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Mayor of Chicago Reports Investment Income Far From Chicago (Cayman Islands)

"Rahm Emanuel, who released his tax returns for the first time as mayor Tuesday, reported earning more than $409,000 in 2012 from his city salary and income from investments. Emanuel reported his $204,726 salary as mayor and another $158,823 in dividend income from investments with JPMorgan Chase Bank and Golub Capital Partners VII LP, as well as $9,519 from his partnership in the Golub investment fund. The mayor reported paying $77,740 in federal taxes, or a rate of about 21 percent, on adjusted gross income of $373,478.[...]Some of Emanuel's investment income came from Golub entities with addresses in the Cayman Islands." Continue reading →

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Why Serial Asset Bubbles Are Now The New Normal

"Asset bubbles are inevitable when the pool of good investment opportunities is much smaller than the pool of credit-money sloshing around seeking a higher yield. It really is that simple. It's astonishingly easy to create hot money: just create the money in a central bank and then make it available to financiers, investment banks, global corporations and other Financial Elites at near-zero real rates of interest. It's considerably more difficult to create a good investment opportunity: an investment that is worthy of the risk must have a sound base in fundamentals such as cash flow, return on investment, etc." Continue reading →

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Foreclosures are the Solution, Not the Problem

"The majority of those foreclosed on and who sold short would have become clean potential buyers in 3 to 7 years ensuring a housing recovery was not only on deck but would be 'durable'. Millions of legacy HELOCs and HELOANs preventing folks from rebuying real estate indefinitely would have been exterminated making millions more potential buyers within 2 to 5 years. Bottom line, history will not be kind to loan mods and workouts. It will show that modifications, anti-foreclosure laws, banks protecting their HELOC assets — in general, unabated can-kicking — was responsible for housing to remain in a depression for years longer than it would have." Continue reading →

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About That Supposed Correlation of the U.S. Dollar and Gold….

"One of the most widely accepted truisms in what passes for our financial media is that the dollar and gold are correlated: when the dollar weakens, gold rises, and when gold rises, the dollar declines. Nice, except this vaunted correlation isn't remotely visible in the charts. Conclusion: there is no correlation between gold and the U.S. dollar index. Not even close.The two move independently; any apparent correlation is semi-random signal noise. They are not on a simplistic see-saw." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingAbout That Supposed Correlation of the U.S. Dollar and Gold….

Washington state purges ‘sexist’ language from public laws

"40,000 words have been changed as part of an effort to rid state statutes of gender-biased language. The bill, signed into law earlier in the year, went into effect this week. And it was no small task. 'Fisherman' is now a 'fisher.' 'Penmanship' is called 'handwriting.' And 'manhole cover' is, well, still 'manhole cover.' 'His' is now 'his and hers.' 'Clergyman' is now 'clergy.' 'Journeyman plumber' is now 'journey-level plumber.' Washington is the fourth state to officially remove gender-biased language from the law. Others are Florida, North Carolina and Illinois. Nine other states are considering similar gender-neutral laws." Continue reading →

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State Dept. whistleblower’s lawyers targeted by ‘Watergate-style’ break-ins

"Two burglars spent last weekend repeatedly breaking into a Dallas law firm and stealing three computers while leaving other valuables behind. The attorneys said Sunday that this was no ordinary break-in: it may have been politically motivated. The law firm targeted is Schulman & Mathias, which represents State Department whistleblower Aurelia Fedenisn, formerly with the department’s office of inspector general. Fedenisn revealed to CBS News earlier this year that she’d seen internal investigations called off or misdirected by higher ups, drawing a rapid and terrifying response from law enforcement, with a specific focus on her family and children." Continue reading →

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Coroner: San Francisco crash victim might have been run over by fire truck

"A fire truck may be responsible for the death of one of two teenage girls killed during Saturday’s airliner crash at San Francisco International Airport, KNTV-TV reported on Sunday. 'As it possibly could have happened, based on the injuries sustained, it could have been one of our vehicles that added to the injuries, or another vehicle,' local Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White told the San Francisco Chronicle, saying the victim’s injuries were consistent with her being run over. 'That could have been something that happened in the chaos. It will be part of our investigation.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCoroner: San Francisco crash victim might have been run over by fire truck

Tweet referencing Pink’s song ‘Timebomb’ gets teen arrested at concert

"A 16-year-old boy was arrested at a Pink concert in Australia over the weekend after he tweeted a reference to the singer’s 'Timebomb' song. According to The Age, the teen was attending the U.S. pop star’s concert at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne on Sunday when he tried to express his excitement in a way that authorities did not find amusing. In an interview with 10 News, the boy said that that arena staff used the photo on his Twitter profile to track him down out of the crowd of 12,000 people. The boy now faces charges of being a public nuisance." Continue reading →

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The Ten Most Disturbing Things You Should Know About the FBI Since 9/11

"1. USA Patriot Act Abuse; 2. 2008 Amendments to the Attorney General's Guidelines; 3. Racial and Ethnic Mapping; 4. Unrestrained Data Collection and Data Mining 5. Suppressing Internal Dissent: The FBI War on Whistleblowers; 6. Targeting Journalists; 7. Thwarting Congressional Oversight; 8. Targeting First Amendment Activity; 9. Proxy Detentions; 10. Use of No Fly List to Pressure Americans Abroad to Become Informants." Continue reading →

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