Tag: finance

Following hours of talks between three European foreign ministers and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in Kiev, the EU has decided to go ahead with sanctions:

• *EU COMMITS TO SANCTIONS AGAINST UKRAINE
• *EU TO WORK OUT UKRAINE ASSET FREEZE, VISA BAN SOON
• *EU TO SUSPEND UKRAINE EXP0RT LICENSES FOR `REPRESSIVE’ GEAR

Having already proclaimed this move as “blackmail”, we are sure the Russians will be utilizing this move to further their support for the catastrophically divided nation.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/NeE2Hb Tyler Durden

In the aftermath of the Snowden revelations about the NSA’s ubiquitous presence in everyday lives, and unconstitutional interception, eavesdropping and recording of every form of electronic communication, the logical assumption would be that the next step for the NSA would be its reduction instead of expansion, especially following the president’s heartfelt reading from the TOTUS several months ago in which he promised to do all he could, to curb the spy agency. “Surprisingly” expansion is precisely what will happen to the NSA – as WSJ reports the “government is considering enlarging the National Security Agency’s controversial collection of Americans’ phone records—an unintended consequence of lawsuits seeking to stop the surveillance program, according to officials.” Unintended? It is very much intended now that Americans know that the concept of privacy is dead and buried and will instead seek other methods to communicate. Which simply means the NSA has to get even bigger in order to thwart the imminent, daily and “clear and present” danger that US citizen-cum-terrorists pose to the US despotic totalitarian state republic.

From WSJ:

A number of government lawyers involved in lawsuits over the NSA phone-records program believe federal-court rules on preserving evidence related to lawsuits require the agency to stop routinely destroying older phone records, according to people familiar with the discussions. As a result, the government would expand the database beyond its original intent, at least while the lawsuits are active.

 

No final decision has been made to preserve the data, officials said, and one official said that even if a decision is made to retain the information, it would be held only for the purpose of litigation and not be subject to searches. The government currently collects phone records on millions of Americans in a vast database that it can mine for links to terror suspects. The database includes records of who called whom, when they called and for how long.

The irony is that all this is happening as the top drama actor of the US pretends to be dismantlling the agency:

President Barack Obama has ordered senior officials to end the government storage of such data and find another place to store the records—possibly with the phone companies who log the calls. Under the goals outlined by Mr. Obama last month, the government would still be able to search the call logs with a court order, but would no longer possess and control them.

At this point we also get the generic revisionist history false negative.

National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander has said the program, if it had existed in 2001, would have uncovered the Sept. 11 plot.

It would have also prevented the Boston bombing if it had existed in 2013. Oh wait…

The lies continue:

As the NSA program currently works, the database holds about five years of data, according to officials and some declassified court opinions. About twice a year, any call record more than five years old is purged from the system, officials said. A particular concern, according to one official, is that the older records may give certain parties legal standing to pursue their cases, and that deleting the data could erase evidence that the phone records of those individuals or groups were swept up in the data dragnet.

Surely this explains why the NSA recently built a facility in Bluffdale which according to rampant speculation can hold virtually every form of communication every intercepted, not to mention everything currently in print or any other stored medium. The thing is: we don’t know how much it can store because none of the data is public.

Which is why the lies will continue until one day today’s shocking scenes from the Ukraine are taking place in every US alley and square. But for now, the S&P is just shy of all time highs, so please continue your distraction.

The NSA data center in Utah will be up and running by the end of September (source: Forbes)

 

Level 0 of one of the four data halls on the Bluffdale site

 

Level 1 of the data hall, where servers will be housed

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/NeE028 Tyler Durden

In the aftermath of the Snowden revelations about the NSA’s ubiquitous presence in everyday lives, and unconstitutional interception, eavesdropping and recording of every form of electronic communication, the logical assumption would be that the next step for the NSA would be its reduction instead of expansion, especially following the president’s heartfelt reading from the TOTUS several months ago in which he promised to do all he could, to curb the spy agency. “Surprisingly” expansion is precisely what will happen to the NSA – as WSJ reports the “government is considering enlarging the National Security Agency’s controversial collection of Americans’ phone records—an unintended consequence of lawsuits seeking to stop the surveillance program, according to officials.” Unintended? It is very much intended now that Americans know that the concept of privacy is dead and buried and will instead seek other methods to communicate. Which simply means the NSA has to get even bigger in order to thwart the imminent, daily and “clear and present” danger that US citizen-cum-terrorists pose to the US despotic totalitarian state republic.

From WSJ:

A number of government lawyers involved in lawsuits over the NSA phone-records program believe federal-court rules on preserving evidence related to lawsuits require the agency to stop routinely destroying older phone records, according to people familiar with the discussions. As a result, the government would expand the database beyond its original intent, at least while the lawsuits are active.

 

No final decision has been made to preserve the data, officials said, and one official said that even if a decision is made to retain the information, it would be held only for the purpose of litigation and not be subject to searches. The government currently collects phone records on millions of Americans in a vast database that it can mine for links to terror suspects. The database includes records of who called whom, when they called and for how long.

The irony is that all this is happening as the top drama actor of the US pretends to be dismantlling the agency:

President Barack Obama has ordered senior officials to end the government storage of such data and find another place to store the records—possibly with the phone companies who log the calls. Under the goals outlined by Mr. Obama last month, the government would still be able to search the call logs with a court order, but would no longer possess and control them.

At this point we also get the generic revisionist history false negative.

National Security Agency Director Keith Alexander has said the program, if it had existed in 2001, would have uncovered the Sept. 11 plot.

It would have also prevented the Boston bombing if it had existed in 2013. Oh wait…

The lies continue:

As the NSA program currently works, the database holds about five years of data, according to officials and some declassified court opinions. About twice a year, any call record more than five years old is purged from the system, officials said. A particular concern, according to one official, is that the older records may give certain parties legal standing to pursue their cases, and that deleting the data could erase evidence that the phone records of those individuals or groups were swept up in the data dragnet.

Surely this explains why the NSA recently built a facility in Bluffdale which according to rampant speculation can hold virtually every form of communication every intercepted, not to mention everything currently in print or any other stored medium. The thing is: we don’t know how much it can store because none of the data is public.

Which is why the lies will continue until one day today’s shocking scenes from the Ukraine are taking place in every US alley and square. But for now, the S&P is just shy of all time highs, so please continue your distraction.

The NSA data center in Utah will be up and running by the end of September (source: Forbes)

 

Level 0 of one of the four data halls on the Bluffdale site

 

Level 1 of the data hall, where servers will be housed

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/NeE028 Tyler Durden

Wolf Richter   http://ift.tt/NCxwUy   http://ift.tt/Wz5XCn

Broadside after broadside. Applications for mortgages to buy a home, not to refinance one, dropped 6% for the week, to the lowest level since September 2011, 17% below the same week last year, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported on Wednesday. Not a one-week debacle: they’ve declined sharply year-over-year since fall. Blame the weather?

Then the Census Bureau reported that in January single-family housing starts, an indicator for housing construction, plunged 15.9% and multifamily production 16.3% from December. Overall they were 2% below prior year – “due largely to unusually severe weather,” explained soothingly the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).

OK, I get it. Life-threatening cold temperatures, polar vortices, and snow mayhem can put a damper on home construction. But housing starts also plummeted 17% in the West, including on the populous West Coast where the weather has been gorgeous.

Now the hope is that after the winter-weather delays there would be an explosion of activity in the spring as – to use NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe’s words for this phenomenon – “pent-up housing demand is unleashed.”

Home builders aren’t that gung-ho. Their confidence outright cratered. In January, it was a lofty 56 (above 50 shows positive sentiment). In February, it dropped 10 points – its largest monthly dive ever – to 46. The NAHB blames the “unusually severe weather conditions across much of the nation” that led to a drop-off in buyer traffic.

But…. the largest drop occurred in the sub-index for the West, including the West Coast where most of the West’s construction takes place, a region that was cursed with more sunny weather instead of much needed rain: home builder confidence plunged 14 points!

Blaming the weather is convenient. Yet, purchases by first-time home buyers – the crux of the housing market – dropped to just 27% of all purchases in December, from 28% in November, from 30% in December 2012, and from the 30-year average of 40%. First-time buyers have been pushed out not by bad weather but by higher home prices, higher mortgage rates, and a flood of cash buyers – 62.5% of all buyers in Florida – many of whom are investors.

But not a word from the NAHB about soaring prices and higher interest rates, and how they’ve pushed homes once again beyond the reach of many hardworking Americans.

The “potent combination of rapidly rising home prices” and “significant uptick in interest rates in the second half of 2013 caused the monthly cost of owning a home using traditional financing to jump substantially in many markets over the last year,” said Daren Blomquist, VP of RealtyTrac, whose housing affordability analysis has just been released. The monthly cost of owning a home was becoming “dangerously disconnected,” he said. On one side, “still-stagnant median incomes”; on the other, prices that had been driven up “by investors and other cash buyers who are not tethered to the typical affordability constraints.”

The monthly cost of a median-priced three-bedroom home purchased in the fourth quarter of 2013 rose on average 21% from a year earlier in the 325 counties included in RealtyTrac’s analysis. But in the 15 most populous counties in the study, the monthly cost jumped 34%.

In my beloved and crazy San Francisco, the median home price finally hit a cool $1,000,000, up 9% year over year. With the higher mortgage rates, the estimated monthly payment for that home increased 21% to $4,762. In the same vein, monthly payments soared 39% in Riverside County, 40% in Los Angeles County, 43% in San Bernardino County, 46% in Alameda County, 50% in Solano County, 53% in Sacramento County, and 56% in Contra Cost County. In just one year!

Nationwide, a similar scenario played out. Dekalb County, Georgia, won the race. Monthly payments for a median home skyrocketed last year by 62%.

Which raises some thorny economic issues.

In Los Angeles County, the median household income is $53,001, but it takes $95,389 in qualifying income to buy a median home. In Santa Clara County, the median income is $91,425, but it takes $149,389 to buy a median home. In Alameda County, $70,500 vs. $114,284; in Contra Costa County $74,177 vs $84,647; in San Mateo County, the heart of Silicon Valley, $81,609 vs. $170,284. And in San Francisco, the king of the hill, the median household income is $73,012, but it takes $228,569 in qualifying household income to buy a median home.

So who the heck can afford to buy these median homes?

In 29 of the largest counties where 20% of the population of the 325 counties in the study live, the monthly cost of owning a home now exceeds the costs of renting an equivalent home. Despite gravity-defying rents!

That’s why home builders were complaining about buyer traffic. That’s why mortgage applications have been plunging. That’s why first-time buyers have fallen off a cliff. That’s why sales have cratered. Housing Bubble II has pushed home prices out of reach for the hardworking strung-out median American household.

It’s called the “wealth effect.” The Fed’s ingenious invention. It has kicked in gloriously. After five years of money-printing and bond-buying with the express purpose to inflate stocks, derivatives, mortgage-backed securities, farmland, housing, bank balance sheets, and what not, and after blowing the largest credit bubble in history, the Fed has succeeded in creating a situation where, increasingly, buying a median home is something only the wealthy can do.

But that’s where the economics of the ingenious wealth effect fall apart. There aren’t that many wealthy people to buy all these median homes. And wealthy people don’t want to buy median homes. Hence, cratering sales. Forget the weather. The problem is, as Blomquist put it, “the disconnect between prices and incomes.”

Ha, we knew that from Housing Bubble I, which blew up in 2007.

And first-time buyers, in addition to the price having moved beyond their reach, are struggling with a particularly tough handicap: ballooning student loans. Total student loan balances have quadrupled since 2003. An immense burden on the fragile shoulders of young people. They’re already having trouble servicing their student loan debt, with delinquency rates spiraling elegantly out of control.

“This is a huge issue for us,” admitted Mortgage Bankers Association CEO David H. Stevens. “Student debt trumps all other consumer debt. It’s going to have an extraordinary dampening effect on young peoples’ ability to borrow for a home, and that’s going to impact the housing market and the economy at large.” Read…. The Young Subprime Debt-Slave Generation

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1oWFhtw testosteronepit

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

What else can we do with the $1.25 trillion we'll save by eliminating these obsolete financial middleman parasites? A lot.

Technology has leapfrogged the banking sector, rendering it as obsolete as buggy whips. So why are we devoting 9% of our economy to an obsolete parasite? Financial sector profits now total a staggering 4.5% of GDP (gross domestic product), while the expenses generated by financial churning account for another 4.5% of the economy.

chart courtesy of Market Daily Briefing

Software and existing non-Wall Street/too-big-to-fail institutions could replace the entire Wall Street/banking sector and drop costs to .5% of GDP, saving us 8+% of our GDP ($1.25 trillion) that is currently siphoned off by parasitic middlemen. The banking sector is Exhibit A in the Middleman-Skimming Economy (February 11, 2014).

The pull of habit and propaganda is so strong that most people haven't even recognized that software and the Web can replace the entire financial/banking sector for a fraction of the cost of the current parasitic system, a system that (as we all know) has captured the regulatory and governance machinery of the central state, making a mockery of democracy.

The benefits of eliminating the financial/banking sector are immense and far-reaching.

What exactly do banks do? Banks perform these basic functions:

1. They hold depositors' money.

2. They act as a clearing house for payments, transferring funds from payor to payee.

3. They issue loans on a fractional reserve basis, i.e. a few dollars in cash deposits supports $100 in loans.

4. They originate and trade derivatives, run high-speed trading desks, operate various money-laundering and embezzlement schemes, influence elected officials with lobbying and campaign contributions and subvert both free market capitalism and democracy at every turn.

This entire parasitic middleman sector could be replaced with automated digital clearing houses and crowdfunded or non-bank loans. Why do we need banks to pay bills online? We don't; any clearing house could charge a small fee for the transaction.

Why do we need banks when loans can be crowdfunded? If we can invest money in start-ups via Kickstarter, Indiegogo, RocketHub, AngelList, etc., why can't we own a piece of someone's auto loan or home mortgage?

The web and software now enable the elimination of the entire middleman skimming operation of banking. Those with capital can invest that capital directly in loans that the investors choose. Risk is distributed throughout the system, and the process of verifying credit scores, income, valuations, assets, and so on–the building blocks of risk assessment and a market for debt and cash–can also be automated.

The entire notion that 100 savers put their money in a bank which then buys a mortgage with their savings and sells it as a security that supports a pyramid of derivatives is obsolete. Each saver can directly own (and sell on a transparent market) a piece of a mortgage, auto loan, business loan, etc. There is no need for a middleman banking sector at all–no skim, no concentration of risk, no opportunities for selling derivatives to unwary investors. All that goes away with the banking sector.

But what about holding deposits? We already have two institutions that could serve this role: credit unions and the post office. If those holding depositors' cash do not issue loans, they have no source of income to defray operating expenses. The solution is obvious: charge fees for holding deposits and payor-payee transactions.

If the fee structures are transparent, those who charge too much will disappear as customers go elsewhere. That's the purpose of transparent competition in an open marketplace.

Many other advanced nations have long combined postal and simple banking services: France and Japan come to mind. Here we have a postal service that is struggling to fund its operations in the era of email, and here we have millions of people who prefer to (or have to) do simple banking in person. There is no technical or administrative reason that the post office could not operate as it does in Japan, as a place to deposit funds (including auto-deposit of Social Security checks), take out cash, etc.

US Post Office Could Rack Up Billions By Offering Money Services–NPR (via Joel M.)

Please note that what I am suggesting is a transparent open market for these services provided by a range of enterprises and institutions. Assemble a marketplace of local credit unions, the post office, enterprises that handle payor-payee transactions such as Dwolla and PayPal, and you have a wide spectrum of choices to suit every need.

As for business loans: you can get small-business loans on PayPal right now. It's called Working Capital, and the borrower is given the total amount due right up front.

As for the commercial paper market: there is no technical reason why a transparent exchange couldn't enable borrowers and owners of capital to set short-term loan rates via transparent bidding with automated software.

The obsolescence of banking includes the Federal Reserve–the ultimate middleman skimming operation. But what about providing liquidity in credit panics? Well, to start with, once the banking sector is gone then the concentrations of risk and the obscuring of risk that go hand in hand with banking also disappear– the forces that generate panics will have been dispersed. Those forces will have vanished along with the middleman financial sector that created all the risks, speculative excesses and panics. If there were a liquidity crisis, the Treasury could create and lend whatever funds were needed.

But what about manipulating interest rates and other forms of financial repression? Interest rates would be set by millions of borrowers and owners of capital in transparent transactions.

What about all those great investing services offered by big banks and Wall Street? As many have observed, automated index funds outperform 99% of fund managers over 10 year time frames. So Wall Street is also obsolete.

Once we get rid of these obsolete middleman parasites–Wall Street, the banking sector and the Federal Reserve–we have a delightful question to answer: what else can we do with the $1.25 trillion we'll save every year by eliminating these obsolete financial middleman parasites? A lot.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1oWFg8H Tyler Durden

Just in case one was wondering for a reason not to take "Magic: The Gathering Online Exchange" too seriously, here is the latest news that has largely slammed the coffin shut on what was once the largest Bitcoin exchange. From MtGox:

Dear MtGox Customers,

 

Thank you for your patience this week while we are working on re-initiating bitcoin withdrawals. In addition to the technical issue, this week we have experienced some security problems, and as a result we had to relocate MtGox to our previous office building in Shibuya. The move, combined with some other security and technical challenges, pushed back our progress.

 

As much as we didn’t want to only provide an “update on an update”, this is the current status. We are committed to solving this issue and will provide more information as soon as possible to keep everyone in the loop.

 

We are very sorry for the delays and deeply appreciate your kind understanding and continuous support.

 

Best regards,

 

MtGox Team

This is what a dying virtual currency exchange looks like…

 

In summary, all BTC withdrawals re-frozen for another week…blamed on a small group of protesters hanging around out front of the offices looking for their money… another day in bitcoin land…

As we noted when they last froze withdrawals:

Bitcoin is no longer in Phase 1 of its evolutionary cycle. I believe Phase 2 for Bitcoin began in earnest back in November 2013, when the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held its first hearings on the topic. Those hearings made it clear that, at least for the moment, no significant roadblocks would be put in place to prevent people from transacting with one another using the crypto-currency. Phase 2 also saw the largest Bitcoin investment to-date, a $25 million infusion led by Silicon Valley VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, as well as acceptance by major U.S. retailers, with Overstock being the most significant. Bitcoin is becoming serious, and serious means serious accountability.

 

As a free market currency, the market will decide the products required to keep the Bitcoin protocol open and functioning to its highest potential. The disruption of Mt. Gox will be another test for Bitcoin. A test which certainly represents a psychological challenge, but probably not much more than that. Bitcoin will survive and come out of this stronger than it was before, just as it has done so many times in the past. However, I do not believe Mt. Gox will be so fortunate.

 

For Mt. Gox though, I think it’s pretty much game over.

As Max Pelham noted (Coinwatch),

"People will be leaving Mt. Gox either way, the trust isn't already very high, and with this now people are going to trust them even less,"

 

"I think Mt. Gox is going to lose relevance even more now, they're not very forthcoming in their public relations, their technical problems and their withdrawal problems aren't going away. Even if they fix it now, the withdrawal problem still remains with USD and Euro withdrawals."

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1oWvzXQ Tyler Durden

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1oWvzHs williambanzai7

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1oWvzHs williambanzai7

The Ukrainian health minister just state that at least 64 have died since February 18th; protesters claim the number is over 100 – either way, this is horrific (and we suspect, once the Olympics is over, will get worse). As Martin Armstrong outlines below, Ukraine is the pawn on the chessboard. The propaganda war is East v West.

• WHITE HOUSE URGES UKRAINE PRESIDENT TO IMMEDIATELY WITHDRAW SECURITY FORCES FROM DOWNTOWN KIEV, RESOLVE CRISIS BY POLITICAL MEANS
• WHITE HOUSE SAYS OUTRAGED BY IMAGES OF UKRAINIAN SECURITY FORCES “FIRING AUTOMATIC WEAPONS ON THEIR OWN PEOPLE” (more YouTube justifications)
  

And Russia proclaims US/EU calls for sanctions as “Blackmail”

Via NY Times,

 

Russia on Thursday denounced moves by the United States and Europe to impose sanctions on Ukrainian officials following the eruption of violence in the capital, Kiev, and other cities, saying they amounted to blackmail against the government of President Viktor F. Yanukovych.

 

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, also criticized a visit by the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland, saying the European Union had dispatched its “latest uninvited mission” to Ukraine’s capital, Kiev, to impose a solution by forcing Mr. Yanukovych to compromise.

 

“How can you expect that your services will be in demand when the parallel threat of sanctions makes everything very similar to blackmail?” Mr. Lavrov said in remarks during a visit to Iraq, according to Interfax.

However, those power plays are masking the core issue that began with the Orange Revolution – corruption. Armstrong warns that “Yanukovych is a dictator who will never leave office. It is simple as that. There will be no real elections again in Ukraine.” This is starting to spiral down into a confrontation that the entire world cannot ignore.

 

h/t @VICEUK

 

The Funding Begins

Via Martin Armstrong,

For months before the proposed alignment with the EU, there were signs all over Ukraine pro and con about joining Europe that was a campaign in part funded by the EU to sell the idea to Ukraine. This funding has been CONFUSED with the funding for the “rebels” to engage in revolution that Putin calls a coup. There is HUGE difference from the funding Germany and the EU was providing to sell Ukraine on the idea of joining the Europe compared to funding a revolution as the Saudis are doing in Syria.

But overlooked, was the resentment with corruption. After all, Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution that toppled the government without a shot fired. That too was over corruption. For you see, the Orange Revolution swept then-prime minister Yanukovych out in 2004 and that brought Tymoshenko to power. It is widely viewed that Yanukovych stole his current position of power and his decision not to sign the deal  with the EU centers on the EU’s demands that he release from jail former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, his political opponent who he had imprisoned. So you are starting to get a sense of the depth to this corruption.

The changes that followed the Orange Revolution simply weren’t deep enough and Yanukovych has always been more pro-Russian. To the Western Ukrainians, this is a chance to get on a different trajectory and they did not expect this would turn violent since there was no such resistance during the Orange Revolution. On this score, they are wrong.

This resentment toward corruption has been rising sharply once again. Make no mistake about it, at the core is ALWAYS economics. Ukraine is desperately in need of a cash injection because the government is so corrupt. Yanukovych, who has been in power since 2010, and he said that Ukraine could not afford to sign the EU deal. The question was really who was putting more money is his pocket.

Germany is now starting the funding or the “rebels” as is the USA. Russia is funding the mercenaries and gave Ukraine $2 billion with demands to crush the rebels. Russia is portraying this as a coup funded by the USA. Ironically, funding is now starting. Nobody funded the “rebels” initially for had they done so,they would have been armed. The Orange Revolution was bloodless and they expected the same result so they did not seek funding for that purpose.

Of course, there was funding for “promotion” selling the EU deal to the people coming from Germany and the EU. But this was more directed into a marketing campaign that filled the cities with signs and posters. That was NOT funding that was going in with the expectation of civil war. There is a GREAT difference. Nonetheless, the violent attacks by Yanukovych’s mercenaries is now showing the West they need to fund the rebels.

The constitutional reforms that are demanded by the protesters demonstrates that this is at its core about corruption and not about joining the EU or Russia as the media is playing up. Nor are the reforms just about money. This is all about political power. This is about Yanukovych who has effectively established a de facto dictatorship. The opposition have called for the ouster of Yanukovych and the ordering of new elections for he stole the elections and imprisoned the former President who ousted him. The general view is that control of the government is a dictatorship for far too much power rests with Yanukovych and not enough with parliament. There are no checks and balances. This is the corruption that lies at the core demand – something that Yanukovych will sooner murder the entire West before ever letting go of any power. This is the core issue and why thousands of protesters have staked their lives on their desire for political change. This is NOT about joining the EU v Russia. They want HONEST government.

The very next day when protester approached his mansion, he enacted a law that it was illegal for more than 5 cars to travel together. He had his mercenaries not “killing” people but imprisoning them as hostages and others were being left in the forest stripped of all identification to die. One girl who was just helping the protesters as a nurse was seen at the train station taken by Yanukovych’s goons, and left in the forest at night to die.

BOTH the USA and EU will now fund the rebels as Russia will fund Yanukovych. At the political level, Ukraine is the pawn on the chessboard. The propaganda war is East v West. However, those power plays are masking the core issue that began with the Orange Revolution – corruption. Yanukovych is a dictator who will NEVER leave office. It is simple as that. There will be no REAL elections again in Ukraine. This is starting to spiral down into a confrontation that the entire world cannot ignore.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1eXOaKD Tyler Durden