Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

Suicide Bombings Hit Three Saudi Cities In One Day
HP & WorldPost | Reuters | 07/04/16/span>

Suicide bombers struck three cities across Saudi Arabia on Monday, killing at least four security officers in an apparently coordinated campaign of attacks as Saudis prepared to break their fast on the penultimate day of the holy month of Ramadan.

The explosions targeting U.S. diplomats, Shi'ite worshippers and a security headquarters at a mosque in the holy city of Medina followed days of mass killings claimed by the Islamic State group in Turkey, Bangladesh and Iraq. The attacks all seem to have been timed to coincide with the approach of Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that celebrates the end of the Islamic holy month. ... Read more

If the Russian president could design a candidate to undermine American interests -- and advance his own -- he'd look a lot like Donald Trump.
Slate | Franklin Foer | 07/04/16

Vladimir Putin has a plan for destroying the West--and that plan looks a lot like Donald Trump. Over the past decade, Russia has boosted right-wing populists across Europe. It loaned money to Marine Le Pen in France, well-documented transfusions of cash to keep her presidential campaign alive. Such largesse also wended its way to the former Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, who profited "personally and handsomely" from Russian energy deals, as an American ambassador to Rome once put it.

There's a clear pattern: Putin runs stealth efforts on behalf of politicians who rail against the European Union and want to push away from NATO. He's been a patron of Golden Dawn in Greece, Ataka in Bulgaria, and Jobbik in Hungary. Joe Biden warned about this effort last year in a speech at the Brookings Institution: "President Putin sees such political forces as useful tools to be manipulated, to create cracks in the European body politic which he can then exploit." Ruptures that will likely multiply after Brexit -- a campaign Russia's many propaganda organs bombastically promoted. ... Read more

RT | Fallujah a harrowing ghost town after ISIS evicted in devastating battle for Iraqi city (07/05/16) [1:06]

The Bond and Currency Markets Scream "DANGER" But Stocks Are Always Last to "Get It"
ZeroHedge | author | 07/05/16

The rally last week was likely end of the quarter performance gaming and little else. Fund managers have to report their returns every quarter. With the markets gyrating throughout 2Q16, fund managers were highly incentivized to gun the markets higher in order to redeem the quarter.

However, bonds (the smart money) weren't buying it at all. Indeed, bonds really haven't been buying any of this rally since March. ... Read more

A Look Inside Europe's Next Crisis: Why Everyone Is Finally Panicking About Italian Banks
ZeroHedge | author | 07/05/16

Back in May 2013, we wrote an article titled "Europe's EUR 500 Billion Ticking NPL Time Bomb" in which we laid out the biggest danger facing European banks: non-performing loans. As of this moment, that time bomb may have finally gone off: as the WSJ writes overnight, the Brexit damage to the rest of Europe "could be more immediate and potentially more serious. Nowhere is the risk concentrated more heavily than in the Italian banking sector." Indeed, "Brexit could lead to a full-blown banking crisis in Italy." Here's why. ... Read more

Elizabeth Warren's Kick-Ass Speech Tells It Like It Is: What Should Hillary Do?
AlterNet | Don Hazen | 07/02/16

Yesterday, straight off her high-profile campaign appearance Monday with Hillary Clinton, Sen. Elizabeth Warren gave a keynote address about industry consolidation in the American economy at a conference at the Capitol put on by New America's Open Markets program. Though the speech has so far gotten only a modicum of attention--the press being more interested in litigating Donald Trump's Pocahontas taunts--it has the potential to change the course of the presidential contest.

Warren is, of course, famous for her attacks on too-big-to-fail banks. But in her address yesterday, entitled "Reigniting Competition in the American Economy," she extended her critique to the entire economy, noting that, as a result of three decades of weakened federal antitrust regulation, virtually every industrial sector today--from airlines to telecom to agriculture to retail to social media--is under the control of a handful of oligopolistic corporations. This widespread consolidation is "hiding in plain sight all across the American economy," she said, and "threatens our markets, threatens our economy, and threatens our democracy." ... Read more
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Senator Warren Asks Education Secretary King About Accountability for Student Loan Servicing (06/30/16) [3:07]

*DR | Update On Congress And The Presidential Campaigns (07/05/16) [1hr]