Category: zerohedge

The noise in the jobless claims data over the past few months has been unprecedented and yet the impressive jump lower in recent weeks has been trumpeted as the all-clear for Tapering and as a signal that the recovery is ‘real’ this time. Except, thanks to a huge ‘glitch’ in Florida’s new CONNECT unemployment claims website, the data is completely FUBAR…

 

Via The Miami Herald,

The story so far…

Florida’s ongoing claims for unemployment benefits plummeted to the lowest level in six years from mid-October to early December. The average of 20,000 fewer weekly claims from the prior nine weeks represents a plunge of 18 percent, the sharpest decline in 15 years.

 

Yet rather than herald an improving job market, chalk up Florida’s shrinking claims numbers instead to the troubled debut of the state’s unemployment claims website, CONNECT.

And echoing Obamacare’s SNAFU…

Since its October launch, the $63 million website has been plagued by glitches, sowing confusion and despair among many of the 235,000 claimants who file every other week to help pay for essentials like food and rent.

 

Difficulties in logging on or navigating CONNECT have precluded thousands from collecting.

With significant implications…

“I’m about to be thrown out on the street,” said Allen Schwalb of Seminole, who was laid off from a warehouse job in October but as of this week had yet to receive any benefits despite many attempts to file. “The state now owes me $1,400 for eight weeks of unemployment. I don’t know what I will do if I don’t receive it soon.”

 

…

 

Upon going live Oct. 15, the CONNECT site struggled anyway.

 

Unemployment offices were packed with those who said they couldn’t log on. Phone lines were jammed. Calls were dropped. Frustration grew.

To which the government first denied…

“Some of the press stories about CONNECT have been incomplete and focused on a narrative that is more likely to grab readers than to accurately report facts,” Panuccio told the Senate’s Commerce and Tourism Committee on Nov. 4.

Then admitted…

By December, however, Panuccio conceded all was not going well. The project was no longer meeting expectations. He posted messages on the DEO’s website acknowledging difficulties.

Which means, simply, the data is useless and the people who need it the most are not getting it…

“The drop in claims is so dramatic and so precisely coincides with the launching of CONNECT that there can be no other explanation,” Greenfield said. “This is having an effect on a huge group of people. We’re very disappointed in the length of time it’s taken to get these people their benefits.”

 

…

 

Florida is notoriously tight-fisted when it comes to unemployment benefits, which makes CONNECT’s failings even more glaring.

 

“Florida in the last few years has made it virtually impossible to access benefits,” said Maurice Emsellem, a staff director with the National Employment Law Project. “The digital divide is a reality, so why on earth would you require to register online? It’s not fair access.”

But it’s going to get worse…

Florida is one of six states that provides job-seekers fewer than 26 weeks of coverage. Now offering 19 weeks, Florida will drop to 16 weeks starting in January. Under Florida law, the lower the unemployment rate (which has fallen to 6.4 percent), the fewer weeks of compensation an unemployed person receives.

 

Once federal unemployment compensations expire, coverage for Ewing and 73,000 other Floridians is immediately eliminated.

It’s a narrative we hear all too often – failure of big government, deny, deny, deny, small admission… but any good headline is clung to and any naysayer shrugged off as meaningless, racist, or a doomsayer…

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/iiIw5JvN22c/story01.htm Tyler Durden

The noise in the jobless claims data over the past few months has been unprecedented and yet the impressive jump lower in recent weeks has been trumpeted as the all-clear for Tapering and as a signal that the recovery is ‘real’ this time. Except, thanks to a huge ‘glitch’ in Florida’s new CONNECT unemployment claims website, the data is completely FUBAR…

 

Via The Miami Herald,

The story so far…

Florida’s ongoing claims for unemployment benefits plummeted to the lowest level in six years from mid-October to early December. The average of 20,000 fewer weekly claims from the prior nine weeks represents a plunge of 18 percent, the sharpest decline in 15 years.

 

Yet rather than herald an improving job market, chalk up Florida’s shrinking claims numbers instead to the troubled debut of the state’s unemployment claims website, CONNECT.

And echoing Obamacare’s SNAFU…

Since its October launch, the $63 million website has been plagued by glitches, sowing confusion and despair among many of the 235,000 claimants who file every other week to help pay for essentials like food and rent.

 

Difficulties in logging on or navigating CONNECT have precluded thousands from collecting.

With significant implications…

“I’m about to be thrown out on the street,” said Allen Schwalb of Seminole, who was laid off from a warehouse job in October but as of this week had yet to receive any benefits despite many attempts to file. “The state now owes me $1,400 for eight weeks of unemployment. I don’t know what I will do if I don’t receive it soon.”

 

…

 

Upon going live Oct. 15, the CONNECT site struggled anyway.

 

Unemployment offices were packed with those who said they couldn’t log on. Phone lines were jammed. Calls were dropped. Frustration grew.

To which the government first denied…

“Some of the press stories about CONNECT have been incomplete and focused on a narrative that is more likely to grab readers than to accurately report facts,” Panuccio told the Senate’s Commerce and Tourism Committee on Nov. 4.

Then admitted…

By December, however, Panuccio conceded all was not going well. The project was no longer meeting expectations. He posted messages on the DEO’s website acknowledging difficulties.

Which means, simply, the data is useless and the people who need it the most are not getting it…

“The drop in claims is so dramatic and so precisely coincides with the launching of CONNECT that there can be no other explanation,” Greenfield said. “This is having an effect on a huge group of people. We’re very disappointed in the length of time it’s taken to get these people their benefits.”

 

…

 

Florida is notoriously tight-fisted when it comes to unemployment benefits, which makes CONNECT’s failings even more glaring.

 

“Florida in the last few years has made it virtually impossible to access benefits,” said Maurice Emsellem, a staff director with the National Employment Law Project. “The digital divide is a reality, so why on earth would you require to register online? It’s not fair access.”

But it’s going to get worse…

Florida is one of six states that provides job-seekers fewer than 26 weeks of coverage. Now offering 19 weeks, Florida will drop to 16 weeks starting in January. Under Florida law, the lower the unemployment rate (which has fallen to 6.4 percent), the fewer weeks of compensation an unemployed person receives.

 

Once federal unemployment compensations expire, coverage for Ewing and 73,000 other Floridians is immediately eliminated.

It’s a narrative we hear all too often – failure of big government, deny, deny, deny, small admission… but any good headline is clung to and any naysayer shrugged off as meaningless, racist, or a doomsayer…

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/iiIw5JvN22c/story01.htm Tyler Durden

While the world may have become habituated to (and perhaps revels in, thank you social media exhibitionist culture) the fact that the NSA is watching anyone and everyone, intercepting, recording, and hacking every electronic exchange regardless if it involves foreign “terrorists” or US housewives, the discoveries from the Snowden whistleblowing campaign continue. The latest revelation from the biggest wholesale spying scandal since Nixon, exposed by Germany’s Spiegel which continues the strategy of revealing Snowden leaks on a staggered, delayed basis, involves a back door access-focused NSA division called ANT, (which supposedly stands for Access Network Technology), described by Spiegel as “master carpenters” for the NSA’s TAO (Tailored Access Operations, read more about TAO here). The ANT people have “burrowed into nearly all the security architecture made by the major players in the industry — including American global market leader Cisco and its Chinese competitor Huawei, but also producers of mass-market goods, such as US computer-maker Dell.” More importantly, thanks to Spiegel (and Snowden of course), the NSA’s 50-page catalog of “backdoor penetration” techniques has been revealed.

The details of how the NSA can surmount any “erected” walls, via Spiegel:

These NSA agents, who specialize in secret back doors, are able to keep an eye on all levels of our digital lives — from computing centers to individual computers, from laptops to mobile phones. For nearly every lock, ANT seems to have a key in its toolbox. And no matter what walls companies erect, the NSA’s specialists seem already to have gotten past them.

 

This, at least, is the impression gained from flipping through the 50-page document. The list reads like a mail-order catalog, one from which other NSA employees can order technologies from the ANT division for tapping their targets’ data. The catalog even lists the prices for these electronic break-in tools, with costs ranging from free to $250,000.

Nothing quite like an extensive, taxpayer funded catalog listing back-door entry strategy imaginable. Say you wanted to have some backdoor fun with Juniper Networks, the world’s second largest network equipment manufacturer (which claims the performance of the company’s special computers is “unmatched” and their firewalls are the “best-in-class.”)

In the case of Juniper, the name of this particular digital lock pick is “FEEDTROUGH.” This malware burrows into Juniper firewalls and makes it possible to smuggle other NSA programs into mainframe computers. Thanks to FEEDTROUGH, these implants can, by design, even survive “across reboots and software upgrades.” In this way, US government spies can secure themselves a permanent presence in computer networks. The catalog states that FEEDTROUGH “has been deployed on many target platforms.”

It gets better, because when simple penetration is not enough, the NSA adds “implants.”

In cases where TAO’s usual hacking and data-skimming methods don’t suffice, ANT workers step in with their special tools, penetrating networking equipment, monitoring mobile phones and computers and diverting or even modifying data. Such “implants,” as they are referred to in NSA parlance, have played a considerable role in the intelligence agency’s ability to establish a global covert network that operates alongside the Internet.

So what exactly is to be found in the 50-page catalog?

Some of the equipment available is quite inexpensive. A rigged monitor cable that allows “TAO personnel to see what is displayed on the targeted monitor,” for example, is available for just $30. But an “active GSM base station” — a tool that makes it possible to mimic a mobile phone tower and thus monitor cell phones — costs a full $40,000. Computer bugging devices disguised as normal USB plugs, capable of sending and receiving data via radio undetected, are available in packs of 50 for over $1 million.

 

The ANT division doesn’t just manufacture surveillance hardware. It also develops software for special tasks. The ANT developers have a clear preference for planting their malicious code in so-called BIOS, software located on a computer’s motherboard that is the first thing to load when a computer is turned on.

 

This has a number of valuable advantages: an infected PC or server appears to be functioning normally, so the infection remains invisible to virus protection and other security programs. And even if the hard drive of an infected computer has been completely erased and a new operating system is installed, the ANT malware can continue to function and ensures that new spyware can once again be loaded onto what is presumed to be a clean computer. The ANT developers call this “Persistence” and believe this approach has provided them with the possibility of permanent access.

 

Another program attacks the firmware in hard drives manufactured by Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and Samsung, all of which, with the exception of latter, are American companies. Here, too, it appears the US intelligence agency is compromising the technology and products of American companies.

 

Other ANT programs target Internet routers meant for professional use or hardware firewalls intended to protect company networks from online attacks. Many digital attack weapons are “remotely installable” — in other words, over the Internet. Others require a direct attack on an end-user device — an “interdiction,” as it is known in NSA jargon — in order to install malware or bugging equipment.

The conclusion here is an easy one, and one we have repeated ever since before the Snowden revelations: Big Brother is bigger and badder than ever, he knows exactly what you’ve been doing, and the second the NSA wants to nuke your computer out of orbit and/or destroy your digital life, it can do so in a millisecond.  What is more amusing is that with each passing disclosure, it is increasingly clear that the NSA has gotten its inspiration for its dealings with the US public from a Danielle Steel book at best, or a Vivid Video bootlegged tape at worst.

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

While the world may have become habituated to (and perhaps revels in, thank you social media exhibitionist culture) the fact that the NSA is watching anyone and everyone, intercepting, recording, and hacking every electronic exchange regardless if it involves foreign “terrorists” or US housewives, the discoveries from the Snowden whistleblowing campaign continue. The latest revelation from the biggest wholesale spying scandal since Nixon, exposed by Germany’s Spiegel which continues the strategy of revealing Snowden leaks on a staggered, delayed basis, involves a back door access-focused NSA division called ANT, (which supposedly stands for Access Network Technology), described by Spiegel as “master carpenters” for the NSA’s TAO (Tailored Access Operations, read more about TAO here). The ANT people have “burrowed into nearly all the security architecture made by the major players in the industry — including American global market leader Cisco and its Chinese competitor Huawei, but also producers of mass-market goods, such as US computer-maker Dell.” More importantly, thanks to Spiegel (and Snowden of course), the NSA’s 50-page catalog of “backdoor penetration” techniques has been revealed.

The details of how the NSA can surmount any “erected” walls, via Spiegel:

These NSA agents, who specialize in secret back doors, are able to keep an eye on all levels of our digital lives — from computing centers to individual computers, from laptops to mobile phones. For nearly every lock, ANT seems to have a key in its toolbox. And no matter what walls companies erect, the NSA’s specialists seem already to have gotten past them.

 

This, at least, is the impression gained from flipping through the 50-page document. The list reads like a mail-order catalog, one from which other NSA employees can order technologies from the ANT division for tapping their targets’ data. The catalog even lists the prices for these electronic break-in tools, with costs ranging from free to $250,000.

Nothing quite like an extensive, taxpayer funded catalog listing back-door entry strategy imaginable. Say you wanted to have some backdoor fun with Juniper Networks, the world’s second largest network equipment manufacturer (which claims the performance of the company’s special computers is “unmatched” and their firewalls are the “best-in-class.”)

In the case of Juniper, the name of this particular digital lock pick is “FEEDTROUGH.” This malware burrows into Juniper firewalls and makes it possible to smuggle other NSA programs into mainframe computers. Thanks to FEEDTROUGH, these implants can, by design, even survive “across reboots and software upgrades.” In this way, US government spies can secure themselves a permanent presence in computer networks. The catalog states that FEEDTROUGH “has been deployed on many target platforms.”

It gets better, because when simple penetration is not enough, the NSA adds “implants.”

In cases where TAO’s usual hacking and data-skimming methods don’t suffice, ANT workers step in with their special tools, penetrating networking equipment, monitoring mobile phones and computers and diverting or even modifying data. Such “implants,” as they are referred to in NSA parlance, have played a considerable role in the intelligence agency’s ability to establish a global covert network that operates alongside the Internet.

So what exactly is to be found in the 50-page catalog?

Some of the equipment available is quite inexpensive. A rigged monitor cable that allows “TAO personnel to see what is displayed on the targeted monitor,” for example, is available for just $30. But an “active GSM base station” — a tool that makes it possible to mimic a mobile phone tower and thus monitor cell phones — costs a full $40,000. Computer bugging devices disguised as normal USB plugs, capable of sending and receiving data via radio undetected, are available in packs of 50 for over $1 million.

 

The ANT division doesn’t just manufacture surveillance hardware. It also develops software for special tasks. The ANT developers have a clear preference for planting their malicious code in so-called BIOS, software located on a computer’s motherboard that is the first thing to load when a computer is turned on.

 

This has a number of valuable advantages: an infected PC or server appears to be functioning normally, so the infection remains invisible to virus protection and other security programs. And even if the hard drive of an infected computer has been completely erased and a new operating system is installed, the ANT malware can continue to function and ensures that new spyware can once again be loaded onto what is presumed to be a clean computer. The ANT developers call this “Persistence” and believe this approach has provided them with the possibility of permanent access.

 

Another program attacks the firmware in hard drives manufactured by Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor and Samsung, all of which, with the exception of latter, are American companies. Here, too, it appears the US intelligence agency is compromising the technology and products of American companies.

 

Other ANT programs target Internet routers meant for professional use or hardware firewalls intended to protect company networks from online attacks. Many digital attack weapons are “remotely installable” — in other words, over the Internet. Others require a direct attack on an end-user device — an “interdiction,” as it is known in NSA jargon — in order to install malware or bugging equipment.

The conclusion here is an easy one, and one we have repeated ever since before the Snowden revelations: Big Brother is bigger and badder than ever, he knows exactly what you’ve been doing, and the second the NSA wants to nuke your computer out of orbit and/or destroy your digital life, it can do so in a millisecond.  What is more amusing is that with each passing disclosure, it is increasingly clear that the NSA has gotten its inspiration for its dealings with the US public from a Danielle Steel book at best, or a Vivid Video bootlegged tape at worst.

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

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin has sent NATO a rather unusual New Year’s card… picturing Santa alongside a Russian inter-continental ballistic missile.

 

Life ??????????? ????? ?????? ?? ???? ? ????? ?????!) pic.twitter.com/e3fndoMlHa

— Dmitry Rogozin (@Rogozin) December 28, 2013

 

 

Direct from his Twitter account – the Deputy PM literally says “We wish our friends from NATO a Happy New Year“

 

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/X4ieRjTL8w4/story01.htm Tyler Durden

(Originally posted on Slope of Hope, hence the references to Slopers and SOH): Well, my fellow Slope-a-Dopes, I just could not bear sitting in silence any longer while all the blabbering bulls boast and gloat as they roast bear chestnuts over an open fire.  Enjoy your happy holidays highs, my bloated bovine butt-heads, as you sip your rosy bubbly and toast each other’s good fortunes.   As for BDI, he went along briefly for a spectacular Santa sleigh ride to close out an otherwise dismal year with a BOOM.  Blow me momos, technos, and especially you trendos!

For the New Year, it seems that SOH, that last true refuge for pensive brooding bears, has been overrun with pompous bulls peddling & pumping a new 21st century high tech plateau of permanent prosperity, that would make even Irving Fisher’s rose twittering cheeks blush.  I wonder if old Irving would have Linked himself In or posted his rip roaring 20s rosy market views on a pretty pink Facebook page?

As for The Idiot Savant, he sure does not smell the long stem roses.  Take off your pink shades and take a good sniff, smell the rotting rancid rot, Cowgirls!

Pink Shades # 1:  Europe is still deeply mired in an intractable recession, trapped in a crippling cluster-fucked currency union contraction with no way for the struggling periphery nations to pull themselves out of a dreadful debt death dive.  Don’t believe the mindless misdirection manifested by the recent rosy European capital markets’ marvelously manufactured momentum.  France just printed a near all time high unemployment rate. 

Pink Shades # 2:  The 10 year U.S. bond just closed above 3% and is most certainly trending for a continued move higher. Those sporting rose colored Ray Bans on their elongated noses, will tell you the economy is surely picking up, and thus, it is a welcome quite natural sign to see interest rates edge higher at this point.  What they won’t tell you is that newly issued commercial bank loan volumes are near all time record lows.  Don’t kid yourselves my pink pussy cats, interest rates are not being driven up by healthy demand pull forces in the real economy, but rather by the early signs of stagflationary supply push forces which always inevitably show up when too much money is being circulated in a monetary system.

Pink Shades # 3:  Super strength stagnating inflation is right around the bend. Its insipid effect always first appears in pesky peak priced fixed and financial asset of all kinds before it metastasizes into and onto the real economy on the ground. Here again take off your silly rose spectacles and smell the smelly stagflationary stench.  Rents, Food, Energy, Utilities, Education, Healthcare, TV/Internet/Smartphone bills, Entertainment tickets……etc, all hitting high water marks.  Ask yourselves, are fixed operating costs getting cheaper in your pink picket fenced palaces?

Pink Shades # 4:  The USD is skating on thin ice here, having recently broken the all important 80 level on its typically trusted treadmill DXY inde
x. You really think a country that converts these degraded debased dollars in order to import over 70% of what it consumes will not see higher prices in the near future? You think China’s appreciating and better yielding yellow Yuan will not increase the prices that your fat pink asses pay at the Walmart checkout counter?  What about that petro-dollar oil barrel price perpetually parked above $100 once again?  Attention all waddling whale Walmart shoppers!

Pink Shades # 5:  Despite the tiny timid taper, the FED’s balance sheet continues to grow exponentially with each passing month. Despite the frantically feeble fiscal budget agreement reached by the cowardly congressional clowns, the country continues to spend its way into oblivion with no end in site.  As interest rates inevitably rise, these terrific twin time bombs will be right back in your sights, front and center, quickly clearing up your fogged rose tinted lenses.

Pink Shades # 6:  Unemployment claims & benefits. The BLS tells us that countless copious crappy jobs are constantly being created and the unemployment rate is steadily heading down. Yet, unemployment claims have moved back up recently and the goofy Government goons are about to debate whether or not to resume the extended benefits program.  So, which is it?   Does this add up to you giddy ghey girly men wearing suave mauve designer shades? Seems to me that the problem is rather entrenched and not going anywhere anytime soon, as the middle class continues to lose ground from all sides.  Did you know that the number of 18-30 year olds living at home with their parents has never been higher in half a century.

Pink Shades # 7:  The Black Stone brick and mortar housing asinine asset abomination. Remember that virtual housing market our fiendish fraudulent financial friends blew up with their demented dubiously deranged debacle of mirage money mortgages that detonated last time around?  Well, that bogus busted bubble seems to have reemerged, reincarnated via the rabidly rapacious rapid re-inflation of free flowing FED funded subsidies, handed directly to the very same elite financial institutions whose unabashed greed preyed on us all the last time around. Everyone talks so re-assuredly about the guaranteed rental income streams these new real structures, as opposed to falsely structured investments, will genuinely generate.  Do these fabulous freeloading financial wizards really understand the actual fixed costs and real world care on the ground level, involved in maintaining hundreds of thousands of single family homes?  When interest rates head back up and the housing prices collapse will rents not follow suit?  Will the high prices they have set on these hard asset backed investments not head south in a hurry.  Did they not sell us on the exact same pipe dream with the so called safe and sound moronic MBS meme?  At the end of the day, have they not simply repriced and re-financialized the exact same assets which are dependent on the very same income stream generated from the busted american middle class.  Don’t forget where the real value in housing comes from, it’s not the standing structures themselves, but those that actually live in them that determine their value.  Speaking of houses, keep your eyes on existing home sales, they be going downtown in a hurry!

Pink Shades # 8: GDP & Inventories, smell the rot. There is no doubt that massive magnanimous monetary policy can generate real growth and create actual production. The question I have for you, my pinko friends, is can that fantastically force fed growth actually be sustained. If the new growth was achieved through the artifice of ZIRP & QE, will it not correspondingly dissipate in their absence?  Do you all really believe that we will magically arrive at escape velocity which will carry us forward even as the monetary fire hoses are turned off?  And, should they not turn off the emergency fire hoses, do you actually believe we will escape the powerfully potent physical universal laws of inflation and the inevitable upward push on interest that necessarily follows? The US public and private sectors are both leveraged to the hilt, loaded to the gills with unmanageable debt.  The free money has only served one purpose, and that is to avoid your rose colored world to be seen as the looming liquidity debt trap that it is, flashing a bright code red alert.  We are being lulled into a false sense of security my friends, and your cozy pink blankets and comforting lullabies will turn into your worst nightmares as soon as you remove your rose colored glasses.

I’m certain that most of my pretty in pink cowgirl equity cheer-leading friends will promptly pump their red white and blue USA, USA, USA  pompoms, singing and shouting their tried and true cheer; “the economy is NOT the market BDI!!! The economy is NOT the market you Idiot!!!”. &nb
sp;Well, all I can reply to you, my fine fair weather friends, is that your future is so bright you will definitely need to wear your silly pink shades.  As for your idiot French friend, he will most assuredly be set up short by week’s end, in anticipation of a steamy valentines date complete with a dozen pink roses.

 BDI SOH’s Idiot Savant

John Maynard Keynes:

Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security, but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth. Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become ‘profiteers,’ who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat.  As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/9lFWqPOiCRo/story01.htm Tim Knight from Slope of Hope

“Conventional economic theory says ‘crisis don’t happen’ unless they are hit by an [outside] shock” exclaims Steve Keen, adding that numerous Nobel Prize winning economists have suggested that “capitalism is stable…” and “the problem of avoiding depressions has been solved for many decades.”

But as Keen explains in this brief but extremely succinct interview, they are wrong – and simply won’t (or can’t) see the next one coming. “People in the public think economists are experts on money; but, in fact, they are experts in finding ways not to include money, debt, and banks in their models”

And yet, despite their failed forecasts and dismal ‘scientific’ models, we trust they can enter (and exit) the greatest monetary experiment in history with no bad outcome…

 

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

“Conventional economic theory says ‘crisis don’t happen’ unless they are hit by an [outside] shock” exclaims Steve Keen, adding that numerous Nobel Prize winning economists have suggested that “capitalism is stable…” and “the problem of avoiding depressions has been solved for many decades.”

But as Keen explains in this brief but extremely succinct interview, they are wrong – and simply won’t (or can’t) see the next one coming. “People in the public think economists are experts on money; but, in fact, they are experts in finding ways not to include money, debt, and banks in their models”

And yet, despite their failed forecasts and dismal ‘scientific’ models, we trust they can enter (and exit) the greatest monetary experiment in history with no bad outcome…

 

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

Almost a year ago, the French constitutional court ruled against Francois Hollande’s triumphal blast into socialist wealth redistribution, with his proposed 75% tax rate on high earners, and so indefinitely delayed the exodus of the bulk of French high earners (even if some, like Obelix, aka Gerard Depardieu, promptly made their way to the country that has become the land of solace for all oppressed people everywhere, Russia) into more tax-hospitable  climes. That delay is now over, when earlier today the same court approved a 75% tax on all those earning over €1 million. The proposal passed after the government modified it to make employers liable for the 75% tax. As BBC reports, the levy will last two years, affecting income earned this year and in 2014.

And with the tax passage, the preparations for an exodus by all high earnings begin, first among the local football teams. BBC reports:

Football clubs in France went on strike earlier this year over the issue, saying many of France’s clubs are financially fragile and say the plans could spark an exodus of top players who are paid huge salaries.

 

The Qatari-owned Paris Saint-Germain has more than 10 players whose pay exceeds 1m euros, including the Swedish striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic.

 

There has also been a chorus of protest from businesses and wealthy individuals who have condemned the tax – including film star Gerard Depardieu, who left the country in protest.

 

Polls suggest a large majority in France back the temporary tax.

 

Unlike many other countries in Europe, France aims to bring down its huge public deficit by raising taxes as well as some spending cuts. The highest tax rate in the UK is 45% and is applied to individuals.

While the numerous unintended consequences of this shock and awe tax hike will be amusing to watch in real time as this move will almost certainly be the long-awaited catalyst to push France into its long-predicted recession (to the benefit of countries like Belgium where the French uber-rich are already relocating to), one wonders if the drop in the value of French ultra-high end real estate will be offset by the soaring valuations of London’s already “beyond housing bubble” home prices, and just what the local response will be now that domestic real estate is even more inaccessible to anyone but the wealthiest global oligarchs and billionaires (aside from the capital gains tax of course, which as we wrote previously, is about to be launched first in London, and then everywhere else).

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/-bAnW59nZZs/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Two months ago, we reported when a female suicide bomber detonated a bomb in a bus in the Russian city of Volgograd, located 400 miles northeast of Sochi where the winter Olympic games begin in just over a month.

The explosion was caught on dashcam (the video can be seen here). But more than a mere isolated terrorist incident in a region of Russia which has historically been rife with conflict between Russia and Chechen separatists, this explosion, which took place just after Russia managed to impose its will in the Syrian conflict’s outcome, and left Saudi (and Israeli) relations with the US in tatters, we reminded readers just who is the invisible hand behind all terrorist activities in proximity to Sochi: Saudi Arabia.

Recall from our commentary on the October Volgograd explosion:

Disturbing as this video is, we believe it is only going to get worse as the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics approach. Recall from “Meet Saudi Arabia’s Bandar bin Sultan: The Puppetmaster Behind The Syrian War“:

Bandar told Putin, “…The terrorist threat is growing in light of the phenomena spawned by the Arab Spring. We have lost some regimes. And what we got in return were terrorist experiences, as evidenced by the experience of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the extremist groups in Libya…. As an example, I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics in the city of Sochi on the Black Sea next year. The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us…

Was today’s terrorist explosion just a warning shot ultimately funded and organized by none other than the biggest loser from the Syrian detente: Saudi Arabia, because recall that it was Saudi Arabia which orchestrated the near-US invasion after playing Obama and Kerry like a fiddle, in hopes of getting the natgas pipeline under Syria. Following the Putin-brokered peace plan, Saudi will now have to wait at least one more year before re-escalating tensions in the Syria region with hopes of installing its own puppet regime.  In the meantime, is Saudi now openly lashing out at the one country that made this delay a reality. And if so, when, where and how will Putin retaliate against the country that serves as the anchor of the petrodollar system? We look forward to finding out.  

It’s two months later and if indeed Bandar bin Sultan is in funding and enabling the local terrorists, then Saudi Arabia is increasingly demonstrating its displeasure with Russia, and furthermore, sending a warning to the world that the Sochi games may be hazardous to one’s health. Overnight, another almost identical explosion rocked Volgograd, when a female suicide bomber set off a bomb in one of the five largest train stations in Russia in what is a clear warning to Russia as the Winter Olympics approach.

This is what happened earlier today:

A suicide bombing has killed at least 14 people and injured over 40 in the southern Russian city of Volgograd, raising concerns about terrorism just over a month before Russia hosts the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. The train station attacked today is one of the five largest in Russia
and is a major transit point for much of southern Russia. It was unclear
whether the train station was the woman’s intended target or whether
she planned to travel elsewhere to carry out an attack. 

 

A female bomber carried out the blast in a Volgograd train station, 400 miles from the site of the upcoming Olympics in the Russian resort town of Sochi, Russian authorities said. The Sochi 2014 Olympic Games are scheduled to begin on Feb. 7. A total of 33 people were hospitalized, with eight in serious condition and one in “extremely serious condition,” Oleg Solagai, a spokesman for the Russian health ministry, told Russian news agency Rossiya24.

 

Authorities in Volgograd said the attack left 27 people seriously injured, and that the death toll may increase. A police officer was among the dead, and a nine-year-old girl was injured, authorities said.

 

A severed head found at the site of the bombing is suspected to be that of the woman who carried out the attack, making it “possible to identify her,” a Volgograd law enforcement source told the Russian news agency Interfax. Investigators have reason to believe the woman came from Russia’s Dagestan region, the source told the agency. 

 

The bombing took place in the same city where another female suicide bomber was blamed for an attack an October bus attack that killed seven people, including the bomber.  Like the October bomb attack, today’s blast was caught on camera. Surveillance video showed the exact moment the explosion took place, just inside an entranceway to the train station.

 

Volgograd reeled from the attack just before the New Year’s celebrations, a major holiday in Russia that would have likely meant a high amount of traffic was passing through the train station today. Yulia Chemova with Volunteers of Russia, who was at the railway station minutes after the attack to help out, told ABC News she believed the attack was planned around the New Year holiday.

 

“The timing for the terrorist attack in Volgograd is perfect,” she said. “It’s holiday season; airports and train stations are packed at this time of year.”

 

There have been 32 terrorist attacks in Russia in the year ahead of Sochi 2014, according to Kavkazskiyuzel, a Russian think tank.

 

The power of today’s explosion was equivalent to at least 22 pounds of TNT, and police officers averted a much larger tragedy by stopping the woman right at the entrance to the train station, according to a committee investigating the attack. Had she made it inside, a spokesman for the committee said, casualties could have reached the hundreds. Russia’s interior ministry said it would deploy more police at all rail stations in Russia and that passengers would be subject to strict security measures.

 

Today’s attack bore some similarities to the October bus bombing, which authorities said was also carried out by a woman from Dagestan. Russia has for years been fighting an Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus, a region that encompasses the restive Russian regions of Chechnya and Dagestan, as well as the Olympic host city, Sochi.

 

Suicide bombers, often female, from Chechnya or Dagestan and sometimes known as “black widows,” have carried out many attacks on Russian targets in the past decade, including the dual bombing of the Moscow subway in 2010 that claimed 39 lives. Female bombers from the Caucasus were also blamed for the simultaneous bombing o
f two Russian airplanes in 2004, an attack that killed 90 people.

And, as noted, the explosion was caught on video and can be seen below:

So, like before, if Saudi Arabia is doing its best to poke Vladimir Putin with ever escalating provocations, how long until the former KGB spy retaliates?

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/Hj7SrZAnFiQ/story01.htm Tyler Durden