Welcome to Pottersville 2 (Blogging Against Fascism!): If The Economy Is Fine, Why Are So Many Hedge Funds, Energy Companies And Large Retailers Imploding? (Will The Matrix Prevail?)

Ukraine Disinformation Battle: Little Green Men, Hamsters and the Fog of War

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There has always been a gap in how media on both sides of the former Iron Curtain have reported world events, and it’s growing as the crisis in Ukraine escalates. It has become increasingly difficult to obtain reliable information from any side — west, east, or further east — about what is going on in Eastern Ukraine. While powerful propaganda machines fill the public space with smoke and mirrors, one of the few facts that can be positively established in Eastern Ukraine is that the body count is steadily growing: a testament of just how easy it is for self-interested foreign powers to start, either intentionally or recklessly, a civil war in the heart of Europe. Continuing coverage is available at this link and this link.

Paul Krugman:

Paul Craig Roberts:

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US Media _________________
"Anyone who depends on print, TV, or right-wing talk radio media is totally misinformed. The Bush administration has achieved a de facto Ministry of Propaganda."

"The uniformity of the US media has become much more complete since the days of the cold war. During the 1990s, the US government permitted an unconscionable concentration of print and broadcast media that terminated the independence of the media.

Today the US media is owned by 5 giant companies in which pro-Zionist Jews have disproportionate influence. More importantly, the values of the conglomerates reside in the broadcast licenses, which are granted by the government, and the corporations are run by corporate executives — not by journalists — whose eyes are on advertising revenues and the avoidance of controversy that might produce boycotts or upset advertisers and subscribers.

Americans who rely on the totally corrupt corporate media have no idea what is happening anywhere on earth, much less at home."
_________________
War On Terror _________________
Roberts asked "Is the War on Terror a Hoax", and claims it has "killed, maimed, dislocated, and made widows and orphans of millions of Muslims in six countries". Roberts called the attacks "naked aggression" on civilian populations and infrastructure which constitute war crimes. _________________
Republican Party _________________
Roberts is seriously dismayed by what he considers the Republican Party's disregard for the U.S. Constitution. He has even voiced his regret that he ever worked for it, avowing that, had he known what it would become, he would never have contributed to the Reagan Revolution. _________________
American Democracy and Oligarchy _________________
Roberts has been increasingly critical of what he deems as the lessening of democracy in the U.S.; instead accusing it of being run by oligarchs by stating:

"The west prides itself that it is the standard for the world, that it is a democracy. But nowhere do you see democratic outcomes: not in Greece, not in Ireland, not in the UK, not here, the outcomes are always to punish the innocent and reward the guilty.

And that's what the Greeks are in the streets protesting. We see this all over the west. There is no democracy, there are oligarchies, some of these smaller European countries are not even run by their own governments, they are run by Wall Street... There is probably more democracy in China than there is in the west.

Revolution is the only answer... We are confronted with a curious situation. Throughout the west we think we have democracy, we hold ourselves up high, we demonize China, we talk about the mafia state of Russia, we talk about the Arabs and so on, but where is the democracy here?" _________________
Farewell Speech _________________
"Truth Has Fallen and Taken Liberty With It,"

Roberts effectively announced his journalistic retirement. The article, published at Counterpunch.org, begins:

"There was a time when the pen was mightier than the sword. That was a time when people believed in truth and regarded truth as an independent power and not as an auxiliary for government, class, race, ideological, personal, or financial interest."

It proceeds to a bitter chronicle of the demise of American intellectual integrity, particularly that of financial journalists and economists. These have been thoroughly corrupted by monetary inducements to misrepresent and ignore what has been, in effect, the systematic dismantling of the nation's productive life, in the name of globalization.

He holds the members of his own journalistic profession largely responsible for abetting relentless outsourcing of American industry, thereby gutting the American middle class and effectively dooming the nation's future.

He describes his own ostracism from mainstream media access, the consequence of his relentless and unflinching criticism of the demolition process over the past decade. His column ends, "The militarism of the U.S. and Israeli states, and Wall Street and corporate greed, will now run their course. As the pen is censored and its might extinguished, I am signing off." _________________

Liberal?

"If by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal,” then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal."

John F. Kennedy, 1960
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Citizen's United

"[T]his Court now concludes that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption. That speakers may have influence over or access to elected officials does not mean that those officials are corrupt. And the appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in this democracy."

– Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
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Friday, November 20, 2015

If The Economy Is Fine, Why Are So Many Hedge Funds, Energy Companies And Large Retailers Imploding? (Will The Matrix Prevail?)

The Dark Money Behind the Elizabeth Warren “Commie” Ad

PoppyLeaks, Part 3
By Russ Baker
Hey, are we living in the old USSR? It sure looks like it, judging from the way the media has closed ranks around a blatantly false account of George H.W. Bush’s life. This bothers us so much that we’re going to give you portions of his real biography — free.

FDA Approves AquaBounty's Genetically Engineered Salmon Despite Widespread Opposition
Wenonah Hauter, EcoWatch
"Today, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first genetically engineered food animal, AquaBounty's genetically engineered salmon, despite insufficient safety testing and widespread opposition."

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If The Economy Is Fine, Why Are So Many Hedge Funds, Energy Companies And Large Retailers Imploding?

By Michael Snyder
November 18th, 2015

If the U.S. economy really is in “great shape”, then why do all of the numbers keep telling us that we are in a recession? The manufacturing numbers say that we are in a recession, the trade numbers say that we are in a recession, and as you will see below the retail numbers say that we are in a recession. But just like in 2008, the Federal Reserve and our top politicians will continue to deny that a major economic downturn is happening for as long as they possibly can. In this article, I want to look at more signs that a dramatic shift is happening in our economy right now.

First of all, let’s consider what is happening to hedge funds. For many years, hedge funds had been doing extremely well, but now they are closing up shop at a pace that we haven’t seen since the last financial crisis. The following is an excerpt from a Business Insider article entitled “Hedge funds keep on imploding” that was posted on Wednesday…

BlackRock is winding down its Global Ascent Fund, a global macro hedge fund that once contained $4.6 billion in assets, according to Bloomberg’s Sabrina Willmer.

“We believe that redeeming the Global Ascent Fund was the right thing to do for our clients, given the headwinds that macro funds have faced,” a BlackRock spokeswoman told Business Insider.

The winding down of the Ascent fund is the second high-profile hedge fund closing in 24 hours. The "Wall Street Journal" reported Tuesday that Achievement Asset Management, a Chicago-based hedge fund, was closing.

And those are just two examples. Quite a few other prominent hedge funds have shut down recently, and many are wondering if this is just the beginning of a major “bloodbath” on Wall Street.

Another troubling sign is the implosion of so many energy companies. Just like in 2008, a major crash in the price of oil is hitting the energy sector really hard. Just check out these stock price declines…

-Cabot Oil & Gas down 37.27 percent over the past 12 months

-Southwestern Energy down 68.11 percent over the past 12 months

-Chesapeake Energy down 73.98 percent over the past 12 months

A number of smaller energy companies have already gone out of business, and several of the big players are teetering on the brink. If the price of oil does not rebound significantly very soon, it is just a matter of time before the dominoes begin to fall.

We are also seeing tremendous turmoil in the retail industry. The following comes from Investment Research Dynamics…

The retail sales report for October was much worse than expected. Not only that, but the Government’s original estimates for retail sales in August and September were revised lower. A colleague of mine said he was chatting with his brother, who is a tax advisor, this past weekend who said he doesn’t understand how the Government can say the economy is growing (Hillary Clinton recently gave the economy an “A”) because his clients are lowering their estimated tax payments. Businesses lower their estimated tax payments when their business activity slows down.

The holiday season is always the best time of the year for retailers, but in 2015 there is a lot of talk of gloom and doom. Most large retailers will not start announcing mass store closings until January or February, but without a doubt many analysts are anticipating that once we get past the Christmas shopping season we will see stores shut down at a pace that we haven’t seen since at least 2009. Here is more from the article that I just quoted above…

Retail sales this holiday season are setting up to be a disaster. Already most retailers are advertising “pre-Black Friday” sales events. Remember when holiday shopping didn’t begin, period, until the day after Thanksgiving? Now retailers are going to cannibalize each other with massive discounting before Thanksgiving. Anybody notice over the weekend that BMW is now offering $6500 price rebates? The collapsing economy is affecting everyone, across all income demographics.
Last week we saw the stocks of Macy’s, Nordstrom and Advance Auto Parts do cliff-dives after they announced their earnings. I mentioned to a colleague that the Nordstrom’s report should be the most troubling for analysts. Nordstrom in their investor conference call said that they began seeing an “unexplainable slowdown in sales in August in transactions across all formats, across all catagories and across all geographies that has yet to recover.”

I think that a chart would be helpful to give you an idea of how bad things have already gotten. Jim Quinn shared this in an article that he just posted, and it shows the change in retail sales once you remove the numbers for the auto industry. As you can see, the numbers have never been this dreadful outside of a recession…

But stocks went up 247 points on Wednesday so everything must be great, right?

Wrong.

The stock market has never been a good barometer for the overall economy, and this is especially true these days.

In 2008, stocks didn’t crash until well after the U.S. economy as a whole started crashing, and the same thing is apparently happening this time around as well.

One of the things that is keeping stocks afloat for the moment is stock buybacks. In recent years, big corporations have spent hundreds of billions of dollars buying back their own stocks. The following comes from Wolf Richter…

IBM has blown $125 billion on buybacks since 2005, more than the $111 billion it invested in capital expenditures and R&D. It’s staggering under its debt, while revenues have been declining for 14 quarters in a row. It cut its workforce by 55,000 people since 2012. And its stock is down 38% since March 2013.

Big-pharma icon Pfizer plowed $139 billion into buybacks and dividends in the past decade, compared to $82 billion in R&D and $18 billion in capital spending. 3M spent $48 billion on buybacks and dividends, and $30 billion on R&D and capital expenditures. They’re all doing it.

Later in that same article, Richter explains that almost 60 percent of all publicly traded non-financial corporations have engaged in stock buybacks over the past five years…

Nearly 60% of the 3,297 publicly traded non-financial US companies Reuters analyzed have engaged in share buybacks since 2010. Last year, the money spent on buybacks and dividends exceeded net income for the first time in a non-recession period.

Big corporations like to do this for a couple of reasons. Number one, it pushes the price of the stock higher, and current investors appreciate that. Number two, corporate executives are usually in favor of conducting stock buybacks because it increases the value of their stock options and their own stock holdings.

But now corporate profits are falling and it is becoming tougher for big corporations to borrow money. So look for stock buybacks to start to decline significantly.

Even though it is taking a bit longer than many would have anticipated, the truth is that we are right on track for a massive financial collapse.

All of the indicators that I watch are flashing red, and even though things are moving slowly, they are definitely moving in the same direction that we saw in 2008.

But just like in 2008, there will be people that mock the warnings up until the day when it becomes completely and utterly apparent that the mockers were dead wrong.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

Will The Matrix Prevail?

November 18, 2015

Paul Craig Roberts

The Paris attack is playing out as I expected. The French government is attacking French civil liberty with legislation similar to the US PATRIOT Act. http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151117/1030277245/paris-massacre-france-orwellian-police-state-us-patriot-act.html

Readers in France have informed me that 84% of the French people, according to a poll, are content to be spied upon as long as it keeps them safe. This means that only 16% of the French nation is not brain dead.

Another reader informs me that a TV news station read a letter left behind by one of the alleged ISIL bombers, a letter written in perfect English. Really! I mean, Really! Those with their secret agendas know how stupid the Western peoples are, collectively a hopeless basket case.

French and Amerian politicians are demanding that NATO Article 5 be used to put NATO boots on the ground in Syria. This is important not in order to fight ISIL, which the Russians are successfully doing, but to overthrow Assad under the pretext of fighting ISIL, a crazy policy that could bring conflict with Russia. http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151118/1030346363/us-nato-paris-attack-war-against-isil-syria.html

Alternatively, to avoid conflict with Russia, Washington can take advantage of the Russian government’s hope that the Paris attack will show the West that Putin was correct that the West should join Russia in opposing ISIL. Once a NATO-Russian coalition, as advocated by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, is formed, Putin becomes the West’s captive in the overthrow of Assad. http://sputniknews.com/world/20151118/1030346645/isil-paris-attacks-coalition-pm.html

To insure that no one is informed of the true facts by the English language Russian media, such as RT and Sputnik, the US Senate arranged hearings on foreign propaganda. Kenneth Weinstein, a member of the US Broadcasting Board of Governors, that is, the censors, told the senators that RT, Sputnik, and a variety of other truthful news sources are “well-funded state propaganda outlets.” http://sputniknews.com/politics/20151118/1030342750/us-losing-information-war-to-russia.html

In other words, only believe what you read in Washington-controlled propaganda outlets such as the "New York Times," "Washington Post," Fox News, CNN, BBC, NPR, and so forth.

The aftermath of the Paris attack is like the aftermath of the so-called Boston Marathon Bombing. Fifty heavily armed police converged on two people and murdered them. The murdered female is described even by RT as a “female suicide bomber.” If the murdered woman is a suicide bomber, how is she still ailve to be murdered by police? Not even the “Russian propaganda outlet” RT asks why 50 heavily armed police were unable to capture two people alive and had to kill them! https://www.rt.com/news/322507-gunfire-paris-night-police/

A number of readers have sent to me information that indicates that the Paris attack was reported on both "Wikipedia" and "Twitter" the day before it occurred. http://bosniapress.info/index.php/news-in-english-articles/2459-paris-attack-reported-on-

I do not know what to make of this. I do remember that the BBC reported the collapse of WTC building 7 prior to its collapse. The BBC reporter is actually standing in front of the still standing WTC 7 as she makes the report of its collapse. In other words, orchestration mistakes occur. But hardly any of the brainwashed pub(l)ic notices.

The question that raises itself is to what extent is this false flag attack in Paris a hoax. Why don’t we see the large number of dead and wounded. What we seem to have are uninjured crisis actors. http://winteractionables.com/?p=27146

Where are the eyewitness videos? http://winteractionables.com/?p=27202

Witnesses (o)n behalf of the official story seem to have performed the same function on other occasions: http://winteractionables.com/?p=27202

Having been at the top of government, journalism, and academia for a lifetime, it is clear to me that there is a great deal wrong with the explanations that people are being given. However, the majority of Western peoples have been thoroughly brainwashed to believe that anyone who doubts official explanations is a “conspiracy theorist.”

In other words, only governments and their media presstitutes tell the truth.

This makes it simple for governments with their secret agendas to protect their agendas from the facts. Who would believe me when the alternative is to believe Fox News, CNN, the BBC, NPR, Dubya, Obama, Wolfowitz, Hollande, Merkel, Cameron, the "Weakly Standard?"

If Putin’s government and the Chinese people are so desperately determined to be part of the “glorious West” that they will accept a false reality, the world is doomed.

If it is up to Western politicians, the world is doomed for sure. To the man and the woman they are warmongers. Moreover, the response to the false flag/hoax attack is mindless. The morons declare that the West is attacked because it allows women to be educated. The West is attacked because of “french values and French way of life, because we dance” (Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius).

In other words, the nonsense that worked for the idiot US president, George W. Bush, works for the French. “We are attacked because we are good.” All of us good people here in the West would never be attacked because we have looted and robbed the Middle East for a century and followed up the looting with 14 years of military devastation of seven countries, producing millions of deaths and displaced persons.

Really, it is a wonder that there are not round the clock REAL TERRORIST ATTACKS on Western countries, who certainly deserve them.

I know I (and many of my friends) have entertained that unsettling thought many times before.

Peace

"A man of peace is not a pacifist; a man of peace is simply a pool of silence. He pulsates a new kind of energy into the world, he sings a new song. He lives in a totally new way his very way of live is that of grace, that of prayer, that of compassion. Whomsoever he touches, he creates more love-energy. The man of peace is creative. He is not against war, because to be against anything is to be at war. He is not against war; he simply understands why war exists. And out of that understanding he becomes peaceful. Only when there are many people who are pools of peace, silence, understanding, will the war disappear."
Osho

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Friday, November 20, 2015

If The Economy Is Fine, Why Are So Many Hedge Funds, Energy Companies And Large Retailers Imploding? (Will The Matrix Prevail?)

If The Economy Is Fine, Why Are So Many Hedge Funds, Energy Companies And Large Retailers Imploding?

Will The Matrix Prevail?

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