news – Page 26691

Livestream From Ukraine, Where Tens Of Thousands Return To Protest At Kiev's Main Square

Now that Athens’ Syntagma square has been put on indefinite hiatus since everyone has finally figured out the game between Greece and Athens (Greece grudgingly promises to reform but doesn’t, at the same time Troika grudgingly threatens to cut off funding for Greece unless reforms are implemented but doesn’t… even as the fate of the people gets worse), a new square has emerged as the focal point in the fight for (and against) Europe – Kiev’s Independence Square.

However, unlike in Syntagma square where the people were largely against Europe due to its demands for Greek reforms, in the Ukraine, the people who amass at the country’s biggest square are instead demanding that the country return to Europe’s sphere of influence and tear away from Russian gravity where the country recently found itself gravitating toward as reported previously. If in the process the government of president Yanukovich can be overthrown so much the better.

Which is why following two weeks of escalating protests, today is the latest day in which tens if not hundreds of thousands of people are expected to come down to Independence Square, where Ukraine’s opposition leaders urged hundreds of thousands of pro-Europe protesters at a rally on Sunday to keep up pressure on President Viktor Yanukovich to sack his government and drop plans for closer ties with Russia.

Independence Square has been transformed into a makeshift village of tents, festooned with Ukrainian blue and yellow flags, EU flags and opposition banners, beneath a large television screen. People huddle around braziers for warmth.

The live webcast from Kiev can be found below:

Live streaming video by Ustream

Livestream From Ukraine, Where Tens Of Thousands Return To Protest At Kiev’s Main Square

Independence Square has been transformed into a makeshift village of tents, festooned with Ukrainian blue and yellow flags, EU flags and opposition banners, beneath a large television screen. People huddle around braziers for warmth.

The live webcast from Kiev can be found below:

Live streaming video by Ustream

Sheldon Richman on Crime and Punishment in a Free Society

The criminal justice system as we know it is a
product of state arrogation and a repudiation of individualism. But
would a free society be a crime-free society? Sheldon Richman
assures that he isn’t being utopian when he says we have good
reason to anticipate it.

View this article.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/08/sheldon-richman-on-crime-and-punishment
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Guest Post: The State Causes The Poverty It Later Claims To Solve

Submitted by Andreas Marquart of The Ludwig von Mises Institute,

If one looks at the current paper money system and its negative social and social-political effects, the question must arise: where are the protests by the supporters and protectors of social justice? Why don’t we hear calls to protest from politicians and social commentators, from the heads of social welfare agencies and leading religious leaders, who all promote the general welfare as their mission?

Presumably, the answer is that many have only a weak understanding of the role of money in an economy with a division of labor, and for that reason, the consequences of today’s paper money system are being widely overlooked.

The current system of fractional reserve banking and central banking stands in stark opposition to a market economy monetary regime in which the market participants could decide themselves, without state pressure or coercion, what money they want to use, and in which it would not be possible for anyone to expand the money supply because they simply choose to do so.

The expansion of the money supply, made possible through central banks and fractional reserve banking, is in reality what allows inflation, and thus, declining income in real terms. In The Theory of Money and Credit Ludwig von Mises wrote:

The most important of the causes of a diminution in the value of money of which we have to take account is an increase in the stock of money while the demand for it remains the same, or falls off, or, if it increases, at least increases less than the stock. … A lower subjective valuation of money is then passed on from person to person because those who come into possession of an additional quantity of money are inclined to consent to pay higher prices than before.

When there are price increases caused by an expansion of the money supply, the prices of various goods and services do not rise to the same degree, and do not rise at the same time. Mises explains the effects:

While the process is under way, some people enjoy the benefit of higher prices for the goods or services they sell, while the prices of the things they buy have not yet risen or have not risen to the same extent. On the other hand, there are people who are in the unhappy situation of selling commodities and services whose prices have not yet risen or not in the same degree as the prices of the goods they must buy for their daily consumption.

Indeed, in the case of the price of a worker’s labor (i.e., his or her wages) increasing at a slower rate than the price of bread or rent, we see how this shift in the relationship between income and assets can impoverish many workers and consumers.

An inflationary money supply can cause impoverishment and income inequality in a variety of ways:

1. The Cantillon Effect

The uneven distribution of price inflation is known as the Cantillon effect. Those who receive the newly created money first (primarily the state and the banks, but also some large companies) are the beneficiaries of easy money. They can make purchases with the new money at goods prices that are still unchanged. Those who obtain the newly created money only later, or do not receive any of it, are harmed (wage-earners and salaried employees, retirees). They can only buy goods at prices which have, in the meantime, risen.

2. Asset Price Inflation

Investors with greater assets can better spread their investments and assets and are thus in a position to invest in tangible assets such as stocks, real estate, and precious metals. When the prices of those assets rise due to an expansion of the money supply, the holders of those assets may benefit as their assets gain in value. Those holding assets become more wealthy while people with fewer assets or no assets either profit little or cannot profit at all from the price increases.

3. The Credit Market Amplifies the Effects

The effects of asset price inflation can be amplified by the credit market. Those who have a higher income can carry higher credit in contrast to those with lower income, by acquiring real estate, for example, or other assets. If real estate prices rise due to an expansion of the money supply, they may profit from those price increases and the gap between rich and poor grows even faster.

4. Boom and Bust Cycles Create Unemployment

The direct cause of unemployment is the inflexibility of the labor market, caused by state interference and labor union pressures. An indirect cause of unemployment is the expansion of the paper money supply, which can lead to illusory economic booms that in turn lead to malinvestment. Especially in inflexible labor markets, when these malinvestments become evident in a down economy, it ultimately leads to higher and more lasting unemployment that is often most severely felt among the lowest-income households.

The State Continues to Expand

Once the gap in income distribution and asset distribution has been opened, the supporters and protectors of social justice will more and more speak out, not knowing (or not saying) that it is the state itself with its monopolistic monetary system that is responsible for the conditions described.

It’s a perfidious “business model” in which the state creates social inequality through its monopolistic monetary system, splits society into poor and rich, and makes people dependent on welfare. It then intervenes in a regulatory and distributive manner, in order to justify its existence. The economist Roland Baader observed:

The political caste must prove its right to exist, by doing something. However, because everything it does, it does much worse, it has to constantly carry out reforms, i.e., it has to do something, because it did something already. It would not have to do something, had it not already done something. If only one knew what one could do to stop it from doing things.

The state even exploits the uncertainty in the population about the true reasons for the growing gap in income and asset distribution. For example, The Fourth Poverty and Wealth Report of the German Federal Government states that since 2002, there has been a clear majority among the German people in favor of carrying out measures to reduce differences in income.

Conclusion

The reigning paper money system is at the center of the growing income inequality and expanding poverty rates we find in many countries today. Nevertheless, states continue to grow in power in the name of taming the market system that has supposedly caused the impoverishment actually caused by the state and its allies.

If those who claim to speak for social justice do nothing to protest this, their silence can only have two possible reasons. They either don’t understand how our monetary system functions, in which case, they should do their research and learn about it; or they do understand it and are cynically ignoring a major source of poverty because they may in fact be benefiting from the paper money system themselves.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/TcbgUe1v65E/story01.htm Tyler Durden

HaPPY PeaRL HaRBoR DaY 2013

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via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/4rNxxlzjUi8/story01.htm williambanzai7

US-Asia Foreign Policy – In One Cartoon

We recently questioned whether things were falling apart in US-Asia relations…as the Trans-Pacific Partnership lies battered on the floor; this seemed to sum it up rather well…

Source: Michael Ramirez via Investors.com

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/dFeg2S_q07A/story01.htm Tyler Durden

ReasonTV Replay: How Pearl Harbor – and December 1941 – Made America a Global Power

72 years ago today
Japanese aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor, launching the United
States into World War II. As Craig Shirley argued during a
2011 ReasonTV interview, not only did the attack push America into
the war, but it steered U.S. foreign policy away from its long
history of non-interventionism.

Here is the original text from the Dec. 7, 2011
interview:

The bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese on December
7, 1941 killed over 2,400 Americans and led directly to the entry
of the United States into World War II.

In his powerful, thickly researched new book, December 1941: 31
Days That Changed America and Saved the World, Craig Shirley
chronicles the day-by-day shifts in American culture, politics, and
national identity through that horrible month. Before December,
Shirley tells Reason’s Nick Gillespie, a solid majority opposed
entry into World War II and the “eminently respectable” America
First movement was poised to help select the next president of the
United States. Non-interventionism was so universal that Franklin
Roosevelt himself had campaigned for his third term as president on
a promise to keep “American boys” out of European
wars.

By the start of 1942, says Shirley, the long tradition of
isolationism was over, never to be seen again. The nation that had
rejected the League of Nations after World War I helped create the
United Nations and America quickly became not simply a global
economic, political, and military power but the dominant player on
the globe.

The author of many books, including two biographies of Ronald
Reagan and a forthcoming book on Newt Gingrich, Shirley talks with
Reason’s Nick Gillespie about what was gained – and lost – in the
historical hinge point that was December 1941.

Approximately 8 minutes.

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/07/craig-shirley-how-pearl-harbor-and-decem
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21st Century – Reality Vs. Storyline

Submitted by Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform blog,

I’m baffled by the storyline portrayed by the dying legacy media, sponsored by Wall Street and the CEO executive suites of mega-corps, and supported by the propaganda data agencies of the U.S. government. The BLS, BEA, CBO, CNBC, CNN, and a myriad of other government sponsored letters present supposedly accurate data that is designed to convince the ignorant masses everything is fine and their lives are improving.

For anyone willing to uncover the facts and think critically about the storyline being presented, an entirely different reality is revealed. The simple chart below obliterates the “official” storyline. Do you have the uncomfortable feeling that your financial situation has been declining for the first 13 years of the 21st Century?

Your beloved government puppets and their Wall Street puppeteers have used their control of the mainstream media to fully utilize Edward Bernays’ propaganda techniques to convince you that your household income has actually risen by 28% since 2000. There is a reason the government run public schools don’t teach children about inflation. They might figure out how badly they are getting screwed by their owners.

In reality, even using the heavily manipulated CPI numbers issued by the BLS, REAL median household income in the United States has FALLEN by 7% since 2000. Most households in the U.S. have less annual income than they did 13 years ago.

But it gets better. Median REAL household income is down 8% since the peak in 2008. Now for the government statistic reality check. According to the government and their media mouthpieces, the economy bottomed in 2009, with 10.3% unemployment and GDP bottoming at $14.34 trillion. Since the “official” end of the recession in 2009, the unemployment rate has plummeted to 7.0% and GDP has surged to $16.9 trillion.

If this government reported data is true, how could REAL median household income still be 4% lower than at the END of the recession in 2009? If all these jobs were created and the economy has truly grown by 18%, REAL median household income must be higher than it was in 2009. But it’s not.

Do you still believe the storyline? Do you still believe in the American Dream of a better tomorrow? If you do, you’d have to be asleep.

Luckily for the ruling class, they have successfully “educated” the masses to not understand inflation or revolution would be on the horizon.

“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” – Henry Ford

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/pNepaORKG3s/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Highest Radiation Level Ever, Lethal In 20 Minutes, Recorded Outside Fukushima Reactor

With all the excitement about Japan’s soaring stock market (if plunging wages), crashing non-digital currency (leading to soaring energy prices), recent passage of an arbitrary secrecy bill (“Designed by Kafka & Inspired By Hitler“), and ongoing territorial spat with China, it is almost as if the Abe administration is desperately doing everything in its power, including some of the most ridiculous decisions taken by a government in recent history, to hide some key development behind the scenes. Such as this one perhaps: NHK reported today that TEPCO said radiation levels are extremely high in an area near a ventilation pipe at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. TEPCO found radiation of 25 sieverts an hour on a duct, which connects reactor buildings and the 120-meter-tall ventilation pipe.

Putting this number in context the estimated radiation level is the highest ever detected outside reactor buildings. People exposed to this level of radiation would die within 20 minutes.

The exhaust pipe in question was used to release radioactive gases following the outbreak of the accident 2 years ago.

TEPCO says radioactive substances could remain inside the pipes. Given TEPCO’s safety record, they could also leak outside of the pipes. And given the company’s “credibility” the world would be sure to learn about this… anywhere between 2 and 3 years after the fact.

In the meantime, we urge Japan to follow the bouncing, and so pleasantly distracting, Topix and Nikkei 225 balls, while sticking its head in the glow in the dark sand and completely ignore the radioactive monster in the closet.

From NHK:

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

Luxury Home Foreclosures Soar – Up 61% Versus Last Year

Submitted by Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

I’ve always wondered what would happen once private equity players decided enough was enough and foreign oligarchs finished their real estate money laundering transactions. Well, we might be about to find out.

According to RealtyTrac, foreclosures for homes worth $5 million or more are up 61% this year despite the fact that overall foreclosures are down 23%. The question is, does this merely represent holdouts from the prior housing bubble, or is it a sign of things to come? Only time will tell. From CBS:

Foreclosures in the ultra-high-end housing market — homes worth $5 million or more — have skyrocketed 61 percent over last year.

That growth bucks the trend: Overall foreclosures are down 23 percent, according to a new report from Irvine, Calif.-based real estate information site RealtyTrac.

Until lately, that is. “Recently, we’ve been hearing from agents that they’re starting to see the high-end properties go to foreclosure and there turned out to be some data to support this notion that high-end holdouts are finally moving through the foreclosure process,” he said.

It may be a sign that lenders are now financially stable enough to start moving on ultra-high-end delinquencies and take the substantial losses these multi-million dollar homes represent.

Florida and California account for more than half the total number of multi-million dollar foreclosures . The Miami-Fort Lauderdale area had the largest number of foreclosures at 47, followed by the Los Angeles-Long Beach area with 35, but the trends are very different. Miami saw a 488 percent increase in foreclosures, while L.A. only saw a 3 percent increase.

Those two cities are followed by Atlanta, Orlando and the New York City and northern New Jersey area.

Full article here.

via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/yH1GWA2k50A/story01.htm Tyler Durden