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Gold Diverging From Fine Wine as Bullion Investors Lose Faith

“The Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 Index (LIVX100) tripled in the past 10 years and gold advanced fourfold. The wine gauge rose 5.9 percent this year as bullion slid 17 percent. The Wine Investment Fund, which manages about $50 million of assets, expects the Liv-ex gauge to rise by about another 7.6 percent by the end of December. Demand for gold, wine and other alternative assets gained in the past several years as equities retreated and bond yields tumbled to record lows as central banks printed money on an unprecedented scale. Gold held through exchange-traded products exceeded all but two of the world’s central-bank reserves.” Continue reading →

Illegal gold mining costs Uganda millions in lost revenue

“As a result of Uganda’s central bank deregulating gold sales, local production has increased. The precious metal accounts for 30% of Uganda’s export revenue. Illegal mining is having such an impact that experts say it must be stopped in order to shore up revenue collection. A government official said the issue is so alarming that the country exported none of its own gold in April, while Kenya exported 40 kilograms of smuggled Ugandan gold. Some citizens have said police are not responding to calls for them to act on illegal activities. Other reports indicate government officials are profiting from illegal operations through illicit tax collection.” Continue reading →

Unemployment crisis in Italy hits immigrants the worst

“Immigrants are being hit harder than Italians by the country’s unemployment crisis, a new report showed Monday, saying the figures were ‘extremely worrying’ and could lead to ‘major social destabilisation’. The report said the number of unemployed foreigners in the country was currently 385,000 — up from 220,000 at the beginning of the economic crisis in 2008. The report also outlined the importance of immigrants in Italian society and said those who did work were often stuck in low-skill and low-pay jobs. Without migrants, Italian demographic growth would be zero and the population would be ageing at a faster rate, according to the report..” Continue reading →

Germany fears revolution if Europe scraps welfare model

“German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned on Tuesday that failure to win the battle against youth unemployment could tear Europe apart, and dropping the continent’s welfare model in favor of tougher U.S. standards would spark a revolution. Germany, along with France, Spain and Italy, backed urgent action to rescue a generation of young Europeans who fear they will not find jobs, with youth unemployment in the EU standing at nearly one in four, more than twice the adult rate. If U.S. welfare standards were introduced in Europe, ‘we would have revolution, not tomorrow, but on the very same day,’ Schaeuble told a conference in Paris.” Continue reading →

A Citizens Protest Movement Builds in Kuwait

“‘Bedoun,’ literally ‘without,’ are stateless people, without citizenship and without the right to education, health care and other civil rights held by Kuwaiti citizens. There are more than 100,000 of these stateless people living a life without rights in Kuwait, most of them because they or their relatives didn’t bother to get the necessary documents when the State of Kuwait was established in 1961. After all, they likely reasoned, things had gone just fine for centuries without such documentation. The Bedoun, the non-citizens, were the first in Kuwait to take to the streets demanding equality and dignity, concurrent with the Arab Spring.” Continue reading →

Shocker: Only 1% of So Called Terrorists Nabbed by the FBI Were Real

“An undercover informant or agent posing as an Al-Qaeda operative gives them everything they need… gives them the transportation, gives them the money if they need it, and then gives them the bomb and even the idea for the terrorist attack. And then when that person pushes a button to detonate the bomb that they believe will explode—a bomb that was provided to them in whole by the FBI—agents rush in, arrest them and charge them with conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and then parade that person out to the public saying, ‘Look at us. We caught a terrorist. This is us keeping you safe.'” Continue reading →

The Case for Abolishing the Department of Homeland Security

“On Friday, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano resigned to take up a post running California’s university system. With her departure, there are now 15 vacant positions at the top of the department. That suggests it would be a particularly humane moment to shut the whole thing down. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security was a panicked reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks. It owes its continued existence to a vastly exaggerated assessment of the threat of terrorism. The department is also responsible for some of the least cost-effective spending in the U.S. government. It’s time to admit that creating it was a mistake.” Continue reading →

Propaganda Ban Repealed As Government-Made News Floods U.S.

“For decades, a so-called anti-propaganda law prevented the U.S. government’s mammoth broadcasting arm from delivering programming to American audiences. But on July 2, that came silently to an end with the implementation of a new reform passed in January. The result: an unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs for domestic U.S. consumption in a reform initially criticized as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts. The law, the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, was passed as part of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act. The repeal of the propaganda ban went into effect this month.” Continue reading →