Archive - Jul 2015 - Story

"Though its existence was secret until last year, JTRIG quickly developed a distinctive profile in the public understanding, after documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed that the unit had engaged in “dirty tricks” like deploying sexual “honey traps” designed to discredit targets, launching denial-of-service attacks to shut down Internet chat rooms, pushing veiled propaganda onto social networks and generally warping discourse online."

"I believe there are two ways to give Greece Chinese aid. First, within the framework of the international aid through EU countries. Second, China could aid Greece directly. Especially considering the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. China has this ability," Fan Mingtao director of the Quantitative Finance Department at China's Institute of Quantitative and Technical Economics told Sputnik China. It would be difficult to imagine a more fitting pilot program for the world’s newest supranational lender than a rescue package for the birthplace of Western democracy which has been brought to its knees by that most Western of all multilateral institutions, the IMF.

Hedges accounted for 15% of Q1 revenue for nearly half of North American E&P companies, Bloomberg reports. "Now the safety net is going away."

While the Chinese recently found out that making money from trading is, in fact, not "easier than farmwork," it appears in America, trading stocks is back en vogue... Meet 2014 Playmate of the Year, Kennedy Summers, who has given it all up to become a day trader...

"...between ridiculously low interest rates and the increasing costs of compliance, we can’t make money anymore..."

The US government has really screwed the world on this. Paperwork is the priority. Not business. The transition isn’t going to be smooth. And it won’t happen overnight. But there will come a time, and likely soon, when the United States gets displaced.

“This is a war that I saw destroy lives... It eliminated a generation of African American men, covered our racism in ostensibly neutral guidelines and mandatory minimums… and created an intergenerational problem..."

Greek banks will run out of cash "in a matter of days," WSJ reports. Meanwhile, businesses are closing their doors as suppliers refuse to extend credit prompting the Athens Chamber of Commerce to predict that "in one week, two weeks, three weeks, it will be finished."

While it remains unclear if the Holy Spirit was behind these trades, one thing is for sure: When Charles Erickson's investors opened their recent statements, they said, "Holy $hit!"

In April, we noted the NACM's comments that "there are big, big problems" underlying the economy as a surge in unfavorable factors suggested credit conditions were tightening dramatically (only to see that data revised away suddenly). June's data has confirmed this weakness with credit rejections soaring to their highest since 2009 with the biggest spike in 9 years, with NACM CEO Kuehl exclaiming, "There are some obvious signs of distress in the manufacturing community, as the expected wave of consumer demand has yet to manifest... companies that have been awaiting it are getting in trouble with their creditors."

"Greece is being 'hit', there's no doubt about it," exclaims John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, noting that "[Indebted countries] become servants to what I call the corporatocracy ... today we have a global empire, and it's not an American empire. It's not a national empire... It's a corporate empire, and the big corporations rule."

Tick, tock... "it could never happen here?"

Hillary Clinton figuring out how to work a fax machine... and this is who may become America's next President?

"With banks shuttered and Greece’s economy hobbled by capital controls, Varoufakis said in a Bloomberg Television interview in Athens that he would “rather cut my arm off” than sign a deal that fails to restructure Greece’s debt."