News Items

Turkey’s Prime Minister: “There is a Now a Menace Which is Called Twitter”

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You know a government is losing it when its leaders express public frustration with a social media website called Twitter.  I highlighted how the Saudi government recently had a panic attack about it, saying users would go to hell. Now, in the midst of a widespread uprising that began when Turks protesting the razing of a park in Istanbul near Taksim Square to build a mall and mosque were attacked by police, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is showing his true colors.  It is quite obvious that the government’s reason for wanting to tear down the park is to eliminate the most obvious staging ground for future protests in the center of Istanbul.  Oh the irony.  From Business Week:

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey’s prime minister on Sunday rejected claims that he is a “dictator,” dismissing protesters as an extremist fringe, even as thousands returned to the landmark Istanbul square that has become the site of the fiercest anti-government outburst in years.

Over the past three days, protesters around the country have unleashed pent-up resentment against Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who after 10 years in office many Turks see as an uncompromising figure with undue influence in every part of life.

A huge, exuberant protest in Taksim Square subsided overnight, but an estimated 10,000 people again streamed into the area on Sunday, many waving flags, chanting “victory, victory, victory” and calling on Erdogan’s government to resign.

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New Interview with Future Money Trends: Financial Markets Update and the Liberty Mastermind Conference

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It’s been a while my last interview with Future Money Trends, so this should be a real treat. As my regular readers know, I rarely write about the financial markets any longer.  The main reason is that I have shifted my focus into a much broader area of activism against the cancerous system we live … Read more

Insanity in Britain: Secret Court Jails Father for Birthday Message to Son

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The following story is another example of a situation that you might expect to read about in a novel of dystopian fiction, rather than a real life situation happening on the island that brought the world the Magna Carta.

Garry Johnson simply sent his son Sam a happy birthday message on his 21st via Facebook and for this crime was sentenced to jail by Britain’s secret family court system. The most amazing part of this story is that after the divorce from his wife, both of their children choose to live with Garry rather than their mother.  Seemingly out of spite, his ex-wife started to make accusations against Garry, all of which were investigated and shown to be untrue.  Not that this mattered, as Garry was still punished with a gag order that forbid him to ever mention his children publicly for the rest of his life.  I think it’s safe to say secret courts should never, ever be permitted.  From the Daily Mail:

A father has been jailed at a secret court hearing for sending a Facebook message to his grown-up son on his 21st birthday.

Garry Johnson, 46, breached a draconian gagging order which stops him publicly naming his son, Sam, whom he has brought up and who still lives with him.

The order silencing Mr Johnson – which follows an acrimonious divorce eight years ago – means he cannot mention either of his boys, 21-year-old Sam and Adam, 18, in public, even by congratulating them in a local newspaper announcement when they get engaged, married or have children in the future.

The extraordinary gag is set to last until the end of his life, although his boys are now adults. Last night they condemned their father’s jailing as ‘cruel and ludicrous’.

After their parents’ divorce, the two boys chose to live with their father, following a series of rows with their mother over her new boyfriend.

But within a year of the divorce, Mr Johnson’s ex-wife made allegations to Essex social workers that he was neglecting the children and not feeding them properly at his smart family home.

An investigation by social workers cleared him of any wrongdoing and said the boys were fine.

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Northern Ireland’s Big Lie: Town Gets Cheap, Superficial Makeover Ahead of the G8 Summit

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In a little over two weeks, the self-important leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) will be meeting at the Lough Erne Golf Resort in Northern Ireland.  There’s a slight problem, however.  The local economy is in shambles and many of the neighboring towns are in horrible shape.  While real economic collapse doesn’t seem a huge concern, the thought of Barack Obama, Shinzo Abe and David Cameron having to confront the realities of poverty while feasting on caviar and foie gras is simply too much to bare.

So what’s the solution?  Simple, just pretend nothing’s wrong by remodeling storefronts long since abandoned just as you would in a Hollywood set.  What about those pesky abandoned buildings and other eyesores of blight and destitution?  No problem, just place colorful murals in front of them.  It makes sense.  After all, the response by the G8 to the financial collapse since the beginning has been to cover it up and pretend nothing happened.  At least the meme is consistent across the Western World.  From the Irish Times:

Hundreds of thousands of pounds have been spent on a Fermanagh facelift as the county prepares for the G8 summit in just under three weeks’ time, but locals complain the work paid for by the local council and the Stormont Executive is little more than skin deep.

More than 100 properties within range of the sumptuous Lough Erne resort which hosts the world’s wealthiest leaders, have been tidied up, painted or power-hosed.

However, locals say the makeover only serves to hide a deeper malaise which US president Barack Obama, German chancellor Angela Merkel, French president François Hollande and others will not get to see.

Two shops in Belcoo, right on the border with Blacklion, Co Cavan, have been painted over to appear as thriving businesses. The reality, as in other parts of the county, is rather more stark.

Just a few weeks ago, Flanagan’s – a former butcher’s and vegetable shop in the neat village – was cleaned and repainted with bespoke images of a thriving business placed in the windows. Any G8 delegate passing on the way to discuss global capitalism would easily be fooled into thinking that all is well with the free-market system in Fermanagh. But, the facts are different.

“That work happened just a few weeks ago,” he said. “The council got that place painted but it went under sometime last year.

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Another Oligarch Wrist Slap: Citigroup Settles in Secret on Housing Fraud Charges

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Guess what just happened?  In case you forgot, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) had previously accused Citigroup of violating securities laws and making misrepresentations of billions of mortgage bonds.  Unsurprisingly, Citigroup settled, which is just a euphemism for an “oligarch wrist slap.” What’s really disturbing is that the settlement amount will remain a secret, which takes cronyism to yet another despicable level.  After all, take a look at the man who runs the Treasury Department.  From Bloomberg:

The conservator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was eager for publicity in September 2011 when it sued 17 financial institutions, accusing them of ripping off the two government-backed housing financiers. It isn’t so enthusiastic anymore.

This week the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency told a federal judge it had settled its case against Citigroup Inc. The agency won’t say how much money Citigroup is paying. Neither will Citigroup, which survived the financial crisis only because it got multiple taxpayer bailouts. The parties agreed to keep the terms confidential. The government has decided this is none of the public’s business.

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Notes from the Underground: John Kiriakou’s Letter from Prison

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Greetings from the Federal Correctional Institution at Loretto, Pennsylvania.  I arrived here on February 28, 2013 to serve a 30-month sentence for violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982.  At least that’s what the government wants people to believe.  In truth this is my punishment for blowing the whistle on the CIA’s illegal torture … Read more

Pennsylvania Looks to Legalize Payday Loans by Calling Them “Mirco-Loans”

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The exploitation of the poor through payday loans in America is one of the most underreported stories of 2013, even within the alternative media world.  I first wrote about it and the role our big bailed out banks play back in February in my piece:  TBTF Banks Enter Payday Loan Business with 500% Interest Rates.

The problem with stories like this getting such little coverage, is that the trend will invariably spread like a cancer without public awareness and outrage.  Take Pennsylvania for example.  The state has laws that make payday loans illegal, but state legislators want to do away with this.  They made their first attempt back in 2012 with House Bill 2191, which never made it to the floor for a vote.  Not being the types to take no for an answer, the state legislators are back.  This time state Sen. Patrick Browne is looking for co-sponsors for a bill that would allow punitive interest rates under the guise of calling it micro-lending.  From the Post-Gazette:

“A rose by any other name” equals a rose.

“Put lipstick on a pig” equals a pig.

“Micro-loan program” equals a predatory payday loan/debt trap.

Seeking to protect vulnerable people from being trapped in a vicious debt cycle, Pennsylvania has long outlawed the usurious practice of predatory payday loans.

However, lenders are trying to undo these limits. Last year, House Bill 2191, which would have undone this 100-plus-year-old protection, thankfully never made it to the floor for a vote.

While no such legislation has yet to be introduced, state Sen. Patrick Browne, R-Allentown, is seeking co-sponsors. Rather than calling it “payday lending,” it is touted as a “micro-loan program” promising a “reasonable annual percentage interest rate” to “eliminate the endless cycle of debt,” to “strengthen consumer protection” and to “protect our military families and veterans.”

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What’s in Your Xbox? A Lot of Surveillance Capabilities

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Attention all gamers.  There’s something you may want to be aware of before you plug in that new Xbox One.  Apparently, there are a lot of Big Brother features embedded into the system, so much so that that Germany’s privacy chief, Peter Schaar, is raising serious concerns. From Slate:

The complaint stems from the latest version of the motion-sensing Kinect technology. The Kinect device designed for the Xbox One can monitor users’ movements with a camera that sees in the dark, picks up voice commands with a microphone, and reads your heart rate using infrared cameras that track blood flow underneath the skin. Because the device is connected to the Internet, malicious hackers could potentially hijack the console and use it for spying.  In addition, Microsoft has filed a patent that suggests it is interested in using Kinect to count the number of people in a room in order to charge each person for providing pay-per-user content. The patent outlines how a camera could be used with face and gesture recognition as part of a Kinect-style system to enforce “age and identity restrictions” on certain kinds of content, effectively granting copyright holders virtual access to private dwellings, as Wired described it.

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Carrington Bails: More Smart Money Leaves the “Buy to Rent” Game

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“Buy to rent” has been one of my favorite topics to write about as of late, since the creation of this “asset class,” combined with the total madness that follows from money printing, has once again created a major housing bubble in many markets in these United States.  In recent months, I’ve noted how some of the earliest participants in this market have pulled back.  Most notably Och Ziff, but now Carrington as well.

The signs are everywhere that this market is not only overheated, but downright filled with insanity, and as Carrington’s head Bruce Rose states “stupid money.”  Las Vegas is a prime example of this, where 8% of single family homes are vacant, yet new construction permits are up 50%.  More from Bloomberg:

Hedge fund manager Bruce Rose was among the first investors to coax institutional money into the mom and pop business of single-family home rentals, raising $450 million last year from Oaktree Capital Group LLC. 

Now, with house prices climbing at the fastest pace in seven years and investors swamping the rental market, Rose says it no longer makes sense to be a buyer.

“We just don’t see the returns there that are adequate to incentivize us to continue to invest,” Rose, 55, chief executive officer of Carrington Holding Co. LLC, said in an interview at his Aliso Viejo, California office. “There’s a lot of — bluntly — stupid money that jumped into the trade without any infrastructure, without any real capabilities and a kind of build-it-as-you-go mentality that we think is somewhat irresponsible.”

No joke, I actually heard an ad on local Boulder radio that explained how you could “get in” on buy to rent schemes.

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I Pledge Allegiance…

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I’m on a plane about to take off for Colorado, but figured I’d leave everyone with my updated Pledge of Allegiance applicable for modern day America.  Enjoy comrades. I pledge allegiance to the Fed of the United States of Bernakistan, and to the S&P 500 for which it stands, one ponzi, under Federal Reserve Notes, with … Read more