Yesterday, the U.S. Justice Department approved the merger between Tyson Foods and Hillshire Brands, requiring an important divestiture, but nonetheless allowing one of the largest meat processing mergers in years.
The Justice Department forced Tyson to sell its sow-buying business that competed head-to-head with Hillshire’s sow slaughter business. The Justice Department should be commended for recognizing the buyer-power that pork processors and marketers have over hog farmers and taking a necessary step to protect farmers from increased consolidation in the pork packing industry. The pork packing industry remains overly concentrated, but at least the Justice Department prevented it from getting any worse.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron came out swinging this morning; not only at ISIS but in calling for European leaders to block Russia from the SWIFT banking transaction system. European leaders have already (via unnamed sources) denied any actual new sanctions will take place (though they will be discussing them at the NATO Summit) but – as we have noted previously – this is yet another unintended consequence-driven nail in the coffin of USD hegemony…
Bloomberg reports that the U.K. Said to Press EU to Block Russia From Banking Network
The U.K. will press European Union leaders to consider blocking Russian access to the SWIFT banking transaction system under an expansion of sanctions over the conflict in Ukraine, a British government official said.
The following story is a warning as to why centralized power is so dangerous. It doesn’t matter whether the power is political or corporate, overly centralized power in all forms must be resisted whenever it appears. The worst of all worlds is when centralized political and corporate power unite in an unholy alliance, which is what has happened to America in recent decades. When this occurs, the combined forces of oligarchy simply begin to rapaciously feast on the citizenry with zero accountability. This is a fair description of the United States in 2014.
Just hours after hours after another video purporting to show the mass execution of up to 250 Syrian soldiers in the desert, The Independent reports ISIS has released a video apparently showing the beheading of a Kurdish man in Iraq as a warning to Kurds fighting the group in the country. The video, entitled “A Message in Blood” ends with the victim beheaded and the fighters warn others will face the same fate should Kurdish leaders choose to continue an alliance with the US.
While the captives and executors are dressed in similar fashion to those seen in the James Foley execution 10 days ago, it is unclear if the two incidents were carried out by the same people.
The production of the propaganda video also differs – with the beheading shown alongside still images of American and Kurdish officials in an attempt to help convey the executioner’s message.
Large explosive eruption propels ash to 60,000 feet (18,288 meters) – Aviation color code raised to red.
Mount Tavurvur erupted early on Friday, forcing evacuation of local communities.
The eruption involved “incandescent projections and ongoing loud roaring and rumbling noises,” stated a notice from the Department of Mineral Policy and Geohazards.
Officials said there have been no reports of deaths or injuries so far, but local residents were advised to remain indoors to avoid falling ash.
Photos from Rabaul show the ground covered in a layer of ash.
As Icenews reports, a fissure eruption has started in the Holuhraun lavafield north of Dyngjujökull. Newly formed crevasses were spotted in surveillance flyovers by scientists yesterday and at that time geophysicist Magnús Tumi Guðmundsson estimated that the magma intrusion which had been monitored for the previous week was moving only 2 kilometres under the surface. The magma has now breached the surface and the volcanic eruption has been confirmed by scientists in the field. The low frequency tremors suggests the eruption is located outside the glacier. The blaze can be observed in Mila’s webcameras, two of which are trained on Vatnajökull glacier’s Bárðarbunga area.
…
– Aerial video of Iceland eruption (Ice Age Now, Aug 29, 2014):
29 Aug 14 – “First aerial footage of the fissure eruption!” says reader Don Brown. Also great photos.
The fissure is thought to be about 1 mile long and runs northeast / southwest. The lava is thin and fast flowing southeast. This is the fissure eruption, which appears to be available as a multi-called dynamic operation of Dyngjujökli towards the caldera.
Government engineered false-flag terrorism is a historically established fact. For centuries, political and financial elites have been sinking ships, setting buildings on fire, assassinating diplomats, overthrowing elected leaders, and blowing people up, then blaming these disasters on convenient scapegoats so that they can induce fear in the public and transfer more power to themselves. Skeptics might argue whether certain calamities have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be false-flag events, but no one can argue that such tactics have not been used by the establishment in the past. Governments have openly admitted to creating bloody and catalyzing tragedies under false pretenses, like Operation Gladio, a false-flag program in Europe supported by European and American covert agencies which lasted decades, from the 1950’s to the 1990’s.
Gladio utilized well-paid and trained rogue groups and agents as well as patsies, compartmentalized and controlled, who would commit atrocities against the European public. These atrocities would then be blamed on “left wing extremists”, galvanizing the citizenry and political representatives towards the false East/West paradigm. The superficial motivation given by whistleblowers was that Gladio was to be used to keep the right wing in power. However, the broader and deeper goal was clearly to manipulate Europeans into accepting a unification mindset, paving the way for the eventual centralization of Europe into the EU supranational block. Gladio, is only one well documented example of false-flag terrorism being exploited by governments to mold mass psychology towards greater collectivism.
It is therefore vital that the public question the legitimacy of EVERY so-called “terrorist attack” or geopolitical incident, otherwise, we may find ourselves duped into supporting wars and unconstitutional actions that only end up poisoning our society and elevating tyrants.
Having been quiet for a few days, comfortable sitting back and watching NATO, Europe, and the US escalate each other’s talking points to a frenzy of populist revolt, Russia’s Vladimir Putin has come out swinging this morning:
*PUTIN: NO MATTER WHAT U.S. DOES, IT TURNS OUT LIKE LIBYA, IRAQ
*PUTIN SAYS UN CAN’T BE FOREIGN POLICY TOOL FOR U.S., ALLIES
*PUTIN: EUROPEAN LEADERS FAR FROM SHOWING INDEPENDENT THINKING
*PUTIN SAYS RUSSIA IS COUNTRY THAT DOESN’T FEAR ANYTHING
In addition to discussions of The Bolsheviks, agreeing Stalin was a tyrant, and slamming liberal economic models for creating crises, Putin notes his approval rating is high because “he is confident he’s right.”
Since, as long as Qatar has a strategy on how to progress on its Gazprom-bypassing pipeline to Europe, whether Obama had a strategy or not, is completely irrelevant.
Faith that the future will be better than the present is slipping, as despite President Obama’s demands that Americans not be “cynics,” a new report shows there is a major lack of confidence that the next generation will have it better than the last one. As WSJ reports, most strikingly, only 16% of respondents agree that job and career opportunities will be better for the next generation than for their own – a drop from the 56% who were optimistic about this measure in 1999 and down even from the 40% who agreed in November 2009, well into the recession.
Former intelligence official wants sanctions against Russia to lead to the removal of Putin, “with a bullet hole in the back of his head” if necessary
In a recent op-ed, a former CIA official suggested the removal of Russian President Vladimir Putin, by assassination if necessary, should be the primary objective of the Obama administration in its strategy for Ukraine.
Herbert E. Meyer, who served as a Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence under the Reagan administration, said the goal of U.S. sanctions against Russia “should be to get the Russians who’ve been keeping Putin in power, or tolerating Putin in power, to throw that knockout punch.”
Attending costly games is on the margins of the household budget. When the credit card gets maxed out, attending is no longer an option.
Please understand I’m not suggesting professional sports isn’t the greatest thing since sliced bread: I’m simply asking if attending pro sports games has become unaffordable to the average American.
Who cares as long as we can watch the games for free on television, right? That raises another issue: in the next recession, will advertisers still pay billions of dollars for broadcast TV ads on sports channels when ads on mobile devices distributed via Big Data analysis can directly target the (shrinking) populace who still has disposable income to spend?
Before we look at the money side of pro sports, let’s note the glorious shared experience of “our team” winning and hated rivals losing.Sports is one of the few experiences that unites a remarkably diverse populace, and one of the few spheres of life that isn’t politicized to ruination.
Remember all those allegations that Obamacare would be an unmitigated disaster for businesses, especially smaller companies? Well, now we have some facts. A week ago we noted that the Philly Fed found that Obamacare was a disaster for business, and now no lessor entity than the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is out with its latest forecasts, concluding “certain aspects of the Affordable Care Act will tend to reduce labor force participation.”
Shortly after it was revealed by Politico that NBC had stooped to new lows in favoritist nepotism, having paid Chelsea Clinton an annual salary of $600,000 for “occasional” reporting work, in effect making her one of the highest paid if not the highest paid “reporter” in the world, the former first daughter quickly stunned everyone when, in the aftermath of her mother’s just as stunning commentary on personal wealth and what being “broke” in the New Normal apparently means, she stated rhetorically that “I was curious if I could care about money and I couldn’t.” So, moments ago, to prove that she really no longer cares about such earthly things as money, since between her hedge fund husband and her parents, she has more than she can possibly spend in one lifetime, AP reported that Chelsea Clinton is quitting her job as a reporter at NBC News.
Following his nation’s elevated terror threat level, UK Prime Minister David Cameron went full scaremonger:
“We are in the middle of a generational struggle against a poisonous extremist ideology that I believe we will be fighting for years and probably decades.”
The sudden military escalation in Ukraine in recent days has, according to JPMorgan’s Alex Kantarovich, reduced the earlier hopes that the high level meeting in Minsk on 26 August would help to defuse the conflict. As Kantarovich warns, the markets are now bracing for the US/EU responses. In the worst case scenario, now appearing more likely, severe pressure on stocks may extend. As he concludes, “we believe that with the significant deterioration in the Ukrainian situation, markets may treat this as a Lehman-style shock.”
UK Home Secretary Theresa May has announced that a terrorist attack on the UK is :highly likely,” although stressed that there is no information to suggest an attack is imminent:
*UK TERROR THREAT LEVEL RAISED TO SEVERE FROM SUBSTANTIAL
*REAL AND SERIOUS THREAT IN THE UK FROM TERRORISM, MAY SAYS
Her decision is based on the latest intelligence from Syria and Iraq (and we suspect, as Brandon Smith notes, “the goal will be to terrify you and those around you into seeking out a more powerful, more centralized government authority to protect your security.”)
Last week, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk pushed a bill through the Verkhovna Rada that would see his country’s gas transportation system sold off to a group of international investors. The provisions of the law would permit the transit of natural gas to be blocked. This decision may hurt the fragile industrial recovery in Germany and finish off Ukraine’s potential as a gas transit route to Europe.
Who could have ever imagined that North America would surpass Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas liquids? A decade ago, that would have seemed laughable.
Yet that’s exactly what has happened; and it’s not just Saudi Arabia that has been left in North America’s dust — Russia has, too.
The surge in North American oil and gas production is arguably the most important development in energy over the last decade. That’s the good news. The not so good news is that North America doesn’t have nearly enough oil and gas pipelines to accommodate its 11-million-barrel-a-day output level.
President Obama ‘knows’ how to handle Putin’s ‘continuation’ (not ‘invasion’) – more sanctions (and costs for Europe) – but when it comes to beating the most “barbaric” terrorists known as ISIS, ISIL, or The Islamic State; he had this to offer… “I don’t want to put the cart before the horse. We don’t have a strategy yet.” Rest assured Americans – who have been told that ISIS could be crossing the borders every day and a constant threat, President Obama is ‘working on it’. Perhaps most crucially, while we ‘joke’ that the administration has no strategy, it is noteworthy that Obama stated it was “not US policy to defeat ISIS, only reverse gains.”
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptRejectRead More https://infiniteunknown.net/dsgvo/
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
