Occupy Banksters & Crony Capitalism & GREED

In Big-Money Move, Corporations Seek to Make Congress a Wholly-Owned Subsidiary
HP | Richard (RJ) Eskow | 10/30/14

s Election Day approaches, two reports show us exactly how corrupted our political system has become. Unless voters come out in force, it looks like corporate money is about to buy itself another house of Congress. The Wall Street Journal analyzed filings from the Federal Election Commission and concluded that

In a significant shift, business groups gave more money to Republican candidates than to Democrats in seven of the most competitive Senate races in recent months, in some cases taking the unusual step of betting against sitting senators. ... Read more

Banzainomics: What The BOJ's Shocking Announcement Really Means
ZeroHedge | author | 10/31/14

Bank of Japan Reaction Context: Nikkei 225 Is Up 1000 Points In 7 Hours

You know the world's financial markets have become farce when the broad Nikkei 225 stock market of Japan rises 1000 points in 7 hours... The meme that stock 'markets' move on fundamentals not central bank (FED) liquidity is officially dead.

Still confused what the BOJ's shocking move was about, aside from pushing the US stock market to a new record high of course? This should explains it all: as the chart below show, as a result of the BOJ's stated intention to buy 8 trillion to 12 trillion yen ($108 billion) of Japanese government bonds per month it means the BOJ will now soak up all of the 10 trillion yen in new bonds that the Ministry of Finance sells in the market each month. In other words. The Bank of Japan's expansion of record stimulus today may see it buy every new bond the government issues. In other words: full monetization.
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Why the GOP Is Going to Be in Deep Trouble If Their Crazy Tea Party Candidates Get into the Senate
AlterNet | Elias Esquith | 10/30/14

As pundits and wonks have been telling us since basically the day after President Obama was reelected -- and as Nate Silver and others' forecast oracles still insist -- we're probably going to wake up on Jan. 3 of next year with a brand-new, Republican-controlled U.S. Senate.

But while a lot of ink has been spilled in anticipation of how a GOP Congress will clash with Senate Democrats and President Obama, less attention is being paid to what might happen within the Republican Party once the post-victory honeymoon is over. Will a newly unified Congress be the first step toward a final end to the GOP's civil war? Or will GOP leadership soon find that winning in 2014 was the easy part? ... Read more

How the Christian Right Is Using Hobby Lobby and "Duck Dynasty" to Take Back America
MotherJones | Mariah Blake | 10/31/14

Pundits may be declaring the culture wars over, but conservative Christians are donning their battle gear and rushing back to the front lines. In recent months, a coalition of conservative evangelical organizations has been pursuing an aggressive voter mobilization campaign that involves a combination of high-tech tools, briefings for pastors, and rallies simulcast to mega-churches around the country.

The goal of these gatherings is to drum up outrage over recent political skirmishes, including the Hobby Lobby lawsuit, and to persuade believers that their religious freedoms are under attack by ungodly forces. During one recent event, which was shown in churches across the nation, speakers likened the situation of US churchgoers to Christians beheaded by ISIS in Syria. "We see the struggle between good and evil, light and darkness, truth and lies," said David Benham, whose planned HGTV reality show was canceled after his fiercely anti-gay remarks came to light. "What's happening with swords over in the Middle East is happening with silence over here in America." ... Read more

*None Dare Call It Conspiracy by Gary Allen (1972) [1:03:51]

Co-Founder of The Weather Channel: Global Warming Is a Complete Hoax
mediaite.com | Josh Feldman | 10/27/14

John Coleman, meteorologist and co-founder of The Weather Channel, told Megyn Kelly tonight that he doesn't believe global warming is real and laughed out loud at anyone who buys into what Al Gore is selling.

Coleman recently wrote an open letter arguing, "There is no significant man-made global warming at this time, there has been none in the past and there is no reason to fear any in the future." He told Kelly it's tough to get a media platform these days when you're a climate skeptic "ever since Al Gore made it a plank of the Democratic Party." ... Read more
TYT | Weather Channel Founder On Climate Change (10/28/14) [9:42]

What Happens If You Have No Welfare and No Job?
Atlantic | Olga Khazan | older, 06/13/14

A few weeks ago I wrote about how the welfare reform of the 1990s led to many poor mothers being kicked off welfare rolls. While some poor adults could still receive help from food stamps and disability insurance, the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act" dramatically cut how much cash aid they could collect. The hope was that they would find work, but many didn't.

Meanwhile, spending on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, the only cash assistance program that non-disabled, non-elderly, poor single mothers are eligible for, has dropped precipitously: It was lower in 2007 than it had been in 1970.

... The Urban Institute recently released a fascinating new qualitative study that aims to answer that very question. Relying on 90-minute interviews with 29 unmarried women in Los Angeles and 22 in southeast Michigan, the nonprofit examined the lives of these so-called "disconnected" women--meaning they get neither income from work nor TANF money. (About one in eight low-income single mothers was disconnected in 1996, when welfare reform was first implemented, but about one in five was disconnected in 2008.) ... Read more

China "Ghost Town Index" - Here Are China's 10 "Ghastliest" Cities
ZeroHedge | author | 10/28/14

Who can forget China's ghost city of Ordos: back in late 2009, when the hollow shell behind China's torrid growth was first revealed to the world, the city near China's Mongolia border was cooler talk for weeks. Fast forward five years later, and Ordos is all but forgotten, having been eclipsed by a veritable army of much bigger "ghosts" that make up the "ghost town network" - a list of cities created by the China Investment Network, a business newspaper in Beijing, to determine which cities were the most ghostly. ... Read more
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New Study: Global Warming Has Doubled The Risk Of Extreme Winters In Europe
ThinkProgress | Jeff Spross | 10/27/14

Global warming has doubled the chances that any given winter in Europe or northern Asia will be unusually severe, according to new research.

Specifically, temperatures have risen at the poles much faster than around the rest of the planet, leading to the collapse of Arctic sea ice coverage and altering weather patterns in the northern hemisphere. The research was recently published in Nature Geoscience, and relied on a the combined output of 100 different simulations -- "the most comprehensive computer modeling study to date," as The Guardian put it. ... Read more

Inside the New York Fed: Secret Recordings and a Culture Clash
ProPublica | Jake Bernstein | 09/26/14

After interviews with dozens of New York Fed employees, Beim learned something that surprised even him. The most daunting obstacle the New York Fed faced in overseeing the nation's biggest financial institutions was its own culture. The New York Fed had become too risk-averse and deferential to the banks it supervised. Its examiners feared contradicting bosses, who too often forced their findings into an institutional consensus that watered down much of what they did. ... Read more

Secret Recordings Inside The Federal Reserve Prompt Elizabeth Warren To Call For Investigation
ThinkProgress.org | Alan Pyke | 09/28/14

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) want to investigate the Federal Reserve's relationships with the banks it oversees after the release of taped conversations between managers and a former bank examiner at the Fed.

... Segarra says she began making the tapes after her own colleagues tried on multiple occasions to cajole her into changing her notes from meetings with Goldman Sachs executives because they didn't want an official record of some of the executives' comments about the bank's willingness to bend the rules. ...

... The tapes document the former examiner's experience pushing for a tougher approach to Goldman Sachs and being rebuffed by members of the team who had been there much longer. The audio recordings, published last week by This American Life and Pro Publica, appear to indicate that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York continues to have too cozy a relationship with the private bankers it is supposed to supervise despite an internal 2009 report that documented serious problems with how the Fed ran its oversight division in the run-up to the financial crisis. ... Read more

Billionaires Answer Call To Donate To Republican Super PACs For 2014 Homestretch
HP | Paul Blumenthal | 10/22/14

Billionaires are rushing to the aid of Republicans in the homestretch of the 2014 elections with a massive super PAC infusion after a plea from big money mastermind Karl Rove.

On Sept. 17, Rove, the co-founder of the super PAC and dark money duo American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, took to the Wall Street Journal editorial page to send out his billionaire bat-signal.

... Since Rove's plea, 21 billionaires and their family members have poured $19.9 million into super PACs backing Republican Party candidates, fueling an October outside spending surge. Only $5.1 million was given to the Republican super PACs in the first half of September, before Rove's request. ... Read more

Arctic Ice Melt Seen Doubling Risk of Harsh Winter in EU
Bloomberg | Stefan Nicola | 10/16/14

The decline in Arctic sea ice has doubled the chance of severe winters in Europe and Asia in the past decade, according to researchers in Japan.

Sea-ice melt in the Arctic, Barents and Kara seas since 2004 has made more than twice as likely atmospheric circulations that suck cold Arctic air to Europe and Asia, a group of Japanese researchers led by the University of Tokyo's Masato Mori said in a study published yesterday in Nature Geoscience. ... Read more

Another Deutsche Banker And Former SEC Enforcement Attorney Commits Suicide
ZeroHedge | author | 10/26/14

Back on January 26, a 58-year-old former senior executive at German investment bank behemoth Deutsche Bank, William Broeksmit, was found dead after hanging himself at his London home, and with that, set off an unprecedented series of banker suicides throughout the year which included former Fed officials and numerous JPMorgan traders. Following a brief late summer spell in which there was little if any news of bankers taking their lives, as reported previously, the banker suicides returned with a bang when none other than the hedge fund partner of infamous former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Khan, Thierry Leyne, a French-Israeli entrepreneur, was found dead after jumping off the 23rd floor of one of the Yoo towers, a prestigious residential complex in Tel Aviv. Just a few brief hours later the WSJ reported that yet another Deutsche Bank veteran has committed suicide, and not just anyone but the bank's associate general counsel, 41 year old Calogero "Charlie" Gambino, who was found on the morning of Oct. 20, having also hung himself by the neck from a stairway banister Read more

$20 Billion Later Halliburton Moves Headquarters to Dubai
HP | Raymond J. Learsy | older, 05/25/11)

Business must be slowing down in Iraq. After booking over $20 billion in revenues from its work in Iraq, some on no bid contracts and now under Congressional scrutiny for both the quality of its work and billing practices, Halliburton, Dick Cheney's old company, is moving its headquarters from Houston to Dubai. The company together with its KBR unit has been the Pentagon's largest contractor in Iraq.

The move is being met with outrage on Capitol Hill. Senator Patrick Leahy (D. Vermont) and chairman of the judiciary committee voiced his anger, "This is an insult to the U.S. soldiers and taxpayers who paid the tab for their no bid contracts and endured their overcharges for all these years". ... Read more

Ring of Fire | Ring of Fire full episode(10/19/14) [56:30]

Why Spain's Poor Fear Goldman Sachs
HP | Sonya Dowsett | 10/24/14

Last year Madrid's city and regional governments sold almost 5,000 rent-controlled flats to private equity investors including Goldman Sachs and Blackstone. At the time, the tenants were told their rental conditions would remain the same.

Jamila Bouzelmat is one of them. The mother of six lives in a four-bedroom flat on the outskirts of the Spanish capital that was bought jointly by Goldman and a Spanish firm. The 44-year-old said that until March her family paid 58 euros ($73) a month in rent out of her husband's 500-euro unemployment benefit. In April, her bank statement shows, her new landlords suddenly took 436 euros from her bank account. ... Read more

*Banker Suicides Return: DSK's Hedge Fund Partner Jumps From 23rd Floor Apartment
ZeroHedge | author | 10/24/14

The summer, thankfully, has been largely bereft of the dismal trend of bankers committing suicide, but as Bloomberg reports, Thierry Leyne, a French-Israeli banker and partner of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the disgraced former chief of the IMF, was found dead Thursday after apparently taking his own life by jumping off the 23rd floor of one of the Yoo towers, a prestigious residential complex in Tel Aviv. This is the 16th financial services executive death this year. ...

*Gary Webb Was Right
HP | Marc Levin | 10/24/14

Once again the paper has decided to focus on discrediting a fellow journalist instead of deepening the analysis of the story he highlighted. Gary Webb put a spotlight on the CIA and the Reagan administrations unholy alliance with anti communist guerrilla groups and their supporters who were involved in drug trafficking.

Webb's reporting uncovered the story of how tons of cocaine were shipped into San Francisco by supporters of the CIA backed Contras and then distributed down to LA to a Nicaraguan named Danilo Blandon who sold it to a street dealer from South Central, Freeway Rick Ross. ... Read more

Climate Change Is Kicking the Insurance Industry's Butt
MotherJones | Tim McDonnell | 10/24/14

In the months after Hurricane Sandy, insurance companies spooked by rising seas dropped coastal policies in droves.

... Certainly the threat is real. Globally, average annual weather-related losses have increased more than tenfold in the last several decades, from $10 billion per year in the period 1974-1983 to $131 billion in 2004-2013, according to the report. The insurance industry is not keeping pace: The proportion of those damages that are insured is steadily declining. ... Read more

The High Price of Free Money: Now US Bankers Fear Financial, Social, or Political 'Instability'
ZeroHedge | author | 10/23/14

Something is changing about the perception of the Fed's free-money policies. While we've lambasted them for their nefarious effects on the real economy and the inequality they produce, Wall Street, the prime beneficiary, has been bombastically gung-ho about them. And the mainstream media have praised the Fed's "bold action," as it's called, at every twist and turn.

But now even Wall Street is getting cold feet. The official warning shot came from Fed Chair Janet Yellen, who admitted suddenly that "the extent of and continuing increase in inequality in the United States greatly concern me." Then bankers chimed in. FICO, which produces the infamous credit score, found in its latest survey of North American bank risk managers that 62% of them thought "the wealth gap poses a growing risk to the financial system."

Without thriving consumers, the American economy that is so dependent on them will continue to languish. Just adding more consumers to the mix may increase overall consumer spending, and stirring up inflation may cover up the issue. But as the majority of individual consumers falls further behind, the risks of financial, social, or political "instability" might be looking ever more plausible to those bankers. ... Read more

Canada's parliament attacked, soldier fatally shot nearby
Reuters | Randall Palmer | 10/22/14

A gunman attacked Canada's parliament on Wednesday, with gunfire erupting near where Prime Minister Stephen Harper was speaking, and a soldier was fatally shot at a nearby war memorial, stunning the Canadian capital.

The gunman in the parliament building was shot dead, and Harper was safely removed in incidents that may have been linked to Islamic militants. ... Read more

The Science of Fox News: Why Its Viewers Are the Most Misinformed
AlterNet | Chris Mooney | 10/20/14

In June of 2011, Jon Stewart went on air with Fox News' Chris Wallace and started a major media controversy over the channel's misinforming of its viewers. "Who are the most consistently misinformed media viewers?" Stewart asked Wallace. "The most consistently misinformed? Fox, Fox viewers, consistently, every poll."

The author's goal here is to explore the underlying causes for this "Fox News effect"--explaining how this station has brought about a hurricane-like intensification of factual error, misinformation and unsupportable but ideologically charged beliefs on the conservative side of the aisle. ... Read more

Why Conservatives Opt for Propaganda Over Reality
AlterNet | Amanda Marcotte | 10/22/14

Conservatives are consuming a right-wing media full of lies and misinformation, whereas liberals are more interested in media that puts facts before ideology.

Pew Research set out to find what's behind what it considers the increasing political polarization of the United States; why the country is moving away from political moderation and becoming more and more divided between liberals and conservatives. Its first report on the phenomenon, which examines where people are hearing news and opinion in both regular and social media, shows that this is happening for very different reasons among people moving to the right than for people moving to the left.

Or that's the charitable way to put it. The less charitable way is to say Pew discovered that conservatives are consuming a right-wing media full of lies and misinformation, whereas liberals are more interested in media that puts facts before ideology. It's very much not a "both sides do it" situation. Conservatives are becoming more conservative because of propaganda, whereas liberals are becoming more liberal while staying very much checked into reality. ... Read more

Canadian Capital On Lock Down As A Result Of Ongoing "Terrorist" Shooting Incident
ZeroHedge | author | 10/22/14

At least two people are injured, including a soldier, after shots were fired in the Parliamentary precinct in Ottawa on Wednesday morning; one shooter is dead and police suspect as many as two others are on the loose.

A dark-clothed gunman fired the shots just before 10 a.m. at the Canadian War Memorial, where a uniformed soldier was shot. The gunman then fled for Parliament Hill, where he unleashed more gunfire inside Centre Block. ... Read more
CBC | Ottawa Police Confirm at least 3 Separate Shooting Sites and Multiple Suspects (10/22/14) [0:57]

Permanent Damage to US Economy-Michael Snyder
USAWathchdog.com | Greg Hunter | 10/22/14

Michael Snyder is a self-proclaimed "truth-seeker" and financial writer who says there is no recovery on Main Street, and we are not going to get one--ever. Snyder contends, "We've had permanent damage to the U.S. economy. ...

... By the time President Obama's eight years are over, we are on pace to approximately double the size of the national debt from $10.6 trillion to more than $20 trillion. What we are doing is absolute insanity. . . . We are going to suffer the consequences for so much of this. As far as the time window, I believe the next 12 to 15 months are going to be the most interesting time economically and as a nation as I have ever seen." ... Read more
USAWathchdog | Permanent Damage to US Economy-Michael Snyder (10/21/14) [25:36]
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Harley Bassman: "The Fed Is Trying To Land A Jumbo Jet On A Football Field"
ZeroHedge | author | 10/22/14

In Harley Bassman latest news letter, in which he picks up on his favorite topic: implied volatility in rates, and the arbitrage opportunities it provides courtesy of epic risk mispricing in the current quote-unquote market, courtesy of the Fed's 6 year+ centrally-planned manipulation of, well, everything. ... Read more

Wall Street Is One Sick Puppy - Thanks To Even Sicker Central Banks
ZeroHedge | author | 10/22/14

Last Wednesday the markets plunged on a vague recognition that the central bank promoted recovery story might not be on the level. But that tremor didn't last long.

Right on cue the next day, one of the very dimmest Fed heads--James Dullard of St Louis---mumbled incoherently about a possible QE extension, causing the robo-traders to erupt with buy orders. By the end of the day Friday, with the market off just 5% from its all-time highs, the buy-the-dips crowd was back, proclaiming that the "bottom is in". This week the market has been energetically retracing what remains of the October correction. ... Read more

Another Month, Another Global Heat Record Broken
AP & HP | Seth Borenstein | 10/20/14

Earth is on pace to tie or even break the mark for the hottest year on record, federal meteorologists say. That's because global heat records have kept falling in 2014, with September the latest example.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Monday that last month the globe averaged 60.3 degrees Fahrenheit (15.72 degrees Celsius). That was the hottest September in 135 years of record keeping.

It was the fourth monthly record set this year, along with May, June and August. ... Read more

Tornadoes Increasingly Coming In Swarms In United States, Study Says
Reuters & HP | Will Dunham | 10/16/14

Tornadoes in the United States are increasingly coming in swarms rather than as isolated twisters, according to a study by U.S. government meteorologists published on Thursday that illustrates another trend toward extreme weather emerging in recent years.

Looking at tornado activity over the past six decades, the study in the journal Science found the total number of tornadoes annually remaining rather steady, averaging 495. Since the 1970s, there have been fewer days with tornadoes but plenty more days with many of them, sometimes dozens or more.

On the list of the 10 single days with the most tornadoes since 1954, eight have occurred since 1999, including five since 2011. That year alone had days with 115, 73, 53 and 52 twisters. ... Read more

California Drought Worsened By Climate Change, Scientists Say
Reuters | Joaquin Palomino | 09/29/14

California's catastrophic drought has most likely been made worse by man-made climate change, according to a report released Monday by Stanford University, but scientists are still hesitant to fully blame the lack of rain on climate change.

The research, published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society as part of a collection of reports on extreme weather events in 2013, is one of the most comprehensive studies linking climate change and California's ongoing drought, which has caused billions of dollars in economic damage. ... Read more

"Anti-Petrodollar" CEO Of French Energy Giant Total Dies In Freak Plane Crash In Moscow
ZeroHedge | author | 10/21/14

Three months ago, the CEO of Total, Christophe de Margerie, dared utter the phrase heard around the petrodollar world, "There is no reason to pay for oil in dollars," as we noted here. Today, RT reports the dreadful news that he was killed in a business jet crash at Vnukovo Airport in Moscow after the aircraft hit a snow-plough on take-off. The airport issued a statement confirming "a criminal investigation has been opened into the violation of safety regulations," adding that along with 3 crewmembers on the plane, the snow-plough driver was also killed. ... Read more

Europe Demands Banks Hand Over Their Lunch Money Following Swiss Franc Libor Rigging
ZeroHedge | author | 10/21/14

Having confirmed that RBS, UBS, JPMorgan,,and Credit Suisse operated a cartell to manipulate bid-ask spreads of Swiss Franc libor, the European Commission has unleashed unmerciless vengeance on these law-breaking institutions:

JPMorgan fined EUR 72.2 Million, UBS fined EUR 12.7 Million, Credit Suisse fined EUR 9.17 Million, & RBS Nothing (for whistle-blowing).

The commission found that these four entities 'influenced' interest rate derivatives prices between March 2008 and July 2009 - probably the most volatile and price-sensitive period of American financial history.. and they get fined "an hour's pay?" Nothing ever changes... Read more

Living The Grecovery Dream: Two Jobless Parents, Two Kids, One Cat All Living In A Car
ZeroHedge | author | 10/20/14

This is an article of a Greek Family that is living in their car. But, it reminds us that it could be anyone of us if we suddenly have an life changing crisis. We all need help sometime in our life!

Squeezed between steering wheel, handbrake, door and dashboard, Katerina reads in her history book, takes notes for school. Next to her, on the driver's seat, cat Eddy stares right in the camera lens. It may look like a cute snapshot on a sunny day, if it wasn't for a sad detail: a withering spring stuck in a roll of toilet paper. A distinctive memory of a former normal life that turned into a grim reality for a family of four. ... Read more

Why Chinese Growth Forecasts Just Crashed To A Paltry 3.9% - And Are Going Even Lower - In One Chart
ZeroHedge | author | 10/20/14

Up until a few years ago, conventional wisdom was that China would grow at nearly double digits as long as the eye could see. Then, however, something happened, and China's 9% growth became 8%, then 7% and even lower, as suddenly the Politburo made it quite clear China would not chase growth at any cost, especially when the cost is trillions in bad debt and other NPLs, as we have explained time and again. The collapse in Chinese growth expectations is shown best on the following formerly hockeysticking chart of IMF's revised Chinese growth projections which has completely collapsed in the past few years. ... Read more
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60Minutes | China's Ghost Cities - 60 Minutes Australia (07/02/13) [10:49]
Dateline | China's Empty Cities (09/10/13) [15:00]

Dateline | E-Waste Hell (09/25/11) [17:44]

Now Comes The "Specter Of Deflation": The Money Printers' Latest Scam
ZeroHedge | author | 10/16/14

The Fed's public relations firm of Hilsenrath & Blackstone was out this morning with the official line on the market's tremors of recent days. It seems that $10 trillion in freshly minted digital money at the world's major central banks over the last eight years---that is, a tripling of their balance sheets to $16 trillion--- is not enough. Not only is 2% inflation still MIA, but it now threatening to enter the dark side: Behind the spate of market turmoil lurks a worry that top policy makers thought they had beaten back a few years ago: the specter of deflation. Never mind that there is nothing close to a sustained run of negative consumer price indices anywhere in the world. ... Read more

Sorry, California. Winter Isn't Going to Fix Your Drought.
MotherJones | Tim McDonnell | 10/16/14

California's crippling drought is not expected to improve over the winter, according to new forecast data released today by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Nearly 60 percent of the state is experiencing exceptional drought--the worst category--NOAA reported. The map above shows that the northern California coast could see some improvement. But in the Central Valley, a critical source of fruits, nuts, and vegetables for the whole country, conditions won't be getting better any time soon. A little rain is expected, NOAA forecaster Mike Halpert said in a statement, but not enough to reverse the trend. ... Read more
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Insiders Blame Rove for Covering Up Iraq's Real WMD
TheDailyBeast | author | 10:16:14

Starting in 2004, some members of the George W. Bush administration and Republican lawmakers began to find evidence of discarded chemical weapons in Iraq. But when the information was brought up with the White House, senior adviser Karl Rove told them to "let these sleeping dogs lie." ...

... According to Wurmser, "in 2005-6, Karl Rove and his team blocked public disclosure of these (findings) and said 'Let these sleeping dogs lie; we have lost that fight so better not to remind anyone of it.'" ... Read more

Severe Solar Storm Damage Could Top $2 Trillion
Bloomberg | author | 10/16/14

According to a study by Lloyd's of London, an extreme geomagnetic storm in the near future is almost inevitable. Such a storm that could cause widespread power outages in the U.S. for one to two years might have an economic cost of more than $2 trillion. Read more
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Chomsky: Business Elites Are Waging a Brutal Class War in America
AlterNet | Noam Chomsky | 10/14/14

Journalist Matt Taibbi has suggested that the government is afraid to prosecute powerful bankers, referring to "an arrestable class and an unarrestable class." What is your view on the current state of class war in the U.S.?

Well, there's always a class war going on. The United States, to an unusual extent, is a business-run society, more so than others. The business classes are very class-conscious--they're constantly fighting a bitter class war to improve their power and diminish opposition. Occasionally this is recognized. We don't use the term "working class" here because it's a taboo term. You're supposed to say "middle class," because it helps diminish the understanding that there's a class war going on. ... Read more

Prepare For Epic Volatility: E-mini Liquidity Is Nonexistant
ZeroHedge | author | 10/16/14

If you thought the last several days were volatile in the market, you ain't seen nothing yet: judging by the early liquidity, or rather complete lack thereof, in the market moving E-Mini contract, the asset class through which as we disclosed a month ago central banks directly manipulate markets with the CME's blessing, then we urge all those who have stop losses close to the NBBO to quietly pull those as they will get hit adversely. The reason? As this Nanex chart of ES orderbook levels show, there is zero, zilch, nada liquidity in the ES (purple line, compare to orange yesterday). ... Read more
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How Laissez-Faire Economics Led to Inequality and Recession
HP | Jeff Madrick | 10/14/14

Remember in 2009 when everyone was dodging blame for the financial crisis? Depending on who you asked, it was the bankers, the federal regulators, Fannie Mae, fraudster mortgage companies, the ratings agencies and the sub-prime borrowers themselves. The favorite claim of excuse makers was that no single group was to blame -- it was a cluster-f*** as one journalist friend put it.

If everyone did it, no one could be held accountable. But it wasn't true. Bankers and regulators were the major creators of the crisis, for their neglect and single-minded self-aggrandizement that often involved bending the rules. ... Read more

Thirteen Factories
Wikipedia | author | history

The Thirteen Factories was an area of Guangzhou (Canton), China, where the first foreign trade was allowed in the 18th century since the hai jin (??) ban on maritime activities. It is also referred to as the "Thirteen Hongs" or the "Canton Factories". The site where the factories stood is now Wenhua Park, and Thirteen Hong Street, onto which the factories backed is now named Shisanhang Road.

Factories were "foreigners quarters", or trading posts, outside the city walls in Guangzhou rather than a place in the contemporary sense where are manufactured goods. The name came from the foreign agent term of "factors", who maintained offices or factories. Chinese citizens often referred to the factories as "Barbarian Houses". ... Read more

James Risen Challenges the Greed, Power, and Endless War of the National Security State
AlterNet | Norman Solomon | 10/14/14

No single review or interview can do justice to "Pay Any Price" -- the new book by James Risen that is the antithesis of what routinely passes for journalism about the "war on terror." Instead of evasive tunnel vision, the book offers big-picture acuity: focusing on realities that are pervasive and vastly destructive.

Published this week, "Pay Any Price" throws down an urgent gauntlet. We should pick it up. After 13 years of militarized zealotry and fear-mongering in the name of fighting terrorism, the book -- subtitled "Greed, Power, and Endless War" -- zeros in on immense horrors being perpetrated in the name of national security.

Republican Right Embraces Its Long, Hypocritical Tradition of Pandering to Fear
HP | Robert Creamer | 10/14/14

They're back. Like the fourth sequel to a bad horror movie, the Republican Right has once again chosen to embrace its long ignoble, hypocritical tradition of pandering to -- and stoking -- fear.

As the election nears, their ads are filled with images of ISIL terrorists, Ebola viruses, Secret Service breaches, and "porous" borders through which knife-wielding Muslim extremists are surely infiltrating every corner of our society. It's not just disgusting. It's also hypocritical. The fact is that the Republicans have an abysmal record when it comes to defending the security of ordinary Americans.

But this is nothing new. Right-wing demagogues have perfected their techniques for appealing to our darkest fears for decades. It's embedded in their DNA. ... Read more

New York Times Reporter James Risen Finds 'Crazy Is The New Normal' In War On Terror
HP | Michael Calderone | 10/14/14

New York Times reporter James Risen was surprised Sunday when former National Security Agency chief Michael Hayden said he doesn't see a need for the government to prosecute Risen for refusing to reveal a source. "I'm glad to see he feels that way these days," Risen said in an interview Monday with The Huffington Post. "I'm not sure how long he's felt that way."

... Risen was one of a the few reporters to seriously scrutinize the Bush administration's case for war in Iraq, even as his own paper downplayed that skeptical coverage. The next year, Hayden and the Bush White House successfully pressured the Times not to publish Risen and colleague Eric Lichtblau's blockbuster report on the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program. The Pulitzer Prize-winning story finally appeared on the front page in late 2005, just weeks before Risen planned to reveal it in a chapter of his book, State of War. ... Read more

Your Thoughts on Tiny Houses
BillMoyers | John Light | 10/14/14

Last week, BillMoyers.com published a report on micro-houses (or, more popularly, "tiny houses"). These ultra-compact homes of 1,000 square feet or less are appealing to those who want to make their lives more sustainable, and, increasingly, are being looked at by some as a model for affordable housing.

Many in our audience had lived in a micro-house. "I lived in a 920-square-foot passive solar house and was very happy. My heating bill for the entire winter: $98," said Gordon Billingsley. And even though our BillMoyers.com piece looked at micro-homes for individuals, some of our audience said that they work for families, too. ... Read more

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Wednesday, October 15 [12:34]

*DN | Infected Workers, Slow Deployment, No Vaccines: Ebola Response Shows Pitfalls of Privatized Health (10/15/14) [16:12]

*TRNN | Sen. Bob Graham: Revealing the 9/11 Conspiracy Would Undo the Entire US-Saudi Alliance, Part 2 (10/14/14) [16:24]

*TRNN | Deepa Kumar: Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire (10/15/14) [20:21]

*TYT | Meet The Ultra-Rich Koch Donors Who Not-So-Secretly Run Things (10/14/14) [19:28]

TYT | Fox News Hides The Ugly, Honest Reason America Has No Surgeon General (10/14/14) [3:36]

The group originated as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad in 1999. This group was the forerunner of Tanzim Qaidat al-Jihad fi Bilad al-Rafidayn--commonly known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). It took part in the Iraqi insurgency against US-led forces and their Iraqi allies following the 2003 invasion of Iraq and joined other Sunni insurgent groups to form the Mujahideen Shura Council, which consolidated further into the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) shortly afterwards. At its height, it enjoyed a significant presence in Al Anbar, Nineveh, Kirkuk, and other areas, but around 2008 its violent methods led to a backlash against it and temporary decline.

In April 2013, the group changed its name to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. It grew significantly under the leadership of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, gaining support in Iraq as a result of perceived economic and political discrimination against Iraqi Sunnis. ... Read more

WHO: New Ebola Cases Could Be Up To 10,000 Per Week In 2 Months
AP & HP | author | 10/14/14

The death rate in the Ebola outbreak has risen to 70 percent and there could be up to 10,000 new cases a week in two months, the World Health Organization warned Tuesday. WHO assistant director-general Dr. Bruce Aylward gave the grim figures during a news conference in Geneva. Previously, WHO had estimated the death rate at around 50 percent.

... For the last four weeks, there's been about 1,000 new cases per week -- including suspected, confirmed and probable cases, he said, adding that the U.N. health agency is aiming to get 70 percent of cases isolated within two months to reverse the outbreak. ... Read more

All That Is Broken With The US Financial System In One Chart
ZeroHedge | author | 10/14/14

As the blue bar shows, total loans issued by the biggest US bank were $743 billion in Q3 2014: about $20 billion less than in the quarter Lehman blew up. Four years later, and the US commercial bank lending apparatus is still in a state of depression. Or so it would appear on the books.

Mortgage Application Pipeline At America's Largest Mortgage Lender Drops To Lowest Since Lehman
ZeroHedge | author | 10/14/14

US housing picture is once again the worst it has ever been (excluding those days around the Lehman bankruptcy when all of finance died for a few weeks).

In short: the only people buying houses in the US now are foreigners laundering their illegal, tax-exempt profits (ever fewer) and those as close to the Fed's ZIRP as possible, and, of course, paying all cash. Everyone else: not so much. Read more
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The Fed Is About To Pull The QE Plug... And This Happens
ZeroHedge | author | 10/14/14

Moments ago, the Fed concluded its latest $931MM POMO, with just 6 more POMOs left ever (at least until another QE program is unveiled), and judging by the last week's performance, the market has finally figured this out. And Goldman, which has been pounding the table on shorting the 10 Year for about a year now, and in the process crucifying even more muppets, has some bad news for TSY shorts: global growth is crashing. ... Read more
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Will The Fed Let The Stock Market Crash Before An Election?
ZeroHedge | author | 10/13/14

... Let's set aside sentiment measures and technical analysis and ask a larger question: will the Fed let the stock market crash before an election? Once again we find two camps among participants. 1) One camp believes markets still obey the basic rules of technical analysis. The Fed and other central banks may intervene at the margins, but their interventions only work on low-volume days. When selling increases, it overwhelms the relatively modest size of central bank intervention and the market then crash. 2) The other camp holds that all markets are now engineered, and intervention can reach essentially unlimited levels if the Powers That Be deem that necessary.

For context, let's recall that the Fed conjured up $16 trillion to backstop global banks in the Global Financial Meltdown; (the Levy Institute came up with $29 trillion after poring over all the data). To put $16 trillion in context, note that entire gross domestic product (GDP) of the U.S. is about $17.3 trillion, and all residential mortgages in the U.S. total about $10 trillion. ... Read more
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Key Figures In CIA-Crack Cocaine Scandal Begin To Come Forward
HP | Ryan Grim | 10/10/14

... More than 18 years have passed since Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb stunned the world with his "Dark Alliance" newspaper series investigating the connections between the CIA, a crack cocaine explosion in the predominantly African-American neighborhoods of South Los Angeles, and the Nicaraguan Contra fighters -- scandalous implications that outraged LA's black community, severely damaged the intelligence agency's reputation and launched a number of federal investigations. ...

... Now, Webb's bombshell expose is being explored anew in a documentary, "Freeway: Crack in the System," directed by Marc Levin, which tells the story of "Freeway" Rick Ross, who created a crack empire in LA during the 1980s and is a key figure in Webb's "Dark Alliance" narrative. The documentary is being released after the major motion picture "Kill The Messenger," which features Jeremy Renner in the role of Webb and hits theaters on Friday. ... Read more

Key Figures In CIA-Crack Cocaine Scandal Begin To Come Forward
HP | Ryan Grim | 10/10/14

With the public in the U.S. and Latin America becoming increasingly skeptical of the war on drugs, key figures in a scandal that once rocked the Central Intelligence Agency are coming forward to tell their stories in a new documentary and in a series of interviews with The Huffington Post.

More than 18 years have passed since Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Gary Webb stunned the world with his "Dark Alliance" newspaper series investigating the connections between the CIA, a crack cocaine explosion in the predominantly African-American neighborhoods of South Los Angeles, and the Nicaraguan Contra fighters -- scandalous implications that outraged LA's black community, severely damaged the intelligence agency's reputation and launched a number of federal investigations.

It did not end well for Webb, however. Major media, led by The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times, worked to discredit his story. Under intense pressure, Webb's top editor abandoned him. Webb was drummed out of journalism. One LA Times reporter recently apologized for his leading role in the assault on Webb, but it came too late. Webb died in 2004 from an apparent suicide. Obituaries referred to his investigation as "discredited."

Now, Webb's bombshell expose is being explored anew in a documentary, "Freeway: Crack in the System," directed by Marc Levin, which tells the story of "Freeway" Rick Ross, who created a crack empire in LA during the 1980s and is a key figure in Webb's "Dark Alliance" narrative. The documentary is being released a week after the major motion picture "Kill The Messenger," which features Jeremy Renner in the role of Webb and hits theaters on Friday. ... Read more

"Financial Markets Are Artificially Priced: What Do You Do?" - Bill Gross' First Janus Capital Letter
ZeroHedge | author | 10/10/14

Financial markets are artificially priced.... We have had our Biblical seven years of fat. We must look forward, almost by mathematical necessity, to seven figurative years of leaner: Bonds -- 3% to 4% at best, stocks -- 5% to 6% on the outside. That may not be enough for your retirement or your kid's college education. It certainly isn't for many private and public pension funds that still have a fairy tale belief in an average 7% to 8% return for the next 10 to 20 years! ... Read more

America's Ridiculously Rich: the 2014 Edition
BillMoyers | author | 10/10/14

... And the richest of these 400 hold far more than that average. Take Larry Ellison, the third-ranking deep pocket on this year's Forbes list. Ellison just stepped down as the CEO of the Oracle business software colossus. His net worth: $50 billion.

What does Ellison do with all those billions? He collects homes and estates, for starters, with 15 or so scattered all around the world. Ellison likes yachts, too. He currently has two extremely big ones, each over half as long as a football field.

Ellison also likes to play basketball, even on his yachts. If a ball bounces over the railing, no problem. Ellison has a powerboat following his yacht, the Wall Street Journal noted this past spring, "to retrieve balls that go overboard."

Hiring that ball-retriever qualifies Ellison as a "job creator," right? Maybe not. Ellison has regularly destroyed jobs on his way to grand fortune. He has become, over the years, a master of the merge-and-purge two-step: First you snatch your rival's customers, then you fire its workers.

In 2005, for instance, Ellison shelled out $10.6 billion to buy out PeopleSoft, an 11,000-employee competitor. He then proceeded to put the ax to 5,000 jobs .

Five years later, Ellison bought out Sun Microsystems and indignantly denied that any "massive layoff" would be in the offing. Five months later, Ellison's Oracle quietly acknowledged a major downsizing in an official federal regulatory filing.

Job massacres like these have been hollowing out America's middle class ... Read more

Princess Juliana International Airport, St. Maarten
weather.com | author | current

Maho Beach is located in St Maarten, and famous for the Princess Juliana International Airport adjacent to the it. Arriving aircraft must touch down as close as possible to the beginning of Runway 10 resulting in aircraft flying over the beach at minimal altitude.

Democracy Now! U.S. and World News Headlines for Friday, October 10 [9:16]

*TRNN | Ms. Deepa Kumar: Islamophobia and a Challenge to Bill Maher (10/10/14) [20:57]

*DN | "Kill the Messenger" Resurrects Gary Webb, Journalist Maligned for Exposing CIA Ties to Crack Trade (10/09/14) [5:24]

How Abola Effects the Body
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Want To Score High On The SAT? Pick Rich Parents
ZeroHedge | author | 10/08/14

While money (reportedly) can't buy love, it appears, according to The WSJ, that it can buy brains.On average, based on calculations from FairTest, students in 2014 in every income bracket outscored students in a lower bracket on every section of the test. Rather stunningly, students from the wealthiest families outscored those from the poorest by just shy of 400 points. As WSJ's Josh Zumbrun so poetically notes, perhaps SAT should more appropriately stand for Student Affluence Test. ... Read more
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Are Tiny Houses a Viable Affordable Housing Solution?
BillMoyers | John Light | 10/06/14

Last month's well attended climate march in New York City showed that we are finally recognizing the harmful effects of our fossil-fuel driven economy on the planet. Some Americans looking to shrink their carbon footprint are doing so by shrinking their homes, opting to live in ultra-compact houses, often referred to as "tiny houses."

Increasingly, these small homes are also being considered as models for affordable housing that could serve as a place for the homeless to find some stability and, perhaps, live permanently. In such varied locations as Portland, Oregon, upstate New York, Austin, Texas and Madison, Wisconsin, local advocates for the homeless have constructed communities of tiny houses. ... Read more
Are Tiny Houses a Viable Affordable Housing Solution? (10/07/14) [9:32]

Key Democrats, Led By Hillary Clinton, Leave No Doubt That Endless War Is Official U.S. Doctrine
The Intercept | Glenn Greenwald | 10/08/14

Long before Americans were introduced to the new 9/11 era super-villains called ISIS and Khorasan, senior Obama officials were openly and explicitly stating that America's "war on terror," already 12 years old, would last at least another decade. At first, they injected these decrees only anonymously; in late 2012, The Washington Post - disclosing the administration's secret creation of a "disposition matrix" to decide who should be killed, imprisoned without charges, or otherwise "disposed" of - reported these remarkable facts.

... In May, 2013, the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on whether it should revise the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF). A committee member asked a senior Pentagon official, Assistant Secretary Michael Sheehan, how long the war on terror would last; his reply: "At least 10 to 20 years." At least. A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed afterward "that Sheehan meant the conflict is likely to last 10 to 20 more years from today -- atop the 12 years that the conflict has already lasted." As Spencer Ackerman put it: "Welcome to America's Thirty Years War," one which -- by the Obama administration's own reasoning -- has "no geographic limit." ... Read more

Airstrikes are big business for defense companies
magazine | Cliff Judy | 09/29/14

Airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria have served as launching point for far more than missiles. Those military decisions cost the U.S. millions of dollars a day, and defense contractors pocket much of that money. (Video via U.S. Navy)

Bloomberg reports in mid-September just ahead of airstrikes in Syria, defense firms Lockheed Martin, Northrop, Raytheon and General Dynamics Corporation all set stock price records. ... Read more
*Airstrikes are big business for defense companies (09/29/14) [3:17]

Woman Explains Why She Will End Her Life on November 1
AlterNet | Alyssa Figueroa | 10/08/14

Brittany Maynard and her husband were on their honeymoon when she started to get severe headaches. By January 2014, she found out she had a type of brain cancer called glioblastoma multiforme and was told she had ten years to live. A few weeks later, however, doctors uncovered the cancer was at stage 4, and she would only have six months to live. ... Read more
Woman Explains Why She Will End Her Life on November 1 (10/08/14) [6:30]

Restoring an America That Has Lost its Way
BillMoyers | author | 10/07/14

Three years ago, reporter and former New York Times columnist Bob Herbert took to the road and traveled across the United States, chronicling in his new book, Losing Our Way, the stories of brave, hard-working men and women battered by the economic downturn. He found an America in which jobs have disappeared, infrastructure is falling apart and the "virtuous cycle" of well-paid workers spending their wages to power the economy has been broken by greed and the gap between the very rich and everyone else.

He tells Bill: "[W]e've established a power structure in which the great corporations and the big banks have allied themselves with the national government and, in many cases, local government to pursue corporate interests and financial interests as opposed to those things that would be in the best interests of ordinary working people… Once you do that, you lose the dynamic that America is supposed to be. It's supposed to be an egalitarian society, a society of rising standards of living, a society of a vast and thriving middle class. And we are getting farther and farther away from that ideal."

As for solutions, Herbert says, "People need to start voting against the excessive power of the great moneyed interests. But more than that, we need a movement, a grass-roots movement that will fight for the interests of ordinary men and women…" Read more

End Of The Empire
ZeroHedge | author | 10/08/14

If the top 1/100th of 1% crowding airports with their private jets isn't afraid of impoverished, disenchanted debt-serfs with pitchforks, they should be.

By End of the Empire I refer not to the collapse of American Imperial power but to the excesses and anxieties that characterize the decay of Empire. I have covered the dynamics of Imperial decay before: How Empires Fall (April 17, 2013): The imperial tree falls not because the challenges are too great but because the core of the tree has been weakened by the gradual loss of surplus, purpose, institutional effectiveness, intellectual vigor and productive investment.

... The top 1/10th of 1% has never been wealthier, the top 1% has never been wealthier, the top 5% have never been wealthier, and the top 10% have never been wealthier. People wonder why they're "poor" despite earning $250,000 a year, and yet they seem unaware of where their earnings go because they're entitled to all the goodies: by golly, we worked hard and we deserve it. ... Read more

U.S. Orders Agents To Monitor Travelers For Ebola
AP & HP | Alicia A. Caldwell | 10/08/14

The government plans to begin taking the temperatures of travelers from West Africa arriving at five U.S. airports as part of a stepped-up response to the Ebola epidemic.

At the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest said an additional layer of screening would begin at New York's JFK International and the international airports in Newark, Washington Dulles, Chicago and Atlanta. He did not give many details, but another official said separately that the new steps would include taking temperatures and would begin Saturday at JFK. ... Read more

Photos From Ebola Ground Zero In Liberia by John Moore

Inside the Bizarre Right-Wing Panic over Ebola Virus Coming to the US
AlterNet | Amanda Marcotte | 10/07/14

Of all the issues that you would think would by non-partisan, ebola should be at the top of the list. The disease is just a mindless germ that doesn't check your race, gender, social class, sexual orientation or party identification before it strikes, suggesting both liberals and conservatives have a stake in treating people exposed to the disease with compassion and care. And yet, to flip on Fox News or turn on any conservative media at all, you'd think that ebola was some kind of plague designed by the Democratic party in order to wipe out Republicans.

Blowing the threat of ebola out of proportion and trying to link it to Obama has been a constant theme on the right in recent days. Elisabeth Hasselbeck of Fox News literally demanded that we put the country on lockdown, banning all travel in and out. In a bit of race-baiting, Andrea Tantaros of Fox suggested that people who travel to the country and show symptoms of ebola will "seek treatment from a witch doctor" instead of go to the hospital. Fox host Steve Doocy suggested the CDC is lying about ebola because they're "part of the administration". Fox also promoted a conspiracy theorist who is trying to claim the CDC is lying when they caution people not to panic. ... Read more

At 78, Former Executive Still Flips Burgers for $7.98
Bloomberg | Carol Hymowitz | 10/07/14

"Yes, I am the burger man,''

A year ago, Bloomberg News profiled Palome's odyssey through the working world of older Americans who haven't saved enough to retire comfortably. When the story hit, "I had 15 hours of fame" that included paid speaking and consulting gigs, Palome said. Then the thrill wore off and Palome was back to his regular work life and the financial pressure of limited savings.

Following Bloomberg's story, published in September 2013 and reprinted by newspapers and websites including The Washington Post and Yahoo! Finance, strangers stopped Palome in the street, asking, "Aren't you the burger man?" ("Yes, I am the burger man,'' Palome would respond with pride.) Many others tracked him down at work to shake his hand just to "make sure I really existed," he said. ... Read more

The World's Most Powerful Central Banker: Janet Who?
Bloomberg | Christopher Condonr | 10/07/14

While world financial markets hang on her every word, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen isn't making much of an impression yet on ordinary Americans.

Just 24 percent of respondents correctly identified Janet Yellen as the chair of the U.S. central bank in a survey by the Pew Research Center in Washington. Seventeen percent believed Alan Greenspan, who resigned in 2006, still holds the job. ... Read more

Joe Biden Apologizes For Telling the Truth About ISIS
MotherJones | Kevin Drum | 10/06/14

Speaking at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Mr. Biden said allies including Turkey, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates had extended unconditional financial and logistical support to Sunni fighters trying to oust the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.

... "Our allies poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against al-Assad," he said, including jihadists planning to join the Nusra Front and Al Qaeda. ... Read more
CBS | Biden apologizes for gaffe that angered Mideast allies (10/05/14) [1:52]

Spain Warns "Something Went Wrong" As Suspected Ebola Cases Rise In Madrid
ZeroHedge | author | 10/07/14

Despite being described by Spain's public health director as "a national jewel," the head of Spain's Nursing Council warns "something went wrong" in the health care system's protocols.

Spanish health officials have 4 patients interned including infected initial nurse, her husband, and a 2nd nurse (male). Furthermore, 22 more possible Ebola cases are under surveillance having had direct contact with the infected nurse during her vacation after being infected (officials have said they 'don't know' how she became infected with the deadly virus). ... Read more

American Banks Stockpile Treasuries as Deposits Top Loans
Bloomberg | Susanne Walker | 10/06/14

American banks are loading up on U.S. government debt, a sign they remain cautious on the economy even with the jobless rate at a six-year low and corporations at their healthiest in a generation.

Commercial lenders increased their holdings of Treasuries (BUSY) and debt from federal agencies in September by $54 billion to an unprecedented $1.99 trillion, data from the Federal Reserve show. Banks have now been net buyers for 12 straight months.

Bank of America Corp. (BAC) and Citigroup Inc. (C) are among the lenders adding government bonds this year as loan growth fails to keep up with record deposits and banks prepare for rules that take effect in January requiring them to hold more high-quality assets. While companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index are earning more than ever and carrying the lowest debt burdens in at least 24 years, the buying suggests that loan officers are less sanguine over the outlook for the U.S. economy. ... Read more

S&P 500 Companies Spend 95% of Profits on Buybacks, Payouts
Bloomberg | Lu Wang | 10/06/14

Companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index really love their shareholders. Maybe too much. They're poised to spend $914 billion on share buybacks and dividends this year, or about 95 percent of earnings, data compiled by Bloomberg and S&P Dow Jones Indices show. Money returned to stock owners exceeded profits in the first quarter and may again in the third. The proportion of cash flow used for repurchases has almost doubled over the last decade while it's slipped for capital investments, according to Jonathan Glionna, head of U.S. equity strategy research at Barclays Plc.

Buybacks have helped fuel one of the strongest rallies of the past 50 years as stocks with the most repurchases gained more than 300 percent since March 2009. Now, with returns slowing, investors say executives risk snuffing out the bull market unless they start plowing money into their businesses. ... Read more

What Bubble? Record $924 Billion In 65 Million Auto Loans: 31% Of All New Loans Are Subprime
ZeroHedge | author | 10/06/14

Government Spends More on Corporate Welfare Subsidies than Social Welfare Programs
thinkbynumbers.org | author | 2012

http://thinkbynumbers.org

When one thinks about government welfare, the first thing that comes to mind is the proverbial welfare queen sitting atop her majestic throne of government cheese issuing a royal decree to her clamoring throngs of illegitimate babies that they may shut the hell up while she tries to watch Judge Judy. However, many politically well-connected corporations are also parasitically draining their share of fiscal blood from your paycheck before you ever see it. It's called corporate welfare. The intent here is to figure out which presents the greater burden to our federal budget, corporate or social welfare programs. ... Read more

STUDY: U.S. Spends $59 Billion on Social Welfare…$92 Billion on Corporate Welfare
wepartypatriots.com | author | 09/21/12

A recent blog post by Mike Sinn for Think by Numbers questions if the government spends more on social welfare or corporate welfare. The GOP has attempted to turn the political discussion surrounding the upcoming election into a debate about President Obama and social welfare, while progressives have done the same with Mitt Romney and corporate welfare. But who is right!? There have got to be…facts…haven't there!?

According to analyzed numbers from the year 2006, the government spends $59 billion (3% of its total budget) on social welfare and $92 billion (5% of total budget) on corporate welfare. Perhaps more interesting is that in 1996, when new welfare reforms were signed into law by President Bill Clinton, both caseloads AND child poverty significantly dropped, saving the government gobs of money: ... Read more

Labor Participation Rate Drops To 36 Year Low; Record 92.6 Million Americans Not In Labor Force
ZeroHedge | author | 10/03/14

While by now everyone should know the answer, for those curious why the US unemployment rate just slid once more to a meager 5.9%, the lowest print since the summer of 2008, the answer is the same one we have shown every month since 2010: the collapse in the labor force participation rate, which in September slide from an already three decade low 62.8% to 62.7% - the lowest in over 36 years, matching the February 1978 lows. And while according to the Household Survey, 232K people found jobs, what is more disturbing is that the people not in the labor force, rose to a new record high, increasing by 315,000 to 92.6 million! ... Read more
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Americans Have No Idea How Bad Inequality Really Is
Slate | Jordan Weissmann | 09/26/14

If Michael Norton's research is to be believed, Americans don't have the faintest clue how severe economic inequality has become -- and if they only knew, they'd be appalled.

Consider the Harvard Business School professor's new study examining public opinion about executive compensation, co-authored with the Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok's Sorapop Kiatpongsan. In the 1960s, the typical corporate chieftain in the U.S. earned 20 times as much as the average employee. Today, depending on whose estimate you choose, he makes anywhere from 272 to 354 times as much. According to the AFL-CIO, the average CEO takes home more than $12 million, while the average worker makes about $34,000. Read more

The Top Five Bank Bailouts We Never Heard About
Bill Moyer | Joshua Holland | 10/03/14

*Bill Moyers | A veteran bank regulator, William K. Black, lays bare how Washington and Wall Street are joined in a culture of corruption. (10/02/14) [25:20]

JPMorgan Says Data Breach Hit 76 Million Households
HP | Mark Gongloff | 10/02/14

A cyber attack at America's biggest bank this summer affected more than half of all U.S. households -- far, far more than previously estimated, and the latest in a string of massive, unnerving data breaches. The attack at JPMorgan Chase affected the data of 76 million households and 7 million businesses, the bank said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.

... Hackers attacked the bank's computer systems periodically between mid-June and mid-August, according to The Wall Street Journal. The attackers accessed customer names, email addresses, phone numbers and physical addresses, along with "internal JPMorgan Chase information relating to such users," the bank said in its regulatory filing. The bank didn't describe what sort of information that was. ... Read more

Who Is Buying The Islamic State's Illegal Oil?
ZeroHedge | author | 10/01/14

"The crude is transported by tankers to Jordan via Anbar province, to Iran via Kurdistan, to Turkey via Mosul, to Syria's local market and to the Kurdistan region of Iraq, where most of it gets refined locally... Turkey has turned a blind eye to this and may continue to do so until they come under pressure from the West to close down oil black markets in the country's south." ... Read more

Health Officials Say More Than 80 People Were Exposed To Texas Ebola Patient
Reuters & HP | Lisa Maria Garza | 10/02/14

More than 80 people had direct or indirect contact with the first person to be diagnosed with the deadly Ebola virus in the United States, health officials said Thursday, as four members of the patient's family were quarantined as a precaution.

... "We have tried and true protocols to protect the public and stop the spread of this disease," said Dr. David Lakey, the Texas health commissioner. "This order gives us the ability to monitor the situation in the most meticulous way." "The order is in place until the incubation period has passed and the family is no longer at risk of having the disease," Lakey said. ... Read more

Doctor Boards Atlanta Flight In HazMat Suit To Protest "Lying CDC"
ZeroHedge | author | 10/02/14

"If they're not lying, they are grossly incompetent," said Dr. Gil Mobley, a microbiologist and emergency trauma physician from Springfield, Mo. as he checked in and cleared Atlanta airport security wearing a mask, goggles, gloves, boots and a hooded white jumpsuit emblazoned on the back with the words, "CDC is lying!" As The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, Mobley says the CDC is "sugar-coating" the risk of the virus spreading in the United States. ... Read more
Doctor Boards Atlanta Flight In HazMat Suit To Protest "Lying CDC" (10/02/14) [1:00]

Gross Exposes $42 Trillion Bond Market's Key Flaw
Bloomberg | Lisa Abramowicz | 10/01/14

One man shook a $42 trillion bond market last week, highlighting just how vulnerable bond prices are to shocks. Bill Gross's surprise departure on Friday from Pacific Investment Management Co. sparked selloffs in some of his biggest wagers, such as inflation-protected U.S. government bonds.

... It's become increasingly difficult to buy and sell debt as new regulations prompt Wall Street banks to curtail their holdings. Average daily trading in the U.S. bond market fell to $809 billion in 2013 from $1.04 trillion in 2008...

... Banks are less willing to cushion big swings using their own balance sheets and Gross's exit shows just how little it takes to move the needle in the global bond market, which has ballooned by 48 percent since 2008. ... Read more

Dimon Pep Talk Consoles Eric Cantor on Way to Wall Street
Bloomberg | Max Abelson | 09/30/14

Eric Cantor sat in his Washington office in June after one of the biggest upsets in congressional history, getting encouragement from JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s Jamie Dimon, head of the largest U.S. bank.

Dimon talked about being fired from another bank by his mentor before rebounding to an even better seat, according to two people who were there. He reassured the Virginia Republican that his career would be just fine, too.

He was right. Cantor, 51, started this month as a managing director and vice chairman of New York-based investment bank Moelis & Co. (MC), where he'll earn more than $3.4 million by the end of next year. With former White House officials and a Tea Party spokesman calling Cantor a sellout, half a dozen people close to him described his new Wall Street life as an extension of his principles rather than a betrayal of them. ... Read more

The Supreme Court has almost always sided with the wealthy, the privileged, and the powerful, a new book argues.
Slate | y Dahlia Lithwick | 09/30/14

Erwin Chemerinsky is dean of the University of California--Irvine School of Law and a respected litigator with decades of experience who has argued seminal cases at the U.S. Supreme Court. This month he has come out with The Case Against the Supreme Court. The upshot of the book? That the court itself--not the Roberts court but the Supreme Court as an institution--is a massive disappointment. As he bluntly puts it: "We should realize that this is an emperor that truly has no clothes. For too long, we have treated the court is if they are the high priests of the law, or at least as if they are the smartest and best lawyers in society." The book painstakingly details the ways in which the Supreme Court has, in his view, almost always "failed, throughout American history, at its most important tasks, at its most important moments. ... Read more

How Bad Could It Get? US Government Order Of 160,000 HazMat Suits Gives A Clue
ZeroHedge | author | 10/01/14

Now that Ebola is officially in the US on an uncontrolled basis, the two questions on everyone's lips are i) who will get sick next and ii) how bad could it get? We don't know the answer to question #1 just yet, but when it comes to the second one, a press release three weeks ago from Lakeland Industries, a manufacturer and seller of a "comprehensive line of safety garments and accessories for the industrial protective clothing market" may provide some insight into just how bad the US State Department thinks it may get. Because when the US government buys 160,000 hazmat suits specifically designed against Ebola, just ahead of the worst Ebola epidemic in history making US landfall, one wonders: what do they know the we don't? Read more

Mitt Romney's Latest Excuse (Take 23) for His 47 Percent Remarks Is a Doozy
MotherJones | David Corn | 09/30/14