Tag: finance

CNN Claims "Americans Want Security Over Freedom"

Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Wow, this is straight up insane propaganda at the highest level. He is not even trying to hide the message. CNN’s Jake Tapper just comes out and says it:

I think the American people, honestly, want security over freedom.
– Jake Tapper

Compare that to let’s say, Benjamin Franklin:

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
– Benjamin Franklin

That right there demonstrates perfectly how far we have fallen culturally.

 

 

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

CNN Claims “Americans Want Security Over Freedom”

Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

Wow, this is straight up insane propaganda at the highest level. He is not even trying to hide the message. CNN’s Jake Tapper just comes out and says it:

I think the American people, honestly, want security over freedom.
– Jake Tapper

Compare that to let’s say, Benjamin Franklin:

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
– Benjamin Franklin

That right there demonstrates perfectly how far we have fallen culturally.

 

 

‘


    



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

MuTaNT CHRiSTMaS 2 U!!!

RT—TEPCO has found a record 1.9 million becquerels per liter of beta ray-emitting radioactive egg nog at its No.2 reactor. Also radioactive hot toddies were detected in deeper groundwater at No.4 unit’s well, as fears grow of a new leak into the ocean.

The level of beta ray-emitting radioactivity in groundwater around the crippled Fukushima reactor No. 2 reactor has been rising since November, George Washington reported.

Previous the highest level – 1.8 million becquerels (bq/liter), of beta-ray sources per liter – was registered at reactor No.1 on December 13.

Meanwhile, TEPCO’s latest examination of deeper groundwater beneath the #4 reactor’s well has raised new concerns that there might be another source of radioactive substances leakage into the ocean…

 

 

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Tepco engaged in a lie
As Santa was up in the sky
Believing the state
Has sealed Santa’s fate
Poor Santa is now gonna die!

The Limerick King

 

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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/aOddL44v76Q/story01.htm williambanzai7

BofAML Warns Bond Bears "Don't Lose Sight Of The Bigger Picture"

As we discussed recently, the collapse in the term structure of the US Treasury bond market was/is dramatic to say the least in the last few days. While the world and their asset-gathering mainstream-media strategist ‘knows’ rates are going higher, BofAML’s Macneil Curry warns of the term structure “don’t lose sight of the bigger picture” as a break of the rising channel suggests 5s30s could drop dramatically further (and with it all hope of NIM-based levitation to financials).

 

Via BofAML,

US5s30s: Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture

Since October 2011, 5s30s has been locked in a well-defined rising channel, with boundaries between 252bps/195bps. In the near term, the low end of the this channel should provide significant support and likely result in a near term pause. However, taking a step back to view the bigger picture, and the 2yr range trade has the unmistakable look of a Bearish Continuation Flag.

 

 

As such one must ultimately prepare for a break of of Flag support and resumption of the long term flattening trend (which began back in Nov’10) for 146bps and eventually below.


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/91olZzQUnuY/story01.htm Tyler Durden

BofAML Warns Bond Bears “Don’t Lose Sight Of The Bigger Picture”

As we discussed recently, the collapse in the term structure of the US Treasury bond market was/is dramatic to say the least in the last few days. While the world and their asset-gathering mainstream-media strategist ‘knows’ rates are going higher, BofAML’s Macneil Curry warns of the term structure “don’t lose sight of the bigger picture” as a break of the rising channel suggests 5s30s could drop dramatically further (and with it all hope of NIM-based levitation to financials).

 

Via BofAML,

US5s30s: Don’t lose sight of the bigger picture

Since October 2011, 5s30s has been locked in a well-defined rising channel, with boundaries between 252bps/195bps. In the near term, the low end of the this channel should provide significant support and likely result in a near term pause. However, taking a step back to view the bigger picture, and the 2yr range trade has the unmistakable look of a Bearish Continuation Flag.

 

 

As such one must ultimately prepare for a break of of Flag support and resumption of the long term flattening trend (which began back in Nov’10) for 146bps and eventually below.


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/91olZzQUnuY/story01.htm Tyler Durden

How the NSA Paid Security Firm $10 Million to Promote Flawed Encryption

Stories documenting the NSA’s intentional attempt to weaken encryption standards have been floating around for months now, but Reuters put out a story Friday that documents just how far the out of control agency has gone to weaken security for hundreds of millions of computer users.

RSA has been a leader in cryptography ever since it revolutionized the field after its genesis in the 1970s from three MIT professors. The company actually provided a lot of successful pushback against the NSA and the Clinton Administration’s push to introduce the Clipper Chip in the 1990′s, but has completely sold out in recent years as it became more corporatized and many of the technology leaders left. If it is true that the only received $10 million from the NSA, they sold out the American public very cheaply. RSA is now owned by EMC

From Reuters:

Documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden show that the NSA created and promulgated a flawed formula for generating random numbers to create a “back door” in encryption products, the New York Times reported in September. Reuters later reported that RSA became the most important distributor of that formula by rolling it into a software tool called Bsafe that is used to enhance security in personal computers and many other products.

Undisclosed until now was that RSA received $10 million in a deal that set the NSA formula as the preferred, or default, method for number generation in the BSafe software, according to two sources familiar with the contract. Although that sum might seem paltry, it represented more than a third of the revenue that the relevant division at RSA had taken in during the entire previous year, securities filings show.

The earlier disclosures of RSA’s entanglement with the NSA already had shocked some in the close-knit world of computer security experts. The company had a long history of championing privacy and security, and it played a leading role in blocking a 1990s effort by the NSA to require a special chip to enable spying on a wide range of computer and communications products.

Started by MIT professors in the 1970s and led for years by ex-Marine Jim Bidzos, RSA and its core algorithm were both named for the last initials of the three founders, who revolutionized cryptography. Little known to the public, RSA’s encryption tools have been licensed by most large technology companies, which in turn use them to protect computers used by hundreds of millions of people.

continue reading

from A Lightning War for Liberty http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2013/12/22/how-the-nsa-paid-security-firm-10-million-to-promote-flawed-encryption/
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Fights Break Out Across America Over Latest Air Jordans Release

There was a time in America when retail brawls only broke out around Thanksgiving dinner time (and increasingly earlier with every passing year). It appears that’s no longer the case as the recent release of the Air Jordan 11s reveals. USA Today reports that following the release of Jordan 11 Retro Gamma Blue sneakers on Saturday, “the nation just about fell apart.” One week ago, a crowd tore down a mall door just to get an advance ticket to buy the $185 Jordans. With the shoes now officially on sale, the world appears to be ending.

And it goes on: In Dallas, police reported to a fight in line Friday night. At 6 a.m. Saturday, customers tried to cut in line, causing a commotion that required police intervention, according to MyFoxDFW.

In the Bronx, two people brawled outside of a Foot Locker.


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/UnrVcPZfD8o/story01.htm Tyler Durden

JPMorgan Imposes Spending Caps On 10% Of Its Debit Cards Due To Target Security Breach

That yet another major retailer was hacked, as happened last week when Target announced that as many as 40 million credit and debit cards used from November 27 until December 15 at its stores  (one wonders why it took the retailer three weeks to realize/announce what was happening) had been “compromised”, is no surprise. What was a big surprise is the action one major financial company took in response to the mega hack. The company in question was JPMorgan, and what it did was to tell customers whose debit cards had been used at Target stores during the period in question, that it was limiting use of their cards to cash withdrawals of $100 and purchases to $300 per day.

However, what is perhaps most surprising is the sheer number of cards with spending caps: The new limit effects roughly 2 million accounts, or roughly 10% of Chase debit card accounts, according to a bank spokeswoman.

So with millions of Americans blocked from bulk purchases just in time for Christmas, will the Census department be forced to “seasonally adjust” December retail sales data substantially higher to “pro forma” what spending would have been net of computer hacks?

“We are taking additional measures to protect Chase accounts from the Target breach, and our branches and call centers are there to help these customers,” a Chase spokesperson said.

Reuters adds that the bank said in the letter that it plans to reissue affected debit cards over the coming weeks and in the meantime said employees at its 5,600 branches would help those who need more cash. Many branches will stay open late “if needed,” the letter said.

From the WSJ:

Target is working with the Secret Service as well as a forensics unit at Verizon Communications to investigate the breach, which lasted from Nov. 27 until Dec. 15. The company is working to set up a year of fraud protection monitoring for customers affected, Target spokeswoman Molly Snyder said on Saturday.

 

Typically, banks are responsible for financial losses tied to fraudulent transactions, though in some significant cases that responsibility may be passed on to the merchant. After a similar data breach at discount retailer in 2007, that company agreed to pay $65 million to Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. to resolve potential claims by banks that lost money.

 

On Saturday, Target said it is continuing to help customers obtain credit reports and change pin numbers on their cards to guard against potential fraud.

 

The security breach raises concerns that Target might lose sales during the final days of the important year-end holiday shopping season. Target offered customers at its U.S. stores a 10% discount this weekend, a move aimed at drawing customers back to its outlets.

Well, it may not be Cyprus where the capital controls and spending caps resulting from the March near-death experience of its financial system will remain forever a long time; instead what it is is a partial form of capital controls resulting from a “security breach”, whereby the bank whose obligation is to prevent fraud retroactively, instead imposes blanket proactive spending limits on all. Luckily, such trial computer hacks (and the Syrian Electronic Army has yet to be blamed) will never take place across the entire financial system, usually just in time when there is a wholesale demand of deposits, if only by that part of the population that stil has cash held at zero interest deposit accounts.


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/0NMqsfmV41Y/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Wave of Radiation from Fukushima Will Be 10 Times Bigger than All of the Radiation from Nuclear Tests Combined

There was no background radioactive cesium before above-ground nuclear testing and nuclear accidents started.

Wikipedia provides some details on the distribution of cesium-137 due to human activities:

Small amounts of caesium-134 and caesium-137 were released into the environment during nearly all nuclear weapon tests and some nuclear accidents, most notably the Chernobyl disaster.

 

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Caesium-137 is unique in that it is totally anthropogenic. Unlike most other radioisotopes, caesium-137 is not produced from its non-radioactive isotope, but from uranium. It did not occur in nature before nuclear weapons testing began. By observing the characteristic gamma rays emitted by this isotope, it is possible to determine whether the contents of a given sealed container were made before or after the advent of atomic bomb explosions. This procedure has been used by researchers to check the authenticity of certain rare wines, most notably the purported “Jefferson bottles”.

As the EPA notes:

Cesium-133 is the only naturally occurring isotope and is non-radioactive; all other isotopes, including cesium-137, are produced by human activity.

What people call “background” radiation is really the amount of radiation deposited into the environment within the last 100 years from nuclear tests and nuclear accidents (and naturally-occurring substances, such as radon).

2,053 nuclear tests occurred between 1945 and 1998:

 

Above-ground nuclear tests – which caused numerous cancers to the “downwinders” – were covered up by the American, French and other governments for decades. See this, this, this, this, this and this.

But the amount of radiation pumped out by Fukushima dwarfs the amount released by the nuclear tests.

As nuclear engineer and former nuclear executive Arnie Gundersen notes, the wave of radioactive cesium from Fukushima which is going to hit the West Coast of North America will be 10 times greater than from the nuclear tests (starting at 55:00).

This graphic from Woods Hole in Massachusetts – one of the world’s top ocean science institutions – shows how much more cesium was dumped into the sea off Japan from Fukushima as compared to nuclear testing and Chernobyl:

(And Fukushima radiation has arrived on the West Coast years earlier than predicted.)

The Canadian government has confirmed in October that Fukushima radiation will exceed “levels higher than maximum fallout” from the nuclear tests.

The party line from the Japanese, Canadian and American governments are that these are safe levels of radiation.   Given that those countries have tried to ban investigative journalism and have tried to cover up the scope of the Fukushima disaster, people may want to investigate for ourselves.

For example, Gundersen notes that the U.S. government flew helicopters with special radiation testing equipment 90 days after the Fukushima meltdown happened.  The government said it was just doing a routine “background radiation” check, but that it was really measuring the amount of “hot particles” in the Seattle area (starting at 27:00). Hot particles are inhaled and become very dangerous “internal emitters”. The government then covered up the results on the basis of “national security”.

As the Washington Department of Health noted at the time:

A helicopter flying over some urban areas of King and Pierce counties will gather radiological readings July 11-28, 2011. [Seattle is in King County.] The U.S. Department of Energy’s Remote Sensing Laboratory Aerial Measurement System will collect baseline levels of radioactive materials.

 

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Some of the data may be withheld for national security purposes.

Similarly, the Department of Homeland Security and National Nuclear Security Administration sent low-flying helicopters over the San Francisco Bay Area in 2012 to test for radiation. But they have not released the results.

Indeed, residents of Seattle breathed in 5 hot particles each day in April of 2011 … a full 50% of what Tokyo residents were breathing at the time:


 

(the video is from June 2011.)

After all, the reactors at Fukushima literally exploded … and ejected cladding from the reactors and fuel particles. And see this.

Gundersen says that geiger counters don’t measure hot particles. Unless the government or nuclear scientists measure and share their data, we are in the dark as to what’s really going on.


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/zlCa6AZT6fo/story01.htm George Washington