apollo space program, I have to say that’s pretty fascinating stuff, Michael.

It really is pretty amazing.

So what about Russia’s tech sector?

Having said all that, there is no equivalent of Silicon Valley in Russia today, though the government is working to start one up. See, the old Soviet Union intentionally scattered their technology around the nation, putting them into nondescript “science cities” that literally were not on any map.

The scientists in those hamlets had little contact with the outside world. But they were motivated to make breakthroughs because they wanted to compete with the Americans – and they didn’t want to get shot or go to a work camp.

But that would seem to leave Russia with a problem… in that there’s no concentrated area that has the kind of high-tech “critical mass” that we enjoy here in the United States.

That’s exactly right, Bill. But in the last decade or so, entrepreneurs have been ramping up. And the Russian government wants to invest hundreds of millions of dollars – if not much more – into that nation’s version of Silicon Valley……”

Full article 

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing whether high-speed trading firms are engaging in insider trading by taking advantage of fast-moving market information unavailable to other investors.

The investigation, launched about a year ago, involves a range of trading activities and is still in its early stages, according to a senior FBI official and an agency spokesman. Among the activities being probed is whether high-speed firms are trading ahead of other investors based on information that other market participants can’t see.

Among the types of trading under scrutiny is the practice of placing a group of trades and then canceling them to create the false appearance of market activity. Such activity could be considered potential market manipulation by encouraging others to trade based on false orders.

Another form of activity under scrutiny involves using high-speed trading to place orders to conceal that the transactions are based on an illegal tip.

“There are many people in government who are very focused on this and who are concerned about it and who think it breaks the law,” an FBI spokesman said. “There is a big concern that high-frequency traders are getting material nonpublic information ahead of others and trading on it.”

Ultimately, federal prosecutors would have to decide whether the facts of a specific case warrant bringing charges, the FBI official said.

The probe, which has picked up steam in recent months, comes amid heightened scrutiny of computerized trading. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is investigating whether high-speed trading firms have gained advantages that aren’t available to regular investors, such as access to superfast data feeds.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission are looking into ties between high-speed traders and major exchanges, examining whether the firms are getting preferential treatment that puts other investors at a disadvantage, said people familiar with the probes.

Since the beginning of the investigation, the FBI, working with the SEC, has developed fact patterns of potentially illegal trading and run them by prosecutors to determine if they could be used in a criminal case.

For the FBI, the investigation marks a new and unusual phase of its focus on insider trading. ….”

Full article

When we had the first flash crash we told you on these here interwebs that high frquency trading was front running. Something illlegal has now become kosher for traders and ignored by the SEC. Finally now a few years later some people are shedding light on this scam.

Full video article 

“While much Western attention has been bestowed on Russia’s military buildup near Ukraine, Moscow also began a massive nuclear offensive exercise on Thursday.

According to the Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta, on Thursday Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces began a massive three-day exercise involving 10,000 soldiers and 1,000 pieces of equipment from more than 30 units. The major purpose of the drill, according to the report—which cites multiple senior Russian military officers—is to ensure Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces have sufficient readiness to conduct offensive operations involving the massive and simultaneous use of nuclear missiles.

Global Security Newswire previously carried a story on the nuclear exercise, also citing the Nezavisimaya Gazeta article. GSN described the exercise as “as practice for a large-scale nuclear offensive.” It added: “Exercise participants were set to position and prepare missile-firing units for launch, and to practice various administrative and support functions for the operation

As Russia’s conventional military capabilities have deteriorated following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Moscow has become increasingly reliant on operationalizing its nuclear arsenal. This has been reflected in successive Russian security documents. For example, Russia’s 1997 national security concept stated that Russia would use its nuclear arsenal “in case of a threat to the existence of the Russian Federation,” whether that threat came in the form of nuclear weapons or from a conventionally superior military power.

This threshold was further lowered in Russia’s 2000 military doctrine, which was the first released during Vladimir Putin’s presidency. This document said that Russia would use nuclear weapons “in response to large-scale aggression utilizing conventional weapons in situations critical to the national security of the Russian Federation.” This held out the possibility that Russia would use nuclear weapons even if Russia proper hadn’t been attacked. The same doctrine further noted that Russia reserved the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of any kind of weapons of mass destruction against it.

Shortly before reassuming the Russian presidency for a third term, Putin reaffirmed the importance he placed on Russia’s nuclear forces in a number of articles and speeches. For example, in an op-ed article in Foreign Policy magazine, Putin wrote: “We will, under no circumstances, surrender our strategic deterrent capability. Indeed, we will strengthen it.”

Thus, this week’s massive offensive nuclear drill is in line with the goals that Russia and Putin have been articulating for well over a decade. It is also consistent with Putin’s recent emphasis on conducting more frequent and sophisticated military drills to improve the combat readiness of Russian military forces. Indeed, Russia conducted a much smaller surprise nuclear drill in October of last year…..”

Full article

Sooner or later a conspiracy theory would have to pop up on the missing plane that has been on the news for past few weeks. I have not followed the story closely, but it seems strange that a plane would simply go missing given black boxes, radar, satelite technology, and a host of other reasons for it not happening. At any rate, here is an interesting angle on the story that may or may not be true. We will just have to wait and see.

Full article

“Tepid gains in consumer spending have helped send some economists’ first-quarter GDP growth forecasts below 2 percent, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The economy expanded 2.6 percent in the fourth quarter.

Consumer spending rose 0.3 percent in February, the government announced, but January’s increase was revised down to 0.2 percent from 0.4 percent.

Research firm Macroeconomic Advisers now predicts the economy will grow 1.3 percent in the first quarter, down from its prior forecast of 1.5 percent, according to The Journal. JPMorgan Chase cut its first-quarter projection to 1.5 percent from 2 percent.

Barclays Capital trimmed its prediction to 2 percent from 2.4 percent, and research firm MFR cut its forecast to 1.2 percent from 1.8 percent, The Journal reports.

Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of GDP. The nasty winter weather in much of the country may have kept numerous consumers at home during the first three months of the year….”

Full article 

“(Reuters) – Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev flaunted Russia’s grip on Crimea on Monday by flying to the region and announcing plans to turn it into a special economic zone, defying Western demands to hand the region back to Ukraine.

The visit, hours after Russia held talks on Ukraine with the United States, is likely to anger Kiev and the West, which accuse president Vladimir Putin of illegally seizing the Black Sea peninsula after a March 16 referendum they say was a sham.

Shortly after landing in Crimea’s main city of Simferopol with many members of his cabinet, Medvedev chaired a Russian government meeting attended by Crimean leaders and outlined moves to revive the region’s struggling economy.

“Our aim is to make the peninsula as attractive as possible to investors, so that it can generate sufficient income for its own development. There are opportunities for this – we have taken everything into consideration,” he told the televised meeting, sitting at a large desk with Russian flags behind him.

“And so we have decided to create a special economic zone here. This will allow for the use of special tax and customs regimes in Crimea, and also minimize administrative procedures.”

In comments that made clear Russia had no plans to give back Crimea, he set out moves to increase wages for some 140,000 state workers in Crimea, boost pensions, turn the region into a tourism hub, protect energy links with the peninsula and improve its roads, railways and airports….”

Full article 

“At the conclusion of the U.S.-EU Summit held this week in Brussels, President Obama and his European colleagues released a joint statement reaffirming their common commitment to civilian disarmament as mandated in the United Nation’s Arms Trade Treaty (ATT).

While globalist and establishment media reports focus on the summit’s attention to the events in Crimea, there is a provision at the end of the statement that is of much greater concern to Americans aware of the crescendo of calls for restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms.

Paragraph 33 of the declaration released on March 26 states: “We reaffirm our joint commitments on non-proliferation, disarmament and arms control.”

Among other agreements, President Obama, in the name of the United States, joined with the gathered heads of state in promising: “We will also work together to promote the entry into force of the Arms Trade Treaty in 2014.”

Despite significant congressional opposition to the United Nation’s attempt to confiscate privately owned weapons and ammunition, President Obama quietly signed his name to a document that if carried out, would amount to nothing less than the de facto repeal of the Second Amendment.

In order to appreciate the seriousness of the the Arms Trade Treaty’s threat to the God-given right to keep and bear arms and to the constitutional protection of that right, details of the plan should be understood.

This author attended the negotiations at UN headquarters in Manhattan where the ATT was hammered out, and I found that the ATT is so offensive to the preservation of the right to keep and bear arms, it is an understatement to call it unconstitutional. As The New American has reported, several provisions of this treaty significantly diminish the scope of this basic right.

First, the Arms Trade Treaty grants a monopoly over all weaponry in the hands of the very entity (government) responsible for over 300 million murders in the 20th century.

Furthermore, the treaty leaves private citizens powerless to oppose future slaughters.

One uncomfortable fact of armed violence ignored by the UN in its pro-disarmament propaganda is that all the murders committed by all the serial killers in history don’t amount to a fraction of the brutal killings committed by “authorized state parties” using the very weapons over which they will exercise absolute control under the terms of the Arms Trade Treaty.

Article 2 of the treaty defines the scope of the treaty’s prohibitions. The right to own, buy, sell, trade, or transfer all means of armed resistance, including handguns, is denied to civilians by this section of the Arms Trade Treaty.

Article 3 places the “ammunition/munitions fired, launched or delivered by the conventional arms covered under Article 2” within the scope of the treaty’s prohibitions, as well.

Article 4 rounds out the regulations, also placing all “parts and components” of weapons within the scheme.

Perhaps the most immediate threat to the rights of gun owners in the Arms Trade Treaty is found in Article 5. Under the title of “General Implementation,” Article 5 mandates that all countries participating in the treaty “shall establish and maintain a national control system, including a national control list.”

This list should “apply the provisions of this Treaty to the broadest range of conventional arms.”

Article 12 adds to the record-keeping requirement, mandating that the list include “the quantity, value, model/type, authorized international transfers of conventional arms,” as well as the identity of the “end users” of these items.

In very clear terms, ratification of the Arms Trade Treaty by the United States would require that the U.S. government force gun owners to add their names to the national registry. Citizens would be required to report the amount and type of all firearms and ammunition they possess.

Section 4 of Article 12 of the treaty requires that the list be kept for at least 10 years…..”

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Where Science and Buddhism Meet

The Life of Buddha

“A Canadian high school student named Bronwyn Delacruz never imagined that her school science project would make headlines all over the world. But that is precisely what has happened. Using a $600 Geiger counter purchased by her father, Delacruz measured seafood bought at local grocery stores for radioactive contamination. What she discovered was absolutely stunning.

Much of the seafood, particularly the products that were made in China, tested very high for radiation. So is this being caused by nuclear radiation from Fukushima? Is the seafood that we are eating going to give us cancer and other diseases?

The American people deserve the truth, but as you will see below, the U.S. and Canadian governments are not even testing imported seafood for radiation. To say that this is deeply troubling would be a massive understatement.

In fact, what prompted Bronwyn Delacruz to conduct her science project was the fact that the Canadian government stopped testing imported seafood for radiation in 2012…

Alberta high-school student Bronwyn Delacruz loves sushi, but became concerned last summer after learning how little food inspection actually takes place on some of its key ingredients.

The Grade 10 student from Grande Prairie said she was shocked to discover that, in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) stopped testing imported foods for radiation in 2012…..”

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We will leave out which part of the western world Turkey is taking a page from. It should be obvious that psychopaths run the world over…

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“Over the past month, we have explained in detail not only how the Chinese credit collapse and massive carry unwind will look like in theory, but shown various instances how, in practice, the world’s greatest debt bubble is starting to burst, resulting not only in the first ever corporate default but also in the bursting of the associated biggest ever housing bubble. One thing we have not commented on was how actual trade pathways – far more critical to offshore counterparts than merely credit tremors within the mainland – would be impacted once the nascent liquidity crisis spread.

Today, we find the answer courtesy of the WSJ which reports that for the first time in the current Chinese liquidity crunch, Chinese importers, for now just those of soybeans and rubber but soon most other products, “are backing out of deals, adding to a wide range of evidence showing rising financial stress in the world’s second-biggest economy.”

While apologists of China’s collapse have been quick to point out that China’s credit collapse would be largely a domestic issue, with little foreign creditor exposure at either the public debt, or private – corporate – debt levels, one thing nobody can deny is that if and when Chinese trade routes grind to a halt, the downstream impacts would be devastating, and spread like wildfire as the offshore supply chain is Ice 9’ed.

More from the WSJ:

 Most purchases are private, with little data on the volumes affected, but traders at Asian trading firms say they are seeing a sharp rise in canceled contracts this year while other buyers are demanding heavy discounts.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed that China has canceled orders for 517,000 metric tons of soybeans, used to make cooking oil, and compares to imports of 63.4 million tons last year. South American soybean contracts have also been canceled because of weak demand, says trade journal Oil World.

The cancellations are a big worry for the commodity markets as exporters around the world had relied for years on China’s insatiable appetite for a wide range of raw ingredients. But now as jitters rise over the health of the economy, the fallout is rippling through into agricultural commodities, just weeks after the price of copper and iron ore tumbled on worries they had been used in risky Chinese financing deals.

For now the impacted importers are those dealing purely with commodity products, such as rubber. The problem is that once one importer defaults on a contract, suddenly counterparty risk regarding all of China (and certainly those using commodities on Letters of Credit, recall China Commodity Funding Deals) soars, forcing other offshore exporters to collapse liquidity terms when dealing with Chinese buyers…”

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AP

Nida Degesys, National President of the American Medical Student Association, poses for photos in her office in Sterling, Va.

“If you graduate with a B.A. or doctorate and you get the same job at the same place, you make the same amount of money,” said William Elliott III, director of the Assets and Education Initiative at the University of Kansas. “But that money will actually mean less to you in the sense of accumulating assets in the long term.”

Graduates who can immediately begin building equity in housing or stocks and bonds get more time to see their investments grow, while indebted graduates spend years paying principal and interest on loans. The standard student loan repayment schedule is 10 years but can be much longer.

The median 2009 net worth for a household without outstanding student debt was $117,700, nearly three times the $42,800 worth in a household with outstanding student debt, according to a report co-written by Elliott last November.

About 40 percent of households led by someone 35 or younger have student loan debt, a 2012 Pew Research Center analysis of government data found.

Read MoreHow you can score the best scholarships

Allen Aston is one of the lucky ones, having landed a full academic and financial-need scholarship at Ohio State University. The 22-year-old software engineer from Columbus estimates it let him avoid about $100,000 in debt.

Without loans to repay, Aston is already contributing 6 percent of his salary to a retirement fund that is matched in part by his employer and doesn’t have the same financial concerns his friends do…..”

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