New York Stock Exchange Sold To Derivatives Company In $8 Billion Takeover

New York Stock Exchange sold to derivatives company in $8bn takeover (Guardian, Dec 20, 2012):

The New York Stock Exchange called time on two centuries of independence on Thursday, agreeing to an $8.2bn takeover that will hand control of the icon of American capitalism to an Atlanta-based energy trader.

The stock exchange’s holding company, NYSE Euronext, has agreed to an offer of $33.12 a share in cash and stock from IntercontinentalExchange (ICE). ICE was founded in 2000, NYSE in 1817. The combined company would have headquarters in both ICE’s home of Atlanta and in New York.

Read moreNew York Stock Exchange Sold To Derivatives Company In $8 Billion Takeover

All Russians In Syria Are ‘Legitimate Targets’ – Key Opposition Group Member

Russians in Syria are ‘legitimate targets’ – key opposition group member (RT, Dec 20, 2012):

Russians are legitimate targets for military attacks in Syria, a member of the Syria’s National Opposition Coalition said. The Coalition is recognized by the US and a number of its allies as the only legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

­“Russia, like Iran, supports the Assad regime with weapons and ammunition, as well as in the political arena, so the citizens of these countries are legitimate targets for militants in Syria,” Haitham al-Maleh, a member of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces told RT.

He claimed that the Geneva Convention allows attacks on civilians cooperating with enemy armed forces. However, he called on militants not to kidnap citizens of countries that “do not support the Assad regime.”

Read moreAll Russians In Syria Are ‘Legitimate Targets’ – Key Opposition Group Member

Russia Negotiates Union With Ex-Soviet States

Russia negotiates union with ex-Soviet states (The Nation Dec 20, 2012):

MOSCOW  – Russia sought Wednesday to expand its influence over former territories during integration talks that Washington has cast as a bid to “re-Sovietise” the region.

President Vladimir Putin met separately with the leaders of Belarus and Armenia before engaging the head of resource-rich Kazakhstan about ways to more closely bind the neighbours’ economies.

He also attended a collective security meeting that resolved to create a Moscow-led air defence unit that would focus its activities on the regions surrounding war-torn Afghanistan.

Western attempts “to force other nations to accept their own standards can lead to the most serious circumstances,” Putin said in a trademark swipe at the United States.

This is especially underscored by the “dramatic situation in North Africa and the Middle East,” Putin said.

Read moreRussia Negotiates Union With Ex-Soviet States

More Fukushima nuclear pollution to hit U.S. starting in 2015 — Study: Impact strength of Cesium-137 on West Coast to be as high as 4 PERCENT

More Fukushima nuclear pollution to hit U.S. starting in 2015 — Study: Impact strength of Cesium-137 on West Coast to be as high as 4 PERCENT (ENENews, Dec 20, 2012)

Another Fort Hood Shooting: Military Cops Kill U.S. Soldier During Gunfight

Another Fort Hood shooting: Military cops kill U.S. soldier during gunfight (Examiner, Dec 16, 2012):

A U.S. soldier was killed Friday after he opened fire on members of the Military Police at the Fort Hood Army base in the state of Texas, according to a source.

The MPs at Fort Hood while on routine patrol discovered a suspicious vehicle parked near the main gate of the base in the early morning, according to the law enforcement source.

Read moreAnother Fort Hood Shooting: Military Cops Kill U.S. Soldier During Gunfight

Silver To Gain 29% In 2013 – Analysts, Traders And Investors

In the last few years gold and silver bottomed out around (directly after) Christmas.

The sheeple buy (soon to be) worthless iPhone’s and iPad’s and the elite buys gold and silver.

So BTFD!!!


Silver To Gain 29% In 2013 – Analysts, Traders And Investors (ZeroHedge, Dec 20, 2012):

Silver will rise as much as 29% to $40.25/oz, from $31.10/oz today, in 2013.

This is based on the median estimate of 49 analysts, traders and investors compiled by Bloomberg.

Global investment through silver backed exchange traded products reached a record 18,854 metric tons in November, or more than nine months of mine output, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Holdings are now valued at about $19.2 billion.

Read moreSilver To Gain 29% In 2013 – Analysts, Traders And Investors

Piers Morgan Debates Larry Pratt Of Gun Owners Of America (Video)


YouTube Added: 18.12.2012

Don’t miss:

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts: ‘You Can’t Have A Police State And An Armed Population’ – ‘So There’s No Doubt They’re Going To Take The Guns Away’ (RT Video)

Britain: ‘Gun Ban Caused 40% Jump In Gun Crime’ (Video)

Here Is What Happened When Guns Were Taken From Australians (Video)

Why Switzerland Has The Lowest Crime Rate In The World (Video)

20 Signs That The U.S. Poverty Explosion Is Hitting Children And Young People The Hardest

“When a country embarks on deficit financing and inflationism (= Quantitative easing) you wipe out the middle class and wealth is transferred from the middle class and the poor to the rich.”
– Ron Paul


20 Signs That The U.S. Poverty Explosion Is Hitting Children And Young People The Hardest (Economic Collapse, Dec 20, 2012):

The mainstream media continues to insist that the economy is “getting better”, but the poverty numbers for children and young people just continue to explode.  For example, did you know that the poverty rate for families with a head of household under the age of 30 is a whopping 37 percent?  Children and young people sure didn’t cause our recent economic downturn, but they sure are getting hit the hardest by it.  According to the U.S. Department of Education, for the first time ever more than a million U.S. public school students are homeless.  That seems like an impossible number, but it is actually true.  How in the world could the “wealthiest nation on earth” get to the point where more than a million children can’t count on a warm bed to sleep in at night?  Sadly, a huge number of American children can’t count on a warm dinner either.  About a fourth of them are enrolled in the food stamp program.  What do you do if you are a parent in that kind of situation?  How do you explain to your kids that you can’t afford a nice home like everybody else has or that you can’t afford to go to the grocery store and buy them some dinner?Young people are experiencing very rough times right now as well.  If you are under the age of 30, it is really, really difficult to get a job in America today.  The competition for the few decent jobs that seem to be available is absolutely crazy.  Unemployment among young people is at a level that we have not seen since World War II, and this is causing major problems.

Read more20 Signs That The U.S. Poverty Explosion Is Hitting Children And Young People The Hardest

Ellen Brown: Fiscal Cliff: Let’s Call Their Bluff

FYI.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts:

The Fiscal Cliff Is A Diversion: The Derivatives Tsunami And The Dollar Bubble

And why do we hear very little about this?

BREAKING NEWS: NDAA Indefinite Detention Provision Mysteriously Stripped From Bill


Fiscal Cliff: Let’s Call Their Bluff (Web of Debt, Dec 19, 2012):

The “fiscal cliff” has all the earmarks of a false flag operation, full of sound and fury, intended to extort concessions from opponents.  Neil Irwin of the Washington Post calls it “a self-induced austerity crisis.” David Weidner in the Wall Street Journal calls it simply theater, designed to pressure politicians into a budget deal:

The cliff is really just a trumped-up annual budget discussion. . . . The most likely outcome is a combination of tax increases, spending cuts and  kicking the can down the road.

Yet the media coverage has been “panic-inducing, falling somewhere between that given to an approaching hurricane and an alien invasion.”  In the summer of 2011, this sort of media hype succeeded in causing the Dow Jones Industrial Average to plunge nearly 2000 points.  But this time the market is generally ignoring the cliff, either confident a deal will be reached or not caring.

Read moreEllen Brown: Fiscal Cliff: Let’s Call Their Bluff

Germany: Berlin And Ruhr Area Turning Into Poverty Strongholds (Der Spiegel)

Google translation: HERE

Regionalstudie:  Berlin und Ruhrpott werden zu Armutshochburgen (Der Spiegel, Dec 20, 2012):

Obdachloser in Essen: Im Ruhrgebiet nimmt die Armutsgefährdung stark zu

Obdachloser in Essen: Im Ruhrgebiet nimmt die Armutsgefährdung stark zu

In Deutschlands Regionen steigt die Armut zum Teil dramatisch – das zeigt eine neue Studie des Paritätischen Wohlfahrtsverbands. Längst sind nicht mehr nur die ostdeutschen Bundesländer betroffen. Das Ruhrgebiet gehört zusammen mit Berlin zu den “Problemregionen Nummer eins”.

Hamburg – Wenn Deutschland in diesen Tagen an etwas nicht arm ist, so sind es Armutsberichte. Verschiedenste Institute und Verbände veröffentlichen kurz vor Jahresende Analysen zur Armutsgefährdung der Deutschen, die sich zum Teil deutlich widersprechen. Oft steht dabei die Situation der Gesamtbevölkerung im Fokus.

Der Paritätische Wohlfahrtsverband untersucht hingegen seit Jahren die regionale Entwicklung – und die hält er für besonders besorgniserregend. Der Blick in die Regionen lasse die zum Teil “dramatischen Verwerfungen in unserem Land deutlich werden”, erklärte Ulrich Schneider, Hauptgeschäftsführer des Verbands zur Vorstellung der Studie am Donnerstag.

Dem Bericht zufolge ist mittlerweile etwa jeder siebte Bundesbürger von Armut bedroht. Erstmals habe die Armutsgefährdungsquote im vergangenen Jahr die 15-Prozent-Marke übersprungen, ein “absolutes Rekordhoch”. Mit 12,4 Millionen Menschen sei eine halbe Million mehr betroffen als noch im Vorjahr. Als armutsgefährdet gelten Personen in Haushalten, deren Einkommen weniger als 60 Prozent des durchschnittlichen bedarfsgewichteten Einkommens (Median) in Deutschland beträgt.

Read moreGermany: Berlin And Ruhr Area Turning Into Poverty Strongholds (Der Spiegel)

‘Cold Shutdown’ In Japan: Japan Has Still ‘No Knowledge Of Where The Melted Fuel Lies And In What State’

Fukushima plant situation ‘volatile,’ a year after cold shutdown declared (The Asahi Shimbun, Dec 18, 2012):

But Fumiya Tanabe, a former chief research scientist at the now-defunct Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute, said persistent danger surrounds the plant’s reactors.

“Despite the (officially declared) cold shutdowns of the reactors, the cooling functions have been maintained there with no knowledge of where the melted fuel lies and in what state,” Tanabe said. “There is a risk of unforeseen circumstances arising if another major earthquake hits.”

Obama Urges Congress To Ban Military-Style Assault Weapons


President Barack Obama gestures as he delivers a statement about the policy process the Administration will pursue in the wake of the Newtown | Olivier Douliery/Abaca Press/MCT

Obama urges Congress to ban military-style assault weapons (McClatchy, Dec 19, 2012):

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama urged Congress on Wednesday to ban the sale of military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips and said Vice President Joe Biden would lead an effort to stem an “epidemic of gun violence that plagues this country every single day.”

Obama said he’d asked Biden to deliver his recommendations by next month, and the president pledged to move quickly to enact them.

“This is not some Washington commission,” Obama said, speaking at the White House five days after a lone gunman in Connecticut opened fire in an elementary school with a semi-automatic rifle, killing 20 first-graders and six adults. “This is not something where folks are going to be studying the issue for six months and publishing a report that gets read and then pushed aside. This is a team that has a very specific task to pull together real reforms right now.”

Read moreObama Urges Congress To Ban Military-Style Assault Weapons

BREAKING NEWS: NDAA Indefinite Detention Provision Mysteriously Stripped From Bill

NDAA Indefinite Detention Provision Mysteriously Stripped From Bill (Huffington Post, Dec 19, 2012):

WASHINGTON — Congress stripped a provision Tuesday from a defense bill that aimed to shield Americans from the possibility of being imprisoned indefinitely without trial by the military. The provision was replaced with a passage that appears to give citizens little protection from indefinite detention.

The amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 was added by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), but there was no similar language in the version of the bill that passed the House, and it was dumped from the final bill released Tuesday after a conference committee from both chambers worked out a unified measure.

Read moreBREAKING NEWS: NDAA Indefinite Detention Provision Mysteriously Stripped From Bill

U.S. Treasury Announces GM ‘Exit Strategy’ … Taxpayers To Lose Billions Of Dollars

Treasury announces GM exit strategy; automaker buying 200 million shares from U.S. (The Detroit News, Dec 19, 2012):

Washington — The Obama administration said Wednesday it will sell 200 million shares — or 40 percent of its remaining stake in General Motors Co. — back to the automaker and announced plans to completely exit the Detroit automaker by March 2014.

Read moreU.S. Treasury Announces GM ‘Exit Strategy’ … Taxpayers To Lose Billions Of Dollars

Guns And Magazines Prices Surge At eBay, Guns Sold Out At Wal-Mart

From Bloomberg:

With President Barack Obama endorsing sweeping gun restrictions in the wake of the school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, prices for handgun magazines are surging on EBay (EBAY) and semi-automatic rifles are sold out at many Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) locations.

Prices Tripling

On EBay Inc.’s auction website, shoppers have recently bid up gun magazines. The current bid for four Glock handgun magazines, ammunition for one of the guns used at Newtown, is $118.37 compared with $45 on the day before the shooting. The bid for seven Glock magazines hit $201 on Dec. 17 from $71.01 before the massacre.

Gun buyers have flooded other firearms retailers too. The Hyatt Gun Shop in Charlotte, North Carolina, racked up more than $1 million in sales yesterday for the best single-day performance since the store opened in 1959, according to Justin Anderson, director of online sales. At the top of shoppers’ lists was the Bushmaster AR-15, the model of rifle used at Newtown that sells for as much as $4,000 and had almost sold out, he said.

Revenue at one of the largest U.S. gun stores surpassed even the spike just after Obama was elected president in 2008, Anderson said in a telephone interview. Sales weren’t as robust when Obama was re-elected last month because the president hadn’t backed major new gun laws, he said.

MUST WATCH: An Hour In The Company Of Hedge Fund Manager Kyle Bass (Video)

An Hour In The Company Of Kyle Bass (ZeroHedge, Dec 19, 2012):

Last year’s AmeriCatalyst interview with Kyle Bass provided much more color than the normal 30-second soundbites that we are subjected to when serious hedge fund managers are exposed to mainstream media. This year, Bass was the keynote speaker and in the following speech (followed by Q&A), the fund manager provides 60 minutes of eloquence on the end of the grand experiment and its consequences. From Money Printing and Central Bank Balance sheets to Japan and the psychology of the current situation – which in many cases trumps the quantitative data – the question remains, “when will this unravel” as opposed to “if?”; Bass provides his fact-based heresy against the orthodoxy of economic thought “On The Financial Nature Of Things” extending well beyond his recent note. Must watch (there’s no football or X-Factor on tonight).

Make sure to stay tuned to the last 2 minutes when Kyle succinctly sums up our society…


YouTube

Time Magazine’s ‘Person Of The Year’ For 2012: Barack Obama

From the article:

“Other previous winners have included US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, Bono and President George W. Bush.”

… and ADOLF HITLER (1938) & Josef Stalin (1939, 1942).


Obama named Time’s ‘person of the year’ (Stuff, Dec 20, 2012):

US President Barack Obama has been named Time magazine’s “person of the year” for 2012.

“We are in the midst of historic cultural and demographic changes, and Obama is both the symbol and in some ways the architect of this new America,” Time Editor Rick Stengel told NBC’s “Today” show, where he announced the selection on Wednesday.

The short list for the honour included Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager who was shot in the head for advocating for girls’ education, as well as Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Italian physicist Fabiola Gianotti.

Obama also received the honour in 2008, when he was President-elect.

Read moreTime Magazine’s ‘Person Of The Year’ For 2012: Barack Obama

S&P 500: It Really Is Different (Again) This Time

It Really Is Different (Again) This Time (ZeroHedge, Dec 19, 2012):

Despite the seemingly generational destruction to household and bank balance sheets and an entirely unprecedented fiscal and monetary policy reponse, investors would never know it given the market’s reactions from the 2009 lows relative to its rally from the 2003 lows. Different this time? hhmmm… Worried about gold prices falling also? Doesn’t look like we learned anything from the ‘Debt Ceiling’ debate either…
S&P 500 – 2003-low rally vs 2009-low rally; unbelievable!

What is most shocking is the cataclysmic drop we suffered did nothing to quell the status quo’s belief that one more bubble will do it and save us all… This rally off the 2009 lows feels excessive (and is given the real backdrop) but is in reality not so different from the Greenspan-to-Bernanke handoff bubble that led to this idiocy…

Read moreS&P 500: It Really Is Different (Again) This Time

Texas School Allows Teachers To Carry Guns

Texas school’s ‘Guardian Plan’ allows teachers to have guns (Yahoo News/The Lookout, Dec 18, 2012):

In 2007, a school district in Harrold, Texas, made a controversial decision. It allowed teachers to carry concealed weapons on school grounds to protect students against potential shooters.

Now, in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary attack in Newtown, Conn., that left 28 dead including 20 children and the gunman, the school district’s methods are getting a closer look. In a report from CBS Dallas Fort Worth, superintendent David Thweatt says the district’s “Guardian Plan” is a way of taking charge in the chaos of a potential shooting. Teachers are the true first responders, Thweatt says. “We need to be here to protect our children. Not four, five minutes or six minutes from now.”

Read moreTexas School Allows Teachers To Carry Guns

US: The Road From Rags To Riches No Longer Passes Through College

Sorry (Poor) Kids: The Road From Rags To Riches No Longer Passes Through College (ZeroHedge, Dec 19, 2012):

… at least statistically speaking. Yes, outlier cases will always exist and there will always be a rags to Geology 101 to riches story somewhere, but as the following fascinating and very much damning (the entire higher learning industry of the US) diagram from Reuters demonstrates, colleges, in their once vaunted role of a “great equalizer for the classes” as defined over a century ago by Horace Mann, no longer exist.The chart in question?

What does the above chart imply? Nothing more than that for the vast majority of people, college degrees are the modern-day equivalent of very, very expensive snake oil.

Read moreUS: The Road From Rags To Riches No Longer Passes Through College

Police State: Two women CAVITY SEARCHED By Texas Police After Being Pulled Over For Littering (FOX Video)


YouTube Added: 18.12.2012

Description:

ADDISON, TX — Two women say that after being pulled over for littering, Texas State Troopers insisted that they must be carrying marijuana in their vehicle and body orifices. A female officer slipped on a rubber glove, rubbed her hands all over the womens’ breasts, and inside their pants where they say that there was finger penetration into their bodies. The officer did not change her glove when probing the two women.

“I was molested. I was violated. I was humiliated in front of other traffic. I had to witness my niece go through the same thing,” Angel Hobbs said. “This has been an eye-opening experience for me, okay? Never been pulled over, never searched like this. It’s… I mean, I was like totally violated over there a few minutes ago. I had a finger in my *** and a finger in my ****, and this is so embarrassing to me.”

Attorney Pete Shulte commented that the demeanor of the officers makes the roadside search look like a routine occurrence.

Analyst: Obama, Biden Are War Criminals Under UN Charter

Obama, Biden are war criminals under UN Charter: Analyst (PressTV, Dec 18, 2012):

An award-winning American investigative journalist says US President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden should face charges of war crimes for the continuation of war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Dave Lindorff, a contributor to Press TV website, quoted international law expert Francis Boyle as saying that President Obama and his administration are engaged in an “ongoing criminal conspiracy under international law” both to cover up and protect criminals like his predecessor George W. Bush.

He said Bush and many of his appointees were convicted at a tribunal in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, earlier this month of war crimes in connection with the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Under the Geneva Convention, failing to take action to prosecute those guilty of war crimes such as the “crime against peace” (invading a country that does not pose an imminent threat to the attacker), and torture, are war crimes in and of themselves,” wrote Lindorff, who has authored The Case for Impeachment about the Bush administration.

Read moreAnalyst: Obama, Biden Are War Criminals Under UN Charter