Despite nearly 250,000 jobs being created monthly in the US economy,
the majority of Americans saw real wages plummet 4 percent over the past
five years, when adjusted for inflation, according to new report by the
National Employment Labor Project.
“Stagnant wages have
become a fact of life for nearly all of America’s workers, but workers
in lower-paying occupations are finding it especially tough to keep up
with the rising cost of living,” said Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project (NELP), a research and advocacy group, in a statement.
“Not
only are their paychecks not growing, but their purchasing power has
shrunk considerably, and to a far greater extent than that of
higher-wage earners.”
The report looked at the percentage
change in hourly wages for 785 occupations from 2009 to 2014, and then
divided those jobs into five classifications. While hourly wages
declined across all occupations, the hardest hit workers were those in
lower- and mid-wage fields.
(Reuters) - The savings of the European Union's 500 million citizens could be used to fund long-term investments to boost the economy and help plug the gap left by banks since the financial crisis, an EU document says.
The
EU is looking for ways to wean the 28-country bloc from its heavy
reliance on bank financing and find other means of funding small
companies, infrastructure projects and other investment.
"The economic and financial crisis has impaired the ability of the financial sector to channel funds to the real economy, in particular long-term investment," said the document, seen by Reuters.
The
Commission will ask the bloc's insurance watchdog in the second half of
this year for advice on a possible draft law "to mobilize more personal
pension savings for long-term financing", the document said. Banks
have complained they are hindered from lending to the economy by
post-crisis rules forcing them to hold much larger safety cushions of
capital and liquidity.
Europe Considers Wholesale Savings Confiscation, Enforced Redistribution
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/12/2014 21:28 -0500
At first we thought Reuters had been punk'd in its article titled "EU executive sees personal savings used to plug long-term financing gap"
which disclosed the latest leaked proposal by the European Commission,
but after several hours without a retraction, we realized that the story
is sadly true. Sadly, because everything that we warned about in "There May Be Only Painful Ways Out Of The Crisis"
back in September of 2011, and everything that the depositors and
citizens of Cyprus had to live through, seems on the verge of going
continental. In a nutshell, and in Reuters' own words, "the
savings of the European Union's 500 million citizens could be used to
fund long-term investments to boost the economy and help plug the gap
left by banks since the financial crisis, an EU document says."
What is left unsaid is that the "usage" will be on a purely involuntary
basis, at the discretion of the "union", and can thus best be described
as confiscation.
The source of this stunner is a document seen be
Reuters, which describes how the EU is looking for ways to "wean" the
28-country bloc from its heavy reliance on bank financing and find other
means of funding small companies, infrastructure projects and other
investment. So as Europe finally admits that the ECB has failed to
unclog its broken monetary pipelines for the past five years - something
we highlight every month (most recently in No Waking From Draghi's Monetary Nightmare: Eurozone Credit Creation Tumbles To New All Time Low),
the commissions report finally admits that "the economic and financial
crisis has impaired the ability of the financial sector to channel funds
to the real economy, in particular long-term investment."
The
solution? "The Commission will ask the bloc's insurance watchdog in the
second half of this year for advice on a possible draft law "to mobilize more personal pension savings for long-term financing", the document said."
Mobilize, once again, is a more palatable word than, say, confiscate.
And yet this is precisely what Europe is contemplating:
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Special Thanks to: Alex Jones Infowars Liam Scheff Ed Brotherton Tony Carrillo Camron Wiltshire Mike Paczensy Sam Comen The Green Beautiful Paul Revere Our family, friends, and supporters.
"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." -Oscar Wilde
President Obama will travel to sub-Saharan Africa and the price tag for the trip clocks in between $60 and $100 million. The Post's Carol Leonnig got access to classified documents outlining the trip. Update: The White House has cancelled the safari for this trip.
President Obama and his family will be going to Africa later this month. But the trip won't be cheap; it's expected to cost American taxpayers $60 to $100 million, according to the Washington Post.
"When President Obama makes his first extended trip to sub-Saharan Africa later this month, the federal agencies charged with keeping him safe won’t be taking any chances. Hundreds of U.S. Secret Service agents will be dispatched to secure facilities in Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania. A Navy aircraft carrier or amphibious ship, with a fully staffed medical trauma center, will be stationed offshore in case of emergency," reports the Post.
"Military cargo planes will airlift in 56 support vehicles, including 14 limousines and three trucks loaded with sheets of bullet-proof glass to cover the windows of the hotels where the first family will stay. Fighter jets will fly in shifts giving 24-hour coverage over the president’s airspace so they can intervene quickly if an errant plane gets too close.
@DavidLimbaugh Obama Family Trip to Africa to Cost $60 to $100 Million...just wait until the President reads about this, he'll be outraged!
Remember when President Obama’s 20-day Hawaiian family vacation cost taxpayers an estimated $4 million? As it turns out, that was chicken feed.
The Washington Post is reporting that the First Family’s upcoming trip to Africa could cost the government — and ultimately us taxpayers — between $60 million and $100 million dollars.
David Nakamura✔@DavidNakamura
Obama family trip to Africa sheds window on huge costs for presidential trips abroad: 14 limos, Navy ship, AF jets http://wapo.st/175Wyu5
Fiscally irresponsible? You bet. But before you get too upset, consider this: According to WaPo, the Obamas had originally planned to go on safari in Tanzania, but when the newspaper started asking questions about the cost, the White House put the kibosh on that. So, you see, the Obamas are making sacrifices, too! Well, sort of:
David Nakamura✔@DavidNakamura
Update to our story on Potus Africa trip: WH says Obama will visit Robben Island near S. Africa, which is why safari in Tanzania is off.
http://politicalvelcraft.org/2012/02/20/uks-rothschild-loses-puppet...
LONDON, Feb 10 (Reuters) – British financier Nathaniel
Rothschild lost a libel case on Friday against a newspaper that
depicted him as a “puppet master” who used his friendship with a
European trade chief to impress a Russian oligarch and help close a business deal.
Rothschild sued the Daily
Mail in London over a story that gave a rare insight into the world of
super-rich businessmen who cross continents in private jets, dine in top
restaurants and relax together in saunas.
One of Britain’s richest men, Rothschild is co-chairman of the
London-listed coal mining company Bumi Plc and was once a close friend
of UK finance minister George Osborne. The 40-year-old member of the
European banking dynasty, who accused the newspaper of damaging his
reputation, said he was disappointed by the ruling and would appeal. The article said Rothschild flew the then European
Union trade commissioner Peter Mandelson from the 2005 World Economic
Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to Moscow to meet the aluminium billionaire
Oleg Deripaska, among the richest men in Russia. They went on to
visit an aluminium plant in Siberia and relaxed together in a group
whose members played soccer and ice hockey and sat in steam rooms before
plunging into icy water. The article said Rothschild had sought to
impress Deripaska by unexpectedly bringing Mandelson to a dinner the
Russian held with bosses from the U.S. aluminium company Alcoa Inc.
The newspaper said Rothschild had “pulled a very unexpected and also
rather useful rabbit out of his hat” when Alcoa was worried about EU
tariffs on Russian aluminium exports. Rothschild’s lawyers told the
court that the article implied he had risked Mandelson’s reputation “for
the purpose of ingratiating himself” with Deripaska and helping to
finalise a deal between the Russian’s metal firm RUSAL and Alcoa.
Before and after his term as European trade minister, Mandelson held
senior positions in the British government under prime ministers Tony
Blair and Gordon Brown, and was an influential figure in Britain’s Labour party. ‘INAPPROPRIATE CONDUCT’ Ruling in favour of the Daily Mail, High Court judge Michael Tugendhat said Rothschild was “seeking to please” Deripaska and Mandelson. “So far as Lord
Mandelson was concerned the benefit was the trip and the hospitality
itself. So far as Mr Deripaska was concerned it was a relationship with
the EU Trade Commissioner,” Tugendhat said in his ruling.
The judge rejected Rothschild’s argument that Mandelson flew with him
as a friend rather than as a business contact and said Rothschild’s
behaviour had in part been “inappropriate”. “That conduct foreseeably brought Lord Mandelson’s public office and personal integrity into disrepute,” the judge said.
However, the judge said there was no evidence Mandelson talked about EU
tariffs with Deripaska. The judge also accepted that parts of the Daily
Mail article were wrong. For example, the deal had been struck before
the dinner in Moscow. The case offered a glimpse into Rothschild’s
life and business dealings, including a visit to a banya, a traditional
Russian sauna. The judge said the financier was “clearly not
comfortable” when cross-examined about a trip to Siberia by Rothschild,
Mandelson, Deripaska and others. “We had the most delightful banya,
where we were beaten by a 25-year-old Russian banya keeper. Then we got
out and we jumped into ice cold water,” Rothschild told the court. “It
was incredibly enjoyable.” Rothschild plans to appeal. “I am
disappointed with today’s ruling, although I do not regret bringing the
action. I intend to appeal this ruling to the Court of Appeal,” he said
in a statement. “I brought this action seeking an apology for the
Daily Mail’s utterly false claim that I had arranged for Lord Mandelson
to attend a dinner in Moscow to close a deal between Alcoa and Rusal and
that this had caused the loss of 300 British jobs. “The truth is,
as the Daily Mail has now accepted, that I had nothing whatsoever to do
with this deal and that it had in any event been completed before Lord
Mandelson and I even arrived in Moscow.”
Vladimir
Putin, now in full control of Russia as Prime Minister, wishes to build
a strong Christian nation. In a televised Christmas message on January 7
2008 Putin said: — “The Russian Orthodox Church
contributes to the promotion of moral values in society. One should not
completely draw a line between the culture and the church. Of course by
law in our country the church is separate from the state. But in the
soul and the history of our people it’s all together. It always has been
and always will be.”
Russia will make The United States reflect
upon what they allowed Rothschild to do to their own country. So when
you see protests against Vladimir now, keep in mind it is probably
staged by The Rothschild’s trying to control Russia once again.
“This
case is a reminder, at a time when newspapers are under attack for
invading privacy, that the rich and powerful regularly use the law to
prevent legitimate scrutiny of their activities. Had the Mail lost this
case, it could have incurred costs of more than one million pounds.
“Not
many news organizations, however committed they are to free speech, can
afford to risk a loss of that magnitude. As Lord Justice Leveson’s
inquiry considers the balance between privacy and freedom of expression,
the chilling effect on free speech that court cases like this one exert
needs to be borne in mind.”
Message:
We
have set up an email network specifically for advertising any meetings
or demonstrations you may be staging, or to inform you of any meetings
or demonstrations that may be happening in your area. It is NOT attached
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Any messages or forwarded emails can be sent to a nationwide network by
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address in the network. Please pass on this link to your own contacts
and we will soon have a vast network linking to meetings and
demonstrations in YOUR area wherever you live! Advertise here for free!
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Durable goods orders drop by most in 3 years: U.S.
businesses slashed spending on machinery and equipment in January after
a tax break expired, pushing orders for long-lasting manufacturing
goods down by the largest amount in three years
20 Signs That Dust Bowl Conditions Will Soon Return To The Heartland Of America
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/20-signs-that-dust-bowl-conditions-will-soon-return-to-the-heartland-of-america Dow crosses 13,000, first time since crisis
http://www.usatoday.com/money/markets/story/2012-02-28/stocks-february-28/53283088/1
HSBC could face US criminal charges and ‘significant’ fines over ‘money-laundering’
HSBC has admitted for the first time it may face criminal charges
that could see it hit with “significant” penalties stemming from a US
investigation into alleged money-laundering by Britain’s biggest bank.
February 27, 2012 – ATLANTA
– For the first time, scientists have found evidence of flu in bats,
reporting a never-before-seen virus whose risk to humans is unclear. The
surprising discovery of genetic fragments of a flu virus is the first
well-documented report of it in the winged mammals. So far, scientists
haven’t been able to grow it, and it’s not clear if – or how well – it
spreads. Flu bugs are common in humans, birds and pigs and have even
been seen in dogs, horses, seals and whales, among others. About five
years ago, Russian virologists claimed finding flu in bats, but they
never offered evidence. “Most people are fairly convinced we had already
discovered flu in all the possible” animals, said Ruben Donis, a
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientist who co-authored the
new study. Scientists suspect that some bats caught flu centuries ago
and that the virus mutated within the bat population into this new
variety. Scientists haven’t even been able to grow the new virus in
chicken eggs or in human cell culture, as they do with more conventional
flu strains. But it still could pose a threat to humans. For example,
if it mingled with more common forms of
influenza, it could swap genes and mutate into something more dangerous,
a scenario at the heart of the global flu epidemic movie “Contagion.”
The research was posted online Monday in the journal Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences. The CDC has an international outpost in
Guatemala, and that’s where researchers collected more than 300 bats in
2009 and 2010. The research was mainly focused on rabies, but the
scientists also checked specimens for other germs and stumbled upon the
new virus. It was in the intestines of little yellow-shouldered bats,
said Donis, a veterinarian by training. These bats eat fruit and insects
but don’t bite people. Yet it’s possible they could leave the virus on
produce and a human could get infected by taking a bite. It’s
conceivable some people were infected with the virus in the past. Now
that scientists know what it looks like, they are looking for it in
other bats as well as humans and other animals, said Donis, who heads
the Molecular Virology and Vaccines Branch in the CDC’s flu division. –Physics
If You Take Oral Vitamin D You Must Avoid Making This Serious Mistake
What if Democrats and Republicans were two wings of the
same bird of prey? What if elections were actually useful tools of
social control? What if they just provided the populace with meaningless
participation in a process that validates an establishment that never
meaningfully changes?
What if that establishment doesn’t want and doesn’t have the consent
of the governed? What if the two-party system were actually a mechanism
used to limit so-called public opinion? What if there were more than two
sides to every issue, but the two parties wanted to box you in to one
of their corners? What if there’s no such thing as public opinion,
because every thinking person has opinions that are uniquely his own?
What if public opinion were just a manufactured narrative that makes it
easier to convince people that if their views are different, there’s
something wrong with that – or something wrong with them?
What if the whole purpose of the Democratic and Republican parties
was not to expand voters’ choices, but to limit them? What if the widely
perceived differences between the two parties were just an illusion?
What if the heart of government policy remains the same, no matter who’s
in the White House? What if the heart of government policy remains the
same, no matter what the people want? What if both parties just want
power and are willing to have young people fight meaningless wars to
enhance that power?
WikiLeaks begins publishing 5 million emails from STRATFOR
26 Feb 2012 Today (27 Feb) WikiLeaks began publishing The Global
Intelligence Files – more than five million emails from the
Texas-headquartered “global intelligence” company Stratfor. The emails
date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the
inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher,
but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations,
such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman,
Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of
Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence
Agency. Stratfor… emails reveal private intelligence staff who
align themselves closely with US government policies and channel tips to
the Mossad – including through an information mule in the Israeli
newspaper Haaretz, Yossi Melman, who conspired with Guardian
journalist David Leigh to secretly, and in violation of WikiLeaks’
contract with the Guardian, move WikiLeaks US diplomatic cables to
Israel.
‘US to announce aerial blockade on Syria’
25 Feb 2012 The Pentagon is readying for the possibility of
intervention in Syria, the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported Saturday,
citing a US military official. According to the official, the
intervention scenario calls for the establishment of a buffer zone on
the Turkish border, in order to receive Syrian refugees. The measure
would pave the way for the US to declare an aerial blockade on Syria.
The next step in the reported US Department of Defense plan would be to
appoint a team of UN observers to monitor the ‘humanitarian’ military
aid, and enter Syria. They would need aerial protection, which would eventually lead to an aerial blockade.
UK prepares for military strike against Iran: The Sun
26 Feb 2012 The United Kingdom has reportedly drawn up plans to send
hundreds of troops and an extra nuclear submarine to the Persian Gulf
amid escalating war threats against the Islamic Republic. “MoD planners
went into overdrive at the start of the year. Conflict is seen as
inevitable as long as the regime (Iran) pursue their nuclear ambitions,”
The Sun quoted a senior Whitehall official as saying on
Sunday. “Britain would be sucked in whether we like it or not,” the
official added. The report said a military attack against Iran is “a matter of when not if… with 18 to 24 months the likely timescale.”
Two U.S. army officers killed as violence escalates for 5th day in Afghanistan
Document: Major resources needed for Obama Africa trip 
