Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Draghi Is Pushing Boundaries of Euro Region with QE Program
Bloomberg | Jana Randow | 01/22/15

Mario Draghi is about to bring Europe's integration project across the Rubicon.

At about 2:30 p.m. in Frankfurt, the European Central Bank president will probably commit to a quantitative-easing program that may exceed 1 trillion euros ($1.2 trillion). While the move comes much later than that of the Federal Reserve, which ended its own QE three months ago, the ECB's arrival at this point still marks a critical juncture in the history of the currency and the European unity it embodies. ... Read more

As European Central Bank Is Set to Unleash a Massive Round of Quantitative Easing, Central Bank Heads Admit QE Doesn't Work
ZeroHedge | author | 01/21/15

The former head of the Bank of England -- Mervyn King -- said yesterday that more QE will not help the economy: "We have had the biggest monetary stimulus that the world must have ever seen, and we still have not solved the problem of weak demand. The idea that monetary stimulus after six years … is the answer doesn't seem (right) to me." William White -- the brilliant economist who called the 2008 crisis well ahead of time, who is head of the OECD's Review Committee and was former chief economist for BIS (the central banks' central bank) slammed QE: "QE is not going to help at all. Europe has far greater reliance than the US on small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) and they get their money from banks, not from the bond market." Read more

'American Sniper' Is Almost Too Dumb to Criticize
RollingStone | Matt Taibbi | 01/21/15

I saw American Sniper last night, and hated it slightly less than I expected to. Like most Clint Eastwood movies -- and I like Clint Eastwood movies for the most part -- it's a simple, well-lit little fairy tale with the nutritional value of a fortune cookie that serves up a neatly-arranged helping of cheers and tears for target audiences, and panics at the thought of embracing more than one or two ideas at any time.

The Beginning of the End of the $100 TRILLION Bond Bubble
ZeroHedge | author | 01/19/15

The big story in the world is the bond bubble. For over 30 years, sovereign nations, particularly in the West have been buying votes by offering social payments in the form of welfare, Medicare, social security, and the like. Read more

Mitt Romney Has a Koch Problem
MotherJones | Andy Kroll | 01/22/15

This weekend, a select group of Republican presidential hopefuls will arrive in southern California to attend one of Charles and David Koch's biannual donor retreats, a coveted invite for GOP politicians seeking the backing of the billionaire brothers and their elite club of conservative and libertarian mega-donors. Featured guests at the conclave will include Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was also invited to the confab but is unlikely to attend. ... Notably absent from the guest list for the Koch winter seminar: Mitt Romney. ... Read more

We're Destroying the Planet in Ways That Are Even Worse Than Global Warming
MotherJones | Oliver Milman | 01/16/15

Two major new studies by an international team of researchers have pinpointed the key factors that ensure a livable planet for humans, with stark results.

Of nine worldwide processes that underpin life on Earth, four have exceeded "safe" levels: human-driven climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land system change, and the high level of phosphorus and nitrogen flowing into the oceans due to fertilizer use. ...

... Since 1950, urban populations have increased sevenfold, primary energy use has soared by a factor of five, while the amount of fertilizer used is now eight times higher. The amount of nitrogen entering the oceans has quadrupled. All of these changes are shifting Earth into a "new state" that is becoming less hospitable to human life, researchers said. ... Read more
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