Archive - Jun 8, 2015 - Story

in a follow up piece to his stunning original investigative report, Nafeez Ahmed reveals that according to leading American and British intelligence experts, the previously declassified Pentagon report confirms that the West accelerated support to extremist rebels in Syria, despite knowing full well the strategy would pave the way for the emergence of the ‘Islamic State’ (ISIS). The experts who have spoken out include renowned government whistleblowers such as the Pentagon’s Daniel Ellsberg, the NSA’s Thomas Drake, and the FBI’s Coleen Rowley, among others. Their remarks demonstrate the fraudulent nature of claims by two other former officials, the CIA’s Michael Morell and the NSA’s John Schindler, both of whom attempt to absolve the Obama administration of responsibility for the policy failures exposed by the DIA documents.

We previously warned of the risks of escalation in The Middle East to something much more dangerous, but, as the Saudi ambassador to UK confirmed today, the risk of Wahhabis going nuclear is even higher than many expected, "...if [Iran will not offer assurances it will not pursue nuclear weapons], then all options will be on the table for Saudi Arabia... Iran’s nuclear program poses a direct threat to the entire region and constitutes a major source and incentive for nuclear proliferation across the Middle East, including Israel."

Faustian bargain: An agreement in which a person abandons his or her spiritual values or moral principles in order to obtain wealth or other benefits. A deal with the devil.

The argument over the existence of an Elite, who plan to control the entire world under a New World Order like some great yo-yo, has been around for a long time. Not surprisingly, events created by world leaders of all stripes in recent years give rise to an increasing belief in the likelihood of the existence of such an effort.

Jicheng Umbrella Holdings designs and manufactures plastic umbrellas. Its shares are up nearly 3,000% over the past four months...

A major publisher of scholarly medical and science articles has retracted 43 papers because of “fabricated” peer reviews amid signs of a broader fake peer review racket affecting many more publications. As The Washington Post reports, BioMed Central - a well-known publication of peer-reviewed journals - shows a partial list of the retracted articles suggests most of them were written by scholars at universities in China. The Committee on Publication Ethics stated, it "has become aware of systematic, inappropriate attempts to manipulate the peer review processes of several journals... that need to be retracted."

Beyond intentional misrepresentations on the part of Beijing, China’s GDP data may suffer from a calculation error that at least one firm claims is endemic across emerging markets thanks to data collection limitations.

We’ll be up front with you and say that this video is disturbing. It’s like a bucket of ice-cold water thrown in the face of the dream world that most people are walking through. Watching riots on TV in places like Baltimore and Ferguson, it’s easy to think, “That couldn’t happen here. All that police violence only happens in poor communities.” Guess again.

“I look at title lending as legalized car thievery,... What they want to do is get you into a loan where you just keep paying, paying, paying, and at the end of the day, they take your car.”

Hungary becomes the first European country to sign on for China's ambitious Silk Road initiative. Beijing hopes the program will serve to relieve the country's industrial overcapacity problem while facilitating a tough transition to a consumer-led economic model. Given the growing number of headwinds China faces, "One Belt, One Road" may represent the counrty's 'one chance' to rescue the flagging economy.

No R.E.S.P.E.C.T. for the Truth...

Financial markets in the United States and around the world are all waiting with “bated breath” for when the Federal Reserve modifies its “easy money” policy and starts to raise interest rates. No one, however, asks a simple question: Why is the American central bank in the interest rate setting business?

"Qualified households will be unable to move from renting to owning as housing-cost burdens, slow wage growth and student debt make it harder to cobble together even a modest down payment," WSJ says. As homeownership becomes increasingly unrealistic, demand for rentals will only increase, driving further increases in the cost of rental housing. The question then becomes this: what happens when a family that can't afford a down payment can no longer afford to pay the rent?

There is something morbidly ironic when one of the world's richest men, in this case South African Johann Rupert, who has made billions (his net worth is roughly $7.5 billion) peddling Cartier jewelry and Chloe fashion as founder and chairman of luxury conglomerate Richemont, whose 20 brands also include Vacheron Constantin and Montblanc, said tension between the rich and poor is set to escalate, that the "envy, hatred and the social warfare" may crush society, and that "we are destroying the middle classes at this stage and it will affect us."

Statistically, we Americans are more likely to be killed by our own children than by terrorists. We are more likely to starve to death. Or die after tripping over furniture...

One of the strategies that has emerged in the post-squeeze normal is cornering the most illiquid stocks, and pushing them up, or down with relative ease due to the lack of liquidity and/or broad participation. But how does one go about quantifying what are the most illiquid stocks: is it the ones that trade the least on any given day (a double edge sword, because exiting a position would be that much more problematic after pushing the prices to any desired level), or is it simply those where individual trades have the highest price impact? One suggested answer is to look at the equities whose current float is a small fraction of their total outstanding stock.