The Pathology of the Rich

Updated: 2013 Dec 08

The Pathology of the Rich - Chris Hedges (Part 1)

Source: The Real News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6unS2JF8TA
The Real News Official Website - Please Donate to The Real News
http://therealnews.com/

Chris Hedges discusses the psychology of the super rich; their sense of entitlement, the dehumanization of workers, and mistaken belief that their wealth will insulate them from the coming storms.

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Update: 2013 Dec 08

 

Credibility of the Ruling Elite is Being Shredded (Part 2)

Video Source: The Real News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnkNKipiiiM

The Real News Official Website - Please Donate to The Real News

http://therealnews.com/

Chris Hedges says that while people are disgusted with the centers of power, unless there is a constructive alternative, any eruption will be nihilistic and could be fascist.

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The Global Economy – The Truth & a Warning

Source: World United News

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHTpRDM96YQ

Links:

Our Invisible Revolution - Chris Hedges

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/our_invisible_revolution_20131028
The Real News
http://therealnews.com/
Truthdig
http://www.truthdig.com/
The Global Economy – The Truth & a Warninghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHTpRDM96YQ

Broken Foundations & The Fall of Western Society

http://worldunitednews.blogspot.ca/2013/09/broken-foundations-and-fall-of-western.html

Canada Under Siege – The Economy - (Part 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2K3x-Ci8O8

Canada Under Siege – (Part 1) - The Tar Sands, Free Trade & Government

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpfOsf1f26I

 

Convicted of genocide Israel prepares new Holocaust

 

A Palestinian woman is helped by a paramedic out of her building, damaged during an Israeli air raid in Gaza City, November 19, 2012

By: Kevin Barrett

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/12/04/338136/israel-prepares-to-commit-new-genocide/

On November 25, Judge Yunus of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal found Israel guilty of genocide.

Israel’s response: accelerate the genocide.

The Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip has crippled Gaza’s main power plant for more than a month - and it’s getting worse. The power outage has wrecked Gaza’s waste water treatment system and flooded the streets with raw sewage.

According to the head of the UN Humanitarian News Agency, Israel is effectively destroying “all essential services, including hospitals, clinics, sewage and water pumping stations.” The New York Times states, “The sanitation department may soon no longer be able to pump drinking water to Gaza homes.”

The Gaza Strip is the world’s most densely populated urban area. Some call it the world’s biggest concentration camp. Surrounded by barbed wire and Israeli guards, residents cannot escape. As it loses drinking water and is flooded with sewage - and as the Israeli puppet regime of al-Sisi shuts down the life-supporting tunnels to the Sinai - Gaza is on the brink of becoming an extermination camp.

But killing the Palestinians slowly by depriving them of essential services may not satisfy the Zionists. Alan Hart, the former lead Mideast correspondent for the BBC and back-channel peace emissary, thinks the Israelis may be planning a false flag operation that would trigger a new, larger version of the 1948 Palestinian Holocaust.

During a recent Truth Jihad Radio interview, Hart told me, “On present form, I think there will be a final Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Because the whole Zionist game plan has been to make life hell for the Palestinians of the occupied territories. But they’ve nowhere to go and they aren’t going to pack up and go. So when it dawns on Israel’s leaders, as it will, that the demographic time bomb is ticking, and they can’t bring on-stream a puppet Palestinian government that will accept crumbs from Zionism’s table, then there will be the final ethnic cleansing. And it can happen very easily. You get six Mossad agents dressed as Palestinian terrorists and kill thirty, forty, fifty Jews or whatever. And that’s it. Away you go... an internal Israel-Palestine false flag operation.”

Hart believes this scenario of an “internal false flag operation” followed by a final ethnic cleansing is realistic and likely to happen sooner or later. Less probable, but still a danger, is an “external false flag operation” - an attack on America designed to be blamed on Iran in order to draw the US into another war for Israel.

The author and Mideast expert explained:

“I don’t think there’ll be war (with Iran) because that has always been a bluff by Netanyahu. We know that most of his military and intelligence people are against it, unless they could somehow bring America in. But one can never rule out the possibility of an Israeli false flag operation, something dreadful that they would seek to blame on Iran. I’m not predicting it. I don’t think it’s likely. But I’m afraid you can’t rule out anything. Because it is now a desperate game for Zionism. Because (the Iran nuclear agreement) would mark the first-ever really big defeat for the Zionist lobby. And as I said, it would free up Obama to be serious about Israel-Palestine.”

Hart explained that the Zionists are most dangerous when backed into a corner:

“I think apart from a false flag operation, Netanyahu has shot himself in the foot.”

Alan Hart is a respected Mideast analyst, who was a personal friend of both PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. He has known American presidents and European prime ministers, and served them during his years as a back-channel peace negotiator. When someone of Alan Hart’s stature issues such dire warnings, they deserve to be taken seriously at the highest levels.

Hart says that US President Jimmy Carter once admitted to him that Israel has terrorized and paralyzed the US government by threatening to unleash mayhem if the US tries to force it to make peace. Since Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons, and is said to be able to target Europe and possibly the US, such seemingly bizarre, reckless threats are unfortunately quite serious. The Israelis, it seems, are afflicted by some sort of collective madness.

Hart recounted one of his meetings with Israeli Defense Minister Ezer Weizman, who was visibly shaken by something. Hart asked what was wrong.

Hart told me what Weizman said, “‘This lunchtime, Sharon convened a meeting of many senior military officers, and they had signed a blood oath that in the event of any Israeli government withdrawing from the occupied territories, those who had signed the oath would take the men loyal to them, join forces with the settlers who would oppose the implementation of any withdrawal, and fight their own government to the death.’ Now when Ezer told me that story, he looked at me and he said, ‘Do you think Sharon would do that?’ And I said, ‘Ezer, I’m a visiting goy! You’re Israel’s Defense Minister! What do youthink?’ And he said, ‘Of course he would. He’s mad enough to nuke the entire ---- Arab world.’ Quote-unquote. So yes, there’s madness and madness.”

It is time for the world to come together and put an end to the madness of Zionism, before the madness of Zionism puts the world in trouble.

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About: Dr. Kevin Barrett is a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist, and one of America's best-known critics of the War on Terror. Dr. Barrett has appeared many times on Fox, CNN, PBS and other broadcast outlets, and has inspired feature stories and op-eds in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, the Chicago Tribune, and other leading publications. Dr. Barrett has taught at colleges and universities in San Francisco, Paris, and Wisconsin, where he ran for Congress in 2008. He is the co-founder of the Muslim-Christian-Jewish Alliance, and author of the books Truth Jihad: My Epic Struggle Against the 9/11 Big Lie (2007) and Questioning the War on Terror: A Primer for Obama Voters (2009). His website is http://www.truthjihad.com /

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Ken O'Keefe's Middle East on The Peoples Voice - Guests Gilad Atzmon

 

Video Source: Ken O’Keefe (The Peoples Voice)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6ZcjfJED68

 

 

 

Yuan outperforms euro, becomes 2nd most popular trade finance currency

 

AFP Photo/Frederic J. Brown

Source: Russia Today

http://rt.com/business/yuan-aims-to-dollar-649/

The yuan has replaced the euro to become the second most widely used currency in global trade in 2013, according to the SWIFT network responsible for international financial transactions.

The share of the yuan in global trade finance has jumped from 1.89 percent in January 2012 to 8.66 percent in the form of letters of credit and collections in October 2013, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) data shows.

The share of trade settlements in the euro fell from 7.87 percent to 6.64 percent in the same period. The US dollar still leads with 81.08 percent of foreign trade payments using the American currency in October.

The most active yuan users are Chinese and Hong Kong companies which account for about 80 percent of the total foreign trade operations in the yuan. The remaining 20 percent is spread among Singapore (12%), Germany (2%), Australia (2%) and other countries (4%).

"The renminbi is clearly a top currency for trade finance globally and even more so in Asia," Franck de Praetere, SWIFT’s Singapore-based head of payments and trade markets for Asia Pacific, commented in a statement.

“I think it is more to do with using China as a carry trade – people want to get their money into China,” says Nick Verdi, Asia FX strategist at Barclays. “With global interest rates so low, China really is the only place where you can get such a large carry. Trade finance is one of the key avenues to take advantage of that.”

According to SWIFT, in October the yuan remained the world’s 12th most popular means of payment, its share decreased to 0.84 per cent from 0.86 per cent in September. Even though value of payments grew by 1.5% for the month, payments in all currencies rose by 4.6%

Hong Kong, the largest yuan hub outside China, has accumulated a record 782 billion yuan ($128 billion) in October. The same month the UK’s Chancellor George Osborne announced plans to make London an offshore banking center for the yuan.

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London to become Chinese offshore banking center

 

A flag hangs from the Bank of China offices in the City of London (Reuters/Toby Melville)

Source: Russia Today

http://rt.com/business/china-uk-banking-rules-220/

Britain has relaxed stringent rules for Chinese banks willing to set up in London. Beijing in turn opened up its markets to British-based investors, marking the latest move to establish the yuan as one of the world’s key currencies.

“A great nation like China should have a global currency,”said UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, during his official five day visit to China. And the UK is gladly willing to contribute “through the international center of finance: London”.

Under the agreed pilot program, China sanctioned London-based investors to buy up to 80 billion yuan ($13.1 billion) of stocks, bonds and money market instruments directly, avoiding Hong Kong transactions, Reuters reports.

Meanwhile, Britain will let Chinese banks set up wholesale branches in London, easing regulations the country had imposed after the financial crisis broke out. Since 2008, Britain has insisted that most foreign lenders should set up their UK operations as "subsidiaries" rather than branches, which provides greater protection for depositors and taxpayers. Less regulation will be welcomed by Chinese lenders who have always complained the rules made it hard to operate in Britain, prompting them to move much of their business to Luxembourg.

On top of that, London and Beijing will trade the yuan against the dollar directly, avoiding the dollar.

"The Chinese currency, the renminbi [yuan], is not terribly well known in Britain at the moment. But over my lifetime I think it's going to become almost as familiar as the dollar, and I want British businesses involved in trading it, investing in it," Osborne told BBC television in China.

Currently London accounts for 62 percent of yuan trades outside China and Hong Kong, according to data from financial services provider SWIFT. The latest move will give the renminbi a firmer footprint in Europe and strengthen London's platform to develop the offshore RM (renminbi) bond market.

According to an HSBC forecast, within 5 years a third of China’s total trade will be in yuan, which will make it fully convertible and elevate it into the top 3 exchange currencies. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, the yuan has already strengthened 36 percent against the dollar and 47 percent versus the pound since 2005.


 

Japanese Govt rams state secrets bill through lower house to cover up Nuclear Disasters at Fukushima

UPDATED: 2013 Nov 27th

 

 

Fukushiro Nukaga (top R), chairman of the lower house special committee, is surrounded by opposition lawmakers during a vote on a state secrets act at the parliament in Tokyo November 26, 2013. (Reuters/Toru Hanai)

Source: Russia Today

http://rt.com/news/japan-state-secrets-law-334/

Japan’s lower house has passed a heavy-handed state secrets act despite fears that it will have severe repercussions for state freedoms. Officials will now face a maximum punishment of ten years in prison if they are found to have leaked to the press.

Japan’s Diet (parliament) passed the bill, which is aimed at expanding the definition of a state secret and place increasing penalties upon anyone deemed a leaker. The move will apparently prevent media accessing information on four sensitive areas: defense, diplomacy, counter-terrorism and counter-espionage.

The information will be further divided into 23 types. Top officials from all departments would have the power to declare issues ‘secret’. The ‘secrets’ could then be kept classified for up to 60 years.

Journalists and other private sector parties could also receive up to five years imprisonment if they are found to be using ‘grossly inappropriate’ means to acquire information.

Such restrictions could spill over into the nuclear industry. The topic is particularly sensitive in the face of March 2011’s Fukushima nuclear disaster, which drove over 160,000 residents from their homes.

“Information on the vulnerability of nuclear power plants could be classified as special secrets, along with plans on how to guard the plants,”Yutaka Saito, a lawyer and a member of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations' task force on the bill, told Reuters

 

Protesters raise their fists as they shout slogans during a rally against the government's planned state secrets act in front of the parliament building in Tokyo November 26, 2013. (Reuters/Toru Hanai)

“If so, anyone who has blown the whistle from the inside to warn of the danger of nuclear power plants will be punished,”Saito said.

The bill was adopted through majority vote by the ruling coalition after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), New Komeito, and the Opposition Your Party all agreed to revisions last week to gain the votes of small conservative opposition parties.

The move comes despite overwhelming public opposition, and after members of opposition parties - including the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), the Japan Restoration Party, the Japanese Communist Party and the People's Life Party – said that insufficient debate had been conducted prior to the vote. Critics allege that changes to the bill were merely cosmetic, and requested that it not be brought to vote. Regardless, the legislation was approved after only a few hours worth of delay

 

Protesters raise their fists as they shout slogans during a rally against the government's planned state secrets act in front of the parliament building in Tokyo November 26, 2013. (Reuters/Toru Hanai)

Nearly 63 percent of respondents to a Kyodo news agency survey expressed concerns about the bill last week, and its discussion triggered protests by hundreds of people outside of parliament on Tuesday. Thousands gathered in a Tokyo park the previous week to rally against the bill.

“We revised the proposal as much as possible to address the concerns held by the public,” Gen Nakatani, an LDP director, said following the vote, while Atsushi Oshima, a DPJ director declared that it had been a “defeat for the legislative branch.”

The bill has now been sent to the Diet’s Upper House for consideration, where it will likely pass without any difficulty. The LDP and its junior partner hold a solid majority in both houses.

“Clearly, there will be a chilling effect on access to a wide range of information,” said Meiji University law professor, Lawrence Repeta, said. “It is clearly aimed at news media to block reporting in a way that may be critical of the government on a wide range of sensitive issues,” he added.

Abe has stated that the law is vital in the development of a US-style National Security Council to coordinate foreign policy and security while negotiating with allies such as the US over the possible sharing of information.

“My biggest concern is that it would be more difficult for the people to see the government's decision-making process,” said Kyouji Yanagisawa, a former defense official who was in charge of national security in the Prime Minister's Office in 2004-2009. “That means we can't check how or where the government made mistakes, or help the government make a wise decision.”

 

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks during a lower house special committee on a state secrets act at the parliament in Tokyo November 26, 2013. (Reuters/Toru Hanai)

Close up Footage of Fukushima Ruins – March 21 – 2011

Video Source: Russia Today

http://youtu.be/aprycG9mlZc

UPDATE: 2013 Nov 27th

Analysis on Unit 4, evidence on Unit 3, Plume-Gate highlights

Source Video: Patrick Henry

http://youtu.be/vqhWRNsrYxc

PDF: Leaked Documents - N.R.C. Official Transcript of Proceedings:

Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Audio File Communication - March 12^th, 2013

http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1205/ML12052A100.pdf
Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi Audio File Communication - March 16^th, 2013
http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1205/ML12052A108.pdf

NRC Transcript – TEPCO relayed information Unit 4 SFP Dry – Walls collapsed and incapable of holding inventory – Unit 3 “everything else gone”

http://enformable.com/2012/03/nrc-transcript-tepco-relayed-information-unit-4-sfp-dry-walls-collapsed-and-incapable-of-holding-inventory-unit-3-everything-else-gone/

MORE INFO:

Video Playlist News from March 11^th 2011 to Today of the Fukushima Disaster

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLC57A7B23200D0C87

 

Fed insider exposes giant central bank “easing” swindle

A former Federal Reserve official who helped the Central Bank manage its bond buying program, dubbed QE, has admitted that the program is a fraud.

By: Mike Whitney, CounterPunch

Source: Press TV

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/11/16/335041/fed-insider-easing-swindle-banks/

“This was a program (QE) that was devised to help mortgage lending in America…Instead, what we saw was massive Wall Street earnings.” Andrew Huszar, Bloomberg TV Interview

A former Federal Reserve official who helped the Central Bank manage its bond buying program, dubbed QE, has admitted that the program is a fraud. In a shocking op-ed in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, Andrew Huszar apologized for his role in the Fed’s $1.25 trillion asset purchase program which he described as “the greatest backdoor Wall Street bailout of all time.”

So far, no one at the Fed has responded to the charges, nor has Congress or the Department of Justice (DOJ) taken steps to investigate allegations that the multi-trillion dollar program was not intended to help Main Street as announced, but to shore up flagging bank balance sheets and zombie financial institutions that would have defaulted without the Fed’s stealth welfare program.

Surprisingly, Huszar’s credibility has not yet been challenged nor his claim that he played a pivotal role in overseeing the program. As he notes in his confession, he was “managing what was at the heart of QE’s bond-buying spree-a wild attempt to buy $1.25 trillion in mortgage bonds in 12 months.” He was asked “to quarterback” the largest giveaway to Big Finance on record. The fact that his allegations have not prompted an thorough investigation of criminal malfeasance at the Fed boggles the mind and points to a justice system that makes no pretense of operating in the interests of the people it is supposed to serve.

Huszar admits that he left the Fed -where he’d worked for seven years- because he’d “witnessed the institution deferring more and more to Wall Street”, that is, implementing policies which only benefited the banks.

“I had come to believe that the Fed’s independence was eroding,” says Huszar. These feelings were reinforced when Huszar was asked to purchase hundreds of billions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities, which according to him, put the system at risk of another crash.

“We constantly risked driving bond prices too high and crashing global confidence in key financial markets,” he said. “We were working feverishly to preserve the impression that the Fed knew what it was doing.” (“Andrew Huszar: Confessions of a Quantitative Easer“, Wall Street Journal)

The implication is clear, the Fed shrugged off its mandate of “price stability” and deliberately put the system at risk in order to assist its primary constituents, the banks.

It wasn’t long before Huszar figured out the program was a fake and that QE “wasn’t helping to make credit any more accessible for the average American. The banks were issuing fewer and fewer loans,” he said. “More insidiously, whatever credit they were extending wasn’t getting much cheaper. QE may have been driving down the wholesale cost for banks to make loans, but Wall Street was pocketing most of the extra cash.” (WSJ)

This column (Mike Whitney - CounterPunch) has been making this same point for more than two years, that all the profits on the interest rate spreads were going to the banks. QE has not led to a credit expansion nor was it designed to do so. It is a lavish subsidy to the financial elites and deep pocket bondholders who control the political-economic system. Huszar’s testimony further underscores that point.

Huszar again: “From the trenches, several other Fed managers also began voicing the concern that QE wasn’t working as planned. Our warnings fell on deaf ears. In the past, Fed leaders-even if they ultimately erred-would have worried obsessively about the costs versus the benefits of any major initiative. Now the only obsession seemed to be with the newest survey of financial-market expectations or the latest in-person feedback from Wall Street’s leading bankers and hedge-fund managers.” (WSJ)

No one cared that QE was not stimulating credit, because that was not the objective. The real goal was to boost profits at the banks so they could offset the massive losses on their trove of mortgage-backed assets which dropped precipitously following the Crash of ’08 leaving them exposed to potential restructuring and nationalization. The $700 billion from the TARP bailout merely provided enough operating capital for the banks to continue to run their businesses. In contrast, QE was a strategy to drain the ocean of red ink from bank balance sheets and restore them to profitability. What mattered was profits. Profits at the expense of employment, profits at the expense of growth, profits at the expense the nation’s economic future. Profits, profits, profits. How can anyone fail to see that now?

Huszar again: “Trading for the first round of QE ended on March 31, 2010. The final results confirmed that, while there had been only trivial relief for Main Street, the U.S. central bank’s bond purchases had been an absolute coup for Wall Street. The banks hadn’t just benefited from the lower cost of making loans. They’d also enjoyed huge capital gains on the rising values of their securities holdings and fat commissions from brokering most of the Fed’s QE transactions. Wall Street had experienced its most profitable year ever in 2009, and 2010 was starting off in much the same way.” (WSJ)

See? It was an “absolute coup for Wall Street”…the “most profitable year ever.” In other words, QE was a transparent ripoff from the get go, and the Bernanke Fed orchestrated the entire affair.

And it didn’t stop there either, because the Fed launched three more versions of QE increasing its balance sheet by nearly $4 trillion while inflating asset bubbles in US Treasuries, equities, junk bonds, farmland, housing and financial assets across-the-board. The Fed has created a gigantic bubble in long-term Treasuries which threatens the world’s biggest and most liquid bond market and puts the dollar at risk of losing its position as the world’s reserve currency.

Huszar admits that the Fed’s actions have dealt a blow to the so called “free market” calling QE “the largest financial-markets intervention by any government in world history.” He also dispels the illusion that QE spurred growth in the real economy. (“Even by the Fed’s sunniest calculations, aggressive QE over five years has generated only a few percentage points of U.S. growth.”) He also admits that the Wall Street banks are a cartel that’s been strengthened by the Fed’s actions. (“The biggest ones have only become more of a cartel: 0.2% of them now control more than 70% of the U.S. bank assets.”) And, he also suggests that the Fed suffers from “regulatory capture”, that is, that monetary policy is shaped in a way that best advances the interests of the banks. (“I had come to believe that the Fed’s independence was eroding.”)

Huszar’s testimony leaves little doubt that QE is a P.R. scam designed to pull the wool over the publics eyes. While the Fed’s critics have always said that that was the case, Huszar is the first insider to confirm those claims and to denounce the program as a blatant bailout for the banks.

So where are the regulators? Where are the investigations? Where is the DOJ or the US Congress?

Where is the outrage?

Links:

Andrew Huszar – Confessions of a Quantitative Easer – Wall Street Journal

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303763804579183680751473884
Original Post by: Mike Whitney (CounterPunch)
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/11/15/fed-insider-exposes-giant-central-bank-easing-swindle/

 

TEPCO tries to Cover Up Nuclear Fuel Removal Problems at Fukushima

Remove TEPCO Before Removing Fuel

Video Source: Fairewinds Energy Education

http://fairewinds.org/podcast/remove-tepco-removing-fuel

Fairewinds has fielded a number of questions regarding the removal of the fuel rods from the spent fuel pool in Unit 4 at Fukushima Daiichi. Today’s video shows Arnie debunking TEPCO’s animated film point by point, and highlights the issues TEPCO will have removing the fuel rods. TEPCO needs to be removed as the organization overseeing the cleanup of the site prior to the removal of the fuel rods.

Please visit the Fairewinds Energy Education website and consider donating at the following link: http://fairewinds.org/donate/
 

Shut down all nuclear power plants! – Dr. Helen Caldicott

Video Source: Russia Today

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-Of-3VontE

Dr Helen Caldicott answers questions on the effects of Radiation from the ongoing meltdowns at Fukushima Japan and the impending disaster that Japan & TEPCO will unleash on the Northern Hemisphere around the World with any error in the removal of nuclear material at Fukushima plant 4. TEPCO and the Japanese government are refusing any help by experts, and are playing with the future of life on our planet by their absolute arrogance and focus on financial cost rather than saving life.

Google Hangout with one of the most articulate and passionate advocates of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental crises Dr Helen Caldicott.

Important Links:

Dr Helen Caldicott – Official Website

http://www.helencaldicott.com/
Fairewinds Energy Education
http://fairewinds.org/