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Archive for February, 2011

Soros says Israel is “main stumbling block” in Mideast

February 6, 2011 Comments off
As we all watch the unrest in Egypt and other Mideast countries, a very disconcerting political reality is beginning to settle in.
The Arab liberation revolution will fundamentally change the Middle East. The acceleration of the West’s decline will change the world. One outcome will be a surge toward China, Russia and regional powers like Brazil, Turkey and Iran. Another will be a series of international flare-ups stemming from the West’s lost deterrence. But the overall outcome will be the collapse of North Atlantic political hegemony not in decades, but in years. When the United States and Europe bury Mubarak now, they are also burying the powers they once were. In Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the age of Western hegemony is fading away.
The likely successor government in Egypt, should the current leadership step down, is the Muslim Brotherhood.
This should be frightening to most Americans, but it’s a welcomed event to billionaire Marxist George Soros.
Egypt is more complex and, ultimately, more influential, which is why it is so important to get it right. The protesters are very diverse, including highly educated and Read more…

The Youth Unemployment Bomb

February 6, 2011 Comments off

From Cairo to London to Brooklyn, too many young people are jobless and disaffected. Inside the global effort to put the next generation to work

https://i0.wp.com/images.businessweek.com//mz/11/07/600/1107_mz_58youth1.jpg

Cairo, Egypt: A cloud of tear gas drives back antigovernment protesters on Jan. 28 Jorge Dirkx/Reporters/Redux

By Peter Coy

In Tunisia, the young people who helped bring down a dictator are called hittistes—French-Arabic slang for those who lean against the wall. Their counterparts in Egypt, who on Feb. 1 forced President Hosni Mubarak to say he won’t seek reelection, are the shabab atileen, unemployed youths. The hittistes and shabab have brothers and sisters across the globe. In Britain, they are NEETs—”not in education, employment, or training.” In Japan, they are freeters: an amalgam of the English word freelance and the German word Arbeiter, or worker. Spaniards call them mileuristas, meaning they earn no more than 1,000 euros a month. In the U.S., they’re “boomerang” kids who move back home after college because they can’t find work. Even fast-growing China, where labor shortages are more common than surpluses, has its “ant tribe”—recent college graduates who crowd together in cheap flats on the fringes of big cities because they can’t find well-paying work.

In each of these nations, an economy that can’t generate enough jobs to absorb its young people has created a Read more…

Social Security financial headwinds, another 395,000 Americans added to food stamp assistance in latest month of data, and manipulating the unemployment rate.

February 6, 2011 1 comment

The dichotomous American economy is cracking like old paint into two distinct factions.  For a few solid decades after World War II we had a burgeoning middle class, a smaller financial elite, and those who still struggled financially.  The main objective however was to get as many people into the secure middle class.  Today the middle class, the pinnacle of the American Dream, is significantly shrinking and when this occurs, we pull from the current middle class and put new families into the financially struggling category.  The pie is getting smaller for most except for the small elite at the summit.  The financial gaming that is occurring is stunning.  While the unemployment rate fell largely due to people not being counted in the labor report, the latest month of data showed another 395,000 Americans being added to the nationwide food stamp program.  Last year we also crossed a distressing fiscal threshold.  In one month we paid out more in Social Security benefits than was collected.  Social Security is entering the financial tough days and as we look at the statistics, most retired Americans are using Social Security for their entire monthly budget.

Social Security by the numbers

We should start by looking at the total number of Americans receiving Social Security:

social security

Read more…

Egypt is Just the Beginning for Gold’s Next Move

February 6, 2011 Comments off

Watching CNN, its easy to be lulled into the sense that the cute little third world African country that is home to Cleopatra, mummies and pyramids is having a little revolution to get rid of a tired old tyrant. That the old goat is putting up such resistance to the national message is to be expected, and might be forgiven. Unleashing bands of paid thugs under the guise of ‘supporters’ reveals true brutality and illuminates the character of the man, Hosni Mubarak – a sociopath.

This phenomenon, originated in Tunisia, a nation of 10 million, and now raging in Egypt, of 85 million has spread to Yemen, population 25 million and Jordan, population 6 million is no mere regional political shift: this is the beginning of America’s loss of control over the region.

That the democratic process even got a foothold in the tribal and historically despotically governed middle east is due to a series of historical power plays, and not so much to a nascent and organic inclination towards the idea of democracy. When oil emerged to become the most strategic substance on earth after the second world war, the United States, armed with the economic windfall from the war machine, set about toppling governments and seeding insurrection through the offices of the C.I.A., bolstering governments that were ‘incentivized’ to protect U.S. interests, and destroying those that were not.

Back then, before the light-sped connected world, the C.I.A. could operate with Read more…

GM crops to be allowed into Britain under controversial EU plans

February 5, 2011 Comments off

UK to back imports of animal feed with traces of GM crops in move to benefit US exporters

Jamie Doward

Genetically modified crops will be allowed to enter the UK food chain without the need for regulatory clearance for the first time under controversial plans expected to be approved this week.

The Observer understands that the UK intends to back EU plans permitting the importing of animal feed containing traces of unauthorised GM crops in a move that has alarmed environmental groups.

Importing animal feed containing GM feed must at present be authorised by European regulators. But a vote on Tuesday in favour of the scheme put forward by the EU’s standing committee on the food chain and animal health would overturn the EU’s “zero tolerance” policy towards the import of unauthorised GM crops.

The move would mark a significant victory for the GM lobby, which has pushed for a relaxation of the blanket ban for years.Environmental groups claim the GM industry wants to use the presence of unauthorised organisms in animal feed as part of a wider strategy to promote its technology.

“The GM industry is pushing this proposal so it can wedge its foot firmly in the door and open up the British and European markets to food no one wants to eat,” said Helen Wallace, director of GeneWatch UK, which campaigns against GM food. “Its long-term aim is to contaminate Read more…

Sri Lanka Flooding; nearly 900,000 Displaced

February 5, 2011 Comments off

At least 13 people have been killed and more than 800,000 affected by fresh floods across Sri Lanka that have swept away homes, roads and vast swathes of agricultural land. Renewed heavy rainfall across several districts in Sri Lanka have forced army and navy personnel to fan out in teams to reach relief to the affected.
The incessant rains in several parts of the country have called for more humanitarian assistance for those who have lost their homes and livelihoods.
The prevailing weather conditions in most parts of the country have once again left thousands homeless for the second time in two months.

This time, however, the number of people that have been affected is somewhat lesser than last time. The people in the North Central and Eastern Provinces have been warned of the situation and have been advised to be on alert.
The situation has forced many schools to once again temporarily halt their activities for the safety of the children and the teachers. Some of them have been converted into temporary shelters for those who have been displaced.
While priority has been given for the well being of the affected people, the focus has also been on unprecedented effects of climate change.

The Meteorological Department admits that this was the worst weather condition experienced by Read more…

WikiLeaks: US agrees to tell Russia Britain’s nuclear secrets

February 5, 2011 Comments off

The US secretly agreed to give the Russians sensitive information on Britain’s nuclear deterrent to persuade them to sign a key treaty, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

HMS Vanguard is Britain’s lead Trident-armed submarine. The US, under a nuclear deal, has agreed to give the Kremlin the serial numbers of the missiles it gives Britain  Photo: TAM MACDONALD
By Matthew Moore, Gordon Rayner and Christopher Hope 9:25PM GMT 04 Feb 2011

Information about every Trident missile the US supplies to Britain will be given to Russia as part of an arms control deal signed by President Barack Obama next week.

Defence analysts claim the agreement risks undermining Britain’s policy of refusing to confirm the exact size of its nuclear arsenal.

The fact that the Americans used British nuclear secrets as a bargaining chip also sheds new light on the so-called “special relationship”, which is shown often to be a one-sided affair by US diplomatic communications obtained by the WikiLeaks website.

Details of the behind-the-scenes talks are contained in more than 1,400 US embassy cables published to date by the Telegraph, including almost 800 sent from the London Embassy, which are published online today. The documents also show that: Read more…

Inflation Group Says U.S. Cities Will Be Like Egypt in Four Years

February 5, 2011 Comments off

The National Inflation Association has issued a chilling new advisory in which it warns that the inflationary time bomb being created by the policies of the Federal Reserve will lead to American cities experiencing similar chaos currently unfolding in Egypt by 2015.

Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak has been in power for three decades and in that time has managed to handle all manner of threats to the stability of his regime. But it was the huge unrest sparked by soaring food prices that finally led the Egyptian people to launch a revolution which is likely to see Mubarak forced out of office for good.

“Food inflation in Egypt has reached 20% and citizens in the nation already spend about 40% of their monthly expenditures on food. Americans for decades have been Read more…

HOW BANKS AND INVESTORS ARE STARVING THE THIRD WORLD

February 5, 2011 Comments off

Ellen Brown

“What for a poor man is a crust, for a rich man is a securitized asset class.”
–Futures trader Ann Berg, quoted in the UK Guardian

Underlying the sudden, volatile uprising in Egypt and Tunisia is a growing global crisis sparked by soaring food prices and unemployment. The Associated Press reports that roughly 40 percent of Egyptians struggle along at the World Bank-set poverty level of under $2 per day. Analysts estimate that food price inflation in Egypt is currently at an unsustainable 17 percent yearly. In poorer countries, as much as 60 to 80 percent of people’s incomes go for food, compared to just 10 to 20 percent in industrial countries. An increase of a dollar or so in the cost of a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread for Americans can mean starvation for people in Egypt and other poor countries.

Follow the Money

The cause of the recent jump in global food prices remains a matter of debate. Some analysts blame the Federal Reserve’s “quantitative easing” program (increasing the money supply with credit created with accounting entries), which they warn is sparking hyperinflation. Too much money chasing too few goods is the classic explanation for Read more…

Magnetic Polar Shifts Causing Massive Global Superstorms

February 5, 2011 Comments off

Superstorms can also cause certain societies, cultures or whole countries to collapse. Others may go to war with each other.

Superstorm
Courtesy: Weather Snob

(CHICAGO) – NASA has been warning about it…scientific papers have been written about it…geologists have seen its traces in rock strata and ice core samples…

 

 

Now “it” is here: an unstoppable magnetic pole shift that has sped up and is causing life-threatening havoc with the world’s weather.

Forget about global warming—man-made or natural—what drives planetary weather patterns is the climate and what drives the climate is the sun’s magnetosphere and its electromagnetic interaction with a planet’s own magnetic field.

When the field shifts, when it fluctuates, when it goes into flux and begins to become unstable anything can happen. And what normally happens is that all hell breaks loose.

Magnetic polar shifts have occurred many times in Earth’s history. It’s happening again now to every planet in the solar system including Earth.

The magnetic field drives weather to a significant degree and when that field starts migrating superstorms start erupting.

The superstorms have arrived

The first evidence we have that the dangerous superstorm cycle has started is the Read more…