Category: zerohedge

Japan Reacts to Fukushima Crisis By Banning Journalism

2 weeks after the Fukushima accident, we reported that the government responded to the nuclear accident by trying to raise acceptable radiation levels and pretending that radiation is good for us.

We noted earlier this month:

Japan will likely pass a new anti-whistleblowing law in an attempt to silence criticism of Tepco and the government:

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government is planning a state secrets act that critics say could curtail public access to information on a wide range of issues, including tensions with China and the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

 

The new law would dramatically expand the definition of official secrets and journalists convicted under it could be jailed for up to five years.

In reality, reporters covering Fukushima have long been harassed and censored.

Unfortunately, this is coming to pass. As EneNews reports:

Associated Press, Nov. 26, 2013: Japan’s more powerful lower house of Parliament approved a state secrecy bill late Tuesday […] Critics say it might sway authorities to withhold more information about nuclear power plants […] The move is welcomed by the United States […] lawyer Hiroyasu Maki said the bill’s definition of secrets is so vague and broad that it could easily be expanded to include radiation data […] Journalists who obtain information “inappropriately” or “wrongfully” can get up to five years in prison, prompting criticism that it would make officials more secretive and intimidate the media. Attempted leaks or inappropriate reporting, complicity or solicitation are also considered illegal. […] Japan’s proposed law also designates the prime minister as a third-party overseer.

 

BBC, Nov. 26, 2013: Japan approves new state secrecy bill to combat leaks […] The bill now goes to the upper house, where it is also likely to be passed.

 

The Australian, Nov. 25, 2013: Japanese press baulks at push for ‘fascist’ secrecy laws […] Taro Yamamoto [an upper house lawmaker] said the law threatened to recreate a fascist state in Japan. “This secrecy law represents a coup d’etat by a particular group of politicians and bureaucrats,” he told a press conference in Tokyo. “I believe the secrecy bill will eventually lead to the repression of the average person. It will allow those in power to crack down on anyone who is criticising them – the path we are on is the recreation of a fascist state.” He said the withholding of radiation data after the Fukushima disaster showed the Japanese government was predisposed to hiding information from its citizens and this law would only make things worse. […] The Asahi Shimbun newspaper likened the law to “conspiracy” regulations in pre-war Japan and said it could be used to stymie access to facts on nuclear accidents […]

 

Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan president Lucy Birmingham: “We are alarmed by the text of the bill, as well as associated statements made by some ruling party lawmakers, relating to the potential targeting of journalists for prosecution and imprisonment.”

 

Activist Kazuyuki Tokune: “I may be arrested some day for my anti-nuclear activity […] But that doesn’t stop me.”

 

Lawrence Repeta, a law professor at Meiji University in Tokyo: “This is a severe threat on freedom to report in Japan […] It appears the Abe administration has decided that they can get a lot of what they want, which is to escape oversight, to decrease transparency in the government by passing a law that grants the government and officials broad authority to designate information as secret.”

 

U.S. Charge d’Affairs Kurt Tong: It’s a positive step that would make Japan a “more effective alliance partner.”

 

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe: “This law is designed to protect the safety of the people.”

 

See also: Japan Deputy Prime Minister talks about “learning from the Nazis” — Previously said to let elderly people “hurry up and die” (VIDEO)

Rather than addressing the problems head-on, the Japanese government is circling the wagons.

Unfortunately, the United States is no better. Specifically, the American government:

As we noted 6 months after Fukushima melted d
own:

American and Canadian authorities have virtually stopped monitoring airborne radiation, and are not testing fish for radiation. (Indeed, the EPA reacted to Fukushima by raising “acceptable” radiation levels.)

 

***

 

The failure of the American, Canadian and other governments to test for and share results is making it difficult to hold an open scientific debate about what is happening.

Earlier this year, the acting EPA director signed a revised version of the EPA’s Protective Action Guide for radiological incidents, which radically relaxing the safety guidelines agencies follow in the wake of a nuclear-reactor meltdown or other unexpected release of radiation.  EPA whistleblowers called it “a public health policy only Dr. Strangelove could embrace.”

As we noted right after Fukushima happened, this is standard operating procedure for government these days:

When the economy imploded in 2008, how did the government respond?

 

Did it crack down on fraud? Force bankrupt companies to admit that their speculative gambling with our money had failed? Rein in the funny business?

 

Of course not!

 

The government just helped cover up how bad things were, used claims of national security to keep everything in the dark, and changed basic rules and definitions to allow the game to continue. See this, this, this and this.

When BP – through criminal negligence – blew out the Deepwater Horizon oil well, the government helped cover it up (the cover up is ongoing).

 

The government also changed the testing standards for seafood to pretend that higher levels of toxic PAHs in our food was business-as-usual.

 

So now that Japan is suffering the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl – if not of all time – is the government riding to the rescue to help fix the problem, or at least to provide accurate information to its citizens so they can make informed decisions?

 

Of course not!

 

The EPA is closing ranks with the nuclear power industry ….

 

Indeed, some government scientists and media shills are now “reexamining” old studies that show that radioactive substances like plutonium cause cancer to argue that they help prevent cancer.

 

It is not just bubbleheads like Ann Coulter saying this. Government scientists from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratories and pro-nuclear hacks like Lawrence Solomon are saying this. [Update.]

 

In other words, this is a concerted propaganda campaign to cover up the severity of a major nuclear accident by raising acceptable levels of radiation and saying that a little radiation is good for us.

Any time the results of bad government policy is revealed, the government just covers it up rather than changing the policy.

Bonus:

All-In-One-Chunk: How to Reduce Your Risk of Radiation from Fukushima


 
   



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/rVNXyfYw4-8/story01.htm George Washington

Whatever You Do, Don’t Short Stocks On These Three Days In December

Regular readers know that at the end of every month we look at the next month’s POMO schedule, and urgently advise against shorting stocks on POMO days. That in the New Normal POMO days are pretty much every single day, may have something to do with why the S&P is set for a +30% close in 2013. However, in December the Fed has something very special served up. In addition to the usual $45 billion in total monthly wealth effect injections (which happen to quietly end up directly in Singapore private wealth offshore accounts), in the next month, Ben Bernanke’s parting gift to the 0.1% will be not one… not two… but a whopping three days with double POMOs: December 3, December 9 and, drumroll, December 19, aka the day after the final 2-day FOMC meeting of 2013, when Kevin Henry and his peers will monetize up to a whopping $7.5 billion in one day!

Is it a harbinger that something bad may take place the day before? We doubt it: this is merely the Fed doing everything it can in its power to make sure Santa Claus appears right on schedule for the billionaires of the world just so their spending habits are not impaired.

We, however, are positive that anyone caught shorting stocks on pretty much any day in December, but especially those three, will certainly not feel the benefits of whatever wealth the middle class has left being funneled into the bank accounts of the uberwealthy, as Ben Bernanke’s reverse Robin Hood ramps on, alongside the Russell 2000.

Joking aside, something notable is that while the Fed is not monetizing anything between Christmas and New Year’s Day in 2013, it had no problems with injecting liquidity in the quiet week of 2012. One wonders what changed.

Source: Central Planning Politburo of New York


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/Ev5Eq0b3sFA/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Whatever You Do, Don't Short Stocks On These Three Days In December

Regular readers know that at the end of every month we look at the next month’s POMO schedule, and urgently advise against shorting stocks on POMO days. That in the New Normal POMO days are pretty much every single day, may have something to do with why the S&P is set for a +30% close in 2013. However, in December the Fed has something very special served up. In addition to the usual $45 billion in total monthly wealth effect injections (which happen to quietly end up directly in Singapore private wealth offshore accounts), in the next month, Ben Bernanke’s parting gift to the 0.1% will be not one… not two… but a whopping three days with double POMOs: December 3, December 9 and, drumroll, December 19, aka the day after the final 2-day FOMC meeting of 2013, when Kevin Henry and his peers will monetize up to a whopping $7.5 billion in one day!

Is it a harbinger that something bad may take place the day before? We doubt it: this is merely the Fed doing everything it can in its power to make sure Santa Claus appears right on schedule for the billionaires of the world just so their spending habits are not impaired.

We, however, are positive that anyone caught shorting stocks on pretty much any day in December, but especially those three, will certainly not feel the benefits of whatever wealth the middle class has left being funneled into the bank accounts of the uberwealthy, as Ben Bernanke’s reverse Robin Hood ramps on, alongside the Russell 2000.

Joking aside, something notable is that while the Fed is not monetizing anything between Christmas and New Year’s Day in 2013, it had no problems with injecting liquidity in the quiet week of 2012. One wonders what changed.

Source: Central Planning Politburo of New York


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/Ev5Eq0b3sFA/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Why Is Debt The Source Of Income Inequality And Serfdom? It's The Interest, Baby

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

"Governments cannot reduce their debt or deficits and central banks cannot taper. Equally, they cannot perpetually borrow exponentially more. This one last bubble cannot end (but it must)."

I often refer to debt serfdom, the servitude debt enforces on borrowers. The mechanism of this servitude is interest, and today I turn to two knowledgeable correspondents for explanations of the consequences of interest.

Correspondent D.L.J. explains how debt/interest is the underlying engine of rising income/wealth disparity:

Here is a table of the growth rate of the GDP.

If we use $16T as the approximate GDP and a growth rate of, say, 3.5%, the total of goods and services would increase one year to the next by about $500B.

Meanwhile, referencing the Grandfather national debt chart with the USDebtClock data, the annual interest bill is $3 trillion ($2.7 trillion year-to-date).

In other words, those receiving interest are getting 5-6 times more than the increase in gross economic activity.

Using your oft-referenced Pareto Principle, about 80% of the population are net payers of interest while the other 20% are net receivers of interest.

Also, keep in mind that one does not have to have an outstanding loan to be a net payer of interest. As I attempted to earlier convey, whenever one buys a product that any part of its production was involving the cost of interest, the final product price included that interest cost. The purchase of that product had the interest cost paid by the purchaser.

Again using the Pareto concept, of the 20% who receive net interest, it can be further divided 80/20 to imply that 4% receive most (64%?) of the interest. This very fact can explain why/how the system (as it stands) produces a widening between the haves and the so-called 'have nots'.

Longtime correspondent Harun I. explains that the serfdom imposed by debt and interest is not merely financial servitude–it is political serfdom as well:

As both of us have stated, you can create all of the money you want, however, production of real things cannot be accomplished with a keystroke.

Then there is the issue of liberty. Each Federal Reserve Note is a liability of the Fed and gives the bearer the right but not the obligation to purchase — whatever the Fed deems appropriate. How much one can purchase keeps changing base on a theory-driven experiment that has never worked. Since the Fed is nothing more than an agent of the Central State, the ability to control what the wages of its workers will purchase, is a dangerous power for any government.

If a Federal Reserve Note is a liability of the central bank, then what is the asset? The only possible answer is the nations productivity. So, in essence, an agent of the government, the central bank, most of which are privately owned (ownership is cloaked in secrecy) owns the entire productive output of free and democratic nation-states.

People who speak of liberty and democracy in such a system only delude themselves.

Then there is the solution, default. That only resolves the books, the liability of human needs remain. Bankruptcy does not resolve the residue of social misery and suffering left behind for the masses who became dependent on lofty promises (debt). These promises (debts) were based on theories that have reappeared throughout human history under different guises but have never worked.

More debt will not resolve debt. The individual’s liberty is nonexistent if he does not own his labor. A people should consider carefully the viability (arithmetical consequences) of borrowing, at interest, to consume their own production. The asset of our labor cannot simultaneously be a liability we owe to ourselves at interest.

Thank you, D.L.J. and Harun. What is the alternative to the present system of debt serfdom and rising inequality? Eliminate the Federal Reserve system and revert to the national currency (the dollar) being issued by the U.S. Treasury in sufficient quantity to facilitate the production and distribution of goods and services.

Is this possible? Not in our Financialized, Neofeudal-Neocolonial Rentier Economy; but as Harun noted in another email, Governments cannot reduce their debt or deficits and central banks cannot taper. Equally, they cannot perpetually borrow exponentially more. This one last bubble cannot end (but it must).

What we are discussing is what will replace the current system after it self-destructs.


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/d8v1L2HaMlk/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Why Is Debt The Source Of Income Inequality And Serfdom? It’s The Interest, Baby

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

"Governments cannot reduce their debt or deficits and central banks cannot taper. Equally, they cannot perpetually borrow exponentially more. This one last bubble cannot end (but it must)."

I often refer to debt serfdom, the servitude debt enforces on borrowers. The mechanism of this servitude is interest, and today I turn to two knowledgeable correspondents for explanations of the consequences of interest.

Correspondent D.L.J. explains how debt/interest is the underlying engine of rising income/wealth disparity:

Here is a table of the growth rate of the GDP.

If we use $16T as the approximate GDP and a growth rate of, say, 3.5%, the total of goods and services would increase one year to the next by about $500B.

Meanwhile, referencing the Grandfather national debt chart with the USDebtClock data, the annual interest bill is $3 trillion ($2.7 trillion year-to-date).

In other words, those receiving interest are getting 5-6 times more than the increase in gross economic activity.

Using your oft-referenced Pareto Principle, about 80% of the population are net payers of interest while the other 20% are net receivers of interest.

Also, keep in mind that one does not have to have an outstanding loan to be a net payer of interest. As I attempted to earlier convey, whenever one buys a product that any part of its production was involving the cost of interest, the final product price included that interest cost. The purchase of that product had the interest cost paid by the purchaser.

Again using the Pareto concept, of the 20% who receive net interest, it can be further divided 80/20 to imply that 4% receive most (64%?) of the interest. This very fact can explain why/how the system (as it stands) produces a widening between the haves and the so-called 'have nots'.

Longtime correspondent Harun I. explains that the serfdom imposed by debt and interest is not merely financial servitude–it is political serfdom as well:

As both of us have stated, you can create all of the money you want, however, production of real things cannot be accomplished with a keystroke.

Then there is the issue of liberty. Each Federal Reserve Note is a liability of the Fed and gives the bearer the right but not the obligation to purchase — whatever the Fed deems appropriate. How much one can purchase keeps changing base on a theory-driven experiment that has never worked. Since the Fed is nothing more than an agent of the Central State, the ability to control what the wages of its workers will purchase, is a dangerous power for any government.

If a Federal Reserve Note is a liability of the central bank, then what is the asset? The only possible answer is the nations productivity. So, in essence, an agent of the government, the central bank, most of which are privately owned (ownership is cloaked in secrecy) owns the entire productive output of free and democratic nation-states.

People who speak of liberty and democracy in such a system only delude themselves.

Then there is the solution, default. That only resolves the books, the liability of human needs remain. Bankruptcy does not resolve the residue of social misery and suffering left behind for the masses who became dependent on lofty promises (debt). These promises (debts) were based on theories that have reappeared throughout human history under different guises but have never worked.

More debt will not resolve debt. The individual’s liberty is nonexistent if he does not own his labor. A people should consider carefully the viability (arithmetical consequences) of borrowing, at interest, to consume their own production. The asset of our labor cannot simultaneously be a liability we owe to ourselves at interest.

Thank you, D.L.J. and Harun. What is the alternative to the present system of debt serfdom and rising inequality? Eliminate the Federal Reserve system and revert to the national currency (the dollar) being issued by the U.S. Treasury in sufficient quantity to facilitate the production and distribution of goods and services.

Is this possible? Not in our Financialized, Neofeudal-Neocolonial Rentier Economy; but as Harun noted in another email, Governments cannot reduce their debt or deficits and central banks cannot taper. Equally, they cannot perpetually borrow exponentially more. This one last bubble cannot end (but it must).

What we are discussing is what will replace the current system after it self-destructs.


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/d8v1L2HaMlk/story01.htm Tyler Durden

The NSA Is Tracking Your Porn Browsing

Ed Snowden's latest revelation may leave SEC officials quaking as the NSA "has been gathering records of online sexual activity and evidence of visits to pornographic websites as part of a proposed plan to harm the reputations of those whom the agency believes are radicalizing others through incendiary speeches." Of course, as we have seen, this 'information' would never be used by the government for non-radical-terrorist suppressing reasons, as the ACLU notes, is is "an unwelcome reminder of what it means to give an intelligence agency unfettered access to individuals' most sensitive information using tactics associated with the secret police services of authoritarian governments."

 

Via Snowden…

The National Security Agency has been gathering records of online sexual activity and evidence of visits to pornographic websites as part of a proposed plan to harm the reputations of those whom the agency believes are radicalizing others through incendiary speeches, according to a top-secret NSA document.

 

The document, provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, identifies six targets, all Muslims, as “exemplars” of how “personal vulnerabilities” can be learned through electronic surveillance, and then exploited to undermine a target’s credibility, reputation and authority.

 

The NSA document, dated Oct. 3, 2012, repeatedly refers to the power of charges of hypocrisy to undermine such a messenger.”

Full ACLU Statement:

The NSA considered discrediting six people by revealing surveillance evidence of their online sexual activity, visits to pornography websites, and other personal information, according to a report today in The Huffington Post. The article cited documents leaked by former NSA contactor Edward Snowden. The targets of the NSA’s plan were all Muslims whom the NSA characterized as “radicals” but who were not believed to be involved in terrorism. The documents say one of the targets was a “U.S. person,” a term describing American citizens and legal permanent residents, but all of the targets were reportedly outside the United States.

 

American Civil Liberties Union Deputy Legal Director Jameel Jaffer had this reaction:

 

“This report is an unwelcome reminder of what it means to give an intelligence agency unfettered access to individuals' most sensitive information. One ordinarily associates these kinds of tactics with the secret police services of authoritarian governments. That these tactics have been adopted by the world’s leading democracy – and the world’s most powerful intelligence agency – is truly chilling.”


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/coujRQSBm4E/story01.htm Tyler Durden

David Rosenberg Turns Bullish, Earns $3.1 Million

In early 2013, many were mystified when one of the most vocal deflationists, and hence stock market bears, David Rosenberg, turned furiously bullish. Just what was the motive behind this transformation many wondered? Thanks to a just filed Gluskin Sheff compensation table, we can put all such lingering questions to rest: the reason, or rather reasons: 3,082,441… all-cash.

Some more on why the formerly rather bearish ex-Merrill strategist will make the most in 2013, or $3.1 million, almost as much as the CEO of his employer, and has the highest, $1.8 million, annual incentive plan of any Gluskin Sheff:

Mr. Rosenberg’s employment agreement provides a mechanism by which Mr. Rosenberg shares in any net revenues generated from Gluskin Sheff’s efforts to monetize economic research authored by Mr. Rosenberg and published by Gluskin Sheff. Mr. Rosenberg’s employment agreement further provides that he will receive guaranteed additional compensation of $1,800,000 per annum in addition to his base salary until June 30, 2014…. In the case of Mr. Rosenberg, his employment agreement stipulates that he will receive guaranteed additional compensation of $1,800,000 per annum until June 30, 2014, in addition to his base salary. For the 2013 fiscal year, $0.5 million of the guaranteed additional compensation paid to Mr. Rosenberg was allocated from the Bonus Pool, and for fiscal 2012 the guaranteed additional compensation was not allocated from the bonus pool.

And the full explanation, from Globe and Mail

It’s hard to imagine a a top-five executive with a public company in Canada with a sweeter deal than David Rosenberg, as evidenced by his employer Gluskin + Sheff Associates Inc.’s newly filed management information circular.

 

Mr. Rosenberg, the all-star chief economist and strategist with the money management firm earned an impressive $3.1-million in the company’s most recent fiscal year, ended June 30, making the former chief North American economist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch the company’s second-highest paid executive behind CEO Jeremy Freedman.

 

What is unusual about his compensation is how little of it is tied to the success of his employer, either in its financial performance or stock price. Actually, none of it is. As long as Gluskin has enough money to keep on the lights, stay in business and pay employees, Mr. Rosenberg is guaranteed a payment of $2-million a year. That’s split into two parts: his $200,000 salary, and a $1.8-million amount identified in the proxy circular as “guaranteed annual compensation.” The guaranteed payment agreement has been in place for the last two fiscal years and continues through the end of this fiscal year next June. It is paid in cash, not share units.

 

The third element of his compensation is variable, but it has nothing to do with the performance of his firm or the accuracy of his forecasting, but rather the popularity of his research, which reaches far beyond Canada: Mr. Rosenberg pocketed $1.08-million in gross pay last year from his share of net revenues generated by the company’s sale of economic research he pens. That’s up from $877,645 the year before, making Mr. Rosenberg one of the few Canadian authors to earn a $1-million a year for his work.

 

Not a bad haul when you consider Mr. Rosenberg made a much publicized shift in his thinking earlier this year, shedding part of his bearish stance to adopt a more bullish view on Canada.

Source: Gluskin Sheff circular


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/THDK2Ug7GpU/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Obamacare Online Sign-Up Delayed By One Year For Small-Business

In a move reminiscent of the “radical” Tea-Party demands of a few weeks back, the administration has decided:

  • *OBAMA DELAYING ONLINE INSURANCE ENROLLMENT FOR SMALL BUSINESS
  • *SMALL BUSINESSES SAID TO USE `DIRECT ENROLLMENT,’ NOT WEBSITE

The one-year delay – to Nov 2014, follows the initial Oct 2013 delay citing “sometime in November 2013” availability. The delay applies only to the federal-run SHOP exchanges in almost three dozen states.

 

Via HHS,

“We’ve concluded that we can best serve small employers by continuing this offline process while we concentrate on both creating a smoothly functioning online experience in the SHOP Marketplace, and adding key new features, including an employee choice option and premium aggregation services, by November 2014,”

Via Bloomberg,

Small businesses won’t be able to use the federal government’s health-insurance website until November 2014 in most U.S. states, the latest delay for the Obama administration’s health-care system overhaul.

 

“Direct enrollment” will be available in the meantime, said an official with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services who asked not to be identified because the decision hasn’t been made public. The change applies to 36 states where the federal government is running insurance exchanges.

 

The exchanges for small businesses, available for companies with 50 or fewer full-time workers, had already been delayed from a scheduled Oct. 1, 2013, start.

So far so good eh?


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/Bil4Oof6i0I/story01.htm Tyler Durden