Big Lie

Bill Bonner: Buffett is frightened

"Investors have reached a new level of bullishness. They're borrowing again to buy stocks, confident that prices go in only one direction. There's also a swift current of economic analysis telling us that the commodities boom is over, the Fed has the situation under control and the bull market in gold is finished. All of which is amazing and often breathtaking. Stock market investors don't seem to know or care that the only thing holding up their investments is something that will ultimately destroy them. And that the longer it continues, the bigger the mess when it finally blows up. We're talking, of course, about the Fed's monetary policy." Continue reading →

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Gun Violence in the USA Has Declined for 20 Years

"Gun violence has been falling in the United States for two decades. Between 1993 and 2010, the gun homicide rate fell by 49%. The public does not perceive this, thanks to media attention to specific cases of gun violence. Rates for all categories of violence have fallen. This includes gun violence. The same study revealed that 56% of those surveyed believe that gun violence is worse today than in 1993. Another 26% think it is about the same. Only 12% think it has declined. What about mass shootings? These account for 1% of all homicides. But stories about them attract readers. The public is uninformed. This comes as no surprise." Continue reading →

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The Pension Rate-of-Return Fantasy

"In June of 2012, Calpers lowered the expected rate of return on its portfolio to 7.5% from 7.75%. Calpers had last dropped the rate in 2004, from 8.25%. But even the 7.5% return is fiction. Wall Street would laugh if the matter weren't so serious. And the trouble is not just in California. Public-pension funds in Illinois use an average of 8.18% expected returns. The 100 top U.S. public companies with defined benefit pension assets of $1.3 trillion have an average expected rate of return of 7.5%. Three of them are over 9%. (Since 2000, these assets have returned 5.6%.) Who wouldn't want 7.5%-8% returns these days? Ten-year U.S. Treasury bonds are paying 1.74%." Continue reading →

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Moody’s: ‘Strategic Default’ Viewed as Less Taboo by Cities

"The number of defaults from U.S. municipal issuers rated by Moody’s Investors Service has more than tripled to 4.6 per year since 2007, showing willingness to pay can’t be taken for granted, the company said in a report. Five municipalities rated by Moody’s defaulted last year, including Stockton, California, which became the biggest U.S. city to seek Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection in June. Wenatchee, Washington, failed to honor a guarantee on an interest payment for a sports arena. The figure doesn’t include issuers such as Vadnais Heights, Minnesota, which 'selectively defaulted' on contingent liabilities, the report said." Continue reading →

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Bill Bonner: Americans pose a bigger threat to themselves

"With the numbers before us, you'd think we would at least stop wasting time and money protecting ourselves from terrorism and other bugaboos. The US 'security' budget, all in, is a fabulous sum -- about $1 trillion a year. It seems foolish. The return on investment is paltry. By comparison, suicide prevention - as near as we could make out - is barely a footnote in the federal budget, only about $56 million a year. This despite the fact that the risk to the typical reader posed by himself is about 1,000 times greater that the risk from 'terrorists.'" Continue reading →

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Money Laundering Is Financial Thoughtcrime

"From President Roosevelt's 1933 seizure of personal gold to the Nazi confiscation of Jewish wealth to the recent deposit theft at Cyprus banks, asset plundering by governments has a long and colorful tradition. Protecting wealth from oppressive regimes continues to this day. Even as the money-laundering laws are said to exist for the fight against terrorism or drugs or gambling, the cashless utopia is simultaneously being thrust upon us as the monetary architecture of the future. Expect ever more increasing thoughtcrime enforcement as the international money flow tightens." Continue reading →

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105-year-old woman says eating bacon every day is her key to long life

"A 105-year-old woman from Richland, Texas says that the key to long life is bacon. Pearl Cantrell’s love of bacon is so strong that the Oscar Meyer Wienermobile made a stop through town last week to wish her a happy birthday, all because she told a local news station her amazing secret. 'I love bacon, I eat it everyday,' she told a reporter for Abilene-based Big Country Homepage in April. 'I don’t feel as old as I am, that’s all I can say.'" Continue reading →

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The “Chechen Connection”, Al Qaeda and the Boston Marathon Bombings

"Media reports carefully overlook the historical origins of the Chechnya jihadist movement and its pervasive links to US intelligence. The fact of the matter is that the jihadist movement is a creation of US intelligence, which has also led to the development of 'political Islam'. While the role of the CIA in support of the Islamic jihad is amply documented, there is also evidence that the FBI has covertly equipped and incited would be terrorists within the US. The CIA’s agenda starting in the late 1970s was to recruit and train jihadist 'freedom fighters' (Mujahideen) to wage 'a war of liberation' directed against the pro-Soviet secular government of Afghanistan." Continue reading →

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President Obama: Reject Warnings of Tyranny

"This is a startling video clip because in it US President Barack Obama bluntly confronts the reality of the current US conversation in which up to 30 percent (according to one recent poll) believe armed rebellion will be a necessity in the near future. Here at The Daily Bell, of course, we try to focus on dominant social themes from an economic and civil society standpoint. Surely the growing anger in the US – and throughout the West – must be a concern for those who have helped shape the current society ... even though you rarely hear a leader address these concerns so bluntly." Continue reading →

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UN Commission Investigator: It Was The Syrian Rebels Who Used Sarin

"It made all the sense in the world for the insurgents to release some sarin here and there, make some videos of the victims, and email the links to some very willing Israeli generals and McCainian rabid warhawks in the US and their absurd poodles in the UK and France. The question is, whence came the chemical weapons? Perhaps the Syrian government was not lying when it asserted at the end of last month that the chemical weapons used by the Syrian rebels originated in Turkey. The Syrian official's claim was reported in the Western press as an example of mendacity, laughed at by the US administration. But it seems he may well have been telling the truth." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingUN Commission Investigator: It Was The Syrian Rebels Who Used Sarin