Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Notorious Mercenary Erik Prince Is Advising Trump From The Shadows
TheIntercept | Jeremy Scahill | 01/17/17

ERIK PRINCE, AMERICA'S most notorious mercenary, is lurking in the shadows of the incoming Trump administration. A former senior U.S. official who has advised the Trump transition told The Intercept that Prince has been advising the team on matters related to intelligence and defense, including weighing in on candidates for the Defense and State departments. The official asked not to be identified because of a transition policy prohibiting discussion of confidential deliberations. ... Read more

For CEOs, globalization's thrill fades
USAToday| Kim Hjelmgaard | 01/17/17

Globalization took another knock Monday with the publication of a report that showed corporate titans around the world have become more skeptical about the benefits of integrating people, companies and governments.

... Forty-four percent of business leaders firmly believe globalization has done virtually nothing, for example, to help close the gap between the rich and poor. ...

... The report, based on interviews with nearly 1,400 CEOs from 79 countries, revealed that just 13% of corporate leaders feel globalization has "to a large extent" helped solve the problem of income inequality. ... Read more

'Learning Curve' as Rick Perry Pursues a Job He Initially Misunderstood
NYTimes | Coral Davenport | 01/18/17

When President-elect Donald J. Trump offered Rick Perry the job of energy secretary five weeks ago, Mr. Perry gladly accepted, believing he was taking on a role as a global ambassador for the American oil and gas industry that he had long championed in his home state.

In the days after, Mr. Perry, the former Texas governor, discovered that he would be no such thing -- that in fact, if confirmed by the Senate, he would become the steward of a vast national security complex he knew almost nothing about, caring for the most fearsome weapons on the planet, the United States' nuclear arsenal. ... Read more

US Government Caught Massively Fabricating Student Loan Default Data
ZeroHedge & WSJ | author | 01/19/17

Ever since 2012 we have warned that one of the biggest threats arising from the US student loan bubble - which is no longer disputed by anyone except perhaps members of the outgoing administration - is not that it is soaring at an unprecedented pace, that's obvious for anyone with the latest loan total number over $1.4 trillion, rising at a pace of nearly $100 billion per year, but that the government - either on purpose or due to honest miscalculation - was not correctly accounting for the true extent of delinquencies and defaults. Today, we finally got confirmation that, as speculated, the US government was indeed fabricating student loan default data, making it appear far lower than it was in reality.

... According to an analysis of the revised data, at more than 1,000 colleges and trade schools, or about a quarter of the total, at least half the students had defaulted or failed to pay down at least $1 on their debt within seven years. This is a stunning number and suggests that the student loan crisis is far greater than anyone had anticipated previously. ... Read more or at WSJ

Davos Elites Call For a Ban on Physical Cash... in the US.
ZeroHedge | author | 01/19/17

... Again... the War on Cash is not slowing down. India effectively removed 86% of the physical cash in circulation and no one was forced to resign.

Put simply, India signaled to the global elites that you can implement a near complete ban on physical cash, and there are no real consequences as far as political aspirations.

We believe that the Elites will be pushing for this policy to hit the US. If you think this is impossible consider that Stiglitz openly called for the US to ban cash in the article above. ... Read more

Overheard At Davos: "So Many People Feel That This Is One Of The Most Dangerous Times"
ZeroHedge | author | 01/19/17

One of the speakers at Devos: "There's never been a better time to be alive, and yet we feel so glum," Mr. Goldin said. "So many people feel anxious. So many people feel that this is one of the most dangerous times."

He denounced the frightened retreat from globalization manifest in Mr. Trump's threats of a trade war with China, and in Britain's abandonment of Europe, commonly known as Brexit.>/p>

"You can't stop managing an entangled environment by disconnecting," he said. "This is the fundamental mistake of Brexit, of Trump, and of so many others. We are not simply connected. We are entangled. Our lives, our destinies are intertwined. What happens in China, what happens in Indonesia, what happens in India, what happens across Europe, and what happens in North America, across Africa and Latin America will affect all of us in dramatic new ways. The idea that somehow we can forge our future in an insular way, even for the biggest countries like the U.S., is a fantasy." ... Read more

The Race To The Bottom: Why A Worldwide Worker Surplus And Uncontrolled Free Trade Are Sinking American Living Standards by Alan Tonelson

A leading economic journalist explains why Washington's responses to globalization have created a global worker surplus that undermines both American workers and those in developing nations