Middle Class Dismissed

The Corruption of Capitalism in America Excerpt: Chapter 17, Serial Bubbles

"Never before in history had the nation's financial system been pummeled by two gigantic bubbles and two devastating crashes in such a brief interval. That Greenspan's heir apparent managed to detect the Great Moderation at the midpoint of this cycle of financial violence was only added testimony to the degree to which monetary policy had become unhinged. It was no longer plausible, therefore, to describe the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, and the various venues for equity derivatives as a free market for raising and trading equity capital issues. Instead, they were violently unstable casinos, ineptly stage-managed by a central bank." Continue reading →

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Gerald Celente: Sneak Peek At New Trends Journal & Boston Tragedy

"There was a recent article that came out about the amount of suicides and desperate moves people are making in desperation about what’s going on around the world. You know my saying, ‘When people lose everything and have nothing left to lose, they lose it.’ And people are starting to lose it. I believe the actions that were taken with police, military, and armored vehicles, 10,000 troops to go after a 19-year old kid in Boston, are the beginning of more to come. So as societies breakdown you are going to see more and more Martial Law put in place to keep the people in place." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingGerald Celente: Sneak Peek At New Trends Journal & Boston Tragedy

Online sales tax overwhelmingly passes cloture vote

"The Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states the mechanism to start collecting taxes for online sales, overwhelmingly passed a Senate cloture vote Monday night, circumventing regular order and drawing concern from a minority of Senators. Seventy four Senators voted in favor of the motion, while 20 dissented. Many of those represent states that, like New Hampshire, do not have a state sales tax and argue the passage of this bill will be consequential for their small businesses. One consequence cited was the states’ potential power to collect sales tax on financial transactions done online, specifically on Americans' 401(k) accounts." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingOnline sales tax overwhelmingly passes cloture vote

Greece’s great fire sale

"The idea of snapping up a Greek island certainly has its appeal. In March the Emir of Qatar bought six for £7 million, while a Russian oligarch bought Skorpios – previously owned by the Onassis family – earlier this month for a reported £65 million, as a present for his 24-year-old daughter Ekaterina Rybolovlev. To that end, the royal palace on Corfu, where Prince Philip was born, is now also for sale. So too is a large coastal estate which, the government boasts on its website, is next door to land owned by the Rothschild banking dynasty. Officials refuse to discuss prices, saying that it depends on offers and the development proposals." Continue reading →

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A Ton Of Gold Bricks: What Capital Flight Looks Like In Italy

"Curious why so little has been said about cash flowing out of Italy's banks, especially when even UniCredit's CEO today proudly warned everyone he is all for confiscating uninsured deposits as long as 'everyone else is doing it' - and no, he is not kidding, so when it does happen, nobody will be able to say they weren't warned. Maybe it is because Italian cash is actually not leaving the country at all. Instead, real 'wealth' is departing the boot-shaped nation, quietly and under the radar, as fast as it can in another form: gold. Continue reading →

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Reality Check: Senate Moving Forward On Internet Tax Mandate

"It has been a very busy week for news stations. Between the Boston bombing and the Ricin laced letters sent to members of Congress and the White House, it might be easy to miss a bill moving forward in the U.S. Senate. One that would mean every product you buy online will more expensive. Senators say this bill is about ‘fairness’, but is it?" Continue reading →

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Obama Has a New 401(k) – Yours

"The total value of U.S. private pensions stands around $18 trillion, more than 25% of that in IRAs — no coincidence that figure is not far from the fast-growing U.S national debt, currently at $16.8 trillion. As our nation’s debt is projected to skyrocket to a mind-boggling $35 trillion by 2025, you can bet Washington politicians are eyeballing this mountain of pension cash. One way to protect your IRA or other retirement plans is to move your plan out of the jurisdiction of the United States and locate your assets and their management offshore, or start a new plan offshore." Continue reading →

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The Role Disability Insurance is Playing in Discouraging Young Adults from Working

"Of the nearly nine million former workers receiving federal disability payments, more than 2.5 million are in their 20s, 30s and 40s. 'It is difficult to overstate the role that the SSDI program plays in discouraging' employment among these young people, Messrs. Autor and Duggan said in one of their research papers, urging reform." Continue reading →

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Terrible Costs of a ‘Modern Economy’

"When large democracies create state mandates they will inevitably be exploited. Now it appears that nearly a million in Britain were taking advantage of sickness-related benefits that they were not eligible for. This figure is arrived at via reports that 878,300 'decided not to have an official assessment of whether they were fit for work.' The Telegraph informs us this was more than a third of the total number of people claiming sickness-related benefits. 'As well as the 878,300 who chose to drop their claims, another 837,000 who did take the a medical test were found to be fit to work immediately, while a further 367,300 were judged able to some level of work.'" Continue reading →

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Tracking Inflation: Consumer Price Index vs. MIT Billion Prices Project

"Another way to keep an eye on inflation is with MIT’s Billion Prices Project (previous post) which tracks prices in real-time by grabbing them from websites. By checking on 50,000+ different prices daily covering everything from prescription drugs to clothing to real estate, this alternative inflation measurement has the potential to keep governments “honest” with their numbers. Over the past five years, the two indexes have actually tracked relatively closely. Just recently, the two are diverging a bit; BPP is showing a little over 2% inflation as opposed to 1.5% from CPI." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingTracking Inflation: Consumer Price Index vs. MIT Billion Prices Project