Alternative News

Guerrilla surveillance camera destruction hits the U.S.

"It started in Berlin: Anarchists, donning black bloc attire, hit the streets at night in pairs, small groups or alone to smash and dismantle the CCTV surveillance cameras adorning the city streets. The anti-surveillance project quickly spread throughout Germany, to Finland, Greece and hit the U.S. West Coast this month. A group identifying itself as 'the Barefoot Bandit Brigade' released a statement claiming to have 'removed and destroyed 17 security cameras throughout the Puget Sound region,' with ostensible photo evidence published alongside." Continue reading →

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As Secretive “Stingray” Surveillance Tool Becomes More Pervasive, Questions Over Its Illegality Increase

"A few months ago, EFF warned of a secretive new surveillance tool, commonly referred to as a 'Stingray,' being used by the FBI in cases around the country. The device, which acts as a fake cell phone tower, essentially allows the government to electronically search large areas for a particular cell phone's signal—sucking down data on potentially thousands of innocent people along the way. At the same time, law enforcement has attempted use them while avoiding many of the traditional limitations set forth in the Constitution, like individualized warrants. This is why we called the tool 'an unconstitutional, all-you-can-eat data buffet.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingAs Secretive “Stingray” Surveillance Tool Becomes More Pervasive, Questions Over Its Illegality Increase

How Big Was the Tax Hike for Everyone Earning a Paycheck?

"The payroll tax paid by workers increased from 4.2% to 6.2% at the start of the year. The regressive tax is paid by everybody who earns $113,700 annually or less. That means someone making the median income of about $50,000 will pay $1,000 a year more in taxes, or a little more than $19 a week. These receipts are supposed to pay for Social Security and Medicare, but they are actually spent along with all other revenues. I monitor the 260-day moving sum of withheld income and employment taxes deposited at the US Treasury. It was $1,791 billion on December 18. It jumped $25 billion to $1,816 billion on January 18. That’s a significant tax increase." Continue reading →

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Households On Foodstamps Rise To New Record

"Since Obama's inauguration, the US has generated just 841,000 jobs through November 2012, a number is more than dwarfed by the 17.3 million new foodstamps and disability recipients added to the rolls in the past 4 years. And since the start of the depression in December 2007, America has seen those on foodstamps and disability increase by 21.8 million,while losing 3.6 million jobs. End result: total number of foodstamp recipients as of November: 47.7 million, an increase of 141,000 from the prior month." Continue reading →

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Outrageous IRS FBAR Penalty: $500K Delinquency Turns Into $22M Fine

"Meet Mary Estelle Curran, age 79 and living in Florida. Lest you think Mary is some sophisticated money launderer or drug runner, she is a widow. She inherited a foreign account in a Lichtenstein Foundation from her deceased husband. While the sentencing is still several months away, the IRS penalty for her account is almost $22 million even though the unpaid tax was less than a million dollars. Why so high? The civil penalties for failing to file an FBAR are based on the size of the unreported account. Under current law, the penalty is the greater of $100,000 per year or 50% of the highest account balance for each year the account is unreported." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingOutrageous IRS FBAR Penalty: $500K Delinquency Turns Into $22M Fine

Sanders Introduces Legislation to End Offshore Tax Havens

"Vermont’s Bernie Sanders introduced legislation on Thursday to prevent U.S. corporations from sheltering income in the Cayman Islands and other offshore tax havens. Every year, said Sanders, corporations and wealthy Americans are 'avoiding more than $100 billion in U.S. taxes by sheltering their income in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and other offshore tax havens.' Under existing law, U.S. corporations are allowed to defer or delay U.S. income taxes on overseas profits until that money is brought back into the U.S. U.S. corporations are also provided foreign tax credits to offset the amount of income taxes paid to foreign jurisdictions." Continue reading →

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World Gold Council to teach central bankers how to trade gold

"Central bankers will be taught how to trade gold at a three-day seminar on 'gold reserves management' to be held in March at the University of California at Berkeley and co-sponsored by the World Gold Council. Apparently modern 'gold reserves management' involves a lot more than making sure that the metal is safe in a vault, even if whether and how a central bank should account to the public for its gold trading do not seem to be subjects for discussion at the seminar." Continue reading →

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The Fed Is Blowing More Bubbles

"As if any more evidence were needed (see my CB post earlier this week) that the Fed has succeeded, either through ignorance or design, in igniting new asset bubbles throughout the economy, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City just released a survey of bankers that confirms a continuing rise in U.S. farmland prices. The chart below from the report by the Kansas City Fed puts this stunning trend in temporal perspective and reveals that it extends across all farmland, including irrigated cropland and ranchland." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Fed Is Blowing More Bubbles